At sixteen, Astrid had mostly overcome the consumption that had brought her and Greta to Colorado. She still struggled with shortness of breath occasionally, but she’d learned to manage her breathing, had in fact become quite proficient in all things having to do with health and medicine. She even talked of going east someday and getting nurses’ training.

Ivy released a sigh. She was never gonna be as smart or as pretty or as refined as Astrid. And she wasn’t sure why she was trying, except that she liked the attention fellas paid her when she walked around in her new clothing instead of the old, worn stuff.

Of course, Jericho hadn’t paid her much attention last night when she’d gone to the effort of changing back into what she’d worn to church. His eyes had widened with surprise when he’d first seen her. But then he’d mostly ignored her the rest of the evening. Just like he’d always done.

She obviously hadn’t impressed him none. She never had.

Picking up her shoes and stockings, she started to the door.

Astrid followed. “You really should put your shoes on before you go down. Real ladies don’t walk around barefoot.”

“I’ll put them on right before I get to town.” Ivy had always gone barefoot in the summer, and if she had to wear shoes, she preferred her boots over the satiny pointed things that had been in Linnea’s trunk.

Astrid just shook her head as they crossed the hallway toward Ellie and Ty’s room. They helped the two children dress and finish making their beds before leading them downstairs, the usual scent of bacon and eggs and coffee drawing them.

Wyatt was already at work, up before daybreak with the rest of the ranch hands. Greta, too, had been busy, preparing her butter and eggs for her Monday-morning trip to town. Today, Ivy was going with and intended to visit Mr. Steele and give him everything she’d already saved toward the land. Once he saw her hard-earned dollars and realized she was serious about purchasing the property, he’d hold it for her.

That was why she’d dressed up. So Mr. Steele would see her as a grown woman, someone respectable, a buyer he could take seriously.

She hadn’t taken extra care with her appearance for Jericho. Not in the least.

But all the while she ate her breakfast and helped Ellie and Ty and Ryder with theirs, she kept one eye on the door, waiting for Jericho to come walking through. Wyatt had told him he could take his meals with them in the house instead of with the cowhands, who had their own cook. The cook was decent enough. She’d sampled his vittles during cattle drives, the extended times when he followed along behind the drovers in his wagon.