The rattlesnake struck Samuel Dawson on the hottest afternoon Wyoming had seen all summer.
Until that moment, the day had been painfully ordinary.
The sun stood high over the Dawson ranch, bleaching the grass almost white and turning the yard into a bowl of shimmering heat. A tired cow bawled from the barn lot. Cicadas rasped in the cottonwoods along the dry creek. Inside the cabin, four children slept at once—a miracle so rare Samuel had been afraid even to breathe loudly.
James and Joseph, the two-year-old twins, had finally surrendered after fighting their naps for nearly an hour. Eighteen-month-old Emma slept curled sideways on Rebecca's old braided rug. Six-month-old Daniel lay in his cradle beside the window, one tiny fist beneath his cheek.
Samuel had stood on the porch for perhaps thirty seconds, savoring the silence.
Then he noticed Joseph's wooden horse wedged between the steps.
He bent to retrieve it.
The warning rattle came from beneath the boards.
Samuel jerked backward.
Too late.
Pain tore through his wrist.
He saw the snake disappear beneath the porch as two bloody punctures swelled against his skin.
For one frozen second, Samuel simply stared.
Then he whispered, "No."
He wasn't thinking about death.
He was thinking about four children sleeping inside a cabin miles from anyone who could save them.
Rebecca had been gone eleven months.
Sometimes Samuel still woke in the middle of the night expecting to hear her singing.
Cholera had taken her quickly. One week she'd been laughing at James for trying to feed biscuits to a chicken; days later Samuel had been digging a grave under a cottonwood because the circuit preacher couldn't reach the ranch before sundown.
Daniel had been barely a month old.
Samuel had learned things afterward that no rancher expected to learn. How to warm cow's milk without scorching it. How to walk a screaming infant across a kitchen while stirring porridge with one hand. How to tell Joseph's cry from James's in darkness. How to braid the beginnings of Emma's fine brown hair because Rebecca had once told him she wanted ribbons in it someday.
People in Prosperity had offered help.
Some sincerely.
Others watched him with that particular frontier curiosity reserved for men apparently losing a battle everyone had predicted they would lose.
"A man can't mother four babies," Mrs. Bell had once declared.
Samuel hadn't answered.
He wasn't trying to replace their mother.
He was simply refusing to lose anyone else.
Now venom burned up his arm.
He ripped the bandanna from his neck and tried to tie it above the bite, but his fingers already felt strange.
Atlas, his saddle horse, stood in the barn.
The doctor lived fifteen miles away.
Five miles separated Samuel from the nearest occupied homestead, and that family had gone to Cheyenne for supplies.
He looked toward the cabin.
A floorboard creaked.
"Papa?"
James.
Samuel forced himself toward the door.
"Stay inside, son."
His knees folded.
He struck the porch hard enough to rattle the doorframe.
For a few seconds he couldn't breathe.
The yard tilted in front of him.
He could see Rebecca's garden beyond the pump—the beans he'd kept alive because she had planted them with her own hands.
A frightening calm entered him.
If he died, the beans would die too.
Then someone would sell the cattle.
Someone would put a sheet over the furniture.
And someone would decide what happened to James, Joseph, Emma, and Daniel.
Would they stay together?
Samuel knew enough about hardship to know the answer might be no.
"No," he whispered.
He tried to crawl.
Dust stuck to his sweating palms.
Then movement appeared on the road.
A rider.
Samuel narrowed his eyes against the white glare.
A woman rode a chestnut mare, skirts gathered carefully beneath her knees, a bonnet protecting her face from the sun. A cloth bundle swung from her saddle horn.
For one delirious instant, Samuel thought Rebecca had returned.
Then the woman saw him.
She kicked the mare forward.
"Sir!"
She crossed the yard at a gallop, pulled up, and jumped down before the horse had fully stopped.
Auburn hair had escaped her bonnet. Green eyes found Samuel's swollen wrist immediately.
"What happened?"
"Snake."
She dropped beside him.
"Where?"
He raised his arm.
Her expression tightened but she did not panic.
"My children," Samuel rasped. "Inside."
She glanced toward the cabin.
A baby's cry rose beyond the door.
Then another.
"I'm Olivia Bennett," she said. "The new schoolteacher in Prosperity. Mrs. Holloway told me about you. I was bringing bread."
Samuel managed something close to a laugh.
"Fine day for visiting."
"Perhaps the best possible day."
She tore a strip of cloth from her petticoat.
Samuel stared.
"You just ruined your dress."
"I assure you, Mr. Dawson, the dress will recover."
She tied the cloth above his wound and tightened it.
Pain shot through him.
Olivia opened her saddlebag and pulled out a narrow knife.
Samuel's eyebrows rose.
"You carry a knife?"
"I came from Boston to Wyoming alone. Of course I carry a knife."
Despite himself, Samuel almost smiled.
"My father was a physician," she continued. "He made certain I knew enough medicine to be useful when one wasn't available."
She cleaned the blade and worked quickly around the wound, doing what she could according to the medical knowledge she had learned from her father. She knew the danger was serious and that Samuel still needed a doctor urgently.
"You're going to stay awake," she said.
"Planning to."
"Good."
"Samuel."
"What?"
"My name. Not Mr. Dawson."
"Then you're going to stay awake, Samuel."
The door opened.
James appeared barefoot.
Joseph stood behind him.
"Papa hurt?"
Samuel tried to stand.
Olivia pushed him gently back.
"Your papa needs to rest."
James stared suspiciously at her.
Olivia seemed to understand children well enough not to rush him.
"Are you James?"
His eyes widened.
"How'd you know?"
"Because you look like a James."
Joseph frowned.
"What I look like?"
She considered him gravely.
"Definitely Joseph."
That was apparently acceptable.
Emma began crying.
Daniel joined her.
Within thirty seconds the peaceful cabin became chaos.
Samuel tried again to rise.
Olivia put one arm around his back.
"Help me," he muttered.
"That's precisely what I'm doing."
He was twice her weight, but determination made her surprisingly strong. She got him through the doorway and toward the bed.
Samuel saw the cabin through her eyes and hated what she must think.
Laundry covered a chair.
Dishes waited in a basin.
Toys lay everywhere.
Rebecca's blue shawl still hung beside the bed.
But Olivia made no comment.
She laid Samuel down, checked his pulse, then immediately turned toward the children.
She broke the loaf of bread she'd brought.
A piece went to James.
One to Joseph.
Emma received a smaller piece.
Then Olivia picked up Daniel, who quieted almost instantly against her shoulder.
Samuel watched through heavy eyelids.
"How'd you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Stop him crying."
"I picked him up."
Samuel looked offended.
"I pick him up."
Olivia's mouth twitched.
"Perhaps he appreciates variety."
Even poisoned and half-conscious, Samuel laughed.
The sound surprised everyone.
Especially Samuel.
He couldn't remember the last time laughter had escaped him naturally.
Olivia brought him water and something bitter from a small bottle.
"What is it?"
"A tonic my father used to carry. It won't cure the bite, but it may help you endure until we get proper medical attention."
Samuel drank.
Then he noticed something peculiar.
Olivia kept glancing toward the window.
Not casually.
Fearfully.
"Expecting somebody?"
Her hand froze around the cup.
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Samuel's rancher's instincts stirred despite the fever.
"Running from somebody?"
Her green eyes met his.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she looked at Daniel asleep against her shoulder.
"Everybody is running from something."
Hoofbeats sounded outside.
Olivia went completely still.
Samuel's body might have been failing, but his mind sharpened.
A male voice carried from the yard.
"Miss Bennett!"
Her face lost its color.
Samuel pushed himself onto one elbow.
"Friend?"
"No."
The cabin door opened before she could say more.
A tall man stepped inside.
His clothes were wrong for Wyoming.
Fine dark coat.
Polished boots.
Silver watch chain.
He wore dust like an insult instead of part of the landscape.
His smile appeared civilized until Samuel looked at his eyes.
"Olivia."
She clutched Daniel closer.
"Edward."
The man's gaze moved to Samuel.
Then to Olivia's torn skirt.
Then to the four children.
Amusement flickered across his face.
"So this is where you've hidden yourself."
Olivia lifted her chin.
"I didn't hide."
"You disappeared from Boston."
"I left."
"Without permission."
Samuel spoke from the bed.
"Didn't know grown women needed permission to travel."
Edward looked at him as if noticing furniture had spoken.
"And you are?"
"The man whose house you're standing in."
Edward smiled.
"Edward Harcourt."
Samuel said nothing.
"I am Olivia's fiancé."
"No," Olivia said.
The single word was quiet.
But final.
Edward's smile tightened.
"You appear confused."
"I ended our engagement before I left Massachusetts."
"You wrote a hysterical letter."
"I wrote the truth."
Samuel noticed the way Olivia's fingers trembled around Daniel.
He also noticed Edward advancing.
Samuel swung his feet toward the floor.
Olivia turned.
"Samuel, don't."
Edward laughed.
"You can barely sit up."
"Still my house."
The front room suddenly felt smaller.
James and Joseph had retreated toward Emma.
Samuel saw his sons watching.
He had been afraid death might take him.
Now another fear replaced it.
That these children would see a woman frightened under his roof and learn that a man could ignore it.
Samuel forced himself upright.
His legs trembled violently.
"She says she isn't going with you."
Edward's pleasant expression vanished.
"This has nothing to do with you."
"You're standing in my house. Makes it my business."
"You don't know who she is."
Samuel glanced toward Olivia.
"Schoolteacher."
"You know nothing."
"Know enough."
Edward's jaw tightened.
"You are poisoned, rancher. Don't make a decision you're in no condition to survive."
Samuel swayed.
Olivia caught him.
Her hand pressed against his chest.
Edward watched the gesture and something ugly entered his face.
"How touching."
Olivia's eyes hardened.
"You need to leave."
"I traveled nearly two thousand miles."
"Then you'll have a long ride back."
For one dangerous moment Edward looked as though he might seize her.
Samuel reached for the revolver on the bedside table.
His hand shook.
It didn't matter.
The barrel came up.
Edward stopped.
"I wouldn't test me today," Samuel said. "Been a difficult afternoon."
Silence.
Then Edward gave a small laugh.
"Very well."
He backed toward the doorway.
But his eyes never left Olivia.
"You cannot disappear forever."
"I'm not disappearing."
"No?"
He looked around the poor cabin.
Four babies.
Laundry.
A wounded rancher.
A broken chair.
"You intend to build a life here?"
Olivia's face flushed.
"My life is no longer your concern."
Edward put on his hat.
"It will be."
He stepped into the sunlight.
Before mounting, he turned.
"Prosperity is a small town, Olivia. People believe respectable men before they believe frightened women."
Then he rode away.
Samuel kept the revolver raised until the hoofbeats vanished.
Only then did his hand drop.
Olivia caught the weapon before it hit the floor.
"Samuel?"
His eyes rolled shut.
"Samuel!"
The last thing he felt before darkness took him was Olivia's hand gripping his.
And the last thing he heard was James beginning to cry.
When Samuel woke, the cabin smelled of rain.
Night had come.
A storm whispered against the roof.
He opened his eyes and found a lantern burning low.
Dr. Harlan Pierce sat beside him.
"You stubborn fool," the doctor said.
Samuel swallowed.
"Children?"
"Alive."
"Olivia?"
"Also alive, though I suspect considerably more exhausted than you."
Samuel tried to sit.
Harlan pushed him back.
"She sent James on your pony to the Miller place after you lost consciousness. Boy did well. The Millers found me."
Samuel stared.
"James rode?"
"With Joseph screaming after him because he wanted to go too, apparently."
Samuel almost smiled.
"Snake?"
"You were fortunate. The bite was serious but the amount of venom may have been limited. You're not dying tonight."
Samuel closed his eyes.
Relief hurt.
"Where's Olivia?"
Harlan nodded toward the doorway.
Samuel looked.
She sat in Rebecca's rocking chair with Daniel asleep on her chest. Emma lay across her lap. James and Joseph were curled together at her feet beneath a blanket.
Olivia herself was asleep sitting upright.
Her auburn hair had fallen loose around her shoulders.
Beside her on the table sat the remains of the loaf of bread she'd brought.
Samuel stared at the scene.
For eleven months, the cabin had been a place where he survived.
For the first time since Rebecca died, it looked almost like a home.
Then Dr. Pierce lowered his voice.
"Who's Edward Harcourt?"
Samuel's gaze sharpened.
"Why?"
"Because he rode into Prosperity before sundown."
Samuel looked again at Olivia.
Harlan's expression was grave.
"And he's telling people Miss Bennett is mentally unstable, stole money from his family, and fled Boston after breaking a legal marriage agreement."
Samuel's hand tightened under the blanket.
"Is any of it true?"
The doctor asked it quietly.
Samuel watched Olivia sleeping among his children.
He remembered her standing between him and death.
Then he remembered Edward's eyes.
"I don't know."
"You're going to ask her?"
Samuel looked toward the rain-dark window.
"Tomorrow."
Outside, thunder rolled over the plains.
And somewhere beyond the Dawson property, Edward Harcourt was already making certain Olivia Bennett's new life would become far more dangerous than the one she had fled.