But that summer, Merrick arrived at the ranch carrying lumber instead of whiskey.
Gideon looked at the boards.
Then at Merrick.
Merrick rubbed the back of his neck.
“I heard the north fence needs work.”
Gideon could not follow the sentence.
Rosalie translated.
Gideon considered him.
Then handed Merrick a hammer.
It was not forgiveness.
But it was somewhere to begin.
By autumn, Rosalie had lived at Rook Ranch nearly a year.
The cabin changed.
Curtains appeared.
So did shelves.
Her mother’s blue sewing box was recovered from Silas’s belongings and now sat beside the bedroom window.
Inside, Rosalie discovered thirty-seven dollars in old banknotes.
Eleanor’s escape money.
Rosalie cried for an entire afternoon when she found it.
Then she did something her mother would have understood.
She used the money to establish a small medical room beside the ranch house.
Nothing grand.
A clean table.
Bandages.
Herbs.
Alcohol.
Needles.
