Evangeline laughed softly, and that eased the strain between them a little.

Scully dished up fried eggs and thick slices of pork, filling a plate for Abigail and setting it in the warming oven over the stove. The gesture touched Evangeline in such an unexpected way that she had to avert her eyes for a few moments.

“Sit down,” Scully said. He’d opened the shutters at some point, and the room was filling slowly with pink and gold light.

The place looked larger to Evangeline than it had the night before, when the shadows had taken up so much space. The floors were of good wood, and there was a ceiling, not just rafters as she might have expected. There was a book shelf, jammed with volumes, and even a braided rug, over by the foot of the bed. Someone had drawn arches onto several of the crudely planed log walls with charcoal, and she looked at those curiously as Scully joined her at the table.

He chuckled, but the mirth in the sound didn’t quite rise to his eyes. “Big John’s planning to build on to the house next spring. Those lines mark where he thinks the doors ought to be.”

Evangeline didn’t pursue that statement, lest it lead onto unstable ground. She did hope one of the rooms would be a bedchamber; she did not wish to sleep in the main part of the cabin forever, especially once she and Mr. Keating were married. Abigail would require a degree of privacy, as well, and there would undoubtedly be other children in time. Evangeline wanted a large family.

“How’s the food?” Scully pressed, when she didn’t speak.

The meat was tough and a little stringy, requiring extra chewing, and she was still working at the task, meaning to lie when she’d finished, when an awful ruckus broke out, seemingly just on the other side of the rear wall. Evangeline came close to choking again, while Scully leapt to his feet, muttering an oath, and collected his rifle from the rack above the cabin door. He didn’t bother with his coat, but simply threw up the latch and raced outside, calling back, “Stay here!”

Evangeline ignored the order, grabbed his coat off its peg, shrugged into it, and dashed after him, shutting the door hard behind her. She followed as he strode toward the looming barn.

Midway, she stopped, as abruptly as if she’d slammed into an enormous pane of glass. There were wolves inside the corral fence, two of them, crouched low and snarling. Their grayish-brown ruffs stood out like the quills on a porcupine and, as Evangeline watched in horror, a third wolf began slinking beneath the lowest fence rail on the far side.

A single cow stood partway in the corral and partway in the barn, bawling her head off. The creature had good reason to carry on, Evangeline thought, but at the moment she was far more concerned about Scully.

The beasts turned feral eyes on him, and he stood not a dozen yards from them, the stock of the rifle braced against his shoulder as he took aim. His breath made white billows in the air around his uncovered head, but that was the only trace of movement.