Her body moved.
Just barely.
A faint breath escaped her cracked lips—thin, fragile, almost invisible in the freezing air.
She was alive.
But only just.
“Hell,” Eli muttered, the word torn away by the wind the moment it left his mouth.
He didn’t stop to think.
He stripped off his sheepskin coat—warm, heavy, the best protection he had—and wrapped it around her like he was wrapping a flame. The wind slapped his skin through his shirt, vicious and quick, but Eli didn’t care. Cold could bite him all it wanted.
He got one arm under her shoulders and another under her knees and lifted her.
She was limp.
Light as a bird.
Too light for comfort.
A sound slipped out of her—half moan, half whimper—filled with pain and fear.
Eli looked down at her face, pale and tinted blue. He could see the beginnings of frost along her lashes.
“You’re not dying out here,” he told her, voice rough. He didn’t know if she could hear. He said it anyway, the way you say things because you need them to be true.
He carried her to Jupiter and settled her against the saddle, then climbed up behind her and held her close with one arm locked around her middle.
Her head lolled against his chest.
Her breathing was shallow, like every inhale hurt.
Eli turned Jupiter toward home and pushed him hard.
Not reckless—Jupiter wasn’t a machine—but urgent. The storm was closing in, and Eli could feel the cold reaching deeper, trying to get into the girl’s bones.
He didn’t stop.
He didn’t look back.
He rode until the glow of his cabin finally cut through the dark like a promise.
The cabin was small and stubborn, crouched against the prairie like it had learned to survive by staying quiet.
When Eli kicked the door open, heat rolled out in a weak wave. Not much—just a fire banked low, a few coals still alive. But it was enough.
Enough to keep death at the door if he moved fast.
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