Chapter 1 - What Was Beneath the Floor
Amily stumbled toward the steaming opening in the cabin floor and whispered, “I’m too big.”
The mountain man knelt beside a heavy fur covering and pulled a brass latch from beneath it.
Three letters had been carved into the metal.
A.M.H.
Amily stopped breathing.
The bath had been built for someone with her initials.
“I don’t understand.”
Her voice was barely there.
The man looked from the brass plate to her face.
For the first time since she had entered his cabin, his calm expression cracked.
Neither of them moved.
Only minutes earlier, Amily Harper had believed her greatest problem was surviving the night.
Now she was no longer certain survival was the worst thing waiting for her.
Her soaked wool dress clung heavily to her body beneath the gray blanket she had wrapped around herself. Water ran from the ends of her brown hair and dotted the floorboards. Her fingers were stiff from cold. Her knees trembled so badly that she had to grip the edge of a wooden chair.
The stranger noticed.
“Sit.”
His voice was deep but not unkind.
Amily stared at the chair.
“I told you.”
“I heard you.”
“It won’t hold me.”
His brow tightened.
Then understanding crossed his face.
“You think I meant the chair?”
Amily’s face burned.
He pointed toward the opening in the floor.
Steam rose through amber lantern light.
“I meant there.”
The cabin had been built around a natural hot spring.
Not a bathtub.
Not a wash basin.
A pool.
It was large enough for two grown men to sit in without touching.
Smooth stones lined the sides, and beneath the surface, water moved slowly from a channel cut into the mountain itself.
The heat coming from it reached Amily’s frozen legs.
She stared.
The mountain man lifted the fur farther back.
That was when she had seen the brass latch.
A.M.H.
Her initials.
Amily slowly raised her eyes.
“What is your name?”
The man hesitated.
“Elias Reed.”
“Do you know me?”
“No.”
“Do you know my family?”
Another pause.
“No.”
She pointed at the latch.
“Then why are my initials under your floor?”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
“They aren’t your initials.”
Amily felt something drop inside her chest.
“Whose are they?”
He did not answer.
Outside, wind scraped branches across the cabin roof.
Amily wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.
Hours earlier, she had been riding inside the northbound stagecoach with three other passengers.
The road had been narrow.
The mountains had risen dark on either side.
Then a rifle had fired.
The lead horse had screamed.
The coach had lurched sideways.
Men with scarves across their faces had appeared from the trees.
Amily still remembered the driver shouting for everyone to stay down.
She remembered a robber yanking open the coach door.
She remembered his eyes dropping over her large body before he laughed.
“Where are you going, sweetheart?”
She had grabbed the first thing she could reach.
A stone doorstop from beneath the coach seat.
She smashed it into his nose.
He fell backward screaming.
Amily ran.
She ran until her lungs burned.
Until the road disappeared.
Until snow covered her shoes.
Until she had no idea where she was.
Then she saw smoke between the trees.
Elias’s cabin.
He had opened the door with a rifle in his hand.
She had expected suspicion.
Instead, the first thing he said was, “You’re freezing.”
No mockery.
No staring.
No question about why a woman her size had been traveling alone.
He had simply stepped aside.
Now the same man seemed unwilling to explain three carved letters.
Amily’s fear sharpened.
“Who is A.M.H.?”
Elias stood.
He was tall enough that she had to tilt her head back.
Wet strands of dark hair fell around his weathered face. His beard was thick, his coat patched at one shoulder. He looked like a man who had learned to live without asking the world for anything.
But something in his eyes had changed.
Pain.
Old pain.
“My wife.”
Amily said nothing.
Elias looked toward the fire.
“Her name was Anna Mae Holloway.”
Amily’s fingers loosened on the blanket.
“Was?”
“She died.”
The words came flat.
Too flat.
As though he had said them many times in his head and never once aloud.
Amily looked again at the steaming water.
“You built this for her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elias glanced at her.
“She was sick one winter. Her joints hurt so badly she could barely stand. Warm water helped.”
Amily swallowed.
“She was…”
Elias understood the unfinished question.
“Large?”
Amily wished she had not asked.
But he answered.
“Yes.”
Heat rose into Amily’s face even though she was still shaking from cold.
Elias crouched and placed another log in the stove.
“She spent most of her life apologizing for taking up space.”
Amily’s throat tightened.
“She’d apologize when a chair creaked. When a dress needed extra cloth. When someone had to move past her.”
He closed the iron door.
“I hated hearing it.”
Amily stared at him.
Because she had done the same thing.
For years.
She apologized before entering crowded rooms.
She chose seats near exits so nobody had to squeeze around her.
She laughed when strangers made jokes because anger only seemed to entertain them.
She had even apologized to the stagecoach clerk that morning because he had charged her for two seats.
She had paid.
She had smiled.
Then she had sat alone beside the window pretending she did not care.
Elias lifted a folded linen shift from a peg.
“It belonged to Anna. It’s clean. You can change behind that screen.”
Amily stared at the garment.
It was roomy.
Soft.
Made for someone shaped like her.
Her eyes stung unexpectedly.
“I can’t take your wife’s things.”
“She doesn’t need them.”
“That doesn’t make them mine.”
“It makes them useful.”
His tone ended the argument.
Amily took the shift.
“Thank you.”
He nodded toward the steaming pool.
“Warm yourself before you stop shivering.”
She went behind the wooden screen.
For several moments, she stood there without moving.
Her fingers struggled with the buttons on her soaked dress.
Every inch of her hurt.
She finally peeled away the frozen wool and changed.
When she stepped out, Elias had turned his back.
A small act.
But Amily noticed.
He had placed a stool near the pool with a towel and soap.
He had also hung her wet clothing near the stove.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
She lowered herself carefully into the spring.
The heat struck her almost painfully.
Then relief spread through her body.
Amily closed her eyes.
Her hands stopped shaking first.
Then her shoulders.
Then her teeth.
For the first time since the attack, she breathed without fear.
Elias remained near the stove, giving her privacy.
“You live here alone?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Seven years.”
“Since your wife died?”
His silence answered.
Amily looked at the black stove pipe.
“I’m sorry.”
He gave a small nod.
She hesitated.
“Was Anna from around here?”
“No.”
“Where?”
Elias’s hand stopped on the kettle.
“Cedar Hollow.”
Amily’s eyes opened.
“My mother was born in Cedar Hollow.”
Elias turned.
“What was her name?”
“Margaret Harper.”
The kettle slipped half an inch in his hand.
Elias caught it.
Amily noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
He set the kettle down.
“Margaret what?”
“Harper.”
“Before she married.”
Amily frowned.
“Margaret Holloway.”
The cabin went completely still.
Elias stared at her.
Amily felt the warmth disappear from the room.
“My mother’s maiden name was Holloway.”
Elias took one slow step closer.
“What was her father’s name?”
“Samuel.”
His face lost color.
Amily rose slightly in the water.
“You knew him.”
Elias looked toward the window.
“I knew of him.”
“That’s not what your face says.”
Before he could answer, something struck the outside wall.
Amily froze.
Elias turned instantly.
Another sound.
A horse.
Then voices.
Men.
Elias crossed the cabin in three strides and extinguished the lantern nearest the window.
“What are you doing?”
“Get out of the water.”
Amily did not argue.
She climbed out and grabbed the blanket.
Elias handed her boots.
“Put those on.”
Someone shouted outside.
“Reed!”
Amily’s blood went cold.
The same voice had shouted beside the stagecoach.
She remembered it.
The robber whose nose she had broken.
Elias reached for his rifle.
The man outside laughed.
“We know the woman’s in there.”
Amily stared at Elias.
“How could they know?”
He moved beside the door.
“They tracked you.”
“No.”
He looked at the window.
“Then they tracked something you were carrying.”
Amily’s breath caught.
Her satchel.
She had forgotten about it.
She had run with it strapped across her shoulder the entire way.
She grabbed it from beside the chair.
Elias looked at the bag.
“What’s inside?”
“Clothes. Money. Papers.”
“What papers?”
Amily hesitated.
“My father’s.”
Elias’s eyes narrowed.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. He died three weeks ago. His lawyer told me to take them to a bank in Silver Creek.”
Outside, the robber shouted again.
“Give us the Harper papers, Reed!”
Elias slowly lowered the rifle.
Not because he intended to surrender.
Because something had just become clear.
He looked at Amily’s satchel.
Then at her.
“Your stagecoach wasn’t robbed.”
Amily felt her stomach turn.
“What?”
“They were waiting for you.”
A fist slammed against the door.
“Last chance!”
Elias motioned toward a trapdoor near the stove.
“Down.”
Amily stared.
“What about you?”
“Move.”
She pulled the trapdoor open.
Cold darkness waited below.
She placed one foot on the ladder.
Then the robber outside shouted something that stopped both of them.
“Tell Margaret Holloway’s daughter who Anna really was!”
Amily turned toward Elias.
His face had gone white.
The door latch began to rise.
Slowly.
From the outside.
Someone had a key.
May you like
And Elias whispered one word.
“Impossible.”
