She dressed slowly.
The bruising across her thighs from the wagon ride had faded to yellow.
Her injured palm was closing.
Her body still ached from the impossible night she had forced it through snow.
Nearly three hundred kilograms did not disappear simply because she needed to run.
Every step that night had asked more of her than most people would ever understand.
But she had done it.
She was alive.
Clara buttoned the front of her dress.
Then stopped before the mirror.
The glass showed exactly what it always had.
A broad beautiful face with full cheeks.
Soft brown eyes.
A generous mouth.
Chestnut hair that refused to remain properly pinned.
A very large body that filled almost the entire mirror.
Her first instinct was the old one.
Turn slightly.
Make herself appear narrower.
Pull fabric down.
Adjust neckline.
Hide.
Clara caught herself.
Then deliberately faced the mirror straight on.
“I walked through a mountain storm,” she whispered.
The woman in the glass still looked uncertain.
Clara lifted her chin.
“I hit an armed man with a rock.”
That helped.
A little.
She pinned her hair.
Then went downstairs.
Silas was waiting outside.
Of course he was.
He stood beside a heavy wagon, wearing a dark wool coat and hat, his broad shoulders dusted with early snow.
He had shaved around his beard slightly.
Clara noticed immediately.
She pretended she had not.
Silas looked up when she stepped onto the porch.
“Morning.”
“You abandoned me.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I was fifty feet away.”
“Emotionally abandoned.”
“That sounds expensive.”
Clara almost smiled.
“You have been spending time with lawyers.”
“Unfortunately.”
He moved toward the wagon.
Then stopped.
“Would you like help?”
Clara looked at the step.
High.
Her knee still hurt.
“Yes.”
Silas offered his forearm.
Clara gripped it.
He braced without making a show of her weight.
She climbed slowly.
Once seated, she adjusted the heavy blanket across her lap.
Silas climbed beside her.
“Where are we going?”
“Courthouse.”
“I thought Margaret said tomorrow.”
“She found something.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“Good something?”
Silas clicked his tongue at the horses.
“With lawyers, I’ve learned that good news still arrives looking miserable.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
Clara glared at him.
He looked ahead.
“You enjoy withholding information.”
“I enjoy surviving conversations.”
“Coward.”
“Yes.”
Cedar Ridge was little more than one muddy main street, two churches, a livery, a hotel, three saloons, a mercantile store, a bank, and a brick courthouse that seemed much too ambitious for the town surrounding it.
Margaret Ellis occupied an office upstairs.
She was already standing when Clara and Silas entered.
Margaret was forty-six, sharp-faced, gray beginning at her temples, wearing a dark green dress with no unnecessary ornament.
She did not waste time.
“I found Eleanor’s second filing.”
Clara stopped halfway to the reinforced chair Margaret had ordered brought in specifically for her.
“My mother’s?”
“Yes.”
Margaret opened a folder.
“This changes Price’s legal position considerably.”
Silas shut the door.
Clara sat.
“Explain without sounding like a lawyer.”
Margaret looked offended.
“I am a lawyer.”
“Try harder.”
Silas coughed into his fist.
Margaret gave him a look.
Then continued.