FLINT CREED SAT at the kitchen table of their ranch house with his wife, Hannah, each of them holding one of their children in their lap, watching her read a telegram that had just been delivered. He hadn’t planted the seed for their two-year-old daughter, Lauren. She’d been sired by Hannah’s first husband, Mr. McMurtry. But Flint didn’t love his daughter one bit less than their son, Billy, who’d been born a few months ago.
Flint blessed the day he’d come across Hannah Wentworth McMurtry, whose yellow dress had caught his eye as he’d ridden hell-for-leather across the prairie. At the time, he’d been desperate to find a woman in the Wyoming Territory—any woman—he could marry, to take his mind off the fact that he was in love with the exquisitely beautiful lady who was engaged to marry his brother.
Neither he nor Hannah had married the other with quite honorable intentions. Hannah had needed a father for her unborn baby. He’d needed a wife to distract him from the woman he loved. Flint had never imagined he would come to care for both his wife and the child of another man so much that he would gladly give his life for them. Having a son with Hannah had merely been honey on the cornbread.
The beatific smile on Hannah’s face—which created dimples in both her cheeks—made his heart beat faster. He suspected the telegram contained news that she’d been waiting to hear for a very long time, but he asked, “What does it say?”
Billy had pulled the paper out of her hand and was chewing on the edge of it, when she replied in a breathless voice, “One of the Pinkertons has found Josie.”
Then she laughed, a sound that reminded him of the robins in spring. He felt his heart swell with hope that, at long last, the shadow that had clouded her blue eyes for the past two years would finally disappear.
His wife had never forgiven herself for not being able to rescue her two sisters, after their Conestoga wagon had been attacked by renegade Sioux. Hannah had watched her youngest sister being carted away over the back of an Indian pony without any way to save her. She’d left her wounded sister, Hetty, behind in the wagon to go for help and had wandered for days without water or food or enough clothes to protect her from the cold.
When Flint discovered her, she’d been on death’s doorstep and had no memory of exactly who she was or where she’d come from. By the time her memory returned, and they made it back to the wagon, her wounded sister had disappeared, and Josie’s trail was too cold to follow.
Fortunately, Hetty had been located by the Pinkertons in the Montana Territory nearly two years ago. But the guilt Hannah felt over Josie’s disappearance had kept her from ever being completely happy.
“It seems my little sister was in England all this time,” Hannah said with a rueful smile. “She’s on a ship bound for Charleston. Miranda wants us to come to Texas, so the whole family can be there when Josie arrives at Three Oaks. Can we go, Flint?”
“Texas is a long way off,” he replied. “You know I need to get some hayseed in the ground before it’s too late.” He was among the few cattle ranchers who planted hay to feed his cattle through the bitter Wyoming winter. It had proved to be a sound economic decision after a series of blizzards piled up ten-foot drifts and left other cattlemen with decimated herds that had starved in the snow.
“It isn’t just about seeing Josie,” Hannah cajoled. “I miss Miranda and Nick and Harry. My sister invited Hetty, too. If my twin comes, all the Wentworths will be reunited at last. I won’t be able to bear it if they all show up at Miranda and Jake’s home, and I’m not there.”
Flint wore a severe expression, even though he had no intention of denying his wife the chance to see her family all in one place again. It was sweet to know that whatever he decided, Hannah loved him enough to consider his wishes first and foremost. And because she always wanted what was best for him, he made it a point to do everything he could to ensure her happiness.
“Are we going on a trip?” Lauren asked.
Flint ruffled the nearly two-year-old’s auburn curls, a final gift from Mr. McMurtry, and said, “We’re going to Texas, sweetheart.”
The smile on his wife’s face was so dazzling, it made his heart leap. “Thank you, Flint. Oh, thank you!”
He leaned over to kiss her lips and saw Billy’s hand reach out to pat his mother’s cheek.
“Where’s Texas?” Lauren asked.
“It’s where your uncle Ransom and I came from.”
“Oh, my goodness, Flint!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just realized you’ll have a chance to see your brother Jake and your mother—”
“And my stepfather,” Flint said, his lips flattening.
“Is he really so bad?”
At that moment, the kitchen door burst open, letting in a swirl of icy wind, along with Flint’s younger brother, Ransom.
“Are you going?” Ransom demanded, clutching what was clearly a crumpled telegram in his hand.
Flint raised a surprised brow. “You don’t want to go?”
“Jake never said a word about us coming back to Texas before now,” Ransom said. “It’s got to be that wife of his who put this wild hair up his ass.”
“Watch your language,” Flint said.
Ransom grimaced, glanced from Flint’s scowl to Flint’s kids and wife and said, “Sorry, Hannah.”
“You should be sorry for maligning my sister,” Hannah retorted. “She only has your best interests at heart. Don’t you want to see your eldest brother again? Or your mother?”
Ransom’s face looked tortured. “Yes, but—”
“But you can’t stand to be anywhere near your stepfather.” Hannah looked from one brother to the other and said, “Are you two grown men going to let your hate for that sorry son of a bitch keep you from seeing your family again? That seems a bit shortsighted to me.”
Flint’s dark eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline at Hannah’s irreverent description of Alexander Blackthorne. He met his brother’s gaze and grinned. “She’s right, you know. We’ve let that sorry son of a bitch dictate to us for far too long. Hannah and I are going. Why don’t you and Emma come along?”
Flint knew the source of the indecision in Ransom’s eyes. Emma hadn’t been well since she’d miscarried their second child, another little girl.
“Emma could use a change of scenery, don’t you think?” Flint said.
“And Jesse would love having other children to play with,” Hannah added.
“I’m not sure Emma’s strong enough to make the trip,” Ransom hedged. His wife, who’d grown up pampered in the home of her military father, had never been as healthy, or as capable of managing the sorts of surprises the wilderness threw at a woman, as Hannah.
“Emma’s stronger than you think—or than she thinks, for that matter,” Hannah said. “She’ll go if you let her know it’s something you want to do. And you do want to see your family again, don’t you?”
Ransom heaved a huge sigh. “All right. Yes. I would like to see Mom again. And catch up with Jake. Just keep that sorry son of a bitch out of my sight.”
“It’s settled, then,” Jake said. “We’ll all pack up today and head for Cheyenne tomorrow to catch the train.”
“We’re going on a train?” Lauren said, eyes wide with wonder.
Flint met his wife’s eyes and said, “All the way to Texas.”