Chapter 7 - The Woman in the Photograph
Amos escaped Red Creek.
The family returned to the mountain cabin.
Winter deepened.
Maeve believed the worst had passed.
Then Tess found a photograph.
It showed Gideon beside Sarah.
Between them stood another man.
Amos.
Maeve confronted Gideon.
“You knew him before the mercantile.”
Gideon's silence answered.
“How?”
“Sarah knew him.”
“How?”
“She was from Red Creek.”
Maeve's heart began pounding.
Gideon explained.
Years earlier, Amos had attempted to buy Sarah's family property.
Sarah refused.
After her death, Amos had approached Gideon about land near Black Pine Ridge.
Gideon rejected him.
“So he knew you were grieving.”
“Yes.”
“And he sent me here deliberately.”
Gideon nodded.
Maeve felt sick.
Amos had expected the cabin to destroy her.
Perhaps he had hoped she would run away, disappear, or die.
Instead, she had found something he never expected.
A family.
That night, Maeve stood outside beneath the stars.
Gideon joined her.
“You regret coming?”
Maeve thought about Toby's hand around her wrist.
Tess sleeping against her.
The warm hearth.
“No.”
Gideon looked at her.
“Neither do I.”
Neither moved closer.
They did not need to.
May you like
Something had already changed.
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