The blizzard struck the cabin hard enough to make the roof beams groan.
Eleanor stood beside the heavy wooden door with one hand still wrapped around the iron latch, even though she had locked it nearly an hour earlier. Beyond the small window, the Colorado mountains had disappeared beneath a wall of snow. Wind drove ice against the glass in handfuls, and every few seconds the chimney moaned as if something enormous were breathing above them.
She had been married for less than four hours.
Already she wondered whether she had made another terrible mistake.
Across the room, Caleb stood beside the stone fireplace.
He was the largest man Eleanor had ever seen.
At six-foot-four, with shoulders broad enough to nearly fill the doorway and arms shaped by years of splitting timber, hauling elk, setting traps, and surviving alone in country where winter routinely killed the careless, he looked like the sort of man frontier stories turned into legends.
Yet he was frightened.
Not of the storm.
Not of the roof.
Not of the wolves Eleanor had heard somewhere beyond the woodpile.
Of her.
His right hand trembled against the collar of his rough cream shirt.
Eleanor watched it.
That disturbed her more than anything.
Caleb's hands did not tremble.
She had seen him lift her trunk from the wagon as though it contained feathers. She had watched him control a frightened horse with one hand during their journey from the settlement. When the wind nearly knocked Eleanor from the porch, he had caught her arm easily, then immediately released her as though afraid the touch itself might offend.
Now his fingers could barely manage the first wooden button.
Eleanor's grip tightened around the folded cloth she held against her stomach.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Caleb stopped.
His blue-gray eyes lifted.
"No, ma'am."
She almost laughed.
They were married.
He still called her ma'am.
"Then why do you look as though you're preparing to confess to murder?"
His mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
"Because I don't know what happens after I show you."
Eleanor felt the old instinct return.
Prepare.
Protect yourself.
Find the nearest exit.
Her first husband had taught her that intimacy often arrived wearing kindness and removed the disguise only after escape became difficult.
Before their wedding, Henry had called Eleanor beautiful.
He had praised her laugh.
Said he loved that she enjoyed food.
Said there was comfort in a woman who looked "real."
Six months later, every meal had become evidence against her.
Every dress that tightened became an accusation.