The Butcher of Black Ridge.
Abigail had met him exactly twice before Horace Bell proposed the marriage.
Once when Caleb bought bread from her father’s bakery.
Once when he carried a sack of flour into the storeroom because Abigail’s father had injured his shoulder.
Both times he had been quiet.
Neither time had he looked at her with the particular smirk she knew too well.
That was almost all she knew.
Three days earlier, she had discovered something else.
A newspaper clipping pushed beneath her door.
TEXAS RANCH FIRE LEAVES FOUR DEAD.
Below the headline was a faded description.
Mercer family homestead destroyed.
One surviving son missing.
Authorities seeking Caleb Mercer for questioning.
Someone had circled the phrase surviving son missing in red pencil.
Underneath, in handwriting Abigail did not recognize:
ASK YOURSELF WHY A MURDERER NEEDS A WIFE WHO HAS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO.
Abigail had not slept afterward.
Now Mrs. Whitcomb adjusted the lace near her neckline.
“You can still stop.”
Abigail looked at her reflection.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“That banker cannot force you.”
Horace Bell.
Even thinking his name made Abigail’s stomach tighten.
Three days after her father’s funeral, Bell had called her into his office and arranged three papers neatly across his desk.
Bakery rent.
Flour account.
Bank note.
Total debt: $612.
More money than Abigail could raise.
Bell had smiled sadly.
He had always been good at looking sympathetic while explaining why another person was doomed.
“You have ten days,” he said.
“To do what?”
“Settle the obligation or vacate the property.”
“My father paid you every month.”
“Not enough.”
“I can continue the bakery.”
Bell’s eyes had moved over her.
“I’m not convinced Cedar Hollow will support a business managed by an unmarried woman.”
“I have managed it since I was fifteen.”
“You helped.”
Abigail remembered the anger.
“I kept every account.”
“I negotiated flour contracts.”
“I hired the delivery boy.”
“My father baked.”
“I ran the business.”
Bell smiled.
“Then perhaps your bookkeeping should have shown you the position you were in.”
She wanted to throw his inkpot through the window.
Instead she said:
“What do you suggest?”
That was when Bell leaned back.
“There may be another arrangement.”
Caleb Mercer needed a wife.
Bell knew because Caleb had entered the bank that morning with a leather pouch full of gold dust and asked whether any respectable woman might consider life at Black Ridge.
The ranch was isolated.
Hard work.
Caleb wanted a grown woman capable of managing a household.
Bell had told him about Abigail.
Then he told Abigail about Caleb.
“He has money,” Bell said.
“So?”
“So marrying him solves your problem.”
“Whose?”
Bell smiled.
“Everyone’s.”
Abigail had hated the proposition.
She hated more that she had no better answer.
She could lose the bakery and take domestic work.
Maybe.
Several families might hire her.
Most would pay little.
Or she could leave Cedar Hollow without enough money to travel far.
Caleb’s proposal, on paper, was simple.
Marriage.
A home.
No demand that Abigail bring a dowry.
Bell offered to cancel the bakery’s immediate debt as a “wedding accommodation.”
At first she refused.
Then Bell returned the following morning.
He said Caleb had already agreed.
That detail changed something.
Not because Abigail was flattered.
Because Caleb knew who she was.