Yet there was clearly something about the woman he loved that he still didn't know.
He looked toward the front door.
Then back at Clara.
“Tell me the truth.”
Her eyes filled.
“Nathaniel, I didn't come to your ranch by accident.”
Another blow shook the door.
Outside, the horses stamped impatiently in the snow.
Nathaniel took one slow breath.
Then he reached for Clara's hand.
Whatever waited outside, he was not going to let her face it alone.
But four months earlier, when her first letter arrived at his ranch, Nathaniel Carter had wanted nothing more complicated than a woman who could make a home out of the wilderness.
And he had been certain that love was the one thing he could no longer afford.
The letter arrived on a dusty Thursday in late August.
Nathaniel was standing beside the water trough near his barn when a young postal rider named Peter approached from the eastern road.
The boy was nineteen, narrow-shouldered, and always seemed one rough winter away from deciding that delivering mail across the Arizona mountains was a terrible career.
He stopped his horse beside the fence.
“Morning, Mr. Carter!”
Nathaniel looked up.
“Morning.”
Peter reached into his leather satchel.
“Letter for you.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“From the bank?”
“No, sir.”
“Supply company?”
“No.”
The boy smiled.
“Missouri.”
Nathaniel stopped working.
For a moment, his expression changed.
Peter noticed.
He grinned.
“Looks like somebody finally answered that advertisement.”
Nathaniel held out his hand.
“Give me the letter, boy.”
Peter laughed.
Then passed it over.
The envelope was cream-colored, carefully addressed, and sealed with plain wax.
The handwriting was remarkably neat.
Mr. Nathaniel Carter, Carter Ranch, Red Hollow, Arizona Territory.
Nathaniel stared at it.
Three weeks earlier, he had done something that embarrassed him more than he cared to admit.
He had placed a matrimonial advertisement in a regional newspaper distributed through the railroad towns.
The advertisement had been brief.
Respectable ranch owner, forty-five, seeks practical wife willing to establish a home in northern Arizona Territory. Modest but secure accommodations. Honest character and willingness to share the responsibilities of ranch life essential. Correspondence welcomed. No romantic promises offered.
The final sentence had been his own addition.
His friend Mateo Herrera told him it made him sound like a man advertising for a mule.
Nathaniel told Mateo to mind his own business.