Nothing.
Caleb had already noticed something about wreck.
A wheel pin lay thirty feet from the coach.
Too clean.
Too far away.
At the time, survival mattered more than suspicion.
Now the memory returned.
He did not tell Clara yet.
“You need sleep.”
“I’ve slept enough.”
“You were unconscious.”
“Different.”
Caleb almost smiled.
Not quite.
“What?”
Clara asked.
“Nothing.”
“You were going to smile.”
“No.”
“You were.”
“I’m not accustomed to being accused of facial expressions.”
For the first time since waking, Clara almost laughed.
It hurt her ribs.
She winced.
Caleb immediately sobered.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Laugh?”
“For a day or two.”
“That seems an unreasonable medical prescription.”
“I’m not doctor.”
“Clearly.”
His eyes narrowed.
Clara waited.
Then Caleb smiled.
It transformed him.
Not handsome exactly, though perhaps he was beneath beard and weather.
Human.
That was what surprised her.
The monster from Red Hollow stories had dimples.
She hated herself for noticing.
Clara remained in Caleb’s cabin because she had nowhere else to go.
The road remained impassable for four days.
Her ribs were badly bruised but not broken. One ankle had swollen nearly twice normal size. She had several cuts and a headache that made light painful.
Caleb cared for her with the awkward efficiency of someone more comfortable treating wounded livestock than women.
He brought food.
Then stood too far away while she ate.
He rebuilt the fire constantly.
He gave her his bed.
At night he slept in a chair beside the stove despite Clara insisting there was enough space on the mattress for two adults who could behave themselves.
The first time she suggested it, Caleb nearly dropped his cup.
“You’re injured.”
“That has nothing to do with how wide the bed is.”
“I sleep fine here.”
“You look like your spine is breaking.”
“It’s used to hardship.”
Clara stared.
“That may be the stupidest thing anyone has ever said with a straight face.”
Caleb looked offended.
She smiled.
He looked away.
By the third day, Clara understood something that no Red Hollow story had ever mentioned.
Caleb Ward was shy.
Not mildly.
Painfully.
He could carry a deer across one shoulder without complaint, face a blizzard alone, repair a roof in sleet, and walk into a wolf pack’s territory without hesitation.
But if Clara caught him looking at her, he immediately became fascinated by the nearest wall.
At first she assumed he disliked her body.
That was familiar enough.
Clara had been large since childhood.
Her mother called her sturdy.
Her aunt called her unfortunate.
Red Hollow used worse.
By sixteen, boys had learned that making jokes about Clara’s hips got laughs at school gatherings.
By twenty-two, women said she would struggle to find a husband because men wanted wives who looked delicate beside them.
Then Nathan Whitmore proposed.
Clara believed she had won.
Nathan came from money.
Had beautiful manners.
Told her he liked a woman who looked substantial rather than breakable.
For the first year he was kind.
Then his father died.
Nathan inherited debts nobody knew existed.
Whiskey entered their house.
Kindness left.
When he died of pneumonia three winters later, Clara experienced something she never admitted aloud.
Relief.
Red Hollow noticed that too.
Someone said Nathan had wasted away while Clara grew larger.
Someone else called her cursed.
By the time two members of her extended family died the following year, the story had become entertainment.
Clara Whitmore brought death.
Clara Whitmore ate through husbands and fortunes.
Clara Whitmore was too much woman for any house to hold.
She sold what remained of Nathan’s business, paid his debts, and bought a stagecoach ticket east.
Then the coach crashed before she escaped Montana.
Perhaps, she sometimes thought bitterly, the town had been right about the curse after all.
On the fourth morning, Clara found Caleb outside splitting wood.