“You will regret that.”
Clara’s hand shook.
“I already do.”
But Adeline was climbing into her carriage.
“By tomorrow,” she said, “every decent person in Cedar Valley will know what you are.”
Clara stood in the yard until the carriage vanished.
Then she walked into the barn, sat behind the hay bales, and pressed both hands over her face.
This was how it ended.
The agency would hear of it. Gideon would send her away to avoid scandal. The children would think she had chosen to leave. Cedar Valley would nod and say it had known all along.
She was still there when Gideon found her near sundown.
“Adeline came by.”
Clara did not lift her head.
“I hit her.”
“So I heard.”
“She insulted me.”
“I assumed.”
“She said I was trying to steal Lydia’s place.”
Gideon was quiet.
Then he sat on the barn floor beside her.
“Adeline was never Lydia’s friend. She liked having Lydia nearby because Lydia made her feel generous.”
Clara looked at him.
“You aren’t angry?”
“Oh, I’m angry.”
“At me?”
“At the fact I didn’t hit her first.”
A laugh escaped Clara before she could stop it.
It sounded broken, but it was still laughter.
Gideon looked at her then, really looked, without suspicion or bitterness.
“You are not being dismissed.”
“You should dismiss me. She’ll make life miserable.”
“She has been making life miserable in this valley for years. At least now someone gave her a reason.”
“She’ll hurt your standing.”
“My standing did not feed my children.”
His voice turned low.
“You did.”
The words lodged somewhere beneath Clara’s ribs.
She had no defense against them.
Trouble came exactly as promised.
At first, it wore small faces.
The storekeeper claimed supplies were unavailable. The bank requested early payment on a minor loan Gideon had planned to settle in spring. Three families who had once traded labor with the Ward ranch suddenly became busy. Boys in town threw stones at Clara’s wagon and shouted that desperate women should know when to leave.
Then a hay shed burned.
Gideon found the door lock forced open and wagon tracks half-hidden in snow.
“Accident?” Clara asked, though she already knew.
“No.”
They fought the fire with buckets until the roof collapsed. Three months of feed went up in smoke. Gideon stood before the ruins, hands black with soot, face emptied of everything but fury.
“That hay was winter.”
“We’ll find more.”
“From whom? Adeline’s brother controls half the supply lines, and every rancher in the valley owes somebody money.”
That night, Gideon rode into town and returned with a split knuckle, a bruised cheek, and bad news.
No one would sell hay.
No one openly refused, but every answer sounded the same.
Sorry.
Short supply.
Bad season.
Nothing to spare.
Clara cleaned the blood from his hand in the kitchen.
“You hit someone.”