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looking down at him.
    “It’s better that you don’t.” He slapped the horse before he had a chance to rethink what he was doing.
    Abbi galloped a short distance into the trees, then she turned back to look at him until he shouted, “Go!”
    Cameron watched her disappear and stood frozen for several minutes. He felt weak and completely drained of any motivation to even go on living, let alone take a step. Then a thought occurred to him that pumped a sudden rush of blood through his body. He ran as fast as he could manage toward the top of the ridge, wanting to be certain she’d made it safely through, aching to catch just one more glimpse of her. He’d only stood there a moment when he saw her gallop across the meadow and disappear into the forest. The weakness he’d felt returned tenfold, and he collapsed to his knees. He was such a fool! He’d existed nearly three years in this hellish solitary exile, and now he’d just sent away the first glimmer of anything good. He reasoned that sending her away had been the right thing to do, for her safety as well as his. But a part of him knew that some deep, indescribable fear had fueled his insistence that she go—and it had nothing to do with physical safety.
    “God forgive me,” he murmured, though it was difficult for him to understand what he’d done wrong. No matter how many times he looked back through his life, searching for some misdeed that might have warranted his being where he was now, he could come up with nothing. And now he felt more lonely than he had in months. He wondered how he could ever possibly make it through another winter alone.

Chapter Two
    THE INVASION

    T hrough the next few weeks, Abbi thought of little beyond her encounter with the man on the mountain. She wondered about his name and why he was there. In spite of the fear he’d instilled in her, she ached to go back, to learn more about him, to help him—if such a thing were even feasible. She knew it was impossible to help someone who didn’t want to be helped, but what other purpose could there have been for her dream? Still, she kept her promise to him. She avoided riding anywhere near the trail that led to the mountain lodge, and she told no one about her dream, or her encounter.
    While Abbi spent much of her time attempting to find reason in this situation, she was surprised to learn that arrangements had been made for her care, according to her grandfather’s will—arrangements that no one had bothered to tell her about until Georg brought it up in the stable, early on a morning in August.
    “I won’t do it!” Abbi insisted. “It’s absurd. He should have known better than that.”
    “A man’s will is law, Abbi,” Georg stated. “You have no choice.”
    “It’s ridiculous,” she muttered.
    Georg smiled as he threw a saddle over Blaze’s back.
    “This is not funny!” she insisted. “Papa has let me take care of myself for years. So why, now that he’s gone, do I have to be subjected to a couple of bothersome aunts?”
    “He loved you very much. I’m certain he just wanted to know you’d be taken care of. Perhaps he thought the feminine influence wouldn’t hurt.”
    “Are you implying something, Georg?”
    “Me?” He smiled impishly and bent to tighten the strap beneath the horse’s belly.
    “Besides,” she justified, “I have your mother.”
    Georg laughed. “She’s the housekeeper, Abbi. I doubt she’s the kind of influence a young lady of your birth should have.”
    “Nonsense,” Abbi insisted. “I’ve never wanted for anything. Papa raised me well.”
    “He was a good man, Abbi, despite his brashness at times.” Georg glanced toward the ground.
    “You miss him,” Abbi said quietly.
    “I suppose we all do.”
    Abbi took Georg’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She could see the sadness in his eyes and knew that he too had loved her grandfather very much. Josef had always treated Georg more like part of the family than a servant,