Below it was the letter Lydia had received after answering.
Silas read that too.
Then he swore quietly.
“What?”
He laid the paper on the table.
“That ain’t my handwriting.”
Lydia stared.
“But it’s your name.”
“I know my name.”
“You paid Potter to bring me here.”
“No.”
“He said you had.”
“I paid Potter for flour and lamp oil.”
Silas looked toward the door.
His face had become frighteningly still.
“Someone paid him for you.”
Lydia felt suddenly sick.
Five months of grief.
Five months of creditors.
Five months of strangers whispering that Daniel Marsh had gambled away everything before leaving his pregnant widow to clean up the ruins.
And now this.
“My husband is dead.”
She said it slowly, almost desperately.
Silas did not answer.
“My husband is dead.”
“I heard you.”
“You’re saying he survived the fire, came here three weeks after his own funeral, forged an advertisement in your name, and somehow arranged for me to arrive at your cabin months later?”
“I ain’t saying I understand it.”
“Then tell me what you do understand.”
Silas’s eyes moved briefly toward the worn Bible near the window.
Something flickered in them.
Regret.
Fear.
Maybe even shame.
But he only said,
“Not tonight.”
Lydia’s anger flared.
“You don’t get to tell me my dead husband visited you and then decide you’ve said enough.”
“You’re half frozen, that baby’s kicking hard enough that I can see it from here, and the pass disappeared under snow twenty minutes ago.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words came out harder than either of them expected.
Silas looked away first.
“Sit down. Eat something. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I know.”
Lydia almost refused.
Then another movement rolled through her belly.
She pressed her hand against it.
Silas noticed.
His expression changed again.
Not softness exactly.
Something more painful.
He lifted the burned pot from the stove.
“This stew’s terrible.”
Despite herself, Lydia stared at it.
“That much I believe.”
Silas looked at her.
For the smallest second, something almost human moved behind those iron-gray eyes.
Then Lydia took the spoon from his hand.
“Move.”
“What?”
“You hired a cook, apparently.”
“I told you—”
“I know what you told me. But if I’m going to discover my dead husband isn’t dead, I’d prefer not to do it while eating whatever crime you’ve committed in that pot.”
Silas stepped aside.
And for the first time in months, Lydia Marsh cooked supper in a house where no one knew enough about her to pity her.
By morning, the storm had buried the porch.
Lydia woke to the sound of an ax.
Through the window she saw Silas splitting wood in snow nearly to his knees.
He moved like someone built for hard weather.
No wasted motion.
No hesitation.
His buckskin coat hung open despite the cold.
Each swing drove the blade clean through the log.
Lydia watched longer than she intended.
Then she noticed the Bible again.
It lay beside the lamp.
She picked it up.
The leather was so worn that the original black had faded nearly gray.
When she opened the cover, she found handwriting.
To my sons, Silas and Daniel.
May you become better men than the one who raised you.
—Mama
Lydia forgot how to breathe.
She read it again.
Silas.
And Daniel.
The cabin door opened.
Cold air rushed inside.
Silas stopped when he saw the Bible in her hands.
Lydia turned toward him.
“Daniel what?”
Silas lowered the armful of wood.
“Lydia—”
“What was his name?”
