Abigail woke before dawn.
For several seconds she didn’t know where she was.
There was no shouting downstairs.
No doors slamming.
No Martha demanding hot water.
No footsteps approaching quickly enough to make Abigail’s stomach clench.
Only wind.
The mountain wind moved around the cabin like a living thing, brushing snow against the walls and whispering beneath the roof.
Abigail remained motionless beneath the blankets.
Then she remembered.
Cole.
Three gold coins.
The mountain.
The locked door.
She sat up quickly and checked the latch.
Still locked.
No one had entered.
She touched the rough wooden door as though confirming it was real.
Then guilt came.
She had slept while Cole had apparently been awake long enough to rebuild the fire. Warm orange light moved beneath the door.
She dressed quickly and stepped into the main room.
Cole was crouched beside the iron stove.
“Morning.”
Abigail stopped.
No one had greeted her like that in years.
“Morning.”
A cast-iron skillet rested on the stove.
Bacon sizzled beside two eggs.
Cole nodded toward the table.
“Coffee.”
She looked at the tin cup.
“For me?”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“You see anybody else?”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Instead, Abigail walked to the table and sat carefully on the edge of a chair.
Cole placed a plate in front of her.
Two eggs.
Three strips of bacon.
Biscuits left from the previous day.
It was too much food.
Abigail stared.
Cole sat opposite her.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I am.”
“You gave me more.”
“So?”
“You worked for it.”
Cole chewed slowly.
“You walked nine miles uphill yesterday.”
“That isn’t work.”
“Sure felt like work from where I was standing.”
Abigail didn’t answer.
She picked up a biscuit and broke off a tiny piece.
Cole watched without seeming to watch.
After several bites, he stood.
“Going for wood.”
Abigail immediately rose too.
“I’ll come.”
“No need.”
“I can carry it.”
“I know.”
“I should help.”
Cole paused beside the door.
“You can if you want.”
Those three words confused her.
If you want.
Not because you owe me.
Not because I bought you.
Not because I said so.
Abigail looked toward the washing stacked beside the water barrel.
“I’ll stay.”
Cole nodded once.
“Back shortly.”
He took his coat and stepped outside.
The door closed.
Abigail stood alone.
That should have felt peaceful.
Instead she panicked.
She had eaten breakfast.
He had cooked it.
She had done nothing.
Surely he expected repayment.
Maybe he was testing her.
Martha had done that.
Sometimes her mother would leave an unfinished task in plain sight and punish Abigail for failing to notice.
Abigail began moving.
She cleaned the plates.
Swept near the stove.
Folded one blanket.
Then she found several tin bowls drying beside a basin.
She picked one up.
Her fingers were cold from the water.
The bowl slipped.
It struck the floor.
CLANG.
The sound filled the cabin.
Abigail’s body reacted before her mind did.
She dropped to her knees.
Her arms flew over her head.
Her shoulders curled inward.
The cabin door opened.
Cole stepped inside carrying an armful of firewood.
He froze.
Abigail squeezed her eyes shut.
“Please.”
Cole didn’t move.
Her breath came faster.
“I’m sorry.”
The firewood slipped slightly against his chest.
Abigail flinched at the sound.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Please don’t hit me.”
Cole slowly lowered the logs.
Every movement became deliberate.
Quiet.
Controlled.
He placed the wood beside the stove.
Then he remained where he was.
“Abigail.”
She covered her head tighter.
“Look at me.”
“No.”
The answer escaped as a whisper.
Cole lowered himself to one knee several feet away.
“All right.”
Abigail waited.
Nothing happened.
Seconds passed.
Then more.
The only sounds were the stove and her breathing.
Cole finally spoke.
“You broke a bowl.”
“I know.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Abigail cautiously lowered one arm.
“What?”
“You didn’t break it.”
He nodded toward the floor.
The bowl lay there without so much as a dent.
“It fell.”
She stared.
“That’s all.”
Abigail’s eyes filled.
Cole reached toward the bowl.
She recoiled.
He stopped instantly.
Then, using two fingers, he slid the bowl away from her rather than coming closer.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you in this house.”
Abigail looked at him.
For one terrible instant, Martha’s voice returned inside her head.
I only hit you because you make me.
If you behave, nothing happens.
Every apology had always been followed by another blow eventually.
Abigail whispered, “My mother used to say that.”
Cole’s expression changed.
“What?”
“She’d say everything was fine. Then she’d…”
Her voice disappeared.
Outside, somewhere beyond the trees, came the distant rhythm of horse hooves.
Cole’s head turned sharply.
Abigail went pale.
“Is it her?”
“I don’t know.”
He stood.
She scrambled backward.
Cole stopped immediately.
“Sorry.”
Abigail hated herself for being afraid of him.
He hadn’t done anything.
Still, fear wasn’t listening.
Cole crossed to the window instead of the door.
A rider appeared between the pines.
One horse.
One man.
Cole relaxed slightly.
“Stay inside.”
Abigail’s heart hammered.
“Who is it?”
“Deputy.”
That did not make her feel better.
The horse stopped outside.
A man in a dark wool coat dismounted.
Abigail recognized Amos Pike, Willow Creek’s deputy sheriff.
Cole opened the door.
Pike removed his hat.
“Morning, Bennett.”
“Bit early for visiting.”
“Wasn’t planning a social call.”
Pike glanced past him.
His eyes found Abigail.
She immediately dropped her gaze.
Cole noticed.
“What does Martha want?”
Pike exhaled.
“So you already know.”
“Woman doesn’t send the law nine miles into the mountains because she misses conversation.”
Pike looked embarrassed.
“She says you took her daughter.”
“I paid what she demanded.”
“She says you threatened her.”
Abigail’s head snapped up.
Cole’s expression stayed flat.
“That so?”
“She filed a complaint after you left.”
“With three gold pieces in her pocket?”
Pike rubbed his jaw.
“Two now, apparently. She spent one at the saloon.”
Cole almost laughed.
Almost.
Pike continued.
“She says she changed her mind.”
Abigail’s blood ran cold.
Cole looked toward her.
He saw the terror immediately.
Pike saw it too.
“Miss Mercer,” he said carefully, “did Cole Bennett force you to leave Willow Creek?”
Abigail opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Martha’s rules filled her head.
Never contradict me.
Never embarrass me.
Never tell outsiders what happens in this house.
Pike waited.
Cole did not answer for her.
That mattered.
He could have.
Instead, he stepped aside so Abigail could see the deputy clearly.
She clenched her hands.
“No.”
Pike’s eyebrows rose.
“No, he didn’t force me.”
“You went willingly?”
Abigail looked at Cole.
Had she?
She had followed because Martha sold her.
Because she believed she had no choice.
But Cole had never dragged her.
Never tied her.
Never threatened her.
“Yes.”
Pike nodded.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“No.”
“Tell you that you aren’t free to leave?”
Abigail hesitated.
Cole answered this time.
“She’s free.”
Abigail looked at him.
Pike did too.
Cole’s voice hardened.
“She can go back with you today if that’s what she wants.”
Something painful tightened beneath Abigail’s ribs.
She didn’t want to go back.
But hearing Cole say she could leave felt different from hearing Martha say Cole owned her.
Pike turned to Abigail.
“Do you want me to take you back to town?”
The question terrified her.
Not because she wanted to say yes.
Because nobody had asked what she wanted in years.
Her mouth trembled.
“No.”
“Sure?”
She looked at Cole again.
His face revealed nothing.
He wasn’t demanding.
He wasn’t pleading.
He was simply waiting.
Abigail straightened.
“No. I don’t want to go back.”
Pike replaced his hat.
“That settles my part of it.”
Cole leaned against the doorway.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Martha’s stirring trouble.”
“Not unusual.”
“She says she’ll take it to Judge Holloway when the circuit court comes through next week.”
Cole’s face darkened.
“She can.”
Pike glanced toward Abigail.
“There’s something else.”
Cole waited.
“Martha owes money.”
Abigail’s stomach turned.
“To who?”
“Harlan Voss.”
Cole swore quietly.
Abigail knew the name.
Harlan owned the gambling room attached to the Red Lantern Saloon.
He was twice Abigail’s age, broad as an ox, and famous for collecting debts in ways nobody discussed openly.
Pike continued.
“Word is Martha promised him she’d settle what she owes.”
Cole looked toward the leather pouch sitting empty on a shelf.
“With my gold?”
“Apparently it wasn’t enough.”
Abigail’s face drained of color.
Memory stirred.
Three weeks earlier.
Martha drinking in the kitchen with a man Abigail could not see from the upstairs landing.
A deep voice saying, “I’ll take something else if you don’t have money.”
Martha answering, “I’ve got something worth more than money.”
At the time Abigail hadn’t understood.
Now she did.
Cole saw the realization in her face.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Abigail.”
“I said nothing.”
Her voice came sharper than she intended.
She waited for anger.
Cole only nodded.
“All right.”
Pike stepped back toward his horse.
“I’d keep the door barred for a few days.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed.
“You think Voss will come here?”
“I think Voss doesn’t like losing anything he believes belongs to him.”
Abigail wrapped her arms around herself.
Cole’s voice went quiet.
“She doesn’t belong to anybody.”
Pike held his gaze.
“I know that.”
The deputy mounted.
Before leaving, he looked at Abigail.
“If you decide you want to return to Willow Creek, come to my office. Not your mother’s boarding house. Mine.”
Abigail nodded.
Pike rode away.
Cole closed the door.
Silence filled the cabin.
Abigail stared at the stove.
“I should go.”
Cole frowned.
“Where?”
“Somewhere else.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ll come here.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You don’t owe me this trouble.”
Cole crossed his arms.
“I didn’t know trouble needed permission.”
“You paid three gold pieces for me.”
His face tightened.
“I paid your mother to let go.”
“That isn’t different.”
“To me it is.”
Abigail looked up.
Cole took a long breath.
“I chose my words poorly yesterday.”
“You said you were buying peace.”
“I was.”
“For yourself.”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
Cole stepped closer, then remembered her fear and stopped.
“For you.”
Abigail stared.
“I’d seen you in town before,” he said.
Her brows drew together.
“When?”
“Plenty of times.”
“You never spoke to me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you always looked like speaking to you would get you punished later.”
Her lips parted.
Cole continued.
“Yesterday I saw that woman hit you in broad daylight. Figured if she’d do that where people could see, what she did behind closed doors was worse.”
Abigail looked away.
He had understood more in ten minutes than the entire town had understood in years.
“I didn’t buy you,” he said. “I bought her willingness to stop standing between you and the door.”
Abigail’s eyes burned.
“And if I walk through your door?”
“You walk.”
“Even now?”
“Especially now.”
She looked toward the cabin entrance.
Beyond it waited cold mountains.
Nine miles of wilderness.
A mother who wanted her back.
A gambler who might believe Martha had promised him something.
Abigail turned toward Cole.
“I don’t know where I’d go.”
Cole’s expression softened.
“You don’t have to know today.”
Her tears finally spilled.
She wiped them away angrily.
“I hate crying.”
“Why?”
“It makes me weak.”
“Says who?”
She laughed once without humor.
“You know who.”
Cole leaned down and picked up the fallen tin bowl.
He placed it on the table.
“Seems to me you spent twenty-two years surviving somebody who wanted you afraid.”
He looked at her.
“That doesn’t sound weak.”
Abigail said nothing.
But for the first time, she wondered whether Martha had lied about more than her father.
Maybe she had lied about Abigail too.
That evening Cole added an extra board across the cabin door.
Abigail noticed he moved his revolver closer to the bed.
She also noticed he never gave her orders.
When dinner was finished, she washed her own plate because she wanted to.
Cole washed his.
Before bed, Abigail stood outside her little room.
“Cole?”
He looked up from sharpening his knife.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
He stopped.
“For what?”
Abigail glanced toward the tin bowl.
“For not making me pay for it.”
Cole followed her gaze.
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Abigail, that bowl survived falling off a mountain pack twice.”
She blinked.
“It did?”
“Thing’s tougher than both of us.”
A small sound escaped her.
A laugh.
Cole looked at her.
Abigail covered her mouth as though she had done something wrong.
Then she realized nobody was angry.
So she laughed again.
Quietly.
For only a second.
But it was the first laughter the cabin had heard in years.
And outside, beyond the warm circle of light spilling from the windows, fresh hoofprints appeared in the snow.
Someone else had found the trail to Cole Bennett’s home.
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