Silas carried Adelaide’s trunk to the table.
“You said this contains everything.”
“It does.”
“Including evidence against a wealthy man?”
“Possibly.”
“That seems worth mentioning in a letter.”
“I didn’t know.”
Silas worked the brass latch.
Adelaide had packed the trunk herself.
Dresses.
Books.
A hairbrush.
Sewing supplies.
Her father’s Bible.
Two framed photographs.
A blue shawl that had belonged to her grandmother.
Silas removed each item carefully.
When he found a corset, he immediately looked away.
Adelaide watched him.
“Are you embarrassed?”
“No.”
“You’re staring at the wall.”
“Wall’s interesting.”
Jonah Pike laughed loudly enough to startle the mule outside.
Silas gave him a murderous look.
Adelaide smiled despite herself.
“Under the lining,” she said.
Silas removed the final layer of clothing.
Adelaide pointed toward the left corner.
“My father repaired the trunk three years ago. After he died, I noticed the bottom sounded hollow.”
Silas tapped the wood.
One corner answered differently.
He inserted the knife beneath the panel and lifted.
Inside lay a thin leather book wrapped in oilcloth.
Adelaide’s heart began pounding.
Silas placed it before her.
She opened it.
Her father’s handwriting filled the pages.
Dates.
Amounts.
Dock numbers.
Freight manifests.
Then initials.
T.V.
P.V.
J.C.
Several entries had been marked with a red pencil.
Silas leaned closer.
“What is it?”
“Two sets of accounts.”
She turned pages.
“Theodore’s official books showed one amount. Papa copied the actual cargo receipts here.”
“Meaning?”
Adelaide studied the figures.
“He was charging investors for shipments that never existed.”
Jonah whistled softly.
“How much?”
She calculated mentally.
“Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.”
In 1891, that was a fortune.
Silas’s expression darkened.
“That’s why Voss wants you.”
Adelaide nodded.
“He must know Papa kept records.”
“Did you tell anyone you had them?”
“No.”
“Then how would he know they’re with you?”
“I took the trunk from Papa’s office after his death. Theodore saw me.”
Jonah rubbed his beard.
“Your man Voss may not know whether the ledger’s in there. He just knows it might be.”
Adelaide stared at the pages.
All at once her father’s final months looked different.
His fear.
His silence.
The arguments with Theodore.
His insistence that Adelaide learn bookkeeping.
He had been preparing for something.
Maybe preparing her.
Silas closed the ledger.
“We take this to a federal marshal.”
Jonah nodded.
“Closest reliable one is Helena.”
“That’s days away.”
“Longer with her leg.”
Adelaide bristled.
“I have a name.”
Jonah looked embarrassed.
“Didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
Silas ignored them both.
“We wait until she can ride.”
Adelaide folded her arms.
“I can ride now.”
“No.”
“You enjoy saying that.”
“When you stop proposing foolish things, I’ll stop.”
“I crossed half the country to marry a stranger in the mountains.”
“Exactly.”
Jonah coughed to hide a laugh.
Adelaide glared at Silas.
“I cannot spend the rest of this story lying in a bed while men decide everything.”
Silas looked at her.
Something in his face softened.
“Then help us plan.”
That answer took the fight out of her.
They spent the afternoon studying the ledger.
Adelaide identified enough irregularities to prove her father had been documenting fraud.
But there was a problem.
The ledger showed numbers.
It did not show Theodore ordering the fraud.
Unless they found corroborating documents, his lawyers could claim an employee had created the false accounts.
“Papa refers to letters,” Adelaide said.
Silas leaned over.
“Where?”
She pointed to a note.
Correspondence locked in Voss office safe.
Jonah sighed.
“That’s inconvenient.”
Adelaide stared at the words.
“I know where his office is.”
Silas’s expression went flat.
“No.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we return to St. Louis tomorrow.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I think many things.”
“Dangerous habit.”
Over the next week, Adelaide healed.
Not gracefully.
She hated dependence.
Silas learned this quickly.
The first morning she attempted to carry a water bucket, he took it from her.
She took it back.
He took it again.
She grabbed the other handle.
For several seconds, they stood staring at each other over a bucket.
“Let go,” he said.
“You let go.”
“You’re injured.”
“My hands are not.”
“Your leg is.”
“The bucket is not attached to my leg.”
“Adelaide.”
“Silas.”
Finally, he sighed.
They carried it together.
That became the pattern.
Silas never treated her as weak.
But he also refused to pretend she was healed.
So they negotiated.
Adelaide prepared supper while seated.
She mended tack.
Balanced his books.
Sorted winter supplies.
By the sixth day, she could walk carefully across the cabin.
By the ninth, she reached the barn.
Silas stood close enough to catch her but never touched her unless she stumbled.
“Stop hovering,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“You’re six inches from my shoulder.”
“Mountain’s narrow.”
“We’re in a barn.”
“Very narrow barn.”
Adelaide laughed.
Silas stared at her.
“What?”
“You laugh different now.”
She stopped.
“How?”
“More.”
Something warm spread through her.
She looked away.
Silas’s cabin was slowly changing too.
Not because Adelaide deliberately tried to transform it.
Her things simply occupied space.
Her shawl appeared over the chair.
Her brush beside the basin.
A second cup beside his.
Fresh biscuits in the tin.
A vase made from an old bottle holding late mountain asters.
Silas never commented on these changes.
But once Adelaide moved the flowers to clean the shelf and found he had already filled the bottle with fresh water.
Neither of them mentioned it.
The marriage itself remained unsettled.
They had intended to marry when she arrived.
The accident had delayed everything.
So had Theodore.
One evening, Adelaide finally asked.
“Do you still want to?”
Silas looked up from sharpening a tool.
“Want to what?”
“Marry me.”
His hand stopped.
Adelaide immediately regretted asking.
“You don’t need to because you feel responsible.”
“I don’t.”
“You said you wanted a wife.”
“I do.”
“Then?”
Silas set the tool aside.
“When I wrote those letters, marriage was an arrangement.”
Adelaide swallowed.
“And now?”
“Now I know you.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is.”
She stared.
Silas stepped closer.
“You argue.”
“I prefer discuss.”
“You argue.”
“Continue.”
“You refuse help.”
“When unnecessary.”
“You hide ledgers belonging to dangerous criminals in trunks without telling anyone.”
“That was accidental.”
“You insult my cooking.”
“Only the stew.”
“You reorganized my accounts.”
“They were a disgrace.”
Silas’s beard shifted.
Then his expression changed.
“And when you laugh, the cabin doesn’t feel empty.”
Adelaide went still.
“When you’re asleep,” he continued, “I listen to make sure you’re breathing.”
“Silas.”
“When you went to the barn yesterday without telling me, I spent five minutes thinking you’d fallen.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
His voice dropped.
“So no, Adelaide. I don’t want to marry you because I feel responsible.”
He took one more step.
“I want to marry you because I think I’m beginning to care what happens to every stubborn inch of you.”
Adelaide’s throat tightened.
“That may be the strangest proposal I’ve ever heard.”
“How many have you had?”
“Two.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed.
“I dislike the other man already.”
“You should.”
Silence.
Adelaide smiled.
“So was that the proposal?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I can do better.”
“Can you?”
“I think so.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“Should I wait?”
“Probably.”
Before he could say more, a distant rifle shot cracked through the valley.
Silas moved instantly.
He pulled Adelaide away from the window.
Another shot.
Closer.
The dog outside barked wildly.
Adelaide’s heart hammered.
Silas took the rifle from above the door.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
He turned.
“Not this time.”
“Silas—”
“You can barely run.”
“I can shoot.”
His eyes narrowed.
Adelaide pointed toward the second rifle by the wall.
“My father taught me.”
Silas hesitated.
Then tossed it to her.
She caught it.
His eyebrows rose.
“Told you.”
They stepped outside.
The evening sky had turned purple behind the mountains.
Jonah Pike’s horse came racing up the trail without Jonah.
The saddle was empty.
Blood darkened one stirrup.
Adelaide felt cold.
Silas caught the reins.
Tied to the saddle horn was a folded piece of paper.
Silas opened it.
His face changed.
“What?” Adelaide asked.
He handed it to her.
The message contained only one sentence.
SEND ADELAIDE MERCER DOWN THE MOUNTAIN BEFORE SUNDAY, OR PIKE DIES.
Adelaide read it twice.
Her hands began shaking.
“No.”
Silas looked toward the dark trail.
“Vale.”
“He took Jonah because of me.”
“Because of Voss.”
“There is no difference.”
“There is.”
She looked at him.
Silas’s voice became hard.
“One makes you responsible. The other makes them responsible.”
Adelaide stared at the blood on the saddle.
“What do we do?”
Silas worked the rifle lever.
“We bring Jonah home.”
“And me?”
“You stay—”
He stopped himself.
Adelaide waited.
Silas looked at her wounded leg.
Then at the rifle in her hands.
Then at the mountains.
Finally he exhaled.
“You ride beside me.”
Adelaide nodded.
Silas stepped closer.
“But if I say get down, you get down.”
“Agreed.”
“If I say run—”
“I run.”
“If I say—”
“Silas.”
“What?”
“You are ruining the moment.”
For the briefest second, he smiled.
Then another rifle shot echoed far below.
The smile disappeared.
Adelaide looked toward the valley.
Theodore Voss had sent men across half a continent to bring her back.
He had threatened her reputation.
Her freedom.
Now he had taken the first friend she had made in Montana.
Adelaide tightened her grip on the rifle.
She had spent most of her life being told that a woman like her should make herself smaller.
For Theodore Voss, she had one final disappointment.
She was done shrinking.
---