He swung down off the Appaloosa’s back, maybe a dozen yards from her and Abigail, and left the reins dangling in his haste to reach them. “What is it?” he demanded, taking the pails from her hands as he spoke.

Her chin was set at a proud angle now, but it wobbled like it might break off and fall away. “Oh, Scully—” she began. Then, obviously fearing that she would break down and cry, she fell silent.

“We almost got eaten by a wolf,” Abigail told him cheerfully. “An Indian shot him with an arrow.” She frowned. “You don’t suppose it was the same Indian who shot you, do you, Scully?”

Scully felt his own stomach drop, spinning, like a well-bucket with the rope cut. “My God,” he murmured.

Inside the cabin, he closed the door with one heel and set the buckets down with a clunk. Abigail went in search of Hortense and the wooden horse Jacob had given her, eager to tell the tale.

Scully took Evangeline’s hand and pulled her into the lean-to, where he immediately gripped her shoulders. She was pale as milk, a woman on the verge of swooning if he’d ever seen one. “Eve,” he said. And then, against all better judgment, he pulled her close. He couldn’t help it, thinking of her facing that wolf, scared half out of her wits and trying desperately to protect her child. “Eve.”

She clung to him, her face buried in his shoulder, and it felt good. God in heaven, it felt good.

He tilted his head back to look down into her eyes. “You can cry if you need to, you know,” he said hoarsely. “No law against it.”

She sniffled, still trying to hold up. He loved her—loved her—for both the attempt and the failure. “I was so afraid,” she whispered, still holding on tightly to the back of his coat. “Oh, Scully, I was sure we were going to die—”

“It’s over now,” he pointed out gently. He should put her away from him, he knew that, for her sake, for Big John’s, for his own, but he couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t let go.

She shook her head slowly from side to side, and the tears she’d struggled against made her eyes glisten. “It isn’t over,” she argued. “This is how it’s going to be. For the rest of my life. Wolves. Indians. Always being afraid—”

“No,” Scully interrupted. “There are good things, Eve. Think about the view from up there in the meadow. Think of the way the sun glitters off a new snow, and how the frost makes feather patterns on the windows. Think of the way the air seems to shimmer sometimes, it’s so clean, and how a body can travel for days and days without so much as glimpsing another living soul.”

She looked so beautiful, even with the end of her nose turning red and her eyes all puffy, more beautiful than all the things Scully had just been describing put together. But she shook her head again. “No, Scully. Those are the things that make you happy. I need to feel safe. I need to see other people sometimes, and just be in a busy place. I need—” She stopped, gazing up into his eyes in that way that turned his backbone to jelly and caused him to forget practically every principle he’d ever subscribed to. “Hold me, Scully. Right or wrong, just hold me for a little while.”