The Rancher’s True Bride (Preview)

Chapter One

Leana paced around the drawing room, unable to find peace in sitting or standing. There was no calming her pounding heart. She was moments away from finding out Amelia’s fate.

Two months had passed since the Farlow family had last heard from their oldest daughter, and it wasn’t a goodbye that Leana liked to dwell on. Family wasn’t supposed to part ways in the middle of the night, or keep secrets about their future plans the way Amelia had done. As much as Leana loved her sister, part of her still resented her free-spirited sister for leaving like that. 

“Must you march around like that, Leana?” Mother asked gently. “It’s not going to make the detective come any faster.” 

Silently, Leana did as she was told, sitting down on the periwinkle chaise. She tapped anxious fingers on the periwinkle fabric. It was an expensive piece of furniture – imported French – that Father had purchased on a trip shortly after his retirement. Proof of their family’s stability, and yet another reason why Amelia’s sudden departure made no sense to Leana. 

Growing up, the she and her sister had been given everything they could have asked for. Hers and Amelia’s closets were lined with beautiful dresses, and all of the children had been been blessed with the best education that money could buy in Kansas City. The Lord had seen fit for them to live an incredibly comfortable life. After all that, just thinking about Amelia’s betrayal fanned the anger in Leana’s chest. How dare she throw all that away to head West? Into some unknown territory, where death was as common as the sniffles? 

“Will you draw the curtains, Martha?” Mother addressed the maid quietly. “The morning light is so bright in here.” Martha obliged, pulling the sheer curtain over the east-facing window. The lack of light could not hide the fact that Mother looked ill, pale with worry after having no news from her eldest daughter for two months. A bit of sun would likely have done her good, but she always claimed that bright light gave her a headache. 

On the other side of the drawing room, entrenched in the only shadow the room offered, sat Father, his thick brows furrowed. Mr. Peter Farlow was a retired whiskey magnate known for his tough business style. 

While others found him formidable, with his broad shoulders and the silver-tipped cane he always held, Leana knew that his appearance was far fiercer than his manner. His thick eyebrows were almost constantly furrowed, but Leana knew the softer side of him. 

“He’s late,” Father grumbled from his perch. Leana studied his face for a moment, new worry clenching her heart.There was a time that Peter Farlow had been capable of eliminating any competition by manipulating backroom deals and simply presenting the illusion of the best product possible, but that version of him had long ago been humbled. When Leana had been no more than five years old, Father had seen the light. Mother’s steady church attendance and careful dedication to their daughters’ spiritual lives had finally softened his heart. After deep reflection, he’d sold his share in the whiskey manufacturing business he’d started as a young man and dedicated himself to philanthropy. Kansas City’s orphanages had never received such generosity. From then on, the Farlow girls had been doubly blessed, learning what it was like to have both parents devoted to their faith. 

Leana attempted to encourage him. “Maybe he’s gotten some last-minute news about Amelia’s whereabouts, and it’s waylaid him,” she said, trying to remain optimistic about the whole affair. 

It had been three weeks since Father had hired the services of a private detective in the hopes of tracking down Amelia, but they’d heard nothing from the man since then. Father was already half-convinced he’d hired a charlatan, but she had more hope than that. Maybe, Amelia had simply been so distracted by her newfound happiness in Colorado that she hadn’t thought to write! It was unlikely, of course, but Leana didn’t like to linger in dread. “He’s here!” Martha announced as she darted back into the drawing room, temporarily forgetting her sense of professionalism. 

“Well, don’t leave him waiting out there!” Mother scolded. “Bring him in.” Martha nodded and disappeared again. She returned moments later with a grizzled man in a suit so dusty that a faint cloud followed him into the room. As rough as he looked, he gave Leana a favorable impression. He seemed like the kind of person she could trust to find out what had gone wrong with Amelia’s travels. 

“Hello there, sir, ma’am. Rhett McGraw at your service. Nice to make your acquaintance.” The man addressed Leana’s parents first, then turned to her with a courteous nod. Father remained seated, given the condition of his knees, but that didn’t stop Mr. McGraw from striding right over and shaking his hand firmly. 

Then he positioned himself at the front of the room, standing like a general about to give a speech about the next offensive. “I’m sure you want to know what’s happened to your daughter,” he said, “so I’ll take the liberty of getting right to the point.” “We’d appreciate that greatly,” Father grumbled. “I’m hoping you’ve come with some answers. We’ve been desperately worried.” 

Mr. McGraw nodded in a non-committal sort of way. His expression was also neutral, which lessened Leana’s confidence in his report. Perhaps there weren’t any answers to be had.

“I’ll first go over what I already know. Your eldest daughter, Amelia Farlow, disappeared early on the morning of April the thirteenth. Before that date, you informed me that you had been having arguments with her for weeks earlier, ever since you found out that she had agreed to marry a rancher in the Colorado Territory, a man she had never met. Yes?”

“That’s right,” Mother confirmed, casting a warning look at her husband to keep him from interrupting. It did not go unnoticed by Leana. Her parents had had many arguments over how best to support Amelia’s strange wanderlust, and while Father was not entirely opposed to an arranged marriage with a rancher, he insisted on meeting the man first. 

Mother, on the other hand, had put her foot down immediately, refusing to entertain any version of events that might end with Amelia moving so far away. In the end, Amelia left without warning, and although Father had barely spoken of it, Leana knew that he blamed Mother for their daughter’s sudden disappearance. Leana half-wondered if perhaps he’d had a point. Maybe, if Mother hadn’t been so strict about it, Amelia wouldn’t have left without telling anyone but Leana. 

Mr. McGraw went on. “What else do we know? We know that according to the letters she left behind, she was planning on meeting a rancher named Simeon Morgan, who has a large cattle ranch in Evercrest, Colorado. To get there, Amelia would have needed to take a train to Silverbrook, and from there…”

Leana’s mind wandered briefly as the private investigator recounted what they already knew. She wondered, as she had many times before, how terrified Amelia must have been when the train had first left the station in Kansas City. She’d always been adventurous, but this was something else entirely: leaving behind everything and everyone she’d ever known to go marry a stranger in the middle of nowhere. 

Leana returned abruptly to the present as Mr. McGraw said, “…And, you’ll be pleased to know that my associates have eyewitness accounts confirming as much.” He announced it with a sense of finality that seemed to indicate they ought to applaud his efforts. 

But a quick glance at Mother and Father showed Leana that they were both seething with impatience. Father’s nostrils started to flare, and that was a sure sign he’d get to the bottom of the conversation quickly. 

“And was she seen getting off the train in Silverbrook?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. 

Mr. McGraw shrugged noncommittally. “Couldn’t tell you. My contacts don’t stretch that far. But if I was to use my powers of intuition, I’d say that your daughter is well on her way to meet the man she wants to marry. I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon.”

Time seemed to slow as Father’s simmering anger came to a boil. He stood, pushing himself up with his cane as he slowly walked toward Mr. McGraw. His voice was steely and unforgiving. “If she had safely made it to the ranch, Mr. McGraw, then we would have already heard from her. We hired you to find out where she is now, not to give it your best guess. We can do plenty of guessing on our own. If you ever want to work in this town again, then you’ll hop right back on that horse of yours, ride down to Silverbrook, and find out what happened to our daughter!” If Mr. McGraw was put off by Father’s angry words, he didn’t let on. Leana got the feeling that he was accustomed to dealing with dissatisfied customers. 

“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. My business doesn’t stretch that far west, and I don’t have any connections in that area, so I can’t suggest any private investigators down that way. What I would suggest is that you head down there yourselves, and see what you can–”

“You want me to go to Silverbrook myself?” Father interrupted in his booming voice. “Can’t you see I walk with a cane? Or were you suggesting that my delicate wife go on her own, down there where there are more cows than people and you can’t go twenty feet without getting caught in a gunfight?” 

Unfazed, Mr. McGraw raised a finger. “Might I remind you, sir, that people used to talk about Kansas City that way. Look at the place now!”

“So, you think I should send my wife into the Wild West?” Father demanded.

Mr. McGraw was beginning to look faintly uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t–”

“Or are you proposing that I ought to send my only other daughter into peril, right after my first daughter went missing in the same area? Don’t answer that!” Father snapped quickly. “If you can’t suggest anyone we might be able to hire who will venture to the frontier to find my daughter, then you can leave my house at once.”

Mr. McGraw pursed his lips together. “I tell you truly, Mr. Farlow: I can’t think of anyone. Again, my best advice for you would be to go down there yourselves and locate a bounty hunter–”

“Get out of my house!” Father’s cold voice echoed through the open drawing room. 

“If that’s what you’d like, then I’m happy to oblige. Best of luck!” Mr. McGraw said, throwing a last nod over his shoulder as he shrank away from the onslaught of piercing glares. 

Martha tried to catch the door in time to keep it from slamming behind Mr. McGraw, but she didn’t quite make it. The slam practically rattled the glass out of the windows. It was enough to quiet Father, at least for the moment. 

But Leana barely noticed the noise. She was too preoccupied with Father’s words. 

Are you proposing that I ought to send my only other daughter into peril, right after my first daughter went missing in the same area?

Regardless of his disapproval, Leana was beginning to think that that was her only option. She didn’t relish the notion of such a dangerous adventure, but on the other hand, someone had to go looking for Amelia. Clearly, even paying top dollar to a private investigator couldn’t ensure that the job would be done properly. No one was going to worry about Amelia as much as her own family.

Father wasn’t in any condition to go looking for Amelia, and Mother would be shaking with fright before the train even left the station. They had no other family to rely on, which left Leana the only one capable of getting to the bottom of what had happened to her sister. 

“A grifter. That’s what that man is!” Father huffed. “I’ll make sure he never works again.”

“I suppose it’s good news to hear that she got on the train to Silverbrook,” Mother began weakly. 

Father grumbled. “It’s hardly helpful. We need to find out whether she got off the train and where she went from there! How am I going to find someone we trust enough to scour that treacherous land? For all I know, we’d be paying someone to take my money and disappear. Every minute we spend without action is another minute lost in helping her. For all we know—” 

He broke off, glancing at Mother, but Leana knew all too well that he was surely thinking of the worst possible outcomes. The worry in his eyes was unmistakable. Leana hated to see him so helpless

“I could go,” she blurted out, before she could think better of it. 

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Mother laughed, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Now is hardly the time for joking, Leana. This is serious! We need to figure out a proper plan for how to find your sister.” 

But the suggestion had already been said. And now that Leana had said it, she realized she didn’t want to give it up. She swallowed and gritted her teeth, preparing to dig her heels in. Disagreeing with her parents wasn’t something she normally did, but when it came to Amelia, a risk like this was worth taking. 

“I’m not joking,” she said firmly. “You can’t go, and Father can’t go, and we can’t trust someone to go in our stead… that only leaves me!”

Father shook his head. He walked back to his chair and sank into it heavily. “No, Leana. That’s out of the question. There must be another way. I’ll put an advertisement in the papers, perhaps. Then, someone in Colorado will see it, and surely–”

“That will take far too long!” Leana cried. Her parents looked up at her in surprise, and she bit her lip, considering her next move carefully. 

She wasn’t usually the type to disagree with Father so openly. That was more Amelia’s style; she’d been the reckless and intrepid one. Leana had never enjoyed conflict and took no pleasure winning an argument, least of all with Father. But now, missing her sister for so many weeks and fearing the worst for her, had set fire to something in her chest. 

She couldn’t sit by and watch her parents or anyone else waste time. Amelia’s life was very likely in danger, and it was useless to fight about whose fault that might have been or mourn how little there was that could be done about it. Someone needed to get on a train and find Amelia, and Leana was the one who could do it. 

“Listen to me, Leana,” Father warned. “You’ve seen what happened to Amelia when she tried to go west. It’s no place for a lady, and we both know it. I won’t lose two daughters to a territory fit only for calloused hands!”

Leana opened her mouth to argue, but the sight of tears forming in his eyes stopped her. Even since Amelia’s disappearance, she’d never seen him break down once. He’d been angry and brooding, but he’d seemed to stay clear of despair, at least in front of her. 

She couldn’t bear to break his heart again. 

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “It may take more time, but it’s important that the rest of us stay safe. It wouldn’t do if Amelia managed to come home, only to find that we had perished trying to find her.” Father’s vulnerability had immediately softened her. 

But her sister was still missing. And she would still have to follow the trail… with or without her parents’ blessing.

“There, there, my dear,” Mother soothed, going over to her husband to sit beside him and place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Leana isn’t going anywhere, are you?”

A wave of guilt struck Leana as she nodded, knowing full well that how hard it would be to betray them just as Amelia had. She made up her mind then and there to be even gentler with them than she usually was. At the very least, she didn’t want her last few days with them to be filled with bickering.

“Good,” Father said gruffly, wiping what was left of his tears from his eyes. “That’s my girl. I don’t like to blame Amelia for all of this… yet I can’t help but think that if she had only taken after you and your mother a little more, we wouldn’t be in this mess at all.” 

Leana bristled at his criticism, but she kept quiet. In all honesty, she’d wondered the same thing herself, but she would never dream of giving voice to them. She loved Amelia, even if she didn’t understand why Amelia did the things she did.

Why wasn’t she happy with the life that had been given to them? There were plenty of fine men right here in Kansas City who came from good families. Why would Amelia want any life other than the one she had? Sometimes, in harder moments, Leana had admitted to herself that Amelia’s desire for more had seemed a bit selfish and ungrateful. 

But never in a hundred years would Leana have wanted Amelia to learn any lesson the hard way – least of all by disappearing out West. If the situation was reversed, Amelia would have been on horseback before morning, riding out to save Leana even if the trains weren’t running. Going after her was the least that Leana could do, even though she hated that the idea of her parents enduring the disappearance of their only other child. 

Mother drew a faint hand across her forehead. “I thought I would be able to eat breakfast once this horrible meeting was over, but my stomach is still in knots. I think I need to lie down.” 

“I’ll help you upstairs,” Leana replied, hurrying to her side. “Martha, could you send up some tea? Thank you.”

Martha nodded quickly and scurried away as Leana helped Mother to her feet. She leaned on Leana all the way up the stairs before collapsing on her bed with a large sigh. 

Leana propped up a pillow behind her head. “There you go. Close your eyes and steady your breathing for a minute or two,” she suggested. “It’s all so devastating… what if we never see Amelia again?” Mother crumbled into tears, pulling Leana onto the bed and burying her head in her lap. Leana choked back a sob forming in her own throat. Her mother needed her to be strong. 

She stroked Mother’s soft, greying hair. “We’ll see her again. I promise we will,” she whispered, repeating the words until Mother’s cries slowly grew quiet. Her breathing became steady; she was falling asleep. Leana kept stroking her hair, only half-listening.

In the mirror that hung on the wall on the other side of the room, she could see the reflection of herself and her mother on the bed. She stared at the slope of her narrow shoulders and the loose blonde curl trailing down her back. She and Amelia had a similar look in their eyes, even if Leana’s were blue and her sister’s were green. 

There were more similarities than differences between them. Something strengthened within her, tightening in her core, and she sat up straighter. 

She’d always thought of herself as the meeker one between herself and her sister, but the glint in her eye that shone out at her from the mirror’s glass said otherwise. Maybe there was more of Amelia’s daring in her than she’d realized before. 

That was surprisingly reassuring. They were cut from the same cloth, and as long as she trusted that the Lord would lead the way, she wouldn’t let anything stand in her way. 

She would find the rancher that Amelia was meant to marry. And with any luck, she’d find Amelia there too, perhaps baking bread or milking a cow, or whatever a rancher’s wife did to run a ranch. 

But if she got there and Amelia was nowhere in sight, then she’d do whatever she could to get to the bottom of it. As long as she had enough money to help her get by out there, then she could trust the rest to God’s grace and find Amelia on the other side. 

Trust the rest to God’s grace… Just then, below the surface of her determined thoughts, a quieter voice lifted up in petty worries. How exactly was she supposed to find Amelia? Would she be able to get someone to help her, or would she be better off on her own? What would she do if she found herself faced with train robberies or outlaws keen on taking all her money? Would she ever have to fire a gun, or risk being mistreated by the barbaric cowboys she’d heard so many stories about?

Many of those same dangers could be found outside her very own front door in Kansas City, but thanks to her family’s position, she’d been protected from them thus far. Now, she was going out West with no one but herself and her own wits. She’d surely run headlong into danger sooner or later, and she wouldn’t have anyone or anything else to protect her. She’d have to talk herself into believing that she could handle it all. 

Mother stirred and lifted her head, looking wearier than ever. “What if something happens before we can help her?” she whispered fearfully.

Pushing the fears back down, Leana continued to pet her mother’s soft hair. “We’ll wake up to a letter from her tomorrow, I’m sure of it,” she fibbed. “She’ll tell us all about her adventures in the west, and then tell us that she’s having a terrible time and she’ll be coming home on the next train.” She glanced back at the mirror and a small shock went through her. Staring back at her was a face exactly like the one Amelia used to have right after she’d made up her mind about something. 

Leana blinked. Would Amelia look the same after she was found? Would she still have that same determined glow in her eyes?

A slight chill settled in Leana’s stomach. Would she be able to find her sister at all? 

But there was no point in feeding her fear. She’d already made up her mind. She took a moment to close her eyes and pray, trusting that the Lord would show her the way forward.

Chapter Two

“That should do it,” Simeon said breathlessly as he hoisted the post driver up, removing it. That was the last fence post they’d set for the day. 

“That’ll do until the next storm anyway,” Hiram replied, sitting down on a nearby boulder and reaching for his canteen. 

Simeon joined his old friend, arms still aching from a long day’s work. “Hopefully, there won’t be any more storms until winter at least. Things have been going pretty well on the ranch for a few years, so I ought to have expected something to go wrong. Peace only lasts so long,” he added. “You’re right about that,” Hiram agreed. “Speaking of which, as your foreman, I have to warn you about another potential storm.” 

Simeon sighed. “Is it Taylor? Has he been fighting with Jack again? We really don’t have time for this. The cattle drive is coming up faster than we know, and by the time–”

“No, no, it’s got nothing to do with Taylor and Jack. Trust me, I sorted that one out,” Hiram reassured him proudly. “They both have their own ideas about how things ought to be done, but all I have to do is give them orders to do it a third way, and then that gives them one thing to agree about.” 

“How much better their way is than yours?” Simeon guessed. 

“Exactly. I take the place of a common enemy, and suddenly they get along like a house on fire. No, I was talking about a more… feminine kind of storm headed your way.” Hiram raised his bushy red eyebrows. 

As much as Simeon didn’t like to be teased, it was hard not to laugh. “Ah, I see what you’re talking about,” he said carefully before taking a sip from his canteen. “So? When is the lucky lady arriving?”

Simeon coughed a little, clearing his throat. “My future wife, you mean? She should be arriving any day now. Honestly, I thought she would be here already, but it’s hard to predict. There could have been all sorts of delays while she was traveling.” 

He spoke as casually as he could, but deep down, his stomach was a toiling mess of nerves. Now that the work was finished, he couldn’t escape them. The truth was that Amelia Farlow should have arrived almost two weeks earlier, and he was getting increasingly nervous by the day. 

His greatest worry was that she had changed her mind. It had taken all his courage to write away for a wife in the first place. Was he going to have to start all over again because Miss Farlow had gotten cold feet?

Hiram seemed to sense his worry, and began cracking a lighthearted joke or two. “You must be nervous about what kind of woman is going to show up on your doorstep. What if she isn’t nearly as normal as she described herself? What if her nose is on the back of her head, or she can only speak in a singing voice that’s never in tune?” 

Simeon laughed. Hiram was the kind of man who had never really grown up, and Simeon liked that about him. That childlike playfulness reminded Simeon that not everything had to be so serious. Running a ranch on his own, built from the ground up, Simeon could sometimes forget about the importance of enjoying life. 

“I’m sure she’ll be beautiful,” he said at last. “But I’m more worried about what she’ll think of me. What if she doesn’t like living on a ranch?” 

Hiram guffawed. “Really? Half the women in town are still heartbroken that you didn’t want to marry them! I think if there’s one thing that everyone in town agrees about, it’s that you’re the best-looking man between here and Denver.” 

“All three of them? I think they’ll live,” Simeon shot back, earning a hearty chuckle from Hiram. “Most of the women here are already married, or they’re too young or too old to start a family with.” 

“So you want to start a family?” Hiram asked with a cocked eyebrow as if he’d caught Simeon in some kind of inadvertent confession. “I thought you were only getting married so you could gain access to your father’s inheritance.”

Simeon closed his eyes, steadying himself before addressing the accusation. There was some truth to it. Up until a few months ago, he’d been too busy tending to the ranch to think about finding a wife or starting a family. Anytime he thought about the future, he figured that it would sort itself out in time. And if the ranch survived long enough to be passed down to someone, he’d thought that he would just sell it to the highest bidder when he got too old to run the place. 

And then he’d received the letter. It was penned out in neat handwriting, on legal paper from a lawyer in Chicago, and it had changed everything. Simeon’s father, the same father who had abandoned him at birth, had passed away. That, in and of itself, was not a surprise. He’d been more surprised that the lawyer had been able to track him down. 

But the truly shocking part was twofold: not only had his father built up a fortune in his formative years, but he’d also left it all to Simeon, likely out of guilt. Simeon knew little about his father. He’d always assumed that the man must have died in a debtor’s prison somewhere, but it seemed that he’d managed to make something of himself in the shipping industry. 

Now, the entirety of his fortune was Simeon’s… under one condition. The lawyer had explained briefly that Simeon’s father had apparently felt very strongly that his son should receive the inheritance only after he was married. 

…As if that was the reason that Simeon was somehow worthy. After his twenty-six years of experience, he knew all too well that simply being married did not make a man good, but he could hardly argue with a dead father. 

Besides, there didn’t seem to be much other choice. With more money, he would be able to grow the ranch. If he had the freedom to hire more hands, then he wouldn’t have to drive the fence posts himself. He could buy up the plot of land next to his and purchase a bigger herd, growing his ranch into a cattle empire that would be worth passing along to the next generation, instead of simply making enough to keep himself alive. 

The possibilities that his inheritance would bring were simply too great to ignore. Simeon had forced himself to see past his father’s condescending stipulation of marriage and was determined to make the most of it. And so, he’d written to the newspaper with a posting and responded to the first woman who’d answered it: Amelia Farlow. 

Hiram cleared his throat. “Sorry, Simeon. I shouldn’t be prying…”

Simeon shook his head. “No, it’s alright. In the beginning… yes, I think I was only interested in finding a wife to get that inheritance. But now, the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to wonder if starting a family would be a smart idea after all. I’m sure it would be good for me to start thinking about someone besides myself,” he admitted. 

“It’s not as if you’ve never thought about starting a family before,” Hiram reminded him. 

Simeon glanced away. he didn’t need his memory jogged when it came to past hopes and dreams. 

At seventeen, he’d moved to Colorado from Boston years ago and convinced a rancher to give him a chance as a farmhand. That was when he met Sarah, the rancher’s daughter, just his age. He knew he’d never get a shot with the boss’ daughter, but that didn’t stop him from trying. And then she’d passed away. It was bad bout of cholera in the middle of a sweltering summer. Simeon thought he might never recover. 

“I still think it’s a good thing that you gave this mail-order business a chance,” Hiram continued. “I wasn’t sure it would ever happen, after Chelsea…”

Chelsea. The second heartbreak – and almost worse than the first. 

“I heard she got married a few years ago,” Simeon said quietly. “I only have fond memories of her.”

It was true. Chelsea hadn’t betrayed him. Her family had moved here from New England, but they weren’t ranchers. It wasn’t long before they decided to go back to New England. He’d heard recently from friends of her family who still lived here that she’d gotten married to a businessman back East.

Hiram shot him a wry grin. “If her family hadn’t decided to go back to New England, the two of you could have been happily married by now with a whole brood of babies.”

Simeon swallowed. “Exactly my point. I haven’t always been against the idea of starting a family, and I’m not against it now. But after Chelsea, I just needed some time. Courtship wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted to focus on the ranch. Myself. Things I could control, I suppose.”  

“I don’t blame you,” Hiram said sympathetically. “You had some rotten luck there. But it sounds like the hardest years are over for you. Once you get this money, you can afford to never work a day again, if that’s what you want. You could sell the ranch, take off with your new wife to New Orleans, or even Paris, and live in the lap of luxury!.” 

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere. This is my very own lap of luxury right here.” Simeon gestured to the rolling hills around them, topped with the precious house he’d built with his own two hands. No matter that it was small – it was home to him.

“I do have one real question for you,” Hiram said, eyeing Simeon curiously. “Why didn’t you wait to find someone you really love? Women have loved you before – strange as that is,” he joked. “That’s proof that they don’t find you despicable. Why write away for a stranger?” 

Simeon gave a laugh, but he didn’t really think the question was all that funny. The truth was that he’d learned the hard way that real love was the kind that hurt the most. 

“Because then it’s all cut and dry,” he answered at last. “A straightforward contract. No room for things to get confused. And then, once the trust has been built, maybe love will come. I’ve seen it happen before – and so have you, in fact. Your parents only got married because their parents told them to,” Simeon pointed out, throwing the point back to Hiram. 

Hiram shrugged. “That’s true. Still, seems risky to me. If this Amelia lady doesn’t show up, I think you should take a little vacation and see if you can win over a woman the old-fashioned way. I’ll tell you what: I’ll go with you, and we can find a wife for me too,” he announced as if he was doing Simeon a great favor. 

“All right, then,” Simeon snorted. “If Amelia doesn’t turn up sooner or later, we can go find ourselves some wives. I suppose the old-fashioned way still has its merits.” 

***

“Are you sure you don’t want to go eat with the rest of the men?” Simeon’s housekeeper, Mary, gave him a worried look as he sat down across from her at the kitchen table for supper. Even from where they sat behind closed doors, Simeon could hear the rumble of the raucous dining room down the hall, filled with ranch hands toasting to a hard day’s work and likely complaining about the state of their pay. 

“That’s all right,” he said. “I don’t want them to think the boss is always hanging over their shoulder. It’s better for morale this way.” 

It was certainly true that working men needed some breathing room to complain, but that wasn’t the primary reason he took supper in the kitchen. After enduring an entire afternoon of Hiram’s questions about his potential future wife, he was more than ready for silence. 

Mary shrugged. “Very well. Have it your way. I’m sure my company doesn’t compare, but I always prefer this to eating alone,” she added. She held out her hands to say grace, and Simeon took it as she prayed. “Dear Heavenly Father, please bless this, our daily bread. We thank you for all the bounty that you have given us, and we ask that you watch over the ranch and all those who work here. Amen.”

With that, they dug into the soupy pork and beans, eating in silence for a while. Simeon dipping a piece of particularly delicious crusty bread into the flavorful soup, enjoying the peace and quiet almost as much as the food. Though the cabin was a small one, there was something comforting about living in a place he had built with his own two hands. 

Just then, he heard a soft knock, and he looked up quickly, heart pounding. Had Miss Farlow finally arrived? Had she had a terrible time finding the place? What would she think about traveling so far and arriving to such a small home? From what he knew from her letters, she came from a fairly wealthy family in Kansas City that didn’t approve of her adventurous spirit. Would she regret her decision as soon as she heard that she’d have to share a bed with Mary?

“It’s just a woodpecker, my dear,” Mary assured him, tapping his hand with a small smile on her face. 

“Right. Of course,” he replied, feeling foolish. 

“She’s going to love it here when she arrives,” Mary promised. “It’s impossible not to fall in love with this place.” 

Simeon took a deep breath in to calm his nerves. Sometimes, it was as if Mary could read his mind. 

He’d been very upfront with Amelia from the beginning. He’d shared the gritty details of ranch life in his letters, but he’d also made it clear that his inheritance would follow soon after her, allowing them to enjoy a bit more luxury. Nothing about this life was going to be a surprise to her.

“Do you think it’s strange that she was meant to have arrived weeks ago, and she isn’t here yet?” he managed to ask. 

Mary gave him an encouraging smile. “I know you must be anxious to meet her, but these things can’t be rushed. You know how treacherous travel can be around these parts. Maybe a train robber slowed down her progress, or maybe a road or two was washed out. Give it some more time. I know she’ll come.”

Simeon put down his spoon, his stomach in too many knots to enjoy eating any more. “What if something happened to her, and I’m just sitting around here twiddling my thumbs pretending everything’s all right?” 

“Give her another two weeks, and then you can start to get worried. How does that sound?” Mary suggested. 

“Two weeks?” Simeon ran a distracted hand through his hair. “I was thinking two more days before I ought to go to the sheriff’s office about it.”

Mary shook her head. “What’s the sheriff going to do about a thing like this? He’ll only tell you to sit back and wait some more. It took my brother six months to get back to Maine last year. He did keep writing to me the whole time, so I knew how he was doing, but he’s made the journey before. Miss Farlow hasn’t. She won’t be as familiar with the post offices along the way.”

“But Kansas City is much closer to us than Maine!” Simeon argued, panic blooming in his chest. 

Mary tilted her head to the side, considering this. “True. …And I suppose my brother did end up in Dodge for two months. I told you about that, didn’t I? How he thought he’d fallen in love with a woman half his age? Goodness knows that took up more than enough of his time. Still, I don’t think you ought to get worried yet. Give the woman time. You’ll have the rest of your lives to spend together.”

When Simeon didn’t respond, she looked at him carefully. “Unless… it’s not meeting her that has you so worried. Are you more concerned about getting the inheritance?” she asked in a low voice. 

She would certainly scold him for his greed if he told her she was right. In a way, he wished it was only the money he was worried about, but there was more than that. He cared about what Amelia Farlow would think of him and the home he’d built. The knocking sound outside had somehow made the entire situation much more real. After being on his own for so long, would he be able to welcome someone else into his life?

For the sake of the future of the ranch, he was going to have to. 

He decided to evade Mary’s question. “Well, there’s one good thing that extra times gives us, and that’s the chance to make this place a bit more welcoming. I’ve been thinking about adding another room around the back.” He was blathering now, hoping she’d go along with it. “I was planning on waiting until the inheritance came in, but now I’m wondering if it would be a better idea to get started now so Amelia can see with her own eyes what we’re doing to make her feel at home.” 

Mary smiled sweetly again. Unfortunately, she seemed to guess his moods even before they came. “You’re going to be a rich man, Simeon. Not to mention a family man, God willing. Don’t you think you ought to build a house that suits that? Adding one room to this cabin isn’t going to help for long. Soon enough, you’ll have children running around the place. You ought to have a great big farmhouse, with two rooms for everyone in the house!”

Simeon grinned at the gleam in the old woman’s eye. She never asked for much or expected anything, but it was clear she had her own dreams. 

“Are you just saying that because you want to live in a big, rambling farmhouse?” he teased. 

“You’ve got me there,” she confessed, before her expression grew thoughtful. “There was a time, ages ago now, that I thought I would have a house like that of my own. My husband–”

“Your husband?” Simeon interrupted. “You mean… you were married?” He blinked at her in surprise.

She had been his housekeeper for at least five years, she was relatively tight-lipped about her past. This was the first time he’d heard anything about her past or her family. 

“Yes,” Mary said softly. “I was married once. My family was bound for the west. His mother didn’t want him to follow me, but we were in love. He came from farming stock in Eastern Europe, so he knew how to coax a good crop out of the ground. So he came with us anyway. We were going to start a wheat farm in Oklahoma.” 

There was a far-off look on her face. It pained Simeon to see the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. 

“Things didn’t go quite as planned, did they?” he asked softly.

Mary shook her head. “Highwaymen. They… attacked our party. They took everything from us, killed anyone who fought back. Once they had what they wanted, they left the rest of us for dead.”

Simeon grimaced. It was a story he’d heard too many times before from other families who’d traveled out here. Reaching the so-called promised land of the west was far easier said than done. Sometimes, people paid a heavy price for their dreams.

“Did you lose…?”

“Everyone,” Mary whispered, confirming Simeon’s fears. “I had no choice but to survive and make the best of it. I traveled from town to town, trying to make myself useful. I’ve seen much of this great land, and it’s as beautiful as it is punishing. Moving often made it easier to forget about the pain.”

“Does this mean you might pick up and leave at any moment?” Simeon was stunned. After five years, Mary had never once mentioned wanting to leave.

Mary looked around, her gaze shifting from the dried herbs hanging from the rafters, to the laundry drying in front of the hearth, to the small window that overlooked the rolling hills and valley below them. 

Finally, she shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you why, but… this place made me want to stay put. It’s home now.” A small smile twitched at her lips. “It might not be the big farmhouse filled with children and laughing voices that I once dreamed of, but I can safely say that this ranch is my favorite place in the whole world.” “Well, that’s a relief,” Simeon murmured. Her words filled him with a reassurance he hadn’t expected. “But don’t let go of your dream so quickly. As long as Amelia hasn’t changed her mind, I’ll have enough money to build ten farmhouses, if that’s what you’d like. And I promise I’ll do my best to fill the halls with the sounds of children’s laughter,” he added with a smile, already vowing to it in his heart. 

For a moment, he thought Mary was going to break down in a sob, but she didn’t, not quite. In all their time together, he’d only ever seen her glassy-eyed, never overtaken by wracking cries. The woman sitting in front of him now was a very different Mary from the hard-headed, practical woman he’d come to know.

In a way, it was comforting to see. He wasn’t the only one who’d been lonely. Maybe Amelia’s arrival would change things not only for him, but for everyone on the ranch, in a way that no money could ever buy.