Evangeline put those grim thoughts out of her mind and focused on enjoying the day, even though her feet were already starting to feel numb and she knew her thighs would be sore within a matter of hours. Maybe minutes.

They climbed single file through the timber, after passing the half-frozen springs, where a sizable pond had formed, their horses blowing and moving slowly, ascending a curving, narrow trail.

Up and up they went, until the trees gave way to a grand meadow, sketched at the edges with graceful birches that might have been dancers once, turned to ice by some sorceress in a fit of pique, right there amid the fragrant pines and winter-bare cottonwoods. In the spring and summer, Evangeline knew, the place would be awash with wildflowers and oceans of green, sweet-scented grass.

Scully surveyed the land with a kind of wistful pride. “Look behind you,” he said, and Evangeline carefully reined the mare around, to take in the most breathtaking vista she had ever seen. Before her was a panorama of trees, of rolling hills and streams, of other meadows, far-off as dreams. In the distance, rugged mountains towered against a pale blue sky, draped in cloaks of snow.

The sight brought tears to Evangeline’s eyes, and she was so overcome by the staggering beauty of it all that she couldn’t speak.

Scully drew up beside her and Abigail, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “It’s a grand thing to see, isn’t it?”

At long last, Evangeline found her voice, though it was but a raspy whisper. “Oh, yes. Yes.”

He sighed. “I took to it right away.”

She looked at him as the truth dawned on her at last. “This is your place,” she said.

He took his hat off, put it on again, an habitual gesture, and returned her gaze only when several long moments had passed. “It was,” he said. “I reckon it’ll belong to Big John soon enough.” He looked at her directly then. Like you, his eyes seemed to say.

But surely she had imagined that last part.

CHAPTER

9

IT WAS SOMETHING of a surprise, to say the least, when two days after their visit to Scully’s mountaintop homestead, Jacob McCaffrey came riding up. The time was just past noon, which meant he must have left home early, and he was dressed in the somber black of a preaching man, right down to the round-brimmed hat on his head. He rode one of the sturdy mules he’d loaned to Scully the day they left Spring-water station by sleigh.

Still mounted, he spared a suggestion of a smile when Evangeline rushed out to greet him. Scully was off somewhere hunting again, and Abigail was enjoying a respite from her morning lessons. Although Evangeline was delighted with Jacob’s visit, she had a feeling it was more mission than social call.

“Is Mrs. McCaffrey all right?” she asked, shading her eyes from the bright winter sun as she looked up at him. A tall man, mounted on that big mule, he seemed to tower against the sky.