Prologue

Crested Butte, CO

April 1897

Rough planks scoured his sunburned back, stinging it with splinters. He was sliding… no, he was flying, free-falling through pine-scented air. His skin scraped clear of the coarse wood as the wagon plummeted out from under him. His heart gave a great lunge of terror.

Leon woke, flailing, surrounded by screams. His mother’s, his father’s, his sister’s… Even the horses were screaming. His own scream was cut off abruptly as he crashed through the canvas wagon top into cold, cutting rain and slammed into a tree. His body bent like a ragdoll and he bounced off, slamming into the stony ground.

The wagon loomed over him, tipping toward him. He could neither move nor breathe as it fell. It crashed down on his outstretched leg and continued to slide down the mountainside, twisting and dragging him with it.

Pain such as he had never known ripped through him as the ligaments in his leg stretched and tore. Leon screamed through gritted teeth, the sound almost inhuman in his own ears. Blinded with rain, pain, and terror, he threw his hands out to both sides, feeling them scrape through mud and stone.

One hand closed around a sapling, sticky with sap. Or was it blood? His body yanked to a halt. The wagon continued on, releasing his leg with a final, cruel wrench. Another wordless scream of pain tore from his throat as he felt flesh and bone separate. Sobs heaved through his chest, and hot tears joined the cold rain in pouring down his face.

It’s a dream. Somehow, the thought pierced the pain and chaos and terror.

But it felt real. It all felt terribly, terribly real.

Leon’s fingers slipped on the sapling. Desperately, he rolled onto his stomach, grabbing with his other hand to keep himself from following the wagon. Behind him, he could still hear it crashing and tumbling on down the mountain to the boulders far below, carrying the bugling horses with it. Carrying his family…

“No!”

Leon twisted, still dangling from the sapling, still battered by the rain. Thunder rumbled, drowning out the echo of his family’s cries. He watched in helpless horror as the wagon toppled end over end, crashing through the evergreens.

It hit the bouldered valley floor and shattered. He closed his eyes, ducking his head against his chest. Fresh, painful sobs billowed through him, shaking his body like a bough in the wind. The rain sluiced into his face, and his fingers slipped once more on the sapling.

“Pa!” he screamed through his tears. “Ma! Ruby!”

His heartbeat became nothing more than a throb of pain and grief. He could feel the will to hold on draining from his body with each one. His grip gave way, and he fell after his family, through the dark…

Leon’s eyes flew open. He threw himself upright with a gasp.

The pain was real, clawing at his leg and heart like an angry badger. The tears streaming down his cheeks and the sound of his own ragged sobs were real.

It was all real.

But it was also a dream.

The walls of his room slowly came into focus, gray smudges in the early morning darkness. Outside, thunder rumbled distantly, barely louder than the rain pattering on the roof and plinking into the bucket under the leak in the corner.

Leon unclenched his hands from the bedclothes twisted around him. Leaning forward, he buried his face in his palms. The sobs continued to come. He still felt ten years old, still felt the horror of what had happened as if he was in the midst of it.

He rocked forward, groaning at the bone-deep pain that shot up his leg like a spear.

Then, he felt the tremor.

His bed was moving slightly, rumbling under him like a wagon bumping over a mountain path.

He lifted his head, still struggling to be sure what was real and what was imagined. The house shuddered around him. Dust from the ceiling beams brushed his cheeks and nose, settling on his eyelashes.

“Leon?”

The tremulous call was followed by a tap on Leon’s bedroom door.

“Leon, are you awake?”

Leon blinked away the dust.

“Yeah!” he choked out through the emotion that still clogged his throat. He threw away the blankets, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

“Yeah, just a minute.”

Grabbing the trousers he’d left on the floor when he’d gone to bed, Leon stepped into them. He grimaced, easing them over his knees and hips and buttoning them. Then he limped as quickly as he could to the bedroom door and tugged it open.

Ruby’s face was ashen in the light of the oil lamp she clutched. Her hand trembled as she lifted it and looked up at him, wide-eyed.

“Did you feel that?” she asked breathlessly. “The shaking? What was it, Leon?”

Her brown eyes glimmered with frightened tears. Leon reached up, dashing any remnants of the same from his own eyes before reaching for her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I think it was just—”

The plank floor trembled once again beneath their feet and the roof creaked above them. Ruby yelped and nearly dropped the lamp. Leon took it from her. His heart pounded as he put an arm around her and turned her toward the end of the hallway.

“I think it’s an earthquake,” he finished. “We should get out of the house.”

Ruby wrapped a thin arm around his waist, cowering into his side.

“An earthquake?” she whimpered. “Is the house going to fall? Leon?” Her voice quavered upward at the end, culminating in a little shriek as another tremor made both of them stumble.

Leon didn’t answer. He just clutched the lamp with whitening fingers and hurried both of them down the shuddering stairs as quickly as his stiff leg could handle.

The dogs were already at the door, whining and pacing. Piper was cocking her head from one side to the other as a low rumble sounded. Her ears were perked, and her expression was puzzled. Shell flattened her ears when she saw Leon and Ruby, wagging her tail anxiously. Crocket scratched at the door, growling low in his throat.

“All right, pups,” Leon mumbled, wading through them to open the latch. “Just get out of the way.”

He opened the front door. The dogs clustered about them as he and Ruby hurried across the front porch and into the wet grass of the front yard. Thankfully, the storm seemed to be at an end. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the horizon was faintly gray with the coming dawn.

Beneath Leon’s bare feet, the ground felt solid, as it always did.

A rooster crowed from the henhouse, and a sheep answered with a low baa from the barn. The world stood still and peaceful, as if it had never shaken. But Ruby was still trembling in Leon’s arms. And he still felt unsteady on his legs. Piper trotted across the yard, her nose to the ground, her tail waving slowly above her haunches. Crocket followed her while Shell stayed close to Leon’s side, watching.

The lamp sputtered in the slight rain.

“Is that it?” Ruby whispered. “Is it over?”

She tilted her face upward to look at him, her brows still scrunched with anxiety.

“I think so.” He tilted his head, indicating the cluster of oaks around the porch. “Listen, the birds have started singing again. They always stop during a quake.”

A robin trilled from the branches, joined halfway through his song by another. From the aspens along the pasture fence, a mourning dove cooed its own solemn tune.

Once he really started listening, the thick chorus of morning chirping and trilling and cooing was almost overwhelming.

“Damn, we have a lot of birds around here,” he muttered.

Ruby gave a faint, hiccupping laugh. She twisted out of his arm and turned to face him. Leon resisted the urge to pull her safely back to his side. He studied her familiar, half-annoyed face as she stared up at him. Her eyes, the same chocolate shade as his own, flashed up at him. She reached up to tuck a stray tendril of matching brown hair behind her ear, her eyebrows crinkling.

I came so close to losing her, he thought. The dream was still vivid in the back of his mind, like a disaster just out of sight around some corner. He could feel his heartbeat quickening again just at the memory of it, and a lump rose in his throat.

“How are you so calm?” Ruby demanded. “We just had an earthquake. You’re acting like that’s something that happens every day!”

“Not every day,” Leon agreed. “But we’ve had them before. Don’t you remember?”

Focusing on a slightly more recent memory helped him push the dream further back into the dusty corners of his mind. Where it belonged. He managed a crooked half-smile as Ruby scowled up at him, unconvinced.

“There was that one time at dinner… when we still lived with the Harringtons. You must have been at least eight. That quake shook the dishes in the cupboard,” he reminded her. “Mr. Harrington told us it was because this part of Colorado is over a fault line.”

He paused, trying to remember the details.

His sister continued to scowl up at him, looking unconvinced.

“It’s something about… titanic plates or something.”

Finally, Ruby shrugged.

“I don’t remember much from our childhood,” she said. “You know that.”

She reached up and tapped a finger to the scar that ran from her temple up into her hairline.

Leon suppressed a shudder. That kind of thing was exactly what he didn’t need to be reminded of this morning.

Realizing it was light enough now for him to make out her features without the sputtering lamp, he cupped a hand around the glass chimney and blew it out.

Ruby turned toward the house. She had her arms wrapped around her waist, hugging herself in a way that was familiar. It hurt Leon a little to see the gesture; Ruby had done it ever since she was little when she felt unsettled. Even if she didn’t remember.

“Is it okay to go back in now?” she asked. “You’re sure it’s over?”

She twisted back to give him a worried glance over her shoulder.

“Yeah. You should be fine,” he said gently.

“Good. Because it’s about time I got ready and headed to work anyway.”

As if determined to put her fright behind her, she hurried away from him, up the steps and into the house.

Leon watched her go. A cool breeze blew across his shoulders, reminding him that he hadn’t taken time to pull on a shirt before rushing outside. His bare feet were also growing cold against the rain-wet earth. But before he followed his sister in, he turned back toward the eastern horizon.

It was blushing pink. The rain had stopped completely now, and the breeze was sweeping the sky clear of the lingering traces of gray cloud cover. It was going to be a beautiful day.

The peaceful scene was completely at odds with the heavy feeling that still sat in his stomach.

Almost as if the dream was an omen.

The thought crossed his mind and firmly lodged before he had a chance to avoid it. Grudgingly, he let it complete itself.

We’re about due for something bad to happen.

He shook his head, hating the pessimism that had become a permanent part of his character since he was only ten years old. Mrs. Harrington had always assured him that eventually he would grow out of it, but fifteen years had only served to embed it deeper into his personality— and he knew why.

It was because he was always right.

Turning back to the house, he took the steps purposefully, as quickly as his leg would allow. He tapped on Ruby’s closed bedroom door as he passed it.

“I’ll drive you into town today,” he raised his voice to say. “Just give me a minute to get ready and hitch the horses.”

He heard the beginnings of a muffled protest through the thick wood, but he hurried on before Ruby could burst out and question him about it.

Better safe than sorry. That was all he could think right now.

Chapter One

Kansas City, Missouri

April 1897

It was good. The best she’d ever done.

At least, she thought it was.

Myra bit her lip, tilting her head to get a better look at the painting propped on the easel before her. Murky sunlight spilled through her bedroom window and lit the stern, gray eyes of the woman on the canvas.

The likeness was accurate enough that Myra felt her heart skitter a bit in trepidation. Although she’d done her best to capture her adoptive mother in her warmest expression, she still found herself quailing beneath the piercing gaze and running through the list in her mind to be sure she hadn’t forgotten any of her chores.

No, she’d done them all. She’d purposefully left wiping all of the floors ‘til last so she could leave the bucket in her room and touch up after her painting session.

Myra let a slight, nervous laugh huff from between her lips.

Stupid, she thought. That’s what I am. Just like Mother is always saying. I’m sitting here being afraid of a portrait I just finished painting.

Still, it took a moment for her to gather the courage to wipe her fingers on her smock and stand up to remove the canvas from the easel. She turned toward the bedroom door, her emotions a confusing mixture of anticipation and dread.

She hoped that her mother would love the portrait. That she would accept it as the token of respect it was intended to be. But there was always the possibility that Edith Barnes would resent something about it. Whatever it was, she would, of course, think Myra had done it on purpose. Which would lead to further unpleasantness.

Myra’s step faltered just outside the kitchen door as she mentally calculated the probability of things going either way. Was it worth risking her mother’s anger for a chance at a few moments of her attention and praise?

She had nearly made up her mind to turn around and carry the portrait straight back to her room when she heard a swift, heavy step behind her. She spun around. Her adoptive mother was directly behind her. Her thin lips were pursed, her eyebrows lifted above her gray eyes.

“Myra, dear, what have I told you about lurking outside of doorways?” she said sternly. “It makes you seem all kinds of shiftless. And we’ve taken such pains to raise you out of that.”

Myra felt her face flushing, something her fair skin did easily . She tucked the painting behind her back, feeling not only foolish now, but guilty.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said. “I was just coming to speak with you.”

“Well, I was just coming to speak with you,” Edith said. “Come into the kitchen and take a seat, please.”

Despite her adoptive mother’s even tone, Myra felt her stomach flip. Was she in trouble? Once again, she racked her brain for anything she had done or failed to do in recent days. Once again, she came up empty. She and her parents had been existing rather peacefully for quite a while now. Perhaps that should have made her wary of something coming up soon, but most of the time, Myra tended toward optimism.

She tried to feel optimistic now as she followed her mother into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. She kept the portrait on her lap, hidden under the edge of the table. Since her mother had expressed no interest in seeing it, she decided against showing it to her until she did.

“Myra, your father and I have been talking some things over ever since you celebrated your twenty-first birthday last month,” Edith began, folding her hands on the table.

Myra focused on her mother’s perfectly manicured nails to avoid spouting the thought that immediately sprang into her head. “Celebrated” was an interesting word for how she had spent the day of her twenty-first birthday. Edith had decided it was a perfect day for spring cleaning; Myra had spent most of it washing windows, scrubbing out corners, and beating rugs.

She shook the disgruntled thought from her head, doing her best to concentrate as her mother continued.

“We believe it is high time for you to be married, and we have chosen a suitable match.”

Edith said the words in the same calm, even tone she always used. For a moment, Myra thought she had misheard her. She blinked, listening uncomprehendingly as her mother continued.

“Mr. Walshman and your father have come to an agreement. You are to be married next month.”

Once again, the word “married”. It dawned on Myra that her mother meant every word she was saying. Heat flooded her body, followed by a strange chill.

“I am to be married?” she whispered. Her lips felt numb. They barely moved. “To whom?”

“Myra, darling, how many times have I told you to listen when I’m speaking to you?” Edith scolded. The lines of her face hardened as she frowned across the table at Myra. “Yes, you are to be married. To Mr. Walshman.”

She emphasized the words in an irritated cadence, but Myra was past feeling the fear she would have usually felt at her mother’s tone. Her shock was now liberally mingled with horror.

“But Mr. Walshman is… old!” she exclaimed. She realized her mistake too late as she watched Edith’s face blanch with anger.

“Myra,” the woman snapped. “Of all the rude, ungrateful, insensitive things to say! I can’t believe what I am hearing right now.”

She rose to her feet and pushed back her chair with a forceful movement that made Myra wince.

“Mr. Walshman is a respected member of our community, and he is very well-off. The fact that your father was able to arrange this marriage for you is an honor and a blessing. You should be in his study right now, hugging and kissing and thanking him for what he’s done.”

“Why should I be?”

Myra couldn’t seem to stop the words from flying off her tongue. All her childhood training, and all the punishments she’d received over the years for sassing her mother seemed to have been swept entirely out of her brain by the sick dread that the thought of marrying their elderly neighbor brought to her.

“I don’t want to be married!” she exclaimed. “And I especially don’t want to be married to… someone I don’t even care for.”

“Who you do or don’t care for has nothing to do with this,” Edith rapped out. “Why do you think we raised you so carefully, girl, with all of the accoutrements of the most coddled of children? Why do you think we saw to it that you received an exemplary education, drilled into you manners and obedience, paid for your piano lessons and painting lessons?”

The horror of it all kept getting worse. Myra felt she was in a nightmare as she rose to meet her mother. Edith swept around the table and stood in front of her, hands on her narrow hips.

“You sound like… you’re listing the traits of a carriage horse you want to sell,” Myra gasped finally. Her voice sounded thin and shrill with stress in her ears.

Slowly, raggedly, her thoughts and her mother’s words were falling into place.

“Is Mr. Walshman paying you to marry me?”