We put it in because I had a run-in with some men over a land dispute and needed somewhere to keep important papers. It's dry and it's not visible even if you know the seller exists. She was quiet for a moment. If they get a court order, they'd have to get it from Judge Hartley and Billings and Sims is going to send him a wire tomorrow outlining the situation from your side before Fletcher can file anything from back east. Hartley's not a perfect man, but he's a fair one and he's cautious about outof territory legal claims.
He'll wait and hear both sides. He looked at her. We have a window, but we have to move the trunk tonight. Tonight? Croft won't move in the dark in unfamiliar country in December.
Whatever he does, he does it in daylight when he can see what he's dealing with. Tonight, we're safer than tomorrow morning. She stood up and went to her room without another word. He heard the trunk lid open and heard her in there for a few minutes, not packing, but going through things, the sound of papers being organized. When she came out, she had a leather satchel he hadn't seen before, thick with documents.
The most important things come with me, she said. The rest goes in the cellar with the trunk. Smart, he nodded. Moving the trunk in the dark was hard physical work that his shoulder protested the entire time, and Vivien pulled her share of it without being asked and without complaint, and they got it into the root cellar and behind the shelving, and covered it before midnight. She organized the hidden satchel beside it with the care of someone who had been thinking about this specific moment for months.
When they came back inside, she sat down at the kitchen table and put her hands flat on the surface and looked at them. I want to tell you something, she said. He sat down. I have money. She said, "Real money?
I know you know that. I told you the value of the estate, but I want you to understand what I mean when I say it, because I want to say something else, and I need you to understand the context first. She kept her eyes on the table. The gold certificates in the trunk, and there are others that my father's attorney is holding in Philadelphia. They're worth conservatively enough to buy this ranch and everything on it 50 times over, possibly more.
She looked up. I want to give you the ranch, clear and free. Whatever's needed to pay off any debt on it, whatever's needed to expand it, to buy the land to the south you've been looking at for 3 years. All of it. Whatever you need.