“Take off everything.”
Josephine’s blood turned to ice.
For several seconds, she heard nothing except the wind battering the walls of the cabin and the crackle of pine logs splitting in the stone fireplace.
Harlan Creek had just closed the heavy front door behind them.
The preacher was gone.
The wagon that had carried Josephine into the mountains was already disappearing beneath the snow.
And she was alone with the enormous stranger who, less than three hours earlier, had given her father twenty dollars and two draft horses before standing beside her in a tiny frontier chapel and becoming her husband.
Josephine pressed her back against the rough timber door.
Harlan stood six feet away.
He was enormous.
Not simply tall.
Everything about him seemed built on a scale that made the cabin look smaller around him.
His shoulders nearly filled the heavy wolf-fur coat he wore. His dark hair brushed his collar, damp from snow. A thick beard covered most of his lower face, and a narrow scar disappeared beneath it near his jaw.
His eyes were pale gray.
That was what frightened Josephine most.
They were too calm.
Men who stared at her usually laughed.
Some smirked.
Some looked away as though her size embarrassed them on her behalf.
Harlan simply looked.
Now his gaze dropped toward the soaked front of her dress.
“Take it off,” he repeated.
Josephine’s fingers tightened around the folds of her skirt.
“All of it?”
His eyebrows drew together.
“The wet things.”
She swallowed.
Her wedding dress, if anyone could generously call it that, had once belonged to her older cousin.
The cotton fabric had been taken in badly around the shoulders and let out nearly everywhere else. The hem was muddy. Snow had melted through the skirt and petticoats until they clung heavily against her legs.
Her aunt had tightened the corset beneath it until Josephine had nearly fainted during the ceremony.
“You could at least try to look respectable today,” Aunt Lydia had whispered while pulling the laces.
Josephine had gasped that she could not breathe.
Her aunt had pulled harder.
“You’ll breathe when you’re married.”
Now Josephine could barely feel her toes.
Harlan took one step toward her.
She recoiled.
He stopped immediately.
The change in his face was almost invisible, but she saw it.
Not anger.
Understanding.
He turned his back.
“Better?”
Josephine stared.
“What?”
“You don’t want me looking.”
He faced the fireplace instead.
“I won’t.”
Josephine said nothing.
Harlan reached toward the mantel, took down a thick buffalo robe, and placed it across the back of a chair without turning around.
“Put that around you when the wet clothes are off.”
His voice was rough.
Not unkind.
Josephine stared at the broad back of the man she had married.
“You expect me to believe you won’t turn around?”
“No.”
That answer surprised her.
Harlan added another split log to the fire.
“You don’t know me.”
The flames rose.
“You shouldn’t believe anything yet.”
Something inside Josephine shifted.
Only slightly.
Not trust.
There was nowhere near enough room for trust.
But confusion replaced a little of the fear.
With trembling fingers, she began unfastening the dress.
The wet cloth fought her.
Her hands were so cold that the buttons felt like tiny stones.
She kept looking toward Harlan.
He did not move.
The soaked dress finally fell around her boots.
She stepped out of it and began removing her petticoats.
Every layer was wet.
Every layer weighed more than it should.
By the time she reached the corset, she was shivering violently.
She tried the knot behind her.
Her fingers could not reach it properly.
She twisted.
Pain stabbed across her ribs.
Josephine gasped.
Harlan’s head turned slightly.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Josephine.”
The sound of her name in his voice startled her.
He had spoken perhaps thirty words to her since the ceremony.
She struggled with the knot again.
The room tilted.
“I can’t get it loose.”
Harlan remained facing the fire.
“The corset?”
“Yes.”
“Want help?”
She froze.
The question should not have mattered.
Yet it did.
He had asked.