The wedding guests had been gone less than an hour when Ruth discovered that a marriage could feel lonelier than a room full of strangers.
She stood beside the bed in the upstairs bedroom of the Mercer ranch house, both hands wrapped around the handle of a small brown leather suitcase. Its corners were worn pale, its brass clasps dulled by years of travel, and one side bore a shallow dent from the journey west. It contained everything she had brought to Wyoming: three dresses, a Bible, a small velvet pouch of keepsakes, a hairbrush with a cracked handle, and the last letter her mother had written before dying.
It seemed a pitiful amount of luggage for a woman who had just married.
The ivory wedding gown she wore was another matter. Its embroidered lace bodice had taken a seamstress in Cheyenne nearly three months to complete. Tiny pearls followed the neckline and cuffs, and the long translucent sleeves were worked with flowers so delicate that Ruth had scarcely dared to touch them when she first saw the finished dress. Its layered satin skirt spread around her feet, and the train lay across the polished floorboards like a pool of moonlight.
She had imagined this gown in a dozen different ways.
She had imagined walking down the aisle of a church, her father beside her, her mother smiling from the front pew. She had imagined a groom who would take her hand and look at her as if the whole world had narrowed to the space between them. She had imagined a wedding breakfast, laughter, a kiss beneath a sprig of evergreen, and a quiet evening in which she and her husband might begin learning the shape of their shared life.
She had not imagined standing alone in an upstairs bedroom while her new husband prepared to leave.
Jonah Mercer stood near the open doorway, one hand resting against the wooden frame. He wore the white shirt and black vest he had put on for the ceremony, though his black hat was now pulled low over his brow. His dark trousers were tucked into heavy riding boots, and a faint trace of dust marked the leather. He was a tall man, broad through the shoulders, with the strong, weathered hands of someone who had spent most of his life working cattle, mending fences, and lifting burdens without asking for help.
He had been handsome at the altar. Ruth had noticed that even through her nerves.
But now, with the evening light fading behind him and his body angled toward the staircase, he looked less like a bridegroom than a man preparing to ride away from something he could not bear to face.
“I thought you said we would talk,” Ruth said.
Jonah’s hand tightened against the doorframe.
“We will.”
“When?”
He glanced back at her. His hazel-brown eyes were difficult to read beneath the shadow of his hat.
“Tomorrow, perhaps. After breakfast.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Ruth swallowed. “And tonight?”
The question seemed to settle between them, heavier than the suitcase in her hands.
Jonah looked down at the floor. For a moment, he appeared to be searching for a word that would not wound her. But whatever answer he found, he did not speak it.
“I have to check the horses,” he said at last.
“The horses.”
“And the north fence. The wind was up this afternoon.”
“The north fence can wait until morning.”
“Not if a section’s down.”
“Jonah, you have just married me.”
His face changed, almost imperceptibly. A flicker passed over his features, something like pain.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He lifted his gaze.
Ruth had not meant to sound angry. Anger was too simple for what she felt. Beneath it lay embarrassment, fear, and the terrible suspicion that she had misunderstood the entire arrangement. She had crossed half the country to become this man’s wife. She had accepted his proposal through letters, accepted the distance between their lives, accepted the knowledge that he was a widower and that his first wife had died only three years earlier.
She had accepted his quietness because she had mistaken it for steadiness.
She had accepted his reluctance to speak of love because he had written that he was not a man given to fine declarations, but that he would offer her a safe home, honest work, and a faithful husband’s devotion.
She had believed him.
Now he would not even cross the room to take her hand.
“I thought,” she began, then stopped.
Jonah’s expression softened. “Ruth—”
“I thought you wanted me here.”
“I do.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
He looked toward the darkening window. Beyond it, the Wyoming hills rose in long, blue shadows, and the barn stood against the evening sky. A horse moved in the corral, its silhouette passing slowly between the rails.
“I don’t want to make this harder for you,” he said.