Gideon crouched.
He brushed snow away.
"Martha."
She came closer.
A small handprint marked the snow beside the sled.
Her breath caught.
"Child."
They searched faster.
They found the woman first.
She was lying behind a fallen pine, unconscious but breathing.
Beside her was a little girl.
Maybe six years old.
The girl was awake.
Terrified.
She clutched a torn blanket around herself.
When Martha approached, the child backed away.
"It's all right," Martha said gently.
The girl stared.
"Where is my horse?"
"We found her."
The child's face crumpled with relief.
"She's alive?"
"She's safe."
The girl began to cry.
Martha knelt in the snow.
"So are you."
The child ran toward her.
Martha caught her.
The girl was freezing.
Martha wrapped her own coat around the child's shoulders.
Gideon lifted the unconscious woman carefully.
"She's alive."
"We need to get them home."
"We will."
The ride back was slow.
Martha kept the little girl in front of her.
The child eventually fell asleep against her chest.
Gideon carried the injured woman on his horse.
By the time they reached the cabin, darkness had settled over the trees.
Martha opened the door.
Warm air rolled over them.
The oven glowed.
For one brief moment, she remembered the first winter.
The first night.
The fear.
The cold.
The knowledge that survival could depend on one warm room.
Now there were two strangers entering that same room.
And Martha understood something.
The cabin had never really belonged only to them.
It had always been waiting to become a place where someone else could survive too.
They carried the woman inside.
They placed her near the oven.
The little girl remained wrapped in Martha's coat.
Gideon examined the woman's injuries.
"Broken ankle," he said. "Maybe bruised ribs."
"Will she live?"
"If we keep her warm."
Martha looked at the oven.
Then at the child.
"Then we will."
The girl looked up at her.
"Is this your house?"
Martha smiled.
"Yes."
"Are you married?"
Martha glanced at Gideon.
"Yes."
"Are you husband and wife?"
Gideon answered.
"Yes."
The girl considered this.
"Do you have children?"
Martha's expression softened.
"No."
The girl looked down.
Then she asked quietly, "Can I sleep here?"
Martha's heart tightened.
"You don't have to ask."
She led the girl toward the small sleeping room.
Gideon watched them disappear.
For a long moment he stood alone beside the oven.
Then he looked at the fire.
Twenty-one years earlier, Martha had slept beside that warmth because there had been nowhere else.
Tonight, someone else would sleep safely because they had built a home around it.
He smiled.
Some things, he thought, had a way of coming back around.
Later that night, Martha returned to the kitchen.
Gideon was sitting beside the oven.
She lowered herself beside him.
"The girl is asleep."
"Good."
"The woman too."
"Good."
Martha leaned against him.
He wrapped an arm around her.