“I should have.”
“You could have brought that food four days ago.”
“I should have.”
Miriam stepped closer.
“Why didn’t you?”
For the first time, Silas Crowe looked ashamed.
“Because for ten years, I believed my brother burned my home, stole from me, and disappeared while my wife and son died inside.”
Miriam went still.
Silas looked at Isaac’s photograph.
“And tonight I realized a dead man I spent ten years hating had trusted me with the only people he loved.”
The fire cracked.
Peter spoke quietly.
“Did Pa burn your house?”
Silas looked at him.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Then a violent gust struck the cabin.
The north wall groaned.
Silas’s head snapped toward the roof.
A second gust came.
Something cracked overhead.
“Coats,” he said.
Miriam frowned.
“What?”
“Get the boys dressed.”
“This cabin survived last winter.”
“It won’t survive tonight.”
As if the storm had been waiting to prove him right, a roof beam split with a sound like a rifle shot.
Dust and snow fell from the ceiling.
Peter screamed.
Silas moved instantly.
He grabbed Peter with one arm and pulled Jonah toward the doorway with the other.
“Miriam!”
She snatched Isaac’s photograph and the knife.
Another beam cracked.
They stumbled onto the porch just as part of the cabin roof collapsed inward.
Snow poured through the opening.
Miriam stood in the yard staring at the house Isaac had built with his own hands.
Her last possession.
Her last shelter.
Broken.
Silas wrapped a blanket around Peter.
“Crowe Ridge is four miles.”
Miriam looked at him.
“You expect me to go with you?”
“I expect you to stay alive.”
For one terrible second, pride fought desperation.
Then Jonah slipped his small hand into hers.
His fingers were freezing.
Miriam surrendered.
“Get us there.”
Crowe Ridge Ranch was not the palace gossip had made it seem.
The main house was large, certainly, but practical—stone at the base, dark timber above, with a wide kitchen warmed by a black iron stove.
Miriam nearly cried when she saw the pantry.
Flour.
Rice.
Salt pork.
Potatoes.
Jars of preserves.
More food than her boys had seen in months.
Peter stared openly.
Silas noticed.
“Mrs. Doyle,” he called.
A gray-haired housekeeper appeared.
“Soup. Bread. Everything they can eat without making themselves sick.”
Miriam stiffened.
“We aren’t beggars.”
Silas removed his gloves.
“No.”
His gray eyes met hers.
“You’re family, whether either of us likes it yet or not.”
Jonah looked from one adult to the other.
Miriam said nothing.
They ate.
Peter fell asleep halfway through his second bowl of soup, one hand still wrapped around a piece of bread.
Jonah lasted longer.
Silas sat across from him.
The boy studied the rancher with uncomfortable intensity.
Finally Jonah asked, “Was my pa good when he was little?”
