By the first week of May, people in Willow Creek had stopped asking whether Eleanor Whitmore would leave.
Instead, they began asking when she would fail.
There was apparently a difference.
Eleanor learned about the wager from Mrs. Peabody at the bakery.
Mrs. Peabody was seventy years old, half deaf, and incapable of keeping any information secret longer than the time required to cross Main Street.
“You’re doing better than Mr. Dawson expected,” she told Eleanor while wrapping two loaves of bread.
Eleanor paused.
“Mr. Dawson?”
“Oh, he put fifty cents on June fifteenth.”
Mrs. Peabody’s eyes widened.
She covered her mouth.
“I wasn’t meant to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
The old woman looked miserable.
Eleanor leaned against the counter.
“Mrs. Peabody.”
“Well.”
She lowered her voice, which made almost no difference.
“Some of the men started a little pool.”
“A pool.”
“Yes.”
“Regarding me.”
“Not you personally.”
Eleanor waited.
Mrs. Peabody sighed.
“They’re betting on the date you abandon the farm.”
Eleanor stared.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
Mrs. Peabody looked offended on her behalf.
“It’s shameful.”
“How much is in it?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“How much?”
“Perhaps twelve dollars.”
That was substantial money for something supposedly harmless.
“And what is the latest date?”
Mrs. Peabody frowned.
“I believe someone chose July thirty-first.”
Eleanor collected her bread.
“Who?”
“Benjamin Carter.”
Her fingers stopped.
“Benjamin?”
Mrs. Peabody nodded.
“He put his money on the latest date available.”
Eleanor left the bakery uncertain whether to be insulted.
Benjamin had participated in the wager.
Yet he had selected the date furthest away.
Had he believed she would eventually fail?
Or had he been trying to defeat everyone else’s expectations?
She decided she would ask him.
She did not get the opportunity that day.
When Eleanor returned home, one of the barn supports had shifted.
She heard the groan while carrying flour inside.
The sound was deep and wrong.
She dropped the sack.
The western wall of the barn tilted another inch.
Her stomach clenched.
Three days of rain had softened the ground.
She rushed inside.
The temporary braces were failing.
Eleanor grabbed a length of timber and wedged it beneath the sagging crossbeam.
The structure groaned again.
Dust drifted from the rafters.
She needed to get out.
Instead, Eleanor saw the tack chest beneath the unstable section.
Inside were her father’s old tools, seed records, and nearly every useful piece of equipment she owned.
She stepped toward it.
The barn cracked.
A voice shouted from outside.
“Eleanor!”
Benjamin appeared through the open door.
“What are you doing?”
“Moving the chest.”
“No.”
“I need—”
“Get out.”
The command in his voice angered her.
“I can handle—”
The roof shifted.
Benjamin crossed the barn in three strides, caught her around the waist, and pulled her backward as part of the western wall collapsed.
Boards crashed.
Dust exploded.
Eleanor stumbled against him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Benjamin’s arms remained around her.
She could feel his heart pounding.
Not hers.
His.
“You nearly got yourself killed,” he said.
Eleanor pulled away.
“I knew where I was standing.”
“The building didn’t.”
She turned.
Half the roof remained intact.
The western wall lay across the ground.
The tack chest was trapped beneath debris.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Months of work seemed suddenly ridiculous.
She had repaired windows and fences while the largest structure on the property waited patiently to remind her who was stronger.
Benjamin moved beside her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Eleanor.”
“No.”
He touched her elbow.
She jerked away.
“I said I’m fine.”
Benjamin’s hand dropped.
She hated the hurt that flickered across his face.
More than that, she hated the tears burning behind her eyes.
She walked toward the house.
Benjamin followed at a distance.
On the porch, Eleanor finally stopped.
“You should go.”
“I’ll help clear it.”
“I said go.”
Benjamin looked toward the collapsed barn.
“This isn’t failure.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You’re thinking it.”
Eleanor turned sharply.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“No.”
He removed his hat.
“But I know what it looks like when someone thinks one setback proves everybody else right.”
That struck too close.
Eleanor’s voice hardened.
“And what would you know about everybody else?”
Benjamin said nothing.
She remembered the bakery.
“The wager.”
His expression changed.
“So you heard.”
“You participated.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Benjamin leaned against the porch rail.
“When I came into town the week after you arrived, Dawson and Ames were taking bets.”
“And you joined them.”
“I put five dollars on July thirty-first.”
“Because you thought I’d last longest?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Benjamin looked directly at her.
“Because July thirty-first was the latest square on their board.”
Eleanor frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I told them they’d need another board.”
Silence.
Benjamin continued.
“They laughed. So I put five dollars down and said if you were still here in August, every cent in the pot went to you.”
Eleanor stared.
“They agreed?”
“They thought it was free money.”
Something inside her chest loosened.
Benjamin looked toward the barn again.
“The bet wasn’t whether you would fail.”
“That is exactly what it was.”
“For them.”
He met her eyes.
“For me, it was an investment.”
“An investment in what?”
“That look you’ll have when you walk into Dawson’s saloon on August first.”
Despite herself, Eleanor laughed.
Benjamin smiled.
It was the first full smile she had seen from him.
It changed his face.
Eleanor noticed.
She wished she had not.
They spent the afternoon recovering tools.
The tack chest survived with only one broken hinge.
The barn did not.
By sunset, Eleanor sat on the porch steps exhausted.
Benjamin stood in the yard.
“You need a new structure.”
“I need money.”
“You could rebuild smaller.”
“I need space for hay eventually.”
“You don’t have cattle yet.”
“Eventually.”
Benjamin nodded.
He had learned not to argue with her plans.
“I know a mill outside Helena selling rough-cut lumber cheaper than Willow Creek.”
“Still too expensive.”
“Maybe.”
He scratched his jaw.
“What about reclaimed timber?”
Eleanor looked up.
“From where?”
“Old Dalton homestead. House burned two winters ago. Their outer barn is still standing but unused.”
“Who owns it?”
“Mrs. Dalton.”
Eleanor sat straighter.
“Would she sell?”
“Probably.”
The next morning they rode to see her.
Mrs. Dalton was a widow with three grown sons who had moved east.
She agreed to sell the timber cheaply if Eleanor dismantled the barn herself.
Eleanor accepted before Benjamin finished calculating the work involved.
For nine days, they took the structure apart.
Benjamin brought two ranch hands from the Double C on the fifth day.
Eleanor protested.
“They’re being paid,” he said.
“By whom?”
“Me.”
“Benjamin.”
“They’re my employees. I decide their work.”
“And why would dismantling my barn matter to your ranch?”
Benjamin glanced toward his men.
“Excellent character building.”
One ranch hand snorted.
The other turned away to hide a grin.
Eleanor shook her head.
But she allowed them to stay.
By the end of May, a pile of reclaimed lumber stood beside the ruined Harker barn.
Eleanor had also acquired something she had not planned for.
Friends.
Mrs. Dalton began visiting.
Mrs. Peabody sent pies.
A twelve-year-old boy named Samuel whose father drank too much started appearing near the fence asking whether Eleanor needed chores done.
She paid him twenty cents to weed the garden.
He returned the next day.
Then the next.
Meanwhile, Benjamin came often enough that Eleanor learned his habits.
He drank coffee black.
He whistled when repairing harness.
He disliked onions but ate them rather than complain.
He had a scar beneath his left sleeve from a cattle accident.
He had been engaged once.
Eleanor learned that last detail from Mrs. Peabody.
Naturally.
The woman’s name had been Margaret Hale.
She had died of pneumonia six years earlier.
Afterward, Benjamin had expanded the Double C, worked relentlessly, and never courted anyone seriously again.
Eleanor found herself thinking about that when he was absent.
She disliked that too.
One evening they stood in the half-built replacement barn while sunlight faded across the valley.
The new frame was solid.
Straight.
Benjamin ran one hand along a beam.
“This will still be standing when we’re old.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“We?”
He froze.
“I meant—people.”
“People.”
“Yes.”
“Very precise.”
Benjamin looked uncomfortable.
Eleanor smiled.
He stared at her for a moment longer than necessary.
Then hoofbeats approached.
Robert Ames rode into the yard.
His gaze moved from Benjamin to Eleanor.
“I heard about the collapse.”
“It’s handled,” Eleanor said.
Robert dismounted.
“I came to offer assistance.”
“No, thank you.”
His expression tightened.
“You haven’t heard what I’m offering.”
“I’m saving us time.”
Robert glanced at Benjamin.
“This is a private matter.”
Benjamin began moving toward the door.
Eleanor stopped him.
“No. It isn’t.”
Robert’s face darkened.
“You’re becoming the subject of considerable talk.”
“I’ve been the subject of considerable talk since childhood. It hasn’t killed me.”
“You’re living alone while Carter visits almost every day.”
Benjamin’s expression hardened.
Eleanor stepped closer.
“My reputation is not your property.”
“I’m trying to prevent you from ruining what remains of it.”
She stared at him.
Then she understood.
Robert had not come to help.
He had come because Eleanor was succeeding.
A helpless woman might have reconsidered his proposal.
A woman with a productive farm had choices.
That bothered him.
“You thought I would fail,” she said.
Robert laughed.
“This farm will consume every dollar you have.”
“Perhaps.”
“You have no husband. No sons. No hired men.”
“I have myself.”
“That won’t be enough.”
Benjamin shifted.
Eleanor lifted one hand without looking at him.
She would handle this.
Robert continued.
“I could still make this arrangement respectable.”
Eleanor felt something cold settle inside her.
“Arrangement?”
“Marriage.”
Benjamin went completely still.
Robert smiled as though offering charity.
“You bring the land. I bring experience and capital. Under my management—”
“My land would become yours.”
“Our land.”
“No.”
Robert blinked.
Eleanor stepped closer.
“No.”
His voice lowered.
“You may not get another offer.”
Eleanor smiled.
“That is the first thing you’ve said today that gives me hope.”
Benjamin coughed into his fist.
Robert’s face turned crimson.
He climbed onto his horse.
“You’ll regret humiliating me.”
Eleanor watched him ride away.
Only after the sound of hoofbeats vanished did Benjamin speak.
“You handled that well.”
“I’ve had practice.”
He picked up a hammer.
Then paused.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ll lack offers.”
Eleanor looked at him.
Benjamin suddenly became fascinated with the hammer.
A warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with the evening heat.
She returned to work.
Neither mentioned the exchange again.
But something had changed.
And both of them knew it.
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