Silas did not ride toward the trading station.
He rode east.
Adelaide followed through the trees, fighting pain each time her horse moved beneath her.
“Where are we going?”
“Old logging road.”
“Jonah’s at the station.”
“Maybe.”
“You think it’s a trap.”
“I know it’s a trap.”
Adelaide’s breath fogged in front of her.
“Then how do we find him?”
“Vale needs shelter.”
“There are dozens of cabins.”
“Not with space for several horses.”
Silas pointed through the trees.
“Abandoned sawmill.”
The building appeared after an hour.
It stood beside a frozen creek, half collapsed beneath the pines.
Silas dismounted.
Adelaide started to do the same.
He looked at her leg.
She glared.
Silas said nothing.
Smart man.
They approached from the rear.
Voices came from inside.
Adelaide recognized none of them.
Silas crouched near a broken wall.
Through the boards they saw Jonah tied to a chair.
His face was bruised but he was conscious.
Three men stood nearby.
A fourth wore a clean black coat that looked absurdly expensive beside the ruined mill.
Adelaide knew him instantly.
Preston Vale.
Theodore’s man.
Vale had visited her mother’s house twice in St. Louis.
He smiled often.
His eyes never did.
“I told you Rourke would come,” Jonah said.
Vale slapped him.
Adelaide moved.
Silas grabbed her arm.
She glared at him.
He shook his head.
Wait.
Vale paced.
“Rourke isn’t the prize.”
Jonah spat blood onto the floor.
“Adelaide won’t go with you.”
“She will.”
“You don’t know her.”
Vale smiled.
“I know everyone has a price.”
Adelaide almost laughed.
Theodore had made the same mistake.
Silas leaned close.
“Two at front. One rear. Vale.”
“What’s the plan?”
“You stay—”
Her eyes narrowed.
Silas corrected himself.
“You circle left.”
“Better.”
They moved.
Silas created the distraction.
He threw a stone through the opposite window.
One gunman rushed toward the sound.
Adelaide stepped through the rear doorway.
“Drop it.”
The second man spun.
He saw a six-foot-two woman aiming a Winchester at his chest.
For approximately one second, surprise overruled intelligence.
That second was enough.
“Gun. Floor.”
He dropped it.
Vale turned.
His expression transformed.
“Miss Mercer.”
“Mr. Vale.”
“You look well.”
“I was thrown from a mule.”
“So I heard.”
Adelaide’s stomach tightened.
Someone had already talked.
Vale smiled.
“You should come quietly.”
“Why?”
“You’re wanted for theft.”
“By whom?”
“Mr. Voss.”
“That isn’t how law works.”
“Isn’t it?”
Vale pulled a document from his coat.
“Warrant.”
Adelaide did not lower the rifle.
“Let me see it.”
“You’ll see it in St. Louis.”
“That means it’s false.”
Vale’s smile disappeared.
A gunshot exploded outside.
The man guarding Jonah reached for his weapon.
Jonah kicked the chair backward into him.
Silas appeared through the front door.
Within seconds, the room became chaos.
Adelaide fired into a ceiling beam.
The thunderous crack stopped everyone.
“Enough!”
Four men stared at her.
Adelaide lowered the barrel toward Vale.
“I have had a very unpleasant week,” she said. “I crossed half the country, nearly fell off a mountain, had pine resin packed into my leg by a man who apparently considers potatoes a complete meal, and now you have kidnapped my neighbor.”
Silas looked mildly offended by the potato remark.
Adelaide continued.
“I am tired.”
Jonah grinned through a split lip.
Vale slowly lifted his hands.
“You won’t shoot me.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“You’re a woman.”
Adelaide blinked.
“That is your argument?”
“You don’t have the stomach.”
Silas’s expression became almost amused.
Adelaide smiled sweetly.
“Mr. Vale, I am not trying to prove I am a man.”
She cocked the rifle.
“I am proving you should stop assuming that being a woman makes me helpless.”
Vale’s face hardened.
Silas untied Jonah.
They searched the men.
Inside Vale’s coat, Silas found letters from Theodore.
One contained instructions.
Find Mercer woman. Recover brown ledger if in her possession. Destroy if necessary. Return woman alive. Payment doubles upon recovery.
Adelaide stared at the paper.
“That proves he wants the ledger.”
Jonah rubbed his wrists.
“Not the fraud.”
“No,” Adelaide said. “But enough to show why he came after me.”
Vale laughed.
“You think that matters?”
Silas stepped toward him.
Vale stopped laughing.
The mountain man was quiet, but his silence had weight.
Adelaide touched Silas’s sleeve.
“Don’t.”
Silas looked at her.
“If you hit him,” she said, “he becomes the victim.”
Vale smirked.
Adelaide looked at him.
“If we hand him to the marshal with Theodore’s letter in his pocket, he becomes evidence.”
The smirk vanished.
Jonah laughed.
“I like her.”
Silas looked at Adelaide.
“So do I.”
The words came out simply.
No embarrassment.
Adelaide’s face warmed.
Vale noticed.
“So this is the replacement.”
Silas’s jaw tightened.
Adelaide answered first.
“He isn’t replacing anyone.”
Vale smiled cruelly.
“You think Rourke wants a woman like you?”
Adelaide froze.
Silas did too.
Vale had found the oldest wound.
He continued.
“Theodore said men used to laugh whenever you entered a room.”
Adelaide’s fingers tightened around the rifle.
“He said you frightened boys at dances.”
Silas stepped forward.
Adelaide stopped him again.
Vale’s voice became soft.
“He said nobody wanted you until Theodore offered.”
Adelaide felt twenty-two years of whispered insults.
Giant.
Ox.
Horse.
Too much woman.
Too loud.
Too tall.
Too strong.
Too visible.
Vale leaned closer.
“Rourke wrote for a bride because he lives alone on a mountain. He would have taken anyone.”
Silas moved.
Adelaide expected violence.
Instead, he walked until he stood beside her.
Not in front.
Beside.
He spoke without looking at Vale.
“Adelaide.”
She swallowed.
“What?”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I saw you get off that coach.”
“I know.”
“I saw every inch of you.”
Her throat tightened.
“Silas—”
“And I thought you were the most remarkable woman I’d ever seen.”
Vale rolled his eyes.
Silas ignored him.
“I didn’t say it because I’m poor at saying things.”
Adelaide almost laughed through the emotion rising in her chest.
“That is painfully true.”
Silas nodded.
“But don’t mistake my silence for uncertainty.”
Adelaide stared at him.
He continued.
“I want you.”
The room became very quiet.
“Not because you came west.”
His voice remained calm.
“Not because you were available.”
He reached out.
His rough fingers closed around hers.
“Because you’re Adelaide.”
Vale’s cruel smile finally disappeared.
Adelaide’s eyes burned.
Jonah cleared his throat loudly.
“I hate to interrupt what may be the best proposal Silas will ever manage, but one of these fellows is escaping.”
Everyone turned.
A gunman was halfway through the rear door.
Silas tackled him.
The moment shattered.
Adelaide laughed.
She could not help it.
Later, they tied Vale and his men to their horses and rode toward town.
But halfway down the mountain, they saw smoke.
Too much smoke.
Silas stopped.
His expression changed.
Adelaide followed his gaze.
The smoke rose from the direction of his cabin.
“No,” he whispered.
They rode hard.
Pain tore through Adelaide’s healing leg.
She ignored it.
When they rounded the last bend, flames were already crawling up one side of the barn.
Silas jumped from his horse.
“Animals!”
He ran toward the structure.
Adelaide dismounted.
Jonah grabbed her.
“Your leg.”
“Let go.”
“Adelaide—”
“My trunk is in the cabin.”
“The ledger?”
“Yes.”
A second flame burst through the cabin window.
Someone had reached the property while they were away.
Vale began laughing from where he was tied.
Silas spun toward him.
“What did you do?”
Vale’s smile widened.
“Mr. Voss believes in insurance.”
Adelaide stared at the burning cabin.
Everything she owned was inside.
Her father’s records.
Her clothing.
Her photographs.
The only pieces of her old life she had brought west.
Then she saw Silas running into the barn to free the trapped mule.
Fear eclipsed everything else.
“Silas!”
A beam collapsed.
Sparks erupted into the snow.
Without thinking, Adelaide ran toward the fire.
Jonah shouted after her.
Her wound tore open on the third step.
Warm blood filled her boot.
She kept going.
Because suddenly the trunk did not matter.
The ledger did not matter.
Nothing mattered as much as the man somewhere inside the flames.
The man who had looked at every inch of her and, for the first time in her life, had not asked her to become less.
---