Chapter 2 - The Cabin Above the Pines
Eliza woke to the smell of coffee and cedar smoke.
For several seconds she did not know where she was.
That frightened her more than pain.
Her eyes opened sharply.
A timber ceiling stretched overhead.
Morning light leaked through a small window beside the bed. Heavy quilts covered her body. Somewhere nearby, metal touched iron with a quiet clink.
Eliza tried to sit up.
Pain stopped her.
A chair scraped.
“Don't.”
Rowan appeared from the other side of the room.
Eliza jerked backward.
Her right hand searched instinctively for something she could use as a weapon.
Rowan saw.
He stopped three paces from the bed.
“You're in my cabin.”
Memory returned in broken pieces.
The ravine.
The knife.
His hands.
The horse.
The locket.
No.
Eliza's hand flew to her throat.
The chain was gone.
Her breath caught.
“Where is it?”
Rowan's expression remained calm.
“What?”
“My necklace.”
He reached slowly toward a table.
The silver locket rested beside a tin cup.
“I took it off because the chain was tangled in your collar.”
Eliza stared.
“You opened it?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly?
She could not tell anymore.
Trust had become something she measured obsessively.
A tone.
A pause.
A glance.
A hand placed too close to a pocket.
Rowan picked up the locket and placed it on the foot of the bed rather than handing it directly to her.
Eliza pulled it close.
“You could have taken it.”
“I could've.”
“But you didn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
One eyebrow lifted slightly.
“Because it isn't mine.”
The simplicity nearly made her laugh.
Instead she looked around.
Rowan Creed's home was small but orderly.
One main room.
A stone fireplace.
A rough table.
Shelves containing flour, beans, coffee, salt, and several books worn soft from use.
A rifle rested above the door.
Another stood in the corner.
Bundles of dried herbs hung from beams.
There was no woman's clothing.
No decorative needlework.
No sign anyone else lived there.
Eliza touched the bandage around her wrist.
“You did this?”
“Some of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maeve Calder did the rest.”
“Who?”
“A widow about three miles east. Knows more about broken bones than any doctor I've met.”
Eliza looked toward the door.
“She's gone?”
“Left before daylight.”
“Why didn't I wake?”
“You had a fever.”
Fear entered Rowan's face for the first time.
Only briefly.
But Eliza saw it.
“You were difficult to wake.”
“What happened to my hand?”
“Two fingers are badly bruised. Wrist isn't broken. Maeve thinks it'll heal.”
“My ribs?”
“Bruised. Maybe cracked.”
Eliza closed her eyes.
Cracked.
Not broken.
Alive.
Not dead.
The distinction seemed miraculous.
Rowan walked toward the stove.
“Broth?”
She hesitated.
“What is it?”
“Rabbit.”
Her stomach answered before she did.
Rowan poured some into a bowl.
He placed it beside the bed, then returned to the opposite side of the room.
Eliza watched him.
“You're afraid I'll think you're trying to hurt me.”
Rowan's back remained toward her.
“No.”
“You keep putting things down and moving away.”
This time he turned.
“Seems easier.”
“Why?”
“You look at every man's hands before you look at his face.”
Eliza froze.
Rowan returned to the stove.
“Someone taught you to do that.”
Her appetite disappeared.
“Don't.”
“All right.”
No question.
No pressure.
That made her throat tighten.
Caleb would have asked until she answered.
Then punished her for the answer.
Eliza slowly ate.
After several minutes, she noticed a leather pouch on the table.
Her reticule.
She set the spoon down.
“Where did you find that?”
“Near the rocks.”
Rowan crossed over and handed it to her.
The lining had been torn open.
Empty.
Of course.
Eliza touched the rip.
“My mother sewed money inside.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-eight dollars.”
Rowan whistled softly.
“That was everything.”
“For leaving?”
Her eyes snapped upward.
He did not look curious.
Only observant.
Eliza said nothing.
Rowan nodded.
“Don't have to tell me.”
Outside, wind moved through the pine trees.
Eliza stared toward the window.
“Caleb will come.”
Rowan stopped.
The name hung between them.
“Caleb?”
Her hands began shaking.
“My husband.”
Rowan's jaw tightened almost invisibly.
“He did this?”
Eliza said nothing.
Rowan did not repeat the question.
“He'll say I fell.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then I won't believe him.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
“You think that matters?”
“It matters to me.”
“You don't know him.”
“Not yet.”
Something in Rowan's tone disturbed her.
Not bravado.
Not anger.
Certainty.
Eliza put the bowl aside.
“You cannot fight him.”
“I didn't say I planned to.”
“You have rifles.”
“So do most people in Colorado.”
“He knows men in Jefferson. Fairplay too. He hauls freight for miners and logging crews. People owe him favors.”
“People owe everyone favors.”
“He can make trouble.”
Rowan looked toward her.
“So can winter.”
It was such an odd answer that Eliza actually smiled.
The expression felt painful from disuse.
Rowan noticed.
A faint softness came into his eyes.
Then disappeared.
He walked to the table and unfolded a map.
Eliza watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Figuring out the safest road to Maeve's place if your fever comes back.”
“I can't stay here.”
“You can't ride.”
“I can't stay.”
“Then don't.”
The answer stunned her.
Rowan pointed toward a coat hanging from a peg.
“Door's there.”
Eliza stared at him.
“You'd let me leave?”
“Wouldn't be much of a rescue if I turned you into a prisoner.”
Her eyes burned.
She turned away before he could see.
Rowan pretended to study his map.
Minutes passed.
Eventually Eliza spoke.
“I tried leaving him twice before.”
Rowan did not turn around.
“The first time he found me at a boardinghouse in Denver.”
Silence.
“The second time I made it as far as Como.”
Still silence.
“He apologized both times.”
Her mouth twisted.
“Funny how apologies become less convincing when a man's locking the door while saying them.”
Rowan slowly sat.
Eliza forced herself to continue.
“He wasn't always like that.”
“Most dangerous men aren't.”
“You've known some?”
“Enough.”
She looked at him.
“Were you one?”
Rowan's eyes shifted toward the fire.
“A long time ago.”
That was not the answer she expected.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I've done things I can't undo.”
Eliza studied him.
“Yet you saved me.”
“Those facts aren't enemies.”
The words settled heavily between them.
For the first time she wondered who Rowan Creed had been before he became a man living alone above the pines.
Then she remembered the way he had looked at her locket before she passed out.
She had almost convinced herself it was fever.
Almost.
“Rowan.”
He turned.
“When you picked me up yesterday…”
She touched the necklace.
“You looked at this.”
His face became unreadable.
“You know it.”
He said nothing.
“You told me you didn't open it.”
“I didn't.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Silence.
Eliza's heartbeat accelerated.
“Do you know this symbol?”
Rowan's eyes dropped to the cedar tree and three stars.
He could lie.
Eliza saw the possibility move across his face.
Instead he stood.
“Yes.”
The room seemed suddenly colder.
“How?”
Rowan walked toward a wooden chest beneath the window.
He knelt.
Unlocked it.
From beneath folded blankets and an old cavalry shirt, he removed a small leather pouch.
Inside was another silver object.
A broken medallion.
Eliza stopped breathing.
The same cedar tree.
The same three stars.
Only this one had a name engraved beneath it.
Thomas Mercer.
Her father's name.
Eliza stared at Rowan.
Her voice barely worked.
“My father died when I was nineteen.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Rowan sat across from her.
“Because he died in my arms.”
The bowl slipped from Eliza's hand.
It struck the floor.
Neither of them moved.
Eight years of questions opened beneath her feet.
May you like
And Rowan Creed was holding the first answer she had ever found.
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