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nonsense,” Becky said. “You can’t just marry yourself to some stranger and take off for the wilderness!”
    “I can,” Emmeline told her stiffly, holding up the marriage license.“It’s quite legal.”
    “I’ll have it annulled!” Becky pleaded, on her feet now, groping around the edge of the desk to face her niece. “Emmeline, I know I was angry—I struck you and I said things—”
    Emmeline shook her head slowly. “None of that matters,” she said, somewhat dully. She had a strange, dreamlike feeling, as though she’d fallen into an unseen river and been borne away on the current. There was no going back.“I can’t stay here anymore. Not after—” She paused, swallowed hard.“I just can’t stay, that’s all.”
    Becky took a desperate, almost bruising hold on her shoulders. “Don’t be an idiot, Emmeline! The west is a cruel, uncivilized place, and you can’t know what that man is like. Suppose he mistreats you?”
    “He won’t,” Emmeline said. She didn’t feel as certain as she sounded, but she probably had Becky fooled. “If he does, I’ll leave him.”
    “And do what? How will you support yourself if this ‘husband’ of yours turns out to be something less than a prince?” Tears glimmered in Becky’s eyes.
    “I can teach school,” Emmeline replied. “Or maybe dance in a saloon.”
    Becky’s face tightened, filled with grief. “That wasn’t funny,” she said.
    “I didn’t mean it to be,” Emmeline answered. Then she kissed Becky’s cheek, albeit stiffly. “Goodbye,” she said. “And thank you for—for everything.”
    “Emmeline!” Bcky called after her.
    But Emmeline kept walking.
    “Don’t think you can ever come back here!” Becky cried.“You leave, and you’d better stay gone for good!”
    Tears sprang to Emmeline’s eyes, but she didn’t reply, didn’t look back.
    The carriage driver was already loading her trunks into the boot of his cab when she reached the porch, where she stood for a few moments, struggling to recover her composure, watching the shadows of a million leaves dance over the lawn and the stone walkway.
    “I’ll write,” Emmeline said, without turning around, because she knew if she faced her aunt now, she would surely lose her courage and stay. If that happened, she might as well join the business.
    Becky didn’t speak.
    Emmeline descended the porch steps, proceeded down the walk and through the gate. The driver handed her up into the cab, where she arranged her skirts on the cushioned leather seat and kept her eyes straight ahead.
     
    There was a raw spring wind blowing when Emmeline Harding McKettrick finally stepped down off the stagecoach in Indian Rock, Arizona Territory, clutching a satchel in one hand and all her brave, foolish dreams in the other. She pulled her cloak tightly around her shoulders ders and looked around for a welcoming face amid the rowdy-looking strangers, but it soon became apparent that no one had come to meet her.
    Battling the tears she’d been able to hold back throughout more than two weeks of grueling travel, she straightened her spine and glanced up at the crudely carved sign nailed above the door of the stage depot, thinking perhaps she’d alighted at the wrong stop.
    Unfortunately, she hadn’t.
    “Miss?” A young, fair-haired man came across the muddy road, his blue eyes alight with kindness and a sort of good-humored mischief that she sensed was as much a part of his makeup as the beat of his heart and the breath in his lungs. His build was lean, agile, and there was a quiet confidence about him that Emmeline found very reassuring.“Isn’t anybody meeting you?”
    All the weariness, all the fretting, all the jolting and jostling over countless rough miles very nearly caught up with her when he asked that simple question, despite a staunch effort at shoring up her spirits. She swayed a little, blinked rapidly. “My—my husband,” she said. “The agency was supposed to send a