Grace said, “Tell her.”

James looked pained.

“Grace.”

“Tell her.”

Evelyn almost laughed.

James reached into his coat again.

This time he removed something very small.

A faded blue ribbon.

Evelyn’s smile disappeared.

She knew that ribbon.

Or believed she did.

James held it carefully.

“Twelve years ago, I was seventeen.”

“You were twenty,” Grace corrected.

James glared.

“Thank you.”

Grace smiled.

James continued.

“I was caught in a February storm near the western ridge. My horse went down. I broke two ribs and hit my head.”

Evelyn’s heart began beating faster.

She remembered that storm.

Everyone in Willow Creek remembered it.

Four men had died.

James looked at her.

“Someone found me.”

Evelyn said nothing.

“She dragged me into an abandoned shepherd’s cabin. Got a fire going. Wrapped my ribs. Stayed through the night.”

Grace stared at Evelyn.

James continued.

“When I woke properly the next morning, she was gone. She’d left food, water, and a note saying help was coming.”

He lifted the ribbon.

“This was tied around the bandage.”

Evelyn whispered, “You remember?”

“I remember everything.”

She had been fifteen.

Not seventeen.

A thin girl riding home after checking winter cattle.

She had found a young man unconscious beneath his horse.

She remembered dragging him inch by inch across frozen ground.

Remembered cutting a strip from her petticoat.

Remembered losing the blue ribbon from her braid.

Her father had later forbidden her from visiting James because the Mercers and Harrows were quarreling over grazing boundaries.

She never learned what became of him.

James took another step.

“My father told me years later the girl had probably been one of the Harrows. But he didn’t know which.”

Grace smiled.

“Then I described Evelyn in my letter.”

Evelyn looked at her.

Grace shrugged.

“I may have mentioned the chestnut hair.”

James said, “And the green eyes.”

Grace’s smile widened.

“And that she was unmarried.”

James rubbed a hand over his jaw.

Evelyn stared.

“You came because I pulled you from a snowbank twelve years ago?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

She raised an eyebrow.

“No?”

“I came because the papers belonged to you.”

James paused.

Then added, “I accepted the dinner invitation because of the snowbank.”

Grace covered a laugh.

Evelyn felt warmth enter her face.

James looked at the remnants of the feast.

“I didn’t expect this.”

“Neither did I.”

His gaze returned to her.

“For what it’s worth, when I asked you to sit beside me, I hadn’t yet decided how to bring up the documents.”

“Why did you do it?”

James seemed surprised by the question.

“Because you were standing.”

“That’s all?”

“Because you were standing while everyone else ate food you’d made.”

He paused.

“And because nobody else appeared willing to move.”

Something inside Evelyn cracked.

Not painfully.

Like ice breaking over running water.

For years she had imagined love, when it came, would announce itself dramatically.

Flowers.

Poetry.

Promises.

She had never imagined it might begin with something as small as a man noticing she was tired.

Grace cleared her throat.

“I should probably leave.”

Evelyn glanced toward her.

“At midnight?”

“I suddenly have a powerful desire to inspect the guest room.”

She disappeared upstairs.

James shook his head.

“She’s dangerous.”

“You helped her.”

“I underestimated her.”

“So did Victor.”

“Yes.”

They stood together in the quiet dining room.