For a long while, he did not answer, watching the orange flames lick at the greasy pork as the fire popped and hissed. When he finally looked up, his pale eyes were searching and unreadable.
You deserved someone willing to stand beside you, he said simply.
She lowered her eyes quickly before he could see them fill with tears she refused to shed. But his cryptic answer did not explain why a solitary mountain man, living far from civilization, had suddenly traveled down to Oak Haven specifically to buy a wife he did not know. The mystery gnawed at her through the long, freezing night, keeping her awake even beneath the thick buffalo robe as the wind battered the rock wall above them.
The next afternoon, the trees thinned out as they reached a high plateau nestled beneath the towering granite peaks. There, half-hidden by a dense grove of tall, whispering pines, stood a sturdy log cabin built from hand-hewn timbers with a thick stone chimney sending a steady column of gray smoke into the pale sky. Adeline stepped down from the wagon and stopped dead in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the isolation of the place.
Gideon walked past her, pushed open the heavy oak door of the cabin, and stepped inside to ward off the chill. Adeline followed slowly, her boots crunching softly on the frozen pine needles, and crossed the threshold into a warm, orderly room that smelled of cedar wood, dried herbs, and roasted venison. Then she stopped again, her eyes locking onto the far corner of the single room.
There was one bed.
It was a wide, wooden frame covered with thick wool blankets and neatly tucked quilts, dominating the back wall of the cabin. Gideon closed the heavy door firmly against the biting wind, removed his thick woolen coat, and turned to follow her fixed gaze. He saw her standing by the table, holding the handle of her wooden trunk so tightly that her knuckles had turned completely white and the skin of her fingers ached.
You take the bed, he said quietly, his voice devoid of any demand or expectation.
Without waiting for a reply, he walked over to a stack of cured bear hides sitting neatly in the corner by the stone hearth. He gathered several of them, carried them across the wooden floor, and spread them out near the warmth of the stove, carefully arranging them to create a makeshift pallet with plenty of space between his sleeping area and hers. Only when he had finished and sat down heavily on the floorboards did Adeline finally release her white-knuckled grip on the trunk handle, letting out a long, shuddering breath she felt she had been holding since they left the church.
Then he looked up at her, his pale eyes reflecting the flickering orange glow of the hearth fire, carrying a gravity that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Before you sleep, he said, his voice dropping to a low, serious tone, there is something the mayor never told you about why I asked for you.
Adeline froze, the warmth of the cabin suddenly feeling thin and insufficient against the chill that crept back into her bones. She had spent two days convincing herself that she understood the transaction, that she was merely a utility bought to keep a lonely hunter company in the frozen wilderness, but the look in Gideon’s eyes shattered that assumption completely.
The mayor told you I was a desperate man with a surplus of meat, Gideon continued, leaning forward slightly as the fire popped behind him, casting long, dancing shadows across the rough-hewn walls. He told you I came down from the peaks looking for a nameless, friendless girl who wouldn’t be missed if the winter turned harsh and she vanished into the snow. That was the story Pritchard spun for the town council, and it was the story he gave you so you would climb into that wagon without asking too many questions.
Adeline felt the floor seem to tilt beneath her feet, her mind racing backward through every memory of the past week, searching for the hidden traps she had missed. If that wasn’t why you came, she whispered, her voice barely louder than the crackle of the wood in the stove, then why did you pay three thousand pounds of elk for me?
Because Pritchard didn’t sell you to me, Gideon said, and the harshness in his voice made her flinch. I bought my way in. Two years ago, my sister vanished from Oak Haven under very similar circumstances. The town council declared she had run off with a passing trapper, but I found her shawl torn and bloodied in the Mayor’s woodpile two days later. Pritchard is a man who trades in lives when his debts catch up to him, and he thought he could buy me off with a new victim when I started asking too many questions about where the girls of Oak Haven go when the railroad fails them.
The silence that rushed into the cabin was heavier than the winter snow outside. Adeline stared at the towering man sitting on the bear hides, the pieces of a horrifying puzzle suddenly slamming together in her mind with brutal clarity. She thought of the boarding house, the girls who had disappeared over the years without a trace, the quiet complacency of the townspeople who never asked questions, and the Mayor’s urgent, nervous whispers at the altar.
You didn’t come here to find a wife, she breathed, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs like a trapped bird. You came here to tear Pritchard’s world down to the ground.
Gideon reached into the deep pocket of his woolen vest and pulled out a small, tarnished silver locket, placing it gently on the wooden table between them. It was a piece Adeline recognized instantly, having seen it hanging around the neck of a quiet kitchen maid who had supposedly left for the eastern cities three winters ago.
I needed someone inside his house, someone he thought was weak enough to ignore, someone he could discard without a second thought, Gideon said softly, his pale eyes locked onto hers with intense, burning loyalty. I needed a witness who could help me open the ledger he keeps locked beneath the floorboards in his office, the one that details every girl he traded to the mining camps across the border before the mountain passes closed. But when I saw you standing in that mud, looking like the whole world had already forgotten your name, I knew I couldn’t just use you as a tool. I had to get you out of there before the thaw, before Pritchard decided you knew too much about the missing grain shipments.
Adeline stared at the silver locket, the terror that had gripped her since the wedding ceremony suddenly shifting into something sharp, cold, and lethal. She looked at her rough, calloused hands, hands that had scrubbed floors for a decade while monsters wore fine coats and smiled at the Sunday congregation. The town had called Gideon a monster to keep their own sins buried in the snow, painting him as a beast so no one would ever listen to the truth he carried down from the peaks.
We’re going back, Adeline said, her voice steadying as a cold, resolute fire ignited behind her eyes. When the spring thaw opens the pass and the council thinks we’re safely buried out here in the wilderness, we’re going back for his ledger.
Gideon gave a slow, grim nod of agreement, reaching out to slide the silver locket across the table toward her trembling fingers.
Rest now, my wife, he murmured softly, the word no longer feeling like a cage, but rather a solemn vow forged in the dark heart of the mountain winter. Tomorrow, we start planning for the reckoning.