The first thing Clara Hayes asked after Wyatt Miller told her she had been missing for almost three months was not how the town had reacted.
She did not ask who had searched for her.
She did not ask whether her parents had survived the grief, whether Murphy’s Feed and Supply had replaced her behind the counter, or whether anyone had found the wreckage of her pickup.
She asked about her husband.
“Does Tom know?”
Wyatt stared at her.
The blue tarp snapped softly in the mountain wind behind them. Adrian stood beside Clara with his muzzle lowered, as if the old red roan understood that any sudden movement might frighten her.
“Know what?” Wyatt asked.
Clara’s cracked lips trembled.
“That I’m alive.”
“No.”
Her eyes closed.
For a moment Wyatt thought relief had crossed her face.
That bothered him.
He leaned closer. “Clara?”
She opened her eyes again.
“You can’t tell him.”
Wyatt was certain he had misunderstood.
“What?”
“Please.”
Her fingers tightened in Adrian’s mane.
“Don’t tell Tom.”
The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Wyatt slowly sat back on his heels.
Three months earlier, he had watched Tom Hayes stand beside an empty coffin while nearly every person in Pine Creek offered condolences. Tom had barely spoken. His shoulders had remained bent as neighbors hugged him. At the end of the service, he had pressed his face against Clara’s yellow scarf and wept.
Wyatt remembered thinking no man should ever have to bury a wife without even having a body to put in the ground.
Now Clara looked terrified at the sound of Tom’s name.
“What happened?” Wyatt asked.
Her gaze moved toward the edge of the cliff.
“I can’t.”
“You’re freezing to death.”
“Wyatt—”
“And that leg is infected.”
“I know.”
“If I don’t get you off this mountain, whatever you’re afraid of won’t matter.”
Her expression tightened.
The storm had begun swallowing the western peaks. Fine grains of snow hissed against the limestone.
Wyatt had spent enough winters in Montana to understand their situation.
They did not have hours.
They had minutes.
“We can talk after we get you somewhere warm,” he said.
Clara grabbed his sleeve.
“No town.”
“What?”
“Don’t take me into Pine Creek.”
“Clara—”
“I mean it.”
Her grip was surprisingly strong for a woman who looked barely capable of sitting upright.
“If he knows I’m alive, he’ll finish it.”
Wyatt felt something cold move through him that had nothing to do with the weather.
“Finish what?”
Clara looked directly into his eyes.
“What he started.”
The mountain went silent.
Even the wind seemed to disappear.
Wyatt thought of the wrecked pickup crushed against the bridge support. He thought about the shattered windshield. The jammed driver’s door.
He thought about Tom Hayes telling searchers that Clara had driven toward Hamilton during the storm because she wanted to check on her elderly aunt.
He remembered Tom blaming himself for not insisting she stay home.
“You’re saying Tom caused the accident?”
Clara swallowed.
“I’m saying we need to leave.”
That was enough.
Wyatt did not press her.
Not there.
He examined her leg again.
The homemade splint ran from ankle to thigh. Beneath strips of filthy cloth, the swelling was severe.
“You’re not walking.”
“I know.”
“Can you ride?”
She looked at Adrian.
“Maybe.”
“That’s not confidence-inspiring.”
A ghost of Clara’s old humor passed through her face.
“I’ve had a difficult fall.”
Despite everything, Wyatt almost smiled.
“Still sarcastic.”
“Apparently.”
“That’s encouraging.”
He stood and pulled his gloves back on.
Getting Clara onto Adrian took nearly fifteen minutes.
She cried out once when Wyatt lifted her.
The sound stopped him cold.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Just do it.”
He wrapped the sheepskin coat around her, tied the blanket over it, and positioned her injured leg as carefully as possible.
Wyatt would walk.
Adrian would carry Clara.
The storm caught them thirty minutes later.
Snow came sideways.
Visibility disappeared.
The trail Wyatt remembered vanished under white.
He kept one hand on Adrian’s bridle and the other against the rock wall.
Behind him, Clara drifted in and out of consciousness.
“Stay awake,” he shouted.
“I am.”
“You’ve been quiet for five minutes.”
“I’m tired.”
“You sleep when we’re inside.”
“Bossy.”
“Yes.”
“You always were.”
That caught him by surprise.
“You remember that?”
“You yelled at me once for climbing the stockroom ladder at Murphy’s.”
“You were wearing high heels.”
“They were boots.”
“They had three-inch heels.”
“That doesn’t make them not boots.”
Wyatt glanced back.
Her eyes were closed.
“Clara.”
“I’m awake.”
“Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Anything.”
She remained silent long enough that Wyatt wondered if she had fainted.
Then she said, “Tom hated horses.”
Wyatt frowned.
“What?”
“He said they were unpredictable.”
Adrian snorted.
“Tell Adrian that.”
Clara’s hand rested weakly on the horse’s neck.
“He hated Adrian most.”
That stopped Wyatt mentally, though his feet kept moving.
“Tom barely knew my horse.”
“He knew him.”
“How?”
Clara opened her eyes.
“Because Adrian was there the night I disappeared.”
Wyatt turned his head sharply.
“What did you say?”
But Clara had gone limp.
“Clara!”
He caught her as she began sliding from the saddle.
Her skin felt burning hot despite the cold.
“Damn it.”
Wyatt pushed faster.
There was one place he could take her without passing through Pine Creek.
His ranch.
Double K sat eight miles east of town, tucked beneath a line of foothills. His ranch manager, Ben Crowley, had gone to Missoula to spend Thanksgiving weekend with his daughter. The ranch hands had scattered to families for two days.
Wyatt’s house should be empty.
No questions.
No telephones ringing.
No Tom Hayes.
They reached Double K after dark.
Wyatt barely remembered the final mile.
His shoulders screamed from helping keep Clara upright. Snow had turned his beard white.
When the ranch house finally emerged between the cottonwoods, Adrian gave a tired nicker.
“You and me both,” Wyatt whispered.
He got Clara inside.
Heat came slowly.
Wyatt started the wood stove, boiled water, found clean blankets, and put Clara in the downstairs guest room.
He had no medical training beyond what ranch life forced a man to learn, but he knew enough to understand that Clara needed a doctor.
The nearest physician Wyatt trusted was Dr. Samuel Grant.
Samuel had delivered half of Pine Creek and stitched up the other half.
He was also Wyatt’s oldest friend.
Wyatt went to the kitchen telephone.
His hand hovered over the receiver.
Clara’s voice came from behind him.
“No.”
She stood—or tried to stand—in the doorway.
Her injured leg immediately buckled.
Wyatt caught her.
“What are you doing?”
“No doctor.”
“You have an infection.”
“No one can know.”
“Sam can keep his mouth shut.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
She looked at him.
Fear filled her eyes.
Not confusion.
Not trauma.
Fear.
Finally she whispered, “Tom wasn’t alone.”
Wyatt said nothing.
Clara glanced toward the windows as though expecting someone to be outside.
“The night I disappeared, somebody was waiting at the bridge.”
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
“What happened?”
Her breathing became shallow.
“I found papers in Tom’s desk.”
“What kind of papers?”
“Land records. Insurance forms. Loan documents.”
Wyatt’s expression changed.
Clara continued.
“My signature was on them.”
“You signed something?”
“No.”
Wyatt stared.
“He forged you?”
“A lot more than once.”
The wood stove popped.
Clara flinched.
“I confronted him. He told me I didn’t understand business. He said he’d fixed everything and all I had to do was stay quiet.”
“What had he done?”
“My grandfather left me two hundred and eighty acres north of town.”
Wyatt knew the land.
Everybody did.
Hayes Meadow.
Prime grazing ground with creek access.
“I inherited it before Tom and I married,” Clara said. “The deed was mine.”
Wyatt nodded.
“He borrowed against it.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. More than we could ever repay.”
“And when you discovered it?”
“He said we should drive into town and talk.”
Her face went pale.
“Instead, he took me toward the river.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightened.
“You weren’t driving.”
“No.”
But Tom had told everyone Clara had been alone.
“He stopped near the bridge,” Clara whispered. “There was a truck waiting.”
“Then what?”
“We fought.”
Her eyes became distant.
“He told me to sign a document transferring Hayes Meadow to him. I refused.”
Wyatt could almost see it now.
Storm.
Flooded river.
Dark road.
A frightened woman in a pickup with her husband.
“What happened to the truck?”
“Tom got out.”
“And you?”
“He locked me inside.”
Wyatt went completely still.
Clara’s voice became almost inaudible.
“He put the truck in neutral.”
She covered her mouth.
“He pushed it toward the river.”
Wyatt felt rage rise through his chest.
“He tried to kill you.”
Tears gathered in Clara’s eyes.
“The truck hit something before it went over. The passenger door opened. I crawled out.”
“But they found it against the bridge.”
“I fell down the embankment. The flood took me.”
She closed her eyes.
“I remember water. Trees. Rocks. Then waking on the riverbank miles downstream.”
“With the broken leg?”
“The leg happened later.”
“How?”
“I heard men searching.”
“Search volunteers?”
Clara shook her head.
“They weren’t calling my name.”
Wyatt felt his stomach twist.
“What were they saying?”
She looked at him.
“Find the body.”
Outside, Adrian suddenly whinnied.
Both of them turned toward the window.
A second later, headlights appeared at the end of Wyatt’s driveway.
Clara’s face drained of color.
“No.”
Wyatt moved toward the window.
“Stay here.”
“Wyatt—”
“Stay.”
The headlights came closer.
One vehicle.
Dark pickup.
It stopped beside the barn.
The driver’s door opened.
A man climbed out.
Wyatt recognized him immediately.
Tom Hayes.
And three months after burying his wife, Tom was walking toward Wyatt Miller’s front door.