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was a stove—
    Blessed warmth.
    Forgoing the freight car for the time being, Lizzie decided to explore the caboose instead.
    She had to wade through more snow, and nearly lost her footing again, but when she got to the door, it opened easily. She slipped inside, breathless, teeth chattering. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her scarf, so her ears throbbed with cold, fit to fall right off her head.
    There was a stove, a squat, pot-bellied one, hardly larger than the kettle Lorelei used for rendering lard at home. And on top of that stove, miraculously still in place after the jarring impact of the avalanche, stood a coffee pot. Peering inside a small cupboard near the stove, she saw a few precious provisions—a tin of coffee, a bag of sugar, a wedge of yellow cheese.
    Lizzie gave a ranch-girl whoop, then slapped a hand over her mouth. Raised in the high country from the time she was twelve, she knew that when the snow was so deep, any sudden sound could bring most of the mountainside thundering down on top of them. She listened, too scared to breathe, for an ominous rumble overhead, but none came.
    She assessed the long, benchlike seats lining the sides of the car. Room for everyone to lie down and sleep.
    Yes, the caboose would do nicely.
    She forced herself to go outside again—even the sight of that stove, cold as it was, had warmed her a little. The freight car proved as impenetrable from the rear door as from the first one Lizzie had tried, but she was much heartened, just the same. Morgan, Whitley and the peddler would be able to get inside.
    She was making her way back along the side of the train, every step carefully considered, both hands grasping the side, when it happened.
    Her feet slipped, her stomach gave a dull lurch, and she felt herself falling.
    She slid a few feet, managed to catch hold of a tree root, the tree itself long gone. Fear sent the air whooshing from her lungs, as if she’d been struck in the solar plexus, and she knew her grip would not last long. She had almost no feeling in her hands, and her feet dangled in midair. She did not dare turn her head and look down.
    “Help me!” she called out, in a voice that sounded laughably cheerful, given the circumstances.
    Morgan’s head appeared above her, a genie sprung from a lamp. “Hold on,” he told her grimly, “and do not move.”
    She watched, blinking salty moisture from her eyes, as he unbuckled his belt, pulled it free of his trousers and fashioned a loop at one end. He lay down on his belly and tossed the looped end of the belt within reach.
    “Listen to me, Lizzie,” he said very quietly. “Take a few breaths before you reach for the belt. You can’t afford to miss.”
    Lizzie didn’t even nod, so tenuous was her hold on the root. She took the advised breaths, even closed her eyes for a moment, imagined herself standing on firm ground. Safe with Morgan.
    If she could just get to Morgan….
    “Ready?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she said. Still clinging to the root, which was already giving way, with one hand, she grasped the leather loop with the other. Morgan’s strength seemed to surge along the length of it.
    “I’ve got you, Lizzie,” Morgan said. “Take hold with the other hand.”
    After another deep breath, she let go of the root.
    Morgan pulled her up slowly, and very carefully. When she crested the bank, he hauled her into his arms and held her hard, both of them kneeling only inches from the lip of the cliff.
    “Easy, now,” he murmured, his breath warming her right ear. “No sudden moves.”
    Lizzie nodded slightly, her face buried in his shoulder, clinging to the fabric of his coat with both hands.
    Morgan rose carefully to his feet, bringing Lizzie with him.
    “The caboose,” she said, trembling all over. “There’s a stove in the caboose—and a c-coffeepot.”
    He took her there. Seated her none too gently on one of the long seats. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, moving to the