“Unless you’d rather wait until the barn collapses on your horses.” She stood, brushing dirt from her already filthy skirt. “I’ve done foundation work before. It’s not complicated, just hard.”
“It’s backbreaking.”
“Good thing I brought my back, then.”
They worked from sunrise to sunset, digging, hauling stone, and mixing mortar. Clara kept pace with him hour after hour, her hands bleeding by midday from rope and rock, but never slowing down. By dusk they had shored up the entire north wall. Caleb stood back, studying their work. It was solid. It would hold for years.
“You did good work today,” he said quietly.
Clara was washing her hands in the water bucket. “We did good work today.” She looked at him. “Caleb, stop waiting for me to fail.”
“Winter here is brutal,” he said. “Isolating, deadly for anyone who isn’t prepared.”
Clara met his eyes. “I know. I asked around in Helena before I came. Talked to 3 women who’ve survived Montana winters. Got their advice. Made my preparations.” She paused. “Did you really think I’d come out here blind?”
Caleb felt something he had not felt in years: shame. “I thought you’d be like the others,” he admitted.
“What others?”
“The ones who see the West as romantic. Adventure. Something exciting to try until it gets too hard.”
Clara’s expression softened slightly. “I’m not here for romance, Caleb. I’m here because I’m tired of being invisible. Tired of being useful but never valued. Out east, I was the woman who kept her uncle’s business running but never got credit. The one who raised her sisters but got called an old maid for not marrying young.” Her voice stayed steady. “I came west because out here, maybe, just maybe, work matters more than whether someone thinks I’m pleasant to look at.”
The irony was not lost on Caleb. He had rejected her for being too beautiful. She had come seeking a place where beauty did not matter.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Clara tilted her head. “For what?”
“For assuming. For judging you before I knew you.”
“People always do.” Clara turned toward the cabin. “The question is whether you’re capable of seeing past it.”
She walked away before he could answer.
That night, as Caleb lay in his bed listening to the wind rattle the shutters, he finally admitted the truth he had been avoiding since that first moment at the stagecoach stop. He was not afraid Clara would leave. He was afraid she would stay. Because if someone like her could choose a life with someone like him, scarred, bitter, and half broken by war and isolation, then maybe he was not as worthless as he had convinced himself. And that possibility terrified him more than any loneliness ever could.
Outside, the first snow of autumn began to fall.
The snow kept falling through the night. By morning, 3 in blanketed the north pasture. Caleb woke to the sound of the cabin door closing. He sat up fast, pain shooting through his bad hip. Clara’s bedroll was empty, neatly rolled and set aside. He found her in the barn already feeding the horses.
“Storm’s coming,” she said without turning around. “A real one. You can smell it.”
Caleb could. That sharp bite in the air that meant serious weather moving down from Canada.
“We need to bring the cattle closer,” he said.
“Already thought of that. How many are still in the high pasture?”
“About 60 head. Maybe more.”
Clara finished with the feed and faced him. Her breath came out in white clouds. “Then we’d better move fast. That storm hits while they’re scattered up there, we’ll lose half of them.”
“Clara, this isn’t—”
“Isn’t what? Isn’t work I can handle?” Her eyes flashed. “We’ve got maybe 6 hours before that sky opens up. Do you want to waste time arguing, or do you want to save your cattle?”
Caleb grabbed 2 saddles.
They rode out within 20 minutes. The temperature had dropped 10° since dawn and kept falling. Clara sat her horse like she had been born to it. Not pretty, not graceful, just efficient and solid.
“You ride well,” Caleb said.
“Had to. My uncle’s trading post was 20 mi from the nearest town. You either learned to ride or you walked.”
They found the first group of cattle bunched against a ravine wall, already nervous from the changing weather. Clara moved to flank them without being told, reading the herd’s mood as quickly as Caleb did.
“Easy,” she called to a particularly skittish heifer. “Nobody’s hurting you. We’re just going somewhere warmer.”
It took 3 hours to gather the scattered cattle and start them moving toward the lower pasture. Hard, cold hours. Caleb’s hands went numb inside his gloves. Clara’s face turned red from the wind, but she never slowed.
They were halfway back when Caleb heard it: hoofbeats, multiple riders coming fast.
“Clara, stop.”
She reined in immediately, her hand moving to the rifle strapped to her saddle. Caleb noticed that. Most women would have asked why first.
3 men crested the ridge, rough-looking and armed. Caleb recognized the one in front, Dan Mercer. He ran a spread 15 mi west and had a reputation for expanding his property lines whenever he thought he could get away with it.
“Boon,” Mercer called out. “Didn’t know you had help.”
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