10 mi to the east, the Miller Place. " But they moved on last winter. So we are alone, she said. Eli glanced at her. Then we are alone. The finality of it struck her.
If she screamed here, no one would come. If she ran, there was nowhere to go. She was tethered to this stranger by a piece of paper and a gold ring. They crested a rise as the sun dipped below the mountains, painting the sky in bruises of purple and red. Below them, in a shallow valley, lay the ranch.
Maggie's heart sank. She had not expected a palace, but she had hoped for a home. The house was a low, sprawling structure of weathered timber. The wood bleached gray by the sun. The roof of the porch sagged dangerously on one side.
The fence lines that ran out from the barn were broken in places, wire trailing in the dirt. A windmill creaked dismally, turning lazily in the evening breeze. It looked defeated. It looked like a place where hope had come to die and had been buried in the yard. Eli pulled the horses up near the porch.
He did not look at her. He looked at the house and she saw the shame in his posture. "It needs work," he said gruffly. "I I have not had the time since he stopped. Since the accident, since she died, the words hung unsaid.
"It is standing," Maggie said, forcing a strength into her voice she did not feel. "That is enough for a start. " Eli looked at her, surprised. He nodded once sharply. "I will take the horses to the barn. The door is unlocked. " Maggie climbed down, her new boot stiff and hurting her feet.
She walked up the steps, avoiding the rotted plank on the bottom, and pushed open the door. The inside was clean, but stark. A wood stove, a table with two chairs, a shelf of tattered books. There were no curtains on the windows, no rugs on the floor. It was a man's house, functional and barren.
She stood in the center of the room, clutching her reticule, feeling the silence press against her ears. She was Mrs. Eli Mercer. She was the mistress of this broken kingdom. She took a breath, smelling the stale air of the house, wood smoke and loneliness.
She set her bag on the table. She would not cry. She had promised herself on the train platform in New York that she was done crying. She walked to the stove and opened the firebox. Cold ash.
She went outside to the wood pile. She would start a fire. She would make coffee. she would prove that she was not just a mouth to feed. By the time Eli came in from the barn, the lamps were lit and the coffee was boiling. He stopped in the doorway, blinking against the light.
He looked at the table set with two tin cups and then at her. He looked exhausted. The lines around his eyes were deep trenches of shadow. "Thank you," he said. They ate a supper of cold biscuits and bacon in silence.