Chapter One
A Proposal in the Dust
The dust storm followed Clara Wynn out of Red Mesa like a living thing.
It rolled across the Arizona Territory in a copper-colored wall, swallowing the road behind her and turning the afternoon sun into a dim red coin. Her mare, Juniper, fought the wind with her head lowered and her ears pinned back. Sand rattled against Clara’s riding coat, found its way beneath her collar, and stung the narrow strip of skin between her gloves and sleeves.
Every sensible instinct told her to turn around.
She had ignored sensible instincts since breakfast.
Nine miles beyond town, where the road narrowed between black volcanic ridges, the first fence posts of the Broken Spur Ranch appeared through the dust. Most of the posts stood straight. A few leaned where floodwater had loosened the earth. Beyond them lay a weathered barn, a stone well, two corrals, and a low adobe house facing the western hills.
Elias Boone was in the near pasture trying to calm a frightened colt.
He stood with one hand extended, his hat pulled low against the wind. The colt circled him, trembling and wild-eyed. Elias did not grab for the halter. He waited, speaking in a voice Clara could not hear above the storm.
The horse finally stopped.
Elias touched its nose.
Only then did he turn toward the road.
Clara had seen him in town perhaps twenty times. He bought coffee, nails, lamp oil, veterinary powder, and almost nothing else. He spoke when necessary and listened when it was not. People described him as unfriendly because they did not know what to do with a man who refused to decorate silence for their comfort.
He was taller than Clara remembered. His face was lean, sun-darkened, and marked by a pale scar that ran from the edge of his left eyebrow toward his temple. The wind pressed his shirt against broad shoulders made strong by work rather than display.
His eyes moved from Clara to the storm behind her.
“You picked a poor afternoon for visiting.”
“I did not come to visit.”
“That makes the weather seem even worse.”
She dismounted, though her knees had stiffened during the ride. Elias took Juniper’s reins before the mare could jerk free and tied her beside the barn.
“You need shelter,” he said.
“I need an answer.”
He looked at her more closely.
Clara had rehearsed an orderly explanation: the Copper Bell Inn, the debt certificate, the water claim, the family-protection statute, and the notice that had arrived from Gideon Rusk’s bank that morning.
But the storm was tearing branches from the mesquite trees. Her hair had escaped its pins. Elias Boone was watching her with the patient caution of a man approaching an injured animal.
An orderly explanation suddenly seemed dishonest.
“I came to ask you to marry me.”
The colt bolted to the far end of the pasture.
Elias remained where he was.
The wind pulled at his hat brim.
“Say that again.”
“I would rather not.”
“I need to know whether the storm carried away part of the sentence.”
“It did not.”
“You rode nine miles to ask a man you barely know to marry you.”
“Yes.”
“In a dust storm.”
“The weather changed after I left town.”
“That is the least troubling part.”
Clara folded her gloved hands to keep them from shaking.
“I am not asking for romance. I am asking for a legal partnership.”
“That improves the proposal only slightly.”
“I own the Copper Bell Inn and the springhouse behind it. My father borrowed money during the influenza winter to keep the inn open and pay the medical bills of six families who could not afford a doctor. He believed the debt was secured against the business income.”
“And it was not?”
“The original note was. The replacement certificate is secured against the inn, the spring, and every water claim attached to my family’s name.”
Elias’s expression sharpened.
“Replacement certificate?”
“Gideon Rusk purchased the original loan through the Desert Prosperity Bank. His attorney says Father agreed to new terms before he died.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“You are certain?”
“My father could barely lift his head during his final week. The certificate was supposedly signed two days before his death and witnessed in Arroyo Junction, forty miles away.”
Elias looked toward the advancing dust, then back at her.
“Come inside.”