“I burned the stew. We ate it, anyway.” Adam tried to recall why he’d started this, what he’d hoped to accomplish. An examination of Elle’s face told him that. She had wanted to know him, really know him. Before this was over, she would, and that pity he saw on her face would never dissipate.

The last thing he wanted from her, from anyone, was pity, but the damage was done, so he kept talking. “After that stew, my mother took over the cooking while my father paced. By Christmas we’d been in the cold and dark for three-plus months with no hope we would make it to spring before food and fuel ran out.” Before Adam got into the worst of the story, he took a moment to breathe, to regain his composure. “One morning I woke to hear my parents arguing. My father intended to go for help. My mother said he didn’t have a chance. When she couldn’t change his mind, she dragged out the heavy coat she’d brought and hidden in case of emergency and made him put it on. He came over to my bed, kissed my forehead and smoothed my hair. By now, I was so angry at him, I pretended to be asleep.”

“Oh, no,” Elle whispered.

The old guilt racked him. “You’re right. I never saw him again.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She slid her arm around his shoulders. “You were a child. You didn’t realize—”

“I attended a brutal school, and I became a pragmatist.” He didn’t lean against her or yield to her affection. If he allowed himself a crack in the wall of his defenses, he would do what he intended before. He would fling himself into the ocean.

“After Dad left, storm after storm roared over us.” He turned to face the ocean breeze. “I didn’t hear voices in the mountain winds. I heard death rattling the logs, bringing the cold to eat our toes one at a time. When the snow buried the cabin, I had to struggle out a window and onto the roof to shove the weight off. Days, weeks, months, I couldn’t tell how long we’d been there in the endless dark watching our supplies dwindle.”

Elle shuddered and moved closer, and squeezed his hand hard enough to make his knuckles hurt. “Keep going,” she urged.