Chapter 1

DECEMBER 1892

"M iss Harding, Paul copied from my slate!"

Merritt Harding stood beside a school desk with one finger pointing at a line from McGuffey's Eclectic Reader while little Clarissa Ewing struggled to sound out a difficult word.

The tiny town of Calvin, Wyoming, had seen growth over the past years, and her one-room school was bursting at the seams with students.

"Miss Harding, he's copying my mannerisms again!"

With a prayer for patience slipping silently from her lips, she patted Clarissa on the shoulder and left the girl to sound out the words on the page.

Ignoring whispers from the front of the classroom, Merritt turned toward the back of the room, where the older students were seated.

Thirteen-year-old Daniel Quinn had his arms crossed and was glaring at twelve-year-old Paul Gowen, who was indeed sitting in an identical pose, down to the pinch in his lips.

"Boys, what are we supposed to be working on?" she asked.

Both boys swung identical mulish looks at her. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"He's mocking me!" Daniel cried.

Indeed, Paul mouthed the very same words.

Daniel was new to her classroom this year, his parents having moved to town last summer. She'd taught Paul in this schoolroom since he was six years old.

The two boys were alike in nearly every way. She'd been stumped since the first week of school, unable to understand how they had ended up as rivals instead of friends.

The whispers from the front of the room had grown in volume. A glance in that direction revealed Clarissa with her head bent over her book, lips moving as she silently read. Her seatmate was distracted by whatever conversation was happening amongst the six students in the three desks in front of her.

Merritt tapped the desk in front of Paul. "Why don't you continue your arithmetic work from my desk? Take your slate and chalk with you."

For a moment, she thought he would argue, but he reluctantly stood up and tucked his slate beneath his arm to trudge to her wooden desk at the front of the classroom. There were thick books stacked on one corner of the desk and paintbrushes lined up along the opposite side, but the center surface was clear. He should be able to do his work there.

"Please keep working," she told Daniel before she walked to the front of the room. With every step, the whispers became more muted until she stood before the front two desks with her eyebrows raised.

"Would you like to share with the rest of the class?" she asked Harriet Ferguson. The eight-year-old was small for her age and hadn't joined the schoolroom until last school year.

Harriet flushed and ducked her head, folding her hands in her lap as if Merritt had meted out a grand punishment, not asked a simple question.

"We was wonderin' if it's time to start practicin' for the pageant yet." Harriet's seatmate, five-year-old Samuel Ferguson, was practically bouncing on the wooden bench.

The slate-gray winter sky outside the window was no help determining the hour. It had been threatening snow all day, but only an occasional flake had danced past the window today.

Merritt consulted the watch pinned at her shoulder. "We've another half hour of work at least." She made her voice loud enough for the entire class to hear.

She felt the collective sigh of impatience and heard one audible groan. Though her glance encompassed the entire room, she couldn't tell where it had come from.

The Christmas pageant was scheduled to take place in this very classroom on Monday evening, a mere seven days from now.

Christmas was three days after that.

Between the two events, it was no wonder her students were restless and distracted. After nearly ten years in her position as Calvin's schoolteacher, Merritt expected it. Just like the tradition of holding the pageant in the schoolhouse had been upheld since she'd sat in one of the desks as a student, it was also tradition that the closer the performance loomed, the more distracted her students would be.

She had her own reasons for being distracted. This day had stretched interminably long already. How much longer until dismissal?

She'd be happy if she could wrangle fifteen more minutes of work out of her students. Then they could all practice reciting lines. A glance at the nearly completed canvas backdrop leaning against the wall at the back of the classroom made her shoulders droop slightly. She'd meant to make more progress on that project over the weekend but had spent her time planning meals for the next few days, shopping for each one as the special occasion it was, and scrubbing and dusting her entire house from floor to ceiling.

The work will get done , she told herself.

But not tonight. Tonight she had an engagement.

"Miss Harding, what's this?"

Paul held up a folded piece of paper. One crossed with cramped handwriting in even lines. One that she recognized.

Paul must've opened the drawer in her desk and found the letter.

"That's personal?—"

"Are you getting married?"

Her words tumbled over his blurted question. It was too much to hope that no one else had heard.

She felt sixteen pairs of eyes swing in her direction as she hurried toward her desk.

"That's private," she snapped.

Paul's eyes widened as she came to stand beside where he sat in the hard-backed wooden chair.

She rarely used such a tone with the children.

But as she took the letter from his hand and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt, she felt blazing heat in her cheeks and realized she was breathing hard, as if she'd run up here instead of walked.

"You're gettin' married?" Harriet asked in the sudden empty silence.

"Course she ain't." Bobby Flannery piped up from across the room. "Miss Harding is a spinster and everyone knows it."

His seatmate must've elbowed his side, because Bobby yelped. "What? My ma even said so."

"That ain't nice," Clarissa said. "Miss Harding is pretty enough to get her a man if she wanted one."

"Children—"

Merritt's attempt at regaining control of the class went unheeded. Two students began arguing about her looks while Paul said, "I thought you couldn't be our teacher anymore if you get married."

Little Samuel looked at her with sad eyes and a now-trembling lower lip. "You don't want to be our teacher no more?"

"Of course I do," she told him.

But it was more complicated than that.

"She's old!" A voice burst out from the middle of the room.

And Merritt felt her temper spark.

"Enough!" She rapped the edge of her desk with her ruler, and the children went silent.

Twenty-five might be a spinster here in the West—most girls married before they were eighteen—but Merritt wasn't old .

She bit back the words to defend herself, knowing that debating a ten-year-old would not be an effective use of her time. Though it was tempting.

"I was not planning to tell you this yet"—her heart pounded as she made her voice loud and clear—"but I am…possibly…considering getting married."

"To who?" demanded a single voice from the back before Merritt's raised eyebrow quelled any more noise.

" If you complete today's work diligently and make it through our rehearsal, I will tell you a bit more."

It had been years since she'd lost control of her classroom like this. Even longer since she'd had to resort to bribery. But these were desperate times.

Her plea worked, and the last hour of the day flew past—probably because she dreaded what the children would ask.

The inquisition was as terrible as she'd imagined, but she was able to shorten it a bit as she rushed the children into their coats and out the door.

"I have known him for months." Technically true, though she'd never met her intended groom in person.

"He is a businessman." John had told her about investing in the railroad, though she hadn't understood it all from his letters. There would be time to discuss it at length soon enough.

"No, he isn't from around here." They hadn't discussed where they would live, other than agreeing that she needed to stay and finish the school term as her contract stipulated.

"Where did we meet? I answered an ad in a newspaper."

These last words were said as she ushered the children out the door with her own woolen cape on and arms wide lest they dawdle any longer.

As she crossed out of the doorway, she caught sight of a familiar figure standing on the boardwalk just outside.

Drew McGraw. Her cousin and his three younger brothers owned a ranch well outside of town. She hadn't seen him in weeks, and he had a couple of days' worth of scruff on his jaw.

Her stomach was already twisty with anticipation and nerves as she crossed the boardwalk to him, watching the last of her students scurry toward their homes.

"What's this I just overheard?" He stretched out his arms as she walked toward him.

"What are you doing in town?" She asked the question as she joined in the affectionate hug. Maybe he'd be distracted…

But he was just as inquisitive as one of her students. He squeezed her shoulders, then stepped back to look into her face. "You met someone?"

She bit her lip and nodded. Icy wind bit at her cheeks but didn't cool the blush there.

"How come you haven't told the family?"

She saw the hint of hurt in his eyes and felt a pang of remorse. "I wanted to make certain that it…that he…"

She couldn't say the words aloud. There was still a part of her that worried that John would step off the train, take one look at her, and change his mind about the whole thing. Finding a husband to marry, bearing children of her own…her long-held dreams were coming true. Finally.

Drew didn't seem to know what to say to that, and that was all right too.

"Did you bring the children with you?" she asked.

Drew's thirteen-year-old son David, ten-year-old daughter Josephine, and five-year-old daughter Tillie were as close as if they were Merritt's own nieces and nephew, and Merritt missed them dearly.

"Not this time. Gotta grab a load of supplies and head back. Wanted to check if you're still coming for Christmas."

In the excitement of John's arrival, she'd forgotten about her promise to come and stay with the McGraw cousins for Christmas next week.

She'd be a married woman by then.

And John already knew how much her cousins meant to her. "I'll be there."

We'll be there .

The train whistle blew, the sound carried on a stiff wind, still far in the distance.

Her gaze flicked toward the end of town where the station was located. Her heart pounded.

"I've got to go," she said. "I'm meeting…him."

This was the moment her life would change forever.

* * *

"We're supposed to get married on Sunday. That's less than a week away. I mean, isn't it a lark? When I get off the train, she'll be looking for my hat and coat." He patted a red flower—a poppy?—in his lapel pocket.

Jack Easton didn't turn his head from where he sat in the railroad car. He didn't have to. Between the quiet, mostly empty compartment, a reflection in the glass window beside him, and the acoustics in the arch of the train car, the young man's conversation with an older gentleman who wore a neatly trimmed gray beard, in the seat across from him, carried perfectly to Jack's ear.

"She's a schoolteacher, been in the classroom for years," the young man went on.

"How many years?" Gray Beard asked.

Both men were dressed in suits—not the best quality, but a sign they were doing all right financially.

"Nine, I think." The younger man wore a bowler hat that made him look a mite foolish.

Jack favored a cowboy hat, but he'd lost his in a barroom scuffle a few days ago and hadn't replaced it yet. He riffled one hand through his hair at the empty feeling on his head.

"Nine years in the classroom?" Gray Beard sounded skeptical. Jack couldn't see his face in the reflection, but he had a clear view of the prospective groom's face. "Don't you think she's a little…long in the tooth?"

It was a rude thing to say, and Jack took offense on the unknown bride's behalf.

"She's twenty-five." But the groom suddenly looked uncertain.

"Or that's what she wants you to think. She could be lying. She might be forty."

It seemed to Jack that a schoolteacher would probably be someone upstanding in the community. Why would she lie? Especially when a lie about her age would be instantly revealed when the two met.

"What's wrong with her, anyway? Why'd she need to get a husband from a mail-order ad?"

The groom obviously hadn't considered anything like this, and Jack watched in the reflection as the man tugged at his shirt collar and then swallowed hard. "I've jumped into this, haven't I? Maybe I should've thought about it longer than I did."

Jack lost track of the conversation as he watched the landscape change outside the window. The woods and trees they'd been passing through opened up to a plain where everything was dusted with snow. The Laramie Mountains were visible in the far distance, purple shadows against the gray sky.

"Next stop, Calvin, Wyoming!" The conductor's voice called out, and then the man himself passed through the train car.

Jack had been all over the West in the past few years. Montana, Nevada, Colorado. He'd never stopped in Calvin. Passed through once and judged it too small.

But that'd been…three years ago? Maybe things had changed.

"Perhaps I should go home." The groom's voice sounded clear as a bell, and Jack saw that he'd loosened his tie now. He took off his bowler hat and ran his hand through his hair, clearly agitated.

He'd be an easy mark across the poker table. His tells were as big as a brand on a cow's hindquarters.

"You don't want to meet her? What if she's a great beauty?" Gray Beard said. Was the man toying with the groom? He seemed to be playing devil's advocate now.

"It's almost Christmas," the young groom said.

Christmas.

Jack should find a game. Put aside a few dollars and hole up in a hotel room. Shops would be closed during the holiday. Restaurants too.

Jack didn't have a home to go back to. No one to celebrate with.

And he liked it that way. The nomadic life he lived suited him just fine.

He decided to stretch his legs. Standing up, he slipped his leather satchel over his head and shoulder. He had to hold on to the seat in front of him with one hand as the train swayed and rocked.

Jack strode through the nearly empty train car, then moved through the door at the end and into the next car over.

This one had a small water closet, its door slightly ajar, and was more crowded, with people in almost every seat. Many had packages around their feet or on their laps. Another sign of Christmas.

The conductor was calling out, and several people stood up in this train car, moving toward the door.

The brakes weren't screeching yet, but Jack could feel the slowing motion.

Looking down the car, he recognized the head of dark hair beneath a ten-gallon hat, the matching dark-brown mustache. The man was a head taller than most other travelers in the train car, and his lined face showed hard living.

Morris.

Jack turned to go back the way he'd come. He didn't have any desire to bump into Morris.

But two passengers blocked his way back into the other train car, and the only exit was to slip into the water closet.

Jack latched the door behind him.

He had a revolver at his hip, though he'd only had occasion to use it shooting cans off a branch or fence post. It was mostly for show, to keep other poker players from trying to rob him.

But Morris was a hired gun for the owner of a silver mine back in Colorado. Jack had judged him as unpredictable the last time he'd seen him.

The conductor called out again, his voice sounding just outside the water closet door. He must be returning through the compartment and re-entering the car Jack had left.

"I'm looking for a man named Jack Easton."

That was Morris's voice. He must've followed the conductor. Sounded like he was standing right outside the water closet.

"He's got some aliases," Morris went on.

Whatever the conductor said in response, it was muffled.

"He's got light hair. Wears a beard sometimes. Ugly as sin."

There was a tiny spotted looking glass high on one wall, and Jack glanced in it now. His nose had been broken once, a long time ago. It had the slightest bend in it. His eyes had crow's feet from being in the sun.

He wasn't ugly.

At least, not judging by the looks he got from the women who kept company in the saloons. He never took them up on the offers their eyes made.

Jack appeared a little disreputable, maybe, with the scruff on his chin—hadn't seen a barber in weeks. Not ugly.

"He stole five hundred bucks from a friend of mine. I'd like to get it back."

Jack watched in the looking glass as his reflection scowled.

He hadn't stolen a thing from Clark Henshaw. Jack had won at the poker table fair and square—without even a card up his sleeve.

He'd learned early on how cards made more sense than people. How to predict what was coming up next—ace or deuce or anything in between.

Reading people had come later, out of necessity. He'd learned to predict when a fist might come his way and that an empty bottle meant trouble.

He was good at reading people now. And he didn't drink much. Saw it as a weakness after what he'd been through as a child. Which meant that the longer the night went on at a poker table and the more drunk the men around him got, the sharper Jack's senses became.

He didn't have to cheat to win.

And the men he played could afford to lose. He didn't play otherwise.

"I'd like to get the money back to my friend," Morris said.

Good luck.

Jack had fifty cents in his pocket. He'd passed the winnings from Henshaw's table to a group of widows whose husbands had died in a mine accident. Henshaw had sent men into an unsafe shaft, and they'd been lost to a cave-in. The unscrupulous owner had made no reparations to the widows left behind—women who had children to feed but no source of income. Likely those women had paid overdue bank notes or settled up accounts at the local general store.

Jack had righted that wrong.

There was no money for Morris to collect.

And Jack didn't want to think about how the man might try to enforce the debt. He winced.

The train braked with a hiss and screech. The voices outside the water closet rose and fell as passengers disembarked.

Jack edged open the door to find the small vestibule empty.

He cautiously moved out of the water closet and tried to guess where Morris had gone. Would he get off the train at this stop?

Jack crept through the doors and back onto his original train car.

It was empty.

As he tried to guess whether Morris had gone through here, Jack rushed forward to see that both the young groom and Gray Beard were gone.

But the groom's coat and hat were abandoned on the seat. The coat was crumpled, flower hanging precariously.

The door opened at the end of the train car, and Jack's pulse pounded as if he'd drawn a pair of aces.

It wasn't Morris but a grandmotherly-looking woman. Short.

Over her head, Jack had a clear view of Morris's back, his head and shoulders, in the train car beyond.

And then Morris started to turn.

Jack ducked, instinct pushing him to don the abandoned coat. He quickly shoved his arms into the sleeves, hastily pulling the coat over his own. His satchel hung awkwardly between the coats, but he ignored it for now. He reached for the hat, mashing it low on his head. It wasn't much of a disguise, but maybe if he moved quickly, Jack would be all right.

He kept his back to where Morris had been and walked calmly away.

"All aboard!" the conductor called from the platform outside.

He couldn't stay on this train with Morris on board.

He stepped off the train and onto the platform. Another train would pass by. Maybe this afternoon or maybe tomorrow. He'd get on it and find a place to hole up for Christmas.

"John?" A feminine voice called out.

He turned on instinct and came face-to-face with a woman who was pretty as a picture.

Snow dusted her dark hair, pulled behind her head in a low bun. Her dark eyes were intelligent, and he saw a moment of hesitation pass through them before she took one step closer, her pert chin rising just slightly.

"It's me." She sounded the way he felt—breathless. Anticipation shimmered between them.

"I'm…I'm your bride."