Come Spring by Jill Marie Landis

slant-topped writing box that was sitting beside his things. It was bordered with gilt scroll work, the writing surface padded with rich, brown leather. He reached out to touch it, glanced over to see that Annika still slept, then lifted the lid. The contents were in a jumble from the ride to the cabin. He imagined she usually kept them all neatly arranged. He took out the inkwell, which in itself was like none he’d ever seen, but he had heard of the spill-proof sort. He studied it intently, then set it aside. There were various sheets of plain paper, matching envelopes, a small case that contained pens and nibs. There was a odd, rectangular book decorated with hearts, flowers, and cherubs, all mingled in wild disarray on the cover.
    Buck picked it up and opened the cover. The flyleaf read, Forget Me Not ... A Collection of Thoughts and Observances. And beneath that, in the same beautiful handwriting was the name Annika Marieke Storm, 1892.
    Buck carefully returned the book to the box without reading more.
    “My brother is Kase Storm.”
    He had not believed her.
    “When my brother hears about this, he’ll kill you.”
    The Kase Storm he’d heard about would probably do just that.
    What would happen to Baby then?
    Buck dragged a chair over to the fire and sat down heavily. He crossed his long legs at the ankles and his arms over his chest and stared into the flames. There was no getting around it now. He’d done a stupid thing when he had not listened to her. Wanting to convince this beautiful woman he thought was Alice Soams that she should indeed follow through with their bargain and marry him was one of the biggest mistakes he’d ever made. He’d have to apologize to Annika Storm tomorrow and then take her back down the mountain to her brother. There was no getting around it.
    He wondered how his letter to Alice Soams had ended up beside Annika Storm on the train, then realized all too clearly that the real Alice must have seen him long before he’d seen her and left the letter beside Annika just to throw him off her trail. Her rejection was all too clear.
    “I think you’re a stark raving lunatic.”
    He was mad to have forced Annika Storm off the train. It was a stupid thing to have done even if she had been Alice Soams. He should never have decided to marry. Never. It was a ridiculous idea. What woman in her right mind would want to marry a potential madman?
    Buck turned around to look over at Baby and found her curled up asleep beside Annika Storm. The child looked like an innocent cherub with her pink cheeks and thick blond ringlets. When he took the woman back down the mountain, he ought to find a decent home for Baby, too.
    No one would fault him for giving her up, no one but himself. He had tried to keep her for three years now, even gone so far as to carry her along hunting and trapping in a pack on his back once she grew too old to leave her behind asleep in the cabin in the big box crib he’d made her.
    Now she was getting far too old and rambunctious to carry on his back papoose-style, and Baby was much too active to sit by quietly while he stalked the game that provided the furs for their livelihood. Leaving her home alone was impossible. He had thought that marriage would solve his dilemma, hoped that Alice Soams would accept the responsibility of raising his niece along with her other duties as his wife, but now his well-laid plans had gone awry. Alice Soams had rejected him outright and he had kidnapped the sister of the man who had wiped out the Dawson gang.
    Things couldn’t get any worse.
    Buck stood and ran his hand through his hair. Baby’s dirty dress lay on the floor near the tub, so he picked it up and rinsed it out in the tepid bathwater. Wringing it out, he hung it near the fire where it would dry. He realized the voracious appetite he’d possessed earlier had flown, but he ambled to the table and opened one of the packs anyway and took out a strip of leftover jerky. He opened the