Nothing particularly interesting.
She frowned.
Then smiled.
Cooking had always been the one skill nobody could take from her.
Her mother taught her as a child.
After her mother's death, she spent years helping in her aunt's kitchen.
Later, when her father insisted she earn part of her keep, she worked quietly preparing meals for local families.
People mocked her size.
But they loved her food.
She knew how to stretch ingredients.
How to thicken soup.
How to make tough meat tender.
How to prepare bread with little more than flour, water, salt, and patience.
She looked toward the stove.
Then the pantry.
Then the wooden table.
Perhaps she could do something useful.
Not because the mountain man demanded it.
Because she wanted to.
By the time he returned, carrying firewood beneath one arm, the cabin smelled of onions and roasted meat.
He stopped just inside the doorway.
His eyes narrowed.
Then he inhaled slowly.
"What is that?"
She turned from the stove.
"Supper."
He stared.
"It's barely noon."
She laughed.
"I thought I'd prepare something that could cook slowly."
He stepped closer.
The pot bubbled gently.
Potatoes.
Beans.
Tender meat.
A rich broth seasoned with herbs she discovered in a small wooden box.
The mountain man stared.
"Where did you find those?"
"The herbs?"
He nodded.
"On the top shelf."
He looked surprised.
"I forgot they were there."
She smiled.
"That explains the dust."
For a moment, he simply watched her.
Then he laughed.
It was a deep, startled sound.
She looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You're laughing."
He shook his head.
"I haven't smelled food like this in years."
She lowered her eyes.
"I hope it's good."
He studied her.
Then said quietly, "I'm sure it will be."
The words warmed her more than she expected.
The first time the mountain man's wife heard someone call her the most fortunate woman in the Colorado mountains, she was standing beside the same stone fireplace where he had once cut the suffocating corset from her back.
Nearly six years had passed since that winter night.
The cabin had changed.
The narrow kitchen had become a broad, welcoming room with two iron stoves, long wooden worktables, and shelves filled with preserves. A second floor had been added above the original sleeping quarters. The old roof had been reinforced, and the porch now stretched across the front of the house, overlooking the creek and the distant mountain valley.
Outside, the first snowfall of November was beginning to settle across the pines.
Inside, warmth filled every corner.