"You held up a roof 10 minutes ago and now you're shy."
"Different problem."
"Shirt."
Nathan obeyed.
Emily checked his side carefully, then wrapped a folded strip of cloth around his ribs for support.
He watched her hands.
"Yours are bleeding."
Emily looked down.
Several shallow cuts crossed her palms.
"I've had worse from sewing needles."
"Those aren't needle marks."
"They'll heal."
Nathan reached for her wrist.
His grip was gentle.
"You came back."
Emily stopped.
Lucy was asleep near the stove now, wrapped in Nathan's new coat.
Only the child's boots showed beneath it.
"Of course, I came back."
"You had her outside."
Emily tied the cloth at Nathan's side.
"You were under half a cabin. Could have taken Lucy to shelter and left you."
"You could have."
Emily sat back on her heels.
The little stove popped.
Wind pressed against the shelter walls, but inside there was only firelight, Lucy's soft breathing, and Nathan's hand still loosely around Emily's wrist.
He looked larger sitting down than most men looked standing, but there was nothing frightening in his face now, only exhaustion and a question.
"Why?"
Emily looked toward Lucy, then back at him.
"Because I didn't marry Lucy, Nathan."
His fingers stilled around her wrist.
Emily held his gaze.
"I married you."
The words remained between them.
Nathan's mouth opened.
Nothing came.
For once, Emily didn't rescue him from silence.
She cleaned her hands with melted snow water and wrapped them in strips torn from an old flower cloth she found on a shelf.
Nathan watched every movement.
Finally, he said, "Emily."
She looked up.
He seemed ready to say something he had never practiced saying.
Then a small voice came from beside the stove.
"Uncle Nathan."
Both turned.
Lucy was awake.
Nathan pulled his shirt closed and moved carefully toward her.
"I'm here."
Lucy sat up beneath the coat.
Her fingers found the wooden horse tucked beside her.
"I have to tell you something."
Nathan lowered himself beside her.
Emily sat on the other side.
Lucy looked at the fire.
"Mr. Charles talked to me before the wedding."
Nathan's expression changed.
"In Red Willow."
She nodded.
"Yesterday. The day before the judge hearing."
Emily and Nathan exchanged a look.
Lucy twisted the blue ribbon around one finger.
"He said you were going to lose the ranch because of me."
Nathan went very still.
"What else?"
"He said if I stayed, you'd have to give up everything."
"Lucy. None of that is true."
"I know."
She swallowed.
"I think I know now."
Nathan reached for her hand.
Lucy clutched the wooden horse tighter.
"There were more letters."
Emily leaned forward.
"More than the one under your pillow?"
Lucy nodded.
"I burned two."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
"Who brought them?"
Lucy stared at the fire.
"A man left one by the lower fence. Another was in the barn."
"Did you see him?"
"No."
"Did Charles say why he wanted you with him?"
Lucy shook her head, then stopped, her brow furrowed.
"I heard him talking once."
Nathan waited.
"Talking to who?"
"I—I don't know. A man in a brown coat."
"What did he say?"
Lucy rubbed the horse's wooden ear.
"He said something about the ranch."
Nathan leaned closer.
"Double Pine."
"No."
Lucy shook her head.
"He said the North Creek."
Nathan's face emptied.
Emily noticed immediately.
"What is it?"
Lucy continued.
"He said, 'Once the girl is mine, the North Creek comes with her.'"
Nathan did not move.
The fire cracked between them.
Emily watched his eyes shift from Lucy to the flames.
"Nathan."
He finally looked at her.
"The North Creek isn't mine."
"Whose is it?"
Nathan's answer came quietly.
"Lucy's."
Outside, the storm continued burying their tracks.
Inside the cattle shelter, Emily looked at the frightened child between them and understood that the letters had never been about convincing Lucy she was unwanted.
Someone wanted her afraid enough to leave Nathan willingly.
And for the first time, the guardianship fight no longer looked like a family dispute.
It looked like someone had been waiting for a 9-year-old girl to become valuable.
Nathan sat motionless beside the stove.
Lucy watched him carefully.
"Did I do something wrong?"
His attention snapped back to her.
"No."
He moved closer despite the pain in his ribs.
"Not one thing."
"But I ran away."
"You did."
Lucy lowered her head.
Nathan reached beneath her chin and gently lifted it.
"And tomorrow we'll talk about that. We'll talk a long time about leaving a ranch alone in a snowstorm."
Lucy swallowed.
"But Charles's letters aren't your fault."
He took the wooden horse from her trembling hands and turned it once beneath the firelight.
"Your father owned about 600 acres north of Double Pine. Your mother inherited it when he died. Then it passed to you."
Emily frowned.
"And the creek runs through the middle."
Nathan drew a rough line in the dust beside the stove.
"Most years it holds water after smaller streams dry up. Double Pine has access farther south, but several neighboring spreads depend on that northern branch."
Emily understood.