Prologue

Near Virginia City, Montana, 1878

The day that changed Louisa Tanner’s life forever was about as beautiful as she could hope for. The sun shone down on her, and elation swelled in her chest as she admired the rolling hills covered in pines that passed lazily by as the wagon wheels creaked through the ruts in the dirt road.

At twenty-one, life stretched out ahead of her with seemingly endless possibilities. With her wavy auburn hair tied back in a pretty braid, the sun glared in her eyes, and she shielded them with one hand, squinting against the brightness. There was a stirring in her lap, and she looked down at her sister, Hannah, only two years old, as she babbled words and squirmed in Louisa’s lap, trying as she tried to see everything around them at once.

Hannah was technically the child of Louisa’s aunt and uncle, who had passed while hunting for gold in California. While her parents had always intended to have just one child, Hannah had become so beloved by them that it was hard to imagine life without her.

“She’s just as cute as a button,” Louisa crooned as she gently stroked her sister’s face. Hannah balked and made a face, but it was clear that she liked the attention.

She sat between her parents, Joseph and Cecilia, and her mother looked over at her daughters with pride beaming on her face.

“You’re both as cute as can be,” she said with a smile.

Louisa scoffed but grinned as well.

“Sure, Mama. I appreciate it and all, but there is no competing with this little thing.”

As if sensing the sentiment, Hannah nestled closer and giggled.

They were traveling back from Virginia City, a rare treat, and Louisa couldn’t wait to try on the dress that was wrapped in brown paper in the wagon behind her. It was an early birthday present, and the possibilities for the best occasion to wear it for the first time raced through her mind.

“It was nice seeing Sheriff Merrick,” her mother said slyly, looking at Louisa with a sideways glance.

“Yes, real nice,” Louisa replied flatly.

“I think he’s sweet on you,” her mother said boldly.

Her father chuckled and shook his head.

“That ain’t no secret,” he grunted.

Louisa’s face grew hot, and she wrinkled her freckled nose.

“It doesn’t matter how sweet he is on me. We’re good friends. Anything more than that would just feel… wrong.”

One of the wheels creaked in its fittings, and Joseph flinched.

“Shoulda got that blasted wheel fixed in town,” he grumbled.

“He’s a fine man!” Cecilia continued. “And you aren’t a child anymore. You’ve got to start thinking about finding someone to settle down with eventually.”

Louisa’s face grew even hotter, and she pulled her pink bonnet lower to cover her eyes.

“I’ll settle down when I find a man worth settling down with!” she said testily.

Cecilia laughed, and Joseph grinned too.

“If an apple picker focuses on just finding the perfect apple, he’ll have an almost empty basket come the end of the day,” Cecilia said with gravity.

Louisa slowly turned her head to look at her mother and raised an eyebrow.

“I surely do not know what that even means,” she said.

They rode in pleasant silence for a while, and Louisa was glad that the subject had changed. Fluffy clouds drifted slowly across the sun, providing some brief relief from the heat.

A field stretched out to the right, painted by a sea of pink and white bitterroot flowers, and a sweet scent floated in the air. Louisa once again drifted into a euphoric haze and closed her eyes as she enjoyed the day’s journey.

She felt her mother’s hand come to rest gently on her arm, and she opened her eyes to see her parents exchange a look—the kind of wordless glance that spoke of decades of shared life. Her father’s weathered face softened as he gazed at her mother, and Cecilia’s eyes shone with quiet contentment. It was the look Louisa hoped to find someday, that easy communion between two souls who had chosen each other. Joseph reached over and squeezed his wife’s hand briefly before returning his grip to the reins. Louisa smiled to herself, grateful for this simple, perfect afternoon.

Not long after, Joseph spoke suddenly, continuing the dormant conversation topic from before. It was a habit of his, as he often liked to ruminate a while before offering his thoughts.

“I ain’t gonna lie,” he said gravely. “If you were to find a husband, ‘specially one who would live on the ranch with us, it would help a ton.”

Louisa sighed and stroked Hannah’s face again.

“I know, Papa,” she said in a soft voice.

“I don’t mean to put pressure on you, but things are getting hard. The gold has dried up around here, and I know there will be a future in cattle ranching, but it’s proving to be more expensive and difficult than I expected. Another pair of strong hands would be more than welcome.”

Louisa pouted, and her face grew hot again.

That’s all I am to them? A lure to bring in help for the ranch?

As if sensing her feelings, Cecilia put a hand on Louisa’s knee and gave her a warm smile.

“Oh, don’t pout! We know you’ll settle down when you’re ready. Besides, you already do the work of three men on the ranch, and your father and I are grateful!”

“Oh, I reckon you are,” Louisa said tartly.

Before either of her parents could reply, the wagon rounded a corner, and the road grew rough and rocky. The wagon’s wheels rocked and bumped over it, and the whining of the back wheel grew shriller.

“That wheel sounds like it’s about to—” Joseph began.

There was a hideous cracking sound as the axle of the wagon snapped, and the back wheel broke off. The wagon rocked and swerved, and the horses whinnied frantically as Joseph desperately worked the reins.

Cecilia screamed, but Louisa was taken by a strange calmness and clarity. Protecting Hannah was the only thing she was aware of in that moment, and she didn’t even think as she stood and leaped over her mother and out of the wagon. She held Hannah close to her chest and swiveled her body in mid-air so that she would land on her back in the dirt.

The wind was knocked out of her, and pain exploded in her back. Hannah cried frantically, and Louisa ignored her agonizing pain to sit up and rock her sister in her arms.

Up ahead, the horses panicked even more, and Louisa watched in horror as the horse on the right lost its footing, sending the other one sprawling as it fell. The wagon lurched to the right, and Louisa caught one last glimpse of her parents as they were suspended in the air, only for the upended wagon to come crashing down on them in a hideous cacophony that seemed to envelop her senses. Their screams, the only sound heard beyond the crash, would be something Louisa would never forget.

With Hannah in her arms, Louisa ran toward the mangled wagon as the horses writhed and whinnied. She set Hannah, who was in a stunned daze, aside as she desperately reached inside, briefly clutching the hand of one of her parents.

“Don’t worry! I’ll get you out! Hang on!” she cried as she looked around in a panic for help of any kind.

Tears flowed down her face, turning the horrid scene into a mess of blurry double-vision.

Her parents yelled from inside the wagon, and the grip on her hand grew tighter.

Before she could do anything, there was an almighty creaking followed by a crashing sound as the wagon collapsed further, burying her parents beneath the wreckage. The hand was wrenched from her grip, and she swung around to grab Hannah and pull her to safety amid the dust and noise of the collapsed wagon.

Louisa dropped to her knees and instinctively rocked her sister as her mind tried to comprehend the scene in front of her.

Some riders came by an eternity later, and Louisa was still sitting on her knees with her mouth hanging open, her face drained of all color.

Hannah had stopped crying and clung to her sister’s neck, her small body trembling.

“Lord have mercy,” one of the men breathed as he dismounted.

No one could believe the carnage they saw, and even the tough frontiersmen balked at the sight of the accident. One of them approached Louisa slowly, as if she were a wounded animal.

“Miss? Miss, can you hear me?”

Louisa didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her eyes were fixed on the wreckage, on the place where her parents had been just moments ago—laughing, teasing her about marriage, her father’s hand squeezing her mother’s.

“We need to get her up,” another man said quietly. “Get her away from this.”

Someone placed a blanket over her shoulders. Gentle hands tried to take Hannah from her arms, but Louisa’s grip only tightened, a low sound escaping her throat—not quite a word, not quite a sob.

“Let her be,” the first man said. “Let her hold the child.”

They guided her to her feet, and she allowed herself to be led away, her legs moving without her will. She didn’t look back at the wagon. She couldn’t.

As the hours passed, the numbness began to crack. First came the trembling—a shaking that started in her hands and spread through her whole body. Then came the sound, a keening wail that seemed to come from somewhere outside herself. And finally, the tears—tears that blurred the faces of the strangers trying to help her, tears that soaked Hannah’s hair as she held her sister close, tears that it seemed would never stop flowing.

Chapter One

The Tanner Ranch

Four Years Later

The memory of what had happened four years ago kept invading Louisa’s thoughts, and she pounded her mallet against the fence post even harder, hoping the exertion would distract her from the memories.

Sweat glistened on her face, and her arms were aching from the effort, but she kept hammering. She wore her hair tied back in a ponytail, her father’s tattered old wide-brimmed straw hat covering it.

The fence looked out on a vast field that was starting to become overgrown with grass and weeds, and behind her was the red farmhouse she lived in. Even from that distance, she could see it needed to be repainted, along with a million other little chores that there were never enough hours in the day to complete.

The sound of horse hooves in the dirt broke the silence of the afternoon, and she squinted out at the road leading up to the ranch to see who the dust cloud would contain.

She groaned as she saw that it was Liam Dalton.

He saw her at the fence, and she kept hammering as he directed his horse toward her.

“Pardon me, young man, might you know where I could find the lady of this ranch?” Liam asked mockingly.

He was a stocky man with dark blond hair combed back with pomade, and he had a large, painstakingly styled mustache above his lip.

Louisa scowled at him and kept hammering.

Liam hopped down from his horse, almost losing his footing as he did, and wiped the dirt from his expensive vest.

“I’m just teasing you, darling. I barely recognized you in those men’s garments.”

He spoke in an accent that was crafted to sound fancy and sophisticated, even though he grew up in the same area as Louisa.

“Don’t call me darling,” Louisa said, barely hiding her contempt.

Liam sauntered over to the section of fence Louisa had erected that morning and leaned on it. She dearly wished it had just been painted so that it would spoil his fancy trousers. He pulled out a paper fan from his pocket and fanned himself with it, and Louisa raised an eyebrow at the gesture.

“Oh, you like it? My father brought this back from Paris, France. You’ve heard of Paris, I presume?” he said haughtily.

“What do you want, Liam?” Louisa asked as she rubbed her eyes.

Liam had an impressive talent for bringing on headaches, and this was no exception.

“You know what I want,” he said, adding a more sinister edge to his voice.

He smiled sharply at her, and Louisa’s stomach threatened to turn.

She certainly did know what he wanted. Liam had been doggedly asking Louisa for her hand in marriage consistently over the last few years. He was well-known for loving no one other than himself, so it was clear that he only wanted to marry her so that he could expand his neighboring ranch and monopolize all the cattle business in the area.

“Well, my answer is the same as always,” she said. “So have a pleasant ride home.”

Liam’s smile faded into something meaner, and he put the fan back in his pocket.

“How many hands do you even still have working here? Five? Fewer? This is no world for a delicate flower such as yourself. I could get you out of those rags and into the latest London fashions. Instead, you choose to roll around in the dirt like a common farmhand.”

Louisa had to summon every ounce of will she had to prevent herself from swinging her mallet into Liam’s smug face.

Despite his insults, Louisa knew that she could easily best him in a fight, as he was notoriously weak-willed and cowardly. However, his family, while despised by many, was still well-connected enough that harming a hair on his head would doom her for good, so she counted to ten in her mind instead.

“I’m perfectly happy with my lot in life, thank you,” she said evenly.

Liam walked slowly with his hands behind his back, circling Louisa like a wolf.

“You think that now! But what if, God forbid, something terrible were to happen to your ranch? You may wish you’d reconsidered, when, or rather, if, that happens.”

Louisa had the distinct impression that he had rehearsed this speech, and she kept hammering instead of answering.

“Take your threats and your fancy fan and get off my land,” Louisa growled.

Liam smiled wickedly and made his way back to his horse.

“I’m not making any threats, darling. But I’ll gladly take my leave. The smell of this place is simply unbearable. But you’d do well to consider my offer, Louisa Tanner. I would simply hate for anything to happen to you or your ranch. You have a fine day now.”

He clumsily mounted his horse and rode off, and Louisa swung the mallet harder at the post, and for a moment, she thought she might split it in two.

***

Louisa’s head was still pounding from the interaction with Liam as she stormed back to the farmhouse. She opened the door a little harder than intended, startling six-year-old Hannah and the ranch cook, Mabel.

Mabel was a broad woman with the kindest eyes Louisa had ever seen, and her graying, light brown hair was tied back in her signature tight bun.

“Sorry,” Louisa said awkwardly as she closed the door behind her. “Don’t know my own strength sometimes.”

The kitchen was medium sized with floral wallpaper and handmade cupboards stocked with ingredients and spices, albeit a bit more sparsely than in years past, as Louisa had needed to tighten her purse strings of late. Mabel still made an effort to pick some flowers to put in Louisa’s mother’s old blue vase. She had selected some pink milkweed that morning, and the flowers provided a rich, honey-like aroma to the kitchen.

The smell of fresh dough was also in the air, and a thin cloud of flour drifted about the room like mist.

Mabel was showing Hannah how to knead the dough, and the thought of fresh, homemade bread calmed Louisa’s temper slightly.

“We’re making bread,” Hannah said cheerfully, already forgetting the fright she had received.

“Oh, that’s lovely, sweetheart,” Louisa said absently as she poured herself some water from a pitcher.

She noticed Mabel looking curiously at her and knew that the cook had seen through her, as always.

“Say, Miss Louisa? Can I discuss something with you? It’s about provisions we need to order,” Mabel said with manufactured nonchalance.

Louisa knew that it was just a pretext to speak to her alone, but she couldn’t think of a good enough excuse to get out of it.

“Sure, let’s go to the parlor,” Louisa said tiredly.

“But we’re making bread!” Hannah pleaded.

Mabel laughed warmly.

“The dough ain’t going anywhere, child! Keep kneading it like I showed you. I’ll be back before you know it,” she said.

Hannah sighed dramatically and blew a strand of her dark brown hair away from her face.

“All right,” she said reluctantly.

Louisa led Mabel through a doorway that led to their parlor, which had two old sofas arranged around an old stone fireplace.

The wallpaper in this room was a light blue, which made it pleasant and airy, and there was even a bookshelf her father had made, lined with some of her favorite books.

She looked at the bookshelf longingly, as it not only reminded her of her father, but also of how long it had been since she had been able to afford to add to her collection. Still, the joy of rereading a book one loved was something that poverty couldn’t take away.

Mabel sat down on one of the sofas, and Louisa joined her, sighing as she did.

“Something got your goat out there,” Mabel said.

Louisa grunted and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, you could say that. Liam Dalton stopped by again,” Louisa replied.

“Oh, goodness! What does that awful man want now?” Mabel asked, shaking her head as she did.

“What else? He wants to marry me so that he can rescue me from poverty and all the same nonsense.”

Louisa gave a long sigh.

“He’s persistent, I’ll give him that,” she said.

“Pig-headed is what I’d say,” Mabel said haughtily.

Louisa chuckled briefly.

“Won’t find me arguing,” she said as there was a knock at the front door. “Oh my… Who could that be?”

She got up to answer the door as Mabel headed back to the kitchen.

“Call out if it’s Liam again! I’ll bring my heaviest frying pan,” Mabel said with a grin.

Louisa stifled a laugh behind her hand.

“Hush! He may hear you!”

“Let him!” Mabel said as she went back into the kitchen.

When she opened the door, it wasn’t Liam but her dear friend, Sylvie. She was a very thin woman with beautiful curly blond hair, and she was in what had to be a new floral dress.

The door was scarcely open before Sylvie had enveloped her in a hug with a flurry of words and thoughts barely connected to each other. Louisa and Mabel often joked that Sylvie was someone you always heard before seeing, as she rarely stopped talking. After exchanging some more hugs, they sat on the sofa together.

“I passed by Liam Dalton on the way here. He seemed awfully steamed!” said Sylvie.

“That man is always steamed,” Louisa said with another sigh. “Along with a long list of other undesirable traits.”

Mabel soon brought through some cups of coffee once she saw who was there, and Louisa and Sylvie thanked her before blowing steam from their beverages.

“That man just won’t leave me alone,” Louisa continued.

“Well, it makes sense! His daddy wanted this land before either of us was even born,” Sylvie said.

“Even so. I wish I had someone to chase him away with a shotgun whenever he came by,” Louisa replied.

Sylvie looked at her mischievously, and Louisa narrowed her eyes.

“What’s with that look?” asked Louisa.

“Oh, nothing. Just that you’re much too picky when it comes to men!”

“You sound just like…” Louisa’s voice softened ever so slightly. “My parents.”

“Well,” Sylvie said, not noticing the change in her voice, “admittedly, there aren’t many eligible bachelors around here, that’s for sure.”

“What indeed?” Louisa said sarcastically as she sipped her coffee.

Thayer Merrick was the sheriff of Virginia City and Sylvie’s brother. Despite how much her parents would have liked it, Louisa had never considered him as a potential partner, though she cared for him a great deal.

First, they’d been friends since they were teenagers, and secondly, he was the brother of her best friend in the world.

Louisa knew her friend well enough to know she was getting at something.

“You could always get a mail-order husband,” Sylvie said with a grin.

Louisa almost choked on her coffee.

“Oh, please. You must be joking! I’d like to find someone, but I’m not that desperate.”

“It’s not a joke! Remember Hettie Phillips—we went to school with her? She moved down to Texas and still writes to me sometimes. She did it and met the love of her life!”

Louisa huffed and sipped more of her coffee.

“Why don’t you try it first, if you think it’s such a great idea?” she asked.

“Oh, honey, you know I’m seeing Bob Lawton,” Sylvie said.

“I thought you were seeing Homer Redding?” Louisa said, smiling as she shook her head.

“He’s old news! But getting back to the point, I know the whole mail-order thing sounds like a wild idea. Think about it, though!”

“I don’t believe I will,” Louisa said as she looked into her cup.

***

After tucking Hannah into bed, Louisa settled down in the parlor in the yellow light of a kerosene lamp. She sighed as she rested her aching bones, and the silence of the night allowed all her troubles to crowd her mind once more.

For a moment, she remembered what Sylvie had said about mail-order grooms and laughed again as she shook her head. Then, she looked over at the pile of bills that were arranged on a dresser under a mirror beside the fireplace, and the familiar cold constricting worry she experienced so much these days tightened in her stomach.

She leaned back and stretched her neck as she closed her eyes, then massaged her temples with her thumbs.

A mail-order groom…

It was ridiculous to even consider it, but having someone strong to help around the ranch couldn’t hurt… And she wouldn’t need to love the man. It could be an arrangement that benefited everyone.

“I must be delirious from exhaustion,” she said aloud as she slumped in her chair. She picked up the pile of bills, which felt as heavy as lead in her hands, and sighed again. Stress about her situation rushed at her from all sides, and her chest constricted with the panicked idea of what would happen to the ranch if she didn’t have help soon. With a deep breath, she stood to retrieve the lamp and headed upstairs to bed.

Things couldn’t go on the way they were, and as distasteful as the idea seemed, each step up the stairs made it feel more and more like the only solution she had available.

She lay down, resigning herself to a night filled with bad dreams and no actual rest.

Chapter Two

Near Virginia City, Montana

Marcus Blaine was perfectly aware of how bad he looked as he breached the city limits of Virginia City. His long legs ached from walking so many miles, and he had an old satchel with his only belongings in the world slung over his shoulder.

As he passed the tailor’s store, he caught a glimpse of himself in the window glass and almost didn’t recognize the man staring back. Wild dark brown hair hung nearly to his shoulders, and a rough, scraggly beard obscured the face his mother had once called handsome. He looked away before he could study himself any further.

The old brown jacket he wore needed a lot of patchwork, and his cotton shirt, which had once been a beautiful, clean white, was now stained and yellowed. His trousers were also dirty and patched in several places. His old leather boots were covered in miles’ worth of muck and grime. He had been wandering from town to town for years, and even he couldn’t quite recall how many it had been, but his time on the road showed on his clothes as much as on his face.

Marcus pulled his faded, wide-brimmed cowboy hat lower over his eyes as he passed two women chatting in front of the tailor’s store.

He tipped his hat at them, and they grimaced in disgust.

“Really, there should be a law against vagrants in town,” one of them said once he had passed.

“Agreed, it just shouldn’t be allowed,” the other chimed in.

They didn’t even try to make sure he wouldn’t hear what they said.

Marcus pressed his lips together and held onto the strap of his bag, shame sitting cold in his belly. His life hadn’t always been like this, but he was used to the kind of scorn people had for anyone down on their luck.

He passed a saloon and paused as the sounds of laughter flowed out from within. He licked his dry lips and thought of going in to drown his memories and shame in however much whiskey he could afford.

It took some effort to shake his head and banish the idea he had succumbed to so many times before and continue on his way.

He made his way down the main street of town, past stagecoaches and men unloading wagons and carts on the sides of the road, with the smell of manure and mud heavy in the air.

People kept giving him dirty looks as he passed, and he closed his heart to it as best he could.

Finally, he saw a large, white-painted building with a sign proclaiming it to be the general store. His stomach rumbled when he saw it, and his mouth watered at the thought of bread.

He stopped outside the store and rummaged in his trouser pockets for his tattered old wallet. Inside were a few silver dimes—all that remained of his family’s once considerable prosperity.

Clutching one of them, he entered the store, noticing that all eyes were on him immediately.

There was a mustachioed man behind the counter, and he was serving a young man and his wife, both dressed in nice clothes that made Marcus stand out even more.

The couple left as he approached the counter, narrowing their eyes at him, and Marcus’s heart sank as the man behind the counter looked at him without any kindness.

“Good afternoon,” Marcus said in a voice that was croaky from thirst.

“We don’t run no charity here, boy,” the man said with disgust. “You best be on your way.”

Marcus took a deep breath through his nose to stifle his anger.

“I’m not looking for charity, mister. Just want to buy some bread. I have money,” he said, displaying the dime.

The proprietor gave it a quick look and scoffed.

“Your money ain’t good here. You probably stole it, anyhow. Take it elsewhere. This is a store for good, honest townspeople, not beggars and thieves. Take your leave, or I’ll send for the sheriff!”

Marcus clenched and then unclenched his fist and sighed.

“Fine, have it your way,” he said as he turned to leave.

“And don’t come back!” the man yelled after him.

Marcus wandered the streets with his shoulders slumped, as if he were carrying a heavy sack across them. It never ceased to amaze him just how differently people would treat you based on your grooming and clothes, but there was little to do about it.

In his current state, he was no better than a cellar rat to most people and barely even considered human.

He walked up to men with cattle carts and those unloading supplies into stores, and it was the same ordeal every time.

“Excuse me, mister. I was wondering if you have any work that needs doing? I have experience ranching, but I can also help carry heavy things, repair almost anything, and I can—”

“I’m going to have to stop you there, son. I have all the help I need. You’d best be on your way.”

A similar exchange happened each time, and Marcus’s weariness grew stronger with each rejection. The sun was starting to set on the horizon, and Marcus was bathed in the golden light of twilight when he finally admitted defeat and started to head out of town.

Before he reached the edge of town, his boot caught on a newspaper someone had left on the ground, and it was somewhat intact.

He shrugged as he leaned down to pick it up and brush the dirt from it. At best, it would provide some entertainment. At worst, it could be a pillow for his head.

He tucked it under his arm and headed down the main road, leaving, heading out of town once more.