Big John laughed, and got an elbow from Tessa. Evangeline was sorry she wouldn’t have a chance to get to know the other woman better. Tessa was clearly intelligent and obviously interesting, if she owned a cattle ranch of her own. There were a thousand questions Evangeline would have liked to ask about that.

They talked quietly of ordinary things, the two women, while the men argued about who’d had the worst experience in a saloon. Big John won, hands down, having taken a knife in the belly, down in Juarez, and gotten himself stretched out on the pool table and sewed up right there.

“Fine talk for the breakfast table,” June-bug scolded, but her vividly blue eyes were smiling.

“John’s dreaded facing you,” Tessa confided in Evangeline. “He was headed back here to marry up with you, he really was. But when him and I met, well, things happened real fast.”

“It was all for the best,” Evangeline assured her. She supposed she was glowing, her happiness was so intense, but Tessa was a bride, too, and obviously understood. “I’ve known for a long time that Scully was the man for me.”

June-bug set a plate of scrambled eggs down at Evangeline’s elbow with a thump, effectively terminating the conversation between the two other women. “Don’t that beat all?” she muttered, consumed, once again, by the coming of sin to Springwater. “A saloon.”

Evangeline agreed that a school would have been a better investment and therefore thought of Rachel, languishing in Pennsylvania and yearning for adventure. She was bold, Rachel was, far more so than Evangeline herself; perhaps she would be interested in such a noble project. Judging by the number of families that had attended the wedding festivities the day before, there would be an ample supply of pupils from the first. She made up her mind to write her friend a letter, first chance she got, and present the idea.

Rachel loved a challenge above all things, and she’d sworn never to marry, so she’d certainly have the time and energy to devote to such a project.

“What are you thinking?” Scully asked, looking at her narrowly. There was a twinkle in his eyes. “You’ve got a look about you, Mrs. Wainwright, that gives a man pause.”

She smiled up at him. “Women are creatures of mystery,” she told him, somewhat coyly. “I am no exception.”

“I’ll say you’re not,” Scully agreed, and for a moment it was as though everything and everyone else around them faded into some secondary world, just out of reach. “Finish your breakfast, ma’am. We’re heading home as soon as the sun’s up.”

She felt a little rush of excitement at the thought of being alone with her husband, in that beloved ranch house. She nodded and made herself eat, though in truth she was almost too jittery to swallow. The trip would be long and rigorous, calling upon all her energies.

* * *

Abigail roused herself long enough to embrace her mother and express a hope that Big John would let her ride one of his cows all the way to the ranch, then tumbled back into the depths of sleep. Smiling, Evangeline kissed the child’s forehead, tucked the quilts in snugly around her, and crept out of the shadowy room.