Chapter 1 - The Door in the Snow
By the time Alandre Collins saw smoke curling above the pines, she had stopped believing it belonged to anything real.
For two days, the Montana winter had swallowed every landmark around her.
The wagon was gone.
The horse was gone.
Most of her food was gone.
And Thomas had been gone for three months.
That last loss was the only one that still hurt enough to keep her walking.
She stumbled through snow that reached nearly to her knees, clutching a wool coat closed at her throat with one numb hand. Her boots had stopped feeling like part of her body hours earlier.
Ahead, between wind-bent pines, stood a cabin.
Not a town.
Not a ranch.
Just one large log cabin tucked beneath a ridge of dark timber, smoke spilling steadily from a stone chimney.
Alandre stared at it.
Then she laughed once.
It was a dry, humorless sound.
“Of course,” she whispered. “Probably belongs to a murderer.”
The thought should have frightened her.
Instead, she kept walking.
At that moment, warmth seemed worth the risk.
She made it as far as the porch.
Her hand rose toward the door.
It never reached it.
The world tilted.
The last thing Alandre remembered was the cabin door opening and a man filling the doorway.
A very large man.
Then darkness took her.
When she woke, she was warm.
That frightened her more than the cold had.
Her eyes opened quickly.
A fire snapped inside a stone hearth. Heavy timber beams crossed the ceiling. A black iron stove stood against one wall, and several drying herbs hung beside a shelf crowded with jars.
She was lying beneath two thick blankets on a narrow bed.
Her coat and boots were missing.
Alandre sat upright.
Pain flashed behind her eyes.
“Easy.”
The voice came from the opposite side of the room.
She turned.
The man from the doorway sat at a rough wooden table.
He was enormous.
Not fat. Not merely tall.
Built like someone who had spent his entire life lifting things other men needed horses to move.
His dark hair brushed his shoulders and was tied loosely behind his head. A thick beard covered most of his weathered face. He wore a rough fur vest over a faded shirt now, though she vaguely remembered bare muscular arms carrying her through the doorway.
His eyes were brown.
And surprisingly calm.
Alandre searched the room for a weapon.
The stranger noticed.
“Knife’s on the shelf,” he said. “Rifle’s behind me. Ax is outside.”
She stared.
He lifted his tin cup.
“Figured I’d save you the trouble.”
“Who are you?”
“Jedodiah Boone.”
She waited for more.
None came.
“Where am I?”
“My cabin.”
“I gathered that.”
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
Not quite a smile.
“Black Pine Ridge.”
Alandre swallowed.
Black Pine Ridge.
She had gone much farther north than she intended.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Fourteen hours.”
Her eyes widened.
“You undressed me?”
His eyebrow rose.
“No.”
She looked down. She was still wearing her dress, although someone had removed the wet outer layers.
“Your coat was frozen,” he said. “So were your boots. Figured you’d prefer having toes.”
She studied him.
“And why would you care?”
This time he did smile, faintly.
“I’ve never had strong feelings about anybody’s toes, ma’am.”
Despite herself, Alandre almost laughed.
Almost.
Then memory returned.
Thomas.
The wagon.
The gunshot.
The stranger’s smile.
Her husband falling beside the wheel.
Her expression changed so quickly that Jedodiah’s amusement disappeared.
“Water’s beside you,” he said.
“I need to leave.”
“You can’t.”
She stiffened.
His gaze moved toward the window.
Alandre followed it.
Snow hammered the glass.
“Storm buried the south trail sometime before sunrise,” he said. “Temperature’s falling. You walk out there today, I’ll be digging you up in spring.”
“I didn’t ask to stay.”
“No.”
He drank from his cup.
“You just collapsed on my porch.”
She pushed the blanket aside.
The floor felt warm beneath her stockings.
“I can pay you.”
“Don’t need money.”
“I can work.”
“Don’t need that either.”
“I can cook.”
That got his attention.
Alandre looked around the cabin.
A blackened pot sat beside the stove.
Something inside it had probably begun life as stew, though she wasn’t certain.
She pointed.
“If that is what you eat willingly, you need someone who can cook.”
Jedodiah looked toward the pot.
Then back at her.
“Fair.”
“I’ll cook,” she said. “For shelter. Until the pass opens.”
He studied her long enough to make her uncomfortable.
Then he leaned back in his chair.
“One condition.”
Alandre’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
His face remained completely serious.
“If you’re going to season my food, season it with laughter too.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“This place is quiet enough already.”
“I’m a widow.”
The words came out colder than she intended.
Something changed in his eyes.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
It passed so quickly that Alandre wondered if she had imagined it.
“I know,” Jedodiah said.
Her pulse skipped.
“How?”
His gaze dropped to her left hand.
Alandre looked down.
Thomas’s plain wedding ring still hung on a leather cord around her neck.
Jedodiah nodded toward it.
“Guessing.”
She watched him.
He looked away first.
That should have meant nothing.
But three months of grief had sharpened her instincts.
Something in the way Jedodiah Boone had said I know bothered her.
Still, she was exhausted.
And outside, Montana was trying to kill her.
So she stayed.
That first night, Alandre made biscuits from the flour in Jedodiah’s cupboard.
They came out slightly burned because she did not understand his stove.
He ate four.
When she caught him reaching for a fifth, she said, “You realize complimenting the cook is traditional.”
“I’m eating them.”
“That isn’t a compliment.”
“It is when you’ve tasted my cooking.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
The sound startled them both.
Alandre looked away.
For one second, guilt crushed her.
Thomas had been dead three months.
What kind of widow laughed?
Jedodiah did not comment.
He simply took the fifth biscuit.
Outside, the wind screamed against the logs.
Inside, for the first time since Thomas died, Alandre felt something besides grief.
It terrified her.
So did the way Jedodiah stared into the fire after she mentioned her husband.
As though he were remembering something he desperately wished he could forget.
Later, while Alandre slept, Jedodiah crossed the cabin quietly.
He stopped beside the window and watched the storm.
Then he reached inside his shirt.
From beneath it, he removed a folded piece of paper.
A letter.
Its edges were worn from being opened too many times.
At the bottom was a familiar signature.
Thomas Collins.
Jedodiah closed his eyes.
Then whispered into the darkness.
“I’m sorry, Thomas.”
May you like
And beneath the floorboards under his bed, something metal waited in silence.
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