Dorothy Sanders swirled her skirts as she turned onto Main Street, feeling hopeful. She was on her way to an interview for a real paying job. Ever since she had moved to Nowhere, Texas, she had only helped her adoptive parents, Edna Petunia and Cletus Sanders, around the house.

Though Dorothy had been born in New York, she had been in Nowhere for nearly five years, and now it was home. She had been raised in an orphanage, until she, along with fourteen other girls, had been sent away with their matron to live in Texas. Some of her “sisters” had taken a while to get adjusted to life in the country, but Dorothy had quickly fallen in love with the slower pace of Texas.

She passed by the mercantile owned by Lewis, her older sister Ruby’s husband. She saw Ruby inside tending to some wooden crates, and waved. Ruby smiled back, and Dorothy could see Robert and James, Ruby’s stepsons, chasing her toddler, Jasper, around the store. They were sweet boys, but rambunctious, and Dorothy knew her sister had her hands full. Her first set of twins, Crystal and Jade, were sitting quietly playing with their baby dolls. She wondered briefly where her sister’s younger twin daughters were. Hopefully they were napping in the back room.

Seeing Ruby and many of her other sisters get married made Dorothy wonder if she would ever find love. She treated everyone with kindness and respect, and that meant she had many friends across town. But there was no one that lit a fire within her. No one who made her feel the way she read about in books or saw in her sisters when they’d settled down. Dorothy wanted to show her family that even if she hadn’t found love like her sisters had, she was still able to lead an interesting life.

The house came into view, and Dorothy hoped Mr. Reeves wouldn’t be too boring. When she saw the advertisement he’d posted in the local newspaper, it had seemed too good to be true—a part-time secretary needed for the summer to assist a lawyer from Austin. He would be staying in Nowhere for a few months, gathering evidence for an upcoming court appearance. From the letter he had written when she’d applied for the position, he seemed very formal and stuffy. Dorothy guessed he was about Cletus’s age. Her adoptive father was in his early seventies, but still full of life. She hoped Mr. Reeves would be, too.

Dorothy knocked on the door and felt some nervousness in the pit of her stomach. There was no answer. The house seemed large and imposing, full of dark corners and in a state of disrepair. Dorothy worried for a moment that it was abandoned, but then she noticed a buggy parked near the house. She peered at it a bit closer. The carriage looked almost new.

Suddenly, the door flew open. “You must be the girl.”

“I’m looking for Mr. Reeves?” Dorothy took a step back as she stared into the eyes of a young, handsome man dressed in a fancy black suit. He was closer to her age than anything—far too young to be a lawyer.

“You can start with the correspondence,” the man said, barely glancing at her as he stepped aside, gesturing for her to come in. She followed him through the dimly-lit house, nearly tripping over the piles of boxes scattered across the floor.

When they got to a small, cramped study, the man pointed to a chair next to a wood desk.

“The first letter should be addressed to the Austin Court of Appeals, to the Honorable John Mason—”

“Excuse me?”

“Miss Sanders, as I wrote in my ad, I have a great deal of work to be done this summer. You’ll need to go at my pace if this is going to work out. Do you understand?”

Dorothy swallowed hard and steeled herself for what was next. She found a pen on the desk, dipped it in the inkwell, and placed a blank sheet of paper in front of her.

“Yes, sir.” Dorothy wrote as fast as she could as Carter dictated. She couldn’t believe that this strong young man was the stuffy Carter Reeves, Esquire.

Carter watched as Dorothy neatly dotted each ‘i’ and crossed each ‘t.’ He liked that she hadn’t complained once. It was a promising sign. When she’d responded to his ad, he had pictured a matronly older woman. Dorothy was not only youthful, but also had a fresh-faced, innocent look that made Carter feel like he’d known her his entire life.

“We’ll begin at eight o’clock sharp each morning. You’ll have an hour for lunch midday, but I’d prefer you eat here, because it will save time. Then we’ll work until four o’clock each afternoon. Is that understood?”

Dorothy’s hand was cramping badly, and words were swimming in front of her eyes from the dim light. She refused to let him get the best of her, though.

“Yes, sir.”

Two hours passed before Dorothy allowed herself to look at the clock. She was starting to get used to the bossy tone in which Carter was dictating his letters. For a lawyer, he sure wrote a lot of letters.

“I need to show you something, Miss Sanders.”

Dorothy stood up, stretching out her legs and arms. Her muscles were already groaning in pain. Carter marched out the front door, holding it open behind him as he waited for her to catch up.

Carter helped Dorothy into his buggy and unhitched his horses from the post. He flicked the lines, and they pulled onto the road toward town. Soon, they passed the church, where Dorothy spotted her brother-in-law, Micah Barton, entering the small building. Dorothy called out to Micah and he waved back in response.

“That’s Sarah Jane’s husband. She’s my sister.”

“I see.” Carter seemed distracted, and Dorothy was content to sit back and enjoy the sweltering summer day. She wondered where they were going, but decided to wait until Carter told her. He seemed like a man that did not like to waste his words. She would have to earn them, and that was just fine with her.

“Hi, Dorothy!” She heard a shout from the street and saw that it was Evelyn’s son, playing outside in front of the mercantile. Evelyn was standing in front of the mercantile, a shopping basket hanging over one arm.

“That’s my sister Evelyn and her son.” Dorothy wasn’t sure why she was explaining all of this to Carter, but she felt like he should start to get to know her if they were going to spend so many hours together at work.

Carter turned the buggy on one of the roads leading out of town, and they approached the direction of Bagley, one of the small towns in the surrounding area of Nowhere. Dorothy was surprised when the McClain Ranch, with its gorgeous house and row of five cozy cabins, came into sight. She made out a woman hanging laundry on a clothesline and excitedly waved to her.

“That’s my sister, Penny! She and her husband, Tom, live here with their sons. She’s got one on the way, too.”

Carter didn’t say anything for a minute, but Dorothy could see the sides of his face pull up in a smirk.

Penny waved back, and sure enough, a stream of boys running, laughing, and jostling each other tore out of the cabin and across the fields, nearly knocking down their mother and her laundry sack. Tom, the youngest son of seven sons, had grown up in the large house, and now his wife and their growing brood lived on the property as well.

“How many sisters do you have, exactly?”

“Fourteen in all.” Dorothy didn’t have to look at Carter to know that his face wore a shocked expression.

“That seems…unusual.”

“We all grew up in an orphanage in New York, but then the church decided that girls and boys shouldn’t be kept under the same roof. We all came on a bus to Nowhere, and now this is our home. I feel very lucky, because we were adopted by a wonderful couple, Edna Petunia and Cletus Sanders.”

“Ah…yes, Cletus Sanders. The name is familiar to me. I believe we sat for the same exams when we were getting our law degrees. I didn’t realize you were related.”

“Yes, he is wonderful. We are all very grateful to Cletus and Edna. And Edna always wanted a house full of bastards—”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, that’s her term for us. I suppose I should mind my manners.” Dorothy giggled, putting a hand to her mouth. She didn’t know what it was, but something about Carter made her want to tell him everything.

“That’s perfectly all right, Miss Sanders. I think you’ll learn that I’m a straight shooter. I say what I mean and I mean what I say.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“No.”

Dorothy felt sad to think of Carter growing up by himself, without the easy camaraderie she’d always shared with most of her sisters. Then again, Dorothy had never known any other way. For as long as she could remember, she had lived in the orphanage, and there had always been a steady stream of other children around.

Carter drove them further and further from the McClain ranch, and even past the town of Bagley. Finally, Dorothy had to ask.

“Where are we going, sir?”

“We’re going to an estate that’s at the center of a dispute. The previous owner passed away, which makes it seem as if the property should go to a distant cousin. Only problem is the man actually did have a son, Mr. Parrish, who’s my client.”

“Why didn’t Mr. Parrish’s father leave the property to him? Did they have a falling out?”

“Not really. My client was raised by his mother, and the farmer—Mr. Drake—was never aware he had a son. However, Texas law states that a nearer blood relative can claim property…so now the cousin and Mr. Parrish are involved in a dispute over the land.”

“How much land is it?” Dorothy asked as she stared at the land.

“It’s over three hundred acres.”

“Wow!” Dorothy couldn’t contain her shock. She was still getting used to measuring things in acres instead of miles, but three hundred was a large parcel of land.

“Yes. Mr. Parrish is very interested in resolving the dispute so he can begin farming on the land.”

“How will the court resolve it?”

“That’s a complicated question. My work here is to find the facts, the evidence. To see if Mr. Drake ever knew that his son existed. And to do that, we need to visit Mr. Drake’s home and review some of his files.”

Carter stopped the horses as they pulled up to a small, ramshackle home at the edge of the property. He helped Dorothy down from the buggy and tied the horses to a battered post that leaned toward the ground.

Dorothy wasn’t sure why it was called an estate. The house looked like it was barely standing up.

As soon as they entered the house, Dorothy saw their work was cut out for them. The floor of the entire house was covered in papers, books, pots and pans, silverware. A feral cat lazily made its way through the mess. It looked like someone had ransacked the place.

“Unbelievable.” Carter wore a look of disgust on his face. “This place is a pig sty. It’s no wonder—living all the way out here in the country.”

“I think it’s nice out here. My sister and her husband and the boys, they love all the wide-open space, and—”

“I don’t care for it at all!”

Dorothy was determined not to let anything rattle her on her first day of work. She found herself wanting to impress Carter and was surprised at how much she already cared about what he thought of her.

“I’ll start by picking up all the papers. I’ll put them in piles, arranged by date.”

Dorothy busied herself with the papers and set aside scraps of paper and bits of food that seemed like waste. It wasn’t the most thrilling job, but it was better than transcribing Carter’s correspondence. For the first time all day, her employer seemed speechless.

After an hour, Carter looked at his pocket watch and motioned for Dorothy to stop. She tidied up the areas she had been working on.

“That’s enough for today. We’ll go back to the house for lunch and this afternoon’s work.”

Dorothy nodded and followed Mr. Reeves back outside of the house to the buggy. After he unhitched the horses, he tried to wipe the excess dirt off his hands as he grumbled to himself.

“I’ll never understand how people live out here year-round. It’s filthy.”

Dorothy felt her face grow red. She had just been thinking about what a lovely day it was, and how glad she was that she would be getting fresh air on the way back. But she chose not to respond to Carter. After all, Nowhere did tend to grow on you. Not everyone adapted easily. But she found herself hoping, for some reason, that he would.