One was Caleb.
The other was Harlan Tate.
Martha looked at the photograph.
Her eyes widened.
"Where did you get that?"
Caleb's voice broke.
"Because Harlan Tate is my half-brother."
For a moment, the cabin was silent except for the crackling stove.
Then Martha took a step backward.
The blanket slipped slightly in her hands.
She caught it quickly, her whole body trembling.
"No."
Caleb looked at her.
"Please, Martha—"
She shook her head.
"No. You can't be."
He started forward instinctively.
Martha recoiled.
"Don't touch me!"
Caleb stopped.
He looked at her frightened face, the old scars, and the photograph in his hand.
For the first time in years, the mountain man who believed he could endure almost anything felt completely helpless.
Because the woman he had promised never to love was staring at him as though he'd become the very person she'd crossed a thousand miles to escape.
And the truth about how she'd been sent to his cabin was far more dangerous than either of them knew.
Three weeks earlier, the stagecoach had arrived in Bitter Creek shortly before sunset.
It was November of 1885, and winter had already begun tightening its grip on the Wyoming Territory. Snow lay in dirty ridges along the main street, the wind moved bitterly between the buildings, and the few travelers still passing through town carried expressions of people who knew they had no business lingering outdoors after dark.
Bitter Creek wasn't much to look at.
A general store stood near the stagecoach stop. Across the street was a saloon with swinging doors and a crooked sign. A blacksmith's shop occupied the next lot, and beyond it were a small livery stable, a boardinghouse, and a whitewashed church whose bell rang whenever the minister remembered to wind the mechanism.
Most buildings were made of rough timber.
The streets became mud during spring and froze into deep, uneven ruts in winter.
The town existed because freight wagons, cattle drivers, miners, and families traveling farther west needed somewhere to rest.
Caleb Montgomery had never liked it.
He came only when he needed supplies, mail, or information that couldn't be obtained from another trapper or passing merchant. He preferred the mountains, where a man could spend an entire week hearing nothing but wind through the pines and the sound of his own boots on frozen ground.
But that afternoon, Caleb was waiting beside an old wagon outside the general store.
He wore a dark wool coat, a brown vest, heavy trousers, and worn leather boots. His beard was thick, his dark hair touched with gray at the temples, and his face carried the weathered expression of someone who had spent more time beneath open skies than under a proper roof.
In his pocket was a letter.
A matrimonial agency in Missouri had written to confirm that a woman had accepted his proposal.