Chapter 23
Elias Vane tried charm first.
Then outrage.
Then money.
Then threats.
By the end of the week, Sheriff Cole had written to authorities in St. Louis and discovered that Elias’s family had already reported Cora missing months earlier.
Not kidnapped.
Missing.
That mattered.
It meant even they had known she had left on her own.
The hired man, whose name was Amos Cutter, proved more practical than loyal.
Faced with charges for arson and assault, he told the sheriff exactly who had paid him and why.
I never learned what punishment Elias eventually received in St. Louis.
I did not need to.
The important part happened before they took him away.
He asked to speak to Cora.
She refused.
That was all.
No dramatic farewell.
No speech.
No forgiveness.
No final argument.
She simply refused to give him another piece of herself.
I think that hurt him more than anything.
For two nights, Cora and I stayed at the small boardinghouse in town.
We had one room.
One bed.
A chair.
I offered her the bed.
She told me my leg needed it more.
I told her I had survived sleeping on frozen ground.
She told me surviving something was not proof it was intelligent.
Eventually we both took the bed and placed a rolled blanket between us.
The blanket lasted half the night.
Not because anything improper happened.
I woke near dawn and found Cora gripping my shirt.
Her breathing came fast.
A nightmare.
I did not wake her immediately.
I put one hand over hers.
Slowly, her breathing calmed.
In the morning, she realized where her hand was.
She released me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
She looked embarrassed.
That was new.
I decided I liked being the one who was not embarrassed.
“You snore,” she said.
“There. Moment ruined.”
“You do.”
“You kicked me.”
“I was asleep.”
“So was I.”
“You snored while asleep. That is generally how it works.”
I stared at her.
She smiled.
And I knew, with sudden clarity, that I wanted to see that smile when there was no danger forcing it into hiding.
We returned to the cabin after the sheriff arranged for repairs to begin on the burned shed.
The mountain looked different.
Not safer.
Mountains are never safe.
But different.
The cabin waited in the clearing, smoke-darkened on one side, snow piled against the porch.
Cora stood beside the wagon.
“Well,” she said.