“That was not the answer I expected.”

“You wanted honesty.”

“I've started regretting that rule.”

She smiled.

“I regret the train.”

“Reasonable.”

“The stagecoach.”

“Yes.”

“Your first bread.”

“You baked that.”

“Exactly.”

He laughed.

She squeezed his hand.

“But you?”

He waited.

“No.”

One word.

Enough.

He leaned closer.

“Do you regret marrying me?”

She pretended to think.

The rancher's eyes narrowed.

“This should not require calculation.”

“You wanted a bookkeeper.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You wanted practicality.”

“I was an idiot.”

“Yes.”

He waited.

Finally she smiled.

“No.”

The rancher kissed her.

Outside, winter covered Montana again.

But this time neither feared it.

Chapter Twenty-One — What Happened to the Money

The trust became legally hers the following year.

The amount had grown despite everything her uncle stole.

The rancher expected them to move.

He never admitted this fear.

His wife noticed anyway.

One evening she placed several papers beside him.

“What?”

“Read.”

A transfer.

Forty acres adjoining their claim.

Purchased in both names.

He looked up.

“You bought the southern meadow?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you complained that the cattle crowd the creek.”

“You spent Chicago money on Montana mud.”

“I did.”

He smiled.

Another document.

Donation to the clinic where she once worked.

A third.

Legal aid fund for women trapped in disputed estates.

The rancher stared.

“You planned all this?”

“Yes.”

“How much do we keep?”

“Enough.”

“What is enough?”

She looked around the cabin.

“More than this requires.”

The rancher nodded.

He understood.

The money had once represented imprisonment.

She refused to build another one from it.

They expanded the ranch carefully.

Not greedily.

The neighboring cattleman became a business partner.

The blacksmith received investment to enlarge his shop.

A physician opened a small clinic closer to the valley.

Roads improved.

The railroad eventually chose another route.

The speculative fortune everyone had killed for never arrived.

The rancher found that funny.

His wife called it justice.

Chapter Twenty-Two — The Photograph

Five years after the wedding, a traveling photographer came through the valley.

The wife hated the idea.

“No.”

The rancher leaned against the table.

“Why?”

“Because I do not want strangers staring at a photograph.”

“They already stare at you in person.”

“That is not persuasive.”

“I want one.”

She looked at him.

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The rancher shrugged.

“In case I forget what you look like.”

She stared.

Then threw a cloth at him.

The photographer arrived two days later.

Setting the equipment took an hour.

Positioning took longer.

The wife wore a dark dress.

The rancher wore his best coat.

He stood beside her chair.

The photographer disappeared beneath the black cloth.

“Remain still.”

The rancher leaned slightly closer to his wife.

She whispered, “Your beard is crooked.”