Previously in Part 1

For eleven years, Saul Mercer had lived alone in a remote cabin deep in the Selkirk Mountains, believing that solitude was the only protection against betrayal.

Then a brutal winter storm brought Gwen Hallett into his life.

Twenty-seven-year-old Gwen had been attempting to reach her late father’s abandoned homestead when her horse fell on an icy mountain trail. With no shelter and a blizzard closing around her, she nearly froze to death beneath a stand of spruce trees.

Saul found her barely breathing and carried her two miles through the storm to his cabin.

But the weather soon trapped them together.

With temperatures dropping dangerously low, only one small room remained warm enough to survive in. Saul offered Gwen his cot and prepared to sleep on the floor.

When Gwen told him she trusted him because he had saved her without expecting anything in return, something inside the hardened mountain man began to change.

For the first time in eleven years, Saul wondered whether his lonely life might finally be over.

But neither of them knew that the blizzard had brought something else into the mountains.

Something far more dangerous than the cold.

And before another night passed, Saul would discover that the woman sleeping beside his stove had not told him everything about why she had come.

PART 2 — The Secret Beneath the Snow

The first warning came at three in the morning.

Saul Mercer woke to the sound of something striking the cabin wall.

Once.

Then twice.

He opened his eyes in darkness.

For several seconds, he lay motionless beneath his blanket, listening.

The wind had been howling since sunset, rattling the shutters and forcing powdery snow through cracks in the timber. But this sound was different.

It had weight.

Purpose.

Something heavy scraped along the outside wall.

Saul slowly reached for the rifle beside his bedding.

Across the small room, Gwen Hallett slept beneath two wool blankets, her face turned toward the dying orange glow of the iron stove.

He watched her for a moment.

Her breathing was quiet and steady.

She had finally begun to recover from the terrible cold that had nearly killed her.

Saul had no intention of allowing anything to disturb that.

Another scrape came from outside.

Closer to the door.

He rose without making a sound.

The wooden floor was so cold that it burned through his stockings.

He took his boots, pulled them on, and crossed the room with his rifle held low.

At the front door, he stopped.

A faint scratching came from the other side.

Then a thin, desperate whine.

Saul frowned.

He knew that sound.

It belonged to an animal.

He carefully lifted the wooden latch.

The door opened barely an inch before a wall of snow pushed against it.

He leaned his shoulder into the timber.

Cold air exploded into the cabin.

And something small, black, and trembling collapsed across his boots.

A dog.

A young shepherd mix, no older than a year, with snow frozen into its fur and blood staining one hind leg.

Saul lowered his rifle.

“Well, what happened to you?”

The dog attempted to stand.

Its injured leg folded beneath it.

Then Saul noticed something around its neck.

A leather collar.

And attached to the collar was a narrow strip of red cloth.

He recognized the material immediately.

It was the same dark-red wool Gwen had been wearing when he found her.

Saul’s expression hardened.

He had believed she was alone on that mountain.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

“Saul?”

Gwen’s sleepy voice came from behind him.

He turned.

She stood in the doorway of the warm room, holding a blanket around her shoulders.

Her eyes traveled from Saul’s rifle to the injured dog.

Then every trace of color disappeared from her face.

“Oh, God.”

She dropped to her knees.

“Finn?”

The dog struggled toward her, dragging its injured leg.

“Finn!”

Gwen gathered the trembling animal against her chest.

Tears filled her eyes so suddenly that Saul barely recognized the calm, composed woman he had rescued.

“You found me,” she whispered. “You actually found me.”

Saul shut the door against the blizzard.

For a long moment, he simply watched.

Then he asked the question that had already formed in his mind.

“Whose dog is that?”

Gwen’s hands stopped moving.

She looked up.

“Mine.”

Saul stared at her.

“You never mentioned a dog.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“How?”

She swallowed.

“When my horse fell, Finn ran after something in the trees. I called until I couldn’t breathe anymore. I waited, but he never came back.”

Saul glanced at the animal’s bloody leg.

“Something caught him.”

Gwen lowered her eyes.

Saul studied her expression.

He had spent eleven years avoiding people because he knew how easily kindness could be mistaken for weakness.

And now, standing in his own cabin, he felt the first cold flicker of suspicion.

“There’s something else,” he said.

Gwen looked at him.

“Something you haven’t told me.”

The silence that followed was almost as uncomfortable as the storm.

Then Gwen whispered, “Yes.”

Saul felt his jaw tighten.

Before he could answer, the dog began growling.

Its ears lifted.

Its attention fixed on the front door.

Saul turned.

Outside, somewhere beyond the snow-covered clearing, a branch cracked.

Not under the weight of ice.

Under a footstep.

A very deliberate footstep.

Saul extinguished the nearest lantern.

“Gwen,” he said quietly. “Take that dog into the back room.”

She hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Now.”

His voice left no room for argument.

Gwen lifted Finn and disappeared into the small heated room.

Saul moved toward the shuttered window.

He raised the edge of the curtain just enough to see outside.

At first, there was nothing.

Only blowing snow.

Black spruce trunks.

The ghostly outline of the woodshed.

Then he saw it.

A light.

Small and yellow.

Moving between the trees.

A lantern.

Someone was outside.

Someone had managed to reach his cabin in the middle of a blizzard that had buried every known trail.

Saul’s stomach tightened.

In eleven years, only three people had ever found this place.

Two were traders he trusted.

The third was dead.

He watched the lantern stop near the woodpile.

A dark figure stood behind it.

Then another appeared farther back among the trees.

Two men.

Perhaps more.

Saul stepped away from the window.

And behind him, Gwen spoke.

“They found me.”

He turned sharply.

She had returned to the doorway.

Her face was white.

“What did you say?”

Gwen stared at the rifle in his hands.

Then she whispered something that made Saul’s blood run colder than the wind outside.

“My husband.”

Saul said nothing.

Gwen pressed a trembling hand against her mouth.

“The man who abandoned me.”

Outside, the lantern moved closer.

“He wasn’t supposed to know I came here.”

Saul stared at her.

“I thought you said he’d disappeared toward the coast.”

“He did.”

“Then why would he be here?”

Gwen’s eyes filled with tears.

“Because I took something he wanted.”

For a moment, the only sound was Finn growling from the back room.

Saul felt the old familiar sensation return.

That hard, bitter feeling he had carried into the mountains eleven years earlier.

Betrayal.

He had opened his home to a stranger.

And now strangers were at his door.

“What did you take?” he asked.

Gwen looked toward the window.

“A document.”

“What document?”

She hesitated.

Then answered.

“One that proves my father didn’t die in an accident.”

Saul froze.

Gwen continued, her voice breaking.

“And I think the men who killed him are the same men who ruined your life.”

The words struck harder than a fist.

Saul stared at her.

“What?”

But before Gwen could explain, a man’s voice boomed through the storm.

“Mercer!”

Saul’s heart seemed to stop.

No one had called him by that name outside the trading settlements in years.

The voice came again.

“Saul Mercer! We know you’re in there!”

He moved toward the window.

The lantern had stopped twenty yards from the cabin.

A tall man stood beside it, wrapped in a heavy buffalo coat.

Even through the swirling snow, Saul recognized the way he held himself.

The confident, almost arrogant tilt of the head.

The squared shoulders.

The deliberate stillness.

Eleven years vanished in an instant.

Saul was no longer standing in a cabin in the Selkirks.

He was back in Kamloops, staring across a sawmill office at the man who had taken everything from him.

“Victor Hale,” Saul whispered.

Gwen covered her mouth.

“You know him?”

Saul’s expression turned to stone.

“He stole my mill.”

Outside, the man laughed.

“Come now, Mercer! Surely you haven’t forgotten an old friend!”

Saul tightened his grip around the rifle.

An old friend.

That was what Victor Hale had called himself before forging Saul’s signature on a transfer agreement, selling their timber rights, and leaving Saul facing debts he had never incurred.

A decade of work had disappeared in a week.

His reputation followed.

His savings.

His home.

And eventually, his faith in anyone who claimed to care about him.

Saul had spent eleven years convincing himself that walking away had been the only way to survive.

Now the man responsible was standing outside his door.

And the woman Saul had carried through a blizzard was connected to him.

He looked at Gwen.

“Start talking.”

She flinched.

“Saul—”

“Everything. Right now.”

Gwen drew a shaky breath.

“My father was a surveyor.”

“I know that.”

“He wasn’t only surveying homestead boundaries.”

Saul remained silent.

“Before he died, he was working on the original timber claims near Dunbar Creek. He discovered that several deeds had been altered. Land that belonged to ordinary settlers had been transferred to a company without their knowledge.”

Saul’s face darkened.

“What company?”

Gwen looked directly into his eyes.

“Hale Timber and Holdings.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Saul took one step backward.

Gwen continued.

“My father started gathering evidence. Original boundary records. Witness statements. Copies of the transfers. He believed the documents would expose a scheme that had been going on for years.”

“And then?”

“He died when his wagon went over a bridge.”

Saul said nothing.

“Everyone called it an accident. But three weeks before his death, he wrote me a letter saying someone had threatened him.”

Gwen’s voice trembled.

“I was teaching in Dunbar Creek when I received the news. By the time I reached his house, someone had searched every room. Drawers overturned. Floorboards lifted. Even his Bible had been cut open.”

Saul listened without moving.

“But they didn’t find what they were looking for.”

Gwen reached beneath the collar of her dress.

Around her neck hung a small brass key.

“My father had a place where he kept his most important papers.”

Saul stared at the key.

“The homestead.”

She nodded.

“He wrote that if anything happened to him, I should go there and retrieve what he’d hidden.”

“Why didn’t you tell the sheriff?”

“I tried.”

Gwen looked down.

“The sheriff showed my letter to my husband.”

Saul’s eyes narrowed.

“My husband told me I was being hysterical. He said my father had become confused before his death. Then he took the letter and burned it.”

She drew a breath.

“Two months later, I overheard him speaking with Victor Hale.”

Saul waited.

“They were discussing the property. My father’s property. And the money they’d receive if I signed away my claim.”

Outside, Hale shouted again.

“Mercer! There’s no need for unpleasantness!”

Saul ignored him.

Gwen’s voice dropped.

“My husband didn’t leave me because he loved another woman.”

She swallowed.

“He left because I refused to sign.”

Saul studied her.

For the first time, he understood that the humiliation she had described was only one small piece of something much larger.

“What’s your husband’s name?”

Gwen hesitated.

“Edmund Hallett.”

Saul’s expression changed.

He recognized that name, too.

Edmund Hallett had been a junior clerk in Hale’s office eleven years earlier.

Quiet.

Polite.

Always smiling.

The man who had witnessed the fraudulent transfer of Saul’s mill.

Saul felt something hot and savage rise in his chest.

“He signed the papers,” Saul said.

Gwen looked confused.

“What papers?”

“The affidavit that said I’d agreed to sell my half of the mill.”

Gwen closed her eyes.

“Oh, God.”

Saul turned away.

For eleven years, he had believed the men responsible for his ruin were far beyond his reach.

Now they were standing outside his cabin.

And somehow, every road led back to the frightened woman before him.

He looked at Gwen.

“Did you know who I was?”

She did not answer quickly enough.

That was answer enough.

Saul felt as if someone had struck him across the chest.

“You knew.”

“Saul, please—”

“You knew before you came here.”

Gwen’s eyes filled.

“I knew your name.”

He gave a bitter laugh.

“Of course you did.”

“I didn’t know whether you were still alive.”

“But you came looking.”

“Yes.”

The word hung between them.

Saul stepped away.

He suddenly remembered everything.

Her arrival.

Her trust.

The way she had looked at him beside the stove.

I know you’re not that kind of man.

Had she meant those words?

Or had they been carefully chosen to make him lower his guard?

He hated himself for wondering.

But he wondered anyway.

“You told me you were trying to reach your father’s homestead.”

“I was.”

“You told me nothing about looking for me.”

“I was afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Of what you would do if you knew.”

Saul stared at her.

“And what exactly did you think I’d do?”

Gwen’s voice broke.

“Send me away.”

The answer silenced him.

Then she continued.

“My father knew you, Saul.”

He frowned.

“What?”

“He met you in Kamloops before everything happened. He always said you were an honest man. When he discovered the forged deeds, he found your name among the earliest victims.”

Saul’s breath caught.

“He wrote that if I ever needed someone who understood what Hale was capable of, I should find you.”

A heavy silence settled over the cabin.

Gwen stepped closer.

“I didn’t set out to deceive you. I meant to reach the homestead first. I thought the documents would tell me enough to know whether I could trust anyone. When the horse fell, I thought I was going to die.”

Her tears spilled over.

“And then you appeared.”

Saul looked away.

She whispered, “I recognized your name when you told me who you were. I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

Outside, the wind screamed through the spruce.

For a long moment, Saul said nothing.

Then he heard a metallic click.

A rifle being cocked.

He moved instantly.

“Gwen, get down!”

A gunshot cracked through the night.

The window shattered.

Glass burst across the floor.

Saul grabbed Gwen and pulled her behind the thick stone chimney as another shot tore through the shutter.

Finn erupted into frantic barking.

Saul crouched beside Gwen, his rifle across his knees.

Outside, Victor Hale’s voice lost its false friendliness.

“Last chance, Mercer!”

Another gunshot.

A splinter of wood flew from the wall.

“Send the woman out with the key, and nobody has to die!”

Gwen shook uncontrollably.

Saul looked at her.

“Does he know where the documents are?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

He reached for a heavy wool coat.

“Stay behind the chimney.”

“What are you doing?”

“Buying us time.”

He crossed the room, staying below the windows, and opened a narrow panel beside the front door.

It was a small firing slit he had built years earlier to protect the cabin from wolves and unwanted visitors.

He positioned his rifle.

Through the opening, he could see the lantern moving near the woodshed.

Hale was not alone.

Three men stood behind him.

One carried a shotgun.

Another held a long rifle.

And the third—

Saul’s blood turned cold.

The third man had a torch.

A burning torch.

“They’re going to set the cabin on fire,” Saul whispered.

Gwen stared at him.

“What?”

Saul fired.

The shot struck the lantern.

Glass exploded.

Flame spilled into the snow and died.

The clearing plunged into darkness.

A man shouted in surprise.

Saul immediately withdrew from the slit.

For several seconds, no one fired.

Then Hale’s furious voice rang through the storm.

“You old fool! You’ve just made this worse!”

Saul ignored him.

He had counted three rifles outside.

Only one inside.

Four men against one.

The odds were poor.

And with Gwen still weakened from exposure, escaping into the blizzard would be almost as deadly as remaining in the cabin.

He needed another way.

His eyes moved toward the floor.

Toward the thick woven rug beneath his cot.

He made a decision.

“Gwen.”

She looked up.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Can you crawl?”

She frowned.

“Why?”

Saul pulled the rug aside.

Beneath it was a square wooden hatch.

Gwen stared.

“A cellar?”

“Something like that.”

He lifted the hatch.

A black opening appeared beneath the floor.

Cold, earthy air rose from below.

“I built a passage when I first came here. It leads behind the root cellar and out beneath the hillside.”

Gwen looked from the opening to him.

“An escape tunnel?”

Saul managed a humorless smile.

“Eleven years alone gives a man time to think about what might go wrong.”

Another shot struck the cabin.

Saul flinched.

Gwen knelt beside the opening.

“We can both leave.”

He shook his head.

“Not yet.”

“Saul—”

“If we disappear now, they’ll burn the cabin and search the hillside. The passage won’t stay hidden once the floor collapses.”

“What are you going to do?”

He looked toward the door.

“Keep them occupied while you reach the trees.”

Gwen grabbed his arm.

“No.”

Saul stared at her.

“You don’t get to argue about this.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Gwen.”

She tightened her grip.

“You carried me through two miles of snow when you could have walked away. Do you really think I’m going to crawl into a tunnel and leave you here to die?”

Saul opened his mouth.

No words came.

He was accustomed to people leaving.

People taking.

People deciding that saving themselves was worth whatever it cost him.

But Gwen was staring at him with an anger that came from something entirely different.

She was afraid for him.

Not of him.

For him.

And somehow, that frightened Saul more than the rifles outside.

Another bullet tore into the wall.

A tin plate crashed from its shelf.

Saul grabbed Gwen by the shoulders.

“Listen carefully.”

She went still.

“There’s a narrow shelf in the passage, about twenty feet down. It’s behind a loose stone on your right. My spare cartridges are there. Take them.”

“Why?”

“Because if these men get inside, I need you somewhere I can defend you.”

Gwen stared at him.

Then something changed in her expression.

“There’s something you should know.”

Saul almost laughed.

“Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

She reached beneath her skirt.

From a concealed pocket sewn into the lining, she withdrew a small, folded piece of paper wrapped in oilcloth.

Saul looked at it.

“What is that?”

“A page from my father’s notebook.”

“I thought the papers were at the homestead.”

“Most of them are.”

She hesitated.

“But I kept this one with me.”

Saul opened it.

The paper was old, yellowed, and covered with hurried handwriting.

There were dates.

Amounts of money.

Names.

Saul scanned the list.

Victor Hale.

Edmund Hallett.

Several men he remembered from Kamloops.

Then his eyes stopped on a name near the bottom.

Samuel Mercer.

Saul frowned.

“That’s my brother.”

Gwen nodded slowly.

“I know.”

Saul looked at her sharply.

“What does Samuel have to do with this?”

“I don’t know. My father wrote his name beside a payment made two days before the mill changed ownership.”

Saul felt his chest tighten.

Samuel had been twenty-nine when Saul left Kamloops.

His younger brother.

The one person Saul had believed incapable of betraying him.

The brother who had begged him not to disappear into the mountains.

The brother who had promised to find evidence that would clear his name.

Saul had received one letter from Samuel during his first winter in isolation.

Only one.

It had contained six words.

I’m sorry. Please don’t come back.

Saul had burned it.

And never answered.

Now, looking at his brother’s name in the notebook, he felt the past opening beneath his feet.

“What payment?” he asked hoarsely.

Gwen shook her head.

“The amount is written there. But I don’t know why.”

Saul looked down.

Three thousand dollars.

A fortune for a working man.

Beside the amount were two initials.

V.H.

Victor Hale.

Saul’s hands began to tremble.

He had spent eleven years believing his brother was the only innocent person left in his former life.

Had Samuel known?

Had he helped?

Or had Hale used him, too?

Before Saul could speak, a sudden crash shook the cabin.

The front door bent inward.

One of the hinges tore free.

A second blow followed.

The men outside were using something heavy.

A log.

Saul folded the paper and shoved it into his coat.

“Gwen, into the tunnel.”

This time she didn’t argue.

She gathered Finn against her chest and lowered herself through the hatch.

Saul handed her a lantern with only a tiny flame.

“Keep it low. Don’t let the light show through the far opening.”

Gwen looked up at him.

“Promise me something.”

Saul’s jaw tightened.

“What?”

“Don’t stay here because you think your life stopped mattering eleven years ago.”

The words struck him harder than anything she had said.

He stared down into the darkness.

Gwen’s eyes shone.

“You saved me. Let me help save you.”

Saul swallowed.

Then nodded.

“I’ll follow.”

“Promise?”

Another crash shook the door.

Saul looked toward it.

Then back at Gwen.

“I promise.”

He lowered the hatch.

Pulled the rug into place.

And turned toward the front of the cabin.

The next blow smashed through the doorframe.

Cold air roared inside.

A gloved hand reached through the splintered timber.

Saul raised his rifle.

“Take one more step,” he shouted, “and you’ll regret it!”

For a moment, the pounding stopped.

Then Victor Hale laughed.

“Still the same stubborn fool, Mercer.”

Saul kept the rifle steady.

“Get off my mountain.”

“Your mountain?”

Hale laughed again.

“That’s where you’re mistaken.”

Saul’s eyes narrowed.

“What are you talking about?”

“The land you’re standing on doesn’t belong to you.”

Saul felt a sudden chill.

Hale continued.

“Neither does the timber. Neither does the cabin. According to the records filed last autumn, this entire ridge belongs to Hale Timber and Holdings.”

Saul’s grip tightened.

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

A folded paper appeared through the broken doorway.

Hale tossed it inside.

It landed on the floor.

Saul glanced down.

An official-looking notice.

A land transfer.

His cabin site.

His clearing.

His entire little world.

Transferred.

Sold.

Stolen.

Again.

Hale’s voice came through the darkness.

“You should’ve stayed disappeared, Mercer. You might’ve lived out your miserable life without ever knowing.”

Saul looked toward the rug covering Gwen’s escape hatch.

Then he lowered his rifle slightly.

“You came all this way for a piece of paper?”

Hale chuckled.

“Oh, no.”

His voice changed.

“We came for the woman.”

Saul said nothing.

“And after that, we’re going up to her father’s homestead.”

The silence deepened.

Then Hale added something that made Saul’s entire body go rigid.

“But you already know what’s waiting there, don’t you?”

Saul frowned.

“What?”

“The graves, Mercer.”

Saul stared at the broken doorway.

Hale laughed softly.

“Surely she told you about the graves.”

Saul felt his stomach tighten.

Gwen had said nothing about graves.

Nothing at all.

Before he could ask another question, a gunshot rang out.

Not from outside.

From beneath the cabin.

Saul spun around.

The sound had come from the tunnel.

Then he heard Gwen scream.

“SAUL!”

His blood turned to ice.

He ran toward the rug and ripped it away.

The hatch stood slightly open.

He dropped to his knees.

“Gwen!”

No answer.

Only the rushing wind beneath the floor.

Then a man’s voice rose from the darkness.

A voice Saul had not heard in eleven years.

A voice he would have recognized even on his deathbed.

“Don’t come down here, Saul.”

Saul stopped breathing.

His fingers tightened around the hatch.

The voice spoke again.

“Please. For once in your life, listen to me.”

Saul whispered one word.

“Samuel?”

A long silence followed.

Then the voice answered.

“Yes, brother.”

Saul could barely move.

His younger brother was alive.

Inside the hidden passage.

With Gwen.

And a gun had just been fired.

Then Samuel said something that made the whole terrible night suddenly seem like only the beginning.

“Saul, the woman you rescued isn’t who you think she is.”

Saul stared into the darkness.

“What have you done to her?”

Samuel’s reply came in a broken whisper.

“Nothing. But listen carefully. If you love her, you must not let Victor Hale discover what’s hidden beneath her father’s house.”

Saul’s heart pounded.

“Why?”

A faint metallic click echoed from somewhere deep inside the tunnel.

Samuel spoke again.

This time his voice shook.

“Because Gwen’s father wasn’t the only person buried up there.”

Saul felt the air leave his lungs.

Then came the words that shattered everything he believed about his past.

“Saul… your wife is buried there, too.”

For eleven years, Saul Mercer had believed his wife had abandoned him before he fled Kamloops.

He had never seen her again.

Never received a letter.

Never known where she went.

And now, beneath the floor of his cabin, the brother he had not seen in more than a decade was telling him she had been dead all along.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

From the darkness, Gwen suddenly cried out.

“Saul! Don’t believe him!”

A struggle followed.

Then another gunshot exploded through the tunnel.

And the lantern went out.

END OF PART 2 — TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…

What really happened to Saul’s missing wife eleven years ago? Why had Samuel Mercer returned after all this time? What secret was Gwen’s father protecting beneath the abandoned homestead? And most frightening of all—whose blood had just been spilled in the darkness under Saul’s cabin?

In Part 3, Saul will be forced to uncover the truth about the people he once loved. But the greatest betrayal may come from the one person he has only just begun to trust…

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