Saw her.
And collapsed to her knees.
“My baby.”
Clara stood frozen.
Anna began crying.
“Clara Rose.”
That name shattered whatever remained between them.
Clara stumbled forward.
Anna opened her arms.
For twenty-one years, mother and daughter had existed as ghosts in each other’s lives.
Now they met beside a burning barn while gun smoke drifted beneath the stars.
Clara fell into her mother’s arms.
Their cries were almost identical.
Mason stared.
His dead wife held the daughter she had spent half her life searching for.
He should have felt joy.
Instead, one question consumed him.
“Why?”
Anna looked at him over Clara’s shoulder.
Her expression broke.
“I tried to come home.”
“For seven years?”
Mercer began backing toward his horse.
Sheriff Pratt raised his revolver.
“Don’t.”
Mercer stopped.
Anna helped Clara stand.
Then faced Mason.
“My father gave me away when I became pregnant at sixteen. He told me my baby died. Margaret Bell saved Clara and fled. Years later, I discovered the truth.”
“I know. We found the letters.”
Anna nodded.
“When my father died, Mercer learned the trust existed. Clara inherited half the Vale estate the moment she turned twenty-one.”
Clara stared.
“What does that have to do with Samuel?”
“Everything.”
Anna looked toward Mercer.
“Silas spent twenty years stealing the Vale land piece by piece. If Clara appeared, every fraudulent transfer could be challenged.”
Mason’s voice hardened.
“So you were killed.”
“I was supposed to be.”
She touched the scar on her temple.
“Mercer’s men forced my wagon into Copper Wash. I survived the fall. A Comanche family found me downstream.”
“Then why didn’t you come home?”
“I did.”
Mason’s anger rose.
“What?”
“Three months later. I reached Dry Hollow.”
She was crying again.
“Mercer showed me a photograph of you asleep in our house. He told me if I returned, you would die. He told me he had men watching you every day.”
Mason glanced at Mercer.
Anna continued.
“I believed him.”
“You should have trusted me!”
“I watched my father destroy everyone who challenged him. Then Mercer became worse.”
Her voice broke.
“I thought losing me once would hurt you less than watching you die because of me.”
Mason laughed bitterly.
“You thought wrong.”
“I know.”
That answer disarmed him more than excuses would have.
Anna turned toward Clara.
“I kept searching for you in secret. Samuel Reed worked with me.”
Clara went pale.
“You knew Samuel?”
Anna nodded.
“He found you.”
Clara covered her mouth.
“He never told me.”
“I told him not to.”
“Why?”
“Because Mercer had informants everywhere. Samuel planned to bring you here only after we had enough evidence.”
Clara looked down at her stomach.
“He died.”
Anna’s face twisted with grief.
“I know.”
Silas Mercer suddenly moved.
His pistol cleared leather.
Mason lunged toward Clara.
A gunshot exploded.
Mercer staggered.
His weapon fell.
