“When you’re late, I worry.”
She laughed softly through the tears.
“And I know exactly how terrible your coffee is, and I know you pretend you don’t like pie, and I know you walk out to that ridge when something is hurting you.”
Caleb looked at her.
“I don’t know when it happened.”
She lowered her eyes.
“But I love you.”
The words seemed to remove every defense he had built.
For eight years, Caleb had believed there was a part of him that died beside that river.
Now Clara had reached into the quiet ruins and found something still living.
He touched her cheek.
“I’m afraid to say it.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone I love becomes something I can lose.”
Clara placed her hand over his.
“That isn’t a reason not to love someone.”
“For me, it has been.”
“And now?”
His thumb brushed away a tear.
“Now I’m trying to learn another way.”
Clara leaned toward him.
Their kiss was soft.
Uncertain.
Nothing like the grand kisses described in novels.
It was better.
It felt like two lonely people admitting they were no longer alone.
When they separated, Caleb rested his forehead against hers.
“I love you too.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Then she opened them.
“What is in Cheyenne?”
Caleb went still.
The moment had come.
No more half-truths.
No more silence disguised as protection.
He reached into his coat and removed the telegram.
Clara read it.
Once.
Twice.
Her face slowly changed.
“Eleanor?”
Caleb nodded.
“You think she may have survived?”
“I don’t know.”
Clara looked at him.
“If she did…”
Neither finished the sentence.
They both understood.
If Eleanor had survived, what did that make Caleb’s marriage to Clara?
What did it make the life they had begun building?
Clara folded the telegram carefully.
“You still have to go.”
Caleb stared at her.
“Not tonight.”
“No.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“Tomorrow.”
“You want me to?”
“I want the truth.”
His voice was low.
“And if the truth changes everything?”
Clara looked toward the window where dawn was beginning to touch the horizon.
“Then we face what it changes.”
The following morning, Caleb did not ride to Cheyenne alone.
Clara went with him.
Sheriff Bell insisted on accompanying them part of the way because whoever fired the shot had not been identified.
The trip took more than a day.
By the time Caleb and Clara reached the charity clinic named in the records, both were exhausted.
The clinic had changed owners twice.
Most of its old records had been moved to a county archive.
An elderly nurse named Mrs. Talbot remembered nothing personally, but she brought them a faded ledger.
“There,” she said.
Caleb saw the entry.
June 19, 1876.
Unknown female.
Approximately twenty-five.
Found outside Cheyenne.
Head trauma.
Confusion.
Called herself Ellie.
Clara stood beside him.
“What happened to her?”
Mrs. Talbot turned the page.
The final note was brief.
Released into care of Samuel Whitmore.
Clara stopped breathing.
Caleb looked at her.
Neither spoke.
The nurse frowned.
“Is something wrong?”
Clara touched the name on the page.
Samuel Whitmore.
Her father.
“My father,” she whispered.
Caleb stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
Clara slowly shook her head.
“No.”
A childhood memory suddenly returned.
A woman staying in their home.
A woman with dark hair.
A woman who rarely spoke.
Clara had been a girl then.
Eleven years old.
She remembered her father telling her the woman was sick.
