His gray eyes held hers.

“Yes.”

It was the correct answer.

For some reason, Maribel wished it had been the wrong one.

“One week.”

The days settled into a rhythm that felt dangerously like family.

Nolan woke before sunrise to tend cattle.

Maribel fed Grace beside the kitchen stove.

At seven, Nolan returned smelling of snow, leather, and horses.

He ate whatever Maribel placed before him.

Then, despite insisting for three days that he couldn’t bake, he began helping knead dough.

His first loaf came out hard enough to injure livestock.

Maribel dropped it on the table.

It made a sound like a brick.

Nolan stared at it solemnly.

“Could build a barn with that.”

Maribel laughed.

A real laugh.

The sound startled her.

It was the first time she’d laughed since Matthew died.

Her joy collapsed into guilt almost instantly.

Nolan noticed.

“You didn’t betray him.”

Maribel froze.

“What?”

“Your boy.”

Her throat tightened.

“You laughed. Then looked ashamed.”

He washed flour from his enormous hands.

“I did that after Eliza died. First time Grace sneezed, I laughed. Felt like I’d committed some terrible crime.”

Maribel looked toward the nursery.

“Sometimes grief feels like a promise. As if being miserable proves we loved them enough.”

Nolan nodded.

“And happiness feels like breaking it.”

They stood in silence.

Then he said, “Maybe the dead don’t need that promise.”

Maribel’s eyes filled.

“No.”

“Maybe they need us to remember them.”

He looked toward Grace.

“And keep living anyway.”

That evening, Maribel stayed without being asked.

It might have remained a quiet story.

A widower.

A widow.

A child saved between them.

But on the seventeenth day Maribel lived at Raven Hollow, she found the letter.

It was hidden inside Eliza Pierce’s sewing basket.

Maribel wasn’t snooping.

Grace had grabbed a spool of blue thread and sent the basket tumbling.

Beneath the yarn lay a folded piece of paper marked with only three words:

FOR NOLAN. ALONE.

Maribel should have put it back.

Instead, something caught her eye through the fold.

A name.

Quinn.

Her name.

She went cold.

“Nolan!”

He entered moments later, carrying firewood.

“What happened?”

She held up the paper.

His face changed.

“Where did you find that?”

“Eliza’s basket.”

He set down the wood.

“Open it.”

“It says alone.”

“She meant me.”

Maribel handed it to him.

His eyes moved across the page.

Then stopped.

All color left his face.

“Nolan?”

He read the letter again.

“What does it say?”

His jaw worked.

For several seconds, no sound came.

Then he handed it to her.

Maribel read.

My dearest Nolan,

If anything happens to me when the baby comes, there is something you must know.

Dr. Crowe has lied about children before.

I saw the ledger.

Three infants declared dead were not dead.

One was taken to Missouri. One to Kansas City. One remained here.

I begged him to explain. He said wealthy people pay for what poor women cannot protect.

Last week I saw another name.

Matthew Quinn.

Maribel’s knees gave way.

Nolan caught her.

“No.”

The word left her lips as barely more than breath.

“No.”

She read again.

Matthew Quinn.

The kitchen vanished around her.

Her own heartbeat became thunder.

“This is impossible.”

Nolan steadied her.

“Maribel—”

“I held him.”

“I know.”

“He died in my arms.”

“Did you see him die?”

She stared at Nolan.