His mouth opened.
Then closed.
He looked from her face to the pendant, as though his mind couldn't accept what he was hearing.
“The girl from the river?”
She nodded desperately.
“Yes.”
He stared for several seconds.
Then his expression crumpled.
“Eleanor?”
She began shaking her head.
“They told me you died.”
Caleb took one unsteady breath.
Then another.
“I thought they took you away before you could tell me your name.”
“They did.”
She looked at the silver heart.
“I thought you were dead.”
Caleb lowered his eyes.
For a moment, he seemed unable to speak.
Then he whispered, “They were supposed to think that.”
Eleanor froze.
“What?”
He closed his hand around the pendant.
His expression became frightened again.
“My father made sure they believed I had died.”
The wind struck the cabin hard enough to shake the window.
Eleanor stared.
Caleb continued.
“And if the wrong men discover I'm still alive, this mountain won't be far enough to protect either of us.”
For a long moment, Eleanor couldn't move.
She had spent nineteen years mourning a boy who saved her life.
Now she had married him.
And he was telling her that the story she'd been given about his death had been deliberately invented.
But the most frightening part was the look in his eyes.
He wasn't afraid she would reject his scars anymore.
He was afraid somebody would discover the truth before he could explain it.
“Caleb,” she whispered, “who wanted you dead?”
He looked toward the cabin window.
Then toward the enormous wooden chest beneath the stairs.
Finally, he answered.
“The same family that gave you your first husband's name.”
Four hours earlier, Eleanor Whitmore had married a stranger in a little wooden chapel at the foot of the Colorado Rockies.
The minister was old.
The benches were plain.
And the wind was already carrying the first signs of the approaching blizzard.
There had been no flowers except a small arrangement of dried mountain lavender that the minister's wife placed beside the window. No wedding guests filled the room. No musicians played, and nobody threw rice or offered congratulations.
Eleanor had arrived in a specially reinforced wagon with a wide, cushioned seat and heavy suspension springs. She required space to sit comfortably, time to move safely, and a sturdy handrail whenever she climbed down, but she had insisted on walking into the chapel under her own strength.