Elias did not come closer.
That mattered more to Cora than anything he could have said.
He stood several paces away, blood dripping from his injured thumb, while the fire snapped behind him and the Wyoming storm battered the cabin.
Cora slowly lowered her arm.
She was still trembling.
"You broke the chair."
"I know."
"You threw that tool."
"I know."
"You frightened me."
His jaw tightened.
"I know."
There was no excuse.
No accusation that she was too sensitive.
No reminder that it was his cabin.
No demand that she stop crying.
Those responses were so unfamiliar that Cora did not know what to do with them.
Her father had always blamed someone else for his fury.
Her brother had called fear disrespect.
Men who lost control somehow expected women to apologize for witnessing it.
Elias simply stood there and accepted what he had done.
He glanced at his bleeding hand.
"I'll go outside."
Cora stared toward the frost-covered window.
"In that storm?"
"Better than having you afraid in your own house."
Your own house.
The words struck her strangely.
Before she could answer, Elias took his buffalo coat from the peg.
"Wait."
He stopped.
Cora swallowed.
"Your thumb."
"It's nothing."
"It's bleeding on the floor."
He looked down as though only then noticing the drops.
Cora's practical instincts finally overcame her fear.
"Sit."
Elias didn't move.
"I said sit."
His eyebrows lifted.
It might have been the first direct order anyone had given the mountain devil in years.
Cora pointed toward the remaining chair.
"Over there."
Slowly, Elias obeyed.
Cora retrieved a clean cloth from the cupboard and warmed water on the stove.
Her hands still shook.
Elias noticed.
His expression tightened again.
"I shouldn't have done that."
"No."
"I wasn't angry at you."
"Fear doesn't ask who anger belongs to."
He looked at her sharply.
Cora poured water into a basin.
"My father was like that."
She hadn't planned to say it.
Perhaps the broken chair loosened something she had kept locked inside for too long.
"When something went wrong," she continued, "someone had to suffer for it."
Elias kept his voice low.
"You?"
"Sometimes."
The answer hung between them.
"And your brother?"
Cora looked at him.
"Sometimes."
Elias's injured hand closed into a fist.
She immediately stopped.
His fingers relaxed.
"Sorry."
She sat across from him.
"Give me your hand."
He extended it.
Up close, the cut was deep but clean.
Cora washed it carefully.
Elias barely reacted.
"You don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt."
"I've had worse."
"I didn't ask whether you've had worse."
For a second, Cora thought he might become angry.
Instead something unexpected happened.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Almost a smile.
"You're bossy."
"I'm treating a man who nearly drove a piece of iron through his thumb."
"Still bossy."
"You advertised for sturdy."
That did it.
A rough sound escaped him.
Cora stared.
Elias Boone was laughing.
Not loudly.
Not cruelly.
But unmistakably.
The mountain devil had laughed at her joke.
Cora tied the bandage tighter than necessary.
His laughter stopped.
"That was deliberate."
"I have no idea what you mean."
Their eyes met.
The terror that had filled the cabin minutes earlier eased by a fraction.
After breakfast, Elias repaired the chair.
He could easily have discarded it.
Instead he carefully fitted the broken pieces together, reinforced the legs and sanded the splintered wood until no sharp edges remained.
Cora watched from the stove.
"What happened to your neck?"
The question escaped before caution could stop it.
Elias froze.
Cora immediately regretted asking.
"You don't have to answer."
He continued working.
For several minutes, the scrape of sandpaper was the only sound.
Then he spoke.
"My father."
Cora turned.
Elias remained focused on the chair.
"He drank?"
"Sometimes."
"Mine too."
"Drinking wasn't his problem."
"What was?"
Elias set down the wood.
"He liked hurting things."
The fire crackled.
"When I was fifteen, I stopped him from beating my mother. He had a broken bottle."
Cora's eyes shifted toward the scars.
Elias touched his neck.
"That night gave me these."
"What happened to him?"
"He left."
"Just left?"
"No."
The answer carried something darker.
Elias met her eyes.
"I made him leave."
Cora decided not to ask how.
"Your mother?"
"Died two winters later. Fever."
"I'm sorry."
He nodded.
"My temper belonged to him first."
"No."
Elias frowned.
Cora surprised herself with the certainty in her voice.
"Your father may have taught you anger. That doesn't mean it belongs to him forever."
"You saw what I did."
"I did."
"Then you know."
"I know you broke a cup and a chair."
His expression hardened with self-disgust.
"That's enough."
"It could be."
He looked at her.
Cora continued carefully.
"Men like my father never stopped because somebody was afraid. They liked the fear."
Elias stared into the fire.
"You stopped."
His eyes returned to her.
"When you saw me afraid, you stopped."
Something changed in his face.
Cora wasn't forgiving him.
She wasn't pretending his rage was harmless.
But she had learned long ago that actions after anger mattered almost as much as actions during it.
For the next week, Elias seemed determined to prove the difference.
When he became frustrated, he went outside.
When an axe handle cracked, he set it down rather than throwing it.
When a trap spring snapped and pinched his palm, he muttered something terrible beneath his breath, noticed Cora watching, and deliberately exhaled until his shoulders relaxed.
One evening he came inside carrying a small wooden box.
He placed it on the table.
"For you."
Cora stared.
"What is it?"
"Open it."
Inside were six ceramic cups.
Simple.
White.
Blue flowers painted along the rim.
Cora looked at him.
"You rode all the way to town?"
"Needed salt."
"You bought six cups for salt?"
He shrugged.
"Figured I'd break fewer if replacements cost money."
Cora laughed before she could stop herself.
Elias looked pleased.
Their strange marriage began changing.
Not quickly.
There were no sudden declarations of love.
No dramatic kisses beneath the stars.
Instead there were smaller things.
Elias began coming home earlier.
Cora learned he liked cinnamon in his coffee.
He discovered she hated being cold more than almost anything, and one morning she woke to find a thick fur rug beside the bed because the floorboards froze her feet.
She started packing biscuits in his hunting bag.
He began splitting smaller pieces of kindling because they were easier for her to handle.
At night, they sometimes talked across the cabin after he climbed into the loft.
The darkness made honesty easier.
Cora told him about the dances where no one asked her.
Elias told her he had attended exactly one dance in his life.
"What happened?"
"I left."
"Why?"
"Too many people."
She laughed.
"That's not much of a story."
"It was an excellent decision."
"Did any woman ask you to dance?"
"No."
"Would you have?"
"No."
"Then perhaps they made an excellent decision too."
Silence.
Then his quiet laugh came from above.
Cora smiled into her pillow.
Weeks passed.
Winter deepened.
One afternoon Elias returned earlier than expected carrying a deer across his shoulders.
Cora stepped onto the porch.
"Need help?"
"No."
"You're limping."
"I am not."
"You absolutely are."
He lowered the deer.
His right leg nearly buckled.
Cora hurried forward.
Elias caught the porch rail.
"What happened?"
"Slipped."
"Where?"
"Ridge."
"You walked three miles on that?"
"Closer to four."
Cora stared at him.
"You may be the stupidest man in Wyoming."
"Town voted already. I came second."
Despite herself, she laughed.
Then she noticed the blood.
"Elias."
A tear in his trouser leg revealed a deep gash along his calf.
Her humor disappeared.
"Inside. Now."
He obeyed.
She helped him to the bed.
The wound was ugly but not life-threatening. Cora cleaned it while Elias gripped the mattress.
For once he didn't pretend there was no pain.
"You saved the deer," she said.
"Needed meat."
"You could have left it."
"Wolves would've taken it."
"So?"
"So I shot it."
Cora looked up.
"Your life is worth more than a deer."
The words silenced him.
She finished wrapping his leg.
Then she noticed how he was looking at her.
"What?"
"No one's said that to me in a long time."
Cora's throat tightened.
"Then perhaps you needed a wife after all."
Elias's eyes softened.
"Maybe I did."
For three days he couldn't hunt.
They spent those days together.
Cora cooked.
Elias repaired tools at the table.
They argued about whether his bandage needed changing.
They played cards with a battered deck.
Cora cheated once.
Elias caught her.
She denied everything.
On the third evening, snow began falling heavily.
They sat beside the fire.
Elias suddenly asked, "Why did you answer my advertisement?"
Cora hesitated.
"You said sturdy."
"That's not an answer."
"My brother wanted me gone."
Elias's jaw tightened.
"He sent you away?"
"He paid the fare."
"That doesn't answer why you came."
Cora looked at her hands.
"Because nobody had ever asked for someone like me."
His expression changed.
"Someone like you?"
She gestured toward herself.
"Don't."
Cora looked up.
Elias's voice had become firm.
"Don't talk about yourself the way those men at the depot did."
She swallowed.
"I'm only being truthful."
"No. You're repeating them."
The cabin seemed suddenly very small.
Elias leaned forward.
"I asked for sturdy because life up here kills fragile things."
His gaze held hers.
"And when I saw you standing on that platform, I wasn't disappointed."
Cora could barely breathe.
"What were you?"
He looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.
"Relieved."
"Relieved?"
"I thought they'd send some tiny woman who'd freeze before we reached the cabin."
Cora laughed.
Elias didn't.
"I'm serious."
"I know."
"And I thought…"
He stopped.
"What?"
His ears reddened beneath his hair.
Cora stared in amazement.
The terrifying Elias Boone was embarrassed.
"I thought you were pretty."
Silence.
Cora's heart seemed to stop.
No man had ever said those words to her without mockery following them.
She searched his face for the joke.
There wasn't one.
"Elias—"
A sound outside interrupted her.
A horse.
Then another.
Elias instantly stood.
Pain shot through his injured leg.
He grabbed the rifle beside the fireplace.
Cora's warmth vanished.
"Who is it?"
Elias moved toward the window.
Three riders emerged from the storm.
One wore the badge of Oak Haven's magistrate.
Another was Davis, the stationmaster.
The third man was unfamiliar.
Elias's face hardened.
"What?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then he said one name.
"Harlan Pike."
Cora looked at him.
"Who is that?"
Elias checked the rifle.
"The man trying to take this mountain away from me."
Outside, someone pounded on the door.
And for the first time since arriving, Cora realized Elias's temper might not be the greatest danger waiting for her on the ridge.