“I Haven’t Seen A Woman In 10 Years” — The Mountain Man Said, Then Kissed The Bride And Married Her

Chapter 7

Clara woke to the sound of an axe biting into wood, each strike echoing off the mountainside in a steady rhythm of practiced strength. Pale light filtered through the windows, and the cabin smelled of woodsmoke and coffee.

She dressed quickly in yesterday’s clothes — the only clothes she had — and stepped into the main room. Through the window, she watched Silas split logs with methodical precision, his shirt already damp with sweat, wood chips flying with every swing. The pile beside him grew with alarming speed.

The coffee was indeed brewing, suspended over the fire in a battered pot, its scent rich enough to remind her she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Her stomach growled so loudly she pressed her hand to it in embarrassment, though there was no one around to hear.

“Good morning,” Silas said, appearing in the doorway with an armload of firewood. “Hope I didn’t wake you with the chopping.”

“Good morning.” She was suddenly self-conscious about her appearance, her hair shedding pins after a night’s sleep. “The coffee smells wonderful.”

“It’s strong,” he warned, setting down the wood and moving to pour her a cup. “I’ve gotten used to making it thick enough to float a horseshoe. Might want to add some water.”

She accepted the tin cup gratefully, wrapping her hands around its warmth. The coffee was, indeed, dark as creek water and bitter as regret — but it was hot, and after the events of the past two days she needed all the help she could get.

“I should probably learn to make this,” she said, taking another sip and trying not to wince. “And breakfast. And really, everything. I’m afraid my education didn’t include much practical housekeeping.”

Silas studied her over his own cup. “What did it include?”

“Literature, mostly. Music — I play piano, though I doubt that’ll be much use up here. French, which is even less useful. Watercolor. Embroidery. The accomplishments that were supposed to help me make a good marriage.” She laughed, and there was no humor in it. “I suppose they did, in a way. Just not the kind of marriage anyone expected.”

“Can you read?” he asked.

“Of course I can read. I told you, I studied literature.”

“I mean, can you read recipes? Instructions? Books that might teach you practical things?”

She felt a flush of embarrassment. “Yes. I can read anything. I just never had cause to read anything useful.”

Silas nodded and moved to a wooden chest in the corner. From it he drew a thick, worn volume bound in cracked leather.

“This was my mother’s,” he said, handing it to her. “She wrote in it for thirty years. Recipes, remedies, household advice — anything she learned that might be worth passing on.”

Clara opened the book carefully, mindful of its age. The pages were filled with neat handwriting in faded brown ink: measurements for bread, instructions for preserving meat, remedies for everything from headaches to broken bones. In the margins, someone had added notes and corrections — the accumulated wisdom of a woman who had clearly known how to build a home in difficult circumstances.

“It’s beautiful,” Clara said, running her fingers over a page titled Sourdough Starter — Never Let It Die. “She must have been a remarkable woman.”

“She was,” Silas said quietly. “Came out here with my father when this was still Indian territory. Raised four children, buried two of them before they were grown. Never complained. Never quit. Never let the hardship break her.”

There was something in his voice when he spoke of his mother — a gentleness at odds with his fearsome reputation. Clara looked up from the book to find him watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.

“What happened to her?” she asked.

“Fever took her when I was twenty-five. Same winter that killed half the livestock and froze the wells solid. My father always said she just decided she was tired of fighting and let herself slip away.” He paused, then added, “I think she would have liked you.”

The simple statement hit Clara harder than any grand declaration could have. This man barely knew her, and yet he believed his beloved mother would have approved of her — a woman who had arrived in his home with nothing but a borrowed dress and a debt.

“I’ll try to be worthy of her book,” Clara said, closing it carefully and holding it against her chest like a promise.

The rest of the morning passed in a series of small lessons. Silas showed her how to bank the fire so it wouldn’t die during the day, how to adjust the stove’s damper to control the heat, how to tell when the coffee was ready by the sound it made bubbling in the pot. Clara proved an eager if inexperienced student: she burned her first batch of biscuits, made coffee so weak it was barely colored water, and managed to fill the cabin with smoke when she adjusted the damper the wrong way.

But she listened carefully to his gentle corrections, and she tried again. And by afternoon, she had produced something resembling an edible meal.

“Not bad for a first try,” Silas said, gamely chewing a slightly charred biscuit. “My first attempt at cooking lasted three days and nearly killed me with food poisoning.”

Clara laughed — the first genuine laugh she’d had in months.

“You’re being kind. These biscuits could be used to patch holes in the roof.”

“Maybe the next batch,” Silas agreed solemnly, and that made her laugh again.

As the day wore on, Clara found herself relaxing in ways she hadn’t expected. There was something soothing about the rhythm of domestic tasks, the simple satisfaction of learning to do things with her hands. And there was something healing about Silas’s patience. He never made her feel stupid for not knowing things that came naturally to him. When she struggled with the temperamental stove, he showed her the trick of listening to the fire. When the water wouldn’t heat evenly, he explained how to position the pot.

Always patient. Always kind. Never condescending.

Late in the afternoon, while Silas was outside tending the horse, Clara explored the cabin, familiarizing herself with her new home. At the foot of the bed sat a wooden chest she hadn’t noticed before, and she knelt to open it.

Inside, carefully folded and smelling of cedar and lavender, lay the most beautiful quilt she had ever seen.