The first blow against the cabin door came just as Caleb Hart was about to kiss the woman he had spent three months trying not to love.
It was a terrible sound.
Three heavy strikes, delivered with enough force to shake dust from the wooden frame and send the brass latch rattling against its plate.
Clara Whitmore froze in his lap.
Her fingers, which moments earlier had rested tenderly against his bearded face, tightened around the collar of his worn leather coat.
Outside, a Wyoming blizzard screamed through the pine trees.
Inside, the fire cracked beneath a black iron kettle, and two people who had finally gathered the courage to admit what they felt stared toward the door.
Then a man's voice rose above the storm.
"Hart! Open up!"
Caleb didn't move.
He was thirty-nine years old, nearly six feet six inches tall, with massive shoulders, powerful hands, and the weathered face of a man who had spent more years beneath the open sky than under a respectable roof. Thick brown hair fell toward his collar, and a rugged beard framed a jaw marked by an old scar.
There were other scars.
A pale line crossed the left side of his throat.
Another ran beneath his ribs.
And the knuckles of his right hand bore permanent reminders of fights he rarely discussed.
The people of Willow Creek called him dangerous.
Some called him a killer.
Others insisted he had once hunted men for money.
And nearly everyone agreed that a sensible woman should keep her distance from the enormous mountain man who lived alone above Blackpine Ridge.
Clara had heard every story.
She had listened to the warnings.
Then she had watched Caleb carry food to hungry families, rescue animals from freezing water, and stand between frightened people and men who enjoyed making them afraid.
She had gradually come to believe that the town knew less about him than it claimed.
Now she was sitting sideways across his lap, wearing a forest-green wool dress and a burgundy shawl, her thick chestnut-brown hair pinned loosely at the back of her head.
Her blue-gray eyes were wide.
Her lips, which had been only inches from his, trembled.
Another blow struck the door.
Caleb's expression changed.
The hesitation that had held him motionless beneath her disappeared.
His powerful arms closed around her, not possessively, but instinctively, steadying her as she turned toward the noise.
"Stay quiet," he whispered.
Clara swallowed.
The man outside shouted again.
"We know you're in there!"
Caleb looked toward the window.
Snow covered the glass.
The storm had begun before sunset and grown violent enough to make the mountain trail nearly impassable.
Anyone who reached the cabin in that weather had come for a reason.
A dangerous reason.
Caleb slowly helped Clara to her feet.
She stood beside the chair, one hand still resting against his shoulder.
He rose.
The room seemed smaller with him standing.
His head nearly reached the exposed ceiling beams, and the thick sheepskin collar of his coat made his shoulders look broader than ever.
He approached the door.
Then stopped.
"Who is it?"
A voice answered.
"Men with business."
Caleb's jaw tightened.
"Then come back in daylight."
A bitter laugh followed.
"We didn't ride through this storm to discuss business tomorrow."
Caleb glanced toward Clara.
She had gone terribly pale.
He noticed immediately.
"Clara?"
She didn't answer.
Another voice shouted from outside.
"Tell the woman to come out!"
Caleb went still.
For one moment, everything in the cabin seemed to stop.
The fire.
The wind.
The old clock ticking near the mantel.
Then the voice came again.
"Hart! We didn't come for you!"
A pause.
"Hand over Clara Whitmore!"
Clara made a small sound.
Not a scream.
Something quieter.
A frightened breath that caught before it became a word.