In all the weeks she’d known him, he never complained about anything. And though he was the quiet sort, she hadn’t taken him for a man with a broken past. But maybe she’d been wrong. Now she waited, hoping he sensed that she cared enough to listen if he wanted to talk.

“Being here and having a family again—” he wiped his sleeve across his mustache—“it’s like having an ox by my side.”

Had he lost his family? She assumed he’d lived a wanderer’s life and moved around too much to settle down, but maybe he’d once had a wife and children.

“With Wyatt and now you and Astrid—” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat—“the load’s lighter.”

“Not with Astrid and me. We’re bound to make things harder, not easier.”

“Nope. From where I’m sitting, that little girl is the good Lord’s gift to every person she meets.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” He lifted his mug and took another swig, the swallow slow and pronounced.

Astrid did have a special way of bringing joy to people with her enthusiasm, optimism, and unconditional love. Perhaps that easy acceptance had been just what Judd needed to ease the burdens he was carrying from his past, whatever those might be.

“And from where I’m sitting,” Judd said, “God don’t consider us trouble any more than you consider that girl trouble.”

“Astrid can be quite the handful.”

“But I reckon you’d rather she come to you with her problems than run away.”

“Very true.”

“The good Lord wants us to do the same. He says: ‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’”

Was it true God wanted her to come to Him with her concerns rather than keeping them to herself or trying to solve the problems on her own?

For so long, every time she prayed, she’d felt like she was disturbing God. Maybe He was waiting—even wanting—her to come to Him and let Him bear the burdens with her.

At the sound of pounding hooves, Greta flung open the door and stepped into the doorway. She strained to see through the blackness until a rider’s form came into view.

Wyatt.

She searched around and behind him, desperate to see Astrid. But he was alone.

Chapter 23

At the first light of dawn, they headed toward the eastern foothills.

Wyatt pulled in a deep breath, his thoughts stuck on Astrid and where she might have gone. He hadn’t witnessed any evidence of her riding to Fairplay. No one in town had seen the little girl, and none of the men in the mining camp had come across her.