Evelyn could see her breath when she exhaled and her fingers were stiff as she worked on preparing food. "This is bad." Jonah said quietly, standing by the window. Holden joined him. "Yeah."
"How bad?" "Bad enough that we're going to have to make some decisions soon." "Like what?" "Like whether we try to get the livestock into the barn or leave them where they are. Like whether we risk going into town for more supplies or hunker down and hope what we've got is enough."
Cain appeared in the doorway, snow dusting his shoulders. "Fence is down on the east pasture. Whole section just collapsed." Holden swore under his breath. "Can we fix it?"
"Not in this. We'd freeze to death before we got halfway." "Then we leave it. Deal with it after the storm passes." "And the cattle?"
"They'll have to fend for themselves." It was a hard call and Evelyn could see the weight of it settling on Holden's shoulders. He didn't want to leave the livestock out there. Didn't want to risk losing them. But going out in this storm was suicide and he knew it.
Caleb came in next, limping worse than before. "Well, the good news is the barn roof is still standing. The bad news is I think I just lost feeling in my toes." "Sit by the fire." Evelyn said, pulling out a chair.
"Get your boots off." He didn't argue. Just collapsed into the chair and started unlacing his boots with numb fingers. When he finally got them off, his feet were pale and bloodless and Evelyn felt a spike of alarm. "How long were you out there?" she demanded.
"I don't know. An hour? Maybe two? Two hours? She grabbed a basin and filled it with lukewarm water.
Not hot, not cold, just enough to bring circulation back without causing damage. Put your feet in this. Now. Caleb obeyed, wincing as the water touched his skin. Hell, that hurts.
Good. That means you're not losing them. The next few hours blurred together. The brothers rotated through the house. One going out to check on something, another coming back in half frozen.
All of them too stubborn to admit how dangerous this was becoming. Evelyn kept coffee brewing and food ready. And every time one of them came through the door, she checked for frostbite and forced them to warm up before heading back out. By evening, the storm still hadn't let up and the house felt like a tiny island in the middle of an ocean trying to drown them. They ate dinner in near silence, too exhausted to talk.