Miriam looked at her.
“What exactly did Vale say?”
Eleanor suddenly seemed much less certain.
Over the next week, the truth emerged.
Gideon Vale had forged the family debt document after Philip’s death.
He expected Eleanor to challenge Miriam’s title.
While the women fought, Vale planned to purchase the disputed claim cheaply.
It was clever.
Almost.
What Vale had not expected was Miriam and Eleanor comparing documents instead of destroying each other.
Eleanor apologized badly.
It was still an apology.
When she left, she gave Miriam something unexpected.
A small photograph of Philip at sixteen.
He stood beside a river holding a ridiculous fishing pole.
He was smiling.
Miriam kept it.
Not because grief erased betrayal.
Because truth required room for all of him.
Vale did not surrender.
In May, someone burned the boundary markers at Black Pine.
In June, survey equipment disappeared.
In July, two men attempted to frighten Miriam while she was riding alone.
They failed.
Mostly because Jonas had taught her to shoot.
The first time she fired his revolver, the recoil nearly knocked her backward.
Jonas caught her elbow.
“You’re smiling.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
Miriam fired again.
Hit the bottle.
She smiled openly.
“Again.”
By late summer, the railroad company confirmed what Vale feared.
The route would pass through Miriam’s land.
The right-of-way alone was worth more than Jonas estimated.
Twenty thousand dollars.
Perhaps twenty-five.
Miriam sat at the table staring at the offer.
Jonas stood by the window.
“Well?”
“I could sell.”
“Yes.”
“We could move.”
“If you want.”
She looked at him.
“You would leave Colorado?”
“If you wanted Baltimore, I would go.”
“You hate cities.”
“I survived an avalanche.”
“That is not relevant.”
“Baltimore sounds worse.”
She laughed.
Jonas smiled.
Miriam looked at the offer again.
“What do you want?”
He hesitated.
“That is not the question.”
“It is now.”
Jonas sat.
“I want you here.”
Her heart tightened.
“But I don’t want you trapped here.”
“I’m not.”
He looked at her.
Miriam folded the offer.
“That is what I finally understand.”
She did not sell all forty acres.
She sold the railroad only the narrow right-of-way it required.
The payment cleared every remaining debt.
With part of the money, she bought twenty neighboring acres.
Jonas laughed when she told him.
“You turned down a fortune and bought more wilderness.”
“I married a trapper. Clearly judgment is not my strength.”
He kissed her then.
Not their first kiss.
That had happened in spring beside the creek after he fell through rotten ice and she shouted at him for terrifying her.
He had climbed onto the bank soaked and laughing.
Miriam had slapped his chest.
“You could have died.”
“I didn’t.”
“That is not the point.”
“What is?”
She kissed him before she could answer.
The second time was slower.