Then another voice came from behind them.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Sarah stood holding something.
Samuel’s Bible.
Eleanor stared.
She had left it in the house.
“How did you—”
“I took it before we went into the cellar.”
Sarah opened the hollow compartment.
She removed not one page.
But dozens.
Caleb looked confused.
“I never saw those.”
“I know,” Sarah said.
Samuel’s face changed.
“Sarah.”
She looked at her father.
“You told me where they were.”
Silence.
Eleanor turned toward her daughter.
“What?”
Sarah began crying.
“Before Papa left Philadelphia.”
Eleanor stared at her.
Sarah wiped her face.
“He didn’t tell me everything. He told me if something happened, I had to protect the Bible.”
Samuel closed his eyes.
“Sarah was supposed to forget that conversation.”
“I didn’t.”
She reached deeper into the Bible.
And removed a letter.
Not addressed to Eleanor.
Addressed to:
CALEB ROAR.
Caleb went still.
Sarah looked at him.
“You never received this.”
“No.”
“Because Papa gave it to me.”
Samuel whispered, “Sarah.”
She ignored him.
“He told me if strangers ever tried to separate us, I was supposed to send it.”
Eleanor slowly understood.
“The auction.”
Sarah nodded.
“I heard the officials talking two nights before.”
Her voice trembled.
“They said if nobody bought all of us, they would divide us among different placements.”
Thomas stared at his sister.
Sarah continued.
“So I mailed Papa’s letter.”
She looked at Caleb.
“To you.”
Caleb’s face emptied.
Eleanor remembered his three-hundred-dollar bid.
The prepared beds.
The schoolroom.
The supplies.
The wagon waiting.
“You came because of Sarah?”
Caleb nodded slowly.
“The letter said eight children.”
Eleanor stopped.
“Eight?”
He looked toward Nathaniel.
“I thought Samuel meant seven with Eleanor and Nathaniel somewhere else.”
Sarah shook her head.
“No.”
Samuel stepped forward.
“Sarah—”
But she had already turned the letter over.
On the back, in Samuel’s handwriting, was a final message.
If Eleanor and the children are ever placed in danger, get them beyond territorial jurisdiction. Marriage will give you lawful standing to protect them until I return or until my death is proven. Do not tell Eleanor unless there is no other choice.
Eleanor stared at Samuel.
“You planned my marriage to another man?”
Samuel looked sick.
“I planned a legal shield.”
“You planned my marriage.”
“I thought I’d be dead if it became necessary!”
Caleb stepped away.
His face looked carved from stone.
Now Eleanor finally understood his words from the first night.
Nothing you do not choose.
He had never intended to claim her.
He had been fulfilling Samuel’s contingency.
Saving Samuel’s family.
Not building his own.
Samuel turned toward Caleb.
“You did exactly what I asked.”
Caleb looked toward the mountains.
“Yeah.”
The single word contained more pain than Eleanor expected.
She looked at him differently then.
At the man who had slept against a tree rather than frighten her.
Who had prepared eight places before he knew whether anyone would love him.
Who had crossed winter mountains because a thirteen-year-old girl mailed him a letter.
Who had risked everything for a promise made to a man he believed dead.
