Cole frowned.

"You know me?"

"Everyone knows you."

He glanced at the cabin.

"And you are?"

"Eliza Morgan."

Cole's expression changed.

He had heard about her.

Everyone in the surrounding valleys had.

The woman who had come north alone.

The pregnant woman building a cabin.

The woman who apparently believed she could survive where experienced mountain men struggled.

Cole looked up at her.

"You should come down."

"I will."

"You shouldn't be working on a roof in this weather."

"I wasn't aware the weather needed your permission."

Cole almost smiled.

Almost.

Instead, he looked at the roof.

"You could fall."

"I could."

"You could hurt the child."

Eliza's expression hardened.

"Then perhaps I should be careful."

Cole sighed.

"You need help."

"I have myself."

"That isn't enough."

"It has been so far."

Cole looked around.

There was no one else.

No wagon.

No nearby ranch.

No shelter beyond the unfinished cabin.

"These mountains aren't forgiving."

Eliza climbed down the ladder slowly.

When her boots reached the ground, she stood facing him.

She looked exhausted.

Her face was thinner than it should have been. Her dress was patched at the elbows. Her hands were swollen from work.

But her eyes were steady.

Cole had met men twice her size who did not possess half that strength.

"You know what people are saying?" he asked.

Eliza brushed snow from her sleeve.

"What?"

"That you won't make it through winter."

A faint smile appeared.

"They've been wrong before."

Cole studied her.

"What are you trying to prove?"

"Nothing."

"Then why do this?"

Eliza looked at the cabin.

"Because my child needs somewhere to belong."

Cole said nothing.

She continued.

"I spent too long waiting for other people to decide whether I deserved a home. I won't do that anymore."

Cole looked at the cabin again.

It was crooked.

Small.

Incomplete.

But it was hers.

He understood that suddenly.

She wasn't building a cabin.

She was rebuilding her life.

"I can bring you supplies," he said.

Eliza shook her head.

"Food?"

"No."

"Tools?"

"No."

"Wood?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because if I accept everything from you, this stops being something I built."

Cole nodded slowly.

He understood.

She wasn't refusing kindness.

She was protecting her independence.

"I could help you build."

Eliza hesitated.

Then she said, "You can help carry the heavy beams."

Cole smiled.

"That's the first sensible thing you've said."

She gave him a sharp look.

"And that's the first foolish thing you've said."

For the first time in years, Cole laughed.

It surprised him.

It surprised Eliza too.

Neither of them knew it yet, but that small moment would become the beginning of something neither had expected.

Cole returned the next morning.

He told himself it was because Eliza needed help lifting the roof beams.

That explanation lasted three days.

On the fourth day, he stopped pretending.

He liked being there.

The cabin slowly changed.

With Cole's strength and Eliza's determination, the walls became straight. The roof was completed. A chimney rose through the ceiling. A small fireplace took shape in one corner.

Eliza worked from sunrise until her body forced her to rest.

Cole noticed that she never complained.

When she dropped a hammer on her foot, she swore under her breath and kept working.

When a board split, she simply found another.

When the cold became unbearable, she wrapped another blanket around herself and continued.

"You need to rest," Cole told her one afternoon.

"I rested yesterday."

"For twenty minutes."

"That counts."

"It doesn't."

"It does to me."

Cole shook his head.

"You are the most stubborn person I've ever met."

"You've known me less than two weeks."

"I've known enough."

Eliza smiled.

It was becoming easier for them to speak.

Neither mentioned the future.

Neither mentioned what might happen once the cabin was finished.

They simply worked.

One evening, while Cole unloaded sacks of flour and dried meat from his horse, he noticed something moving along the ridge.

Three riders.

He stopped.

The men were too far away to identify.

But they were watching the cabin.

Cole's hand moved instinctively toward his rifle.

Eliza saw them.

Her face changed immediately.

The warmth disappeared from her expression.

Cole noticed.

"Who are they?"

She didn't answer.

"Eliza."

She looked at the riders.

"They're looking for me."

"Who?"

"My past."

Cole's jaw tightened.

"Tell me."

She remained silent until the riders disappeared behind the ridge.

Then she went inside.

Cole followed.

Eliza knelt beside an old wooden box.

She lifted the lid.