Amos woke before sunrise because he always did.
For twelve years, the mountain had trained his body better than any clock.
He opened his eyes expecting darkness, cold boards beneath his back, and silence.
Instead he smelled coffee.
Amos sat up.
Clara stood beside the stove with her hair loosely braided over one shoulder.
Her fine traveling dress was gone.
She wore a simpler brown work dress pulled from that enormous trunk, sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows.
A skillet hissed.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She looked over.
“Attempting breakfast.”
“You know how to cook?”
Clara frowned.
“You seem determined to be surprised whenever I perform an ordinary human activity.”
Amos rubbed his face.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yesterday you were surprised I could sweep.”
“I wasn’t surprised.”
“You stared at me for almost a full minute.”
“I’d forgotten the cabin had a floor.”
That earned him another reluctant smile.
Clara turned back toward the stove.
Amos approached cautiously.
Inside the skillet were biscuits.
Not flat trail biscuits.
Actual biscuits.
Golden at the edges.
He stared.
“Where’d you get butter?”
“My trunk.”
“You brought butter from St. Louis?”
“Rendered lard sealed in a jar.”
Amos looked toward the trunk.
“What else is in there?”
“Necessary things.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because they are.”
Breakfast consisted of biscuits, fried salt pork trimmed properly, stewed apples, and coffee that no longer threatened human life.
Amos ate three biscuits.
Then a fourth.
Clara pretended not to notice.
“You cook well,” he finally admitted.
“My mother taught me.”
“You said that.”
“She believed no woman should depend upon money remaining in the family.”
There was something in the sentence.
A shadow.
Again Amos noticed it.
Again he did not ask.
After breakfast, he pulled on his coat.
“Need to check traps before snow gets heavier.”
Clara looked toward the window.
“Can I help?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Her expression cooled.
“Because I am a woman?”
“Because you don’t know the mountain.”
“I could learn.”
“Not today.”
She folded her hands.
Amos recognized stubbornness when he saw it.
He had spent most of his life practicing it.
“Stay near the cabin,” he said. “Weather changes fast.”
“What should I do?”
“Whatever you want.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“I thought you needed a practical wife.”
“I do.”
“Then give me practical work.”
Amos considered her.
“Woodpile needs sorting. Small pieces near the door, bigger logs under the lean-to.”
“All right.”
“Don’t try splitting any.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll bury the axe in your leg.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Have you ever seen me use an axe?”
“No.”
“Then that is a remarkable diagnosis.”
He nearly smiled.
Instead he left.
By noon the first real snow of the season began falling.
Amos followed his trap line across the western slope while thinking far too often about the woman at his cabin.
He wondered whether she had stayed inside.
He wondered whether she had attempted the axe.
He wondered whether the cabin roof leaked above the bed.
Then he became irritated with himself for wondering.
He had lived alone for thirteen years.
Solitude had never bothered him.
After his mother died and his father moved south, Amos kept the place because the mountain demanded very little beyond strength and honesty.
People demanded conversation.
People carried expectations.
People eventually left.
The mountain simply remained.
Three winters earlier, after nearly dying from fever alone, Amos decided practicality required a wife.
Not romance.
Certainly not beauty.
Just partnership.
Someone beside him when the snow closed the trail.
Someone who would know if he did not return before dark.
Someone whose voice might occasionally fill the cabin.
So he had answered the matrimonial agency advertisement in a Denver newspaper.
His requirements had been simple.
And now Clara was sweeping his floor and baking biscuits.
When Amos returned, smoke curled from the chimney.
He heard chopping.
His stomach dropped.
He rounded the cabin.
Clara stood beside the woodpile.
Holding his axe.
“Clara!”
She jumped.
The axe blade missed the log and struck the block.
Amos covered the distance quickly.
“I told you not to do that.”
“I was managing quite well.”
“You nearly took off your boot.”
“I missed by several inches.”
“Several inches is the difference between a foot and no foot.”
She pulled the axe free.
“I cannot learn if no one teaches me.”
“That isn’t learning.”
“What would you call it?”
“Being stubborn.”
Her face flushed.
“I have spent half the day carrying wood, cleaning shelves, and washing cookware that might have been used during the Mexican War. Forgive me for wanting to contribute.”
Amos reached for the axe.
Clara held it tighter.
For several seconds they stared at each other.
Then he sighed.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“You want to learn?”
“Yes.”
“Move your hand.”
He stepped behind her.
Clara suddenly became very still.
Amos noticed.
He moved slightly to the side rather than standing directly behind her.
“Left hand here.”
He adjusted her grip.
“Right hand lower.”
His fingers briefly touched hers.
Clara looked at him.
Amos immediately stepped back.
“Don’t muscle it. Let the axe do the work.”
She swung.
The blade struck sideways and bounced.
Amos winced.
Clara glared at the log as though it had insulted her.
“Again.”
She swung.
Better.
“Again.”
On the fifth attempt, the log split.
Clara stared at the two halves.
A smile spread across her face.
Not the reserved little expression Amos had seen before.
A real smile.
Bright.
Proud.
Young.
It changed her completely.
“I did it.”
“Log never stood a chance.”
She laughed.
Amos felt something warm move through his chest.
Dangerous.
He took the axe.
“That’s enough.”
“I can do another.”
“Tomorrow.”
“You are intolerably controlling.”
“And you still have both feet.”
That evening Clara opened her trunk.
Amos tried not to stare.
He failed.
The mysterious “necessary things” emerged one after another.
Needles.
Thread.
Medical bandages.
Dried herbs.
Books.
Two heavy wool dresses.
A cast-iron biscuit pan.
A sewing box.
Three jars of preserves.
A small framed photograph.
A Bible.
Several packets of vegetable seeds.
Two good kitchen knives wrapped in cloth.
A brass hand mirror.
Knitting needles.
And, strangely, a carpenter’s measuring rule.
Amos picked it up.
“You planning to build another cabin?”
“My father owned a furniture shop.”
That was not what he expected.
“You grew up working there?”
“Until I was seventeen.”
Clara took the rule from him.
“I could measure lumber before I could properly write my name.”
“Your father let you?”
“My father expected me to.”
Amos leaned against the table.
“So where’d the fancy dress come from?”
Clara’s expression changed.
The warmth disappeared.
“My husband.”
Amos stared.
“Your—”
“My first husband.”
That made more sense.
The agency had said she was widowed.
He simply had not imagined her previous marriage.
“What happened?”
Clara closed the trunk.
“He died.”
Amos waited.
Nothing more came.
“All right.”
She looked almost surprised that he did not press.
They settled into a rhythm during the following days.
Clara woke early.
Amos worked outside.
She reorganized the pantry, repaired a torn coat, cleaned years of smoke residue from the window glass, and somehow made the cabin feel larger without moving a wall.
She discovered Amos owned only two plates.
“You expected a wife but did not purchase another plate?”
“I figured we could share.”
She stared at him.
He added, “That was a joke.”
“I’m learning your humor is difficult to detect.”
By the end of the week, Amos taught her to split kindling safely.
Then to milk the stubborn goat he kept near the stable.
Then to recognize storm clouds along the western ridge.
Clara taught him that salt pork did not require burning.
Neither admitted they were enjoying themselves.
The first serious trouble came nine days after her arrival.
Amos returned from checking timber to find Clara standing on a chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing the roof.”
“You’re inside.”
“The leak is inside.”
Water dripped near the bed.
Clara had removed part of the interior chinking.
Amos stared.
She pointed.
“The flashing around the chimney has shifted.”
“How do you know?”
“I climbed onto the roof.”
He went completely still.
“You what?”
“Before the rain worsened.”
“You climbed on the roof?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“There was nobody else here.”
Amos closed his eyes.
“What?”
“You’re going to kill me.”
“I am doing nothing of the sort.”
“Not directly.”
He took off his coat and headed outside.
The leak was exactly where she said it was.
Twenty minutes later Amos returned.
“You were right.”
Clara smiled sweetly.
“I know.”
He pointed at her.
“No more roof.”
“If it leaks again—”
“No.”
“Amos—”
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“Fine.”
He knew immediately she did not mean it.
That night the wind became violent.
Snow struck the windows like thrown sand.
Amos secured the shutters.
Clara stood near the stove watching the chimney pipe tremble.
“Is this normal?”
“Pretty much.”
“That is not reassuring.”
A powerful gust struck the cabin.
Something crashed outside.
Amos grabbed his coat.
“Stay here.”
“What happened?”
“Stable door.”
He went outside.
The wind nearly knocked him sideways.
One hinge on the stable had torn free.
Inside, the horses panicked.
Amos fought the door, trying to secure it.
Then another pair of hands grabbed the rope beside his.
Clara.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“I told you to stay inside!”
“And I ignored you.”
“Clearly!”
Together they pulled.
The door slammed into place.
Amos secured the rope around a post.
Clara’s hair whipped loose around her face.
Snow covered her shoulders.
“You’re impossible!” he shouted.
“So are you!”
Lightning flashed somewhere beyond the ridge.
For one wild second they stood staring at each other in the storm.
Then Clara laughed.
Amos could not believe it.
“You think this is funny?”
“No!”
She was still laughing.
“What’s funny?”
“I have no idea!”
Suddenly Amos laughed too.
The sound startled him.
He had almost forgotten what his own laughter sounded like.
They ran back toward the cabin.
Inside, Clara stood near the stove shivering.
Amos fetched a dry blanket.
He wrapped it around her shoulders.
His hands stopped there.
Clara looked up.
For the first time since Bitter Creek, they were close enough for Amos to see tiny gold flecks inside her gray eyes.
Something changed between them.
Neither moved.
Then Clara looked away.
“Thank you.”
Amos stepped back.
“Should change those clothes.”
“Yes.”
He turned toward the stove.
Behind him Clara quietly opened her trunk.
That night Amos slept beside the fire again.
Clara lay awake longer than usual.
She realized she no longer feared the man on the floor.
That should have comforted her.
Instead, it frightened her in an entirely different way.
Because trust had become dangerous once before.
And Clara Mercer had traveled all the way to Bitter Creek to make certain it never became dangerous again.