One room. One berth. One night over the mountains.
Wyatt Lachance is forty-one, six foot four, broad and bearded, and built like the timber frames he raises by hand. After four months away, all he wants is to lie down flat in his own sleeper compartment and wake up home in Montana. Instead, he finds a stranger already unpacking a roll of chef's knives in Bedroom E.
Nico Barros is thirty-seven, quick, funny, and fearless, with warm olive skin, thick black hair, a sharp black stubble beard, and a one-way ticket to a city where a lease is waiting for his signature. He has paperwork that says the room is his. So does Wyatt. The train is sold out, the snow is coming down, and Nico is not about to let a man that size fold himself into a lounge chair for the night.
So they make a deal. They say it out loud: what happens on the train stays on the train.
Then the lamp goes low, the car starts to sway, and the bold one asks, very politely, for a yes. Wyatt has spent years keeping his distance from everyone. Nico has never once been good at keeping his hands to himself. And somewhere behind them, past the dark vestibules, there is an empty car made entirely of glass, full of falling snow and stars.
It was supposed to be one night. Nobody told them how long a night can be at the top of the world.
