PART 2: THE SECRET IN THE MOUNTAINS
The climb into the Absaroka Mountains was brutal.

Snow swallowed Ruth’s boots. The wind cut through her thin coat. Yet she refused to complain.

After two miles, Levi finally stopped.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

He removed his heavy coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“Not while you’re walking beside me.”

For a moment, Ruth couldn’t speak.

No man had shown her such kindness since her father passed away.

They reached Levi’s cabin shortly before darkness.

Inside, a fire crackled beneath a stone chimney. Two chairs stood beside a wooden table, and a small bed had been carefully prepared near the hearth.

“I built the second room last autumn,” Levi said awkwardly. “I thought you might want a place of your own.”

Ruth looked at him in astonishment.

“You prepared all this for someone you’d never met?”

“I read your letters seventeen times.”

Tears filled her eyes.

But their peaceful evening ended when Samson, Levi’s mule, began braying outside.

Levi approached the window.

Three riders were coming up the mountain.

Ruth recognized the man leading them.

“The stagecoach robber,” she whispered.

Levi reached for his rifle.

“Why would he follow you?”

Ruth slowly unfolded her mother’s quilt.

Hidden between two stitched layers was a small leather envelope containing documents bearing Edgar Beexley’s signature.

“I wasn’t dismissed from my teaching position,” she confessed. “I discovered that Beexley had stolen land belonging to thirty-two families. My father kept the proof.”

Levi stared at the documents.

Then he recognized one name.

His younger brother’s.

The brother who had disappeared twelve years earlier.

Outside, the riders dismounted.

“Send the woman out, Rock!” someone shouted.

Levi stood beside Ruth and calmly barred the door.

“You’re not taking her.”

Ruth caught his hand.

“We aren’t even married yet.”

He looked into her frightened gray eyes.

“Then tomorrow, we’ll fix that.”

Outside, the first rider raised his rifle.

And inside the little mountain cabin, Ruth realized something she had never dared believe.

For the first time in her life, someone was willing to stand beside her, whatever the cost.