“Hello, husband.”
Every head turned.
Mae went still.
Owen’s face emptied.
“No.”
Clara smiled.
“Yes.”
Mae looked between them.
“What did you say?”
Clara’s eyes never left Owen.
“I married Owen Drayton sixteen years ago.”
The church exploded with voices.
Owen backed away.
“That marriage was annulled.”
“No.”
“You were declared dead.”
“Seven years after you married me.”
Clara looked toward Mae.
“But dead or alive, he could not legally marry you while I remained his wife.”
Mae stared.
Understanding moved slowly through her.
Her marriage to Owen—
was not a marriage.
Never had been.
Cyrus shouted, “Enough!”
He raised the revolver.
Clara turned.
“Tell them why.”
Cyrus’s hand trembled.
“Shut your mouth.”
Clara opened the locket.
Inside was not a portrait.
It contained a tiny folded paper.
She handed it to Reverend Hale.
“Read it.”
The reverend unfolded the page.
His face changed.
“What is it?” Caleb demanded.
Hale looked at Mae.
“A birth record.”
Mae frowned.
Hale swallowed.
“Mae Larkin. Born April 4, 1863.”
“Yes.”
“Mother, Ruth Larkin.”
Mae nodded.
Hale looked toward Cyrus.
“Father…”
Cyrus fired.
The bullet struck the pulpit.
People screamed.
Caleb lunged.
Owen tackled his father first.
They crashed into the pews.
Pike drew his revolver.
Eliza swung the shotgun toward him.
“Try it.”
He stopped.
Caleb kicked Cyrus’s weapon away.
Jonah Kemp pinned Owen down.
Reverend Hale still held the paper.
Mae stood trembling.
“Read it.”
Hale hesitated.
“Read it!”
His voice was barely audible.
“Father: Cyrus Drayton.”
Mae’s face became perfectly still.
Owen stopped struggling.
Nobody moved.
Cyrus lay on the floor breathing heavily.
Mae looked at him.
Then at Owen.
Her voice cracked.
“Owen is your son.”
Cyrus said nothing.
Mae’s horror deepened.
“You made me marry—”
“No.”
Clara interrupted.
Everyone turned.
She was crying.
“Owen is not Cyrus’s son.”
Another silence.
Owen stared at her.
“What?”
Clara looked at him almost pityingly.
“Your mother was pregnant before she married Cyrus.”
Owen shook his head.
“No.”
“She told me.”
Cyrus screamed, “SHUT UP!”
Clara faced him.
“You built everything on secrets. Now you can choke on them.”
She turned to Owen.
“Your father was Thomas Drayton. Cyrus’s older brother.”
Owen staggered backward.
Mae understood first.
Cyrus was her father.
Owen was Cyrus’s nephew.
Still blood.
Still horror.
But Clara was not finished.
“Cyrus needed Mae’s land because Larkin Basin contains the only permanent spring capable of watering the eastern range.”
She pointed toward the ledger.
“But he couldn’t seize it directly from his own daughter without raising questions.”
Mae’s face twisted.
“So you gave me to Owen.”
Cyrus glared at her.
“I gave you wealth.”
“You gave me scars.”
“You would have had nothing.”
“I had myself.”
Mae’s voice broke.
“And you tried to take that too.”
Cyrus looked around at the church.
His empire was collapsing in front of him.
So he did what men like him always did when control disappeared.
He reached for violence.
A knife flashed from his boot.
He surged toward Mae.
Caleb moved.
So did Owen.
But Clara reached Cyrus first.
She struck his wrist with the wooden end of Eliza’s abandoned cane.
