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leave without calling your attention to the importance of these.” He thrust the papers toward Daniel. “Mr. Beck, I must insist.”
    “You must insist, Hiram?” Daniel tempered his urge to laugh. “Very well.”
    He folded the documents in half and stuffed them into his pocket, then pressed past a buckboard filled with mining equipment to reach the front of the livery. The rush of activity inside let Daniel know his presence had been noted and his horse was being prepared.
    “Are you finished, Hiram?”
    While his assistant nodded, a boy hurried toward Daniel with boots and riding attire.
    “Excellent,” Daniel said. “Your work here is done. I suggest you return to the office.” He turned to enter the livery, then thought better of his abrupt dismissal. “Hiram,” he called, and the young man trotted back toward him. “Please understand I appreciate your efforts.” He patted his pocket. “And rest assured I will read these today.”
    An hour later, with a bracing wind cutting across his face and the city of Denver at his back, Daniel decided he might not read anything work related today. Maybe not even tomorrow, as he had a bedroll in his saddlebag.
    Then he thought of Charlotte. So like her late mother, and so unlike the Beck family whose heritage she shared.
Thank You, Lord, for that dual blessing.
    Just this morning, the imp had yanked on his coattails as he headed for the door and asked, “Are you leaving me again, Papa? Won’t you be home tonight to play charades?”
    Daniel halted the mare beside a gurgling stream. Charlotte was a Beck in one way: what she wanted, she generally got. He smiled. And what she stated with firmness that morning was that she required her papa to tuck her into bed tonight.
    “So be it.” Daniel glanced at the sun overhead, then jumped down to water the horse. A stiff breeze whipped past and caught the papers in his pocket, sending them flying. He retrieved the ones he could, then climbed into the saddle and chased down the last. When his fingers finally closed around the fleeing envelope, his eyes took in the distinctly British stamps.
    A letter from Beck Manor.
    His heart sank. How had they found him? Moreover, why?
    He turned the letter over and stared at the handwriting as if it might hold the key. Unless he missed his guess, his father’s hand and not Edwin’s wrote this.
    Not that it mattered. He hadn’t wanted either to find him, much less send a letter as if he were still a member of the Beck clan.
    Daniel shoved the letter back into his pocket, out of sight, and dug in his heels, urging the mare toward home.
    When he arrived, Charlotte met him at the barn with a laugh morelike his brother’s than her mother’s. He thought of the letter in his pocket, and for a second, his temper flared.
    “Ride me twice around the barn,” she called.
    Daniel reached down and scooped the girl into the saddle ahead of him. The great antidote to any anger was his daughter, he remembered, as they flew at high speed in a circle so familiar the poor horse could likely run the path in her sleep.
    After two laps, Charlotte was content to sail off the horse into his arms, then float to the ground in a swirl of arms, legs, and braids. Again she laughed, and this time it stabbed his heart even as it made him smile.
    As was their custom, Charlotte led him around the front of the house, and then, as if she were a lady coming to call, he opened the gate for her with a sweeping bow. Any passerby would think him daft for knocking at the door of his own home, but Charlotte loved to make a grand entrance.
    The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, revealing Elias Howe, who today wore the colors of his former Confederate regiment as well as a smart cap of dark wool that covered most of his gray curls. “Fancy meeting you here, miss. Top of the evening,” he said as if he hadn’t performed this routine for Charlotte almost daily since she came to live with them.
    Had it been five years