That night, she counted everything she owned.
Thirty-one dollars and forty cents.
The train ticket cost nearly all of it.
She bought the ticket anyway.
Now only twenty-three dollars remained in her purse, and the road ahead stretched beneath a sky turning the color of old copper.
Six miles.
Clara started walking.
She reached the Cole ranch after sunset.
Her shoes were dusty, her shoulders ached, and one blister had broken beneath her left heel.
The house stood beyond a sagging fence.
Clara stopped at the gate.
The advertisement had not lied exactly.
It simply had not said enough.
The Cole ranch looked tired.
Not abandoned.
Not ruined.
Just exhausted.
Fence rails leaned at crooked angles.
One shutter hung from a single hinge.
A wagon wheel rested beside the barn waiting for repair.
Half the roof of an outer shed had collapsed.
The house itself was large enough, but darkness filled most of its windows.
Clara knocked.
Nothing.
She knocked again.
Then the door opened.
The man standing there looked as though sleep had become something he remembered rather than something he actually did.
He was perhaps thirty-eight.
Tall.
Lean but strongly built.
His dark hair needed cutting, and several days of beard shadow covered his jaw.
A scar crossed one knuckle.
He wore work trousers, boots and a shirt with the sleeves rolled above his forearms.
Behind him something crashed.
A child yelled.
Another began crying.
The man closed his eyes.
Only for a second.
But Clara saw it.
Defeat.
Then he looked at her.
“Yes?”
“Mr.
Cole?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Clara Hayes.”
He waited.
Clara unfolded the newspaper clipping.
“I came regarding your advertisement.”
His expression changed.
“My what?”
“The advertisement.”
She handed it to him.
Ethan Cole read the clipping.
Once.
Then again.
His brow tightened.
Finally he looked at Clara.
“I never placed this.”
The words struck harder than she expected.
“I’m sorry?”
“I never sent anything to a newspaper.”
Clara felt the blood leave her face.
Behind him came another crash.
A girl’s voice shouted, “Lucy, don’t touch that!”
Someone screamed.
Ethan flinched.
Clara looked past him.
A little girl stood on a chair near the kitchen table, apparently attempting to reach a smoking skillet.
Another child sat crying beneath it.
The floor was scattered with laundry.
Something smelled burned.
Ethan followed Clara’s gaze.
For the first time, embarrassment crossed his exhausted face.
“I don’t know who placed it.”
Clara swallowed.
“Then I apologize for disturbing you.”
She reached for the clipping.
Ethan hesitated.
A six-year-old boy appeared silently behind him.
Thin shoulders.
Uncombed brown hair.
Huge gray eyes.
He stared at Clara.
“Samuel,” Ethan said gently.
“Go back inside.”
The boy did not move.
“Samuel?”
Nothing.
Clara looked at Ethan.
“He hasn’t spoken in seven months,” Ethan said quietly.
Something inside Clara tightened.
Then another little girl appeared.
Four years old, perhaps.
Her cheeks were streaked with tears.
“Papa?”
Ethan crouched.
“What happened?”
“Annie burned supper.”
“I did not!” the older girl shouted from the kitchen.
“The pan burned it!”
Ethan pressed his fingers against his eyes.
Clara should have left.
Every sensible part of her mind said so.
She had no invitation.
No arrangement.
No guarantee of wages.
She had almost no money left.
