She touched the sleeve.
Soft wool.
Warm.
“You planned this.”
Caleb’s voice came quietly from the fire.
“Yes.”
“For your wife.”
“No.”
Elena stiffened.
Caleb reached inside his coat.
For one moment her hand tightened around the scissors.
But he did not turn.
He removed an old folded document tied with faded green ribbon and placed it behind him on the end of the table.
Elena recognized the ribbon.
Her mother had used that color.
Always.
Around letters.
Around jars of lavender.
Around the small wooden box Elena had been forbidden to touch after her mother died.
Elena forgot the corset.
She stepped closer.
“What is that?”
Caleb stared into the fire.
“Something your father was hoping you would never see.”
Elena picked up the paper.
Her fingers shook as she opened it.
The writing was old.
The ink faded.
She found her mother’s name first.
Margaret Whitaker.
Then Elena’s.
She read once.
Stopped.
Read again.
The cabin went silent except for wind and fire.
Six hundred and forty acres.
White Pine Basin.
Water rights.
Timber rights.
Mineral rights.
Conveyed to Elena Margaret Whitaker upon her twenty-first birthday.
Her knees nearly failed.
She caught the table.
Caleb heard but did not turn.
“Sit if you need.”
Elena stared at the deed.
“This is not real.”
“It is.”
“My mother owned nothing.”
“She owned White Pine Basin.”
“My father owns it.”
“No.”
“He said—”
“I know what he said.”
Elena lifted her eyes toward Caleb’s back.
“You bought it?”
“No.”
“You paid him.”
“I paid him to stop him from marrying you to someone else before I could get you out of his house.”
The words struck harder than the storm.
Elena stared.
“What?”
Caleb finally turned his head slightly but not enough to see her body.
He kept his eyes toward the wall.
“Your father never sold me the land.”
“Then what did twenty dollars buy?”
“Time.”
“And the horses?”
“More time.”
“You expect me to understand that?”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“I expect you to breathe first.”
Elena almost hated him for that answer.
Because he was right.
The room had begun to tilt again.
She clutched the table.
Her corset bit into her.
Caleb faced the wall.
“Cut it.”
Elena looked at scissors.
Then at the deed.
Then at the man standing with his back to her in his own house because she had told him not to touch her.
The first lace gave way with a quiet snap.
Then another.
Elena cut carefully.
The corset loosened by an inch.
Air hit her lungs so suddenly it hurt.
She gasped.
Caleb’s hands clenched.
“Are you all right?”
Elena could not answer.
She cut again.
The rigid pressure released.
Her body expanded into its natural shape.
A deep breath entered her completely for the first time since morning.
She almost sobbed.
Another breath.
Then another.
Tears ran down her broad cheeks.
Not because she was sad.
Because breathing without pain felt so unfamiliar after hours of being squeezed into a shape somebody else wanted.
She removed the ruined corset.