“A mighty ambitious place for one young woman,” he said.
“It’s the only place that belongs to me.”
Gideon smiled with his mouth and not his eyes.
“There’s no shame in admitting some land is more trouble than it’s worth. I would be willing to relieve you of that burden.”
“You want my hill.”
“I want to keep you from starving on it.”
“That sounds generous.”
“It is.”
Clara looked at his gloves.
They were clean.
A man who came to a burned hill in clean gloves had not come to help.
“No,” she said. “It only sounds that way.”
Something changed in Gideon’s face.
Not anger.
Not yet.
Accounting.
He was recalculating what it might cost to remove a girl who had not learned to be grateful on command.
“Your father died owing money,” he said.
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“My father paid every honest debt.”
“To some people.”
“To every honest one.”
The horse stamped once.
Down by the road, two men had stopped near a wagon and suddenly found a wheel very interesting.
Mrs. Vale stood farther off with a basket over her arm.
No one came closer.
Alder Creek had always been better at witnessing than helping.
Gideon leaned forward.
“Young people often mistake stubbornness for strength.”
For one heartbeat, Clara imagined raising the shovel.
Not to strike him.
Just to make him step back.
Just to make one man in Alder Creek understand that a girl with mud on her skirt was not the same thing as a girl with no boundary.
She did not move.
Anger spends quickly.
Land does not.
“And older men,” she said, “often mistake wanting something for believing they already own it.”
Silence settled hard over the hill.
Even the wind seemed to pause.