Nora opened the clasp.

Inside lay a bundle of letters tied with faded blue ribbon.

Beneath them was a silver thimble.

A dried sprig of lavender.

And a photograph.

Nora lifted it.

Her fingers began trembling before her mind understood why.

The photograph showed a young woman standing beside the porch of the very house Nora had entered that afternoon.

The woman was smiling.

Dark hair.

Round eyes.

A familiar tilt to the mouth.

Nora stared.

The room seemed to tilt around her.

Because she had seen that face before.

Not exactly.

But close enough that her blood went cold.

The woman looked like Nora.

Older.

Thinner.

But unmistakably—

“Harlan,” Nora whispered.

He shut his eyes.

“Who is she?”

Harlan opened them again.

“My wife.”

Nora swallowed.

“Your dead wife?”

“Yes.”

“What was her name?”

Harlan hesitated.

Thomas looked at the floor.

Rue still stood beside Nora, clutching her sleeve now.

Finally Harlan said, “Everyone here knew her as Anna Greer.”

Nora stared at the photograph.

“Everyone here?”

Harlan crossed the room and pulled out a chair.

“You should sit down.”

“I’m quite capable of standing.”

“Nora—”

“What was her name before she married you?”

Harlan’s face tightened.

Thomas answered.

“Eleanor Callaway.”

The photograph slipped from Nora’s fingers.

Nora had been eight years old when her sister Eleanor died.

At least, that was what she had been told.

She remembered very little of the day itself.

Rain against a window.

A doctor arriving.

Her aunt Martha crying in the pantry.

Her uncle Silas telling Nora that Eleanor had contracted scarlet fever while visiting relatives two counties away.

There had been no funeral Nora was allowed to attend.

No body she was permitted to see.

Only a grave.

Only a stone.

Eleanor Callaway.

Beloved daughter.

Age sixteen.

Nora had placed wildflowers against that stone every spring until she left Missouri.

Now she stood in a ranch kitchen hundreds of miles away staring at a photograph of a woman who had supposedly been dead for eighteen years.

“You’re lying,” Nora said.

Harlan flinched.

“I wish I were.”

Nora turned on Thomas.

“And you?”

Thomas lifted his chin.

“She was my mother.”

“No.”

“She was.”

“No.”

Rue began crying.

Nora stepped backward.

The room blurred.

Six boys.

The ranch.

The box.

The initials.

“You knew,” Nora said to Harlan.

“Not at first.”

“You knew my name when I arrived.”

“Yes.”

“And you said nothing.”

“I was trying to understand why you were here.”

“I am here because you advertised for a wife.”

Harlan looked toward Thomas.

That single glance changed everything.

Nora followed it.

Thomas went pale.

Harlan spoke slowly.

“I never placed an advertisement.”

Silence.

Nora stared at him.

“You signed the marriage papers.”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I answered correspondence.”

“Correspondence that began with your advertisement.”

Harlan shook his head.