The respect startled her more than agreement should have.
He continued.
“Three men at the front.”
“Two behind.”
“One near the horses.”
“You can tell?”
“I heard them.”
Her eyes widened.
“What are you going to do?”
“Make them leave.”
“How?”
“I’ll ask politely.”
She stared.
He almost smiled again.
Then a window shattered.
The woman gasped as glass struck the floor.
A gloved hand reached through toward the latch.
The mountain man crossed the room in two steps.
He seized the wrist.
Twisted.
A scream erupted outside.
He did not break anything.
He simply forced the arm backward until the hand disappeared.
Then he dropped a heavy wooden bar across the window frame.
The woman stared.
The rumors from town returned.
Savage.
Brutal.
Dangerous.
The man before her was certainly capable of violence.
But capability was not the same as cruelty.
She had learned that distinction in less than an hour.
Her first husband had never been physically large.
He had never carried a rifle.
Never fought wolves.
Never lived beyond law.
Yet he could make her feel smaller with one sentence than the mountain man had made her feel all night.
Her late husband liked to place one hand around her waist in public and whisper:
“If you breathe any deeper, that seam is going to surrender.”
Then smile for guests.
At dinner parties, he joked about how much food she ate before she arrived.
He ordered dresses one size too small and said they would “give her something to work toward.”
He called it concern.
Love.
Marriage.
When he died, everyone expected her grief to look pure.
It did not.
She mourned the man he might have been.
She mourned the years.
She mourned herself.
But a hidden part of her also felt relief.
She hated herself for that.
Now a giant stranger stood between her and armed men and had not once asked her to become smaller for his comfort.
The front door burst inward.
Not completely.
The bar held.
An attacker’s shoulder appeared through the gap.
The mountain man shoved the door closed.
“Below.”
The woman hesitated.
He looked at her.
“Not because I command you.”
His voice softened.
“Because I need to know you’re not standing behind me if they fire through the door.”
That made sense.
She hated that it made sense.
She moved toward the trapdoor.
Then stopped.
“What about you?”
“I’m coming.”
“When?”
“When they believe I’m not.”