Everyone Gave Up Looking for the Missing Banker’s Daughter—Only One Single Dad Found Her Alive!

Chapter 2

The night was long, and it had teeth.

Caleb banked the fire through the small hours, feeding it in measured, miserly armfuls, because he did not know how many days they would need it. He had dried venison and a handful of mountain herbs in his pack, and he set a small tin cup of snow at the edge of the flames so that it melted slowly, drop by drop, into the weakest, warmest broth he knew how to make.

She took it in spoonfuls. Half of it ran down her chin. The rest she swallowed without waking, her body moving on an instinct that predated thought.

By the second watch, the fever found her.