Pike pounded the cabin door again.
“Mercer!”
Hayes leaned against the wall beside it, rifle across his chest.
His leg throbbed inside the splint.
He ignored it.
“Open the damn door!”
Hayes raised his voice.
“Go home, Pike.”
Laughter came from outside.
“You know how far we rode?”
“Sounds like poor planning.”
Pike cursed.
Up in the loft, Josie opened the chest.
The revolver rested beneath folded blankets exactly where Hayes had left it weeks earlier.
She picked it up.
Her fingers trembled.
She hated that.
Fear had controlled enough of her life.
She descended.
Hayes glanced at the weapon.
“You know how to use it?”
“My mother taught me.”
That surprised him.
“She was full of useful information.”
Another heavy blow struck the door.
Pike shouted, “Girl belongs to her daddy, Mercer!”
Josie flinched.
Hayes saw it.
His expression changed.
He stepped directly in front of the door.
“No,” he said loudly. “She belongs to herself.”
Silence outside.
Then Pike laughed.
“That so?”
“Yes.”
“We got papers.”
“Don’t care.”
“Her daddy signed them.”
“Don’t care.”
“She was sold legal.”
Hayes looked at Josie.
Something cold entered his eyes.
“A man can sign whatever he wants. Doesn’t mean the mountains have to respect it.”
One of the other men shouted, “We can burn you out!”
Hayes answered, “Try.”
Josie stared at him.
He was not bluffing.
That frightened her almost as much as Pike.
She moved closer.
“We can’t stay here if they burn the cabin.”
“They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because their horses are tied to the porch rail.”
For one second Josie did not understand.
Then she did.
The cabin might burn.
But the men would have nowhere to go afterward.
The cold outside would kill them.
Hayes raised his voice again.
“You boys thinking about fire, think harder.”
No answer.
Hayes smiled without humor.
“Thought so.”
Pike changed tactics.
“Josie!”
Her entire body stiffened.
“Your father sent us!”
She shut her eyes.
Hayes watched her.
“Don’t listen.”
Pike continued.
“Your sister Ruth is sick!”
Josie’s eyes flew open.
“Your brothers are hungry! Your daddy needs you!”
She stepped toward the door.
Hayes caught himself before grabbing her.
Instead he said, “Think.”
“What if he’s telling the truth?”
“What if he isn’t?”
“What if Ruth—”
“Would Pike ride through February snow to reunite a family?”
Josie’s face changed.
No.
Of course not.
Pike shouted, “Your father paid us to bring you back!”
Hayes frowned.
Josie whispered, “My father doesn’t have money.”
Exactly.
Pike had made his mistake.
Hayes called through the door.
“What did he pay you with?”
No answer.
Hayes waited.
Then: “That’s what I thought.”
Pike swore.
A gunshot exploded.
The window shattered.
Josie ducked.
Hayes fired through the wall beside the door.
A man outside screamed.
Not wounded.
Startled.
Hayes deliberately aimed wide.
“Next one goes lower,” he called.
Silence.
Then horses moved rapidly.
Pike shouted something.
Within seconds, hoofbeats retreated.
Hayes listened until they faded.
Only then did he lower the rifle.
Josie sat on the floor.
Glass covered the boards beside her.
Hayes limped toward the shattered window.
“Stay down.”
“They’re gone.”
“For now.”
He pushed a table against the opening, then nailed a blanket over it.
Josie remained unusually quiet.
Finally Hayes returned to the bunk.
His face had gone pale from the strain on his leg.
“You need to lie down.”
“I am down.”
“You know what I mean.”
She helped position his leg.
This time when her hands touched him, Hayes noticed something.
She did not flinch.
Neither did he.
“They said Ruth was sick,” Josie whispered.
Hayes looked at her.
“We’ll find out.”
“When?”
“The moment the trail opens.”
“And if Pike comes back?”
Hayes glanced toward the rifle.
“He’d have to be stupider than I think he is.”
“That’s possible.”
Hayes laughed despite himself.
“So it is.”
Pike did not return.
But the visit changed the winter.
Josie stopped thinking of the cabin as a temporary shelter.
She began thinking of it as a place Pike had tried to enter and failed.
There was a strange power in that.
For years every door in Josie’s life had opened whenever a man demanded it.
Her father’s door.
Pike’s wagon.
Roadside camps.
The trading post.
But Hayes’s door had remained closed.
Not because Josie was hidden behind it.
Because someone had finally asked what she wanted.
By early March, Hayes could hobble around using a wooden crutch.
Josie caught him carrying firewood one morning.
She placed both hands on her hips.
“Put it down.”
“It’s three pieces.”
“Put it down.”
“Doctor Josie has spoken.”
“There is no doctor.”
“That’s becoming increasingly obvious.”
She took the wood from him.
Hayes smiled.
Josie shook her head.
“What?”
“You like irritating me.”
“Winter entertainment is limited.”
“You could read.”
“Book’s missing the ending.”
“You have Shakespeare.”
“Everybody dies.”
“You have the Bible.”
“Several people die in that too.”
Josie laughed.
Hayes watched her longer than he should have.
She noticed.
The laughter faded.
Their eyes met.
Something unspoken passed between them.
Hayes looked away first.
That night neither slept easily.
As the days lengthened, small signs of spring appeared.
Icicles softened in afternoon sunlight.
Snow dropped from pine branches.
The creek began making noise beneath the ice.
Josie should have been relieved.
Instead every sign of thaw brought unease.
April meant freedom.
April meant finding Ruth and her brothers.
April meant Cold Water Crossing.
And April meant she could leave Hayes.
She had dreamed of having choices.
Now that one approached, she discovered choices could hurt.
One evening she found Hayes repairing an old leather saddle strap.
“How long before the trail opens?”
“Two weeks, maybe three.”
Josie nodded.
Hayes continued working.
“What will you do?”
“Find my family.”
“After.”
“I don’t know.”
“You could take the cabin.”
Her head snapped toward him.
“What?”
“If you want it.”
“Where would you go?”
“Somewhere else.”
Josie stared.
“You’re giving me your home?”
“I can build another.”
“Why?”
“So you have somewhere.”
Anger rose unexpectedly.
“You think I need charity?”
“No.”
“You paid for me, fed me all winter, protected me, and now you’re offering me your cabin.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Hayes set down the leather.
“Because I want you safe.”
“I am safe.”
“For now.”
“With you.”
The words hung between them.
Hayes’s expression changed.
Josie stepped closer.
“I’m safe with you.”
His voice was quiet.
“That doesn’t mean you owe me staying.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Hayes looked at her carefully.
“Then don’t make a decision because you’re grateful.”
Josie’s jaw tightened.
“You think gratitude is why I care what happens to you?”
Hayes said nothing.
She continued.
“When you fell in the snow, I thought you might die.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“When Pike came, you would’ve fought three men on a broken leg.”
“Probably foolish.”
“Extremely.”
“I’ve been told.”
“And every night since, I listen to make sure you’re breathing.”
Hayes stopped smiling.
Josie’s voice shook.
“I don’t do that because you paid forty dollars.”
Hayes stood slowly.
He was much taller than she was.
Josie did not step back.
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know yet.”
It was the most honest answer she had.
Hayes nodded.
“Then we don’t need to say anything.”
Josie almost laughed in frustration.
“You are the most patient man alive.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I bought a woman on impulse.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You knew what you were doing.”
Hayes’s gaze held hers.
“No, Josie. I really didn’t.”
Their faces were only a foot apart.
For the first time, Hayes raised a hand toward her.
Then stopped before touching her cheek.
He waited.
The question was clear without words.
Josie looked at his hand.
Then at him.
She leaned forward.
Hayes touched her face as gently as falling snow.
Josie closed her eyes.
He did not kiss her.
Not yet.
His thumb moved once across her cheek.
Then he lowered his hand.
“Not until you know,” he said.
Josie opened her eyes.
“Know what?”
“That you can leave.”
Tears appeared before she could stop them.
Hayes did not wipe them away.
He gave her the dignity of deciding what happened next.
Josie turned toward the fire.
And that was when she understood.
She had spent months asking herself whether Hayes was safe.
But the real question was no longer whether she trusted him.
She did.
The question was whether she trusted herself enough to choose happiness when nobody else was choosing for her.
Two weeks later, the trail began to open.
Hayes saddled the horse.
Josie packed food.
The mountain released them slowly, reluctantly.
Cold Water Crossing waited below.
So did Pike.
So did Josie’s father.
And somewhere beyond both of them were three younger siblings who did not yet know their sister was coming home.
But as Hayes and Josie rode down from the mountains together, neither knew that Pike had spent the final weeks of winter preparing something more dangerous than an auction.
He had found a sheriff willing to believe a piece of paper.
And by the time Hayes saw the men waiting across the road outside Dunner’s Trading Post, it was already too late to turn around.