Ethan Cole had never asked for a wife.

At least, that was what he told himself as he stood beneath the warped wooden sign outside the small railway station in Red Hollow, Wyoming, watching the afternoon train crawl toward him through a curtain of dust.

He had asked for help.

There was a difference.

A wife, in Ethan's mind, belonged to another kind of man. A man who came home before dark. A man who sat at a dinner table instead of eating beside a saddle. A man who owned more shirts than he had rifles and who knew how to carry on a conversation without checking the sky every few minutes for approaching weather.

Ethan was not that man.

He was thirty-three years old, sun-browned, broad-shouldered, and permanently tired. He had spent most of his life on Cole Ranch, a stretch of stubborn land surrounded by red cliffs, dry grass, and mountains that turned purple at sunset.

His father had died when Ethan was twenty-one.

His mother had followed six years later.

After that, the ranch had become his entire world.

There were cattle to manage.

Fences to repair.

Horses to break.

Accounts to settle.

And a hundred little problems that appeared every morning before the sun did.

The ranch was failing.

Ethan knew it.

The bank knew it.

His neighbors knew it.

And most importantly, Silas Mercer knew it.

Mercer owned the largest cattle operation in the county. He had offered to buy Cole Ranch twice.

Ethan had refused twice.

The third offer had been different.

Mercer had not offered money.

He had offered time.

“If you can't pay the note by October,” Mercer had told him, “the bank will take the ranch. I'll be waiting.”

That had been three months ago.

Now September was almost over.

The cattle were thin.

The creek was barely a stream.

And Ethan had one final chance.

His father's old friend, Reverend Caleb Morris, had suggested something Ethan had initially considered absurd.

Marriage.

Not romance.

Not courtship.

A practical arrangement.

A woman from a family that understood ranch life.

Someone who could help manage the household while Ethan worked the land.

Someone whose family might bring enough money or livestock to keep the ranch alive.

Ethan had reluctantly agreed.

The woman was supposed to arrive on the afternoon train.

He expected a quiet widow or perhaps a plain young woman who had been told that marrying a rancher was safer than remaining alone.

He expected someone who would accept his rules.

He expected someone ordinary.

The train finally stopped.

Steam rolled along the platform.

Passengers stepped down.

A traveling salesman.

A mother with two children.

An elderly couple.

Then Ethan saw her.

She was standing near the last carriage.

She wore a dark blue dress beneath a brown riding coat. Her black hair was braided down her back, and a turquoise pendant rested at her throat.

She carried one leather bag.

Nothing else.

She looked at Ethan.

He looked at her.

Neither moved.

Then she walked toward him.

“Ethan Cole?”

Her voice was calm.

“Yes.”

“My name is Mara Grey.”

He stared.

There was something about the way she stood.

She wasn't nervous.

She wasn't trying to impress him.

She wasn't even looking at the ranch or the horses or the distant mountains.

She was studying him.

As if she were trying to decide whether he was worth trusting.

Ethan cleared his throat.

“You're the woman Reverend Morris told me about?”

“Yes.”

He glanced at the empty platform.

“You came alone?”

“Yes.”

“No family?”

“They're waiting for me elsewhere.”

That answer made him pause.

“You were told about the arrangement?”