Chapter 17
Elias lay in the snow with the iron jaws closed around his boot and ankle.
Not enough to sever anything.
Enough to stop him.
He stared up at Cora.
All his polish was gone.
All the calm.
All the manners.
“You bitch.”
She stopped three feet away.
He reached toward his fallen pistol.
I kicked it out of reach.
Cora raised her revolver.
Elias froze.
Snow landed on her hair.
Her hand shook.
He saw it.
His mouth curled.
“You won’t.”
For one terrible second, I thought he might be right.
Not because she was weak.
Because killing a man after he was helpless would make him part of her forever.
I lowered my rifle.
“Cora.”
She did not look at me.
Elias smiled.
“You know you belong with us.”
Her face changed.
Something old broke.
“No,” she said.
One word.
Quiet.
Final.
Then she lowered the revolver.
Not because he had won.
Because he had not.
She looked at me.
“We take him to town.”
Elias began laughing.
“You think this is finished?”
Cora stared down at him.
“Yes.”
Then she turned away.
And for the first time, Elias Vane looked afraid.
The Woman Who Came Through My Door
PART 4 - The Woman Who Came Through My Door t1
PART 4: The Truth Between Us
We did not sleep that night.
Elias spent it tied to the porch post with his injured ankle wrapped well enough that he would not lose the foot.
That was Cora’s decision.
I might have wrapped it less carefully.
By morning, the storm had weakened.
The hired man was gone.
One horse remained beyond the trees.
The other had disappeared with him.
My shed was destroyed.
Part of the porch railing was scorched.
There were bullet holes in the cabin wall.
My head had swollen near the temple.
Cora said I probably needed stitches.
I told her mountain men did not need stitches.
She threaded a needle.
“Mountain men apparently enjoy infection.”
I sat down.
She cleaned the wound.
I tried not to react when the needle passed through skin.
“You can swear,” she said.
“I don’t swear.”
“You called Elias something very inventive when I reset your leg brace.”
“That was medical language.”
Her mouth twitched.
We were both pretending.
Pretending our hands had not almost slipped away from life.
Pretending I had not seen the terror in her eyes.
Pretending she had not begged me, in the only way she knew how, to come back to her.