Iris’s hand stopped.
“Your brother did that?”
“Stepbrother. Warren Vale.”
“Names don’t soften bones.”
“No,” Callum said. “They don’t.”
Iris cleaned the wound. It was deep enough to need stitches and angry enough to worry her. He had lost blood. He had been riding hurt through mountain weather with a sick baby against his chest.
Either he was foolish, or he loved that child more than he loved his own life.
Maybe both.
“Why would your brother strike you while your baby is sick?”
Callum looked toward June.
“Because my father left Blackthorn Ridge to me. All of it. Warren believed half should be his.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father knew him.”
That was answer enough.
The wind slammed against the wall so hard the lamp trembled.
Callum lowered his voice.
“Three nights ago, Warren sent men to the north pasture house where June and I were staying. My nursemaid was killed. My foreman was shot. I got June out through the washroom window while they searched upstairs.”
Iris felt the room shrink around her.
“Why take the baby?”
“If I die, she inherits through me. Warren petitions for guardianship. He controls the ranch until she’s grown.”
Iris looked at the tiny girl fighting for breath near the stove.
“That man wants to turn a baby into a bank account.”
Callum’s face went still.
“Yes.”
“Will he come here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I pray he doesn’t.”
Iris almost laughed. “Prayer is not a lock.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Micah cried then, a hungry, offended little sound from the cradle.
Callum turned toward him.
Iris moved fast.
“My son,” she said.
“I wasn’t—”
“I know. Don’t move.”
She lifted Micah and settled him against her shoulder, shame rising from habit before she could stop it. She hated being watched while mothering. Hated the judgment that always came.
No husband.
No ring.
No respectable story.
A baby in her arms and a body people already considered proof of appetite, weakness, lack of discipline, lack of worth.
Callum did not look judgmental.
He looked surprised, then gentle.
“How old?”
“Nine weeks.”
“He’s beautiful.”
Iris’s throat tightened before she could defend against it.
People said babies were beautiful all the time. But Callum said it like he meant Micah, not manners.
“Thank you,” she said, stiffly.
Micah fussed. She rocked him, aware of her size, her worn dress, her unbound hair, the fact that this wealthy, wounded man had landed in the middle of her poverty and would later remember it as part of his nightmare.
Callum watched her for a moment.
“You live here alone?”
“I live here with my son.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
He accepted that. “All right. I did.”
“Then yes. We live here alone.”
“That’s hard.”
“Most true things are.”
He looked as if he wanted to say more, but did not.
That was the first thing Iris liked about him.
He understood when silence was better than repair.
Through the night, they worked.
Iris kept steam near June’s face. Callum held his daughter upright when Iris needed both hands for Micah. Iris cleaned his wound, packed it with herbs, and bandaged it tight. He obeyed every instruction without turning gratitude into flirtation or shame into pity.
Near dawn, June’s fever climbed.
Callum’s fear returned sharp enough to fill the room.
“She’s worse.”
“She’s burning through it.”
“What if she can’t?”
“Then we get her to Dr. Bell as soon as the road opens.”
He stood too quickly, swayed, and caught the table.
Iris rose with Micah in one arm.
“You are no use to her face-down on my floor.”
“I need to go.”
“You need to breathe.”
“My daughter—”
“Your daughter needs you thinking, not panicking.”
That struck him like a slap.
He stared at her.
Iris braced herself. Men did not like being spoken to that way by women like her. Poor women. Large women. Women they could imagine needing them.
But Callum only nodded once.
“You’re right.”
The words unsettled her.
She turned away.
By noon, the storm weakened but did not leave. Snow packed the windowsills. The mare in the lean-to stamped and snorted, unhappy with the weather. Micah slept against Iris’s chest while June rested in Callum’s arms, still feverish but breathing a little easier.
For a fragile hour, the cabin felt almost peaceful.
Then Iris heard bells.
Not church bells.
Harness bells.
She stiffened.
Callum saw it instantly.
“What?”
Iris crossed to the window and lifted the edge of the curtain.
Three riders came through the snow, dark shapes moving between pines.
Her heart dropped.
“Did you have men searching for you?”
“Yes.”
“Would they know to come here?”
“No.”
“Then these aren’t yours.”
Callum rose.
Iris was already moving. She pushed aside the pantry shelf, revealing the narrow storage hollow her father had built into the back wall during a winter when thieves had been moving along the mining road.