ONE
WILLA
The snow claws at my legs like frozen hands trying to drag me under. Each step sinks deeper, the powder swallowing my boots past the ankles, then the calves. My lungs burn, raw from the cold air I’ve been gulping since I fled the truck hours—days?—ago. Time blurs when every breath feels like swallowing glass.
Blood soaks through the sleeve of my jacket, warm at first, then sticky, then icy. The cut on my arm throbs in time with my heartbeat, a steady reminder of the last thing I remember clearly: the glint of the knife, the shout, the slam of the door as I threw myself out into the storm. I don’t know how far I’ve come. Only that I can’t stop. If I stop, they find me.
The wind howls, whipping flakes into my eyes, my mouth. My eyelashes freeze together. I blink hard, stumble, catch myself on a tree trunk. The bark scrapes my palm. I press my forehead against it for a second, just breathing, just trying not to cry because crying will freeze my face shut and I need to keep moving.
A light flickers ahead. It’s not the moon—too low, too steady. A window. A cabin. My knees buckle at the sight. Relief crashes through me so hard I almost fall again.
I stagger forward, one arm wrapped around my middle where another slice stings across my ribs. Not deep, but it weeps through my shirt. The porch steps are buried. I climb them on hands and knees, wood creaking under my weight. The door is heavy, rough-hewn logs. I pound on it with my fist, the sound swallowed by the storm.
Nothing.
I pound again, harder. “Please,” I rasp. My voice cracks, barely audible. “Please, help.”
The door swings open so fast I almost tumble inside. A large man fills the frame—broad shoulders, flannel shirt stretched tight, beard dark against tanned skin weathered by sun and wind. His eyes narrow, green and sharp under the brim of a worn Stetson he must have grabbed on his way to answer. He doesn’t speak at first. Just stares down at me like I’m a ghost that wandered out of the white.
Blood drips from my elbow onto his threshold, dark spots on the pine boards.
He curses under his breath—low, rough—and reaches out. His hand closes around my good arm, firm but not bruising, and hauls me inside. The warmth hits like a slap. Woodsmoke, coffee, pine. I sway on my feet.
“Sit,” he orders, voice gravel. He kicks the door shut, bolts it, then steers me toward a worn leather couch near the stone fireplace. Flames crackle behind a screen. I collapse onto the cushions before my legs give out completely.
He doesn’t ask questions yet. Instead he disappears through a doorway—kitchen, maybe—and returns with a towel and a metal bowl of steaming water. He drops to one knee in front of me, close enough I can smell cedar and leather on him. His hands are big, callused, scarred across the knuckles.
“Arm first,” he says. No please, no gentleness, but no cruelty either. Just efficiency.
I peel back the torn sleeve. The gash runs from elbow to wrist, jagged. Not from the knife directly—branches, I think, or rocks when I fell. He dips the towel, wrings it, presses it to the wound. I hiss.
“Hold still.” He works fast, cleaning, inspecting. “Deep enough for stitches, but it’ll hold if I wrap it tight. You hit anything vital?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
His gaze flicks to my face, then lower, to the spreading stain on my side. “Shirt off.”
Heat floods my cheeks despite the chill still clinging to my bones. “I?—”
“Now, darlin'.” The word isn’t sweet; it’s a command wrapped in impatience. “Bleeding out on my floor isn’t an option.”
I fumble with the hem, wincing as the fabric sticks to the cut. He helps, careful not to tear anything worse, then tosses the ruined shirt aside. The wound across my ribs is shallower, a long scrape more than a slice, but it’s angry red. He cleans it the same way—methodical, detached.
I study him while he works. Dark hair curls under the hat he hasn’t removed. Jaw set hard. He smells like the outdoors evenindoors—pine, smoke, horse maybe. Cowboy, I think dimly. Or mountain man. Maybe both.
“You always answer the door armed?” I ask, nodding toward the rifle leaning against the wall near the door. I didn’t notice it until now.
His eyes meet mine. “Always.”
I swallow. “Good.”
He finishes bandaging my wrists and my side with strips of clean cloth from a tin he pulled off a shelf. Then he sits back on his heels, elbows on his knees, studying me like I’m a puzzle he doesn’t want to solve.
“Who’s after you?”
I flinch. “I don’t?—”
“Don’t lie.” His voice drops lower. “Girl shows up half-frozen and carved up in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard? Someone wants you gone. Who?”
