though it takes some time, skittish as you are, he talks you down. learns who you are and what you’re doing on his property. apparently, you’ve been fending for yourself for months after your new husband took your horse into town for supplies and simply never came back. no letter or body, nor word from anybody who might’ve seen him—just a house that’s falling apart and a garden you depend on to keep you alive.

price shows you the deed and bill of sale to convince you he isn’t some drifter or swindler trying to trick or rob you, and watches the fight go out of you when you realize what the papers actually mean, that the land was never your husband’s to begin with. that this stranger has every right to put you out.

you were frightened before, but now you’re looking at winter coming on with no horse, hardly any money, nowhere to go, and truly no one left in the world. and price, who’s spent his life living hard and thought that he’d spend the back half of his life alone, finds he can’t stomach the sight of you standing there trying not to beg him mercy.

he looks at the growing calluses on your palms, the dirt under your fingernails, and the dried mud caked along the hem of your skirts, and he is struck. all those violent, bloody years he survived when better men did not? this must be what he’s been kept alive for. to come all this way to this slice of heaven and find you here.

so he strikes a bargain instead: you can stay through the next month while you decide what you want to do. in the meantime you’ll help him make the place livable and he’ll teach you what he knows.

you’re not stupid. you know exactly how lopsided a deal it is, how little you have to offer compared to what he’s putting on the table—besides the obvious. he gives you the night to think it over, you toss and turn beneath for hours trying to invent a better alternative, but there simply isn’t one.

in the morning, bleary-eyed and embarrassed, you tell him you accept. john just grins and drains his coffee. to him, the matter was never in much doubt. he puts the two of you to work immediately.

the first few weeks are hard. john tackles the roof and walls first, making you his little helper, calling down for whatever tool he needs next or sending you to fetch whatever materials you can manage. you go to bed and wake up sore, palms blistering in a pair of his old gloves. all the while, john, strong as an ox, seems capable of working from dawn until dusk.

in the afternoons, when the heat makes repair work miserable, he puts you both on his horse and rides double to the nearby lake to teach you to fish. you squirm the first time he makes you gut a trout, nearly retching when the knife opens its belly. john only laughs when you try to shove the whole bloody business back toward him. his big hands close over yours instead, guiding the blade while his chest glues to your back, his voice rumbling in your ear as he chides you for trying to worm your way out of it. can’t live on good intentions, love. go on. get your fingers in there.

he teaches you to shoot next and that’s when you get your first inkling of whatever life he led before he found you. he’s an excellent shot, on foot and horseback. he’s also a good teacher. hands-on. correcting your stance, one wide palm at your waist and the other on your elbow, enduring every flinch of yours until you can fire without shaking. he shows you how to set basic snares and read the ground for tracks. in return, you teach him what grows best in the garden and what you’ve found foraging.

and during those early weeks, you live on edge, waiting for him to ask for more than just a second helping at dinner. because you know enough of the world to know what sort of bargain a woman in your position might ordinarily be expected to make, whether the exact terms are spoken aloud or not.

you hold your breath whenever he squeezes past you in the kitchen and go stiff when his hands squeeze your sides while shooting, steadying you against the recoil. more than once you’ve lain awake listening to the floorboards creak beneath his weight while he stays up late, waiting for him to appear at your bedside. when you bathe in the lake, he stands watch on the bank with his back turned, and though you wait to catch him looking over his shoulder. but, to your honest shock, he never does.

he’s refreshingly gentlemanly. you can’t tell whether he’s honoring the existence of your husband, suspended somewhere in that awful limbo between living and dead, or whether john is simply a patient man biding his time. waiting for the right moment.

whatever the reason, each day that passes without him demanding that certain kind of tender as payment relaxes you just a bit more. your vigilance eases and you stop keeping track of where he is in and outside of the cabin. for the first time in a long time, you feel at peace.

as a consequence, the whole situation grows domestic. his razor appears beside your washbasin. his coat hangs beside yours by the door. you start setting two places at breakfast and supper. at night, when there’s oil or wax to spare, you read aloud to each other.

so it comes as a surprise when, near the end of the month, john tells you to put on your best. you’re going into town.

today, apparently, you’re going to finally buy a horse of your own.

you start protesting immediately—you haven’t the money for a horse, your husband carried the bulk of it, you certainly don’t have enough a good one—but john waves all that away. you need one, he insists. can’t have you stranded. and while you’re in town, you can make some inquiries after your husband.

that shuts you up. almost makes you petulant. worse is the stab of shame when you realize you’ve barely thought of the man in weeks. for months, his absence had occupied every waking hour. you would daydream and imagine hoofbeats or footsteps and fly to the window, searching. then john arrived, and at some point, your husband became an afterthought.

in town, john waits patiently while you ask after your husband at the general store, the barber, the blacksmith. he accompanies you into the saloon, standing a few paces behind while you question the bartender and whatever regulars might have been there around the time your husband disappeared. john doesn’t say a word. he watches their faces, thick arms folded across his chest, eyes jumping from face to face beneath the brim of his hat while you explain when your husband left, the horse, and what he looked like.

nobody knows a thing.

in the end, you wilt dutifully. resigned to the fact that he either ran off or that his bones are bleaching in a ditch somewhere on the road. the thought ought to devastate you more than it does, and that brings another little stab of guilt.

john simply plants a hand between your shoulder blades and steers you toward the livery.

there, at least, he manages to cheer you up. he helps you choose a pretty chestnut gelding with a blaze on his forehead and a friendly disposition. john pays for him while you’re busy cooing at the creature, along with a saddle and tack, and when you claim that you’ll pay him back, he merely smiles and says, ‘m sure you will, love.

back home, neither of you mention that your agreement is nearly up. and when the month comes and goes, and neither of you mentions that either.

the timeline simply stretches, one day passing into the next. any sense of urgency gets lost. there’s still work to be done on the cabin, after all. you’re getting better with the rifle but john reckons you’ve plenty left to learn. you’ve only just got your own horse and ought to become a better rider before setting off anywhere alone. then the sun starts setting earlier and the leaves start to change, and really, leaving now would be foolish what with winter so close. you better to stay until spring.

john lays all this out over dinner one night. says it so plainly.

you agree, a mite too eager, and hide your smile behind another bite.

that night, while you sleep curled beneath your blankets, john eases your door open enough to look in on you. he stands there for a long while, listening to your breathing, before slipping a hand into his pocket. his thumb finds the worn band of that wedding ring he picked off a dead man on the road west and toys with it.

he wonders if he ought to pray. john never put much stock in faith or fate before. but what could he call this? finding that failure of a man, then finding the home he’d abandoned and the wife he’d left behind? what else is john supposed to understand it as, if not a series of signs pointing him precisely where he was meant to go? of all the land he might have bought, all the roads he might have taken—what are the chances?

the next day, he takes that dead man’s ring down to the lake and tosses it in. he will buy another the next time the two of you ride into town.

and that night, after weeks of patience, of sneaking off to see to his own wants in private, kicking dirt over his wasted spend, he will finally make his move. he will employ that same slow tenderness he’s shown you from the beginning. he has no reason to believe you won’t welcome it. you won’t shy away. you’ve been alone so long, starved for company, and he’s taught you to reach for him when you need something, hasn’t he?

no, you won’t fight him one bit. you’ll understand better, too, when he’s got you on your back, cock buried deep, drool hanging off your lip—you’ll know that you’re both right where you belong. where you’re meant to be.