Her father sold her to a deaf rancher for fifty dollars. On the eighth night, she saw something moving inside his ear.
On the eighth night of their marriage, Rosalie Ashford held an oil lamp close to her husband’s face and saw something black moving deep within his swollen ear. Gideon Rook was doubled over in pain, gripping the table as she reached for her sewing tweezers. Whatever had been tormenting the deaf rancher since childhood was alive.
Eight days earlier, Rosalie’s father had sold her future for fifty dollars.
The Ashford family was drowning in debt, and Rosalie had become the easiest bargaining chip. Her father called the arrangement practical. Her drunken brother, Merrick, told her she should be grateful.
No one asked what Rosalie wanted.
Snow blanketed Coldwater on her wedding morning as she stood before a cracked mirror, wearing her late mother’s faded ivory dress.
