The sabotage was deliberate.
The powder house had been ignited from the outside.
Fortunately, winter moisture prevented the entire stock from exploding.
Unfortunately, enough detonated to destroy the lower storage shed and collapse part of the mine entrance.
Three men were injured.
One badly.
Gideon spent the night helping dig through timber.
Clementine organized food, bandages, and work crews.
By morning, the rider was long gone.
But he had left tracks.
And something else.
A piece of expensive wool caught on a broken fence.
Clementine recognized it.
"That's not miner's cloth."
Gideon held the fabric.
"No."
"Town coat."
"Yes."
They both understood.
The theft had not ended with Peter Voss and Daniel Pike.
Somebody in Bitter Creek remained involved.
The banker had been arrested weeks earlier.
Whoever came to Black Vein now had another motive.
Gideon looked toward the damaged mine.
"They want me shut down."
"Why?"
"Because Black Vein is worth more closed than open to somebody."
Clementine began thinking.
Land.
Ore rights.
Debt.
Contracts.
Then she remembered the banker.
Foreclosures.
Loans.
Paperwork.
"Who inherits or purchases the mine if you're unable to operate?"
Gideon looked at her.
"Nobody."
"Everyone owes someone."
"I don't."
She frowned.
"Everyone."
"I own Black Vein outright."
"Then the land surrounding it?"
His expression shifted.
"There is one claim."
"Whose?"
"Josiah Bell."
Clementine knew the name.
One of Bitter Creek's wealthiest ranchers.
He owned the southern pass and had spent years trying to buy access rights from Gideon.
"Why would he want your mine closed?"
"He can't transport cattle through the northern trail in winter."
"But if Black Vein closed?"
"He could purchase the lower road and mining easement cheaply."
Clementine nodded.
"Enough motive."
"Not proof."
"Then let's find proof."
March brought enough thaw for travel.
Gideon wanted Clementine to remain at Black Vein.
She refused before he finished asking.
They rode to Bitter Creek together.
News arrived before them.
By the time they entered town, people lined the street.
Clementine felt every eye.
Months earlier she had left as a rejected spinster.
She returned riding beside Gideon Hayes, wearing a fur-lined coat and carrying Black Vein's financial records in her saddlebag.
The difference was not lost on anyone.
At the mercantile, Aunt Beatrice nearly crushed Clementine in an embrace.
Then she stepped back.
"You look different."
Clementine smiled.
"I've been eating better."
Beatrice looked toward Gideon.
"That too."
"Aunt."
"I'm old. Let me enjoy things."
News about Gideon and Clementine had apparently reached town through winter freight workers.
By evening, several women visited the mercantile under transparent excuses.
They wanted sugar.
Thread.
Lamp oil.
And a look at Clementine.
One finally asked, "Is it true?"
Clementine continued arranging invoices.
"Is what true?"
"You and Mr. Hayes."
"What about us?"
The woman flushed.
"Are you... courting?"
Clementine thought of smoke-filled kisses.
Chess games.
Cinnamon.
Gideon's terrified confession.
"Something like that."
The woman sighed dramatically.
By morning half the town knew.
Clementine and Gideon focused on Bell.
It did not take long.
Josiah Bell had recently purchased three parcels adjacent to Black Vein.
He had also been negotiating with investors from Denver.
Clementine found something more useful.
A land filing submitted two weeks earlier.
The document claimed Black Vein had ceased continuous operation due to "abandonment and unsafe conditions."
If accepted, portions of Gideon's access route could be reassigned.
"He's trying to make the sabotage look like abandonment," Clementine said.
Gideon's expression darkened.
"He destroys the mine, then tells the territory I abandoned it."
"Yes."
"And acquires the road."
"Probably with Denver money."
They needed proof connecting Bell to the explosion.
Clementine found it in the least dramatic place possible.
The mercantile account book.
Bell's ranch foreman had purchased two coils of blasting fuse three days before the attack.
Clementine stared at the entry.
Her aunt looked over.
"Problem?"
"Who sold this?"
Beatrice adjusted her spectacles.
"I did."
"Did he say why?"
"Stump removal."
"In February?"
Beatrice blinked.
"That's rather stupid."
"Yes."
Gideon took the evidence to the marshal.
Bell was arrested before sunset.
But Bell was not a man accustomed to losing quietly.
At his preliminary hearing he attacked Clementine's credibility.
He never called her dishonest.
He did something subtler.
He called her emotional.
Infatuated.
Manipulated by Gideon.
Bell's attorney smiled at Clementine.
"Miss Mercer, is it true that you are romantically involved with Mr. Hayes?"
"Yes."
"And therefore financially interested in his success?"
"No."
"Do you expect to marry him?"
The courtroom stirred.
Clementine remained calm.
"That's none of your concern."
"It speaks to bias."
"So does the fact your client pays you."
Laughter erupted.
The judge struck his gavel.
Bell's attorney reddened.
He changed tactics.
"Miss Mercer, you are not a mining expert."
"No."
"Not an explosives expert."
"No."
"Not a land attorney."
"No."
"Then what exactly qualifies you to make these accusations?"
Clementine opened the ledger.
"Arithmetic."
She explained every transaction.
Fuse.
Freight.
Land purchases.
Bank transfers.
Dates.
Amounts.
By the end, the attorney had stopped smiling.
Bell was held for trial.
Outside the courthouse, Bitter Creek residents crowded around.
Some congratulated Clementine.
Others suddenly treated her as if they had admired her all along.
That irritated her more than open cruelty.
Arthur Dawes approached.
He removed his hat.
"Miss Mercer."
Clementine looked at him.
Arthur shifted.
"Seems I misjudged you."
"Yes."
He waited, apparently expecting forgiveness.
Clementine offered none.
"I suppose Hayes saw something we didn't."
There it was.
Even now.
Her worth validated because Gideon had recognized it.
Clementine stepped closer.
"No, Arthur."
He looked confused.
"Gideon didn't make me valuable."
Her voice remained even.
"He simply wasn't foolish enough to require another man's approval before noticing."
Arthur looked down.
Clementine walked away.
Gideon had heard.
He waited near the courthouse steps.
"You enjoyed that."
"Immensely."
"I could tell."
They walked toward the mercantile.
After several yards, Gideon stopped.
"Clementine."
She turned.
He looked strangely uncomfortable.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You're doing the thinking-loudly thing again."
He reached into his coat.
Clementine's heart stopped.
Gideon withdrew a small wooden box.
"Oh."
He looked almost annoyed by his own nerves.
"I planned this differently."
"Apparently planning is not our strength."
He opened the box.
Inside lay a simple silver ring.
No enormous diamond.
No ostentation.
A small piece of polished mountain silver surrounded a dark blue stone.
"Black Vein silver," he said.
Clementine touched it.
"What's the stone?"
"Sapphire."
"Expensive?"
"Does it matter?"
"No."
"Then reasonably priced."
She laughed.
Gideon looked at her.
"I don't want a bookkeeper."
"That's unfortunate. Your accounts will collapse within months."
"I don't want an employee."
Her humor faded.
"I don't want somebody living in my house because I pay her."
He took her hand.
"I want you there because it's your house too."
Clementine stopped breathing.
Gideon continued.
"I can't promise I'll become social."
"Thank God."
"I'll probably still forget to shave."
"Tragic."
"I don't know how to say pretty things."
"You do better than you think."
"And I will never ask you to become smaller so I can feel bigger."
Clementine's eyes filled.
Gideon looked suddenly worried.
"You're crying again."
"Ignore it."
"I can't."
"Then finish."
He swallowed.
"Clementine Mercer, will you marry me?"
She looked around.
Bitter Creek's street.
The same town where she had sat unwanted against a wall.
People watched from porches and windows.
Months earlier that would have mattered.
Now it didn't.
Clementine looked only at Gideon.
"Yes."
He exhaled as though he had been holding his breath since autumn.
"But I have a condition," she said.
His eyes narrowed.
"Of course you do."
"The wedding is small."
"Agreed."
"No ridiculous white dress."
"Agreed."
"No partners' choice dance."
"Strongly agreed."
"And Caleb is forbidden from making speeches."
Gideon finally laughed.
"That may be impossible."
He slipped the ring onto her finger.
It fit perfectly.
Clementine looked at him suspiciously.
"How did you know my size?"
"Aunt Beatrice."
"Traitor."
From the mercantile doorway, Beatrice shouted, "You're welcome!"
Clementine laughed.
For once, being watched did not feel like judgment.
It felt like witnesses.
But happiness had one final test waiting.
Because Josiah Bell was wealthy.
Wealthy men had lawyers.
And before the wedding could happen, Bell would make one last attempt to take from Gideon the mountain that had brought him everything.
Including Clementine.