“Honesty.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“I expect honesty if we can manage it.”
“Work.”
“Fairness.”
“That if you hate living here, you tell me before you disappear down the mountain and freeze to death.”
Clara stared.
Elias continued.
“I expect you not to poison me.”
She almost smiled.
“That wasn't in your advertisement.”
“I assumed it.”
“What else?”
He looked around the cabin.
“I would like company.”
The answer was so simple that she distrusted it.
“Company.”
“Yes.”
“You paid nearly nine hundred dollars between my debts and travel expenses because you wanted someone to sit at your table?”
Elias winced.
“When you say it that way, I sound financially irresponsible.”
“You are avoiding the question.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Then he walked toward the table.
Clara’s shoulders tightened again.
Elias stopped before getting too close to her.
He noticed everything.
That frightened her in a different way.
He reached down and picked up a folded document secured with a brown ribbon.
“I was going to give you this tomorrow.”
“What is it?”
“Take it.”
Clara hesitated.
Elias looked at her hand.
Then placed the document on the table instead.
“You can pick it up yourself.”
Something inside her cracked slightly.
Not painfully.
More like ice beginning to melt around an old hinge.
She approached.
Untied the ribbon.
Opened the paper.
Legal language filled the page.
Her reading was good.
Frederick had hated that.
He had called educated women argumentative.
Clara read slowly.
She recognized Elias’s name.
Then hers.
Her fingers stopped.
“What is this?”
“A deed.”
“I can see that.”
“It transfers half ownership of the cabin, lower meadow, timber parcel, and spring rights to you.”
Clara looked up so quickly her loose curls fell across her face.
“What?”
Elias's expression remained calm.
“Half.”
“Why?”
“Because you're living here.”
“That doesn't answer me.”
“No.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I thought it would make things clearer.”
“It makes nothing clear.”
He almost smiled.
“Then I misjudged.”
“Elias.”
She held the paper up.
“When did you sign this?”
“Three days ago.”
“Before we were married.”
“Yes.”
“Before I arrived.”
“Yes.”
Her voice dropped.
“You gave half your property to a woman you had never met.”
“I had read twenty-seven of your letters.”
“That is not meeting someone.”
“No.”