Instead of turning her over to the law, Silas offered her supper, saw through her ragged clothes, and hired her as his cook and bookkeeper.
Within three weeks, Eleanor’s sharp mind and meticulous hand had saved the ranch hundreds of dollars in fraudulent supplier charges.
The town whispered about the large, poor woman living under the wealthy rancher’s roof, but Silas had stood in her warm kitchen and told her: *“This is your home, Eleanor.
For as long as you want it to be.”*
Then, three weeks later, Silas’s wealthy cousin, Julian Vance-Montgomery, arrived from Philadelphia.
Julian wore a tailored beaver-skin coat, platinum spectacles, and an expression of pure, unadulterated contempt.
He stepped onto the polished pine floorboards of the Montgomery homestead, looked Eleanor up and down as she wiped flour from her hands, and turned to Silas.
“She’s after something, Silas,” Julian said, his cultured voice dripping with icy derision.
“You bring a vagrant thief into this house, hand her the estate books, and expect our family investors to ignore it?
She is an illiterate squatter positioning herself for a common-law claim.”
Silas slowly set down his porcelain coffee cup onto the saucer with a sharp, definitive click.
He rose to his full six-foot-three height, his broad shoulders casting a shadow across the hearth.
He did not look at Julian.
He looked at Eleanor, whose chin remained held high despite the cruel assessment.
“You’re wrong, Julian,” Silas said, his low baritone vibrating with an authority that shook the cedar rafters.
“She isn’t after a single thing.”
