The grief was old but alive.
Elena lowered her voice.
“I’m sorry.”
“She left me everything she had.”
“Which wasn’t much.”
“Except this.”
He touched the green ribbon.
“And a letter from your mother.”
Elena’s breath stopped.
“Where?”
Caleb went to the cedar chest.
He returned with an envelope.
Her name.
Her mother’s handwriting.
Elena could not take it at first.
Her fingers would not move.
Caleb placed it on the table and stepped away.
“She wrote it for you.”
Elena stared at the envelope.
“Did you read it?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“You carried it for three years?”
“Yes.”
“And never opened it?”
“It wasn’t mine.”
That answer hurt in a way she could not explain.
The man who had married her without permission had refused to open a letter because it belonged to her.
Contradiction sat between them.
Elena picked up the envelope.
Then she looked at him.
“Explain the twenty dollars.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“Two weeks ago a man named Silas Vane arrived from Butte.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He works for Montana Consolidated Timber and Mineral.”
The name was familiar.
Her father had mentioned them.
Caleb continued.
“They believe copper runs beneath the western slope.”
“And?”
“They offered your father twelve thousand dollars for an exclusive purchase option.”
Elena actually laughed.
“Twelve thousand?”
“Yes.”
Her father had argued about the cost of soap.
“He couldn’t sell what wasn’t his.”
“Correct.”
“So?”
“He needed your signature.”
Elena’s laughter stopped.
Caleb continued.
“Vane proposed marriage.”
Her stomach turned.
“No.”
“Your father accepted.”
“No.”
“He planned to introduce you tomorrow.”
Elena shook her head.
“My father said a widow farmer from Helena was coming.”
“Vane is neither widow nor farmer.”
A coldness deeper than the storm moved through her.
“What would marriage give him?”
“Control.”
Caleb hesitated.
“Or enough appearance of control to pressure you.”
“And you married me first.”
“Yes.”
The room became quiet.
Elena looked at him.
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“You could have shown me the deed.”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked me to leave.”
“Yes.”
“But you paid my father.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe I had been sold.”
Caleb flinched.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father said if I told you before he signed the marriage agreement, he would send for Vane.”
Elena’s voice sharpened.
“So you made the same decision he did.”
Caleb stared.
“What?”
“You decided I could not be trusted with my own life.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Elena stepped closer.
“You had a better reason.”
“That doesn’t make it less true.”
Caleb looked as though she had struck him.
“No.”
She had expected him to defend himself.
He did not.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Elena’s anger faltered.
He continued.
“I told myself time mattered more than your permission.”
“I told myself once you were away from him, I could explain.”