He shot her an incredulous look. “You know that’s not true. Your dad doesn’t approve of me.”

“How do you know that? You’ve only met him twice.”

“I could tell. And now I’m unemployed with a baby on the way.”

Bea looked out her window, not wanting to admit Jeremy might be right. Her dad had expressed concern about what their future was going to look like when she told him she was going to marry Jeremy. “You’re so young,” he’d said. “You’re moving too fast.” She’d scoffed at the time. What right did he have to an opinion about her future after emotionally abandoning her when she needed him the most? Yet now here they were, needing him to take them in.

No, she definitely wasn’t ready to tell him about the baby.

“There’s so much open space here.” Jeremy scanned their surroundings. “Where are all the buildings?”

Bea studied the fields and hills and farmhouses, trying to see them through her husband’s city-born eyes. “On the other side of the mountain.”

Moose Creek, population 756, didn’t boast many buildings of its own. The tallest structure for miles was the water tower, hovering over the town like a fat mother hen trying to tuck all her little chicks under her wings. Trying to keep them safe, keep them from wandering off into the big, bad world.

The small town had the essentials—a market, a gas station, a school—but Ponderosa, just over the Bridger Mountains, was close enough that most people drove there if they needed a Walmart or a hospital. Moose Creek couldn’t support such places. Didn’t want to either—until someone was having a heart attack and the clinic was already closed for the night, that is. Or the pass was socked in with snow or fog or both, and you had to decide how badly you needed that forty-eight pack of toilet paper from Costco.

Jeremy applied the brakes as they approached town, and the speed limit dropped to twenty-five. The car slowed, but Bea’s heart rate sped up. Moose Creek looked so . . . tired.

“It’s nice,” Jeremy said.

Bea gave him a tentative smile, aware of the descriptors he could’ve used. Like rustic. Or Podunk. “I love this time of year.”

September in Montana was her second favorite month, right behind June. In September, everything was still alive and vibrant, before the leaves fell seemingly overnight, leaving behind skeletal trees and dirty snow piled up on both sides of the road. Nothing could beat June in Moose Creek, when the grass was green, the foothills blue, and the mountaintops white, but September came pretty close.

Jeremy glanced from left to right as he drove, taking in the town. The cross tattoo on his forearm rippled as he gripped the wheel. “Where is everybody?”

“It’s Sunday,” she said. “Turn right after that cinder-block house.”