“I was expecting my future husband,” she said. No sense in beating round the bush, Evangeline thought.

He sighed, thrust a hand through his wild-man hair. Whoever he was, he needed tending to; his beard was growing in, his hair was shaggy and up close she could see that his shirt-collar wanted turning. No doubt he had holes in the heels and toes of his socks, too.

“You better tell her straight out,” Jacob said, taking Wainwright’s coat and moving away. There was in Jacob’s manner something of a man who has just flung a handful of gunpowder into a bonfire.

“I was hoping you would have done that already,” came the rueful answer. Scully didn’t look away from Evangeline as he spoke, but she could tell he wanted to, nonetheless.

Abigail had come forward now, to stand just behind Evangeline, clutching her mother’s skirts with small, strong hands.

Jacob took up a place beside June-bug, at the other end of the long room, with its exposed beams, spotless tables and plank floors. They conferred quietly as they worked at busy, invented tasks, and made a point of paying no attention to the drama unfolding just out of earshot.

Wainwright gave another sigh. “Big John isn’t here. Right now, it’s just me, the ranch, and a few cattle,” he said, all in one breath.

Evangeline considered what it would mean to journey back to Pennsylvania, persuade the scorned Mott to marry her after all, and felt her courage wane with such swiftness that she had to sit down on the bench beside the nearest table. Abigail clung to her even more fiercely now, all her attention fixed on the towering form of Scully Wainwright.

He must have looked like a giant to the little girl; even to Evangeline, he was Goliath. The obvious fact that he was the most reluctant of messengers made no difference. It appeared that she and Abigail had traveled a long, hard road for nothing.

“What,” Evangeline forced herself to begin, “do you mean, Mr. Keating isn’t here? He wrote to me, proposing matrimony. He sent a bank draft . . .”

Wainwright sat down at the end of the bench, straddling it, resting one elbow on the table. June-bug approached, set a steaming cup of coffee down beside him, and scurried away again. “Yes, ma’am, I know all that. But he had to head south on some business, and it took longer than expected. He won’t be back till spring, most likely, with the trails the way they are.”

Evangeline well knew the state of the trails. The stage that had brought her to Springwater station had barely made it through, after all, and though the driver had pressed on toward the next stop after taking a hot meal and helping Jacob hitch up a fresh team, there was no telling when another coach would come through. According to the McCaffreys, it could be weeks, if the weather didn’t turn.

She hiked her chin up a notch, refusing to let her emotions show, lest it seem like some sort of concession. Except for Abigail, and her dignity, she had nothing at all. “What, may I ask, are we supposed to do with ourselves in the meantime?”