Abigail was jubilant; not only did she have Scully for a father, she had friends in Emma Hargreaves and Kathleen Bellweather. She was only mildly disappointed that Emma’s name was not Elisabeth, as she had expected it to be. At least, she confided to Evangeline, it began with an “e.”

Someone brought out a fiddle, and there was dancing, Evangeline remembered that. She swirled around the room with Scully, with Jacob, with Big John, and then with Scully again, her own pulse throbbing in the air around her the whole while. There was even some kind of cake, thanks to June-bug, but Evangeline couldn’t force so much as a single bite past her lips. She was already full to overflowing—full of love and happiness and that singular thrumming excitement that came of belonging to Scully, and knowing that he belonged to her, forever.

Forever. What a beautiful word that was.

Before sunset, the wedding guests began gathering up their things, saddling their horses and hitching up their teams and wagons. For them, the party was over, for Scully and Evangeline, it was just about to begin.

They waved away the last of them from the porch—promises to visit soon were exchanged all around—and when Jacob and June-bug went back inside the station, Jacob carrying an already-nodding Abigail, Scully and Evangeline lingered out front.

“I love you,” he said. “I mean to show you that, Eve, tonight and for the rest of my life.” The cattle could be heard in the near distance, Big John’s drovers had driven them to the nearby spring, where there was plenty of rich grass.

She felt a sweet shiver go through her, felt emotion surge into her throat. “And I love you, Scully Wainwright.”

He tasted her lips in that slow, tantalizing way he had, while the sun blazed on the horizon, waging a fiery if futile battle against the coming night. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll head out to the ranch, just you and me. Abigail can spend a few days with the McCaffreys, if you don’t mind that. Big John and Tessa will bring her to us when they drive the herd our way.”

The thought of an interval alone with Scully was a delicious one, even though she would miss her daughter. They had, after all, never been apart in all of Abigail’s admittedly brief life. She put her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed the almost imperceptible cleft in his chin. Then she gave a nod, agreeing to his terms, and smiled up at him.

“You’ll have to get those bedrooms built on soon, if we’re to have any privacy at all.”

“Don’t you fret about that, Mrs. Wainwright. We’ll fix the place to suit. Now that I’ve agreed to buy Big John’s share of the land, though, there won’t be money for a house up in the high meadow. Not right away, anyhow. Will you mind that very much?”

“I’d live in a chicken coop, if it meant I could be with you,” Evangeline answered, and she meant it. They would all be in very close quarters for a while, but she and Scully would manage to find all the time alone they needed. She intended to see to that.