“I told myself protecting you made the method acceptable.”
He looked at the deed.
“I was wrong.”
Elena pressed her lips together.
“Do you regret marrying me?”
Caleb answered too fast.
“No.”
That surprised both of them.
He corrected.
“I regret doing it without your choice.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
Elena’s heart beat strangely.
She looked away.
“What were the horses?”
“My own draft pair.”
“Why give them?”
“Your father demanded them.”
“He said no marriage unless he received something he could show people.”
Elena’s face twisted.
“My value.”
“No.”
Caleb’s voice came harder.
“His excuse.”
She looked at him.
He continued.
“The twenty dollars came from money Sarah left specifically for expenses connected to protecting your mother’s papers.”
“So Sarah’s money paid my father.”
“Yes.”
Elena almost laughed again.
It was too ugly not to.
“What a righteous arrangement.”
Caleb rubbed one hand down his face.
“I know.”
“And now?”
“Now you read the letter.”
“You decide where you go.”
“When the storm opens, I take you.”
“Town.”
“Helena.”
“Your father’s house if you insist.”
Elena stared.
“And you?”
“I stay here.”
“What about marriage?”
“My attorney says you can challenge it.”
“You already spoke to an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Before marrying me?”
“Yes.”
Another surprise.
“Why?”
“To make certain marriage didn’t give me claim to White Pine Basin.”
Elena stared.
Caleb walked to a small shelf and withdrew another folded page.
He placed it before her.
A renunciation prepared by a Helena attorney.
Caleb Holt voluntarily disclaimed any marital claim to White Pine Basin, its income, minerals, water, or timber.
Not yet witnessed.
Not yet filed.
But signed by him.
Elena touched his signature.
“You signed before the wedding?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Why?”
“Because land is yours.”
She looked up.
“And if I leave?”
“It remains yours.”
“If I annul marriage?”
“Yours.”
“If I marry someone else?”
His mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Still yours.”
The answer did something dangerous inside her.
Elena looked at the mother’s unopened letter.
Her anger had not vanished.
It should not.
Caleb had taken a decision that was hers.
But he had built an exit before she knew she needed one.
That mattered too.
The storm slammed snow against the window.
Caleb stepped back.
“You should change before bruising worsens.”
Elena looked down at the loose corset hanging beneath her dress.
“You’ll stay turned around?”
“Yes.”
She took the blue dress.
“Go upstairs.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“The loft.”
He obeyed immediately.
Elena heard the ladder creak beneath his weight.
Then silence.
For the first time all day, she was alone.
Not abandoned.
Alone.
There was a difference.
She changed slowly.
The cream chemise fell comfortably over her enormous body. The slate-blue wool dress followed. Its side ties allowed her to adjust until nothing bit into her flesh.
She looked down.
The dress did not create an illusion of thinness.