The papers were folded inside a brown envelope.
Nathaniel stared at them as though they were something dead.
The deputy shifted awkwardly on the porch.
“Sorry, Cole.”
Nathaniel’s voice remained flat.
“You didn’t write them.”
“No.”
Adeline stood inside the doorway.
One hand rested against the curve of her stomach.
“What do they say?”
Nathaniel did not answer immediately.
The deputy did.
“Thomas Bell filed a petition in county court. He’s claiming parental rights to the unborn child.”
Adeline’s face went white.
Nathaniel stepped partly in front of her.
“Can he do that?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“Then who is?”
“Samuel Reed in Casper.”
Nathaniel folded the papers.
“Thank you.”
The deputy nodded and rode away.
Nathaniel shut the door.
Adeline sat slowly.
“He’ll take the baby.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Nathaniel said again.
She looked up.
“I know he abandoned you. I know he tried to convince you to end the pregnancy. I know he married someone else.”
“Can we prove it?”
Nathaniel paused.
Adeline understood.
Thomas had handed her money in private.
His cruel words had been spoken without witnesses.
Thomas Bell was a banker’s son.
Educated.
Respectable.
He could stand before a judge and tell any version of events he wished.
Nathaniel crouched beside Adeline.
“We prove what we can.”
The next morning, they traveled to Casper.
Samuel Reed was sixty-two, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by money.
He read every document carefully.
“This is unusual,” he finally said.
Nathaniel leaned forward.
“Can Bell take the child?”
Reed looked at Adeline.
“Not easily.”
“That isn’t the same as no.”
“No.”
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened.
Reed folded his hands.
“The law generally favors a mother when the child is born outside marriage, particularly if the biological father abandoned her.”
“But?”
“But Bell is claiming he never abandoned Mrs. Cole. He claims she left Omaha without informing him of the pregnancy.”
Adeline shot upright.
“That’s a lie.”
“I believe you.”
“He gave me money!”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“No.”
“Letters?”
Adeline went still.
Nathaniel noticed.
“What?”
She stared at Reed.
“He wrote me once.”
“After you told him?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Adeline’s face changed.
“I left it in Omaha.”
Nathaniel exhaled.
“Where?”
“My old room.”
“Who owns the building?”
“Mrs. Brennan.”
Reed leaned forward.
“Would she still have your belongings?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then find out.”
Thomas’s petition created new gossip.
People who had smiled at Adeline began whispering when she entered stores.
At church, one woman moved her daughter away from the pew where Adeline sat.
Nathaniel saw it.
He stood.
Adeline caught his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
“They’re insulting you.”
“I know.”
Nathaniel looked across the church.
Half a dozen people suddenly found the hymnals fascinating.
Adeline whispered, “If you fight everyone who judges me, you’ll spend your whole life fighting.”
Nathaniel sat reluctantly.
“Could do worse.”
She squeezed his hand.
Two days later, Nathaniel sent a telegram to Omaha.
MRS BRENNAN STOP URGENT STOP DO YOU HAVE ADELINE FOSTER PERSONAL EFFECTS STOP ESPECIALLY LETTERS STOP REPLY COLE RANCH WYOMING
They waited.
Meanwhile, Thomas Bell did something Nathaniel had not anticipated.
He visited the ranch.
Nathaniel was repairing a fence when he saw a hired carriage approaching.
He rode back immediately.
Adeline stood on the porch when Thomas stepped down.
She looked at him as though a ghost had climbed from the ground.
Thomas removed his hat.
“Adeline.”
Nathaniel dismounted.
“You’re trespassing.”
Thomas ignored him.
Adeline spoke.
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“We have nothing to discuss.”
“About our child?”
Nathaniel moved forward.
“Our child is not your inheritance key.”
Thomas looked at him.
“I’m speaking to Adeline.”
“And she told you to leave.”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
“Do you really think playing father makes you one?”
Nathaniel’s hand curled into a fist.
Adeline stepped between them.
“Thomas.”
He looked at her.
“You do not get to speak to my husband that way.”
For the first time, Thomas seemed surprised.
Adeline continued.
“You told me a child would ruin your future.”
“I was frightened.”
“You offered me money.”
“I panicked.”
“You married Catherine Hall eleven days later.”
Thomas glanced aside.
“That arrangement was already complicated.”
Adeline laughed.
Nathaniel had never heard such bitterness from her.
“No, Thomas. It was simple. Her father owned the bank.”
Thomas stiffened.
Adeline moved closer.
“You did not come here for this baby.”
“You cannot know what I feel.”
“I know exactly what you feel when money is involved.”
Thomas looked at Nathaniel.
“You’ve poisoned her against me.”
Nathaniel actually laughed.
“She arrived with a fairly established opinion.”
Thomas’s face reddened.
He turned back to Adeline.
“My father’s estate belongs in my family.”
“There it is,” she whispered.
“You don’t understand the situation.”
“I understand perfectly.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“The trust is worth seventy thousand dollars.”
In 1880s Wyoming, seventy thousand dollars was a fortune large enough to buy ranches, businesses, influence—and perhaps judges.
Nathaniel’s stomach tightened.
Thomas continued.
“If the child is legally acknowledged as mine, that money eventually belongs to him.”
“Or her,” Adeline said.
Thomas hesitated.
That tiny hesitation told her everything.
“You don’t even imagine a daughter.”
Thomas’s expression became impatient.
“I am offering security.”
“No.”
“You could live comfortably.”
“I already do.”
Thomas glanced around the modest ranch house.
“You call this comfortable?”
Nathaniel stepped forward.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Adeline raised a hand.
“No, Nathaniel.”
She turned toward Thomas.
“Yes. I call this comfortable.”
Her voice grew stronger.
“Because when I became ill, Nathaniel rode through darkness to find help. Because he built a cradle before this child had ever kicked beneath his hand. Because he speaks to the baby every night when he thinks I’m asleep.”
Nathaniel looked embarrassed.
Thomas stared at him.
Adeline’s eyes filled.
“You wanted this child gone when there was nothing to inherit.”
Thomas said nothing.
“That is the difference between you.”
She pointed toward the road.
“Leave.”
Thomas replaced his hat.
“You’ll regret humiliating me.”
Nathaniel’s expression darkened.
Thomas looked at him.
“This isn’t over.”
“No,” Nathaniel replied. “It isn’t.”
The carriage left.
Adeline held herself together until it disappeared.
Then she began trembling.
Nathaniel wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“What if money wins?”
Nathaniel pressed his cheek against her hair.
“Then we make money work harder than it ever has.”
Five days later, the telegram from Omaha arrived.
Mrs. Brennan had Adeline’s old trunk.
And inside it were three letters from Thomas Bell.
Nathaniel and Adeline traveled east as soon as weather allowed.
The journey was exhausting for Adeline, now nearly six months pregnant, but she refused to remain behind.
“I’m not letting men decide what happened to me while I sit at home.”
Nathaniel did not argue.
Mrs. Brennan welcomed them tearfully.
“I knew that man was no good.”
She brought out the trunk.
Adeline’s hands shook as she opened it.
Inside were old dresses.
Books.
A photograph of her parents.
And beneath a stack of linen—
three envelopes.
Thomas’s handwriting.
Adeline opened the first.
Nathaniel watched her expression.
She handed it to him.
He read.
Thomas had written that he was “not prepared to destroy his prospects over one mistake.”
The second offered money.
The third was worse.
If you have any sense, Adeline, you will make certain there is no child by the time I return.
Nathaniel’s hand tightened until the paper crumpled.
“Easy,” Adeline whispered. “We need that.”
Nathaniel smoothed it carefully.
Mrs. Brennan crossed herself.
“What kind of man writes that?”
“The kind suing for custody now,” Nathaniel replied.
They returned to Wyoming with evidence.
But Thomas Bell had money.
And money bought preparation.
At the first hearing, his lawyer argued that the letters represented panic, not permanent abandonment.
Thomas himself stood before the judge and performed remorse beautifully.
“I was young,” he said.
Nathaniel nearly stood from his chair.
Adeline gripped his knee.
Thomas continued.
“I was afraid. I said things I regret. But learning of my father’s death forced me to reconsider what family means.”
Nathaniel leaned toward Samuel Reed.
“He rehearsed that.”
Reed whispered, “Of course he did.”
The judge ruled that no custody determination could be made before the baby was born.
But Thomas could renew his claim afterward.
Outside the courthouse, Thomas smiled at Nathaniel.
“Enjoy pretending while it lasts.”
Nathaniel moved toward him.
Adeline stepped between them.
“No.”
Thomas laughed and walked away.
That night, back at the ranch, Nathaniel sat beside the cradle.
Adeline entered quietly.
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“You look like you do.”
Nathaniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“I can protect cattle from wolves. Land from foreclosure. A house from fire.”
He looked at the cradle.
“I don’t know how to protect a child from a man with lawyers.”
Adeline knelt beside him.
“You already are.”
“How?”
“By staying.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
She took his hand and placed it over her stomach.
The baby kicked.
Nathaniel smiled despite everything.
Then suddenly Adeline inhaled sharply.
Her face twisted.
“What?”
Another pain struck.
She grabbed his wrist.
“Nathaniel…”
He stood.
“What is it?”
Her eyes widened with fear.
“It’s too early.”
Then Nathaniel saw water spreading across the floor beneath her dress.
The baby was coming.
Two months early.
And the nearest doctor was fifteen miles away.