A/N: Here's the next chapter. Told you it was almost done!

And yes, to answer a reviewer's question, I will also be updating A Woman Like That soon. I have a bit of a break between jobs right now, and I'm hoping to use more of my free time to write.

So, I just feel the need to mention this - this story is requiring immense amounts of research, lol. I'm trying to stay true to the era, vocabulary, etc. I've looked up at least a dozen things so far, including facts about Queen Elizabeth's wedding, the snow storm in Philly at the end of April 1947, the name of the newspaper in Philly at the time, the battle of Dresden, blah blah blah. Appreciate my dedication! Haha.

PLEASE review. It gives me the warm fuzzies inside.

CHAPTER 2

Outlying Wilderness of the Poconos

"The cold front continues to move through the northeast, forcing several roads and railway stations to close across the greater New England area. Hunker down, folks. This could be a while."

Caleb snorted into his coffee derisively. "If I had a penny for every time a townie weather man predicted total winter shutdown, I'd be a millionaire."

Toby chuckled, stretching across the end table to cut the power on the radio. "If only they had stocks for that."

It was nearing dawn in the rural outskirts of the mountains, bringing the wilderness to life outside. A steady thrum of mourning doves rode the wind like a symphony, one of nature's many untouched wake-up calls. Through the living room window, Toby could see a doe and a fawn grazing some distance away from his house, unperturbed by the light of the fire blazing in his hearth.

The isolation would likely drive an average man to psychosis, but Toby relished the privacy. He had a torrid relationship with the big city, for reasons even he did not quite understand. Having grown up amidst the unrelenting chaos of Philadelphia, he somehow found that he was much more at home in the wild. Perhaps it said something about the untamed temperament of his soul, or the endless boundaries of his heart. Something flowery like that, maybe – the sort of thing he might have read about in Walt Whitman poems, an anthology of which sat on a bookshelf beside the mantle, collecting dust. It was the kind of comparison his mother would have made, had she still been alive.

After all that he had been through and all of the noise that had deafened his thoughts for so long, somewhere quiet had felt like a good place to start over.

"We should probably get going," Caleb said despondently, taking one last drag of his coffee and stretching. "Those trees won't chop themselves down."

Toby chuckled. "We could always leave the saw out there and see what happens."

"Haha, very funny." Caleb was already pulling his wool cap down over his ears and tying a scarf around his face before Toby had even dredged up the motivation to vacate the comfort of his chair.

"Let's take the day off," Toby decided lazily, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. "Play cards or something."

Caleb sighed, looking at him sidelong between the many layers of fabric protecting his face. He pulled at the lip of the scarf enough to make his voice heard. "Cavanaugh's Lumber is your company. You're the boss. But let me remind you that last time we talked ourselves out of a day of work, you didn't let me live it down for weeks. As if it was my fault, and my fault alone."

Toby pulled a face. He remembered that day vividly. They had lost out on a lot of potential profit that week by playing hooky. And, to save face for his own dignity, he had needled Caleb about not keeping him in line. It had not been one of his prouder moments, because he was, for all intents and purposes, a diligent, hard worker. Taking time off was not in his repertoire, as much as he wished it were some days. A valuable yet irksome souvenir from his time in the Air Force.

With a reluctant grunt he heaved himself out of the armchair, layering up for the trek outdoors. Caleb fumbled with his empty coffee mug at the counter patiently, his canvas-covered thumbs idly tracing the elk design as he looked around the room.

"City men been by lately?" he asked.

Toby grumbled an expletive under his breath, suddenly finding that he was lacing his boots with far more hostility than usual. "Every Friday like clockwork. They bring more and more paperwork every time, as if more figures and graphs are going to change my mind."

"So, you're not selling?"

The elder looked up from his task, glaring upon Caleb with disbelieving eyes.

"You say that like you're disappointed."

"No," Caleb amended quickly. "That's not what I meant. It's just…you know…Hanna. She likes the sight of those numbers sometimes. I think she's been dropping hints about selling our share. She's a city girl, you know, born and bred. She's a nurse – she thrives on 'busy.' I don't think she ever considered we might live out here long term. Commuting to the hospital is hard for her."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Toby stared down his friend until the younger looked away in unspoken surrender.

"But I like it out here. I've had enough of the city for one lifetime. At least now I can hear myself think."

That was that. Toby had known Caleb for long enough that he could sense an honest concession when there was one. The idea was tabled – at least for now.

He felt a little guilty at the prospect of pressuring Caleb to stick around. It wasn't fair, really, to expect anybody to love the job the way that Toby did. What they did was hard, strenuous labor. And it wasn't as though Caleb did not do his fair share of the work. Not at all. But it certainly did not go unnoticed by Toby that logging required a great deal more effort for his companion than it did for himself. And Caleb was really handy with all of the newfangled electronics. There was surely some cushy office job out there that would be much more suited to his strengths.

But he could not help being selfish, despite how deeply the sentiment pained him. Toby hadn't come home to much after his outfit's final tour alongside the RAF at Dresden. The whole ordeal had screwed with him, and he had spent the better part of the past two years pushing it to some distant part in the deepest recesses of his mind so as not to let it overtake him. And if it weren't for Caleb's daily company, he would have likely succumbed to the horrific memories long ago. Memories of fire, and gunpowder, and the stench of burning flesh…

"Are you actually going to walk in those, or are you expecting me to know how to perform an emergency amputation?"

Caleb's voice drew him back to Earth, as it so often did. The shadow retreated back to its cave for the time being, and Toby sent a rude hand gesture in Caleb's direction. The younger chuckled amicably. Toby wouldn't confess it aloud, but his friend had been right – he couldn't feel a damn thing with his shoes tied so tight. He discreetly loosened up the laces.

There was nothing more peaceful than the quiet stillness of the forest at sunrise. Echoes of wildlife danced around them, punctuated only by the sound of their boots crunching through the snow.

They parted ways without incident. The routine was drilled so deeply into their way of being that it was not at all out of the ordinary. It was choreographed number – a tried-and-true tango – a reliable waltz. Caleb meandered toward the east, where he had left off the day before, and Toby weaved through the trees to the west.

The crisp fanfare of his footfalls preceded each subsequent step, crackling in the open spaces between the oaks. It was not sufficient, however, to frighten the animals in close proximity – either they were accustomed to his morning walks, or they were simply confident enough about whose home the forest truly was. Whatever the reason, Toby had always found himself humbled by just how little his presence mattered way out here. In the city, where man ruled the roost, it was an entirely different ballpark.

This was not his land as much as it was theirs. And in this epitomic case of symbiosis, he was perfectly all right with that.

He was readying his gear when he heard it. Foreign and unmistakable, floating in with the breeze that hailed from the direction of the river – a human moan. It was actually enough to make the birds pause with momentary uncertainty.

"Hello?" he called timidly, feeling rather foolish. What were the odds, really, that he would come across anybody else out here? Surely the noise had simply been a dying animal – something in pain, creating a sound atypical of its norm.

He crept past the frozen tributary, following the water's excursion through the trees, pulling his scarf more tightly around his mouth to block the sharp blade of the cold. He and Caleb would probably end up needing to cut their work short to avoid frostbite. No amount of money was worth losing his fingers. They were, after all, the tools to his livelihood.

There. Again. Like the sound of someone whimpering. He quickened his pace, certain now that he had not imagined it, despite how odd the phenomenon still seemed. They were far enough off the beaten path of civilization to deter any sort of visitation. Aside from the occasional ambitious hiker that had started from the campgrounds miles down the road, coming across anyone other than Caleb or Hanna was virtually unheard of.

As he approached the river's edge, he stopped short. Had he not been so attuned to the terrain, he could have missed it. But there it was – the distinct form of a naked woman entangled in the brush, cuts and bruises darkening what had once assuredly been untarnished porcelain skin.

"Oh, God," he breathed, breaking into a run. Without really thinking about it, he was shouting for Caleb with reckless abandon, hollering for help.

He began his descent, nearly losing his footing as he traversed down the valley. With practiced precision he flipped himself in the other direction, digging the steel toes of his boots into the hillside for a better grip.

She did not seem to sense his arrival. As he got closer, he noticed the hypothermic discoloration of her flesh. Early stages, though – she could not have been out here more than half an hour.

A pained cry erupted from the depths of her diaphragm, a feral, wild sound that was not entirely out of place. Suddenly he was not climbing down a snow-covered slope, but a mountain of ash and rubble, carnage and gore smeared malevolently across a sea of dead, starving grass, his best friend's anguished sobs branding themselves in his brain…

One ill-placed step was enough to pull him back, and he shot out his hands to grasp at the steep hillside once more, the echoes of Dresden tumbling down to the river and out of earshot.

At long last he reached her, instinctively pulling off any of his own layers he could get his hands on. Within moments she was wrapped in his coat, flannel, and scarf, and the adrenaline momentarily masked the severity of the cold tearing across his sensitive layers of skin.

"It's okay, it's okay," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "I've got you. You're going to be okay."

"Toby!"

Caleb had reached the top of the drop-off. He had almost forgotten that he called for him.

"Down here!" Toby yelled, draping the woman over his shoulder. Caleb blanched at the sight.

"Jesus Christ Almighty…"

"Hanna," Toby decided suddenly. "Go get Hanna! Meet me at the house!"

Caleb did not need to be told twice. He had taken off in the opposite direction, boots crunching all the way back up the path.

The return climb was somehow easier to maneuver than the journey down, even despite the added weight. In what seemed like no time, he had reached level ground once more, shifting her into a bridal carry, racing back towards the house. He was more aware of the chill nipping at his bare arms, now, and there was no time to lose – for either of them.

He burst through the door, expending the last of the frozen breath from his lungs, delicately placing her on the couch. Hanna and Caleb were only seconds behind him.

"Is she conscious?" Hanna asked at once.

"Not – not really – "

"Is she breathing? How is her heart rate?"

He felt incredibly stupid all of a sudden. "Um – "

"Take the clothes off of her," Hanna declared brashly, already flattening out a blanket in front of the fire. She fluffed out another, standing close enough to the hearth to warm it, but not so close that it would catch.

Toby did as told, silently apologizing to the stranger on his couch for robbing her of her modesty once more. He hoped that, all things considered, she might find it in herself to understand.

"Bring her here," Hanna instructed. Toby dutifully carried her to the blanket already laid on the floor.

"Your clothes, now."

It was more his panic that left him surprised than the rational part of his brain. He remembered Hanna having explained this to him and Caleb time and time again, wanting to prepare them in the event that some freak accident occurred on the job.

But it didn't make it any less bizarre hearing it.

He did not question her. He dropped to the floor and made quick work of his boots, snow slacks, and t-shirt, opting to leave his skivvies on for some modicum of privacy. Knowing what was to come next, he gently gathered the woman in his arms, pulling her trembling frame against his, being (rather unimportantly) careful not to put her in any sort of compromising position.

If Caleb was baffled by his wife's methodology, he did not show it. Instead he had already begun to set water and linens to boil in the kitchen. Clearly he had been given some direction in the brief trek from their house to Toby's. It was more than Toby had been given, after all – and he could have used a moment of mental preparation before stripping down.

Hanna swaddled both of their bodies in the heated blanket, plopping unceremoniously behind them and massaging the woman's scalp. Despite his confusion, Toby knew better than to ask questions. He trusted Hanna to know what she was doing.

"Caleb? Towels?"

It was as if her request were timed perfectly. He was already bringing a bowl of rags to their side. Before he could even take a seat, Hanna had already pulled one out and draped it across the woman's neck and chest. The second, around her feet. The third, across her forehead.

"How is her heartbeat, Toby?"

He placed his fingers on the inside of her wrist, his panic receding with every responsive thump.

"It's evening," he said with a relieved exhale. This seemed to be enough to placate both Hanna and Caleb, as well, for they, too, expended a breath.

He moved to withdraw his hand, only to brush across the cold steel of something draped across her arm. Careful not to jostle her, he undid the clasp and pulled it into view.

"What is it?" Hanna asked, peering at the glistening metal.

"A bracelet."

"What does it say?" Caleb inquired, squinting his eyes to make out the curly cursive print in the singular light of the fire.

Toby turned the piece over in his hand, tilting it so that he could read it in the light of the flames.

"Spencer," Toby announced, and found that the name felt warm on his tongue. "It says 'Spencer'."

CONT'D