Chapter One
Last Chance, Nebraska— June 1879
She ought to take in a cat. Or perhaps a dog, but a cat would be easier.
Faith Thornton rested a hand on the envelopes that spilled across the post office counter, trying to imagine a cat curled up on the hearth across the room. Simply having another living being here with her all the time would be comforting.
She shook her head to clear the reverie and looked down at the work to be done. Since her husband Aaron had perished in the second blizzard last fall, Faith had run Last Chance’s post and telegraph office on her own. Her sister Celia had helped, until she married and returned to her farm outside of town. And occasionally some of the other widows would stop in and assist, more for the company than anything else, but Faith didn’t mind—either the help or the company.
One thing she had learned since last September was that being a widow was quite lonesome.
Not that she had any wish whatsoever to remarry. It didn’t matter how much that irksome Pastor Barnaby Collins pressed her to find a husband or return to Mississippi, Faith had no intention of doing either. This business was Aaron’s pride and joy. They’d worked it together since they arrived here, and it was a necessity in a town on the Western Nebraska prairie. Each time she sorted the mail or took down a message from the telegraph, she felt almost as if he were here again, looking over her shoulder and ready to meet her with a smile or a kiss.
That old familiar ache squeezed Faith’s heart. She closed her eyes a moment, letting the feeling come and then letting it fade. Missing him hadn’t grown easier, but she had learned to live with the feeling. In those first few months, the emptiness was all-consuming, and there were times she didn’t know how she would face the next day. She leaned heavily on Celia, and on her friends in town, to simply survive.
But each day, the work awaited.
The mail didn’t stop, and telegrams still clicked through over the wires the railroad had strung along to the town where they eventually planned to build tracks. Every day, no matter how broken she felt inside, Faith sat diligently at the table where the telegraph machine was set up and sent and received telegrams about urgent family matters, wanted men, business opportunities, and anything else folks deemed important enough to pay to send quickly over the wires.
“Faith?” Josie Gresham closed the front door behind her.
Faith blinked, trying to pull herself from her thoughts. That happened often since Aaron had passed. She’d find herself reminiscing about the times they’d shared, or wondering how things might have turned out differently, or any number of things that pulled her away from the reality set out before her. “Come on in,” she said to her friend as she glanced down at the letters still spread out before her.
“I heard the stage brought in several pieces of mail.” Josie’s brown eyes flicked to the letters on the counter.
Faith gave her a warm smile. “I’ll check.” She sorted through the pile, her practiced eyes searching for Josie’s name as her friend twisted the end of her ever-present long brown braid. “No letters here for you. Were you expecting one?”
Josie looked so slight inside the bulky men’s shirt she wore, particularly as she leaned against the counter. “George thought I ought to write to one of the fellows who answered that advertisement last winter. He looked so twitchy that I thought he might have taken a page from my father’s book and written on my behalf.”
“Instead of being so concerned about you, your brother ought to do his part and marry one of the ladies who was widowed. At least we all know him, unlike these letter-writers.” Faith pressed her fingers into the counter, her own little secret weighing on her mind.
Josie nodded. “That is precisely what I told him! Why is it that Pastor Collins feels he can harass us ladies, and yet leave men like George alone to do as they please? It isn’t right.”
Faith agreed wholeheartedly. She and Josie had entirely different reasons for not wanting to marry again, yet Pastor Collins didn’t give one whit for their reasons. And, apparently, neither did George. As far as Faith was concerned, Josie’s brother should count his lucky stars he’d been too sick to join the hunt or the search party that had perished in the blizzards last fall. His illness made him one of the few men left in the area, and yet no one pressured him to marry one of the many widows.
“Will you stay for tea?” Faith asked. “I was going to put some on as soon as I get these envelopes sorted.”
