Food disappearing one potato at a time.
Then he would arrive as a rescuer.
Maybe with flour.
Maybe with coal.
Maybe with a paper requiring only one little signature.
My stomach turned.
“Why bring this now?”
Jonah shifted and nearly passed out from the pain.
I caught his shoulder.
“Easy.”
“Rose sent word before the storm,” he said after a moment.
“Cutter learned someone had copied his records again.
She thought he was moving faster.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe enough if I keep my mouth shut.”
“You just told me she’s alive.”
“Because if I die tonight, somebody must know.”
I looked at the envelope.
There was another folded page inside.
This one bore my name.
Rose wrote that Jonah would bring me the copies only if Cutter’s attention turned fully toward my property.
If that happened, I was not to sign anything, no matter how desperate the winter became.
Most importantly, I was to keep my original deed.
I glanced toward the little iron box beneath my bed.
My father’s deed was inside it.
The latch on my front door moved.
Just once.
Jonah heard it too.
We both froze.
Then came three measured knocks.
“Hannah?”
Calvin Cutter’s voice.
My blood went cold.
“Hannah Doyle, it’s Calvin.
Open up.”
Jonah pushed himself away from the stove, reaching for the oilskin packet.
I caught his hand.
“No.”
“If he finds me here—”
“He already knows you’re here.”
That was why Cutter had come through a blizzard no sensible man would cross.
Not to rescue me.
To collect whatever Jonah had carried.
I tucked Rose’s pages beneath a loose board beside the stove, then slid the oilskin envelope into my apron.
Another knock.
“I brought food,” Cutter called.
Of course he had.
I opened the door only as far as the chain allowed.
Cutter stood wrapped in a black wool coat, snow packed along his shoulders.
Behind him the storm had already begun erasing his tracks.
His eyes moved past me instantly.
Not toward my face.
Toward the room.
“You’re alive,” he said.
The disappointment lasted less than a second.
Then the smile arrived.
