Alberta, Canada, 1920

Twenty-year-old Grace Marshall waited as her husband helped the liveryman unload the wagon. It didn’t take long to pile the trunks, the bed frame, and the stove in the middle of the yard, and then the liveryman tipped his hat back and scratched his forehead and studied the house. “I ’spect it looks better inside than it does out.”

His dubious tone did nothing to relieve the sinking sensation in Grace’s insides at the enormity of what they faced.

Billy, never one to admit a difficulty, handed the man a fistful of coins. “We’ll have it right soon enough, you’ll see.”

“Don’t know.” The other man shook his head. “No one has lived here since the Martin family moved out. What was left of them. Poor folk. Flu pretty well wiped them out. ’Course they weren’t the only ones around here to be struck hard.” He wagged his head sadly. “We were hit hard by the flu. Over three thousand Albertans died of it. On top of Canada losing more than sixty thousand in the war. It was bad.”

“War,” Billy said in his matter of fact way, “is hard on everyone. I heard over eight million people died in the war and two, three, perhaps even four times as many in the Spanish flu that struck around the world.”

“Say, didn’t I hear you’re a veteran?”

Billy smiled. “I flew in the war.”

“Ya don’t say! Shoot down many of them Huns?”

“Thirteen planes and two zeppelin.” Billy’s chest expanded until Grace wondered how his buttons stood it. Not that she minded. She was proud as could be of her war hero.

The man shoved his hand toward Billy. “We need more young people like yourselves.” He pumped Billy’s arm. “If you folks be needing anything, you just give old Len at the livery barn a holler. I’ll be right glad to help you out.” He studied the pile of belongings. “Don’t look like much for starting a new life.”

Billy laughed. “We don’t need much.”

Grace studied the stack. It had seemed so much when Billy organized its delivery to the train. Now it looked pitifully inadequate. She resolutely turned to watch her husband as he spoke to Len. Billy never failed to see the possibility in a situation—a chance for adventure. Not for the first time, she wished she could so readily view the future. But she dismissed her anxieties. As long as she had Billy, she’d be just fine. “I’m sure we’ll manage,” she assured the wagon driver, fearing his face would crumple in with worry. “But thank you for your kind offer. We’ll keep it in mind. Won’t we, Billy?”

“Certainly. It’s most kind of you.” But already he had turned toward the house, his eyes running up and down its length, seeing, no doubt, the possibilities, whereas she viewed it with the same sensation she’d have if she swallowed a stone.

“Well, I’ll be on my way then.” Old Len clambered onto the wagon. “All the best to you folk.”

Billy barely let the wagon begin to rumble away before he took Grace’s hand. “Well, here we are. What do you think of it?”

Warmth raced across their joined hands, driving away the doubts. Grace laughed at her worries. “To be quite honest, I’m surprised the place is still standing. Are you sure it’s liveable?” She said it jokingly, although her heart quivered inside her chest. This dubious house was all the protection she could look forward to.

“The man who rented it to me said it would take some work. That’s why he gave it to us so cheap. But he assured me it was nothing major.” He grinned at Grace. “How bad can it be?”

She drank in the confidence in his dark eyes, letting it drive deep into her soul and soothe her. She gave a quick grin as she thought of how her sister would react if she knew Grace was moving into a rundown house, miles from the nearest city, in the wilds of western Alberta. “If only Irene could see me now.”

His grin tipped up on one side. “She’d be surprised at how adventuresome you’ve become.”

“I should say she would. So would Father. To think they didn’t think I could even manage to cross the ocean by myself.”

A frown flitted across his face. “It still rankles that they didn’t trust me to take proper care of you.”

“I’ve told you before not to take it personally. They’ve always coddled me. I think Father would have refused to let us marry if he’d known we weren’t staying in Toronto.”

“You won’t be needing any more coddling.” Without giving her a chance to reply, he pulled her toward the house. “Let’s have a look at what we have.”

She ignored a shiver of apprehension as they picked their way across the yard over scattered shingles, bits of wood, and a pile of ashes that seemed to have been flung from the doorstep. Billy lifted the padlock, and it fell away in his hand. “Guess I won’t need this.” He pocketed the key and flung open the door. “Behold your new home.”

Grace gasped. “It’s a ruin.” Two broken chairs leaned upside down against a stack of wood. A rusty pail gaped at her. A fluttering of feathers topped some rotted boards. Had some animal killed a bird and eaten it here? She swallowed hard and tried not to think about it. Her feet crunched across the debris, and she stared at round little pellets that she was certain were animal droppings. “It smells dreadful.”

Billy stepped around her. “We’ll fix it up in no time. You wait and see.”

“No time?” She planted her fists firmly on her hips and faced him. “I admit I don’t know a whole lot about running a house or fixing things. I admit I’ve led a rather sheltered life and been spoiled by my sister and father. I’ll even admit new challenges frighten me, but Billy, my dear husband, it is now five o’clock in the afternoon. We have no stove set up and no bed in which to sleep.” She snorted. “What kind of miracle do you have in mind that will have this mess fixed up in ‘no time’? You can’t even see the floor.”

He tipped back his head and grinned at her. “My, my, but aren’t you English all of a sudden?”

She glowered at him. “You know my accent is worse when I’m upset.”

“Am I to understand that you’re upset right now?”

“Upset would be putting it mildly.” She pursed her lips. “When you said we were heading west, I agreed.” The alternative was staying in Toronto with his family, and even though she loved her mother-in-law and enjoyed city life, she could not imagine surviving without Billy. “But I naturally assumed we would at least have a place to live.”

“No need to be snippy.”

“Snippy? I’m not the least bit snippy.” Her hot breath puffed through her gritted teeth.

He chortled. “Downright snippy I’d say. About ready to chew me limb from limb.” He glanced about the room. “I’m thinking I should arm myself.”

She laughed, her anger gone as quickly as it had come.

“That’s better. You scare me half to death when you get all snorty like that.”

She dismissed his remark with a flick of her finger. “Seriously, what are we going to do?”

“Let’s have a look around.” He picked his way around debris. “It can’t be all that bad.”

“Or it could be worse,” she muttered, following him to the next room.

A stuffed chair lay with its feet in the air. “Look, a dead chair.” She giggled nervously.

“It needs a proper burial.” He kicked it and a mouse ran out, scurrying toward Grace.

She grabbed her skirt, screamed in terror, and raced for the door. She didn’t stop running until she reached the top of their belongings in the middle of the yard. A sob caught in her throat as she pressed her hands to her face.

“My, my! I had no idea you could run so fast.” Billy stood with his arms akimbo. “That was quite a show.”

She glowered down at him. “It was not a show, you great clod.”

“It was only a mouse. It’s probably more frightened than you are.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

Billy held out a hand. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

She allowed him to assist her to the ground so she could face him squarely. “I am not going back in there. I hate mice.”

“So do you want me to live in the yard with you?” He shrugged. “Or is it alright if I set up indoors for myself?”

She felt the sparks flying from her eyes. “You. . .you. . . ,” she sputtered.

He grinned. “Can’t have it both ways.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “First, you go in there and chase out all the mice. Then. . .then maybe I’ll go back in. But if I see another mouse. . .” A shudder raced down her spine. “Dreadful wee creatures.”

Billy shook his head. “Never could figure out how such a little bitty furry animal could cause such a reaction. Why I had one for a pet when I was a boy. Kept him in a cage when Mother was about, but I really liked best to carry him in my pocket right here.” He touched his breast pocket. “Where I could feel his warm little body—”

“Stop.” Grace clamped her hands over her ears. “Or I’ll never go back in there.”

“Aw. I was only teasing.”

“It’s not a teasing matter.”

“You take life too seriously. A little fun makes everything easier.”

She turned away without answering. What he said was true for Billy—life was for fun and laughter. It was one of the qualities that made her love him so intensely, but there were times she wanted to be more serious, more in control.

“You wait here while I go shake the rafters. I’ll give you a holler when I’ve rattled things around enough to have chased away any of those dreadful little critters.” He laughed all the way back to the house and slammed the door so hard Grace wondered if it would still be hanging on its rusty hinges. He bellowed through the house, “Be gone you vile creatures. I can’t have you scaring my fine little wife. I want her to help me clean out this mess so we can have our supper in our fine little house.” He banged doors and kicked walls.

Grace grinned at his nonsense.

“And I want to get my bed set up right here in this room.” It sounded like he stomped on the floor. “And I want my fine little wife right here beside me in my bed warming me and pleasing me.”

Grace’s cheeks burned. She could never get used to his brash way of referring to their lovemaking. For her the pleasures of being man and wife were intensely private. For Billy it was something to shout to the earth. She shook her head. Was it possible two people could be more opposite than she and Billy? No wonder Father had asked her several times if she was certain she knew what she wanted.

“Grace.” Billy’s voice rattled through the empty house. “Grace Marshall. You can come in now.”

She tiptoed toward the house.

“You hoping they won’t hear you?” Billy grinned at her futile exercise.

She peered down her nose at him. “One can never be too cautious, you know.”

Billy hooted. “How very British of you.” He drew his mouth down into a severe frown. “Care for a cuppa, Dear?”

His brown eyes twinkled, such a marked contrast to his wretched frown that Grace couldn’t help laughing. “You can practice all you want, but you’ll never have the proper bearing.” She pulled herself very straight and tucked her chin in. “Would you be so kind?”

Billy chucked a lump of dirt at her. “You do that so well, my dear.”

“It’s all in the proper bearing.” She caught the lump and threw it back.

He ducked. “Here now. That’s no way for a proper English miss to act.” He imprisoned her in his arms. “What would your father say to such behavior?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m afraid there’s a lot about my present situation he wouldn’t approve of.”

“You don’t say?” Billy leaned back to stare into her face. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re meaning.”

“As if you don’t. Didn’t you assure him you were taking me to a fine house in the city where I would have servants and all the proper conveniences? Not to the back of beyond.”

“What I said was my parents live in Toronto in a fine house. I never said anything about my plans.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t.”

He grew serious for a moment. “Truth is, I didn’t have any plans. At first, it seemed there would never be anything but the war. And when it finally ended, I guess I thought I would go back and pick up my old life. It just wouldn’t work that’s all.”

“I know. You tried.” They’d spent almost a year in Toronto with Billy working alongside his father and brother, John. She’d have had to be blind not to see he wasn’t settling into civilian life. His announcement that he was heading to Alberta to return to flying shouldn’t have surprised her. But it did. She’d chosen to ignore the warning signs.

He dropped his arms, releasing her. She shivered. It felt so much safer with his arms around her.

“Now let’s get at this job.”

“I suppose you’re right.” But she hesitated as he trod up the steps and back into the house.

“Grace. You coming?”

“Of course.” Only by clamping down on her bottom lip could she still the panic rising at the thought of coming face-to-face with another mouse.

Already Billy was scooping up garbage. He faced her, his arms full. “I’m going to carry this out and burn it. Bring another armload, will you?”

She stepped aside to let him pass, grateful he didn’t look at her and guess her distaste. “One thing good about being pampered,” she muttered to no one in particular, “is never having to do this sort of mucking out.” Billy couldn’t hear her, nor did she want him to. He would only grouse about her being spoiled. So dusting her palms on her skirts, she grabbed a broken board with the tip of her thumb and forefinger.

“Great lot of good that’ll do.”

She shrieked at Billy’s voice so close behind her and dropped the board. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” His grin did nothing to convince her his surprise hadn’t been intentional.

“Here, you do this.” She nudged the board toward him with her foot.

“And what will you do?” He loaded up his arms without so much as checking under anything.

“How can you bear to do that?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “Do what?”

“What if there’s a mouse nest under there?”

He shrugged. “Grace, when you’ve had to share a trench with rats as big as dogs and wonder if they’d chew your nose off in the night—”

She held up her hands. “I’ve told you before. I don’t want to hear about it.”

He gave her a hard look. “Poor Grace. Don’t spoil her day with any hard truths.” He paused at the door. “Grace, some day you’re going to have to accept life isn’t all roses and tea.”

“That’s not fair. I’m not exactly blind you know. I’ve seen the realities of life.” But he didn’t hear her, or if he did, he chose to ignore her. “I’ve even experienced a few,” she muttered. After all, she’d left home and sailed across the ocean. And she’d left the comforts of city life to accompany him to the back of beyond. That was about as much hardship as she cared to deal with. She wasn’t one to go borrowing trouble.

Billy clomped back in the house. “Grace, aren’t you going to help at all?”

“Of course I am.” She gingerly picked up two boards and, ignoring Billy’s exasperated sigh, marched outside and threw them on the blazing fire.

Billy followed, dumped his load on the flames, and rubbed his soiled hands on his pants. “It was the barn that convinced me this was the right place, and I’m glad to see it’s going to be big enough to work in. I wonder what it’s like inside.” He took a step toward the structure, then pulled up. “Guess we better get the house looked after first.”

She followed him back inside, as reluctant as he, but for a different reason. The thought of a mouse hiding under each piece of garbage made her wish for the pampered life she’d known until now.

Hours later, Billy shovelled out the last pile of dirt.

Grace looked around the room. “I don’t see how we’re going to get sorted out enough for tea. Or even bed.”

Billy arched his back. “It’s a bigger job than I thought, but what else can we do but keep at it?”

“I’m tired. Couldn’t we go back to town? Perhaps buy a meal and a room for the night?”

Billy thought a moment. “We’d have to walk. You up to that?”

Grace groaned. “I’m about beat.”

“Then what?”

She wilted like a coat falling from a hook. “I don’t know. What exactly did you buy?”

“Canned goods.” He dug into the pile of goods and retrieved several cans. “We have beans.” He set the first can aside. “Beans.” He retrieved another. “Or beans.” He tried again. “Or we could have peaches.”

“Jolly good.”

He jabbed his knife into the top of a can and pried it open. “Help yourself. Or do you want me to find a fork?”

“I wouldn’t mind being able to wash up.”

“Time to try the pump.” He unhooked a pail from the top of the pile and marched toward the iron pump close to the house. After priming it with water they’d carried with them, he got a burst of rusty water that soon gave way to a clear stream.

Grace plunged her hands into the gush of water. “This is lovely,” she murmured, scooping her hands to her face and sucking in the cool water.

Billy washed up and drank heartily before the two of them settled down to enjoy a can of beans and share a can of peaches.

“Tomorrow we’ll get the house ready to move into,” Billy said.

“Where will we sleep tonight, Luv?”

“Tonight we will sleep under the stars.” He tilted his head back to study the sky. “Look at that sky.”

“Very nice. But where will we sleep?”

He sighed. “How about a mattress on the ground?”

“It seems wrong.”

“What would be wrong about it?” Billy sounded displeased.

“I was never allowed to sleep outside as a child. Father insisted it wasn’t proper. It was so drummed into me, I can’t help wondering if we’d be doing something. . .” She tried to find words to explain her reluctance. “Well, something improper.”

“Grace, my dear proper English gal, where do you suppose the settlers slept as they moved into this land? There were no fancy roadhouses, not even a friendly neighbor with a house to share. For that matter, where do you think all the soldiers slept when they took their turn at the trenches? Did you think there was an inn lurking just over the ridge for their convenience?”

Stung by his sarcasm, she mumbled, “No, of course not. But those were men—soldiers.”

“The settlers brought wives and daughters with them.” He held up a hand. “And before you entertain the notion they were lower-class folk, think again. Some high and mighty people came west.” His expression softened. “Besides, doesn’t it excite you to spend our first night together here sleeping in the yard? Take a look around you.”

She did as he said.

“Do you see any neighbors who would be shocked if they knew?”

“I guess not.” Now that she let herself think about it, the idea did carry a certain allure. She laughed. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

“That’s more like it.” He grabbed the mattress. “Help me with this, would you?”

They carried it to a grassy spot.

“Do you know where the blankets are?”

“I do.” She found the right trunk and pulled out an armload, spreading them on the mattress.

A little later, she lay beside him, staring into the sky.

“Do you realize,” Billy began, “this is the first time we’ve been on our own since we were married? First, we were with your family. Then there was the trip across the ocean.” He grunted. “You sleeping with the women, and me bunked in a hole with the rest of the men. It was dreadful.”

“So you’ve said.” She laughed. “About a million times.”

“What a way for newlyweds to get to know each other.”

“Then we moved in with your family. Not that I minded. Your mother was so nice.”

“Just like the mother you never had. I know. You’ve said it about a million times.”

Grace turned on her side to look at him. “It was hard to say good-bye to her.”

“I guessed that’s what all those tears meant.”

She punched his arm playfully. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

“I guess I should be grateful you chose to come with me rather than stay in Toronto with my family.”

“We’re married after all.”

He didn’t answer, and she wondered if he had the same sense of being married to a stranger as she. She lay back beside him. “It will be different.”

“Different? What? How?”

“Being on our own. Having to learn to do everything. I know nothing about running a house.” The two-week period after Billy announced they were moving had been consumed with getting ready, leaving her little time to learn all the things she didn’t know.

“I guess it will be a little different having to eat burnt food,” he teased.

She chuckled. “Who says it will be burnt? Maybe it will be half cooked.”

“I guess that would be different too.”

“Do you think you can put up with me learning at your expense?”

“I expect I’ll survive.”

“I hope so.” She longed for assurance, yet she feared if she told Billy how overwhelmed she felt he would laugh at her. Or say it didn’t seem like a big thing to him. As if that somehow should make her feel better.

His deep breathing beside her warned her he had gone to sleep. The fire still flared. In the dancing golden light, she studied her husband. His black hair gleamed; his fine nose threw a shadow across his face; his well-drawn mouth was soft in sleep. As handsome as ever.

She felt the deep stirrings she had whenever she allowed herself to examine her feelings for him. He made her feel so needy, so desperately needy. It was a sensation she didn’t know how to handle. It alarmed her. If only he would say again how much he loved her. If only she wasn’t afraid to ask, afraid he would laugh at her fears.