The blizzard hit Redcliff Hollow before sunset.
By six o’clock, the barn had disappeared behind snow.
By seven, the guide rope was the only thing separating a safe walk across the yard from getting lost twenty feet from home.
By eight, the temperature had fallen so fast that frost formed along the inside corners of the kitchen windows.
Tobias sat near the stove wearing two shirts and Joel’s mother’s wool blanket.
Adeline checked the fire.
Wade checked the door.
Again.
“You’ve checked that latch four times,” she said.
“Five.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
He looked toward the ceiling as wind hammered the house.
“It makes me feel useful.”
She understood that more than she wanted to.
The sheep were inside.
Hay stacked.
Water stored.
The shed door reinforced.
They had done everything they could.
Now came the hardest part.
Waiting.
At nine, something slammed against the north wall.
Tobias jumped.
Wade reached the window.
“Branch.”
“You sure?” Adeline asked.
“No.”
She gave him a look.
“You could lie once in a while.”
“You wouldn’t like me if I did.”
The words slipped out.
Both of them went still.
Tobias looked between them.
“I like both of you.”
Adeline cleared her throat.
“Thank you, Tobias.”
“You’re welcome.”
Wade suddenly became very interested in the window.
At ten, they checked the sheep.
Wade tied himself to the guide rope.
Adeline stood at the door.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“It’s my flock.”
“And if we both get lost, Tobias is alone.”
“I know this yard.”
“Not tonight.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don’t decide for me.”
“No.”
He held out a second rope.
“That’s why I brought this.”
She stared at it.
Then tied it around her waist.
They stepped outside.
The storm swallowed them.
Adeline had known Colorado winters all her life.
This was different.
Snow struck sideways so hard it hurt her face. The lantern illuminated nothing but flying white. The rope between her hand and the porch became the entire world.
Wade moved ahead.
“Stake!”
She touched it.
“Got it!”
They continued.
Ten feet felt like a mile.
At the shed, sheep pressed together in frightened silence.
The eastern door held.
The vent worked.
But snow had begun packing against the lower wall.
Wade shoveled.
Adeline checked the animals.
One ewe had separated from the flock.
“Wade!”
He came over.
The ewe was breathing fast.
He touched her.
“Cold?”
“No. Lambing.”
Adeline stared.
“Now?”
“Apparently she didn’t check the weather.”
Despite everything, Adeline laughed.
They made a separate bed of straw.
The ewe labored.
Twenty minutes.
Thirty.
The wind screamed.
Then a lamb appeared.
Small.
Wet.
Alive.
Adeline rubbed it with wool.
Wade shielded the lantern.
“Come on.”
The lamb moved.
The mother licked it.
Adeline looked up.
Wade was smiling.
A real smile.
For one strange moment, the blizzard disappeared.
Then the shed roof cracked.
Both adults looked up.
A timber groaned.
“Out from under it!” Wade shouted.
They moved the ewe and lamb.
The beam held.
Barely.
Wade examined it.
“Brace.”
“With what?”
He looked toward the wall.
“The old door.”
They had saved it after moving the entrance.
Together they dragged the heavy boards across the shed.
Wade cut them.
Adeline held the lantern.
They built a temporary support beneath the sagging beam.
The roof settled.
Held.
Adeline breathed.
“That old wrong-facing door finally became useful.”
Wade looked at her.
“Don’t tell your father-in-law.”
“Dead twenty years.”
“Still.”
They returned to the farmhouse near midnight.
Tobias ran to Wade.
“You were gone forever.”
“Forty minutes.”
“That’s forever.”
Wade knelt.
“You okay?”
The boy nodded.
Then hugged him.
Wade closed his eyes.
Adeline turned away to give them privacy.
At one in the morning, everyone tried to sleep.
Nobody did.
At two, the wind worsened.
At three, a bell rang outside.
Once.
Twice.
Then continuously.
Adeline sat upright.
“What is that?”
Wade was already pulling on his boots.
“The creek alarm.”
Earlier that week, he had tied a small bell to the float near the water channel.
If the water level dropped sharply, the float lowered and pulled the line.
Adeline’s face went pale.
“The diversion gate.”
Wade nodded.
“Cyrus.”
“You’re not going.”
“If that creek stops, the troughs freeze empty by morning.”
“We stored water.”
“For the house. Not forty sheep.”
“We can melt snow.”
“Not enough.”
Adeline blocked the door.
“You walk to that creek in this, you’ll die.”
“I can follow the stakes to the shed and the fence line down.”
“The creek’s beyond the guide rope.”
“I know.”
“Then no.”
Wade stared at her.
She stared back.
Tobias appeared in the hallway.
“Dad?”
Wade’s expression changed.
He went to him.
“Go back to bed.”
“Are you leaving?”
“For a little while.”
“No.”
“Toby.”
“No.”
The boy grabbed his coat.
“You said rope keeps you from getting lost.”
“It does.”
“There’s no rope there.”
Wade looked at Adeline.
She had not told Tobias.
The boy had heard.
“Toby, listen to me.”
“No.”
His voice broke.
“You always say you’re coming back.”
Wade froze.
Tobias’s eyes filled.
“Mama said she was coming back from the doctor.”
There it was.
The fear beneath everything.
Not hunger.
Not cold.
Promises.
Tomorrow had betrayed him too many times.
Wade knelt.
“I can’t promise nothing bad will happen.”
Tobias started crying silently.
“But I can promise I’m going to do everything I know to come back to you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
Wade pulled Sarah’s mending kit from the emergency sack.
He gave it to Tobias.
“Hold this for me.”
The boy clutched it.
“Why?”
“Because I’m coming back for it.”
Tobias stared at him.
Wade kissed his forehead.
Then stood.
Adeline followed him into the kitchen.
“You can’t do this.”
“I have to.”
“It’s water.”
“It’s your ranch.”
“I don’t care about the ranch if—”
She stopped.
Wade looked at her.
The unfinished sentence hung between them.
If you die.
Adeline’s eyes filled with anger because anger was easier.
“You think fixing everything makes you necessary?”
“No.”
“You think because you repaired a shed and a water line you get to decide you’re expendable?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Wade stepped closer.
“Because Cyrus is counting on the storm making us stay inside.”
“Let him have the water tonight.”
“If he opens that gate and ice locks it open, he has your flow for weeks.”
“I said I don’t care.”
“I do.”
Her breath caught.
Wade continued quietly.
“I care about this place.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“I care about what happened to Tobias here.”
Then his eyes returned to hers.
“And I care about you.”
The storm hit the wall.
Adeline said nothing.
Wade reached for the door.
She caught his sleeve.
“Don’t make me bury another man.”
His face changed.
He covered her hand with his.
“I’m not planning to.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
For one second, neither moved.
Then he opened the door.
The wind tore it from his hand.
Adeline helped force it shut behind him.
She stood against the wood.
Listening.
Waiting.
Praying.
Outside, Wade followed the rope.
Porch.
First stake.
Second.
Barn.
Third.
Shed.
He checked the knot.
Then followed the fence downhill.
Visibility was nearly zero.
He counted posts.
One.
Two.
Three.
Twenty-two should bring him to the turn.
At sixteen, he fell.
Snow filled his collar.
He stood.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
At twenty-one, he found nothing.
He had miscounted.
Panic tried to enter.
Wade closed his eyes.
Think.
Wind from northwest.
Fence should angle south.
He crawled until his glove touched wood.
Twenty-two.
Turn.
He kept moving.
The creek was lower than it should have been.
Much lower.
He reached the diversion gate.
Open.
Wade cursed.
Fresh tool marks scarred the iron.
Cyrus had done it.
Or ordered it.
Wade grabbed the mechanism.
Frozen.
He used the pry bar.
Nothing.
Again.
The gate shifted an inch.
Then he saw something half buried in snow.
A horse.
Dead.
Nearby, a man lay against the bank.
Wade stumbled over.
The man moved.
“Help.”
Wade recognized him.
Eli Mercer.
One of Cyrus’s riders.
“You opened it.”
Eli’s face was gray.
“Bell sent us.”
“Us?”
“Cal.”
“Where?”
Eli pointed downstream.
Wade could barely hear him.
“Horse threw him.”
“Why did Cyrus send you in this?”
“Wanted the water running before morning.”
Wade looked at the gate.
Then at Eli.
He could close the diversion.
Or carry the man back.
Not both quickly.
Eli grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t leave me.”
Wade stared at him.
This man had helped Cyrus threaten Adeline.
Maybe cut the rope.
Maybe forged nothing, maybe everything.
It didn’t matter.
Wade pulled him up.
“Can you walk?”
“Leg’s bad.”
“Then lean.”
They moved.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
Back at the farmhouse, the bell stopped.
Adeline ran to the window.
“The water?”
She couldn’t tell.
An hour passed.
Then another.
No Wade.
Tobias sat awake.
“He said he’d come back.”
Adeline knelt in front of him.
“He’s trying.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
She remembered Wade’s words.
No false promises.
“Then what do we do?”
“We trust what we know.”
“What do we know?”
Adeline swallowed.
“Your father fixes what he can.”
The boy held Sarah’s mending kit.
“And when he’s wrong?”
“He tells the truth.”
“And when things get hard?”
Adeline looked toward the door.
“He stays.”
At dawn, the blizzard was worse.
Wade still had not returned.
Adeline tied on her coat.
Tobias stood.
“No.”
“I’m checking the shed.”
“You’re going after him.”
She didn’t answer.
“Miss Adeline.”
She knelt.
“You stay beside the stove.”
“No.”
“Tobias.”
His chin trembled.
“You said people can be stakes.”
Her heart broke.
“Yes.”
“Then Dad needs one.”
Adeline touched his face.
“I’m going to bring him home.”
She stepped outside.
The guide rope was still there.
First stake.
Second.
Barn.
Then—
SNAP.
The rope broke in her hand.
Wind ripped the loose end into the storm.
Adeline stared at it.
For the first time in her life, she felt true fear of the snow.
Behind her, somewhere invisible, the farmhouse door slammed.
“Tobias!”
No answer.
“Tobias!”
Then a small figure emerged through the white.
The boy had followed her.
Adeline lunged toward him.
At that exact moment, from somewhere beyond the fence, a man shouted.
“ADDIE!”
She froze.
Nobody had called her that since Joel died.
“WADE!”
A dark shape appeared.
Then two.
Wade stumbled through the snow with Eli Mercer hanging over his shoulder.
He made it three more steps.
Then collapsed.
Adeline ran.
And when she reached him, Wade Colton was no longer conscious.