Eleanor Whitmore locked the cabin door.
The bolt slid into place with a heavy wooden click.
Behind her, Caleb Mercer stopped sharpening a knife that had not needed sharpening for the past twenty minutes.
The blade remained in one enormous hand.
The whetstone rested in the other.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Snow struck the small window beside the bed.
Wind dragged itself along the outside logs with a low moan.
The fire snapped inside the iron stove.
Eleanor turned.
Caleb looked as though she had just aimed a pistol at him.
He was standing beside the rough wooden table in his dark work shirt, the top two buttons undone, leather suspenders crossing a chest broad enough to make the shirt look too small even though Eleanor suspected it had been made for him.
He was thirty-two.
Maybe six feet four.
Perhaps more.
His shoulders filled doorways.
His beard was dark and thick.
His hair reached almost to his collar.
A pale scar disappeared beneath the left side of his shirt.
The first time Eleanor had seen him at the stage station that afternoon, she had understood immediately why people in town had lowered their voices when they spoke his name.
Caleb Mercer looked dangerous.
Not cruel.
There was a difference.
But he looked like a man who could split timber with one swing, carry a wounded deer down a mountain, or remove another man from a room without asking twice.
Now he was blushing.
Actually blushing.
The color climbed from the open collar of his shirt into his neck.
Eleanor almost forgot why she was frightened.
Almost.
Caleb cleared his throat.
“You locked it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She raised one eyebrow.
“It is generally considered wise to lock a cabin door after dark.”
“No one comes up here.”
“That does not make locking doors unreasonable.”
“No.”
He placed the knife on the table carefully.
“Suppose not.”
Eleanor watched him.
She had changed behind the canvas screen twenty minutes earlier.
Her traveling dress lay folded over the chair.
She now wore the pale-blue nightgown she had almost left behind in Baltimore because packing it had felt presumptuous.
It fell well below her knees.
The fabric was modest by the standards of the life she had known.
But standing in a one-room cabin with a man she had married that morning, Eleanor suddenly felt more exposed than she ever had in a ballroom.
Caleb had looked at her once when she stepped from behind the screen.
Only once.
Then immediately found five unnecessary tasks.
He checked the stove.
Then the chimney damper.
Then the door hinges.
Then his rifle.
Then the knife.
Eleanor had watched him with growing confusion.
Finally she said:
“Caleb.”
He lifted his eyes.
“The stove is fine.”
“Yes.”
“The rifle is clean.”
“Yes.”
“The latch works.”
“Yes.”
“And if you sharpen that knife any more, it will become invisible.”
His mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
“I like sharp tools.”
“So I have gathered.”
He looked toward the floor beside the stove.
“I’ll make my bed there.”
Eleanor stared.
“Your bed.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the actual bed.
One narrow wooden frame.
Heavy mattress.
Two blankets.
A buffalo robe folded at the foot.
“You intend to sleep on the floor.”
“I’ve slept worse places.”
“That was not my question.”
Caleb picked up a folded wool blanket.
“I’ll be warm enough.”
Eleanor felt irritation arrive unexpectedly.
Perhaps because she had spent the entire journey preparing herself for one kind of problem only to encounter its opposite.
For three thousand miles she had wondered what Caleb Mercer would expect after the marriage ceremony.
She had prepared answers.
No.
Not yet.
Please wait.
She had even imagined how she might endure something she did not want if necessity demanded it.
That thought shamed her.
But necessity had already taught Eleanor things she never expected to learn.
Then Caleb had brought her into this cabin, fed her, carried her trunk, kept his distance, and now seemed determined to sleep on frozen floorboards.
“Caleb.”
He stopped.
“You married me.”
His grip tightened on the blanket.
“Yes.”
“I married you.”
“Yes.”
“And now you intend to spend our wedding night beside a stove.”
His ears turned red.
Eleanor nearly smiled.
“Do you find this amusing?”