Chapter One
CAÑON CITY, COLORADO– June 1881
Ruthann Joliet had run out of suitors—again.
She sighed as she watched her latest beau move quickly down the street. Foster Jones had been none too happy when she told him she thought it best they remain as friends. She lifted her forehead from the window and moved to the settee, where the man’s full cup of tea still rested on a silver serving platter on the nearby table.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t care for Mr. Jones. In fact, she thought him quite witty and reasonably handsome. Any other girl would have been thrilled that he’d chosen to court her. And Ruthann was too, at first.
She lifted her own cup of tea and took a sip of the now-tepid liquid. After six different suitors, she’d hoped Mr. Jones might be the one to make her heart beat a little faster, to make her long for his return when he left, to be the face that appeared in her dreams at night. But try as she might, none of that had happened.
As mad as he was about her ending the courtship, he must have already known what was in her mind. Their conversations had been restrained and stiff. He hadn’t even asked her to call him Foster.
“Ruthann?”
She looked up to see her dearest friend, Norah Parker in the doorway. Norah’s red hair sat in a low chignon with a few prettily arranged curls left loose, and her big blue eyes narrowed as she took in Ruthann’s somber state. She came immediately to the settee and reached for Ruthann’s hand.
“Mr. Jones?” she asked.
Ruthann nodded. “How did you know?”
“I saw him stomping away from here, looking as if he were spoiling for a fight.”
Ruthann grimaced. She hoped Mr. Jones simply went home, rather than getting himself into trouble. “He took it so badly.”
“Rejection isn’t something most people take lightly,” Norah said in her soft voice. She squeezed Ruthann’s hand. “But you did the right thing. It was better to send him along than to let this drag on. Or to wake up one day and find yourself unhappily married.”
“I doubt I’ll ever find myself married at all.”
“Nonsense. The right man will come along.”
Ruthann forced herself to smile at Norah. She knew Norah meant every word she said, but after having found six suitors wanting, Ruthann wasn’t so certain anymore.
And it wasn’t as if the men who had courted her were hideous or cruel or cold. On the contrary, they’d all been perfectly decent, just like Mr. Jones. She’d thought each one of them had the potential to make her happy. Yet each time, there had been something missing.
Ruthann couldn’t see herself falling in love with any of them.
“I suppose if the right man doesn’t come along, I can be that kindly spinster daughter who cares for her parents in their old age,” Ruthann said with a shrug.
Norah eyed her for a moment, and then they both collapsed in laughter.
“Can you imagine?” Norah asked, her face lit in amusement.
“Oh, I can. They’ll still be trying to find the right man for me. I’ll be sixty years of age and they’ll have invited some widower over for supper.” Ruthann smiled at the thought. It was fun to laugh about now, but not something she particularly wished to endure in her older years.
“Perhaps Stuart will take pity upon you and let you live with him and his future wife,” Norah said.
Ruthann leveled a gaze at her friend.
“Or perhaps not.” Norah’s lips twitched as if she were trying hard not to laugh.
“I’d much rather live by myself in some cottage at the edge of town than listen to my brother telling me what to do when I’m well past the age to be told.” Ruthann paused. “Besides, he has yet to show interest in marriage. At this point, we’ll both wind up old and alone. And he’ll still likely have words with any fellow I might find the slightest bit charming.”
Norah looked somewhere over Ruthann’s shoulder, her face taking on a neutral expression and her eyes far away.
Ruthann’s heart pinched as she thought back over her words. “I’m sorry,” she said as she laid a hand on Norah’s arm.
Norah’s gaze found her again, and her lips lifted into the ghost of a smile. “It’s all right. You did nothing wrong. I’ve just had Jeremy on my mind lately.”
