“What’s ironic?” Glory asked, and then they entered the lab, and the scents that assailed her threatened to overwhelm. She swayed on her feet, and the nurse quickly seated her in a chair.

The nurse grimaced. “Why, the fact that he could survive God knows what during his stint in the military, and then come to this, and all because of a snowstorm on a mountain road.” Suddenly she was all business. “Stuart, type and cross-match this woman’s blood, stat! If she comes up AB negative, and a match to the man in E.R., then draw blood. She’s a donor.”

As the lab tech began, Glory relaxed. At least they were on the right track.

Three o’clock in the morning had come and gone, and the waiting room in E.R. was quiet. Rafe Dixon glanced at his son, then at his daughter, who seemed to be dozing beside him. How he’d fathered two such different children was beyond him, but his pride in each was unbounded. It just took more effort to keep up with Glory than it did J.C.

He understood his son and his love for their land. He didn’t understand one thing about his daughter’s gift, but he believed in it, and he believed in her. What worried him most was, who would take care of Glory when he was gone? J.C. was nearly thirty and he couldn’t be expected to watch over his sister for the rest of his life. Besides, if he were to marry, a wife might resent the attention J.C. unstintingly gave his baby sister. Although Glory was twenty-five, she looked little more than eighteen. Her delicate features and her fragile build often gave her the appearance of a child…until one looked into her eyes and saw the ancient soul looking back.

Glory child…who will take care of you when I am gone?

Suddenly Glory stood and looked down the hall. Rafe stirred, expecting to see someone open and walk through the doors at the far end. But nothing happened, and no one came.

She slipped her fingers in the palm of her brother’s hand and then stood. “We can go home now.”

J.C. yawned, and looked up at his father. Their eyes met in a moment of instant understanding. For whatever her reasons, Glory seemed satisfied within herself, and for them, that was all that mattered.

“Are you sure, girl?” Rafe asked, as he helped Glory on with her coat.

She nodded, her head bobbing wearily upon her shoulders. “I’m sure, Daddy.”

“You don’t want to wait and talk to the doctor?”

She smiled. “There’s no need.”

As suddenly as they’d arrived, they were gone.

Within the hour, Amos Steading came out of surgery, tossing surgical gloves and blood-splattered clothing in their respective hampers. Later, when he went to look for the unexpected blood donor, to his surprise, she was nowhere to be found. And while he thought it strange that she’d not stayed to hear the results of the surgery, he was too tired and too elated to worry about her odd exodus. Tonight he’d fought the Grim Reaper and won. And while he knew his skill as a surgeon was nothing at which to scoff, his patient still lived because of a girl who’d come out of the storm.

Steading dropped into a chair at his desk and began working up Hatfield’s chart, adding notes of the surgery to what had been done in E.R. A nurse entered, then gave him a cup of hot coffee and an understanding smile. As the heat from the cup warmed his hand, he sighed in satisfaction.

“Did you locate his next of kin?” Steading asked.

The nurse nodded. “Yes, sir, a sister. Her name is Antonette Monday. She said that she and her husband will come as soon as weather permits.”

Steading nodded, and sipped the steaming brew. “It’s good to have family.”

High up on the mountain above Larner’s Mill, Glory Dixon would have agreed with him. When they finally pulled into the yard of their home, it was only a few hours before daybreak, and yet she knew a sense of satisfaction for a job well done. It wasn’t always that good came of what she saw, but tonight, she’d been able to make a difference.

She reached over and patted her father’s knee. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said quietly.

“For what?” he asked.

“For believing me.”

He slid a long arm across her shoulder, giving her a hug. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

“Looks like the snow’s about stopped,” he said, gauging the sparse spit of snowflakes dancing before the headlights of their truck.

“Who’s hungry?” Glory asked.

J.C. grinned. “Wanna guess?”

She laughed. It was a perfect ending to a very bad beginning.

Back in recovery, Wyatt Hatfield wasn’t laughing, but if he’d been conscious, he would have been counting his blessings. He had a cut on his cheek that would probably scar, and had survived a lung that had collapsed, a concussion that should have put him into a coma and hadn’t, five broken ribs and two cracked ones, more stitches in his left leg than he would be able to count and, had he been able to feel them, bruises in every joint.

He could thank a seat belt, a trucker who hadn’t kept going after causing the wreck, a rescue crew that went above and beyond the call of duty to get him off of the mountain and an EMT who didn’t know the meaning of the word quit. And it was extremely good luck on Wyatt’s part that, after all that, he wound up in the skilled hands of Amos Steading.

Yet it was fate that had delivered him to Glory Dixon. And had she not given of the blood from her body, the cold and simple fact was that he would have died. But Wyatt didn’t know his good fortune. It would be days before he would know his own name.

All day long, the sun kept trying to shine. Wyatt paced the floor of his hospital room, ignoring the muscle twinges in his injured leg, and the pull of sore muscles across his belly.

He didn’t give a damn about pain. Today he was going home, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. While he didn’t have a home of his own, he still had roots in the land on which he’d been raised. If he had refused to accompany his sister, Toni, back to Tennessee, he suspected that her husband, Lane Monday, would have slung him over his shoulder and taken him anyway. Few but Toni dared argue with Lane Monday. At six feet, seven inches, he was a powerful, imposing man. As a United States marshal, he was formidable. In Wyatt’s eyes, he’d come through for Toni like a real man should. There was little else to be said.

Outside his door, he could hear his sister’s voice at the nurses’ station while she signed the papers that would check him out. He leaned his forehead against the window, surprised that in spite of the sun’s rays it felt cold, and then remembered that winter sun, at its best, was rarely warm.

“Are you ready, Wyatt?”

Wyatt turned. Lane filled the doorway with his size and his presence.

He shrugged. “I guess.” He turned back to the window as Lane crossed the room.

For a while, both men were silent, and then Lane gave Wyatt a quick pat on the back before he spoke. “I think maybe I know how you feel,” Lane said.

Wyatt shrugged. “Then I wish to hell you’d tell me, because I don’t understand. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to be alive.” He tried to grin. “Hell, and if truth be told, a little surprised. When I went over the mountain, in the space of time it took to hit the first stand of trees, I more or less made my peace with God. I never expected to wake up.”

Lane listened without commenting, knowing that something was bothering Wyatt that he needed to get said.

“As for my family, I consider myself lucky to have people who are willing to take me in, but I feel so…so…”

“Rootless?”

For a moment Wyatt was silent, and then he nodded.

“Exactly. I feel rootless. And…I feel like leaving here will be taking a step backward in what I was searching for. I know it’s weird, but I keep thinking that I was this close to the end of a journey, and now—”