With regret and sadness, Heather let her hazel eyes sweep the comfortable parlor one last time, remembering the laughter and sorrows of the past five years. A fierce ache tightened her throat as she recalled the tearful good-byes of this morning, when she’d said farewell to the last of her pupils, a dozen girls ranging from ages nine to sixteen.

“Pray don’t go, Miss Ashford, we don’t want you to leave!”

“Mamma has been perfectly horrid! She intends to enroll me in Mrs. Underwood’s Academy. Please, you can’t let her, Miss Ashford. I’ll die there!”

“Can you not take us with you to Colorado, Miss Ashford?”

Heather had faced their pleas and embraces stoically, refusing to cry—until the youngest presented her with an ivory lace shawl crocheted by all the students with their own labors. Despite an occasional uneven stitch and unsightly knot, the garment seemed beautiful to her.

She had lost her composure then, breaking down with a total uncustomary lack of grace and poise. Tears shimmered now in her eyes as she ran her fingers over the polished mahogany surface of the long-suffering pianoforte.

This chapter of her life had ended. She had been compelled to close her school, but she would not let herself see it as a failure. Merely, the time had come for her to move on. In truth, she would be grateful to have a strong shoulder to lean upon, to help ease the burden she had carried for so long.

And at least she would no longer have to put up with the carping of snobbish mamas, Heather thought defiantly, forcing a halfhearted smile.

Her smile faded as she remembered the telegram in her pocket. Tomorrow she would wed a stranger. Yet she was making the choice, she tried to remind herself. She was taking control of her fate.

Still, she had never felt so alone.

Caitlin’s congratulatory letter gave her some small measure of reassurance. Her friend had staunchly vouched for her future husband’s character, and told her something of Sloan McCord’s past.

A powerful cattle baron who had carved an empire from the majestic Colorado foothills, McCord was known as a maverick. He was cherishing a bitter sorrow—the murder of his beloved Cheyenne wife during a bloody land war.

His tragic story had touched her heart, even though she’d also been warned of his darker side.

Heather had her own reasons for wishing to marry. Her father’s recent death from heart failure had left her alone, with large gambling debts she felt honor-bound to settle. And her sole other choice of suitor was not a man with whom she cared to spend the rest of her life.

There remained only the task of convincing Evan of the soundness of her decision.