PART 4 — THE SECRET BENEATH THE SNOW

The first thing Adelaide noticed was that Gidrick had stopped shivering.

At first, she thought the worst had pᴀssed.

Then she touched his forehead.

His skin was H๏τter than before.

“Gidrick?” she whispered.

His eyes remained closed.

Outside, the blizzard battered the cabin walls. Snow pressed against the windows, and the wind howled down the chimney. Adelaide had never felt so alone.

She hurried to her trunk and pulled out a small glᴀss jar of willow bark, dried peppermint, and feverfew. Her years helping in her uncle’s apothecary had taught her how to prepare ordinary remedies, recognize danger, and keep a frightened household calm. But she also knew that a fever this severe could turn dangerous quickly.

The nearest doctor lived beyond the ridge.

No horse could cross that mountain tonight.

Adelaide warmed water, prepared a mild drink, and placed a cool cloth against Gidrick’s forehead. She kept him warm, watched his breathing, and spoke to him even when he could not answer.

“You may have spent months telling me I didn’t belong here,” she murmured, “but I’m not leaving you alone now.”

For hours, she sat beside him.

Sometimes he muttered words she couldn’t understand. Sometimes his hand reached blindly across the blanket, as though searching for someone who was no longer there.

Then, just before dawn, he whispered a name.

“Abigail…”

Adelaide’s hand went still.

“Don’t go,” he pleaded.

She looked toward the window, where the snow had covered the entire world.

“I’m here, Gidrick.”

But he wasn’t speaking to her.

He was speaking to the woman beneath the wooden cross.

And for the first time, Adelaide wondered whether she had been fighting against a memory she could never defeat.

By morning, Gidrick’s fever had not broken.

Adelaide knew she needed help.

She tied a red cloth to the cabin’s highest post, hoping a pᴀssing trapper might see it when the storm eased. Then she returned to Gidrick and noticed something unusual.

His coat lay across a chair.

A small leather pouch had fallen from its pocket.

Inside were three things: a brᴀss key, a folded pH๏τograph, and a letter worn soft at the creases.

Adelaide didn’t intend to read it.

But the pH๏τograph slipped from her fingers and landed faceup beside the stove.

It showed Gidrick standing beside Abigail.

She was smiling.

And beside her stood another man.

A tall, clean-shaven fellow wearing a dark vest and a silver watch chain.

On the back, in faded ink, someone had written:

The winter before everything changed. For Gidrick and Abigail, with graтιтude — Thomas Finch.

Adelaide stared at the name.

Finch.

The matchmaking agent who had arranged her marriage.

She picked up the letter.

It was addressed to Gidrick, but the handwriting was unfamiliar.

Your first wife was not the reason the mountain took her. You know that. If you ever want the truth, come to the old mill before the spring thaw.

There was no signature.

Only a date.

Three years earlier.

Adelaide felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

Why would someone connect Abigail’s death to the old mill?

And why had Gidrick kept the letter hidden?

A weak sound came from the bed.

“Adelaide…”

She hurried to his side.

His eyes were barely open.

“Water,” he whispered.

She helped him drink, then placed the letter back inside the pouch.

“Gidrick, who is Thomas Finch?”

His expression changed.

Even through the fever, recognition crossed his face.

“Don’t…”

“Don’t what?”

“Trust… Finch.”

Before she could ask another question, his eyes closed again.

Adelaide sat very still.

The man who had arranged their marriage might know something about Abigail’s death.

And if that was true, perhaps the cruel beginning of her marriage had been part of a story much larger than either of them understood.

Two days later, the storm finally weakened.

A trapper named Elias Boone spotted the red cloth and reached the cabin shortly before sunset. Adelaide opened the door with exhaustion written across her face.

“Good Lord,” Elias exclaimed. “How long has he been like this?”

“Three days.”

Elias immediately went to the bed.

“Then we need Doctor Harlan. I’ll bring him up from the lower settlement.”

“Can you get through the ridge?”

“Not easily. But I’ll try.”

Before leaving, Elias looked at Adelaide.

“You’ve kept him alive this long?”

“I’ve done what I could.”

He glanced at the neatly stacked firewood, the clean water, and the carefully prepared meals.

Then he looked at her again.

“Seems you’ve done more than that.”

Adelaide said nothing.

Elias returned the following afternoon with Doctor Harlan.

The physician examined Gidrick, asked Adelaide several questions, and gave instructions for his care. He warned that the fever could still take time to settle, but Gidrick had a chance if he rested and was watched closely.

When the doctor stepped outside, he stopped beside Adelaide.

“You should be proud. Many people would have panicked.”

“I was frightened.”

“Courage doesn’t mean you weren’t.”

For the first time in months, Adelaide felt someone had seen her clearly.

Not as a burden.

Not as a mistake.

As a person.

That evening, Gidrick finally woke properly.

His gaze moved around the cabin before settling on her.

“You’re still here.”

Adelaide was sitting beside the stove, mending a torn sleeve.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She lowered the needle.

“Because you were ill.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It is the only one I have.”

He tried to sit up, but she stopped him.

“Doctor’s orders. You need rest.”

Gidrick stared at her for a long moment.

Then his eyes moved toward the trunk.

“I was wrong about that.”

Adelaide followed his gaze.

“About what?”

“Your trunk. Your herbs. Your knowledge.”

She returned to her sewing.

“You were wrong about more than that.”

He looked down.

“I know.”

“No, Gidrick. I don’t think you do.”

She placed the mended shirt on the table.

“You thought I couldn’t survive this mountain because of how I looked. You never asked what I knew, what I had lived through, or what I could do. You decided I was weak before I had even stepped inside your cabin.”

His voice was quiet.

“I was afraid.”

“So was I.”

He looked at her.

“I buried Abigail here,” he said. “I couldn’t bear the thought of watching another woman struggle against this mountain.”

Adelaide’s expression softened, but only slightly.

“Then you should have told me. You should have taught me what you knew. Instead, you made me feel like every breath I took beneath this roof was an inconvenience.”

Gidrick closed his eyes.

“I am sorry.”

She wanted those words to be enough.

But they weren’t.

“Rest,” she said.

And she turned back to her sewing.

Neither of them noticed the small envelope sliding from beneath the pH๏τograph on the table.

It had been hidden there all along.

On its front were four words:

THE TRUTH ABOUT ABIGAIL.

The envelope contained a second sheet of paper.

Adelaide unfolded it carefully.

The handwriting was delicate, unmistakably a woman’s.

To the woman who may one day call this cabin home,

If you are reading this, then I have failed to tell Gidrick something important. I wanted to tell him myself, but the men watching our property have made that impossible.

Adelaide’s eyes moved down the page.

I was carrying his child.

She stopped breathing for a moment.

The letter continued.

I discovered it shortly before the trouble began. I was afraid that if Caleb Rusk learned about the baby, he would use the child to force Gidrick to surrender the land. I asked a trusted woman in Mercy Creek to help me make arrangements. If anything happened to me, she promised to keep the baby safe.

At the bottom was a name.

Martha Bell.

Adelaide looked up.

“Gidrick…”

He was watching her, his face suddenly pale.

“What does it say?”

She approached the bed and handed him the letter.

He read the first lines slowly.

Then his fingers began to tremble.

“No,” he whispered. “That can’t be.”

“Did you know Abigail was expecting?”

He shook his head.

“She never told me.”

“Then we need to find Martha Bell.”

Gidrick stared at the letter as though the words might change if he read them again.

“My child…”

For three years, he had believed Abigail had died without leaving anything behind except memories and a grave on the mountain.

Now he knew there might be a child somewhere in the valley who had never known her father.

Adelaide sat beside him.

“We’ll find out what happened.”

Gidrick looked at her.

“Why are you helping me after everything I’ve done?”

She glanced at the pH๏τograph of Abigail.

“Because that child deserves to know the truth. And because I know what it feels like to arrive somewhere and discover nobody has been waiting for you.”

He lowered his head.

For once, he had no answer.

But Adelaide had no intention of letting the matter rest.

The next morning, she asked Silas Reed to come inside.

When she showed him Abigail’s letter, the older man turned unusually quiet.

“Martha Bell,” he repeated. “I know her.”

“Where can we find her?”

“In Mercy Creek. She runs the little boardinghouse near the church.”

“Then we’re going there as soon as Gidrick can travel.”

Silas looked toward the bedroom.

“There’s something else you should know. Martha didn’t just help Abigail. She was the last person to see her alive before that terrible night.”

Gidrick struggled to sit higher against the pillows.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t know she had kept the child,” Silas answered. “I thought the baby had been lost.”

Gidrick’s face тιԍнтened.

“Who told you that?”

Silas hesitated.

“Caleb Rusk.”

The name seemed to darken the room.

Adelaide folded the letter and placed it inside her apron.

“Then Caleb has been lying to everyone.”

Silas nodded.

“And if he learns that we know about the child, he’ll try to reach Martha before we do.”

Outside, a horse whinnied.

All three turned toward the window.

A rider had stopped near the barn.

It wasn’t Caleb.

It was a young boy carrying a message.

Adelaide opened the door.

“Are you looking for someone?”

The boy removed his cap.

“Mrs. Cole? A man in town paid me to bring this.”

He handed her a small envelope and hurried away.

There was no name on the outside.

Inside was a single sentence:

Ask Martha Bell who paid her to keep Abigail’s baby—and why the child was never allowed to know her father’s name.

Adelaide looked toward Gidrick.

He had read it over her shoulder.

And for the first time since she had arrived at Broken Spur, the mountain man looked truly afraid.

Not of the weather.

Not of the mountain.

But of what someone had done to his family.