When he finally pulled away, his forehead rested against mine.
“This complicates things.”
I laughed breathlessly.
“Only now?”
He almost smiled.
Then horses thundered into the yard.
We separated.
A carriage had stopped outside.
The door opened.
A woman stepped down wearing a pale traveling dress.
Beautiful.
Elegant.
Golden-haired.
Nathaniel went completely still.
I knew her before she turned.
Victoria.
My sister had come to Texas.
She entered the house carrying no luggage.
“Father is two days behind me,” she said.
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He discovered I’d left.”
“Why are you here?”
“To keep him from destroying your life.”
I nearly laughed.
“You had a curious way of starting.”
Victoria flinched.
For the first time in my life, my beautiful sister looked frightened.
“I didn’t change my mind because I disliked Nathaniel.”
She glanced at him.
“I changed my mind because I found a telegram in Father’s desk.”
She removed a folded paper from her reticule.
Nathaniel read it aloud.
WALKER PAPERS MUST BE FOUND BEFORE ANY MARRIAGE.
SEARCH WIDOW’S ROOMS.
DESTROY LEDGER.
Signed only:
A.P.
Amos Pike.
My knees weakened.
Victoria looked at me.
“Father planned the entire match.”
Nathaniel’s expression went cold.
“The matchmaker?”
“Paid.”
“The letters?”
“Father expected you to fall in love with them.”
Nathaniel glanced at me.
Victoria noticed.
Something passed over her face.
Understanding.
Then sadness.
“He assumed you would marry me quickly enough for him to gain influence over Silver Creek.
Once I was here, I was supposed to search Margaret’s belongings.”
“And when you refused?”
“He sent Clara because he thought she would obey.”
Anger burned through me.
“He never told me any of that.”
“I know.”
Victoria reached for my hand.
I pulled away.
“You let me come.”
“I tried to stop it.
Father locked me in my bedroom the night before you left.
By the time I got out, you were gone.”
I wanted to hate her.
It would have been easier.
Then she whispered something that shattered twenty years of resentment.
“Clara, I wasn’t the daughter he loved.”
I stared at her.
“I was the daughter he displayed.”
Her eyes filled.
“You were the daughter he feared.”
That evening the four of us searched Margaret’s room again.
Mrs.
Bell remembered Margaret spending hours sewing during the weeks before her death.
Nathaniel lifted the sewing table.
Nothing.
Victoria examined the chest.
I searched the dresses.
Then I noticed something odd.
Margaret’s wedding quilt was folded beneath the others.
One corner seemed unusually stiff.
I cut the seam.
A small brass key fell out.
Nathaniel recognized it.
“There’s an old strongbox beneath the smokehouse.”
We found it buried under loose floorboards.
Inside lay a ledger.
A deed.
Several letters.
And Margaret’s journal.
The ledger documented years of stolen cattle, fraudulent loans, and land purchases.
Two names appeared repeatedly.
Amos Pike.
And
Franklin Whitmore.
My father had been using Amos to steal from Silver Creek for nearly fifteen years.
But the deed was stranger.
It transferred ownership of
Mercy Spring
, the largest natural water source on the northern half of Silver Creek, to a trust.
The beneficiary:
Clara Eleanor Whitmore.
Me.
I stared until the letters blurred.
“This cannot be real.”
Nathaniel examined the seal.
“It is.”
Victoria whispered, “Why would Margaret leave land to Clara?”
The answer waited inside her journal.
Nathaniel opened to the final entries.
Margaret and my mother had grown up together in Independence, Missouri.
