The three blows against Samuel Whitaker’s front door were so violent that the brass latch rattled in its frame.
“Samuel Whitaker! Don’t open that letter!”
Anna stood beside the bedroom window, one hand pressed against her stomach and the other gripping the folded envelope she had carried from Dr. Harris’s office. The late-afternoon light had faded over the Montana mountains, leaving the room gray and cold despite the fire burning in the kitchen stove.
Samuel stared at the door.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it shouting cattle prices across auction yards, laughing over whiskey in the back room of the Silver Spur, and calling him a fool when he was twenty-eight years old and still believed the world was a place where honest men eventually received honest answers.
It belonged to his younger brother, Thomas.
For several seconds, Samuel could not move.
Then he turned toward Anna.
“What did Harris tell you?”
Anna swallowed. Her brown eyes were shining, but she did not look away.
“He told me your accident wasn’t what you were told it was.”
Samuel’s jaw tightened.
“And the letter?”
She extended it toward him.
“He said someone paid the original doctor to lie to you.”
Another blow struck the door.
“Samuel! I know you’re in there!”
Samuel crossed the room, took the envelope, and examined the handwriting. The name Samuel Whitaker had been written across the front in the unmistakable hand of Dr. Benjamin Harris, the only physician within fifty miles who had treated his family for nearly twenty years.
The envelope was sealed.
The paper was old.
And on the back, in smaller handwriting, someone had written a sentence that made Samuel’s stomach turn.
If Thomas comes to you before you have read this, do not let him take it.
Samuel read the sentence twice.
Then he looked at Anna.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I was afraid you would think I was trying to trap you.”
“Trap me?”
“I know what you wrote in your advertisement. I know what you told me before we married. You were honest with me, Samuel. You deserved honesty in return.”
“You’re going to have to explain that.”
“I will.”
The knock came again, followed by Thomas’s voice.
“Brother, open this door before you make a terrible mistake.”
Samuel folded the envelope carefully.
For fourteen years, he had believed his life had been altered by a horse, a muddy road, and an injury that left him unable to father children. He had accepted the verdict of a physician because he had been in too much pain to question it.
He had built a life around that verdict.