Hubert reeled back, tripping over a clump of ice. He would have spilled to the ground if Vernon hadn’t been there to catch him and keep him upright. Bebe’s punch was surprisingly strong, and as the shock of being belted started to wear off, his jaw ached. But not anywhere near as acutely as his heart.

He rubbed the side of his face, but before he could gather his wits enough to say anything, Bebe surged toward him, anger and hurt pinching her features.

“How dare you?” she railed at him. She raised her fist a second time, and on instinct, Hubert stepped back. “How dare you?” Bebe’s voice pitched higher.

“I—”

The crowd of Hubert’s family, and some who were coming and going with the train, moved closer to get a good look at the show.

“You can’t just waltz in out of the blue like this,” Bebe continued to shout. Her beautiful face was flushing darker by the second, and her blue eyes were stormy with emotion.

“I…I did let people know I was coming,” Hubert halfheartedly defended himself. He’d let his family know he was coming, but after so many years of not receiving a word from Bebe, he’d hesitated to tell her directly. He’d assumed people in Haskell would talk and news would get back to her sooner rather than later. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

Bebe kept on him, marching closer, rage rippling off her. “You have no right to show up here after everything you’ve done and everything that’s happened.”

Alarm rang through Hubert. “What have I done?”

It was the wrong question to ask. Bebe’s eyes blazed with fury. “You left me,” she shouted. “You abandoned me to my father’s devices without so much as asking me what I wanted.”

“We…we talked about this,” Hubert fumbled, feeling like a fool treading on dangerous ground for saying anything at all. “I left to make my way in the world and to earn enough to—”

“Do you know what it’s been like for me these past seven years?” Bebe roared on, stomping closer. Hubert—and everyone watching from behind him—took a big step back. “Do you know what it was like being a virtual prisoner in my father’s house because he was afraid I would run away to join you? I wasn’t allowed to leave the ranch for months after you left, not even to see Julia. I had to have a chaperone when I came to town for two full years after you left.”

“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me these things in your letters?” Hubert asked, holding his hands out to her.

She slapped his hands away, building steam. “I had to sneak around to send letters to you, and Julia had to keep them all so that I wouldn’t be punished. Rance found one of the early ones and read it aloud, so of course I couldn’t write about my situation in case he found another one. Rance laughed at me every day and told me I was nothing more than a little girl, until that bastard died.”

Rance Bonneville was dead? Hubert blinked. That must be why Bebe was wearing all black. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that. Bebe was only getting started with her tirade.

“Where were you when the ranch started failing? Where were you when we had to sell Mama’s jewels to pay the ranch hands? Where were you when they all started leaving, taking some of the cattle with them? We suffered, Hubert, and you couldn’t even write to me.”

“I…what?”

“Where were you when we had to go through the humiliation of Rance dying at the whorehouse? You didn’t have to deal with the snide comments and sniggering that everyone threw at us.” She glanced past Hubert, gesturing to the crowd gathered to watch the scene. More than a few people, including his own siblings, suddenly looked guilty.

“Where were you when Papa got sick and everything started to fall apart?” Bebe went on, faster and more out of control. “The doctors said it was cancer, but I think he died of a broken heart because he had to sell off part of the ranch. We had to sell it! Our ranch. Our land. Everything we all worked so hard for. And the bills kept coming in with no way to pay them. And then Price came along.” She threw out a hand, gesturing to the tall man with spectacles and slicked-back hair who had been standing behind her when Hubert approached. “Price is the only thing keeping the bank from foreclosing on the damn ranch, and now I have to marry him!”

The crowd gasped, probably at her swearing, but the bottom dropped out of Hubert’s stomach at the word “marry”.

Still, Bebe raged on, more upset than ever, marching up until she was inches away, yelling straight into his face. “Everything fell apart, and you weren’t there!” she shouted. “You weren’t there. How dare you not be there?” She raised her mittened fists and beat on his chest. “How dare you not be there, and how dare you come back now?”

She burst into bitter tears, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and plopping her forehead against his shoulder. Her wailing was like a bullet straight to Hubert’s heart. Nothing had ever hurt so badly. He closed his arms around her, hugging her with seven years’ worth of sorrow. “I’m sorry,” he whispered for her and her alone. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. But the newspaper sent me to Japan as a correspondent, and you stopped writing to me, so—”

“I did not stop writing to you,” she shouted, yanking away from him as quickly as she’d collapsed into his arms. “You stopped writing to me!”

“No, I didn’t.”

Bebe took a half step back, her mouth open as if she wanted to protest, her eyes wide with horror. “But—”

“I’ve watched about enough of this.” The man Bebe had referred to as Price stepped off the boardwalk and marched to Bebe’s side. He grabbed her arm, forcing her back another step. “I’ll not have my fiancée causing a scene with another man in broad daylight.”

Cold prickles shot down Hubert’s spine. “She’s my fiancée, not yours.”

“I am not!” Bebe stomped her foot, back to being furious. “I’m marrying Price.” She shook her arm out of Price’s grip, then clung to the spindly fool’s arm. “We’re in love.”

It didn’t take an expert to see she was lying through her teeth. Bebe was no more in love with Price than she was with Emperor Meiji.

“Who are you?” Price asked, eyes narrowed behind his round glasses.

“I’m Hubert Strong, Bebe’s fiancée.” Hubert squared his shoulders and pulled himself to his full height.

“Stop saying that,” Bebe snapped, letting Price’s arm drop so that she could face him fully.

Hubert wanted to rub his face to stop the headache that was beginning to pound in his temples, but he refused to show any sign of weakness to his rival. “Who are you, other than Price the imposter?”

Price let out an odd squeak of indignation. “I am Price Penworthy. And while you were off gallivanting in, where was it, Japan? I was here doing my utmost to rescue Bebe and her family from the travesty that had become of their ranch. And if I see you so much as making eyes at my fiancée again, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Hubert took a step toward the man, clenching a fist.

Price jolted back, raising his hands in protection. He was taller than Hubert by a few inches, but didn’t look like he had a muscle on his body. Hubert was certain he could take the man in a fight. But he didn’t want it to come to that. With each second that ticked by, he could see that the knot in front of him was far more tangled than he could ever have dreamed, and force wasn’t going to untie it.

In the end, it was Bebe stepping in and declaring, “I don’t want anything to do with you, Hubert Strong,” that ended the confrontation. She turned to Price, grabbing his arm with both of her hands and steering him away. “Come along, Price. We’ve got a wedding to plan.”

“Bebe, wait,” Hubert called after her as she tilted her chin into the air and marched off.

He wanted to run after her, pull her away from Price, and shake some sense into her. There were clearly a few key misunderstandings keeping them apart. With any luck, they could talk through those misunderstandings and get things back on the right track.

At least, he hoped that’s what they could do. The same instincts that had led him to dig deeper into stories he’d been sent to report on were tingling now. There was much more to the story of why Bebe had reacted so harshly toward him. But until she would talk to him, he was helpless to fix things.

“Come on.” Vernon came up behind him, slapping his shoulder. “Let’s get you and your things down to my house so you can settle in.”

“I can’t just let her walk away like that,” Hubert said aloud, knowing that was the only choice he had.

“There’s things you don’t know,” Vernon went on, turning Hubert toward the cluster of their siblings, who had been watching with concern. “I’ll fill you in on the details at my house, and then we’ll head up to Pop’s house for supper to talk it out.”

“I’ve got a roast warming in the oven,” Elspeth said, stepping forward to give him a motherly hug.

“And Ivy and I are going to bake your favorite chocolate cake,” Heather said.

The homecoming that had been so glorious just a few minutes ago suddenly felt more like a pity party to Hubert. His siblings fussed over him as though someone had just died.

“I would have written about Price Penworthy much sooner if I’d thought things would turn out like that,” his father said in the middle of directing his porters as they went about their usual business of loading and unloading the train. “I’m sorry, son. I assumed that as soon as Bebe saw you, this whole mess would be sorted out. I’m to blame.”

“No, Pops, you aren’t.” Hubert gave his father a manly hug as Vernon made a gesture indicating he was ready to take Hubert and his things home. “Although it would have been nice to have fair warning about this Price fellow.”

Athos shook his head. “They only got engaged a few weeks ago, and it came out of the blue to the rest of us. Still, I should have written to see what you thought, although I’m not sure the letter would have reached you in time.”

“What’s done is done.”

He gave his father one more thump on the back, waved to his sisters, Thomas, and Elspeth, then walked on to join Vernon. Vernon had set up his own house in the new part of Haskell, south of the railroad tracks, two years back. Since the house they’d grown up in was still packed to the rafters with people, he’d invited Hubert to stay with him until he figured out how he was going to start over in Haskell. The way Hubert had planned it, everything would come down to what Bebe wanted. Now, nothing was certain.

“I can’t figure out how this happened,” Hubert grumbled as he and Vernon crossed over the tracks in front of the train, Vernon pushing the cart with Hubert’s trunks. Just about every house and business they passed was decorated for Christmas, but rather than filling Hubert with cheer, he barely noticed. “Bebe was so determined to marry me when I left.”

“Seven years ago,” Vernon added.

Hubert sent him a sidelong frown. “She was just as ardent in her letters for four whole years.”

“Only four?”

Hubert shrugged. “She stopped writing when I moved to Japan. Only, she said something back there that made me think maybe she did write, but our letters never reached each other.”

He glanced over his shoulder and was just able to make out Bebe and Price at the other end of Main Street. They were no longer arm in arm. In fact, Bebe seemed to have charged ahead.

“I’m not sure how reliable the mail system was over there in Japan,” Vernon said. “Remember, two years ago, you got your Christmas presents from us all in March.”

Hubert made a distracted noise. He rubbed a hand over his face, but it didn’t wipe his scowl away. “What happened?”

“With Bebe?” Vernon asked

Hubert had intended the question to cover a great many more things, but he nodded anyhow. The explanations had to start somewhere.

Vernon nodded. “She wasn’t lying when she said old man Bonneville kept his eye on her like a hawk after you left. I barely saw her for years after you left. Although I’ll admit, I was still in school, then too excited about being an apprentice over at Sandstrom’s Cattle Brokers to pay attention to much else.” He broke into a grin and nodded down the cozy street of new houses on Haskell’s south side. “I put a down payment on my house before I was twenty-one.”

The brag did nothing to wipe the frown from Hubert’s face.

“But we’re talking about you and Bebe and the Bonnevilles now, not me. I get it.” Vernon chuckled and shook his head.

They turned onto a short wagon path beside one of the houses, then around the back and up a set of kitchen stairs. Vernon left the cart and trunks for a moment to unlock the door, then he and Hubert carried the trunks inside. Vernon’s house was clean, but barely furnished, with no embellishments whatsoever. It still smelled of fresh wood and paint. They carried the trunks to the hall, then circled back to the kitchen instead of carrying them up to whatever room Vernon had fixed up for Hubert to stay in.

“Rex Bonneville died last April.” Vernon continued his explanation as he loaded wood into the kitchen stove and put a kettle on to boil. “But the Bonneville ranch was having problems long before that. Pops thinks it was mismanagement.”

“I can believe that.” Hubert sank into one of the bare wooden chairs at the kitchen table with a sigh. “Old Rex never did handle his ranch as well as Howard Haskell did.”

“And that louse of a son-in-law of his only made things worse.”

“Now that you mention it, I guess I do remember you telling me about him falling out of a whorehouse window and breaking his neck when you visited me in Japan last year. I just didn’t make the connection that he died.”

Vernon let out a wry laugh. “Rumor has it he was trying to get out of paying one of the whores, which is stupid, since Rex owned the place.”

“So does that mean Vivian Bonneville owns the whorehouse now?” Hubert asked, his lips twitching at the idea of stiff, prudish Vivian owning a house of ill-repute.

“Yeah.” Vernon snorted. “We all thought she’d close it down when Rex died. Instead, she raised the prices and brought in half a dozen new girls.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Vernon said, crossing his arms and leaning against the kitchen sink. “Which is how everyone caught wind of just how bad things were for the whole family.”

Huber frowned. “How do you mean?”

“The whorehouse is their best source of income.”

“What about the ranch?”

Vernon shrugged. “They’ve got a hundred head of cattle out there, easily, but they can’t pay their bills, or the mortgage, which is the important part.”

Hubert shook his head, rubbing his face again. “They must have taken out loans against their land and livestock to pay for….” He blinked. “To pay for what, though?”

“Nobody knows. Even before Rex died, they had to bring that Price fellow in to straighten things out.”

Hubert shifted in his chair. “Who is he anyhow? And why is he engaged to Bebe when it’s clear as day there isn’t enough love between them to light a match?”

Vernon dropped his arms in a clueless gesture. “Price Penworthy comes from a long line of accountants and money men, or so Vivian and Melinda are always bragging to people. He’s an expert financier and money manager. He was supposed to sweep in and get the Bonneville books back in order.”

“But instead he’s marrying Bebe?” Hubert glared at the stove as though it were his rival.

Vernon let out a wry laugh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, big brother, but you can do much better than Bebe Bonneville.”

Hubert did take it the wrong way, and then some. His back shot straight. “I love her,” he said. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

“Right. And in all your years in the big city, and in the land of geishas, for that matter, you never once indulged?”

Heat rushed to Hubert’s face. He’d been as human as the next man, but he’d always told himself that he needed to learn how to be a good lover so that he’d know what to do with Bebe.

“I’ve never loved anyone else,” he said.

“Well, it looks like you’re not going to get a chance to love Bebe either,” Vernon said. He pushed away from the sink and crossed to the table. “She’s marrying Price on Christmas Day.”

“But she’s not married yet,” Hubert argued.

“Christmas is in two weeks.”

“So? That’s two weeks to get to the bottom of things and convince her to change her mind.”

“Is it really worth it?” Vernon asked, then slipped into a smile. “Haskell is full of pretty girls these days. Bunches of them. Modern girls too, if you know what I mean.”

Hubert arched a brow at his brother. “Does Pop know you’re treating decent girls like they work for Bonnie?”

“Why are you assuming I’m treating anyone like anything? You should have seen the way Violet Marks reached for the goods when all I expected was a kiss.”

Both of Hubert’s brows shot up, but he shook his head. “I don’t think I want to know what you get up to with the ladies. All I want to know is what I’m going to do about Bebe.”

Vernon let out a humorless laugh and headed to the stove to check on the kettle. “Like I said, I don’t think there’s anything you can do about that whole thing. What’s done is done.”

“But it’s not done yet,” Hubert insisted. It couldn’t be. Otherwise, what was the point of him coming home at all?