When Clara answered, she made sure every person in the chapel heard.
“Yes.”
The preacher pronounced them husband and wife.
Then smiled awkwardly at Elias and pointed toward Clara.
A man behind them shouted:
“Kiss her, Thorne!”
Laughter exploded.
Elias’s expression became unreadable.
He looked at Clara.
Not her mouth.
Her eyes.
He leaned slowly toward her.
Stopped.
Waited.
Clara realized what he was doing.
Asking without words.
She gave the smallest nod.
Elias bent and barely brushed his lips against her cheek.
The men behind them roared.
Someone shouted that the mountain brute was afraid of his own bride.
Clara lowered her face.
Everyone assumed shame.
She was hiding fury.
The fifty dollars changed hands outside the chapel.
Clara saw it.
The bank clerk handed the folded bill to her father.
Her father refused once.
Then took it.
Clara looked away.
Elias watched.
He did not react.
They left Blackwood before noon.
The wagon climbed toward the mountains while snow thickened.
For the first three miles, neither communicated.
Clara sat stiffly beneath a wool blanket.
Elias drove.
He had attached small brass bells to the harness, though she realized quickly they were not for him.
Perhaps for other travelers.
Or animals.
Every so often he glanced at her.
Not long enough to make her uncomfortable.
At the first steep grade, the wagon jolted violently.
Clara caught the sideboard.
Elias immediately slowed the team.
Then he took out his notepad.
His fingers were red from cold.
He wrote without turning fully.
Road worse higher up. Tell me if you need stop.
Clara read.
She had expected orders.
She handed the notebook back.
“No.”
Then remembered.
She took the pencil.
I’m fine.
He read.
Nodded.
They continued.
Three hours later, they reached the ranch.
The cabin surprised her.
Not because it was grand.
It was not.
Two main rooms, a loft used for storage, a lean-to kitchen, and a stone hearth large enough to heat the entire lower floor.
But it was clean.
Painfully clean.
Firewood stacked by size.
Cast-iron pans scrubbed.
Blankets folded.
Jars labeled in careful handwriting.
A small vase on the table held three dried mountain flowers.
Clara stopped just inside.
The rumors had described bones on the floor.
Blood on hooks.
A place fit for an animal.
Instead there was bread beneath a cloth and stew simmering on the stove.
Elias set down her trunk.
He removed his gloves.
Then wrote.
Bedroom is yours.
Clara read.
He added:
I sleep near fire.
She stared.
“What?”
He watched her lips but did not understand.
She pointed toward the bed.
Then him.
He shook his head.
Pointed toward the bench beside the hearth.
Clara looked at the bench.
It was barely long enough for half of him.