“Sorry.”

She looked almost surprised by the apology.

Inside, Caleb cleared dust from an old wooden bench.

He boiled water in a blackened pot he kept beneath loose floorboards with several emergency supplies.

Mae watched him.

“You come here often?”

“When I need quiet.”

“You live alone?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“My horse disagrees.”

This time Mae actually smiled.

It vanished quickly.

Caleb washed the cut in her foot.

The injury was deep but clean enough.

Her swollen wrist worried him more.

“You should see Doctor Bell.”

“No.”

“Mae—”

Her head snapped up.

He stopped.

“You never told me your name.”

She went pale.

For a moment, Caleb thought she might run despite the condition of her foot.

Then she looked down.

“Mae Larkin Drayton.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Everybody knows Owen’s wife.”

Mae’s mouth tightened.

“That’s not the same as knowing me.”

Caleb had no answer for that.

He wrapped her foot carefully.

Outside, afternoon light shifted across the broken window.

Mae eventually leaned back against the wall.

Caleb noticed her fingers moving repeatedly toward the torn hem of her dress.

Not nervously.

Protectively.

Something was hidden there.

He said nothing.

Eventually Mae noticed him noticing.

Her hand stopped.

Caleb turned away deliberately.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

Silence.

Then fabric tore behind him.

Caleb looked back.

Mae had ripped open the inside seam of her skirt.

From the lining she removed

a folded piece of paper stained with blood.

Caleb’s expression changed.

“What’s that?”

“The reason Owen nearly killed me this morning.”

She unfolded it.

The page contained columns written in neat black ink.

Dates.

Names.

Dollar amounts.

Property descriptions.

Beside several names appeared small crescent-shaped marks.

Caleb leaned closer.

The first entries meant nothing.

Hannah Pierce.

Walter and Louise Dean.

Martha Greaves.

Elias Bell.

Then his eyes stopped.

His body went rigid.

Halfway down the page was one name.

ANNA RUSK.

Caleb did not breathe.

Mae noticed.

“You know her.”

His voice sounded distant.

“She was my sister.”

Mae stared at him.

“Was?”

Caleb took the page.

Anna Rusk.

October 17, 1877.

Beside the name was written:

TRANSFER REFUSED.

Underneath:

CRESCENT.

SOUTH HOUSE.

FINAL DISPOSITION.

Caleb’s fingers tightened until the paper crackled.

“My sister disappeared nine years ago.”

Mae said nothing.

“She was nineteen.”

Caleb’s eyes remained fixed on the page.

“She taught reading to some of the ranch children.

Worked at the Drayton place three afternoons a week.”

His jaw clenched.

“One Tuesday she didn’t come home.”

“What did the Draytons say?”

“That she left with a traveling salesman.”

“Did you believe them?”

“No.”

“Did anyone search?”

“My father did.”

Caleb laughed once.

There was nothing amused in the sound.

“He rode half of Montana looking for her.”

“What happened to him?”

“Died two years later.”

Mae looked at the ledger page again.

“I found this in Gideon’s office.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

Caleb stared at her.

“Why were you searching Gideon’s office?”

Mae pulled his coat tighter around herself.

“I wasn’t.”

She swallowed.

“I was hiding.”

Owen Drayton had struck Mae before.

The first time happened nine months after their wedding.

He apologized so beautifully afterward that she almost felt guilty for frightening him into hitting her.

That was how Owen explained it.

She had embarrassed him during dinner.

He had been drinking.

She knew how his temper became when he drank.

If she had not contradicted him in front of guests, none of it would have happened.