The winter storm rolled across the Rockies with fierce determination the night four-year-old Eli Parker pressed his face to a frosted window and whispered, “I just want someone to love me.”
Wind rattled the small mountainside cabin. Inside, the fire had burned low. The house felt colder than the weather outside.
Eli’s early childhood had already been marked by loss. His mother had passed away when he was two, and his father, Daniel, remarried while trying to rebuild their lives. Long work shifts often kept Daniel away from home, leaving Eli in the care of his stepmother, Deborah.
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