Outside, the blizzard slammed against the cabin.
Inside, the woman who had once saved his life released his hand and pointed toward the fireplace.
“Take off those frozen boots before you ruin my floor.”
He stared at her.
Then he laughed.
A real laugh.
Deep and rough and startled.
She smiled through tears.
“And put that enormous pile of fur somewhere it can dry.”
He looked down at his wolf-fur vest.
“Yes, ma'am.”
She lifted one eyebrow.
“Don't start calling me ma'am.”
“Then what should I call you?”
She hesitated.
Her cheeks turned pink.
“Darling would be nice.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then his smile softened.
“All right, darling.”
The words settled between them.
Neither moved.
The rancher had spoken them almost without thinking.
But to the woman, they sounded like the beginning of something she had stopped expecting years ago.
He reached for the door to secure the latch.
Then he turned back.
“Where do you want the meat?”
She smiled.
“In the cold storage room. And after that, you can sit down.”
He nodded.
For once, he wasn't planning his escape.
He was planning to stay for supper.
And neither of them yet understood how much that decision would change their lives.
The rancher had once been a husband.
He had known the ordinary comfort of sharing a table, hearing another person moving through the house, and waking to a voice that knew his name.
Then illness had taken his wife during a terrible winter.
She was thirty-two.
The fever began with a cough, worsened over several days, and eventually left her too weak to rise from bed.
The rancher had tried everything available to him.
He kept the fire burning.
He brought water.
He prepared broth.
He searched the mountains for help, but the snow made travel nearly impossible.
By the time he reached a settlement and returned with supplies, she was gone.
He buried her beneath a stand of pines overlooking the valley where they'd built their first cabin.
Then he stopped speaking to people unless he had to.
At first, he told himself solitude was practical.
There were animals to feed.
Fences to repair.
Wood to split.
And a ranch to keep alive.
But the deeper truth was that he couldn't bear the possibility of losing anyone else.
He believed that if he stopped loving, he could stop hurting.
The mountains became his refuge.
He hunted, trapped, and worked until exhaustion made sleep unavoidable.