High in the Bitterroot Mountains the wind howls like a wounded animal.
Jeremiah Cole hadn’t smiled since he buried his heart in the frozen Montana Earth 5 years ago.
But fate has a strange sense of humor.
When a mud-covered stumbling woman from Philadelphia steps off the stagecoach clutching a matrimonial contract his desolate silent world is violently and hilariously shattered.
The year was 1885 and the Montana territory was unforgiving to anyone who dared to show weakness.
For Jeremiah Cole the harshness of the Bitterroot Range was not a punishment but a sanctuary.
Shunned standing at 6’3 with a beard that hadn’t known a razor in half a decade and eyes as cold as a glacial stream he was known by the townsfolk of Stevensville as the ghost of Trapper Peak.
Five years prior a sudden brutal late spring blizzard had claimed the lives of his wife Clara and their infant son while Jeremiah was pinned down in a hunting camp just 10 miles away.
He had survived.
They had not.
Since that day Jeremiah buried his grief beneath layers of isolation and silence speaking only to his hunting hounds and the occasional merchant when he came down the mountain for salt and ammunition.
Down in the muddy bustling settlement of Stevensville Ezekiel Zeke Higgins the proprietor of the local mercantile watched his friend wither away into a shadow.
Zeke was a man who believed a man wasn’t meant to live on a mountain with nothing but ghosts for company.
Taking matters into his own calloused hands Zeke had done the unthinkable.
He had forged a letter.
Using Jeremiah’s name Zeke placed an advertisement in the Kansas City Star’s matrimonial column.
He painted Jeremiah not as a broken hermit but as a prosperous lonely rancher in need of a gentle hand.
He hadn’t expected a reply so soon.
He certainly hadn’t expected Adeline.
Adeline Preston’s arrival in Stevensville was nothing short of a spectacle.
Fleeing a massive gambling debt left by her late father and the very real very dangerous debt collector Alaric Pennington who sought her hand in marriage as repayment Adeline had spent her last $20 on a stagecoach ticket to Montana.
She was 24 possessed a spirit too large for her petite frame and had a crippling notorious lack of physical coordination.
As the stagecoach jolted to a halt outside Higgins Mercantile Adeline eagerly reached for the carriage door.
Her boot caught the hem of her heavy woolen traveling skirt.
In a flurry of petticoats and a shriek that silenced the street Adeline plummeted out of the stagecoach bypassing the wooden boardwalk entirely and landed face-first into a trough of fresh churning Montana spring mud.
Jeremiah Cole who had chosen that exact afternoon to make his bi-annual trip to town for rifle cartridges stood on the boardwalk a heavy sack of flour slung over one shoulder.
He watched the spectacle with deadened eyes.
Lord almighty Zeke muttered rushing out of the store with a towel.
He hauled the sputtering mud-soaked woman to her feet.
Miss are you all right Adeline wiped a thick glob of brown sludge from her eyes her bonnet knocked askew and produced a soggy folded piece of newspaper from her bodice.
I am looking for a Mr. Jeremiah Cole she announced trying to sound dignified despite a clump of mud dropping from her nose.
I am his bride.
The silence on the boardwalk was deafening.
Jeremiah dropped his sack of flour.
It hit the wooden planks with a heavy thud.
He took three slow deliberate steps toward Zeke his shadow engulfing the smaller man.
Zeke Jeremiah’s voice was like gravel grinding under a wagon wheel.
What in God’s name is this Zeke swallowed hard shrinking back.
Now Jeremiah hear me out.
A man needs companionship.
You’ve been up on that mountain rotting away.
You forged my name Jeremiah’s fists clenched his knuckles turning white.
He turned his terrifying gaze upon Adeline who was currently trying and failing to wring out her skirt without falling over.
I don’t know what fairy tales this fool spun you lady but there is no wedding.
Get back on that stage.
Adeline’s heart plummeted into her stomach replacing the mud.
I cannot she said her voice trembling but her chin held high.
The stage leaves for Helena in an hour and I have exactly 14 cents to my name.
Mr. Cole we have a contract.
A contract signed by a liar.
Jeremiah shot back turning on his heel.
Not my problem.
He began packing his mule ignoring the scene he was leaving behind.
But Adeline driven by the sheer terror of Alaric Pennington finding her refused to be dismissed.
She marched up behind Jeremiah meaning to tap his shoulder but tripped over a stray hitching post root.
She slammed headfirst into his broad back.
Jeremiah didn’t even sway.
He slowly turned around looking down at the woman who was currently rubbing her bruised forehead.
Mr. Cole she pleaded dropping the false bravado.
Her eyes a striking hazel were bright with unshed tears.
I have nowhere to go.
If I go back east I am ruined.
Worse than ruined.
Please.
I am a hard worker.
Let me work for my keep.
A housekeeper a cook anything.
Just until I can earn enough to travel safely.
Jeremiah looked at Zeke who was offering a pathetic pleading smile and then back to the mud-covered disaster before him.
The last thing he wanted was a woman in his cabin touching Clara’s things breathing the air he had reserved for his grief.
But he was a mountain man and mountain men didn’t leave helpless creatures to starve in the winter.
Spring Jeremiah grunted his jaw tight.
You stay until the spring thaw.
You cook you clean you stay out of my way.
Then you’re gone.
Adeline exhaled a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
Thank you Mr. Cole.
I promise you won’t even know I’m there.
The ride up to Trapper Peak was a brutal initiation into Adeline’s new life.
The elevation climbed sharply and the thin biting wind cut right through her damp Philadelphia wool.
Jeremiah rode his massive gray gelding in front never looking back to check on her as she clung desperately to the back of his pack mule.
Along the way she managed to drop her bonnet down a ravine startled the mule into nearly bucking her off by sneezing loudly and snag her sleeve on a low-hanging pine branch tearing a massive hole in her dress.
When they finally reached the cabin the sun was dipping below the jagged peaks casting long mournful shadows across the snowpack.
The cabin was sturdy built of thick hand-hewn logs but it was suffocatingly dark inside.
As Jeremiah struck a match to light the oil lamp Adeline saw the reality of the man she had bound herself to.
The cabin was immaculately clean but it felt like a tomb.
Above the stone fireplace sat a woman’s tortoiseshell comb a small faded ambrotype photograph and a tiny hand-carved wooden toy horse.
The shrine was untouchable.
Jeremiah caught her looking at it.
You don’t touch that he warned his voice devoid of warmth.
You sleep in the loft.
My hounds stay inside at night.
Don’t step on them.
For the first two weeks the tension in the cabin was thick enough to cut with a skinning knife.
Adeline was true to her word about working hard but her promise that he wouldn’t know she was there proved impossible.
She was a walking calamity.
She broke two clay mugs while trying to wash them in the freezing creek.
She accidentally used his expensive hard-to-get salt instead of in his morning coffee.
A mistake that resulted in Jeremiah spitting the dark liquid violently into the fire and leaving for a three-day hunting trip without a word.
Yet she didn’t quit.
She chopped wood albeit with a terrifying lack of aim that made Jeremiah wince from across the yard.
She mended his clothes her fingers bleeding from needle pricks.
She was terrified of him but more terrified of the world she had left behind.
The turning point came during the first week of November as the first major snowstorm of the season began to blanket the valley.
Jeremiah was trapped indoors sitting by the fire sharpening a hunting knife in aggressive rhythmic strokes.
His massive bloodhound Barnaby lay sleeping by the hearth.
Adeline had decided she was going to master flapjacks.
She had found a massive 50-lb sack of flour in the pantry and hauled it toward the wooden worktable.
It was far too heavy for her.
Let me get that.
Jeremiah grumbled standing up unable to watch her struggle anymore.
No I have it.
Adeline insisted her pride flaring.
She gave the heavy sack one massive heave.
She lost her grip.
The heavy canvas sack hit the edge of the wooden table tipped backward and plummeted to the floor.
It hit the floorboards with the force of a cannonball bursting violently at the seaMs. A massive white cloud of fine flour exploded upward engulfing the entire kitchen area.
Jeremiah froze.
When the dust began to settle the sight before him defied logic.
Adeline was entirely coated in stark white flour looking like a ghostly apparition.
Her eyelashes were caked in white her hair powdered down to the roots.
Beside the hearth Barnaby the bloodhound stood up shaking himself.
The dog was completely white save for two dark confused eyes blinking through the powder.
Adeline stood perfectly still flour drifting gently off her nose.
She looked at the ruined kitchen then at the ghost hound and finally at Jeremiah whose knife was still raised in midair.
For a terrible second Adeline thought he was going to throw her out into the blizzard.
She had ruined his supplies.
She was a failure.
Then Adeline sneezed.
A violent full-body sneeze that sent a fresh puff of white powder exploding from her face.
Jeremiah lowered his knife.
His chest hitched.
A strange rusty sound escaped his throat.
It started as a low rumble something fighting its way through years of disuse before erupting into a deep booming laugh.
It was a loud rich sound that seemed to shake the very rafters of the cabin.
He leaned against the wall clutching his stomach.
Tears of genuine mirth pricking his eyes as he looked at his powdered dog and the disasterous woman who had invaded his life.
Adeline initially stunned felt a bubble of relief rise in her cheSt. A small giggle escaped her lips and soon she was laughing too.
Sitting right down in the pile of spilled flour clutching her sides.
For the first time in five years the cabin on Trapper Peak was filled with the sound of joy.
The ice around Jeremiah Cole’s heart had finally cracked.
But miles below down in the muddy streets of Stevensville the stagecoach from Helena had just arrived through the mounting snow.
A man stepped off his boots polished a silver-tipped cane in his hand and a cold calculating smile on his face.
Alaric Pennington walked into Higgins Mercantile shaking the snow from his expensive coat.
I’m looking for a woman Pennington said smoothly to a terrified Zeke slapping a heavy bag of gold coins onto the counter.
Small clumsy answers to the name Adeline.
And I know she’s in this valley.
The weeks following the great flour avalanche of ’85 marked a profound shift inside the timber walls of the Trapper Peak cabin.
The heavy suffocating silence that had ruled Jeremiah Cole’s life for 5 years had been shattered replaced by the crackle of the hearth and the tentative fragile beginnings of conversation.
Jeremiah stopped taking 3-day hunting trips just to avoid his own home.
Instead he found himself lingering by the fire whittling a new handle for a ruined skillet watching out of the corner of his eye as Adeline waged a daily chaotic war against domestic chores.
She was undeniably the clumsiest creature he had ever encountered.
She managed to drop a cast-iron pot on her own foot nearly set the curtains ablaze while trying to light the oil lamp and routinely tripped over Barnaby the bloodhound who had wisely taken to sleeping under the heavy oak table for his own survival.
Yet there was no malice in her mistakes only a desperate frantic desire to be useful.
And slowly Jeremiah found himself anticipating her disasters.
He began anticipating her.
One frigid December evening the wind screaming against the eaves Adeline sat near the fire her fingers clumsily trying to darn a massive hole in one of Jeremiah’s woolen socks.
She hissed as the needle pricked her thumb for the fourth time.
Jeremiah cleaning his Winchester rifle at the table set the weapon down.
He walked over his heavy boots making no sound on the floorboards and gently took the sock and the needle from her trembling hands.
You’re fighting the yarn Adeline he murmured.
His voice a low gravelly rumble that sent an unexpected shiver down her spine.
It was the first time he had used her given name.
He pulled up a stool beside her his massive calloused fingers moving with surprising dexterity as he guided the needle through the wool.
Mountain life ain’t about forcing things to bend to your will.
It’s about working with what you got.
You pull too hard the thread snaps.
Adeline watched his hands then looked up at his face.
The harsh lines of grief around his eyes had softened.
I just I want to pull my weight Jeremiah.
I don’t want to be a burden to you.
He met her gaze the firelight dancing in his pale eyes.
You ain’t a burden.
You’re a menace to my crockery but you ain’t a burden.
A small genuine smile touched his lips and Adeline felt her heart perform a strange fluttering rhythm that had absolutely nothing to do with fear.
For a fleeting moment she forgot the snow the forged contract and the shadows of her paSt. But shadows especially those cast by men like Alaric Pennington have a way of stretching across even the highest mountains.
Two days before Christmas the illusion of their isolated sanctuary was violently broken.
Barnaby let out a deep booming bark the fur on his spine standing on end.
Jeremiah instantly reached for his Winchester throwing the bolt back as he moved to the window.
Through the driving snow a lone rider was flogging a nearly exhausted horse up the steep trail.
It was Zeke Higgins.
The mercantile owner practically fell out of his saddle.
His face blue with cold ice clinging to his mustache.
Jeremiah hauled him inside barring the heavy oak door behind him.
Zeke What in God’s name are you doing up here in this weather Jeremiah demanded pulling the man toward the fire while Adeline hurriedly poured a tin cup of hot coffee.
Zeke’s hands shook violently as he grasped the cup spilling half the dark liquid on the floor a mess Adeline didn’t even notice.
Jeremiah.
You got to listen to me.
I had to come.
I tried to stall him but he found out.
Who found out Adeline asked the color draining from her face.
Her stomach twisted into a cold hard knot.
A man named Pennington Zeke gasped looking at Adeline with terrified eyes.
Alaric Pennington.
He came into town a month ago asking for a clumsy girl from Philadelphia.
Threw gold around like it was dirt.
I kept my mouth shut Jeremiah.
I swear it.
But he hired Harlan and Cobb those two rustlers from over the ridge.
They beat it out of old man Miller that he saw you hauling a woman up to Trapper Peak.
Adeline dropped the cast iron poker.
It hit the stone hearth with a deafening clang.
She backed away her hands covering her mouth terror wide in her hazel eyes.
He found me.
Oh God he found me.
Jeremiah turned to her his jaw set like granite.
Who is Alaric Pennington Adeline’s breathing turned ragged.
The truth ugly and terrifying spilled from her lips.
She confessed to her father’s gambling addiction the massive debt he had accrued before his death and the sinister proposition Pennington had offered her hand in marriage and absolute submission in exchange for clearing the ledger.
She spoke of his cruelty the veiled threats to her life and her desperate penniless flight to Montana.
I lied to you she sobbed backing into the far wall of the cabin.
I didn’t come here to be a wife.
I came here to hide and now I’ve brought a monster right to your door.
I’m sorry Jeremiah.
I will pack my things.
If I leave now maybe they won’t Stop.
Jeremiah’s voice cracked like a whip.
He crossed the room in three long strides stopping inches from her.
He looked down at her tear-streaked face.
There was no anger in his eyes only a fierce terrifying resolve.
You ain’t going anywhere Jeremiah stated his voice dropping to a deadly quiet register.
This is my mountain and you are my wife.
Contract or no contract let them come.
The storm broke on Christmas Eve leaving behind a sky as brittle and blue as shattered glass.
The temperature plummeted to 20 below zero freezing the snow into a treacherous solid cruSt. Jeremiah knew they were coming.
Men like Harlan and Cobb were greedy and Pennington was impatient.
He had spent the morning preparing loading every firearm in the cabin and placing them at strategic windows.
He ordered Adeline into the root cellar beneath the floorboards a dark cramped space smelling of earth and potatoes.
Do not come out until I open this trapdoor Jeremiah instructed pressing a loaded Colt revolver into her trembling hands.
If it ain’t me who opens it you pull the trigger.
You understand Jeremiah please she begged clutching his coat.
Don’t die for me.
He brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek his thumb lingering on her skin for a fraction of a second.
I already died once Adeline.
I ain’t planning on doing it again.
He shut the heavy trapdoor plunging her into darkness.
An hour past noon the hounds began to howl.
Through the slats of the floorboards Adeline could hear the muffled thud of horses breaking through the crust of the snow.
Then came the shouting.
Cole It was a cultured arrogant voice that made Adeline’s blood run cold.
Alaric Pennington I know she’s in there.
Send the girl out and I’ll leave you to your miserable life.
Keep her and my men will burn this cabin to the ground with you inside.
You’re trespassing Jeremiah’s voice rang out.
Steady and lethal.
Turn back or the snow takes you.
A gunshot shattered the stillness.
The bullet splintering the window frame above Jeremiah’s head.
The mountain erupted into violence.
The deafening roar of Jeremiah’s Winchester echoed through the cabin.
Above her Adeline heard the frantic scrambling of heavy boots the terrifying sound of glass shattering and the vicious guttural snarling of Barnaby as the hound defended the door.
Flank the rear Cobb Someone screamed outside.
Adeline crouched in the dark her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She heard a heavy thud against the back wall followed by the sound of splintering wood near the pantry.
Someone was trying to pry the back window open.
She couldn’t just hide.
She couldn’t let Jeremiah fight alone.
Clutching the heavy Colt Adeline pushed against the trapdoor.
It creaked open just as a massive bearded man Cobb tumbled through the shattered pantry window a hunting knife clenched in his teeth.
Jeremiah was pinned down at the front window exchanging fire with Harlan and Pennington completely unaware of the intruder at his back.
Cobb raised his pistol aiming right at Jeremiah’s spine.
No Adeline screamed.
She scrambled out of the cellar raising the Colt.
But true to her nature the heavy gun slipped from her sweaty palMs. She lunged to catch it her foot catching on the lip of the trapdoor.
She pitched forward arms flailing wildly.
In her chaotic descent Adeline collided violently with the massive cast-iron butter churn resting on the counter.
The heavy churn toppled backward directly into Cobb’s path.
The outlaw didn’t even have time to curse.
The heavy iron and wood contraption slammed squarely into his shins.
Cobb howled in pain his gun firing wildly into the ceiling as he collapsed backward tumbling right back out the broken window and landing headfirst in a snowdrift knocked entirely unconscious.
Jeremiah whirled around at the gunshot his eyes wide as he saw Adeline sprawled on the floor amidst spilled milk and an unconscious outlaw outside the window.
Before Jeremiah could scold her the heavy front door was kicked open.
Alaric Pennington stood in the frame a silver-plated Derringer leveled at Jeremiah’s cheSt. Harlan lay dead in the snow behind him taken down by Jeremiah’s earlier fire.
Fools the lot of them Pennington sneered stepping into the cabin.
He looked at Adeline his eyes gleaming with a sick triumph.
Get up Adeline.
It’s time to go home.
Jeremiah didn’t flinch.
She’s home.
She’s my property Pennington snarled his finger whitening on the trigger.
Look down city boy Jeremiah growled.
Pennington paused glancing down.
Barnaby the massive bloodhound had silently crept through the smoke-filled room.
The dog’s jaws currently clamped directly around Pennington’s ankle teeth sunk just deep enough to draw blood.
In that split second of distraction Jeremiah moved.
He didn’t fire his rifle.
He swung it like a club.
The heavy wooden stock connected with Pennington’s jaw with a sickening crunch.
The debt collector crumpled to the floor instantly unconscious his silver derringer skittering across the wooden boards.
Silence descended upon the cabin broken only by the crackle of the fire and the low growl of the hound.
Jeremiah dropped the rifle his chest heaving.
He looked at the unconscious man then at the broken window and finally at Adeline who was sitting in a puddle of spilled buttermilk trembling violently.
He crossed the room dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arMs. It was a crushing desperate embrace.
Adeline buried her face in his wool coat sobbing not from terror but from an overwhelming crushing wave of relief.
You’re safe he whispered into her hair his voice rough with emotion.
I’ve got you.
You’re safe.
The spring of 1886 came late to the Bitterroot Valley but when it arrived it brought a vibrant explosive beauty.
The snow melted into rushing crystalline rivers and the mountain meadows erupted in a riot of purple lupine and yellow balsamroot.
Alaric Pennington and his surviving men had been dragged down the mountain by Jeremiah and handed over to the territorial marshal.
With Pennington facing decades in the territorial prison for attempted murder Adeline’s debts died with his freedom.
By the 1st of May the terms of their forged contract were officially up.
The spring thaw had come.
Adeline stood in the cabin her meager belongings packed into a single worn satchel.
She likely toward her welcome.
She had brought violence to his door.
He had promised she could leave in the spring and Jeremiah Cole was a man of his word.
She turned to look at the mantel.
The tortoiseshell comb and the faded photograph were still there but the crushing weight of grief that used to suffocate the room was gone.
Jeremiah walked through the front door carrying a bundle of freshly cut firewood.
He stopped his eyes falling on her packed bag.
The firewood slipped from his grip clattering to the floor.
What’s this he asked his voice tight.
It’s spring Jeremiah.
Adeline said softly fighting the tears welling in her eyes.
The thaw is here.
I I can make it to Helena now.
I can find work.
I promised I would leave.
Jeremiah stepped over the fallen wood his pale eyes locked onto hers.
You promised you’d work for your keep.
You didn’t promise to leave.
I don’t belong here.
She lied her voice cracking.
I break your things.
I ruin your peace.
You broke my heart open Adeline.
Jeremiah said the raw honesty in his voice stopping her dead in her tracks.
He reached out his rough hands gently cupping her face.
I was a dead man walking this mountain.
You brought the noise back.
You brought the light back.
I don’t want peace if it means this cabin is quiet again.
He leaned down his forehead resting against hers.
Stay.
Not because of a forged paper.
Not because you have nowhere to go.
Stay because I love you.
Stay and be my wife.
Adeline’s satchel slipped from her fingers hitting the floor with a soft thud.
She wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him down into a fierce desperate kiss.
It tasted of woodsmoke coffee and the promise of tomorrow.
High on Trapper Peak the ghost of the Bitterroot was no more.
In his place stood a man brought back to life all thanks to a clumsy mud-covered bride who had stumbled into his world and entirely by accident saved his soul.
