The first lie unraveled less than ten minutes after Lydia Marsh stepped inside Silas Croft’s cabin.
Silas still held the blackened cooking spoon in one hand when he asked quietly,
“How long ago did you say your husband died?”
Lydia’s fingers tightened over the child moving beneath her dress.
“Five months.”
The fire cracked between them.
Outside, snow hissed against the windows.
Silas did not blink.
“What date?”
A strange cold moved through Lydia that had nothing to do with the mountain.
“May third.”
The spoon slipped from Silas’s hand.
It struck the iron stove with a sharp clang.
Lydia stared at him.
Silas turned slowly.
For several seconds, the enormous mountain man said nothing.
Then his frozen-gray eyes settled on Lydia’s face.
“That’s impossible.”
Her heart stumbled.
“What is?”
Silas looked toward the window as though expecting someone to appear through the storm.
Then back at her.
“Because Daniel Marsh stood in this cabin on May twenty-seventh.”
Lydia stopped breathing.
The child kicked sharply beneath her palm.
She actually laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was screaming.
“My husband was buried on May sixth.”
“I know what I’m telling you.”
“No.”
Silas’s jaw tightened.
“He sat at that table.”
“No.”
“He was bleeding from the shoulder.”
“Stop.”
“He stayed here until morning.”
“I said stop.”
Lydia rose too quickly.
The room tilted.
Her hand caught the edge of the bunk.
Silas moved instinctively toward her.
“Don’t touch me.”
He stopped.
Lydia’s breath came fast.
She could see Daniel’s funeral again.
The church crowded with people who had whispered about his debts before the dirt was even thrown across his grave.
The closed coffin.
The minister’s tired voice.
The rain.
The awful sound of wet earth striking wood.
She had stood beside that grave with one hand over her unborn child and thought:
At least the worst has happened.
Apparently, she had been wrong.
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
Silas’s expression hardened.
“I’ve got no reason to.”
“My husband died when the mill storage building burned.”
“Did you see his body?”
The question hit harder than a slap.
Lydia looked away.
The fire had been severe.
The sheriff told her there had been almost nothing recognizable.
Daniel’s pocket watch had been found beside the body.
His wedding band too.
That had been enough.
It had needed to be enough.
Silas crossed the cabin and pulled the heavy wooden bar across the door.
Lydia watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure nobody walks in tonight.”
“Who would?”
His eyes met hers.
“That depends on why Daniel sent you here.”
Lydia went completely still.
“Daniel didn’t send me.”
Silas’s gaze dropped toward the worn satchel beside her bunk.
“You answered an advertisement.”
“Yes.”
“For a cook.”
“Yes.”
Silas stepped closer.
“Mrs. Marsh, I never placed any advertisement.”
For a moment, the only sound in the cabin was the storm.
Lydia stared at him.
“That isn’t possible.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I have the letter.”
“Then show me.”
With trembling fingers, she opened the satchel.
Everything she still owned fit inside it.
Two dresses.
A comb.
Daniel’s last photograph.
A baby blanket she had sewn from one of her mother’s old dresses.
And the folded advertisement she had carried for nearly three weeks.
She handed it to Silas.
He unfolded it beneath the kerosene lamp.
His expression changed immediately.
Wanted: capable woman to cook and keep house at isolated mountain homestead. Winter employment. Twenty-five dollars monthly. Room and board included. Transportation paid. Write S. Croft, care of Hollow Creek Supply Office.
