“Caleb, if you ask me again, I may have to kiss you first.”
He laughed.
A soft, surprised sound.
Then he kissed her.
It was gentle.
Brief.
And so full of wonder that Eleanor forgot the blizzard outside.
For a moment, she felt as though nineteen years had folded into a single instant.
The frightened boy beside the river.
The lonely man on the mountain.
The woman who had spent fourteen years being told she was unworthy of love.
They were all there.
And none of them had to be ashamed.
When Caleb drew back, his face was flushed.
Eleanor smiled.
He stared.
Then whispered, “Was that all right?”
She laughed softly.
“Yes.”
He smiled.
For a moment, he seemed younger.
Happier.
Then Eleanor rested her forehead gently against his.
“Caleb?”
“Yes?”
“I think I'd like to keep learning how to be your wife.”
He closed his eyes.
His hand tightened around hers.
“And I'd like to keep learning how to deserve the trust you're giving me.”
Eleanor kissed his cheek.
“Then we have time.”
Outside, the blizzard continued.
Inside, for the first time in nineteen years, Caleb Mercer no longer felt as though he were waiting for his life to begin.
It had already begun.
With a woman he once saved from a river.
A woman who had unknowingly carried the memory of him through every lonely year.
And who now sat beside him, holding his hand, while the mountain wind moved past the windows.
But morning would bring another challenge.
Because the storm was weakening.
The trail would soon open.
And Solomon Whitmore was waiting below.
The storm broke shortly before dawn on the fourth day.
Caleb opened the shutters and found a pale line of sunlight stretching across the mountain peaks. Snow still covered the surrounding forest, but the wind had weakened, and the air was no longer filled with the violent white haze that had trapped them inside.
For several minutes, he stood beside the window.
Then he looked toward Eleanor.
She was sitting near the hearth with Bracken's enormous head resting against her knee. The dog had decided that the new woman belonged in the cabin and had spent most of the previous evening refusing to leave her side.
Caleb smiled.
“He likes you.”
Eleanor looked down at Bracken.
“He likes being scratched behind the ears.”
The dog closed his eyes.
Caleb chuckled.