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light lingered in the sky. How different this frigid land was from Chicago. Back home, summer brought the fecund aroma of algae and other water plants off Lake Michigan. Here at Jenny Lake, the chill air on her back and the fire’s warmth reminded her more of October than June.
    She turned to Cord. “What’s it like here in the winter?”
    “Cold.” His voice conveyed the depth and breadth that cold could reach. “The lakes are frozen. Elk and moosecome down from the high country by the thousands. The wind blows and blows, and the snow is a weightless dry powder that doesn’t even stick to your clothes.”
    He looked up at the peaks. “For weeks on end, you can’t see the summits because they’re shrouded in clouds. When you catch a glimpse of the high country, it’s blinding white. Dante here,” he gestured toward his stallion, “spends stormy weeks in the sod barn.”
    Odd that a cowboy would be well spoken; he must have had a good teacher in some mountain school house.
    “It sounds very difficult,” she replied.
    “It’s beautiful.” His husky voice bespoke his love for the high country.
    “Do you think it will snow again tonight?” She huddled closer to the fire and surveyed the clouds against the blacker sky.
    “No.” Cord’s breath came out smoky. “The air is dry, and I don’t smell a hint of snow.”
    Laura knew what he meant. She’d tried to describe the biting aroma in the wind to her cousin Constance and hadn’t been able to make her understand. Of course, Constance, with her delicate airs, tended to stay inside when it threatened snow in Chicago.
    Cord threw more wood onto the fire, his shadow looming on a boulder. Then he pulled a bedroll from the items he’d been drying. Made of waterproof tan duck with a sheepskin lining, it carried the label of Sears and Roebuck. He went back for blankets. “This is all we have for bedding; we’ll have to share.”
    She hoped the firelight hid her flushed cheeks.
    Cord stirred the fire once more and lay down. She waited until he breathed with the even tempo of sleep before she climbed atop her side of the still-damp bedroll and pulled up the blankets. Keeping her coat on, she turned her back to him.
    After a while, the fire burned down. Hard diamonds of stars appeared, except for where the bulk of mountain blotted out the sky. Beyond the clearing where they slept, the blackness seemed absolute. Minute by minute, the night grew colder, tempting her to move closer to Cord.
    But Aunt Fanny had cautioned her and Constance that even a simple thing might drive a man to take liberties.
    Though Laura hugged herself, she continued to shiver. If this was June in Wyoming, she wondered how Cord could possibly love the winter here.
    Unless he was as hard as the land.

    Long after midnight, Cord drifted in and out of sleep. The woman beside him had threatened to shoot him if he touched her, but perhaps that had been bravado. The clothes he’d seen spread on the snow had either been a rich woman’s or those of one who made her living on her back.
    What would a wealthy woman be doing disguised as a boy on the Yellowstone stage?
    Cord shoved back the covers, sat up, and pulled on his boots. Laura stirred briefly, then settled, while he shrugged on his coat and rose. Picking his way with care through the rocks, and stepping over deadfall, he walked down to the dark shore.
    He needed to keep his focus on his business in Yellowstone. It could fall through for a number of reasons, if another party tried to bid things up … or if anyone discovered the truth about him.
    He stared out at the blacker peaks on the far side of the water. As he had put aside thoughts of Laura, he now refused to delve into his past.
    Yet, when he returned to his bedroll and settled into slumber, he found no respite from his roots.

    Outside his parents’ cabin, six-year-old Cord heard the wolves, a large pack calling each other home across the night. The wind whistled through the crack