Prologue

Preston, Idaho

March 1, 1874

“Lilian, my love, must you huff at the newspaper so often?” Elizabeth Sage said, her tone light and teasing but her voice cough-roughened and weak. Lilian raised sheepish eyes to meet her mother’s. Even now, after so many months of illness, they were still as sharp and blue as ever—the same blue she saw when she caught her own reflection, though neither Lilian nor her mother had ever had much time or patience for vanity.

She set aside the paper. She had taken to skimming the mail-order bride advertisements to take her mind off of her mother’s illness and her inability to do anything to make it better, and it seemed there were new propositions each week from men of all kinds. The one she had just read sounded like it was from a man simply searching for a housemaid. “Clean, silent. Will cook and keep house clean no matter what. Children expected.” She had scoffed at that one, crumpling the page and tossing it aside at once, and it had left her without a great deal of hope for the other advertisements.

“Sorry, Momma. Am I keeping you awake?” Their room was small and dark, their two beds shoved against either side of the wall with the lone window between. It was here she kept vigil over her ailing mother on a squat wooden chair, and where she stood now, noticing the pallor in her mother’s face. Though Elizabeth’s eyes still didn’t miss a thing, the illness had made itself known in other parts of her face. Her once round, ruddy cheeks had flattened and paled, and her hair, always thick and unruly, now lay flat and lifeless against the thin pillow.

Lilian watched her mother’s face anxiously and wondered if living on the run for so long had allowed this sickness to take root in her. It had always just been the two of them, on their own and moving from place to place, doing what they could to remain a few steps ahead of her father.

“No, sweet girl. I need to stay awake for now. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Help me sit up.”

Lilian wrapped her arms around her mother’s thin shoulders and pulled her into a sitting position, straightening the pillow behind her until she eased back with a tired sigh.

“We both know the end is near.” She stopped and put her hand up, halting Lilian’s protests before they could even come. “I don’t want to hear it. There’s no sense in denying what’s plain to see. You’re twenty-four now. There is no more time to put off your life. There are things to discuss, and there’s something I want you to promise me.”

***

That conversation had only been two days ago, and now she stood at her mother’s graveside. Her vision blurred by tears, Lilian stared down at the glimmering stone on her finger that had once sat on her mother’s as the pastor spoke of shepherds and still waters. It was just her and the pastor standing in the little green patch of grass; there was no one else to invite. Lilian squinted up into the sun and wondered if her mother was up there, looking down disappointed at the size of her funeral or worried about the daughter she’d left behind.

When the pastor had left her alone over the clean mound of dirt, she whispered her final goodbye to the one person she had always been able to count on. “I’m going to be all right, Momma,” she said, steel in her voice. “I’ll be just fine. Don’t you worry about me one bit. I’ll keep my promise to you and build a life you’d be proud of.”

As she made her way back to their little rented room, which suddenly felt so much larger with just her in it, she thought back on the mail-order bride advertisements she’d scoffed at just a few days before and the promise her mother had extracted from her. Right there, at her mother’s bedside, she had sworn she would not waste another moment in this town.

She would grab her future with both hands.

Lilian looked down at the ring on her finger. All her life, she had stared at the ring, the most beautiful thing they had ever owned. Its gem flashed, a bright spot of pink incongruous with the dark and dingy room. She had always coveted this ring, had always known it would one day be hers.

And now here she was, alone in just another soulless room, with no one in the world to count on, only fear of an uncertain future.

In a flash of temper, she swept the newspaper from the bedside table, and as the tears began to fall, she pulled the ring from her finger and threw it to the ground, collapsing onto the bed and burying her face in her hands.

She didn’t want the ring. She didn’t want to have to keep the promises she had made to her mother. She didn’t want to keep running.

All she wanted was her mother.

As much as she wanted to sink into that pit of despair and wallow in it, her mother’s words came back to her. “Sage women are not weak.” It held true now, just as it had always been true then. She dried her tears and sat up straight, scrubbing her cheeks with rough hands before kneeling on the scratched wooden floorboards to retrieve the ring and tidy up the mess she had made.

The ring had landed in the center of the paper. She paused. The silver circled a name among the ads, one she hadn’t read when she had last paged through this paper. Carefully, Lilian slipped the ring back on her finger and lifted the page.

Chapter One

Preston, Idaho

March 18, 1874

“Girl! There’s beer all over the floor. You know the mess the Mulligans leave behind. Get to it!” the innkeeper’s short and stout wife, Mrs. Hayes, snapped at Lilian.

Lilian rocked back onto her heels, shoving a damp strand of blonde hair into her bun, and bit back a sigh. It was only midday, and it had already been a long day. Two men had come to blows at the bar, leaving a trail of shattered glass and spilled whiskey, and old Mr. Jeremy had missed every shot he had taken at the corner spittoon, no matter how often she had attempted to discretely nudge it in his direction.

And now the Mulligans, whose messes Lilian did know, quite well.

“Quickly now! You know how I hate a mess!” Mrs. Hayes hissed as Lilian walked by.

The woman did hate a mess, it was true, nearly as much as she hated to be the one to clean the mess. Still, Lilian kept her mouth shut and her face calm. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, while not necessarily kind in the wake of her mother’s illness, had allowed her to come in and clean early or late rather than her usual hours so that she was able to slip away whenever her mother slept and earn their keep.

As she knelt beneath the table the Mulligans had vacated, sweeping up the spilt tobacco and cracked peanut shells, a whistle sounded behind her.

“Hayes, you do have the best help there is here in town,” one of the men at the table behind her leered.

She closed her eyes tightly, willing the words to wash over her.

It had been two weeks since she had answered that advertisement in the paper, and no word had come yet. She knew from the advertisement that the letter would come from Colorado, a state and a half away, and it would take time, but this town had never meant anything to her or to her mother, and she was eager to leave behind the Hayeses, the Mulligans, and old Mr. Jeremy. One of the consequences of moving often was she had never learned the knack of building relationships with new people, and in this little town on the far eastern edge of Idaho, that had held true. She saw the people around her connecting, but always felt like an outsider looking in.

***

“Good night, Mr. Hayes, Mrs. Hayes.” She ducked her head at the two across the bar from her, each the mirror image of the other with their dark, slicked-back hair and narrowed, suspicious eyes. They only grunted in return as she finally made her way out the door. Her arms were heavy from hours of scrubbing, and her head ached from the shouting and crassness that echoed in the small, run-down inn as the day turned to evening.

After slipping her ring from her pocket and back onto her finger, she crossed the wide dirt road for the post office to check for any letters. She kept the ring tucked away safely while she worked. It was far too nice to risk being scratched or lost in a mop bucket of dirty water. Her mother could have sold it at any point, and had certainly been offered payment by interested buyers over the years, but neither of them had ever considered it. It was their only connection to the life they had had before, something Elizabeth had always intended pass down to Lilian, although neither had thought that would happen anytime soon.

Even now, she still hadn’t grown accustomed to the weight of her mother’s ring on her finger, and found herself watching it catch the sunlight as she daydreamed about receiving a letter that would change her life.

She had only answered one advertisement in the paper, and it was the first time she had done anything of the sort, but she had always dreamed of a letter arriving for her one day that would call her home. It had been nearly a decade since she had had a real home, and a heart grew weary moving from place to place in search of nothing but a place to sleep, rather than something real and substantial, a place that meant something.

Her heart pounded when the clerk passed her a letter, the paper rough and road-stained. Her name was scrawled on the front in a blocky script that brought a child’s hand to mind, the town’s name misspelled, but here it was.

This was the letter that would change her life.

She carefully pulled the flap open and smoothed out the single page inside. The letter was short, and direct. He wanted her to come to his ranch, to be his wife.

Her hands began to tremble as she thought of never having to clean the floors of the inn again, nor hear the crass calls from the bar patrons as she did her work. She would never have to flee town in the middle of the night, the haunting feel of being followed by her father urging her to quicken her footsteps.

She bit her lip. The spelling mistakes continued within the letter, and the handwriting had that same childlike quality. He was a rancher and likely hadn’t had much time for schooling growing up, but she wondered about the hand of the man who had written the words she now held in her hands.

Across the street, a flash of red caught her eye, and she stiffened. Her father had deep, flaming red hair. On nights he had had too much drink, of which there had been many, he had often shouted accusations at her mother. “Where did the child get that hair color from, huh? What man were you bedding that passed that along? It’s plain to see she looks nothing like me!” Never mind that Lilian’s blonde curls were the spitting image of her mother’s. She had spent those nights caught between the urge to fight back and defend her mother and the desire to stay out of sight and as quiet as possible, so that his angry, red-rimmed eyes wouldn’t turn to her.

Even all these years later, she could still feel that anger and that fear, and it was what drove her to remain steps ahead of her father. She scanned the street around her now, her heart thumping. There, she reassured herself. She let loose a breath of relief. The red had been from a cart full of supplies, nothing more. There were no redheaded men bearing down on her, demanding what was theirs.

Still, she had stayed in this town too long. When her mother had gotten sick, it had been quickly obvious that traveling was out of the question, and they had stayed much longer than usual. It was time for her to leave this place.

Her eyes dropped back to the letter. San Luis, Colorado, the return address read. They had never been to Colorado. Typically, they moved just a town or two at a time. This would be much farther of a move than that.

A move that far would surely get her out of her father’s reach.

Her grip tightened on the pages as she scanned the words again. There was something endearing, if boyish, in the words this man had written. In all of the advertisements she had scanned, his was the first that hadn’t come across as gruff and expectant, demanding things from a woman he had yet to even lay eyes on.

But was it enough to make the leap? To jump and not know where she would land?

She scanned the street around her once more. Even now, the faces around her were strangers, though she knew many of their names. Her room held no personal touches, just the lingering memory of her mother’s warmth. The longer they stayed anywhere, the higher the risk that word of a woman and her daughter, both blue-eyed with curly blonde hair and mysterious pasts, might make it way back to her father.

Her grip tightened on the letter, and she came to a decision.

Chapter Two

San Luis, Colorado

March 20, 1874

Aaron McGill was fitting together two smooth pieces of wood for the new horse stall when the familiar sound of his girls fighting like cats caught his attention.

Grunting, he picked the nail out of his mouth and hammered it home in clean, sure strokes before turning to face the barn entrance.

Sure enough, the two came barreling in, one tripping after another, their voices raised like a couple of wild things.

“You have to tell Emily to give me back my dress!” Christina yelled, dropping one imperious hand onto her hip.

“Hello to you too,” he said evenly as seven-year-old Emily nudged her older sister aside. Her small body was swallowed up in her sister’s dress, but the look on her face was as determined as the one her mother used to wear. She had inherited her father’s thick blond hair but her mother’s bright, inquisitive blue eyes. For a moment, he could only see his late wife in front of him, on a mission to get her way no matter what her husband said, and his lips twitched with the once familiar feel of a frustrated smile.

“I won’t! I need a new dress, and you hardly ever wear this one anyways!” Emily snapped.

In the blink of an eye, the image faded away, and it was just him, alone with the two girls once more. His smile faded before it had even formed.

“She always does this!” Christina said. “She takes whatever she wants because she has no one to tell her otherwise.” She tossed back her mane of curls, her dark eyes flashing. “You never…”

“I never what?” he asked, more bite in his words than he had intended after the piercing pain her words caused. He knew he wasn’t doing all he should be for his girls; he knew they needed more than him. But what could he do?

Aaron pressed a rough hand to his forehead, struggling to keep his frustration in check. As always, the pulling sensation of everywhere he needed to be, all at the same time, was shearing and sharp.

The girls missed their mother, and everything was falling apart without her. Christina was old enough for some responsibility, but not all that he needed. He knew he was asking too much of her, but he was also working against a mountain of debt and a ranch that needed constant tending.

Aaron glanced out through the doorway at the fading daylight. It was getting late, and he had a ways to go still. Life on a ranch was never easy, but since losing Anna, it had become so much harder. He had fallen behind in his repairs, payments owed had added up, and he had had to take on a debt from his closest friend, a fact that hung heavy on his shoulders. “I don’t have time for this now,” he said, doing his level best to keep his voice calm. “You all go in and get yourselves some supper. We can talk about this later.”

Christina huffed as Emily threw up her little hands. “That’s all you ever say,” Emily said, scrunching her nose.

“She’s right,” Christina said. “You never have time for us. All you do is sit out here and glare at the land and hammer things.”

He supposed he should be glad to know there was something the two could agree on, but all he could feel was the looming stress of the work he still had ahead of him and the aching in his back that had been steadily increasing in recent weeks.

“I always say it because it’s the truth,” he said, his voice rising as he turned back to the pile of wood. “There’s too much to do around here, and the last thing I need is you two coming in and causing trouble. Christina, you’re nearly fourteen. It’s high time you start acting your age and lending a hand with your sister.”

Christina’s mouth opened to argue, her cheeks red with anger.

“Now, I don’t want to hear another word!” he yelled, the force of his words echoing around them. “Get into the house and fix your sister something to eat. And Emily, you’ll do as your sister tells you. Now go!”

Christina’s dark eyes filled with tears, and he felt a stab of guilt. As she turned and ran from the barn, her little sister hot on her heels, he desperately searched for the words to say to make it right. But he came up empty. He’d never been one for emotional declarations, and women’s tears had always baffled him.

Their mother had not been one for overt displays of sentiment. He saw her fire in the girls she had left, so unwillingly, behind, and thanked God for it.

It was a hard world, and they needed to be strong.

He stared after them until they disappeared into the house, knowing he should go in, lay aside his work for an hour, and talk to them. But maybe it was better this way. They could lean on each other, and he didn’t have an hour’s worth of daylight to lose.

Besides, there was enough work for three men ahead of him before he could lay his head down for the night. He still had to dig the drainage channel to keep the stall dry, and weeks of no rain had left the dirt as hard as rock. His back ached at the thought of the work ahead of him. He had turned thirty just two years ago, but his body felt like it had aged decades in the time since he had lost Anna. He heaved a sigh and grit his teeth, turning back to the pile of wood.

“God help me, Anna, I can’t raise these girls on my own,” he said aloud to his late wife, casting one glance heavenward. There was no time for weakness and no choice but to get back to work. So, that’s what he did.