“Bed.”
“You need room.”
“I spent the first night of our life on that floor.”
Josie smiled.
“I remember.”
“Get up here.”
She climbed beside him.
Slowly.
Age had changed both bodies.
Her hair silver.
His beard white.
Her hands arthritic.
His broad shoulders narrowed.
But when he wrapped one arm around her, something remained exactly the same.
“You remember the trading post?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What did you think when I walked in?”
“That you might kill someone.”
“Accurate.”
She laughed softly.
“What did you think when my father offered me?”
Judson’s eyes closed.
“I wanted to kill him.”
“Also accurate.”
“What did you think of me?”
His mouth curved.
“That you looked hungry.”
Josie groaned.
“Romantic until the end.”
He opened his eyes.
“And beautiful.”
She became quiet.
“Did you really?”
“Yes.”
“Before the cabin?”
“Yes.”
“Before the blue dress?”
“Yes.”
“Before I stopped looking half dead?”
“Yes.”
Josie swallowed.
“Why didn't you say?”
“Because a frightened hungry woman doesn't need a strange man telling her he wants her.”
She smiled.
“Still annoyingly honorable.”
“Practice.”
He breathed carefully.
Then:
“You know what I wanted most?”
“What?”
“For you to stop looking like you expected me to hurt you.”
Tears came.
Judson sighed.
“There.”
“What?”
“Crying.”
“Be quiet.”
“I still dislike it.”
Josie touched his face.
“Do you know when I stopped expecting it?”
“When?”
“Not the first night.”
“I know.”
“Not after the boots.”
“Shocking.”
“Not even after you kissed me.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“When?”
“The day Father came back.”
Judson waited.
“When I stopped you from hurting him.”
“You listened.”
“You could have said you were protecting me.”
“You could have made my fear your excuse.”
“You didn't.”
Judson smiled faintly.
“You saved me that day.”
Josie shook her head.
“You stopped yourself.”
“Because you gave me a reason.”
They lay together.
Outside, snow began.
Like the first winter.
Judson died three mornings later.
Peacefully.
Josie hated that word for months.
Death did not feel peaceful to survivors.
It felt empty.
But she understood eventually.
His final night contained no fear.
No violence.
No debts.
No unfinished promise between them.
Only warmth.
Choice.
Home.
Josie lived another nine years.
The cabin remained hers.
People asked whether she would move into town.
Never.
The valley had become kinder to her over time.
Or perhaps age simply made people less interested in policing her body.
Either way, she preferred the mountain.
On winter mornings she sat in the oak chair Judson built.
The first one.
Still repaired.
She drank coffee.
Real coffee now.
Not stale tins from O’Malley.
Sometimes she looked toward the floor near the fireplace.
The place where Judson slept that first night.
That image remained clearer than almost anything else.
A giant man feared by an entire valley lying on hard boards while the woman supposedly purchased by him slept beneath his best quilt.
That was when her life began changing.
Not because he loved her yet.
Perhaps he did not.