.

now as strangers. The only decision he could have made.

      Despite her condition, she looked well. Very well. Soft lamplight glowed from the wide windows, gilding her in light. Snow had gathered like tiny pieces of grace on her hood. She looked beautiful, more lovely than ever. Vibrant and womanly in a way he’d never seen her before.

      She’s happy, he realized with a punch that knocked the air from his lungs and every last speck of regret from his heart. He’d done the right thing in leaving. Her father, rest his soul, had been right.

      He didn’t like what that decision had done to him, but he’d learned a hard lesson from it. Be wary of the woman you give your heart to.

      He took a moment to capture one last look of her, happy and lovely and matured into a sweetheart of a woman. Knowing this only made him feel colder. Glad for her, but cold in the way of the blizzard baring its teeth.

      “Won’t you come in? You must be half frozen.” Concern was there on her face for the stranger she thought he was. “Come in and warm up. We have beef soup and hot tea.”

      “Can’t. My horse is standing in this cold.”

      “You could put him in our stable.”

      “No.” Would she still ask him in if she knew who he was? What did she think about the man who’d broken his promise to elope with her? Did she even remember him?

      Probably not. The bitterness in him won out, but it wasn’t only bitterness he felt. That old tenderness, a hint of it, remained. No longer a romantic tenderness; that had been surely destroyed, but his feeling of goodwill surprised him once more.

      He lifted her free hand, small and disguised by her woolen glove. He knew by memory, still, the shape of her hand from all the times he’d held it in his own. It was with well wishes for her future that he pressed a gentleman’s kiss to the back of her hand.

      “Now that I’ve got you and your aunt home safe and sound, I’ve done my good deed for the day.”

      “Only one good deed per day?” She withdrew onto the brick walk. “You remind me of an old beau of mine.”

      “Pardon me, but he couldn’t have been the brightest fellow. I can’t imagine any man passing you by.”

      “I must be mistaken, then.” She shook her head. Why had she been so sure? But as she swiped the snow out of her eyes, she realized he hadn’t answered her question. “How long have you lived in Angel County?”

      “I, uh, just moved back to the area. Haven’t been here long.”

      So, it was as she thought. The voice she remembered had been an eighteen year-old’s voice, manly, yes, but still partly boyish, too, not in full maturity. This man’s voice was deeper and confident and wholly masculine, but still, it was Thad’s.

      “Miss, you take care of yourself. No more riding behind runaway horses.”

      “I think my uncle will see to that.”

      “Where is your husband? Shouldn’t he be the one seeing to your safety?”

      “My husband? No. I’ve never married.” Was he moving away? The wind was gathering speed so she couldn’t hear him move. “The blizzard is growing worse. You can’t go out in that.”

      “Don’t worry your pretty head about me, Noelle.”

      Noelle. The way his baritone warmed like wild honey around her name made her absolutely certain. “Thad?”

      But there was no answer, just the moan of the wind and the hammering of snow falling with a vengeance. It pounded everywhere, on the top of her hood, on the front of her cloak, on the steps at her feet, and the sound deceived her.

      Had he already disappeared into the storm? She couldn’t tell. She stood alone, battered by howling wind and needle-sharp snow, feeling seventeen again. Those feelings of love and heartbreak and regret were a lifetime ago. She’d had enough of all three these past years to last her a lifetime. She knew it was foolish of her to wonder about Thad McKaslin now. He had rejected her, too.

      She turned on her heels and waded through the snow to the covered porch steps. They were icy, so she took them with care. It was best to keep her mind focused firmly on the blessings in her life. On what was good about this moment and this day. No good came from dwelling on what was past and forever lost.

      “Young man, where do you think you are going?” Henrietta demanded from, what sounded, near the bottom of the porch steps. “You’ll come back here and warm up with a cup of tea in front of a hot fire.”

      “I’ve got stock to see to before the storm gets much worse. Good day, ma’am.” Thad’s voice came muted by distance and the thick veil of snow.

      “Mark my words, you’ll freeze to death before you make it to the end of the driveway!” Henrietta humphed when no answer came. “What a disagreeable man. He may have saved us, but God help him. We’ll likely as not find him frozen solid on the path to town come morning. Terrible thing,” she said, leading the way into the house.

      Apparentlys back to her usual self. Noelle gave thanks for that.

      After following her aunt into the warmth of the house, she found herself wondering about Thad. He’d disappeared back into the blizzard, just as he’d come to them.

      

      A narrow escape.

      He wasn’t bitter, Thad told himself as he nosed Sunny north. No, he was as cold to the past as the wind. But he was unprepared. Unprepared to have seen her. Unprepared to accept the fact that she’d said the words that kept playing over and over in his mind. I’ve never married.

      Wasn’t that why he’d left Angel Falls? To do as her father wanted and get out of her life? So she could marry the right kind of man? Because there was no way an immigrant’s son like him could give Noelle the comfort she was used to. There had been many times over the last lonely years that he’d seen the older man’s point.

      The love he thought they had was a fool’s paradise. A dream that had nothing to do with the hard reality of life.

      They’d been two kids living on first love and dreams, but the real world ran on hard work and wages. He’d driven cattle from all over the West to the stockyards, from California to Chicago. He’d eaten dust and branded calves and tucked away every spare dollar he could and, except for a few months every winter, he’d lived out of his saddlebags. He’d learned what life was about.

      The icy wind gusted hard, pulling him out of his thoughts. He’d gone a fair ways down the driveway. There was nothing around him but the lashing wind and the pummel of the iced snow, which had fallen around him like a veil. He gave thanks for it because he couldn’t see anything—especially the house he’d left. Noelle’s house. The twilight-dark storm made it easier to forget he’d seen her. To forget everything. Especially those early years away from her and how his heart had bled in misery until one day there’d been no blood left. Until he’d felt drained of substance but finally purged of the dream of her and what could have been.

      Sure, there had been times—moments—since then when he’d thought of her. When he saw a woman’s chestnut hair twisted up in that braided fancy knot Noelle liked to wear. Or when he saw an intricate lace curtain hanging in a window, he would recall how she’d liked to sit quietly in the shade on the porch and crochet lace by the hour. Any time he heard a piece of that fancy piano music she liked to play with the complicated chords and the long-winded compositions, he would remember.

      It was the memories that could do him in, that were burrowing like a tick into his chest. He tried to freeze his heart like the winter’s frost reaching deep into the ground. Usually that was the best way to handle those haunting thoughts of her and of the past.

      He would never have come back to Angel Falls except for his kid brother. The boy didn’t know what kind of a sacrifice Thad was making in coming back here and in his decisions to stick around, help the family and start to put