That frightened her more than she expected.
Daniel had left one morning during a storm.
He never came home alive.
Different circumstances.
Same terror.
Clara swallowed.
“How long?”
“Three weeks. Four.”
“Winter travel?”
“I can manage.”
She looked down.
Everett approached.
“Tell me not to.”
Clara’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“If you need me here, say it.”
The offer almost broke her.
Three years earlier she might have begged Daniel not to ride.
She had spent every day since wondering whether that would have saved him.
Clara touched Everett's coat.
“I need you to come back.”
His eyes softened.
“That I can promise.”
She nodded.
“Then go.”
Everett left two days later.
For the first time, their letters resumed out of necessity.
One from Wyoming.
Another from Colorado.
Clara had forgotten the agony of waiting for post.
But the letters felt different now.
She knew the hand that had written them.
The face.
The voice.
She could imagine Everett bent over a table, rubbing his jaw while trying to decide whether a sentence sounded foolish.
His first letter:
Clara,
I discovered something unpleasant.
Your coffee is not nearly as bad as I claimed. Everything else tastes weak now.
I resent this.
She answered:
Everett,
This is because I make coffee correctly.
You have spent years drinking brown water prepared by cattlemen.
His second letter was more serious.
Margaret is exhausted. The children are good. Samuel left more debt than I knew. I keep thinking about what you wrote after Daniel died, about discovering that grief includes learning all the things the dead did not tell us.
I understand that better now.
Clara read that line repeatedly.
Then came a letter that disturbed her.
Margaret asked why I never came back for her after Samuel died.
Nothing more about it.
Clara stared.
She knew the history.
Everett had loved Margaret before she chose Samuel.
Now Samuel was dead.
Everett was back.
Margaret had children.
A family.
The kind of life Everett once thought he wanted.
Jealousy arrived ugly and immediate.
Clara hated it.
She did not answer for four days.
Everett's next letter came before hers left.
I should have finished that thought.
I told Margaret there was nothing to come back for because whatever I felt twenty years ago belongs to people who no longer exist.
Then I told her about you.
Clara stopped breathing.
She continued reading.
She asked whether you were beautiful.
I said yes.
She asked whether I loved you.
The next line was written darker, as if Everett had paused with the pen pressed too hard.
I told her I am trying not to say that before I have the right.
Clara sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
Then she answered:
Everett,
That right may be closer than you think.
She mailed it before she could lose courage.
Everett returned eighteen days later.
Not four weeks.
Clara saw his horse coming south through falling snow.
She was outside before he reached the gate.
Everett dismounted.
For one second they simply stared.
Then Clara ran.
She had never been a woman who ran toward men.
She did now.
Everett caught her.
She buried her face against his coat.
“You came back.”
He held her tighter.
“I promised.”
Clara pulled away.
“You got my letter?”
“Yes.”
“What did it mean?”
She glared.
“You know what it meant.”
“I have been riding for six days. Humor me.”
Clara stared up at him.
Snow melted in his hair.
His face was thinner.
Tired.
Beautiful.
She touched his cheek.
“It meant you may say it.”
Everett stopped breathing.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
“You were waiting?”
“Two years.”
She laughed through tears.
“That is ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t even know what I looked like.”
“I knew enough.”
“No.”
Clara shook her head.
“That matters.”
Everett's expression changed.
She continued.
“You loved letters.”
“You loved what I told you.”
“You created a woman in your mind.”
Everett waited.
Clara whispered:
“And then you met me.”
“Yes.”
“What if I had been completely different?”
“I expected you to be.”
That surprised her.
“What?”
“People aren't letters.”
He touched her face.
“You interrupt me more.”
She almost laughed.
“You are less patient.”
“Careful.”
“You move things when nervous.”
“Everett.”
“You snore.”
Her mouth opened.
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
“Leave.”
He laughed.
Clara hit his chest.
Everett caught her hand.
“I loved the woman in the letters.”
His voice softened.
“Then I met the woman who wrote them.”
Clara stopped.
“And she is harder.”
“Louder.”
“More stubborn.”
“Funnier.”
“Far more beautiful than I imagined.”
Her eyes filled.
“And I love her more.”
Clara kissed him before he finished.
Spring came slowly.
Everett repaired Harmon ranch.
Clara expanded her garden.
They remained on separate properties.
That confused Willow Creek.
Most people assumed an engagement would come immediately.
It did not.
Clara needed time.
Everett gave it.
He proposed in April.
Badly.
They were fixing irrigation ditching.
Clara stood ankle-deep in mud wearing an old brown skirt.
Everett was equally filthy.
He suddenly said:
“Marry me.”
Clara thought she misheard.
“What?”
“Marry me.”
She stared.
“Now?”
“No.”
“That would be difficult.”
“I mean eventually.”
“Is this your proposal?”
Everett looked uncertain.
“Yes.”
Clara put down the shovel.
“Everett Callahan, you wrote me forty-seven letters and this is the best marriage proposal you can manage?”
He frowned.
“I had a better one.”
“Where?”
“In my head.”
“Perhaps retrieve it.”
Everett sighed.
Then climbed out of the ditch.
He wiped muddy hands on his trousers.
“Clara Bellamy.”
She folded her arms.
“Yes?”
“I have lived in enough places to know that owning land doesn’t make somewhere home.”
Her expression softened.