The barber grinned.
“Romance is for men without mortgages.”
Three nights later, Ethan received a dinner invitation.
From Silas Whitmore.
The Whitmore house had changed little.
White columns.
Wide porch.
Brass lamps.
Inside, carpets from Boston covered polished floors, and portraits of stern Whitmore ancestors watched from dark walls.
Victoria met Ethan at the parlor door.
She wore blue.
Ethan remembered her at nineteen—laughing beneath a parasol while boys competed to carry her picnic basket.
At twenty-six she had become even more striking.
“You remember me?” she asked.
“I remember.”
Victoria smiled.
“That sounds dangerously unromantic.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Mrs. Whitmore appeared behind her.
“Ethan! Look at you.”
She kissed his cheek as though he had returned specifically for their family.
Silas shook his hand.
“Your father would be glad you’re home.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“Would he?”
Silas paused.
Then laughed too loudly.
“Of course.”
Dinner was roast beef, potatoes, fresh bread, preserves, and wine Silas claimed had come from France.
Victoria sat beside Ethan.
She asked about Wyoming.
His travels.
His plans.
Then, gradually, she began describing hers.
“I’ve always imagined living somewhere larger after I marry.”
Ethan glanced at her.
“A proper house,” Victoria continued. “A piano room, perhaps. Servants, naturally. A carriage with silver fittings would be beautiful.”
Ethan looked down at his coffee.
His ranch currently had a leaking roof.
Three thin horses.
A barn door held together by mismatched hinges.
And enough debt to bury a man alive.
Then he noticed someone carrying dishes through the doorway.
Rose.
He recognized her slowly.
Seven years earlier, Rose had been a skinny seventeen-year-old who followed ranch hands around asking questions.
Now she was twenty-four.
Brown hair escaped from pins at the back of her head. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows. A faint line of flour crossed one cheek.
She set down a platter.
“Hello, Ethan.”
“Rose.”
“You came back.”
“So people keep telling me.”
The corner of her mouth lifted.
Victoria interrupted.
“Rose, Mama asked you to check the kitchen.”
Rose’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“Of course.”
She left.
Ethan watched her go.
Victoria touched his sleeve.
“You were saying?”
“I wasn’t.”
Before she could answer, a terrible sound tore through the evening.
A horse screamed outside.
The coffee cup rattled against its saucer.
Rose appeared in the hallway.
Then she ran.
No coat.
No hesitation.
Ethan followed.
Behind the barn, a gray mare had crashed through a damaged fence. Wire had torn into her hind leg, and every time two ranch hands approached, the terrified animal kicked.
“Stay back!” someone shouted.
Rose stepped into the mud.
“Easy, Willow.”
The mare jerked.
“Easy.”
Rose moved closer.
Rain had begun falling.
Her dress dragged through mud.
Her hands trembled from cold.
Her voice did not.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know it hurts.”
Ethan stood several feet away.
Rose extended her hand.
The mare’s nostrils flared.
One second.
Two.
Ten.
Then the animal lowered its head.
Rose touched its neck.
“That’s right.”
The mare shuddered.
Rose waited until the fear passed through her.
Then she knelt beside the injured leg.
“Daniel, bring clean cloth. Ben, cut the loose wire. Slowly.”
The ranch hands obeyed her.
Ethan watched.
Not because she was beautiful.
Though, suddenly, he realized she was.
