“The saloon, I’ll bet—in order to celebrate. Which is where I should be heading, if you’ll pardon me, ma’am. I’ve gotta buy Sloan a drink. It’s not often a man spits in Quinn Lovell’s eye and gets away with it. Harvey, you goin’ with me?”

Luther tipped his hat to the ladies and rode off after the crowd of men.

“It’ll be a wonder if a single one of them manages to come home sober tonight,” Sarah complained good-naturedly as her own husband Harvey hastened after the marshal.

Most of the women stayed to finish the cleanup. Heather made the rounds to thank all of those who had been so instrumental in getting Sloan elected, and then saw the last ladies away.

Finally she collected Janna from Caitlin. Not knowing when they would see each other again, she took the opportunity to say a tearful good-bye.

“I’m going to miss you dreadfully,” Caitlin said, giving her a fierce hug. “But at least Denver’s not as far as St. Louis.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” Heather replied, trying not to sob.

She was still swallowing tears as Rusty drove her and a sleepy Janna home. She had just put Janna to bed for a long overdue nap when Evan arrived a day early. She had wired him this week, accepting his offer of escort to Denver, but hadn’t planned to leave just yet.

“I didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” Heather said as she showed him into the house.

“I concluded my business affairs sooner than expected, so I thought I would spend the night in town. Unfortunately I didn’t count on Greenbriar not boasting an hotel or the saloon being occupied by inebriated merrymakers. I booked a room at the saloon, but if we left today, I might avoid the inferior accommodations. Plus the maidservant I brought to accompany us would be spared sleeping at the livery stable.”

“Today?”

“Is there any reason to delay?”

Heather averted her gaze from Evan’s penetrating dark eyes. “I suppose not.”

“You can stay at the Windsor Hotel tonight and be fresh for your interview with Mrs. Sharp at one o’clock tomorrow. I think you will like her, my dear. She was an acquaintance of my mother’s before coming out West with her husband. She used to feed me gingerbread when I was a child.”

Heather smiled faintly. She found it hard to imagine Evan Randolf as a child. But she appreciated his trying to raise her spirits and divert her mind from the despair that threatened to overwhelm her. “I’ll need to finish packing. And I should wait till Sloan comes home to look after Janna—and so that I may say good-bye. He is my husband, after all.”

“Of course.”

“He won the election,” Heather said absently.