“Do you know how to braid hair?”
Nathan looked at her.
“No.”
“Then perhaps let those of us with dangerous specialized knowledge speak.”
Samuel laughed openly.
Lucy covered her mouth.
Nathan exhaled.
But there was the smallest trace of amusement again.
For the remainder of the journey, conversation arrived in pieces.
Clara learned Ethan loved horses and hated school because the nearest teacher had once called him slow when he struggled reading aloud.
Samuel read everything he could find and had secretly dismantled Nathan’s pocket watch the previous spring.
“It worked after,” Samuel insisted.
“It gained eleven minutes a day.”
“Still worked.”
Lucy liked drawing.
Rose collected feathers.
Ben had not spoken much since Mara died.
Nathan revealed that last part accidentally.
Clara did not ask more.
By the time the ranch appeared, she had learned more about five children in one wagon ride than the agency had thought relevant to an arranged marriage.
Cole Ranch sat in a shallow valley beneath the mountains.
The house was larger than Clara expected.
Two stories.
Weathered cedar.
Wide porch.
A barn stood east.
Corrals beyond.
Cattle dotted the yellow pasture.
The place did not look wealthy.
But it looked established.
Built through years rather than purchased through luck.
Clara noticed the porch rail had been repaired recently.
The barn roof needed shingles.
One corral gate sagged.
A vegetable garden lay abandoned beneath frost-blackened vines.
Nathan pulled the wagon beside the house.
The children scattered immediately.
Ben disappeared inside.
Lucy and Rose ran after him.
Samuel took one horse.
Ethan took the other without waiting.
Clara climbed down.
Nathan reached for her suitcase.
She moved it away.
He raised both hands.
“Understood.”
She looked at the house.
“This is where your wife wrote the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Where did she die?”
Nathan went still.
Clara regretted asking so directly.
Then he answered.
“Upstairs.”
“Bedroom at the end.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked toward her.
The apology was the first thing she had said all day that seemed to leave him unprepared.
“Thank you.”
He led her inside.
The house smelled of wood smoke, leather, and something faintly sweet.
Cinnamon.
Maybe apples.
The kitchen was larger than Clara expected but poorly organized.
A skillet sat unwashed.
Three mugs on the table.
Boots beneath a chair.
A pile of clean laundry had been folded and then apparently attacked.
Clara looked at Nathan.