Then he asked the question that mattered.

“Where is my daughter now?”

Mrs. Bell smiled through tears.

“With Margaret.”

“And Margaret?”

She looked at me.

“Coming here.”

Father lunged for the door.

Samuel blocked him.

Nathaniel stared at Mrs. Bell.

“How soon?”

A carriage appeared beyond the ranch gate before she could answer.

I will remember that afternoon until the day I die.

A woman stepped down.

Older than the portrait.

Thinner.

A scar ran along one side of her jaw.

But I recognized her instantly.

Margaret Walker.

Nathaniel walked toward her like a man approaching a ghost.

She stopped several yards away.

Neither spoke.

Then a little girl climbed down from the carriage.

Dark hair.

Gray eyes.

Nathaniel’s eyes.

He collapsed to his knees.

The child looked uncertainly at Margaret.

“Go ahead,” Margaret whispered.

The little girl approached him.

Nathaniel touched her cheek.

“What is your name?”

“Josie.”

His face broke.

For the first time since I had met him, Nathaniel Walker wept without trying to hide it.

He pulled his daughter into his arms.

Margaret turned away, crying too.

I cried with them.

Even Victoria.

Later, Margaret stood before me.

“You must hate me.”

“I don’t know you well enough yet.”

She laughed softly.

“That sounds like Eleanor.”

My breath caught.

“You knew my mother?”

“She saved my life.”

Margaret took my hands.

“And I failed to save hers.”

“No.”

“You don’t understand. She could have left Texas. I begged her to go. But she stayed because she believed the evidence against Charles had to be preserved for you.”

“For me?”

“Everything she did was for you.”

Margaret reached inside her coat.

She handed me a small envelope.

My mother’s handwriting covered the front.

For my Clara, when she is finally free.

I could not open it until that evening.

Inside were only a few lines.

My darling girl,

If you are reading this, then you escaped him.

All your life, people may try to tell you who you are supposed to be.

Your father will tell you that you owe the family obedience.

Victoria may receive the admiration I fear you will be denied.

But you were never born to stand behind anyone.

You were born to choose your own life.

Please choose it.

Love,

Mama

I pressed the letter against my heart and cried until there was nothing left inside me but exhaustion.

Father was arrested the following morning.

Dr. Bell’s ledger, the forged deeds, Margaret’s testimony, Victoria’s testimony, and the surviving financial records created a case even Charles Whitmore could not talk his way out of.

Before the sheriff took him away, Father looked at me.

“You think they love you now?”

I said nothing.

He smiled.

“Walker wanted Victoria.”

Nathaniel stood nearby.

Father continued.

“Your mother abandoned you. Margaret manipulated you. Your sister betrayed you.”

He leaned closer.

“You will always be the second choice, Clara.”

For most of my life, those words would have destroyed me.

This time, they did not.

I looked at the man who had spent years teaching me that being overlooked made me less valuable.

Then I finally understood.

The people who need you to feel small are usually terrified of what will happen when you realize you are not.

I smiled.

“No, Father.”

His expression changed.

“I was never the second choice.”

I glanced at Victoria.

At Margaret.

At Josie.

At Nathaniel.

Then back at him.

“I was the one you were afraid of.”

The sheriff took him away.

The three weeks ended on a Sunday.

By then, everything had changed.

Margaret returned legally from the dead.

Nathaniel’s marriage to her had never ended.

That fact should have answered every question between him and me.

Instead, it created the hardest one.