“Let’s give it three months. Come November, if you don’t like me or like living here, I’ll buy your passage out to wherever you wanna go.”

She tried to ease the tension that had built in her shoulders. It was a fair deal. She had the rest of August and the autumn to prove herself and make him like her. If she couldn’t do it by then, she’d figure out something else.

“Alright,” she said softly.

He straightened and moved from the table. “I’ll go get Astrid and carry her inside.”

She nodded but couldn’t make herself move from her spot after he went out to the wagon. Instead, she stared through the doorway to the bedroom, to the bed. She ought to feel relieved, even happy. Wyatt wasn’t pressuring her into intimacies yet. In fact, she should be grateful he was giving her time to get used to her new home and to him. Not many men would be so noble.

Why, then, did she feel afraid?

She shook away the fear and doubled her resolve. She would work hard and prove he hadn’t made a mistake in marrying her. She’d show him she was worthwhile. And she’d make sure she and Astrid weren’t a burden. That was the last thing she wanted to be to anyone ever again.

Chapter 8

Wyatt splashed cold river water against his face, trying to wake himself after a restless night. He let the icy drops course down before he sat back on his heels and dried his skin with the sleeve of his union suit.

The eastern sky above the Kenosha Mountains was tinted with the first pink of sunrise, more beautiful at dawn than any other time of day. It was the time when he could pray the best. The solitude, peace, and magnificence brought him in tune with his Maker so that for a few minutes, he could forget about his worries and the pressing work of the day ahead.

But not so this morning. From the second he’d pushed himself up from his bed of hay in the barn loft, he’d done nothing but chew on the conversation he’d had with Greta the previous evening after they’d arrived home. And he got all riled up when he thought about Judd’s reaction later.

“Steele ain’t gonna be happy,” Judd had remarked in his quiet but deep voice. “If he learns you’re beddin’ down in the barn instead of with your wife, he’ll be airin’ his lungs.”

“It ain’t his business.” Wyatt closed the barn door for the night, shutting the two of them in with the livestock, along with the new steers.

“When you made the confounded deal with him, you made it his business.”