But Harlon didn't smile again.
His gaze moved toward the snow-covered window.
“And I wasn't particularly pleased to hear those men threatening you.”
Amily's expression became serious.
She finished the bandage.
Then sat opposite him.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Finally, she asked the question that had been haunting her since the first knock.
“What is the survey book?”
Harlon looked toward the fireplace.
His expression closed.
Amily continued.
“Those men didn't come just for me. They knew your name. They knew about something hidden in this cabin.”
He rubbed one large hand over his beard.
She waited.
Then he spoke.
“The book belonged to my father.”
Amily looked toward him.
“He was a surveyor?”
Harlon nodded.
“A good one.”
He glanced toward the floor.
“And a better man than the people who paid him.”
The fire cracked softly.
Outside, snow continued falling.
Amily leaned forward.
“What does Silas Vale want with it?”
Harlon was quiet for a long time.
Then he answered.
“Proof that the Blackstone Mining Company built its fortune on land it never legally owned.”
Amily stared.
Harlon continued.
“And the woman who was supposed to help expose it disappeared before the truth could reach the county courthouse.”
Her pulse quickened.
“What woman?”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“Her name was Clara Ward.”
Amily stopped breathing.
Her mother's name.
The same name she'd seen written inside her family Bible throughout childhood.
Her mother had died twelve years earlier in Missouri.
Amily remembered very little of her younger years beyond the sound of Clara sewing at night and the smell of lavender soap.
She had never heard anyone mention the Colorado mountains.
She stared at Harlon.
“Clara Ward was my mother.”
He became motionless.
For several seconds, the only sound was the fire.
Then he whispered, “God Almighty.”
Amily felt her chest tighten.
“You knew her?”
Harlon looked toward the old hatch beneath the bearskin rug.
Then back at Amily.
“No.”
He swallowed.
“But my father spent the last years of his life trying to find her.”
Amily stared.
The storm seemed suddenly farther away.
Her mother's name.
The hidden survey book.
The men chasing her across the mountains.
And the enormous stranger who had opened his door without knowing who she was.
All of it seemed connected.