Rowan Creed had ridden into Blackthorn Ridge for coffee, salt pork, lamp oil, and enough ammunition to carry him through a Colorado winter.
He had not ridden into town to buy a woman.
By sundown, however, fifty dollars would leave his pocket, a frightened twenty-year-old woman would be sitting on a horse beside him, and half the town would be whispering that the lonely mountain cowboy had purchased himself a bride.
None of them would understand what had actually happened.
The October morning had arrived gray and cold. Rain had fallen during the night, turning the main street into a ribbon of mud marked by wagon wheels and horse tracks. Rowan tied his bay gelding outside Franklin's Mercantile, pulled his worn brown coat tighter around his shoulders, and studied the clouds gathering over the mountains.
Snow was coming early.
He could feel it in his left knee.
The old war injury had become a better weather prophet than any newspaper.
Rowan was thirty-four, though people often guessed older. Years of military service, hard winters, and solitude had carved lines around his eyes. A faint scar crossed his left temple. His beard was short and dark, his shoulders broad from years of chopping wood, hauling water, and repairing fences without anyone else's help.
He preferred the mountains because mountains asked no questions.
People did.
Why had he left the Army?
Why had he never married?
Why did he live alone nearly three hours from town?
Why did he sometimes wake before sunrise and sit outside even when snow covered the porch?
Rowan never answered.
He had learned that silence eventually exhausted curiosity.
He stepped from the mercantile carrying a sack of coffee when a thin man stumbled into his path.
"Creed."
Rowan stopped.
The man's name was Amos Mercer.
Or perhaps Amos Miller. Rowan could never remember.
Everyone simply called him Lydia's father.
He was a narrow-shouldered man in his late forties whose face had been ruined by whiskey long before age could ruin it properly. His eyes were red. His hands trembled.
"You've got money," the man said.
Rowan glanced toward the saloon.
"So does the bartender."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
The man grabbed Rowan's sleeve.
Rowan looked down at the hand.
The fingers immediately released him.
"I need fifty dollars."
"No."
"Please."
"No."
"Hayes is coming tomorrow."
That name changed the conversation.
Rowan slowly set the sack of coffee on the boardwalk.
"Vernon Hayes?"
The man nodded.
Everyone in Blackthorn Ridge knew Vernon Hayes.
He owned thousands of acres south of town. He controlled the freight road cutting through the valley, held mortgages on half a dozen ranches, and paid enough gunmen to make the county sheriff cautious about discovering crimes on Hayes property.
But land and money were not what made people lower their voices when they spoke his name.
There were stories about young women.
Stories without endings anyone wanted to describe.
One woman had escaped Hayes's ranch three years earlier. She had arrived in Blackthorn Ridge barefoot and bleeding, refusing to explain what had happened.
She left Colorado within a week.
Another young woman entered Hayes's house during spring and was buried before winter.
The official explanation was pneumonia.
Few believed it.
Rowan's expression hardened.
"What does Hayes have to do with your fifty dollars?"
The man looked toward the street.
"I owe him."
"How much?"
"More than fifty."
"Then fifty won't help."
"It'll help enough."
Rowan studied him.
"Enough for what?"
The man's eyes shifted.
That was when Rowan noticed the young woman beneath the mercantile awning across the street.
She sat on an overturned crate wearing a plain brown dress with repaired sleeves. A small canvas traveling bag rested beside her boots.
She held an apple in one hand and a knife in the other.
Slowly, carefully, she peeled the apple as if the world around her were completely ordinary.
Rowan looked back at her father.
His stomach tightened.
"No."
"I haven't asked yet."
"You don't need to."
"Creed—"
"No."
"Listen to me."
"I said no."
"Fifty dollars," the man whispered.
Rowan's jaw tightened.
"Give me fifty dollars, and my daughter is yours."
For several seconds, Rowan simply stared at him.
The sounds of Blackthorn Ridge seemed to disappear.
No wagon wheels.
No saloon piano.
No horses.
Only the man's words remained.
My daughter is yours.
Rowan stepped closer.
"You agreed to give Lydia to Hayes?"
The man's face collapsed with shame.
"What choice do I have?"
"You could act like her father."
The words struck harder than a fist.
The man looked away.
"I lost everything."
"You drank everything."
"I know."
"You gambled everything."
"I know."
"And now you're gambling her."
"I know!"
Several people on the boardwalk turned.
The man lowered his voice.
"Hayes comes tomorrow. He says if I can't pay, he'll take her instead."
Rowan looked across the street again.
Lydia had finished peeling her apple.
She was twenty, perhaps younger-looking from a distance. Her brown hair had been gathered simply at the back of her neck. Her dress was faded but clean. Her boots were worn nearly through.
Everything she owned appeared to fit inside that small canvas bag.
She looked up.
Her eyes met Rowan's.
He expected fear.
Or pleading.
Or embarrassment.
He saw none.
There was something worse.
Resignation.
A person could fear losing something only if she believed something still belonged to her.
Lydia looked like a woman who had stopped believing her future belonged to her years ago.
Her father spoke behind him.
"Folks say you live alone."
Rowan said nothing.
"They say you don't drink."
Still nothing.
"And nobody says you've ever hurt a woman."
Rowan turned.
"So that's your standard?"
The man flinched.
"Better you than Hayes."
"That's supposed to make this decent?"
"No."
"Good."
The man swallowed.
"But it might keep her alive."
That sentence stayed between them.
Rowan looked once more at Lydia.
He remembered another winter.
Another young face.
Another moment when doing nothing had seemed easier than interfering.
He remembered a farmhouse during the war, smoke coming from the roof, and an officer ordering his unit to continue moving because the building was outside their objective.
Rowan had obeyed.
Years later, he still dreamed about the screaming.
He reached inside his coat.
His winter money rested in a leather pouch.
Fifty dollars represented salt, flour, ammunition, medicine, coffee, and a dozen other things a man living in the mountains should not face winter without.
He counted the coins into Lydia's father's shaking palm.
"She comes with me."
The man closed his fingers around the money.
"You never sell her again," Rowan continued.
"Of course."
"If Hayes comes asking, you tell him you gave up any claim."
The man nodded quickly.
"Yes."
"And if you ever follow her to my property demanding money, you'll discover exactly how far my patience extends."
The man understood.
Rowan expected him to cross the street.
Perhaps hug his daughter.
Perhaps apologize.
Perhaps say goodbye.
Instead, Lydia's father stared at the coins, shoved them into his pocket, and disappeared through the swinging doors of the saloon.
Rowan watched him go.
Something cold settled in his chest.
Not surprise.
He had learned long ago that disappointment required expectation.
He picked up his coffee and crossed the street.
Lydia continued eating her apple.
He stopped several feet away.
"Your father sold you to me."
"I know."
No tremor entered her voice.
"Did he tell you before today?"
"He told me yesterday that I was going to Vernon Hayes."
Rowan's hand tightened around the coffee sack.
"And you agreed?"
Her eyes rose to his.
"Did it sound like anyone was asking?"
No.
It had not.
Rowan glanced toward the saloon.
"Do you want to say goodbye?"
"No."
The answer came instantly.
She stood, wiped the knife on her skirt, folded it closed, and slipped it into her bag.
"Are we leaving?"
Rowan nodded.
"I have a spare horse at the livery."
"I can ride."
He looked at her worn boots.
"Good."
"I can cook too."
"You don't have to."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"I assumed I would."
"Assumed what?"
"Work."
"You can if you want."
"If I want."
She repeated the words as though testing them for fraud.
Rowan picked up her canvas bag.
She immediately grabbed the strap.
"I can carry it."
"I know."
"Then why are you taking it?"
"Because I'm already carrying the coffee."
That explanation seemed to confuse her more than it should have.
He led her toward the livery.
By the time they rode out of Blackthorn Ridge, clouds had swallowed the afternoon sky.
They traveled silently for nearly three hours.
Lydia rode well.
Not gracefully in the way wealthy ranch girls rode for recreation, but practically. She knew how to keep her balance on steep ground, how to let the horse find footing instead of fighting the reins, and how to conserve the animal's strength.
Rowan noticed.
He said nothing.
At the beginning of the mountain trail, she finally spoke.
"What do you want from me?"
Rowan turned slightly in the saddle.
"You paid fifty dollars."
"I remember."
"Men don't spend fifty dollars for nothing."
"I paid because Hayes was coming."
"That isn't an answer."
"No?"
"No."
The color had drained from her face.
For the first time all day, genuine fear appeared.
Rowan understood.
She was waiting for the hidden price.
The bedroom.
The labor.
The obedience.
Whatever bargain a man believed fifty dollars had purchased.
Rowan turned his horse fully toward her.
"I've done enough things in my life that I regret," he said. "I didn't feel like adding you to the list."
She stared at him.
"And now?"
"Now what?"
"What happens to me?"
"There is a spare room at my cabin."
Her expression remained guarded.
"You can stay through winter."
"And after?"
"When the passes open in spring, you can leave."
She blinked.
"Or stay."
Another pause.
"My choice?"
"Yes."
She stared at him so intensely Rowan wondered whether he had accidentally said something insulting.
"My choice," she repeated.
"That's usually what the word means."
A tiny change appeared in her expression.
Not quite amusement.
Perhaps surprise that he had made a joke.
They continued climbing.
At sunset, the trees opened around Rowan's cabin.
It stood against a hillside surrounded by tall pines, built of heavy logs and fieldstone. Smoke rose from the chimney. A barn and woodshed stood nearby. Beyond them stretched miles of wilderness glowing beneath the last orange light.
Lydia looked around.
"You built this?"
"Most of it."
"It's far from town."
"That's the appealing part."
He dismounted and helped her horse settle.
Lydia tried to carry her bag inside.
Rowan let her.
He sensed she needed ownership of something.
Even if it was only a canvas bag.
Inside, the cabin was warm but simple. A stone fireplace dominated the main room. A wooden table stood near the kitchen. Two armchairs faced the fire. Rowan's old military coat hung from a peg beside the hearth.
He walked down a short hallway and opened a door.
"This is yours."
Lydia remained in the doorway.
The room contained a bed, dresser, washstand, lamp, and a small window overlooking the pines.
Her fingertips touched the door.
"This is mine?"
"As long as you want it."
She looked at the latch.
Rowan pointed.
"It locks from inside."
Her eyes moved to him.
"I won't come in unless you ask."
"Even at night?"
"Especially at night."
A long silence followed.
Then Lydia entered the room and placed her bag on the bed.
Rowan went to prepare supper.
He warmed venison stew and cut bread from a loaf he had baked two days earlier.
Lydia ate quickly.
Too quickly.
She tried to slow herself whenever she noticed him watching.
Rowan stopped looking.
Halfway through the meal, she slipped a piece of bread into her dress pocket.
He pretended not to notice that too.
Later, she stood near the fireplace.
Her gaze settled on the military coat.
"Were you a soldier?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Long enough."
"Did living alone help you forget the war?"
Rowan looked at the flames.
"Sometimes."
Lydia hugged her arms around herself.
"I used to think about running away."
He looked at her.
"Why didn't you?"
"I didn't know where to go."
"You could have come north."
"With what money?"
She gave a small, humorless smile.
"With what horse? What food? What job? A woman alone doesn't simply disappear into the mountains."
"No."
"I thought if I ran, I might only die slower."
Rowan's voice became quiet.
"You're not going to die here."
"How do you know?"
"Because I won't let it happen."
Tears appeared unexpectedly in Lydia's eyes.
She looked embarrassed by them.
Rowan looked away, giving her privacy.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He turned back.
"For what?"
"For not being Vernon Hayes."
Then she disappeared into her bedroom.
The latch clicked.
Rowan stood alone before the fire.
He should have felt satisfied.
Hayes would not have her.
She was warm.
She was fed.
She had a locked room.
He had done something useful.
But his eyes drifted toward the hallway.
And suddenly the fifty dollars in his memory felt filthy.
He had called the arrangement rescue.
Her father had called it a sale.
But what mattered was what Lydia believed.
Shelter was not freedom if she thought she owed him for every breath beneath his roof.
Rowan walked down the hallway.
He stopped outside her room.
"Lydia?"
Silence.
Then:
"Yes?"
He rested one hand against the wooden frame.
"If nobody owned you," he asked quietly, "what would you choose for yourself?"
The cabin became completely still.
For twenty years, others had decided where Lydia slept, what she ate, how much she worked, what she endured, and finally which man would possess her.
Now someone was waiting for an answer.
Not an obedient answer.
Not a grateful answer.
Hers.
Several seconds passed.
Then Rowan heard something from behind the door.
A broken breath.
Perhaps a sob.
Perhaps a laugh.
Finally Lydia spoke.
"I don't know."
Rowan closed his eyes.
That answer somehow hurt more than any other could have.
"That's all right."
"It is?"
"You've got time."
He stepped away from the door.
"Good night, Lydia."
"Rowan?"
He stopped.
"Yes?"
"Nobody ever asked me that before."
He looked toward the firelight at the end of the hall.
"I figured."
Then he returned to the main room, leaving Lydia alone with something far more frightening than Vernon Hayes.
A future that might finally belong to her.