Prologue

Redflower, Arizona

1878

The storm raging outside was a far departure from only hours prior, just after Mary’s parents had left.

The water fell in sheets, the wind tearing up everything that it could, and the thunder… Lord, the thunder. Mary tried to focus on the hours before as she sat on her hay bale waiting.

Just one hour before, things had been different.

Music clung to the air, dancing on the breeze as it had carried over from the festivities that night. Mary had just barely been able to hear it. She’d closed her eyes and imagined that, in another life, she had been daring enough to go to the party with everyone.

Her parents had told her that she should, that this might be her one chance to meet a nice young man. Like after years and years of them living there, a stranger would suddenly arrive, take one look at Mary, and decide that she was the one.

No. Mary knew better. She knew that dowdy young things like her spelled too much work for anyone to bother with.

A glimpse of her reflection in her mother’s curio cabinet, with brown hair and wide shoulders and only her narrowed green eyes to attest to the idea of beauty, reminded Mary of that.

Mary had long given up on the idea of marriage, more than content to simply stay at the ranch that she had called home since her birth and watch over her parents as they got older. Someone had to do it, after all. The pair of them were just as wild as they had been when they first met each other and were prone to shenanigans like cow tipping or leading the old sheriff’s mare away from the stocks.

It had been no surprise when they had turned to Mary that night and told her that they were planning to go to the party that everyone in town had been kicking up the dry clay ground waiting for.

Meanwhile, the darkening skies left Mary prickling like a cactus at the mere idea.

“You should come,” Mary’s mother, a tall and slender woman with frizzy dark hair, going grey, begged. She held Mary’s shoulder as she did so, leveling Mary with the look she was prone to pulling. The one that begged Mary to be something more—more adventurous, more confident, more willing to get into trouble in all of the ways that she wasn’t.

“There’s a storm rolling in,” Mary had told her mother, shaking her head.

“It’ll begin long after the party is over,” her mother urged.

“I’m not sure about that,” Mary said, wrinkling her nose. Everyone in Redflower knew that these town gatherings lasted longer than they should have, and besides, she added, “I have to feed the horses, look in on the chickens, finish collecting eggs, refill the oil lamps—” Life on the farm was a never ending to-do list.

Mary’s mother only sighed, shaking her head in response. “You gonna miss life if you carry on like this,” she said, but she made no moves to argue further. She had been through this conversation more than enough times with Mary to know better.

Instead, her mother had simply let it be, taking one last longing look back at Mary before loading up in the wagon with Mary’s father. “We’ll be back shortly after sunset,” her father promised, looking at Mary with the same cheeky smile that had apparently won over her mother. “There’s still horses, on the off chance that you change your mind,” he said, but Mary only waved him off.

She’d watched them drive off, red dust rising as they tore across the desert. Mary watched those clouds rise on the air, dancing as they tore like a gash across the blackening skies.

“Mama would tease you for fussing,” Mary reminded herself, trying to force the dull ache that had begun to rise under her scalp far from the forefront of her mind.

Another migraine. It prickled behind her eyes, a strange taste filling her mouth as suddenly her face felt too tight and the light of the oil lamps too bright.

A shame she had only managed to do half of what she wanted to before the feeling set in, that same numbing sensation in her neck that preceded the mind-numbing pain that had seemed to be almost a part of her day to day life. She’d sighed and laid down for the evening, telling herself that she would be up by the time that her parents returned.

Mary woke up and looked out the window just in time to catch the first few raindrops.

“And I bet the two of you are nowhere near home,” she sighed to herself, heading straight for the stairs as she tsked at her parents.

She looked at the cross that hung on the side of the staircase once she reached the landing, giving a prayer to the Lord to reward her someday with more mindful parents. “Dear Lord, please shelter those who bear me company from the evils of fire and all calamity,” Mary whispered, touching the cross that hung around her neck as she tried to steady her nerves.

As the rain began to grow heavier, Mary grabbed a book from the shelf and sat herself in front of the fire. She read and she waited, pacing the floor and reaching time and time again for her cloak before she couldn’t stand it.

The first few crashes of thunder began to hit the air, and Mary wasn’t capable of simply sitting and seeing anymore. She pried herself from the pages, gluing herself to the window as she took in the quickly worsening weather.

“They’re messing with me,” Mary concluded, shaking her head as she grabbed her cloak, toed on her work boots, and set out for the barn. All the while, the pain in the back of her head kept pinging.

She grabbed an oil lamp to light her way, kicking the door shut behind her as she walked to the barn nearby, the one with its metal weathervane turning every which direction.

The barn sat empty, save for the animals. There was no hint of her parents or their wagon.

Mary squinted in the darkness. “Ma?” she called. “Pa?”

She strained her eyes, almost swearing that she could hear a wagon in the distance, only to realize it was nothing more than the stomping hooves of the cattle in the barn.

No sign.

She stepped outside into the rain, pulled the sealed cloak that she wore a little lower on her head, and looked through the rain, straining her eyes for the slightest sign of anyone. She couldn’t hear the music anymore; the lights of the party in the distance were gone. Her parents still weren’t home.

Mary looked to the bales outside of the barn. She backed into them, her chest growing tighter as she sat on top of the hay where she and her father would wait for her mother to return when she went out to town. “They’re on their way,” she said decisively, and sat there wishing the time would move faster.

Eventually, Mary couldn’t wait any longer. She bowed her head and said a little prayer, “Dear Lord, please watch over my parents’ comings and goings, now and forevermore.”

She stayed there later than she should have. Until the storm broke and the moon was high in the sky.

The sound of loud, frantic hoofbeats served as her alarm.

Mary knew what had happened when she first saw the sheriff arrive, but she still had the nerve to doubt. All that doubt went away when Sheriff Whitman slipped off his horse. He held his hat to his breastbone with an apologetic look and stepped slowly toward her.

Everything else seemed to blur together.

Wind. A bridge, the storm. The horses slipping and the wagon skidding. The wagon tipping off the side of the bridge, falling into the gorge beneath it. The sheriff tried to spare her as many details as he could, murmuring a few of his responses and failing to meet Mary’s eyes as he told her about the accident, but Mary hardly heard him either way.

She just kept on looking past him, waiting for the moment that he would be proven wrong. The moment when her parents would appear despite it all, perfect and whole. Maybe a little wet for having not listened to her, but still there and still ready to take care of her and their farm.

But they didn’t.

Mary still stood there watching once the sheriff turned on his heel, loading back on his horse once the deed was done. She kept on waiting, didn’t give up until he and his horse had disappeared over the horizon.

Until the first of their farmhands had arrived the next morning, looking all apologetic-like. Until Sophie had arrived and swept her into her arms. Until, finally, the young man who had found the overturned wagon arrived with her father’s hat, handing it to her with an apology and a few soft words before leaving Mary to stand there with her father’s soaked hat in her hands.

It was only then, once the hat was in her hands and her father was no closer, that Mary turned and opened the front door, latching it shut behind her.

“Mama, Daddy,” Mary said, clutching the hat, “I swear I’m gonna make you proud.”

Chapter One

1880

Redflower, Arizona

Mary’s head tingled with that familiar sensation.

The one that always came before her spells, that warned that soon the world would seem to split in two, and she would feel like she could barely breathe.

The migraines had gotten more frequent in the past two years, rearing their ugly heads whenever she least expected it, but Mary pushed through.

She kept on working until the feed invoices seemed to blur in front of her, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Then, she kept on going, fighting the urge to toss all the paperwork aside and telling herself that she had to do this.

After all, she was the only one left to try to make sense of the numbers. The only member of the family around, now that her parents had been gone for so long, and one who was responsible for the livelihoods of a handful of farmhands and a cook.

Though, Mary wasn’t sure how long she would continue to be responsible for their livelihoods with the way the numbers were looking.

She was almost relieved when she heard the knock at her office door, the sound jolting through her mind like lightning, but at the very least giving her a much needed reprieve from the numbers that seemed to be actively tearing her apart.

“Come in,” Mary said, her voice barely more than a gasp as she gave in.

She braced her head on a single hand as the door opened, unable to hide the pain in her expression any longer.

Sophie only tsked, shaking her head. A stout woman with salt and pepper hair and a near constantly skeptical expression, the cook, Sophie, crossed the room, placing a steaming bowl of split pea soup in front of Mary. “You’ve been doing it again, haven’t you?” Sophie asked, her disapproval was more than evident. “This will suit you, it’s easier on your stomach.”

Mary could only nod in response, head still reading in her hand, and her teeth clenched together. The scent of camphor flared in her mind; she could almost smell the looming threat of a doctor’s visit growing closer.

“Sleep, eat, rest,” Sophie said, setting the bowl in front of Mary before she ran through the list on her fingers. “That’s what the doctor said would help you.”

“I know,” Mary gritted through clenched teeth.

“And yet…” Sophie trailed off. She looked down at Mary with pursed lips.

Mary didn’t so much as bother to reach for the soup spoon. There was no point when she felt the way she did. Every motion felt more painful than the last, and pointless.

“I can’t eat,” Mary said, pushing the bowl away with a wave of nausea.

“You need sleep,” Sophie said, pulling at the back of Mary’s chair before offering her a hand.

Mary accepted it, practically throwing herself into the other woman’s arms as she struggled to stand. This had to be the worst of her spells to date, a continuation of the pattern that had long since begun to irk her. The pattern where each and every one of them was worse than the last, until she felt like it was almost impossible for her to survive.

She let Sophie all but carry her across the hallway to her room, sinking into the bed with an expression of gratitude.

“You’re overworking yourself,” Sophie clucked in that mother hen tone of voice that kept her employed. She’d been taking care of Mary for a few years now, having been one of her parents’ friends before they passed. She’d become almost the full-time caretaker of the house once Mary was left alone, never asking for a raise or bringing up days off. Mary knew Sophie felt bad for her.

Just as Mary also knew that the other woman couldn’t afford once it got to the point where Mary couldn’t pay her wages anymore. “Call the doctor,” Mary said, gritting her teeth at the idea of another bill, but knowing that the doctor was her only hope.

Dr. Lancaster was never overly pleased to make a house call, least of all to Mary, whose demands were always the same. But she showed up, and Mary paid her, knowing that the visits were cutting into what little money she made, and yet finding it impossible to exist otherwise.

Sophie turned from Mary with a wince. She opened her mouth almost as if to argue but then closed it just as quickly. They’d had this conversation before and for all that Sophie may have worried after Mary and the consequences of their visits she gave in.

Hours later, Dr. Lancaster arrived.

She was a tall, thin woman with brown and white hair and heavy bags under her eyes. Mary always heard her black doctor’s bag before she entered the room. The clicking of metal implements within it an almost soothing sound.

The dark circles beneath Dr. Lancaster’s eyes—which had only been increasing as of late—did not soothe her at all.

“Mary,” Dr. Lancaster said. Mary opened her eyes, looking at the woman to whom she almost felt she owed her life. “This is the last time, you know that.” Dr. Lancaster’s voice was heavy with warning. “I can’t keep doing this,” she added, but Mary knew that wasn’t true.

That for all that the woman may have told Mary that this was the end, that she would help her no longer, she would always do the same thing again.

The Doctor opened her bag as Mary watched. The brown vial clicked on the table, and the pipette sitting beside it. Laudanum. Mary didn’t know how she would live without it. It was the only thing that made the pain go away, the only thing that helped her sleep. She’d run out only two days prior.

Mary watched as the drug was sucked into the pipette and waited for it to be given. Dr. Lancaster hesitated instead. “We need to talk when you’re awake,” she told Mary, typical of her. Mary gave a nod in response, knowing that something or someone would likely call the doctor away soon enough.

She took the laudanum, and then she went to sleep.

***

The migraine was gone by the time Mary opened her eyes again, little more than a buzzing sensation in the back of her head. She sat up in bed, still breathless from the deep sleep, and dared to hope that the doctor would be gone.

Outside, the familiar pinging of rain began again, Mary’s heart tapping in rhythm with it as her mind briefly flickered back to another time, another place. Another life.

Then, she stepped out of her room, headed for the staircase, and paused once she heard the murmur of voices downstairs.

“She’s become dependent,” Dr. Lancaster said, voice heavy with worry as it traveled from the parlor upstairs. “I worry that she doesn’t know how to exist without the laudanum. Perhaps you could try speaking to her again, talk some sense into the woman. Convince her to take things off her plate, if only because I do not know how much longer she can go on like this. Maybe if she just sold some of the land.”

Sophie scoffed. “Would if I could,” she said, “but ever since the accident, well… the girl has something to prove. She would never let anything happen to this place, even if it’s running her into the ground.”

The doctor only sighed. “In time, Mary will have to understand that loss is a part of life.”

Mary’s chest tightened. She gripped the railing of the staircase, her knuckles turning white. What had happened to her parents was two years ago, and she had made strides since then. Or at least, she told herself she had. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer,” Mary reminded herself, quoting one of her mother’s favorite verses.

But there was no denying that the ranch was going under. Or that her spells had become more frequent, the work to keep the ranch running piling up in the background at a rate higher than Mary could sort it out, and her days wasted in bed. Well, they had weighed her.

Mary expected what would come next. It was a simple, soft statement that Dr. Lancaster gave, but not a unique one. “She can’t keep doing this on her own,” the doctor said, and Mary found that she could stay silent no longer.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” she asked, standing on the landing high above both women as she spoke. The words had torn out of her, falling from her lips in a blunt, frustrated way. They echoed down the stairs, until both Dr. Lancaster and Sophie looked up at her.

The pale looks on their face said everything; they hadn’t been expecting to be overheard.

All the same, Dr. Lancaster rose from her seat. Her voice was as stern and authoritative as ever. “You need someone else around. A husband or a partner—”

“And where would I get that?” Mary asked, feeling bitter at the mere suggestion.

Dr. Lancaster only chuckled, looking so comfortable with herself as she settled there on Mary’s pink settee. “Put out an ad in the paper, I suppose,” Dr. Lancaster joked, tsking as Mary staggered down the first steps. “The simple fact is that I can’t give you an easy answer to that question, not knowing you the way that I do, Mary. To find a partner, you would need to leave this ranch. Go out and speak to someone other than your father’s old business partners—”

“And what if I don’t have time for that?” Mary asked, a hint of fear rising in her chest despite how she tried to steel herself against it.

“Then I suppose you have to accept the inevitable,” Dr. Lancaster said with all of the calm and patience of a woman whose living was already ironclad.

***

Mary tossed and turned all night, but for once, she knew and could clearly state the reason why.

Dr. Lancaster. The way she had looked at Mary as she laid in her bed, so obviously pitying her. How the doctor had sat beside Sophie, of all people, and the two of them had spoken about Mary as if she was a child who didn’t understand how the world worked.

More than that, though, Mary was haunted by the simplicity of Dr. Lancaster’s proposed solution. How she had said it so bluntly and carefree. Mary needed someone else to take things off her plate—she’d known that since she was a young woman, and her father had gotten to telling her about how, before he was gone, he would have liked to see his little girl married. If only for the security, it would have offered her.

“It’s almost too much for one person to bear,” her father had said, dismissing Mary’s thoughts all those years ago when she insisted that she didn’t need to worry about marriage yet—she had her parents, and she knew how the farm was run.

Now?

Now, Mary was beginning to think that there was some credence to her father’s idea.

She sat up in her bed after hours of feigning sleep. There was no point in pretending anymore; she wouldn’t get a wink. Not while Dr. Lancaster’s words turned over in her head.

“I can’t just go out and find a husband,” Mary admitted with a shake of her head. Twenty-eight was a hard age for a woman to sell herself at, and Mary had all but burned the bridge of marriage with just about every young man in town through years of denying them.

But what Dr. Lancaster had said about the newspaper? Mary could do that.

“Men do it all the time,” Mary reminded herself as she gave in to the urge. She sat up in bed and flicked the oil lamp on her end table, grabbing her reading glasses before crossing the room to her desk.

“Gotta pay per word, though,” Mary sighed, shaking her head to herself as she pulled out a piece of paper and her ink pot.

Her hand shook as she picked up the pen. Never in her life had Mary imagined penning an ad in the paper for a husband. But she had no choice anymore.

She’d keep it short and sweet, she resolved. No fluff. It wasn’t as though she was full of romantic idealism to begin with. Nor that, she winced as she caught the reflection of herself in a picture frame; she could wax poetic about her appearance.

No. Mary had one thing in this world to offer any man, and she just had to hope that it was enough.

“Dear Lord,” Mary said once she had refined her ad, “please bring me a husband… someone good,” she asked, steepling her fingers for the briefest moment before tearing them apart to seal the envelope shut.

She held that envelope as she stood at her window, staring out at the farm that her family had built—her father’s legacy, and what was meant to be her future.

“I’m going to keep this land,” Mary promised. “No matter what the cost.”