Then back at him.

And after what seemed like an eternity, she whispered:

“My uncle.”

His name was Gideon Whitfield.

At least, that was the name Eleanor had known him by.

He was her mother’s older half brother, a prosperous livestock broker outside Independence, Missouri.

When Eleanor’s father died of pneumonia when she was thirteen, Gideon became administrator of the family estate.

When Eleanor’s mother Grace died six years later, Gideon became everything else.

Guardian.

Banker.

Landlord.

Jailer.

“He wasn’t always cruel,” Eleanor said.

Samuel remained in the chair near the cold fireplace while she spoke from the bed.

The oil lamp flickered between them.

“Not at first.”

After Grace’s funeral, Gideon had informed Eleanor that her parents’ debts had consumed nearly everything they owned.

The house belonged to him.

The money belonged to him.

Her future, effectively, belonged to him.

Eleanor accepted it because she was nineteen and grieving.

Then she discovered her mother’s locked desk.

Inside were documents Gideon had apparently been searching for.

Letters.

Property records.

Survey notes.

And a small leather journal written by someone Eleanor had never met.

Samuel listened carefully.

“Whose journal?”

Eleanor looked directly at him.

“Your wife’s.”

Samuel stopped breathing.

The words struck with almost physical force.

“My what?”

“Rebecca Hale.”

The room seemed to shrink.

Samuel stared at her.

Rebecca.

He had not heard anyone say the name in years.

His first wife had been dead almost a decade.

She had been twenty-seven when Samuel buried her beneath the cottonwood hill east of the house.

Thomas Bell had found Rebecca’s horse wandering beside the Smoky Hill River after a violent thunderstorm.

They found her body the next morning below a limestone ravine.

Everyone believed the horse had thrown her.

Samuel had spent ten years trying not to remember the way her blue dress looked beneath the burial sheet.

“Where did your mother get Rebecca’s journal?”

Eleanor’s answer came quietly.

“They were sisters.”

Samuel stared.

“No.”

“Half sisters.”

Samuel shook his head.

“Rebecca had no sister.”

“She had one she never told you about.”

Samuel stood.

His chair scraped hard against the floor.

Eleanor flinched again.

He immediately stopped.

“I’m sorry.”

Samuel turned away and dragged a hand over his face.

Rebecca had told him about her father, a stern Pennsylvania merchant.

About her mother dying young.

About being sent west to live with distant relatives.

But never a sister.

Never Grace.

“Why would she hide that?”

“Because my mother had married someone Rebecca despised.”

“Your father?”

Eleanor nodded.

“Walter Mercer.”

The name meant nothing to Samuel.

“She believed he was dishonest.

They argued.

For years they didn’t speak.”

Eleanor glanced at the trunk.

“Then something changed.”

Samuel looked at it too.

“What?”

“My father became a surveyor.”

The thunder outside came closer.

Eleanor continued.

“He was hired to work on proposed rail routes and federal land boundaries through Missouri and Kansas.

He discovered something involving cattle land, water rights and false deeds.”

Samuel felt a slow unease forming in his chest.

“What does that have to do with Rebecca?”

“My father’s survey passed through Abilene.”

Eleanor met his eyes.

“Through your ranch.”

Silence.

“He visited Rebecca secretly.