"I've been making lists in my head since three in the morning," she said finally.
"How are they coming out?"
"The same way they've been coming out for two weeks."
She paused.
"The same direction every time. And I keep thinking I'm missing something. Some factor I haven't accounted for. Some reason it's the wrong direction."
She stopped.
"And I'm not missing anything. I've just been waiting for a reason to be afraid of the answer."
Gideon looked at the side of her face.
"Clara," he said.
"I'm going to tell Eleanor Harmon no," she said. "I'm going to write to the agency and tell them the placement stands and that the error has been resolved to both parties' satisfaction."
She turned and looked at him then.
Directly.
In the dark and the cold, with the stars doing their indifferent thing above them.
"And I'm going to do it because I want to. Not because I have nowhere else to go. Not because it's the practical choice. Because I want to. And because my boys have already decided. And because..."
She stopped.
Something moved across her face.
Something she let move across it rather than stopping.
"Because you told me the truth when you could have just managed the situation. And I haven't had a lot of that."
Gideon looked at her.
"All right," he said.
She blinked.
"All right?"
"What did you want me to say?"
She looked at him for a moment.
Then something happened to her expression that he hadn't seen before.
Not the near-smile she sometimes permitted herself.
Not the dry acknowledgement she used when something struck her as both annoying and funny.
Something more open than either.
Something that was tired and relieved and a little undone all at once.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Something more than all right, maybe."
"You're staying," he said. "That's everything."
She looked at him for another moment.
Then she turned back to the yard, the snow, and the dark.
"It's cold," she said.
"It's Wyoming in December," he said.
"Yes. Come inside," she said. "I'll make breakfast."
They went inside.
She told the boys after breakfast.
Not formally.
Clara Whitmore did not do formal announcements, and four boys ranging from six to 13 did not sit still for them anyway.
She told them while they were still at the table, dishes in various states of cleared.
Noah with syrup on his chin that no one had caught yet.
Miles reading something he'd snuck to the table under the edge of his plate.
"We're staying," she said. "At the ranch. I've decided."
Noah looked up.
"For how long?"
"For good," she said.