Prologue

Minneapolis, June 1859…

Change is a striking thing, mysterious as God’s will. It waits until you are numbed by routine, unable to see its approach, and then leaps, like a creature from a brush, to set you on a path you would have never chosen for yourself. It was such a change that came for Lillie Dutton. She had finished shopping at the Minneapolis general store and, in a moment of spontaneity, decided to visit her husband, Charles, at the bank where he worked.

She’d purchased an article on the strange and wild world of the western territories as a gift to Charles, hoping it would reestablish some common ground between them. They’d been married just under a year, and already she felt as if the man who proposed to her and the man she’d woken up next to this morning, were two different people. Charles had always told her to keep away from his work, that he didn’t find it fitting for a woman to come by her husband’s workplace, but she desperately needed something to change between them.

Harboring a sigh, Lillie walked down Main Street, pamphlet in hand and wicker basket propped on her hip. The wind blew her golden hair over her shoulders. Her frame was petite but strong and her warm brown eyes gave her a thoughtful look.

Engrossed in the thoughts of her troubled marriage, Lillie did not see Father Lawrence approach her on the road and practically ran the man of God over by accident. The result was a dropped basket and several cans of food, soap bars, and other estranged items being strewn across the ground.

“Father, I’m so sorry!” Lillie exclaimed, her cheeks burning red. She quickly put the pamphlet away and hurried to pick up the items.

“You’re perfectly all right, child. Lost in thought today, are we?” Father Lawrence chuckled as he bent to help the young lady.

“I’m afraid so,” Lillie said with a heaviness that raised Father Lawrence’s eyebrows.

The priest was a kind man who, in his younger days, would have been considered a strapping man. Even in his older age, with silver hairs riddled across his beard, Lillie saw him as a strong and dependable man. Her father had always said he was the kind of priest that naturally put his congregation at ease.

“Are you troubled, child?” Father Lawrence asked, holding onto one of the soap bars.

Lillie steadied herself. A part of her wanted to confide in Father Lawrence. He’d been the one she’d whispered her anxieties to after the fever took her parents and brother. The way he’d spoken to her about heaven and the kind of happiness her family had found in God’s presence. It was the only thing that made their passing bearable. But now, she worried Charles would see her confession to the Father as a betrayal.

Charles had a jealous nature that, less than a year ago, she’d found charming. He was so very charming when they’d courted. Lillie had been told by women of the town that marriage changes a man. After the chase is done, they stop pursuing you and instead treat you as something they’ve already won. Lillie didn’t believe them at the time.

She would have to keep her worries to herself, this time, or else she’d risk angering Charles. “I’m fine, but thank you Father Lawrence,” Lillie said, taking the soap from the clergyman’s hand and continuing her journey.

Sometimes, in the most secret place of her heart, Lillie wondered why God would take her family and not her, and if being left behind on earth was some kind of punishment. This thought stayed with her as she neared the end of the street where the bank stood.

The bank, a white building with Grecian columns down the front and large paneled windows, loomed before her. Above, the simple but prestigious name, BANK, was written in gold lettering. Lillie passed between the towering columns and through the front doors. She headed straight for Charles’s office in the back where she found him looking over two sets of papers with a scrutable eye. He had dark hair, a wide frame, and a pale complexion that surged red when he was overcome with anger or embarrassment. She gently knocked on the open door.

Charles looked up in shock and Lillie felt her stomach drop. The anger that came across her husband’s face was not unexpected—not anymore, at least—but the speed and aggression with which he stood and stormed around the desk, aiming for her, was still frightening.

“What are you doing here, Lillie? I told you to not bother me at work,” Charles hissed.

Though he contained his volume, his aggravation was prominent. He stood inches from Lillie’s face, and it broke her heart to think that there was a time when being this close to him would have sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Now, her insides felt full of lead, of heavy fear.

“I got you something at the general store. I know you don’t like me coming by your work, but I promise it’s just a quick visit,” Lillie said, mustering a hopeful smile she prayed would calm him.

More than anything, she wanted to feel close to him again, to feel she had not truly lost all sense of family.

She handed over the pamphlet and searched her husband’s dark eyes, hoping to find the man she’d once loved. The man who had asked her on outings day after day as if a second away from her racked him with pain. When Lillie was grieving the loss of her parents and brother, Charles was right by her side, a constant presence. At the time, she thought it was because he wanted to care for her; now, she wondered if it was to control her. There was never one time in their courtship that he didn’t present her with flowers. He’d made a point of asking her favorite kind the day they’d met. Back then, she thought that meant he loved her. Deep inside, she hoped it still did.

He snatched it from her. Charles took the pamphlet and looked over it for less than a second with bored dullness in his eyes before handing it back at her.

“You came here after I explicitly told you not to, to give me some cowboy story? I’m working, Lillie. How can you not understand that?” His words were sharp.

Lillie closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself.

“I promise no one will mind. I came to visit my father all the time,” Lillie smiled encouragingly.

“Of course you did. Folks liked your father and, unlike him, I have to live under the shadow of a dead man. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t care what you did with your father—I’ve told you this behavior is unacceptable. Leave, Lillie. And don’t come back. Not today, tomorrow, or ever. I’ll see you at home,” Charles said with a dismissive hand and an annoyed tone that stung Lillie.

What was the cause of this distance between them? Of the sharp change in his personality? She knew his work was stressful, he complained about it often enough. He had been given the position by a friend of her father’s shortly after her parents’ death. She understood how that might make him feel uncomfortable or as if he had something to prove but no one treated him differently or as less than. Of that, Lillie was sure. Her father’s colleagues, his friends, were nothing but kind. Charles’ fragile pride had caused a rift between them. One that she would have never suspected to face so early in a marriage.

“How can you speak like that to me? I’m your wife,” Lillie said, her cheeks flushing red and her jaw trembling.

“And a wife should be obedient to her husband. Now go, Lillie,” Charles interrupted as he stepped closer to tower over her, to try to scare her into submission.

But her fear gave way to anger, instead. “Obedience should come out of respect, not fear,” Lillie snapped, her voice rising without her consent.

She wrung the pamphlet in her hands. She’d never acknowledged his violence out loud, telling herself the few times he’d struck her had been exceptional moments of rage and not hints at his character. But how long could she convince herself of that?

Charles’s eyes widened. He brushed past her and slammed the door shut. Lillie had been standing just inside the room to the point she could feel the wind caused by Charles’ forceful slam.

“What are you doing, woman? Yelling like that in my place of work. What if somebody had heard your hollering, huh?”

“Because it is the only way you seem to hear me, or even look at me, is when I put myself in the way of your work!” Lillie shouted and in a fit of rage grabbed the papers Charles had been looking at and flung them across the small office.

The boiling fury that flared in Charles’s eyes was unlike anything she’d seen in him before. He stared down at the papers, stunned. Fear closed Lillie’s throat, and her heart began to race. She flung herself to the ground and began gathering the documents in her hands.

“Get out of the way,” Charles growled.

He seized her by the shoulders and threw her from the pile of papers. Lillie crawled to the door, hot tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Through a watery film she looked down at the few papers she still held in her hand. Growing up in her father’s shadow, following him to work almost every day as a child, she’d learned to recognize banknotes. It was a transfer request to move money from one account to the other. In the recipient line was her husband’s name and in the transfer line a name she did not recognize.

Charles cursed as he gathered the papers and attempted to reorganize them.

“What is this?” Lillie said softly, more to herself than to Charles.

He whirled around, spitting a string of foul words at her when he noticed the paper in her hands. The rage fell instantly, replaced with an expression of fear.

“Lillie,” Charles started in a low voice, “give me that.”

Lillie started to extend the document, but the sudden change in her husband’s demeanor made her hesitate. She looked down at the transfer request again and saw the amount. It was close to fifty dollars, almost a month’s wages for the common worker.

“I said give it to me,” Charles said, low and menacing.

She wasn’t sure why she did it, but when Charles reached for the paper, she yanked her hand back.

There was no reason for someone to be transferring Charles this amount of money. A horrible thought started to form in her mind. A memory. Her father had caught a banker making fraudulent claims once. They’d put their names as the recipient to a loan but had filled the paperwork out with a client’s information. They’d taken hundreds of dollars out in other people’s names before her father had noticed the names didn’t match. It was a proud moment in her father’s life. The bank had thrown a party, and even though she was barely thirteen at the time, her father had brought her mother and her to share in the achievement. Her father shared everything with his family.

Charles’s fear, his wanting to keep her from the bank, his mood swings, every action he’d taken presented a terrible truth. A lengthy pause came between them, Charles’s eyes slowly moving from her face to the document in her hands.

“Lillie,” he said almost softly which only proved to frighten her more. He took a small, slow, step toward her. The way a hunter does when he doesn’t want to scare his prey.

“Are you stealing from the bank?” she said with a strength that surprised even herself, only now looking up from the bank note and into his eyes. It was in those fearful blue irises she found her answer.

“How dare you,” he snarled viciously.

He came to her, snatched the document from her hands, and before she had time to respond struck her across the face. Lillie pressed her hand to her cheek as hot pain radiated from the right side of her face and down into her neck. His blow shattered any hope Lillie had in their love. It freed her tears and sent them flowing down her face. He had abused her and stolen from her father’s work, a place her late father had considered a second home.

Lillie screamed, not from the pain in her body but in her heart. The door to Charles’s office burst open and through it came Father Lawrence and two workers from the bank. The priest saw Lillie’s face where a garish purple bruise formed on her cheek and placed himself between the young woman and her assailant.

Charles flushed, his eyes desperately dancing between the priest and his colleagues.

“It’s no concern of yours,” Charles said, but instead of speaking with dominance and authority like he had with Lillie, his voice meekly left his lips and trembled on the air.

Father Lawrence’s left hand drifted behind him and gently took hold of Lillie’s shoulder.

“Son, a wife is a precious gift from God. You’ll come to regret sullying that gift one day,” Father Lawrence said. He didn’t shout it; the entire thing was devoid of anger, but he spoke it the same way he spoke his sermons. With a quiet and unavoidable truth. His conviction shot each word into Charles’ chest as if they were bullets.

A wild glint came into Charles’ eye. He stole a quick glance at the door and then leaped toward it, pushing the two bankers aside as he did. It reminded Lillie of a caged animal charging the bars of its confinement.

How long had Charles been more a beast than man? How come she couldn’t notice it, couldn’t bring herself to accept it until now?

Father Lawrence moved his hand from Lillie’s shoulder and just his arm out in front of her to create a protective barrier. Charles made it out of the room, and was immediately pursued by the two men he’d attempted to knock to the ground. Rather than following after them, Father Lawrence turned to her and said, “All is well, child. You’re safe now. The Lord is looking after you.”

“How did you know to come here?” Lillie asked, grateful but shocked at the Father’s perfectly timed appearance.

“After running into you on the street, the Lord worked on my heart to come see you and ask about your troubles. I’m very glad I did,” Father Lawrence said.

The next moments were a blur to Lillie. Father Lawrence took her to the sheriff who asked her many questions about Charles, their relationship, and especially what she’d discovered at the bank. She answered each one but still to this day could not remember what she’d said.

She was lost.

Falling into pain and despair as she realized the last thread of family she possessed had been a lie. Charles was no husband to her, and if he was, if that was what love and marriage afforded a woman, then she wanted no part of it.

She grew woozy as the adrenaline in her body plummeted and she nearly fell out of her chair at the sheriff’s office.

The deputy escorted her home along with Father Lawrence. He didn’t leave her side not once. She would never be able to thank him enough for that kindness. The priest and officer walked through the front door with her and the moment Lillie stepped foot inside she felt it. The absence. The void. Charles was gone. Without a word of explanation, she ran up the stairs and to the bedroom. The room had been ransacked. Drawers that contained valuables like jewelry and her fine dresses were pulled clean from her dresser left empty on the floor. The one bottle of perfume she owned was taken as well. Everything Charles could sell he took, leaving her with nothing.

A few days later the sheriff came to her and said he’d discovered Charles was riddled with gambling debt. Had been since before the two of them had met. He’d most likely courted her in the hopes of receiving help from her father, and after his death, had taken the job at the bank as an opportunity to swindle enough money to cover his past debt.

It was that day that Lillie succumbed to her loneliness and accepted that love was far too dangerous and unreliable to put one’s faith in.

Chapter One

Minneapolis, 1865

Six years had passed since Charles had fled the town, leaving Lillie alone and dissolute. The authorities eventually caught him, but it brought her little solace. She was still alone in the world and the sheriff could do nothing for that.

Work, however, was a great distraction from such things. There was plenty of that to fill the hours of the day. There were the maid services she offered to those in town who needed help with housework. Then the chores of the house Charles had bought for them. The ironing of her clothes and sewing of any tears, the churning of butter, the sweeping and mopping of the house, and the garden to tend. The garden, no doubt, being her favorite. Work under the warm sun and life blooming from the fruits of her labor brought a small, conservative, smile to her face. The only kind of smile she knew how to produce nowadays.

The days are all the same. I suppose that’s a good thing. You can depend on routine. If routine doesn’t become a prison like it has for me, Lillie thought as she changed into her Sunday dress in front of the mirror.

Plenty of housework and years of maturing had changed her body. She was still short, a fact she reckoned she would have to live with, but her hips were more full, and her arms and legs far less scraggly than they were all those years ago.

You’re a woman now, Lillie. She mouthed the words to the reflection of her staring back from the mirror.

This change was noticed by the men of Minneapolis, and several had come to call upon her over the years after realizing she’d been granted a divorce. She had politely refused each one. The callers, having not been used to their pride being hurt, took great offense to her rejection and spread rumors around the town that she was a cold and unfeeling spinster. Lillie would have liked to say these rumors fell on deaf ears but that would have been a lie. It did not take long for the people in town to take the rumors and turn them into fact in their minds.

Never was this fact more apparent to her than this Sunday. She was headed to the church for evening mass after having worked all day in the sun. She’d bathed and put on her modest, but pretty, brown dress. It was subdued, which she found deterred wanting looks from men and jealous ones from women. She sat, in a pew, by herself and listened to Father Lawrence’s sermon. No one would come sit by her. She had no family to sit with and most of the men had long since given up on her as a potential match.

No woman wanted to be associated with a spinster at the risk of being called one themselves, so she found herself alone when listening to God’s word. In this way, she did not mind the town’s new treatment of her. In her solitude, she’d found a deep and personal relationship with God. Solitude was her burden, but she reminded herself to send a prayer of thanks to the Lord for saving her from a man like Charles who could have easily maimed her in his rage.

When the sermon was over, she stood, went to Father Lawrence to thank him for the message, and turned to leave. As she left the church and headed down the street toward home, she passed Herald and Olivia Clive. The couple had recently become engaged in the past month. Lillie’s shoulders tensed in apprehension. Harold was one of the men she’d refused and not two weeks before he began courting Mrs. Olivia.

As she passed, Harold left a long and uncomfortable gaze on Lillie. His lips spread into a sly grin, and he bit his bottom lip in such a suggestive manner that it sent a shiver down her spine. The most brazen part in all of this, was that he did these actions while attached to Olivia’s arm. Perhaps that was purposely done because Olivia immediately took note of this and glared at Lillie.

“Hag!” Olivia spat, the veins pulsing in her neck.

She quickly took her fiancé and pulled him further down the street. Lillie’s feet rooted themselves to the ground.

Hag.

It was a simple insult. Nothing creative or masterful in its construction. It should have been the easiest thing to shake off, but it wasn’t the word or even the venom in the lady’s voice that harmed her. It was the truth in it. Lillie was twenty-three years old now. An age that was considered past the prime of marriage, with no family and little financial prospects, and like a hag, she’d given up on finding romance. The pain of the woman’s insult was in the fact she couldn’t deny it. She was a hag.

Lillie wandered home like a ghost, lost in thought. How long would she be able to continue living like this? With no husband, she had little finances, she’d been allowed to stay in the house, but in truth did not want to. The halls were filled with too many memories of Charles, both the good and the bad. Time was running out for her both in money and in love.

She knelt for her bedside prayer that night and prayed, “Lord, show me the way out of this eternal night. The way out of this pain. Show me what I must do to change my life.”

That night, Lillie found herself in a dream visited by an angel of the Lord. She was in a field of tall grass, under pink and blue skies, with a mountain range in the distance. A river flowed beside her and wound its way toward a mountain. Its top was covered in snow and toward its base jutted a shelf of rock where she swore she could see the faint outline of a ranch.

Then, a powerful presence appeared behind her. When she turned, she was nearly blinded by a holy light. When it spoke, its voice resembled the sweetest music.

You must care for the mountain man.

Lillie turned to ask the angel who the mountain man was but before she could, the dream broke, and she found herself back in her bed, the moon staring down at her through the bedroom window.

Lillie ran for the church. Father Lawrence was the only person in town she fully trusted and as her priest she hoped he could illuminate the meaning of this dream. She found him in his office, which sat as a small standalone building beside the church.

“What is it, my child?” Father Lawrence asked, his shocked eyebrows rising on his forehead.

“I’ve had a dream, Father,” Lillie said, gauging the Father’s reaction and turning over how she would explain the dream in her mind.

“A dream?” Father Lawrence asked, confused.