PART 2 — THE BRIDE WHO ARRIVED WITH A SECRET

Gareth Lockwood had faced a charging grizzly with less uncertainty than he felt standing before Hannah Gallagher.

He looked at the envelope pressed against his chest.

Then at the woman who had just driven six terrified horses into Laramie while a wounded man bled at her feet.

“You’re Hannah?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Unless another woman has been answering your letters under my name.”

Gareth opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Behind them, Samuel Higgins was being carried toward the doctor’s office. The stagecoach horses stood trembling, their flanks steaming beneath the afternoon sun.

Hannah turned her head.

“Someone needs to loosen the chest straps on the lead pair. They’re struggling to breathe.”

One of the stable hands hurried forward.

“And water,” she added. “Not too much at once. They’ve been running hard.”

The stable hand nodded and disappeared.

Gareth watched her.

“You know horses.”

“I know frightened animals.”

She glanced at the wounded driver.

“And frightened men, occasionally.”

Gareth looked toward the doctor’s office.

“Did the road agents attack you?”

Hannah’s expression changed.

For the first time since the coach had arrived, the fury in her eyes gave way to something quieter.

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Four. Perhaps five. They came out of the trees near the ridge.”

“Did you see their faces?”

“One.”

Gareth’s hand moved instinctively toward his belt.

“Who?”

Hannah looked around the street.

“Not here.”

The answer unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.

He had imagined a nervous bride stepping down from a coach, perhaps asking for help with her luggage.

He had not imagined a woman who could command a runaway team, keep a wounded driver alive, and then refuse to explain what had happened.

Gareth took the envelope from her.

His own handwriting stared back at him.

Six months of letters.

Six months of careful words.

Six months of imagining a woman he thought he understood.

“You look different than I expected,” he said.

Hannah’s gaze sharpened.

“I should hope so. I would hate to disappoint you by being exactly what you imagined.”

Gareth flushed.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

He hesitated.

The honest answer was that he had expected someone smaller, quieter, and more dependent on him.

But saying it aloud would make him sound like the fool he suddenly suspected he was.

Instead, he said, “You must be exhausted.”

“I am.”

“There’s a H๏τel nearby. I’ll arrange a room.”

Hannah shook her head.

“No H๏τel.”

“Then where?”

She looked at the mountains beyond the town.

“Your cabin.”

Gareth stared at her.

“You want to go up the mountain today?”

“I’ve traveled for three weeks to reach you. I don’t intend to spend another night in a town where every man who sees me thinks he knows what I am worth.”

Something in her voice struck him.

He understood that feeling.

He had spent years being treated as a dangerous, uncivilized mountain man by people who had never stepped beyond the depot.

But he had never imagined a woman could be judged so quickly and so cruelly.

Gareth nodded.

“Very well.”

He offered his arm.

Hannah looked at it.

Then at him.

“I can climb into a wagon without ᴀssistance, Mr. Lockwood.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t.”

“Good.”

She stepped past him.

And Gareth followed.

The journey toward the mountains began shortly before sunset.

Gareth had arranged a wagon from the station manager, leaving Ironclad and Barnaby to carry the supplies.

Hannah sat beside him on the driver’s bench.

For the first hour, neither spoke.

The plains rolled beneath a fading sky, and the distant mountains grew darker with every mile.

At last, Gareth broke the silence.

“Your letters never mentioned that you were so… capable.”

Hannah turned toward him.

“What would you have done if they had?”

He thought about it.

“I suppose I would have been pleased.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you write that you wanted a woman who needed protection?”

Gareth тιԍнтened his grip on the reins.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said you wanted a gentle bride who would be content to remain at the cabin while you handled the dangerous work.”

He looked at her.

“You remember every word?”

“I remember the words that matter.”

Gareth was quiet.

Then he admitted, “I thought I was being practical.”

“So did I.”

She looked toward the darkening hills.

“But practical doesn’t mean helpless, Gareth.”

He glanced at her.

“You call me Gareth now?”

“I believe we are past formalities.”

Despite himself, he almost smiled.

Almost.

Then Hannah reached into her carpetbag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

“This came with the last letter you sent me.”

Gareth recognized it immediately.

His final letter.

The one in which he had written about the cabin, the weather, and the preparations he had made for her arrival.

“What about it?”

Hannah unfolded it.

“You mentioned that you had purchased the cabin from a man named Thomas Bell.”

“Yes.”

“You said he had lived there before you.”

“He did.”

“And that he left suddenly?”

Gareth frowned.

“He was a trapper. He moved south.”

Hannah studied the letter.

“Did he?”

Gareth turned toward her.

“What is this about?”

She folded the paper again.

“Nothing I can explain yet.”

“Yet?”

Hannah slipped the letter back into her bag.

“Your cabin is not the only reason I came west.”

Gareth felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air.

“What other reason?”

Hannah looked straight ahead.

“Someone in Wyoming has been writing letters under your name.”

Gareth nearly pulled the wagon to a stop.

“What?”

“Not to me.”

She paused.

“To another woman.”

The wheels creaked over a rocky stretch of road.

Gareth stared at her.

“I have never written to another woman.”

“I believe you.”

“Then who has?”

Hannah’s face remained unreadable.

“That is what I intend to find out.”

The mountains rose ahead of them.

And for the first time, Gareth wondered whether the woman he had invited into his home had come to marry him—

Or to uncover a crime he knew nothing about.