“Give Me The FAT One!” Mountain Man SAID After Being Offered 10 Mail-Order Brides

Chapter 9

Silence settled over Thunder Peak like a blessing.

Dileia stood in the center of the cabin, the shotgun still raised, her arms shaking with the aftermath of adrenaline. Smoke curled around her. Glass crunched beneath her boots. Her ears rang with a high, thin whine that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

She didn’t lower the weapon.

A hand closed gently over the barrel. Jeremiah’s face swam into her vision, his eyes searching hers. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him—the ringing was too loud, the blood too loud in her ears.

Then his hands cupped her face, his palms rough and warm against her cheeks. His thumbs brushed the soot from her skin, and he spoke again, slower this time, close enough that she could read his lips.

“You saved us.”

She stared at him, seeing the blood on his arm, the exhaustion etched into every line of his face, the gray pallor of pain beneath his weathered skin. And seeing, too, the gratitude shining in his storm-gray eyes, the wonder, the love.

“No,” she said, her voice cracking. “We saved each other.”

He pulled her into his arms, and she let the shotgun fall. It hit the floor with a clatter, and she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest, feeling his heart beat against her cheek.

Steady. Alive. *Home.*

—

By the time the sun rose, silence blanketed Thunder Peak.

Snow glittered like broken glass across the valley, untouched except for the bloodstained tracks of men who would never dare return. The cabin stood scarred—shutters splintered, windows shattered, walls pocked with bullet holes—but standing. Still standing.

Inside, the fire burned low, casting soft amber light across the battered room. Dileia sat on the hearth rug, her skirt singed at the hem, her cheeks smudged with ash, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. The wooden comb—Mary’s comb—had fallen out during the fight, and now lay on the floor beside her, unbroken.

Jeremiah lowered himself beside her, every movement heavy with fatigue. His arm was bandaged where she had stitched the wound with trembling but careful hands—the same hands that had fired the shot that saved them both.

For a long time, neither spoke. The crackle of the fire filled the hollow between them.

Finally, Jeremiah reached out. His rough fingers found the wooden comb on the floor, picked it up, and turned it over in his hands. The firelight caught the carved wildflowers, casting tiny shadows across his palm.

“I carved this for Mary,” he said quietly. “Before Thomas was born. She wore it every day.”

Dileia’s chest tightened. She had suspected, of course. The care in the carving, the wildflowers—they spoke of love, not obligation. Of a man who had once been soft, before grief hardened him.

“You can keep wearing it,” he said, and his voice cracked. “If you want. I think she would have liked that.”

Tears spilled down Dileia’s cheeks. She took the comb from his hands, her fingers brushing his.

“I’d like that.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in soft leather. He pressed it into her hands.

She unwrapped it with trembling fingers.

Inside was a comb. Newly carved, the wood still fragrant, the edges still sharp from the knife. But this one was different from Mary’s. The pattern along the top was not wildflowers, but mountain peaks—the jagged silhouette of Thunder Peak, rendered in miniature, each ridge and valley perfect.

“I started it the night you told me about your mother,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “About how she used to sing to you. About how she died and left you with people who didn’t deserve you.”

He paused, his throat working.

“I wanted you to have something that was yours. Not Mary’s. Not a hand-me-down. *Yours.*”

Dileia stared at the comb, her vision blurring with tears. The mountain peaks. *Her* mountain. *Their* mountain.

She lifted it to her hair and slid it into place. It fit perfectly, as if it had always belonged there.

Jeremiah watched her, and in his eyes, she saw something she had never thought she would see directed at her.

Wonder.