The woman standing before him immediately began to tremble.
She was twenty-eight years old, weighed nearly three hundred kilograms, and had traveled hundreds of miles through the freezing Rocky Mountains believing that the enormous stranger standing inside the cabin had purchased her from her father.
Twenty dollars.
Two draft horses.
That was what her father had accepted in exchange for sending his daughter into the wilderness.
At least, that was what she had been told.
Now she stood in a dim wooden cabin, her soaked brown wedding dress clinging to her body, her enormous waist trapped inside a brutally tightened whalebone corset, and her lips turning pale from the effort of breathing.
The mountain man was even more frightening than the stories suggested.
He stood nearly six feet seven inches tall, with broad shoulders, powerful arms, long dark hair, and a thick beard that covered most of his weathered face. A dark wolf-fur coat hung from his shoulders, and a deep scar ran along the left side of his jaw.
His pale blue eyes seemed almost colorless in the firelight.
People in the nearest settlement called him the Wolf of Harlan Creek.
Some claimed he had killed three men.
Others said he had lived alone so long that he had forgotten how to speak to ordinary people.
A few insisted he had buried his first wife somewhere in the mountains.
The young woman had heard every story during the final days of her journey.
Now, as his knife emerged from its leather sheath, she believed she was about to discover which ones were true.
"Please," she whispered.
The mountain man stopped.
His expression changed.
"What?"
She pressed one hand against the front of her dress.
"Please don't hurt me."
For a moment, he stared at her.
Then his gaze moved toward her back.
The cream-colored corset had been tightened so severely that its laces dug into the fabric and flesh beneath. The woman's shoulders were trembling, and every breath came in a shallow, painful gasp.
He slowly lowered the knife.
"You're having trouble breathing."
She shook her head.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
He took one careful step closer.
She pressed herself against the wooden wall.
His expression hardened, but not with anger toward her.
"Who tied that thing around you?"
She lowered her eyes.
"My aunt."
"Why?"
"She said a bride should look respectable."
The mountain man stared at the corset.