Glass scattered.
Caleb dragged Eleanor behind the stone fireplace.
“Back door!”
They ran.
The moment Caleb opened it, the storm swallowed them.
Snow struck Eleanor’s face like sand.
She could barely see.
Caleb grabbed her hand.
Not possessively.
Not roughly.
Simply because without him, she would vanish.
They plunged through trees.
Behind them came shouting.
“Circle east!”
“She’s with him!”
“Take Whitfield alive if you can!”
Caleb nearly stopped.
Alive?
Why?
He pulled Eleanor downhill.
Jasper waited beneath an overhang where Caleb had moved him earlier.
The mule looked profoundly offended by events.
Caleb lifted Eleanor onto his back.
“You ride.”
“What about you?”
“I’m faster walking.”
“That cannot possibly be true.”
“Jasper hates strangers.”
The mule snapped at Caleb’s sleeve.
“He hates me too.”
Despite the terror, Eleanor almost laughed.
Then a bullet struck a tree beside them.
They moved.
For nearly an hour they descended through forest until Caleb abruptly turned toward what appeared to be a solid cliff.
Eleanor stared.
“There’s nowhere to go.”
Caleb shoved aside hanging branches.
A narrow passage opened behind them.
“Mountain disagrees.”
They squeezed through.
Beyond lay a shallow cave, invisible from the trail.
Caleb had stored wood and blankets there.
“You planned this?”
“I plan for winters.”
“And armed men?”
“In Wyoming, that’s part of winter.”
Caleb built the smallest possible fire.
Eleanor sat against the stone, trembling.
Not entirely from cold.
Eventually she whispered, “Why did they say to take you alive?”
“I was wondering that myself.”
“You truly don’t know?”
“No.”
She searched his face.
Caleb avoided her eyes.
There was something he was not telling her.
But Eleanor had already spent too many years surrounded by men whose smiles concealed knives.
Caleb Whitfield’s silences felt different.
They seemed built not to deceive others, but to protect something inside himself.
The storm worsened.
Hours passed.
Eventually Eleanor’s shivering became violent.
Caleb handed her another blanket.
“You need sleep.”
“So do you.”
“I’ve had worse nights.”
She looked at the narrow bedroll.
“There’s only one.”
“You take it.”
“And you?”
“Wall.”
“You’ll freeze.”
“Won’t.”
She almost argued.
Then shame flickered across her face.
Caleb noticed.
“What?”
Her voice came barely above the storm.
“I’ve never slept beside a man.”
Caleb looked toward the entrance.
He understood immediately what she feared.
The cabin.
The cave.
No witnesses.
No escape.
A woman raised among polite society had probably been warned about rough men all her life.
Perhaps recently she had learned polite men could be far worse.
So Caleb answered carefully.
“Nothing happens unless you ask for it.”
Eleanor stared.
“That simple?”
“That simple.”
“And if I never ask?”
“Then nothing ever happens.”
Something in her expression changed.
Not affection.
Not yet.
Something more precious.
Trust beginning to exist.
They lay beneath separate blankets, several inches between them.
For a long time Eleanor remained rigid.
Then slowly, exhaustion won.
Her hand slipped from beneath her blanket.
In sleep, her fingers touched the back of Caleb’s hand.
He remained motionless.
He could have moved away.
Instead, he let her hand remain there.
