City cold nipped. Mountain cold entered.
It pushed through the seams of her gloves. It found the places where her boots had cracked. It laid itself against her skin like wet iron. The world shrank to the horse’s breath, the creak of leather, and Rowan’s arm coming around her whenever the trail grew steep.
Once the horse slipped.
Lillian gasped and grabbed for the saddle horn.
Rowan’s hand caught her waist instantly, holding her steady until the animal found footing again.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“You answer too fast.”
“I was raised to be polite under questioning.”
“That is not the same as truthful.”
“I have noticed.”
A rough sound came from behind her.
It took her a moment to realize he had almost laughed.
By late afternoon, she could no longer feel her toes.
Rowan stopped beneath a ledge of stone where the wind was less vicious.
“Down.”
“I can manage.”
“Didn’t ask.”
He dismounted first, then helped her. The instant her boots touched the ground, her knees failed.
Rowan caught her before she hit the snow.
Lillian’s face burned again, this time from shame.
“I am sorry.”
“Cold doesn’t care for apologies.”
He set her on a flat rock, crouched, and reached for her boots.
She jerked back. “Mr. Vale.”
“Rowan.”
“You cannot simply take off my boots.”
“You want to keep your feet?”
She stared at him.
He stared back.
She let him take the boots off.
Her stockings were soaked through. Rowan’s expression became harder than the stone above them.
“These boots were made for boardwalks.”
“I was not informed I would be exiled into a blizzard.”
“Few are.”
He rubbed her feet briskly through the stockings until pain shot up her legs so sharply she bit down on a cry.
Rowan heard it anyway.
“Hurts because blood is returning.”
“That is a terrible comfort.”
“Best kind. Means it is true.”
He wrapped her feet in a dry strip of wool, forced the boots back on, and stood.
“Walk behind me awhile. Put your feet where mine go. If sleep comes, say so.”
“Why?”
“Cold makes death feel like rest.”
Lillian looked up at him.
“How do you know so much about death?”
The question altered his face.
Not much. Rowan Vale was not a man built for visible changes. But something in his eyes went far away, beyond the storm, beyond the trees, beyond even her question.
“The ridge teaches,” he said.
Then he took the horse’s reins and led them higher.
Night had almost closed by the time they reached Iron Pine Ridge.
Two cabins stood in a clearing protected by black firs. One was broad and dark, with smoke pushing from a stone chimney. The second was smaller, tucked near a slope, half hidden by snow but sound enough to withstand the storm.
Rowan carried Lillian’s trunk to the smaller cabin.
Inside, it was simple and bare. A bed. A table. A stove. A lantern. A chest. A basin. Wood stacked neatly beside the wall. It smelled of ash, cedar, and blessed shelter.
He lit the stove first, then the lantern.
Warm gold spread slowly over the logs.
“Dry clothes in the chest,” he said. “Blankets under the bed. I will bring food.”
Before she could thank him, he stepped outside and closed the door.
For a moment Lillian stood alone in the little room while the storm beat against the walls.
Then she sat on the bed and cried.
Not loudly. She had learned to cry quietly in boardinghouses, train stations, borrowed rooms, and any place where grief might inconvenience strangers. But once the tears came, she could not stop them.
She cried for her brother, Samuel, whose letters had brought her west with hope. She cried for the inheritance Nolan Quade had convinced her to sign away. She cried for the two dollars that had somehow become the price of her dignity. She cried for every person who had looked at her body and decided softness meant stupidity.
When Rowan returned, he knocked once and waited.
That courtesy nearly undid her again.
“I am decent,” she called.
He entered with firewood under one arm and a covered iron pot in his hand.
“Stew,” he said. “Rabbit, beans, onion. Pepper if the tin did not lie.”
“I am too hungry to be graceful.”
“Grace does not last long up here.”
She ate too quickly. The stew burned her tongue, warmed her stomach, and made her hands tremble. Rowan stood near the stove, looking at the fire, the door, the floor—anywhere but directly at her. Somehow he gave her privacy even while sharing the room.
When she finished, she folded her hands in her lap.
“Thank you.”
He nodded once.
“I can work,” she said. “I can cook, sew, keep ledgers, read contracts, write letters. I will not be another mouth you regret feeding.”
“Did not say you were.”
“Others have.”
“Others speak too much.”
“And you?”
“I try to spend words carefully.”
She looked at him then.
“Why do you live alone?”
His face closed.
She regretted it immediately.