Steele’s front parlor was hotter than the scorching sun on a Kansas prairie. Wyatt tugged at his neckerchief and collar. Even with every window wide open in the sparsely furnished room, allowing in the cool night air, he was perspiring worse than a pack mule at midday.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Steele said again, as he had a dozen times since Wyatt had found him at Hotel Windsor reclining in a chair, smoking a cigar, and waiting for him.

The Methodist minister, Reverend Zieber, stood with Judd across the room and had been carrying on a mostly one-sided conversation since he’d arrived. Although Wyatt considered both of the older and wiser men to be friends, their personalities were about as different as a columbine and a cactus.

Reverend Zieber was ruggedly built, sturdy, and had only a smattering of gray in his hair. He’d moved to Colorado from Wisconsin the previous year and had been traveling from one mining camp to another preaching, tending the sick, and burying the dead. He always had news to share as well as plenty of godly advice. While he had a cabin in Buckskin Joe, he spent a heap of time in Fairplay now that Steele had built a church.

Judd, on the other hand, was short and wiry with hair as white as a fresh winter snowfall. Judd had come up from Texas to mine for gold and had saved Wyatt from getting killed in a gunfight over a claim the first week he’d been in the Rockies. Ever since then, they’d been friends. Judd had given up on finding gold about the same time as Wyatt and had taken his offer to stay and help him build the ranch. Judd rarely spoke unless he had something important to say, but Wyatt had come to rely upon his friend for just about everything.

When Wyatt had returned to town after the storm and told Judd about his decision to marry Miss Nilsson in exchange for Steele’s investment in a herd of Shorthorns, Judd had shaken his head. Wyatt hadn’t been able to interpret whether Judd thought his decision was good or bad, and he hadn’t had the time to ask.

And now it was too late. Sure as a gun, he was getting hitched to Miss Nilsson.

If only she’d hurry it up and get on down to the parlor.

He tugged his neckerchief again. He’d taken Steele up on the offer to borrow a clean, dry shirt. Even if his trousers were still damp and dirty, at least he was halfway decent for his wedding day.