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china over the river by train. Otherwise, Nate would tell him, he wouldn’t have dared come home, because all the dishes would doubtless have been broken coming across the river’s rough bottom in the fast-flowing current. That should convince the Colonel she and her father deserved some help.
    For Nate’s part, he was grateful for the Denver and Rio Grande engineer and conductor, who had been more than obliging. Once they’d learned the shipment was for the Colonel, they’d ordered their own men to give a hand. And once they’d learned it was imported china, the other men couldn’t have been more careful. Seemed every one of them understood a man wanting to do something nice for his mother. When all was said and done, Nate couldn’t have been more pleased, and it had only cost him ten dollars for the lot of them.
    Nor could he say he was disappointed when the hotel manager turned Mr. Anders away. After all, Nate had wanted more time with Susanna. Now he had it. The Colonel might have ideas about him marrying Maisie Eberly, but he could never feel the attraction for his longtime friend that he already felt after only two days with Susanna.
    * * *
    As they resumed their journey, Susanna noticed how pleased Nate seemed. In spite of the brisk wind whipping up all kinds of dust, he’d left off his kerchief and kept smiling her way. It was plain as the nose on his handsome face that he didn’t mind his Good Samaritan role, and she kept thanking the Lord for his kindness.
    She really shouldn’t be hanging out the back of the wagon, but she couldn’t help herself, even with all that dust threatening to choke her. Many weeks ago, she’d resigned herself to landscapes far different from the verdant fields and forests of Georgia. When they had viewed a large area of the San Luis Valley from the mountain pass, she had observed vast expanses of green and several broad lakes glistening in the sunlight. But the valley floor had some stretches of desertlike land, as well, and she wondered how anyone could expect to farm it successfully.
    Thank the Lord that Daddy had chosen to be a prospector instead of a homesteader. He was far too old to till unbroken sod, and even his prospecting was more of a hobby than an occupation, at least in her mind. After all, they had enough money to live on. If they hit hard times, Edward would send more. Once Daddy was back on his feet, she’d let him have his fun searching for silver and gold for a little while. Let him find a silver nugget or two, and then she would persuade him to take her back home to Marietta.
    Being in the company of a kind, compassionate, educated man like Nate reminded her of her yearning to find a good Southern gentleman to marry, someone with whom she could build a home and family in the hometown she loved so much, among the friends she’d known all her life. For now, however, she must set aside those longings and take care of Daddy. She whispered a prayer that the Lord would tell Mama she was keeping her promise.
    At last the dust won out, and she pulled her head back inside the schooner and closed the flap. Daddy was bearing up quite well, although he still had moments of incoherence and slept fitfully when he did manage to sleep. She prayed there would be a doctor near Nate’s ranch who could help him.
    By midafternoon, they had reached a small settlement of several houses, some buildings and a white clapboard church with a high steeple. Nate had said they would take time to stretch their legs and water the horses before going on, and now he hurried to help Susanna out of the wagon.
    “Shall we get a bite to eat?” He waved a hand toward another white clapboard building, this one with a sign over the door that read Williams’s Café. “Those sandwiches didn’t last me very long, and it’s a few hours until supper at the ranch.”
    A sudden nervous flutter in Susanna’s stomach extinguished her appetite. Supper at the ranch meant at last meeting that