"Good evening," she answered. "Thank you."
He looked surprised. "For what?"
"For knowing the difference between a joke and unkindness."
He considered that. Then he nodded once. "Shouldn't be such a rare skill."
She laughed. He looked at her, and something in his hard expression softened. Neither knew it then, but the warmth of that brief exchange would remain with them through the bitterest winter of their lives.
She saw him again the next morning when he brought a packhorse loaded with grain to the boardinghouse stable. The widow explained that the rancher had been generous during the previous spring's flood, hauling stranded families across the swollen creek without asking payment. He disliked hearing the story repeated, so naturally she repeated it whenever he came to town. When the dressmaker appeared with a ledger to settle the widow's account, he glanced at the columns and raised an eyebrow.
"You keep books too?"
"I try to keep them from wandering away."
He smiled. "I could use that skill. Mine don't wander so much as hide."
"That's a common problem when their owner refuses to open them."
He laughed openly, and the widow turned from the doorway as if hearing a remarkable sound. Later she told the dressmaker she hadn't seen him laugh like that since the spring before his younger brother died. The words introduced the first shadow into what had seemed a simple friendship.
The rancher invited her to visit his place with the young bride and her family, who were going there to select flowers and arrange tables for the wedding feast. She could travel in the large supply wagon, he said, and return that evening with the others. He made the invitation carefully, leaving her room to decline. She accepted because the mountains had intrigued her since the moment she first saw them through the carriage window.
The ranch lay in a broad valley ringed by pine forests and granite ridges. Pastures followed the bends of a river, and a collection of stout buildings stood around a large wooden house with a stone foundation. There was nothing ornamental about the place at first glance. Fences were repaired with practical skill, work sheds contained tools arranged for use, and the cattle were healthy despite the dry summer. Yet the bride saw beauty in the broad porch, the orchard beyond the kitchen, and the way sunlight turned the snow on distant peaks almost silver.