They Called 19-Year-Old Abigail a Liar and a Harlot—Then the Feared Mountain Man Walked In and Said, “That Child Is Mine.”

Chapter 3

For months she had tried to convince herself that Bitter Creek had become another life, another world, something that belonged to a girl she used to be, because inside Morgan’s cabin the winter had been quiet and kind in ways she had never expected. He had never demanded anything from her, not even her gratitude, and he slept in the cold loft while giving her the bed beside the stove, and he left fresh water for her every morning before she woke, and he carved a small wooden cradle in the evenings without ever explaining why he was doing it. When sickness came in the early months of her pregnancy, he had walked twenty miles to learn how to cook the bland oat porridge she could actually keep down, and even though he was feared by an entire town, he knocked before entering his own bedroom because Abigail slept in there.

And now the man she feared most in the world was climbing toward them with eight armed riders behind him, because Billy had found her at last. Morgan stepped backward into the cabin and lifted his Winchester from its place beside the door, and Abigail’s face went white when she understood what he was preparing to do. “Are you going to fight eight men?” she asked, and he said, “If I have to,” and she told him he would die, and he checked the chamber of his rifle and said, “Not planning to,” and when she said that wasn’t funny, he answered, “Wasn’t a joke.”

She caught his sleeve, and for one heartbeat the mountain man froze, because Abigail had touched him before, accidentally, when passing a plate or bandaging his palm after he split it open chopping wood, but never like this, never because she was afraid to lose him. “Morgan,” she whispered, “please,” and his hard gray eyes softened in a way she had never seen before. “Listen carefully,” he said. “There’s a trapdoor beneath the rug beside the stove, and it leads under the cabin and opens twenty yards behind the woodpile.”

Abigail stared at him, and she could not help asking whether he had really built an escape tunnel, and he said, “I’ve made enemies,” and she almost laughed despite her terror and said, “Apparently,” and his mouth nearly moved into a smile, nearly, before the sound of the horses drew closer and his face turned serious again. “If shooting starts,” he said, “you crawl through it and keep going north until you reach the stone ridge, and there’s an old trapper’s shelter there where you can wait out the winter.” But Abigail shook her head and told him she was not leaving him, and he told her she was, and she told him no, and his jaw tightened. “You brought me out of that church when nobody else would stand beside me,” she said, “and you gave me a home when my own father threw me away, so I am not crawling into some tunnel while eight men murder you.”

Morgan looked at her for several long seconds, and then quietly he said, “Nine.”

“What?” Abigail asked, and he said, “Nine men,” and she looked downhill and counted again and told him she only saw eight riders. Morgan’s eyes remained fixed on the trees above them, and he said, “So do I,” and a cold moved through Abigail that had nothing to do with the winter wind, because she understood that he was watching for someone who was not yet visible. Before she could ask what he meant, Billy’s voice echoed up through the valley. “Morgan Montgomery! We’ve come for the girl!”

Morgan opened the door and stepped onto the porch, and Abigail followed despite the glare he gave her. Billy’s party stopped thirty yards from the cabin, and seven men spread out behind him, most of them ranch hands Abigail recognized from Bitter Creek, but something was wrong because they did not look like executioners, they looked uncertain and confused, and one of them, Silas Reed, would not even meet Abigail’s eyes. Billy raised one gloved hand and pointed at her. “There she is! Proof enough! He’s holding her!”

Abigail stepped forward and said, “I am not his prisoner,” and the riders exchanged uneasy looks, but Billy’s face tightened and he told her she did not know what Morgan had done to her mind. Her disbelief hardened into anger, and she said, “You threatened to kill my father,” and the mountain went silent again, and Silas looked sharply at Billy, and another rider frowned. Billy laughed and said she was confused, that Montgomery had kept her isolated for months, but Morgan leaned one shoulder against the porch post and said, “She sounds confused to you?” and Billy ignored him and spoke directly to the men behind him, reminding them that Reverend Preston himself had said his daughter had been taken against her will. “My father?” Abigail said, and Billy smiled and told her that her father had begged them to bring her home.

Something inside Abigail cracked open, because all winter she had dreamed of her father coming to find her, not because she expected forgiveness, but because some childish part of her still wanted him to ask whether she had been telling the truth, and she had imagined him appearing at the cabin with an apology on his lips. Instead he had sent armed men. Morgan glanced at her and saw the pain immediately, and he told her not to listen, and Billy caught the exchange and sharpened his smile. “Look at you, Abigail,” he said, “standing beside an animal,” and Morgan did not react, but Abigail did. “This ‘animal’ believed me,” she said, and Billy’s smile disappeared.

She stepped off the porch, and Morgan’s hand caught her elbow and told her to stay behind him, but she said, “No,” in a voice that surprised even herself, and she moved beside him instead of behind him. Billy looked at the swell beneath her dress, and for one second his face showed something ugly, something like possession, before it vanished. “You’re coming back,” he said, and she said no, and he said she belonged in Bitter Creek, and she told him she had belonged there until all of them decided her shame mattered more than the truth, and one of the riders lowered his eyes to the ground. Billy snapped, “Enough,” and reached toward his coat, and Morgan raised the Winchester instantly, and every rider stiffened and nobody breathed, and Billy slowly withdrew not a gun but a folded paper.

“I have a legal order signed by Mayor Hastings and Reverend Preston authorizing your return,” he said, and Morgan almost laughed and said, “Your father signs his own orders now?” and Billy said, “He is mayor,” and Morgan said, “He’s a shopkeeper with a fancy desk,” and several riders shifted awkwardly while Billy’s face turned red. “And Reverend Preston isn’t a judge,” Morgan continued, and Billy held up the paper and said, “To Bitter Creek, this is law.” Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the trouble with Bitter Creek,” he said, and Billy’s hand moved again, and Morgan’s finger tightened near the trigger, and then a single crack of gunfire exploded from the trees.