She had buried her husband in Kansas three years ago, then fled the soft-voiced pity and casseroles and church ladies who treated grief like a public event. She’d told herself she was running toward work, toward distance, toward a clean stretch of sky that didn’t remember her name. But standing here now, watching the Mercer place loom out of the heat like a stubborn old scar, Clara realized she hadn’t escaped anything at all. She had simply walked into someone else’s ruins
The door opened before she reached the porch.
A man stepped out, tall and lean, built from sun and labor and something harsher than weather. His shirt was faded, his boots scuffed, his dark hair needed cutting, and his face looked as if it had learned not to expect softness. But it was his eyes that stopped her, gray and flat as a winter creek.
“Mrs. Whitfield.” Not a question. An identification.
“Mr. Mercer.” Clara set her carpetbag down carefully, as if sudden movements might break the air. “Clara Whitfield. The stage—”
“You’re here.” His gaze flicked past her toward the road, then back. “That all you brought?”
“I have a trunk. The driver left it at the crossroads.”
Something tightened near his mouth. Annoyance, maybe, or fatigue that had stopped bothering to disguise itself. “I’ll fetch it before supper. Come inside. I’ll show you the kitchen.”
