She remembered the night the stranger was brought to her door.
The storm had been so fierce that the windows rattled in their frames. Her aunt was away collecting supplies in the lower valley, leaving Loretta alone to tend the station. Near midnight, she heard something striking against the outer wall.
At first, she thought the wind had loosened a shutter.
Then she heard a man's voice.
It was weak.
Almost swallowed by the storm.
She opened the door and found a traveler collapsed beside the steps. Snow covered his coat, one leg was badly injured, and his face had the gray, exhausted appearance of someone who had spent too long exposed to the cold.
She didn't ask whether he could pay.
She didn't ask where he came from.
She dragged a sled close enough to help move him indoors, using the tools and leverage available rather than trying to lift him by force. Then she secured the door, brought blankets near the stove, and worked through the night keeping him warm while waiting for help.
His name had been Elias.
That was all she'd learned.
He'd whispered it when she asked what to call him.
Later, when a supply party finally reached the station, they carried him down to a physician in the valley. Loretta had already left to help her aunt at another location, and she never saw him again.
She had assumed he'd died.
Now he sat before her, older and weathered, wearing a massive wolf-hide cloak and holding the little blue ribbon she'd tied around his dressing.
"Your name," she whispered. "Elias."
He nodded slowly.
"Elias Ward."
Loretta covered her mouth.
For a moment, she could almost see the injured traveler as he'd been twelve winters earlier. His face had been pale beneath a dark beard, his breathing shallow, and his eyes barely open when she begged him to keep talking.
She remembered one sentence especially.
He had whispered that he was tired.
She'd taken his hand.
Then she'd said, "Don't let the cold make your last decision."
Elias looked toward her now.
His eyes filled.
"You remember."
She nodded through tears.
"I thought you died."
He lowered his gaze.
"I nearly did."
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Loretta asked the question that had been gathering in her mind.
"How did you find me?"