His Fair Lady

The only life Ivy Magee has known is aboard a gambling boat. Until cowboy Travis Murphy arrives with the startling revelation that she’s inherited a ranch. Ivy must now leave her home behind and put aside her tomboyish ways.

To save the ranch, Travis knows Ivy must marry a wealthy stranger. And if that means teaching her to become a lady, then so be it. Except, being a part of Ivy’s transformation makes Travis wish he could be the prince to this unlikely Cinderella!

Travis walked to the shoreline. He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, staring at the water slogging slowly past.

“I reckon you wish someone else was the heir.” It bothered her to think that he did, but she couldn’t blame him for it. “I’ll do my best not to shame you.”

“Shame? I’m so damn grateful for you, Ivy.”

He turned to face her. Those lush green eyes all but made her weak in the knees. They reminded her of home...of the river and the trees.

He tugged gently on her braid, then let go so quickly that it was as if her hair had burned him.

“I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he said.

Author Note

Do you sometimes feel like Cinderella, staring out of your kitchen window and watching your dreams ride off without you? I think we all do in one way or another. Perhaps you didn’t get a job you had your heart set on? Perhaps your prince was not charming? Did the home you made an offer on go to someone else?

Ivy Magee knows for certain what she wants from life...until the dream of her heart is snatched from her. Like Cinderella, she never cries, “Oh, poor little me!” She doesn’t jump into a lake, full of woe. She smiles, she works hard, and one day her cowboy prince notices her...and falls desperately in love with her. Not that he can claim her, of course. Travis Murphy is a man bound by obligation. He understands that the woman he loves is meant for another. This is a problem that not even a fairy godmother can fix. But true love can. Given the courage of Ivy, and the devotion of Travis, old dreams fall away and new ones blossom.

Life happens that way sometimes. The things we want most don’t happen, but something better does.

So, my friend, be open to new dreams—because you never know when the glass slipper will fit.

The Cowboy’s Cinderella

Carol Arens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROL ARENS delights in tossing fictional characters into hot water, watching them steam and then giving them a happily-ever-after. When she’s not writing she enjoys spending time with her family, beach-camping or lounging about a mountain cabin. At home, she enjoys playing with her grandchildren and gardening. During rare spare moments you will find her snuggled up with a good book. Carol enjoys hearing from readers at carolarens@yahoo.com or on Facebook.

Books by Carol Arens

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

The Walker Twins

Wed to the Montana Cowboy

Wed to the Texas Outlaw

Linked by Character

Rebel Outlaw

Outlaw Hunter

Stand-Alone Novels

Renegade Most Wanted

Rebel with a Cause

Christmas Cowboy Kisses

‘A Christmas Miracle’

Rebel with a Heart

Dreaming of a Western Christmas

‘Snowbound with the Cowboy’

Western Christmas Proposals

‘The Sheriff’s Christmas Proposal’

The Cowboy’s Cinderella

Visit the Author Profile page at www.millsandboon.co.uk.

Dedicated to the memory of

“the luckiest man in the world”...

my father, Glenn Lester Ebert.

“love you I.”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Coulson, Montana, June 1882

“Gull-durned female traps!”

Ivy Magee watched three women dressed in all manner of frippery stroll across the gangplank of the River Queen.

Leaning over the rail of the upper, hurricane deck, she observed their slow, sashaying mosey from the boat to shore.

With all the fussy petticoats, there wasn’t room for all of them to walk side by side. They were trying, though, arms linked and giggling. One wrong step and someone would tumble headlong into the river.

While the image playing in her mind presented a humorous picture—with flailing legs getting all tangled up in ruffles, elegant hair dripping water and mud weeds—Ivy could only pity the woman who would have to launder the muck from the clothes. Sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to be those fancy ladies.

Wasn’t going to be Ivy, either.

Just because she was a female didn’t make her honor bound to clean up after folks. Uncle Patrick was training her to pilot the River Queen. She was happy as a fish in deep water to be his “cub.”

For the life of her, Ivy couldn’t figure the female species out.

Gosh all-mighty! Why would a soul want to stuff her body into whale bones and yards of heavy cloth that would only make her sweat and stumble? If she guessed right, the whole of female creation could not breathe.

“Gull-durned female duds...worst kind of a trap,” she repeated, this time with a dash of scorn.

Sometimes she thought her fellow sex were touched in the head to willingly—even happily—submit to such abuse.

Once again, she was grateful for the soft cotton shirt she wore, for the durable denim pants. Even the belt that held her trousers up was just a strip of red cloth. Its flower print and the bow she fastened it with was all the adornment she needed.

The oldest of the three women, the one walking in the middle, lost her balance when the plank heaved with the current. The young ones tried to set her to rights but they all listed toward the water.

Just in time, young Tom, a deckhand, dashed across the plank to help them rebalance.

Ivy had grown up on this boat. In her twenty-two years, she’d seen that not all of the ladies maneuvering the plank were so lucky. Last fall, one had gone over and washed up half a mile downriver. A couple of roustabouts fished her out a second before her waterlogged skirts dragged her to the Great Beyond.

These ladies were luckier than some. At least they might be, were they not destined for a life of selling their bodies in this wicked town.

Ivy was glad the boat would dock here only one night before turning east toward respectable towns...more profitable ones, too.

The River Queen was unique among the boats that did business along the Missouri. Most of them were workhorses, transporting goods and passengers.

But Patrick Malone, her uncle and the man who had raised her, had a different vision for his boat. The River Queen did transport people and their goods, but it was also a high-class gambling boat.

Like Ivy, Uncle Patrick had spent his life on a riverboat, but a grand one on the Mississippi.

Oh, the stories he loved to tell of a night, when the after watch took over and the boat grew quiet. He’d spend hours spinning yarns about the glory of the old days when floating palaces plied that great and perilous river.

He’d started as an apprentice, a cub. He’d gone on to become the highly respected pilot of the Jewel of the Mississippi.

The tales he’d spun about that huge boat left her breathless. The glitter of crystal chandeliers, the orchestra playing and lots of folks becoming instantly rich, then just as fast, poor again...it was as though she’d seen it all herself.

The events she witnessed through his eyes had been beyond grand, the gentlemen and the ladies all rich and refined, the firemen and roustabouts not refined but strong as bulls, their mighty muscles glistening with sweat in the reflected heat of the fire that kept the floating palaces moving.

Ivy’s favorite stories involved the river pilots, whose uncanny intuition sensed how the river changed, noticed every ripple in the current that might foretell disaster, could see below the water in their mind’s eye, even on a pitch-dark night.

Lives depended upon their knowing when and where the riverbed shifted. If a pilot made a mistake, failed to sense sudden changes below the water, tragedies occurred.

Uncle Patrick remembered many such events. But none of them were of his making.

Even as a tot, no more than two years old, Ivy used to sit at her uncle’s feet and listen to him spin his magical stories, fascinated even though she didn’t understand much of what he said.

By the time she was four, she knew that she wanted to be a pilot, just like Uncle Patrick.

But time was running out for riverboats. Her uncle expounded on this very subject every time he saw her becoming breathless with excitement over piloting a boat.

The railroad had done in the Mississippi years ago. It would do in the Missouri as well.

Just last night she had argued with him over it.

To her way of thinking, yes, freight hauling and transporting folks would give way to train travel, but gambling would not. Folks were always in a sure-fired hurry to lose their money and there was romance in doing it on a steamboat.

But Uncle Patrick believed even this recreation would end.

She sure did hope he was wrong because she was set on being a pilot.

“The ladies invited me to the Sullied Gully tonight, me being their hero and all.” Young Tom settled beside her at the rail.

“My uncle will have your hide, Tom.” And he would. “He promised your ma he’d keep you in hand.”

“I’m of an age.” Tom grinned at her. Sunshine touched his nose, dotting it with fresh freckles.

“An age for what, you young fool?”

“Women.” Just saying the word made him blush.

“Wait until you grow up a bit for that.” Ivy knocked the cap from his hair with a flick of her fingers. “There’s one of our passengers down there on her knees. Looks like she tripped over her fool skirt. I don’t think she’s a lady of the night, though. See if you can find her a safe place to stay.”

Tom pushed away from the rail. “Sure won’t miss that noisy green bird of hers.”

She watched him cross the deck, disappear down the stairs then reappear on the stage plank.

He was carrying the woman’s trunk across his shoulders. She indicated a spot on the ground for him to set it down. It looked like she handed Tom some money for his effort.

“Gosh almighty.” She sighed. “Uncle Patrick will tan his hide if he spends it at the Sullied Gully.”

All of a sudden her hat shifted, tipping toward her nose. She caught the small white mouse that slid from the brim.

“You little varmint, what’s waking you so early? Sun’s not even set yet.” Ivy fished a peanut from her pocket and gave it to the mouse.

It sat on her shoulder nibbling the treat. After a moment she tucked the furry creature back into the special pouch under a large satin flower that was attached to the brim of her hat.

“Go back to sleep until dark. It’ll be Hades own chaos if a passenger sees you.”

To her relief, the mouse snuggled into his space and became still.

Not even Uncle Patrick knew that her best friend was a rodent.

* * *

Moonlight reflected off the liquid face of the Missouri River.

From the cabin deck of the docked River Queen, Travis Murphy watched the sparkling ripples gliding past, not in a straight line, but with the twisting tug of the current.

The sight kept him mesmerized, since at the moment, his life resembled those twisting ripples. It sure wasn’t traveling the straight line that he hoped this journey would take him on.

The future of the Lucky Clover Ranch depended upon him finding Miss Eleanor Magee. But it seemed the harder he searched the more twisted the trail became, the pursuit more urgent.

At one point, he’d nearly caught up with the woman, but his horse had come up lame. It had taken some time for the poor creature to heal properly.

That delay had been frustrating, but he’d finally made it to Coulson, a day ahead of the steamboat.

Now, here he was, the boat finally arrived, but he sure didn’t see anyone who resembled the woman’s twin sister, Agatha.

Travis swatted a moth away from his face. The determined insect seemed intent upon incinerating itself on the lamp hanging over his head.

Where the blazes could Eleanor Magee be?

Hell, he’d only learned of Eleanor’s existence when his boss, the man he loved as much as he remembered loving his own father, confessed on his deathbed that he had another daughter.

That revelation had nearly kicked Travis to his knees. He’d always felt like a member of the family, believed he’d known everything about them.

When, at six years old, his parents had been put in the grave, Travis had wanted to leap into the hole with them. But Foster Magee had been there, his big hand pulling him back from the shadow of death. He’d taken him to the big house and raised him as his own.

But another daughter? In the moment he’d demanded that Foster tell him why this girl’s existence had been kept a secret, why she had not been raised at the ranch.

The reality was, he’d had no right to demand anything of Foster. But in that moment he had been a stunned son, not an employee.

The reason turned out to be a divorce agreement. He’d learned the full story while watching tears drip down his mentor’s disease-ravaged face—his stand-in father’s face.

He’d given up Eleanor in an agreement with Mollie Clover Magee.

“She was a beauty, my wife,” he’d admitted.

The proof of that, her portrait, still hung over the mantel of the huge fireplace in the great room back at the ranch.

“She was a wild flower, a free spirit, the plain opposite of me. Fire and ice I reckon.” he whispered, his voice hoarse, weak from the effects of his illness.

It was true. Foster Seamus Magee had been a man of purpose. His desire to have the largest and most influential ranch in the state had consumed him. A proper life of social niceties, all the rules of etiquette observed, this was what he’d striven for.

“My Clover, she was never cut out for that kind of life. I watched her dry up in front of my eyes. My pretty wife... The life I sought sucked the life out of her.

“Son, you understand that I never stopped loving her, but I had to let her go when she wanted to...just not all of her. I wouldn’t let her have Agatha because of the two girls she’s the one who reminded me of my Clover, with that blaze of red hair and those emerald-colored eyes. Turned out, though, she didn’t have her mother’s high spirit. The girl is sickly...well, you grew up with her, you know.”

He did know. Agatha was a shut away. She was frail, retiring, and lacking the vigor that the demands of inheriting the ranch would place upon her. He only hoped that Eleanor was different from her twin.

A lot of livelihoods depended upon her being strong, but even more, that she was willing to step into her role.

Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, not with stressful thoughts of past and present, but because the heat of the day lingered on the land and shimmered over the water. In the mountains nearby the temperature would be different. He reckoned just a short distance away the night was getting cold.

Well, not the night so much anymore, but the wee hours. Even the gamblers had taken to their beds.

He swiped the ticklish moisture from his neck while he strolled to the side of the boat facing west. Maybe there would be a breeze off the water.

There wasn’t a breeze...but there was a woman.

A naked woman.

Naked women weren’t so unusual in Coulson. But here on the riverboat at this hour? Perhaps she’d been entertaining a gambler.

Propriety told him to look away. Nature urged him otherwise.

The woman stood on the lower deck, her back toward him and her arms reaching for the night sky. When she lifted her face toward the moon, he saw the slim line of her nose but nothing else.

He smiled, wished he was the moonglow. That elusive finger of light touched the curve of her hip, shimmered in the fall of blond hair tumbling down her back. It cupped the lovely round orbs of her bottom.

She bent her knees, pushed off the deck, and dove headlong into the water.

She came up, grinning, then went under again. Her fair-skinned body skimmed inches below the surface of the water as she swam alongside the boat.

Hell, now he wished he was the river, with the right to touch her so intimately.

Spinning about, he strolled toward the other end of the boat, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Whoever the woman was, she was not Eleanor Magee. From what he’d learned from the Pinkerton he’d hired, Miss Eleanor was watched over by her uncle. It was hard to imagine the guardian who would let his niece loose at all hours of the night, who would allow her to leap into a river naked.

The fact that Patrick Malone was Eleanor’s guardian, and that she’d grown up on this boat, was all he knew of Miss Magee. He couldn’t be certain that she even lived here any longer since the Pinkerton had never actually laid eyes on her. For the price Travis had been able to pay, all he’d got for his investment was a bunch of the man’s “educated guesses”...leads that may or may not find the Lucky Clover’s heir.

If the investigator was wrong in his information, Travis had wasted a valuable month away from the ranch.

* * *

The nosey gambler was supposed to be abed but Ivy felt his gaze between her shoulder blades...and lower. She longed to twitch, to ease the burn on her back.

Gosh-almighty, she wouldn’t give the voyeur that satisfaction. This was her boat and her time. To her way of thinking, swimming bare was no sin. Eavesdropping was. Let him be the one to squirm before the preacher of a Sunday.

Doing her best to ignore the intrusive gambler, who was probably too drunk to really see her anyway, Ivy dove into the cool murky water.

She burst the surface of the river, grinning. Wasn’t this as close to paradise as a body could get?

Treading water, she inhaled, savored the scent of damp mud, of verdant plants growing at the water’s edge.

“Howdy-doo, all you fine crickets...good evening, all you fat old frogs.”

She stroked through the cool water, feeling the day’s sweat and grievances wash off her skin. It was her custom to float on her back, watch the twinkle of the stars while feeling weightless, but the gambler was still up there.

It wasn’t likely that he’d come out intentionally to spoil her solitude—chances were, he only wanted a bit of fresh air.

All at once, the man spun away. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he slowly walked toward the other end of the boat.

She stroked along through the water, this time she was the one watching him. There wasn’t a whole lot she could learn in the dark, not until he passed under one of the lanterns hanging from the roof over the cabin deck.

Then—gosh all-mighty, he was handsome! Fine of figure, he had the stride of a man of authority, a fellow who knew where he wanted to go and how to get there.

He didn’t seem drunk.

“Hey, mister!” she called up to him while treading water.

He stopped, looked down at her then came to the rail. Resting his arms on the balustrade, he gazed toward her.

“This here’s my private time. I don’t hanker to spend it with a Peeping Tom.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” Well, now she wasn’t sure his smile said sorry or not. “I didn’t know. I was only cooling some sweat, walking away some worry.”

That was probably the truth. On a gambling boat, for every winner there was a loser worrying over his loss. Not that the wealthy clients of the River Queen needed to worry over the loss...most of the time.

As far as the knowing went, he probably didn’t. There were no signs posted about Ivy’s private time—it was just something that the men who lived on board knew and respected.

This fellow didn’t live on board so she ought to allow for that.

And the river was a balm when one wanted to wash away a day’s stress. She couldn’t imagine living her life away from its soothing embrace. Often, she pitied land folks who never knew the feel of the river against their skin.

One more thing she ought to allow for was that the fellow up there was a paying customer. According to Uncle Patrick, those were soon to become scarce.

“I reckon you lost money tonight.” It was not unpleasant carrying on a conversation with this handsome fellow. Not when she was hidden in the cool kiss of the inky water and he was up there sweating in his fancy duds.

“If it’s a woman you’re looking to sooth yourself with, I ain’t her, but over yonder in Coulson you’ll find what you need.”

“I doubt it, ma’am.”

He was still smiling in the way that let her know that in this moment, his stress was relieved, but under that half-lifted mouth, life was not grand. She saw this to be true even in the dim light of the boat’s lamps.

It was her duty to make sure the passenger was happy so that tonight he would take a seat in the casino again.

“Look here, mister, if you agree to keep to the paddle side of the boat, I’ll share the water with you.”

“I’ll need to strip bare. You don’t mind?”

“I reckon I’ve got a peek coming since you were ogling me. Just keep to your side of the boat and we’ll get on just fine.”

The fellow pushed away from the rail. She heard his boots tripping down the stairs. He reappeared on the lower deck, his shirt in hand and his chest bare.

It wasn’t uncommon for Ivy to see a man bare chested. The roustabouts often worked shirtless.

But there was something different about this man, something curious. He made her insides feel fluttery.

Why was that? Men were men. One was not so much different than another. Two arms. Two legs.

Two muscled buttocks. She could not help but notice when he turned his back to her and stepped out of his trousers.

He was giving her the same glimpse of him that he had taken of her.

That was not quite true. He turned his head to flash her a mischievous smile before jumping feet first into the water, his back still presenting.

“Looks like we’re even, mister,” she said when his face broke the surface of the water.

She felt safe enough even though she kept only a twenty-foot buffer between them instead of the boat length. If he made an untoward move, she’d be off as quick as a minnow.

“What’s your name, gambler?” she asked then ducked under the water, surfacing a foot closer to him.

“Travis.”

Travis went under the water then came up a yard closer to her. His handsome face was dotted with water. He shook his head, splattering droplets from his short brown hair. It stood up in spikes all over his scalp—gave him a real boyish, friendly look. That sure was contrary to her first impression of him being a no-nonsense man of authority.

“What’s yours?”

“Ivy.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ivy.”

Naked sure was an odd way to meet a fellow, but the night was dark and so was the water.

“So, how much did you lose to keep you restless so late?” She ought to swim to the other side of the boat and float about gazing at the stars, but she was enjoying gazing at Travis’s face instead.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t do much gambling.”

“Most folks aboard the River Queen come just for that.” A fish nibbled her toes. She kicked it away. “There’s some who just need transportation, but mostly they’re gamblers. Big money gamblers.”

“Are you familiar with the ship?”

“A bit.” She didn’t want to say she knew every inch of it, every board and shadow. That she was training to be a pilot. A lady pilot tended to be frowned upon and for some reason she did not want Travis frowning upon her.

“I’m looking for a woman named Eleanor.”

Her swim time was about up. If she didn’t rap on Uncle Patrick’s door telling him she was safely aboard, he would come looking.

“A sweetheart?” Gosh almighty she couldn’t swim away without knowing about that.

“No...not a sweetheart.” Oh? For some reason she was relieved to know it. “She’s inherited a ranch. I’ve got to find her and let her know.”

“And you believe she’s aboard?”

“I have reason to think so,” Travis answered, parting the water between them.

Only ten feet of sparkling river lay between them. Just because the water was dark did not make her any less naked.

Her imagination saw a dozen things that her eyes couldn’t.

It was time and past for her to be in her room.

She ducked under the surface and swam away. When she came up for air she looked back to see Travis on the deck, knee-deep into his britches.

Whoever this Eleanor was, she was a mighty lucky woman to have him looking for her, even if they were not sweethearts.

* * *

With the exception of one gambler, still in his chair but dead asleep with his head lying on the poker table, the saloon was empty.

The man’s pockets were turned inside out. His heavy breathing stirred the cards in front of his mouth.

Travis figured the fellow must have fallen asleep over the losing hand in front of his nose. No doubt, the smile tugging his mouth meant he was dreaming of the winning hand for tonight’s competition.

A lingering scent of cigars hovered in the corners of the large room. For all its size and elegance, the saloon was still cozy. The overstuffed chairs near the windows, the padded stools about the gaming tables, all invited one to stay and enjoy an evening.

With the piano covered for the night, the lamps turned low and everyone abed but the lone sleeper, Travis decided to continue his restless night right here, with his butt snuggled into a plump brown chair and his feet up on a gold ottoman.

For comfort, it beat the hell out of the cot he’d put up beside his horse on the main deck.

He’d taken only a small amount of money on his quest to find Eleanor. The more he left behind for the ranch to keep going, the better.

Since he was on his own, it would not be a problem to live frugally for a time. Even the little bit of gambling he’d done had been for the purpose of gaining information about Miss Magee. It sure hadn’t hurt that he’d won a few dollars.

Hadn’t gained a thing by way of discovering anything about Miss Eleanor, though.

At daylight, the boat was going to turn south. If the lady was not aboard, it would cause him all kinds of trouble. He only hoped the Pinkerton knew his business.

If Travis didn’t come up with any information by nightfall, he’d try and get a moment of the captain’s time, not an easy thing to do, he’d discovered, with such a busy man. But if he couldn’t find out something about Eleanor from her own uncle, he despaired of finding it at all.

That was a notion he couldn’t let his mind dwell on. Futures depended upon him bringing her home.

Hell, what he did want to dwell on was the magical water nymph.

Ivy. Even her name conjured up things fresh, green and growing with abandon, having no regard for rules.

He closed his eyes, reliving the memory of her diving into the water, of her face as she surfaced, so full of the joy of just plain living.

If only he could be more like her. Not that he wanted to run from his responsibilities, but if he could rise above them from time to time...

When Ivy invited him to strip down and join her in the water, he’d felt ten years old again.

He’d liked being ten. By then he was past the constant grief that his parents’ deaths had caused and had come to love his life on the Lucky Clover Ranch.

For a few moments last night, he had been that boy again because looking at Ivy—and he didn’t just mean in appreciation of her lovely body, but her smile and the love of life that shone from her eyes—he’d felt fresh. Renewed.

He’d come from the water full of hope and now he sat in this chair because the only way to hold on to that feeling was to hold her memory fresh. To keep her in his mind so that he could draw on that brief moment out of time.

When life was not so fresh, he would remember Ivy.

Too bad he would never see her again. No doubt by now she was back in Coulson doing whatever a free spirit like her did in the wee hours.

Turning frogs into princes, coaxing butterflies from their cocoons, maybe even leading a symphony of light with fireflies as her instruments, that’s what he would like to think, even though he knew reality was certainly far different.

Reality or not, he was good and sorry he would never see Miss Ivy again.

Chapter Two

It was late the next afternoon when a storm swept in. The boat rocked erratically on the choppy water so the captain decided to set to shore and open the casino early.

As far as Travis could tell, walking past the open saloon door, the weather didn’t dampen the gaiety of the games going on inside.

He worried his horse might be skittish though, so he clasped his hat to his head, leaned into the wind and took the stairs down to the main deck to check on her.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Through the dim light he spotted someone, a young man if he guessed right, speaking to the horse and petting her neck.

“Thank you,” he said when he entered the stall. “I appreciate—”

“Howdy-doo, Travis. This sweet girl belong to you?”

“Ivy?”

The ethereal creature from the night before was still here? This earthy woman, wearing a huge floppy hat and dressed like a man was the same woman he’d fantasized over last night?

“Glad I came across you,” she said. “I’ve been asking around and no one’s claiming to be your Eleanor.”

“Are you traveling on the River Queen, Ivy? I thought you might be from Coulson.”

She snorted...through her nose. The image of the water nymph dissolved and no matter how he tried, he could not get her back.

“That snake pit? Why I’d just as soon live on the moon.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes squinting, judging him, he thought.

“I reckon we became friends last night, so I can tell you.” She gave the horse one last squeeze about the neck then stepped closer to him. There was still something of the woman in the river after all—she smelled like cool fresh water. “I live here. I hope to pilot a boat someday.”

She lived aboard and didn’t know anyone named Eleanor? This was not good news.

All at once, the only thing he wanted to do was sit down in the straw and hang his head. So he did.

It seemed that finding the heir was beyond him, but giving in to a moment of private gloom was within his control.

Or not. The straw rustled beside him when Ivy sat down.

“You know what she looks like? Maybe she goes by some other name?”

“I don’t. She’s got a twin sister with red hair, green eyes, about as tall as you and about your age. They weren’t identical though.”

“I always fancied having a sister.” In the subdued daylight he saw how blue her eyes really were. A sunny blond braid lay over her shoulder. “So much so that I dream of her sometimes. Why, when I was little I used to pretend to play with her. How’s that for fancy?”

Ivy flopped back in the hay, stretched her arms over her head and sighed. “Ain’t this a fine way to pass a stormy afternoon? Tell me about this ranch of yours.”

She patted the straw beside her, inviting him to join her in gazing at the rafters overhead.

Ivy was disarming, and unlike any woman he had ever met. He thought perhaps he liked her, liked her very much.

He lay down beside her. With his arms folded behind his head, he listened to the drum of rain hitting the deck several yards beyond the stall.

“It’s not mine. Not in a legal sense. I started running the place a few years ago when my boss took ill. I kept on after he passed. I feel the responsibility for the ranch like it was mine.”

“I’m right sorry, Travis. You loved him?”

It was easy to hear the regret in her voice. Spoken so softly, he knew she meant it.

“He became a father to me when I lost my folks. Gave me a home when I was a lost little boy.”

“What a kind man he must have been.”

“Kind, yes, and ambitious. It’s a big spread. The biggest in Laramie County...one of the largest in Wyoming.” He closed his eyes, picturing miles upon miles of grassland. How the scent was fresh and how the wind rolled over it in a whisper. “I swear, Ivy, it’s the prettiest piece of land on God’s green earth. You can ride all day long and not get from the east end to the west.”

She eased up on her elbow, gazing down at him. “The land has your heart...just like the river has mine.”

“The Lucky Clover is a special place.”

“The Lucky Clover?” She blinked, grinned, and dug under the collar of her shirt. “Don’t that beat all? Look, my ma gave me this necklace before she passed. It’s got an L and C etched on it. The C’s a mite faded so it could be an O. My Uncle says it must be the initials of some long gone relative. But ain’t that a coincidence?”

“It’s pretty, even though it’s faded...and I’m sorry,” he said. When she looked puzzled he added, “About you losing your mother.”

“I’ve been told I cried for a week solid, but I was only two years old and don’t recall the event anymore.”

“What about you father?”

“I never did recall him.” Thunder rolled overhead. “So this Eleanor, she’s going to inherit the whole ranch?”

“If I can find her.”

“What happens if you can’t?”

He groaned out loud. He didn’t really want to talk about it, he’d prefer to just lie here in the straw and forget for a moment.

“The ranch will fail without her.” Wind whistled around the lower deck blowing in a hail of raindrops, but they didn’t reach inside the stall. “There’s a big mortgage note coming due. If we can’t pay it a lot of folks will lose their livelihoods, their homes. People who have lived on the Lucky Clover their whole lives will be put out.”

“I can’t imagine losing my home here on River Queen.” She sat up, frowning and glancing about. “Some say the trains will be the end of the river trade, but I think folks will always want to gamble on a steamer.”

“I hope that’s true, Ivy.”

“And I hope you find your heir.”

All of a sudden, he wanted to reach up and touch her cheek. In spite of her boyish clothing, her skin was fair, pink cheeked with a light smattering of freckles across her nose.

He laced his fingers together behind his head.

“Even if I find her I’ve got to convince her to do something I reckon she won’t want to.”

“She might...if she gets a sister and a fine ranch for the trouble.”

“She’ll have to marry our rich neighbor. It’s the only way to get the ranch out of the debt it’s fallen into.”

“Gosh almighty!” Ivy clasped her hand to her throat. “What are you going to do when she says no?”

“You think she will? I’m offering a lot in exchange.”

“I think it depends upon her life. Maybe she’ll be willing if she’s a lonely spinster...but I don’t see that she’s old enough to give in to that yet. And what if she’s married already with a pack of young’uns...but I wonder if she might be a widow...in that case you have some hope.”

“I do know that she is not married. The Pinkerton I hired didn’t know much, but he knew that, and that she is supposed to be living on this boat.”

“Could be he meant the River Belle. She sails the Missouri.” Ivy’s hat began to tilt even though she hadn’t touched it. “Good news if that’s so. We’re putting into dock beside her tomorrow night at Bridgerton Landing. Big gambling day for both boats with rich folks coming from all over.”

Something...a mouse, tumbled from Ivy’s hat! He swatted at the dirty vermin, anxious to keep it off Ivy.

She laughed, reached out and caught the creature in the palm of her hand.

She nuzzled its white head with her nose.

“Don’t tell me you’re skittish over a little old mouse?”

“Repelled more than—”

All of a sudden Ivy placed the mouse in his hand.

“Little Mouse is a sweet thing once you get to know her.”

The “sweet thing” nipped his thumb.

“See? She likes you?”

“Where’d it come from?”

Ivy took the hat from her head, pointed to a pocket attached to the brim.

“She lives here in my hat when we’re out. She’s got her own little cage in my room.” The mouse leapt from his hand and onto Ivy’s shirt. It scrambled up to sit on her shoulder. “You will keep my secret, won’t you? There’d be the dickens to pay if anyone but Tom knew about her.”

“It can’t be healthy, wearing a rodent on your head.”

“Well, she’s white, and not vermin. Little Mouse is as clean as you or me. And she’s tidy of habit...goes off to do her business.”

“Ivy, that’s—”

“None of your business, Travis.” Her eyes narrowed at him, daring him, he thought, to believe otherwise.

“Not my business to tell, is what I was about to say. But I still don’t think mice ought to live in ladies’ hats.”

All of a sudden she started to laugh, deep from her belly.

“Can’t you picture that?” she sputtered, trying but not able to control her giggles. “All the screaming and swatting...the fainting?”

He did see it, smiled, then burst out laughing along with her. He sat up, bent over at the middle. All of a sudden his worry felt twenty pounds lighter.

When the humor began to even out, she swatted his knee.

“It’s a lucky thing I’m no lady. I’d sooner fall in the river and never come up than be like one of those poor females.”

He’d always been partial to the sweet gender, enjoyed their delicate, flirtatious ways.

But he’d never forget Ivy. She was not the water nymph he’d fantasized over...she was so much more.

* * *

Morning dawned bright as a new penny. Climbing the outdoor stairs to the pilothouse Ivy breathed deep, savoring the fresh scent of river and pine.

This was going to be a good day filled with the wonder of learning the river, then come nightfall the excitement of games of chance.

“Howdy-do, Uncle Patrick!” She crossed the small space to give her uncle a hug around the middle. “Did we turn a profit last night?”

“Not much, my money-minded little love, but tonight we should earn enough to keep you happy.”

“I’m only money minded so that we can keep the boat going. You know I don’t give a fig about the fancy things to be had with it.”

“Maybe you ought to.” Uncle Patrick’s bushy white eyebrows nearly touched when he frowned down at her. “How are you ever going to get a husband dressed like a boy?”

“Why would I want one of those?” Her uncle meant well, but his aim for her life was a mite different than her own. “I’m happy as a mudsucker here with you.”

“A woman needs a home and family.”

“Not this woman.” She placed her hands on the wheel. It was so large it extended below deck. She felt a thrum pulsing through the wood. The power of the engine, the pull of the boat drawing through water, was right under her fingertips.

Exhilaration claimed her to her toes and back.

“No swimming for you tonight, young lady. The gamblers won’t be abed at all.”

“I hope not.”

“And don’t you go sneaking off to gamble, either.”

“I’ll keep my clothes on, but I won’t promise not to earn us a fistful of money.” She nudged her uncle in the ribs, shot him a grin. He’d always claimed to disapprove of her gambling, but she was skilled at it. In spite of his duty-bound admonitions, she knew he was proud of her. “Besides, I’m looking for someone who might be on the Belle.”

“A man?” Her uncle asked, overstating his hope.

“A woman...for a man.”

“You matchmaking for one of the roustabouts?”

“There’s a passenger, a nice, friendly fellow named Travis, looking for the heir to the ranch he ramrods. If he doesn’t find her the ranch will be lost.”

“And she’s one of our passengers?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. Travis is under the belief that she lives on the Queen. But since I’m the only woman living here, I reckon he wasted good money on the Pinkerton he hired.”

“A Pinkerton?” Uncle Travis mumbled, then grew silent, watching the river with a frown. He must sense some danger she did not yet have the skill to detect.

“The lady’s name is Eleanor. If you recall someone of that name, it would help our passenger out a great deal.”

Her uncle swung his gaze away from the river and settled it on her. She noticed his throat constrict, swallow hard.

“Eleanor?” Odd that his voice sounded unusually gruff...drawn tight in a way that was not common for him. “Girl got a last name?”

“Plum forgot to ask. Reckon it would help if she’s using her true name but we can’t be sure.” She shrugged. “Could be we’ll find her on the Belle.”

Uncle Patrick grunted.

“You see some trouble out there that I don’t, or you got a bellyache?”

He stood behind her, covering her hands with his strong, gnarled ones.

“Could be trouble,” he said. “We’d best ready ourselves for it, just in case.”

As hard as she stared at the water, she could see nothing but the calm surface. She longed for nothing more than the ability to see what a seasoned pilot like her uncle could in its murky depths.

* * *

Travis had sat down at a poker table in the casino of the River Belle at a little after nine. This early in the evening gaming was a social event, the bets low enough that the gamblers without much money could join in and hope to get lucky.

The luck that Travis was after was to find Eleanor Magee without losing too much in the process.

He’d been partially successful. In the three hours he’d been in this chair, he had tripled his money but come no closer to unearthing the elusive Miss Magee.

He’d met a lot of people from both boats tonight, deck hands, roustabouts and sons of millionaires. He’d been told that the fathers and boat owners would come later on when the losers had drunk their fill and emptied their pockets.

If he quit playing now, he’d be nicely ahead. But there were still plenty of folks visiting the saloon. One of them might know something.

The future of the Lucky Clover’s cowboys and their families depended upon what happened here. What was walking away a winner compared to that?

A woman came into the saloon, her sparkling gown catching the glow of the lantern light. She was too old to be Agatha’s twin. No doubt she was the wife of a rich gambler, or perhaps the mother of one of the young men at the table with him.

The dealer skillfully dealt the hands. Travis stared down at the backs of his cards, wondering what they would reveal. The only lady he was going to find was the cold likeness of a queen.

He yawned. Couldn’t help it. It was nearly midnight and he, because of his years on the ranch, was an early riser.

All of a sudden the scent of fresh water chased away the stench of tobacco.

“Howdy-doo, gentlemen!”

“Miss Ivy!” exclaimed a young man sitting at the table. He greeted her with a broad, friendly grin. “You won’t get my money this time!”

None of the men stood up like they had done when the woman in the sparkling gown came in.

Just because Ivy didn’t have an elegant bearing, did not mean she was not a woman due respect.

Travis stood, pulled out the chair beside him. “Miss Ivy,” he said. “We’d be pleased to have you join us.”

“Nice to see there’s one gentleman present.” She slapped him on the back and sat down on the red velvet stool. “Boys, hold on to your chips. Especially you, Travis. Once a fellow begins to yawn, he might just as well pass his money to the left...gosh almighty, I’m on your left!”

Laughter rang out at the table. Clearly, Ivy was a popular player.

Ivy’s hat shifted. She reached for the pouch and stroked it. He doubted that anyone else knew there was a mouse living inside. For some reason it pleased him, sharing that special secret with Ivy.

An hour later, Ivy had most of the chips in front of her. Somehow, he had managed to only lose a small stack to her.

It was now one thirty in the morning. Back home everyone would be asleep except for the cowboys keeping night watch over the herd.

He tried to stifle a yawn but the urge to doze was too strong.

“Better get back to the River Queen, Travis, before all your chips end up in front of me.”

She leaned closer to him and whispered. “I’ll ask around after your heir.”

“Obliged,” he whispered back. And he was. In the shape he was in now Eleanor could sit down next to him and he wouldn’t even notice.

He stood up, bid the men at the table goodbye then nodded to the man waiting to fill his spot.

From the doorway, he heard Ivy ask the newcomer if he knew someone named Eleanor...last name unknown.

Walking out onto the deck, he shook his head. How had he neglected to inform Ivy that Eleanor’s last name was Magee? In the end, he reckoned it didn’t matter since she might be going by another name anyway.

Fresh June air washed the scent of tobacco from his hair and clothes. He breathed it deeply to cleanse his lungs. While cowboys also tended to smoke around the campfire at night, the space was wide open and one did not become suffocated with the fumes.

It was a short walk from the gangplank of the River Belle to the gangplank of the River Queen. Walking between them, he gazed up at the stars, then lower at the lamps glowing cheerfully in the windows of the Queen’s casino.

It would be a profitable night for both boats.

For Travis, there was only one thing he wanted...well two, maybe three...but just now, he was for his cot next to his horse on the lower deck.

Rounding a corner, he spotted Captain Malone. The boat owner stepped away from the shadowed wall and strode toward him, his pipe puffing smoke into the night.

“Mr. Murphy,” the captain said. “I’ve been hoping to speak with you.”

That was a bit of luck. He’d been eager to speak with Malone but had never gotten the opportunity.

“If you wouldn’t mind?” Captain Malone indicated a bench with a swipe of his pipe. “It’s been a long day and these old bones begin to ache, what with the damp and cold coming off the river. I ain’t the man I used to be...not by a stone’s throw.”

“I’ve been hoping to speak with you as well.” Travis sat then the Captain sat beside him. The boat swayed gently beside the dock. The splash of water against the side sounded gentle compared to the jovial laughter and the cries of dismay of the gamblers.

“Ivy tells me you’ve been looking for a woman named Eleanor. May I ask what her last name is?”

“Eleanor Magee, sir.” He swiped his hand across his face, trying to rub away some of the weariness. “It’s most urgent that I find her.”

The captain sighed, shook his head.

“You have found her, son.”

Chapter Three

The noon hour was later than Ivy liked to rise, but the sock in her drawer was stuffed with money so the late night spent on the River Belle had been well worth it.

While quickly plaiting her hair in a single braid, she imagined the happy look on her uncle’s face when she handed over her winnings. If gambling kept up like it was, the River Queen could sail the Missouri for years to come.

She was smiling and tying the red-flowered belt through the loops of her pants when there came a vigorous pounding on her door.

She opened up with a grin on her face, ready to greet her visitor.

“Captain wants to see you in the pilothouse.” Tom announced without his usual smile. “Like to know what you did to make him so out of sorts. We’re all paying for it, so you know.”

Generally, Uncle Patrick was a man of slow temper.

What in good glory could have happened?

She watched Tom stomp away without closing her door behind him.

Following him outside, she shut the door then climbed the stairs to the pilothouse two at a time.

“Uncle Patrick! Tom says you...oh, hello there Travis.”

Uncle Patrick did look as glum as Tom described. He stood beside the wheel with his fist gripped tight on a polished spoke.

Odd that he didn’t look up at her greeting. No...and neither did Travis.

That handsome fellow sat on the bench, his hands hanging between his knees while he stared at the high shine on the floorboards.

Something was wrong! Misfortune of some kind was about to rain down upon them. Sure did look like it had to do with Travis.

“Gosh almighty, Uncle Patrick, why the long face?”

Silence answered her question. Worry made her heart pound and her belly flip.

“Somebody sick?”

More silence.

“Dead?”

“We’ve located Eleanor,” Travis finally said with a sidelong glance at her.

Blamed if that glum look didn’t make her feel like she needed to run to the rail and vomit. His expression looked as miserable as hooves stuck in deep mud. Eyes that only yesterday shone bright green were the color of dull moss.

“She’s dead?” Poor Travis! He would lose his ranch.

Travis shook his head.

With a nod, Uncle Patrick indicated that she should come closer to him.

Keeping one hand on the wheel, he circled her shoulder, tugging her close. His fingers bit to the bone.

Gosh almighty, his touch had never bit to the bone, even when he was in a temper.

“She’s you.”

“And you’re the Queen of Sheba!” This was one grand joke that her uncle and Travis were playing, but she would go along, laugh out loud until they did too. “And I reckon Travis is your trained leopard.”

She slapped her thigh, guffawed...but...something was still wrong. Humor had not brightened the desolate mood beating against the walls of the pilothouse.

The men were not laughing.

Travis stood up, shoved both hands in his britches pockets.

And just there, at the corner of Uncle Patrick’s eye, a tear welled.

“When I went to bed last night, my name was Ivy...still was when I woke up this morning, far as I can tell.” As much as she willed it not to, her voice quavered.

“Eleanor Ivy Magee,” Uncle Patrick said, “is the name you were born with.”

“You’re making that up!” She gasped, but she couldn’t imagine why he would. Unless—

“I reckon you’re just wanting to get me married off to some rich fellow so I can’t be a river pilot.” Her voice was rising now...in anger, or panic, certainly denial.

She spun on Travis. “You can’t just make up an heir. I’m not her!”

“Take out your necklace, the one your mama gave you.” Uncle Patrick shoved his hand through his gray hair. “Read the back.”

“I don’t need to read it—I know what it says.” She folded her arms over the ache in her belly. It was exactly thirteen stairs down and twenty-seven steps to the rail and a temporary relief. “Anyone can have a trinket with letters.” Now she was grasping for solid ground and making no sense whatsoever.

She had always known the necklace was special. One of the memories she did have of her mother was of that necklace. She’d sit on Mama’s lap and twist it in her chubby fingers.

“The ranch is yours,” Travis murmured. The line of his jaw looked tight, tense. “All you need to do is claim it.”

“You’ll be secure, have the home and family you ought to have.”

All of a sudden she could not feel her legs. She plopped down onto the bench. The hard wood slapped her bottom.

“I never wanted that, Uncle Patrick. You did.”

“Maybe, but given that I raised you, I figure I have the right to determine what is best for your future.”

“Gull-durn it, Uncle Patrick!” Yes, she did shout that. “If a home and family is all that grand, why didn’t you marry?”

“My life was on the river. It would not have suited.”

Suddenly her legs didn’t feel weak anymore. Anger made them stiff and twitchy. She leapt up.

“So is mine!” She braced her feet apart, anchored her balled-up fists on her hips. “I’m of age. You can’t force me to leave the Queen. You’d have to hog-tie me and—”

“I’m selling her.”

Words of defiance, of independence died in her sagging jaw.

“You aren’t! You love the Queen.”

“No, Ivy, I love you. This grand life we’ve lived...it’s dying. Captain Cooper of the River Belle has made me an offer. At this point in my life I’d be a fool to turn it down.”

“You can’t sell her. She’s our home.”

He shook his head. The sorrow in his expression crushed her heart. He loved this boat as much as she did.

“Mr. Murphy will take you back to your ranch. You’ll marry and give me lots of grandbabies. You’ll be surprised at how good your life will be.”

“I’m piloting a boat. Maybe not this one...but I’ll do it. Just you wait and see!”

She sounded like a twelve-year-old not getting her way; she knew that but could do nothing to act otherwise.

Uncle Patrick turned his back on her. Gripped the wheel he cherished in both fists.

“Be ready to travel at sunrise,” he stated.

She’d be ready to travel all right, but not to the Lucky Clover Ranch.

She spun about, nailed Travis Murphy with a glare.

“Why you low-down—” She caught her breath at the brokenness of his expression. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Ivy. I didn’t know who you were.”

She lifted the necklace from her throat and shoved it at Travis’s balled-up fist. It tinkled when it hit the floor.

While it hurt like a hornet’s sting to give up the remembrance of her mother, the past was the past and she was headed to a future of her own making.

* * *

What Ivy needed was time, Travis decided. Time to think things through. That’s why he didn’t go after her when she ran out of the pilothouse yesterday afternoon.

That’s why he’d spent fifteen minutes knocking on her door this morning only to discover that she had fled in the night.

Just when he thought his problem had been solved, he found himself chasing the heir to the Lucky Clover all over again...and rain was on the way.

Travis rode alongside the river, guessing that’s the way Ivy had gone. The Missouri was her comfort and chances were that’s where she would seek solace.

“I reckon if she’s set on piloting a boat, she’ll be looking for work on one,” he explained to the horse. It made sense, when he said it out loud.

Late in the afternoon he came upon a small paddle wheeler docked at the river’s edge. When he asked about Ivy, he discovered she’d been there.

It irked him that the men were still laughing at her...at a woman thinking she could do a man’s job.

But it worried him too. Ivy had been sheltered, had grown up under the protection of her uncle and the men on the River Queen. She didn’t know the dangers that could befall a woman alone. Sooner or later she would come upon a man who wouldn’t be laughing.

At twilight, the rain began to fall. He reckoned he ought to seek shelter, but he’d rather be wet than sit inside warm and dry, worrying about her.

Could be he was a fool and she was the one who had taken shelter, the one who was warm and dry.

“Well, hell,” he muttered, riding past an inn whose welcoming fire glowed through the big parlor window.

She might have taken shelter there, but he doubted it, given that she had left a note with her uncle, giving him all of her money and begging him to take it and not to sell the Queen.

In Travis’s opinion, money had nothing to do with the sale. Patrick Malone, captain, pilot and owner of the River Queen, would be well set financially. But the man understood that the river life was taking its last gasp. He wouldn’t want his niece wasting her future on it.

Travis took off his hat, shook out the water gathering in the brim. His coat was not yet soaked through, but it soon would be.

If Ivy hadn’t taken a room at the inn, she couldn’t be far ahead of him, given that she was on foot.

He’d ride another hour before he sought shelter.

As luck would have it, fifteen minutes later, he spotted a campfire among the trees. He tethered his mount to a bush beside the river, then walked fifty feet through the woods toward the fire.

Ivy sat with her back toward him, huddling under the shelter of a tarp that she had strung across some branches. She must have heard him crunching across twigs and fallen leaves, because she turned her head, glanced at him then back at the flames.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“I reckon I was harsh on you. This isn’t your doing.”

It felt to him like it was all his doing.

Maybe he should go home and try once again to convince William English to marry Agatha instead. She was a Magee, just as Ivy was.

But Agatha was not the heir. She was an invalid and not the sort of woman the neighbor needed to promote his political career.

“I’ll take your word that she is a lovely person, Travis,” William had argued the last time Travis suggested Agatha instead of Ivy. “But as far as I can tell, she never comes out from the shadow of her balcony. The couple of times I’ve seen her she just sits in her chair watching the world go by. There is no spark of animation in her. I need a woman who is genteel, gracious—ready to get out among the people, shake hands and win votes.”

And have children. It was William’s firm belief that a man without children was unelectable. All of Travis’s arguments ended there. No one would expect Agatha to fulfill that demand.

“There’s an inn a ways back,” he said, crouching beside her. “It’ll be warm and dry. We can talk.”

“I’m dry enough where I am.” She looked at him then. “But you aren’t...if I were you I’d scoot closer to the fire.”

“All right, I reckon we can talk here. But if you start to shiver, I’m hauling you back to the inn whether you want to go or not.”

She glanced at the dreary sky and shook her head.

“Did my uncle change his mind about selling the Queen?” Her eyes seemed red and swollen. It cut him to the quick to know she’d been weeping. “I reckon he was threatening to sell in order to get me to leave with you.”

“I’m sorry, Ivy. He went to the captain of the Belle this morning...they made an agreement, shook hands on it.”

Rain tapped on the tarp. Ivy drew her knees to her chest and hid her face. When she looked up a single tear rolled over the curve of her cheek.

“The Queen is his life.” She wiped her sleeve across her face. “Can’t imagine what he’ll do now.”

“Look, Ivy, I spent a long time talking to your uncle the other night. The boat is not his life...you are. The decision he made, it was because it was best for you.”

“That’s not for anyone but me to decide.”

“As right as that sounds, sometimes life decides for us.”

She reached across the distance separating them and squeezed his hand briefly. Maybe she forgave him...a little bit anyway.

“Reckon you didn’t feel so in control of life when your folks died and left you alone.”

“I wanted to crawl in the grave with my ma and pa.” Even now it was hard to think about the desolation he’d felt. “But your father was there with his big hand on my shoulder. After a while I was glad to be alive after all.”

“Well, ain’t I a sniveling ninny?” She straightened her shoulders, flashed him an unreadable glance then wriggled her fingers at the flames. “Boohooing like a spoiled child.”

“Not a spoiled child, Ivy. The life you wanted has just been taken from you. You’ve a right to your grief.”

“I tried to get a job on a boat, got laughed at all the way back to shore...and all because I was a woman.”

“I know...I spoke with the crew. I believe you could put their skills to shame seven days a week—I reckon that’s what scares them...having a woman do a better job would shame them. It’s easier to hide behind laughter.”

“Sounds like you know something about that.”

“Your father raised me like I was his son. There were some early on who thought I got my position because of it. Thought my job ought to have been theirs.”

“I bet you worked twice as hard just to prove them wrong.”

“And you know something about that.”

She nodded, gazing quietly at the fire.

“I have a sister?” she murmured at last. “I ought to have known it...the way I always felt a part of me was missing. Sort of like, a person standing in the sunshine and not seeing her shadow...if that makes any sense. All those years I thought it was just dreams and child’s play because I wanted a sister so badly. Now I know all along I was missing Agatha.”

Ivy’s hat lay beside the fire, she turned it so that the pouch was away from the heat.

“Even hearing her name...it doesn’t sound like a stranger’s name. Uncle Patrick should have told me.”

“Right now, I guess he wishes he had. But all he ever wanted was to protect you and honor his sister’s last wish for him to be the one to raise you.”

“Don’t see why he couldn’t have done both,” she grumbled then sighed deeply. “Can’t see the harm in telling the truth.”

“At first, when your parents divorced, there were plenty of hard feelings. Your father wouldn’t let your mother take both of his girls. Your uncle says that your mother was afraid that if your father knew where you were, he’d take you back. He had the money and the power to do it. It was your mother’s dying wish that Patrick raise you...so he kept your past a secret from you and everyone else.”

“All I ever knew was that my pa was a good man, a rancher who died young. How is it that you know so much when the only thing I know is a bald lie?”

“Like I said, your uncle and I talked for a long time. Everything he did was out of love for you. Even selling the boat. He didn’t come to his decision to do it without a lot of thought. I told him all about the ranch and about William English.”

“Who’s that?” she asked, her expression suddenly wary.

“The man who hopes to marry you.” There was no point in denying it.

“Gull-durned fellow, doesn’t know a whit about me!”

No he did not...and when he did, would the deal be off? William was expecting a high society bride, one of impeccable manners to charm voters and help accomplish his political ambitions.

Travis’s stomach felt hollow at the thought. Ivy was not the type of bride English was expecting.

In the end, it might not matter since there was every chance that Ivy would refuse to come with him.

“I got any other relations I don’t know about?”

“Only Agatha, but the folks at the ranch, they all feel like family.”

“Tell me about them, might help if I know.”

Help what? Her decision, he hoped.

“It’s like we’re a big family...there’s a lot of people involved in running the ranch. In the house we have Maria, she’s the head cook. Then there’s the girls who work under her, mostly the daughters of the hands. There’s Rebecca, the housekeeper who keeps things neat and tidy with her crew of girls. There’s Master Raymond, the schoolteacher for the children...the adults too, when things slow down for the winter. There’s Hilda Brunne, Agatha’s nurse. We’ve got cowboys, most with families and we have caretakers who keep the ranch in running order. Arthur runs the stable along with the three boys he’s training. Wouldn’t want to forget Elise, she does the household laundry. We’d be ripe smelling without her, then—”

“I think I’m getting dizzy. That’s a lot of folks. Reminds me of the Queen with everyone having a part to do.”

“It’s a lot like that, but on the land not the water.”

“Got any rivers for swimming on all that land?”

He hated to dash the hope suddenly lighting her eyes, but, “There’s water, we call it a river, but it’s not anything like your Missouri.”

“Don’t reckon it’s my Missouri anymore.” She picked up a stone beside her foot, tossed it into the fire. “Tell me more about Agatha.”

“Your uncle says it broke your mother’s spirit when she had to leave Agatha behind. Later on, your father told me he loved your mother, for all that they didn’t suit. It wasn’t for spite that he kept Agatha, but through her he hoped to keep part of his wife.

“I never met your mother. The two of you were gone when Foster took me in. From what he’s always told me about her, I reckon you take after her.”

“I don’t recall much about Mama, just flashes of memory...a picture here and an image there. I want to know about my sister. What is she like?”

“She’s something of a recluse...and shy. Not much for conversation. I’ve tried to engage her but she’s just not interested in much of anything...especially lately.”

“Was she always withdrawn?”

“When I was a boy, I never paid attention, really. She was just a little girl and I had my own growing to do. But I do recall one day asking your pa if she could ride with me. He said she was sickly and he would not risk her health for a bit of fun. Mrs. Brunne, her nurse, agreed with him. A few years ago, Agatha nearly died of a fever. It left your father shaken and even more protective than he had been. According to Mrs. Brunne, she became unable to walk. The things she likes are reading and sitting on her balcony.”

“Gosh almighty, I know something about fevers, but I never heard of one leaving a person lame.”

Ivy stared at the flames without speaking. Rain tapped on the tarp. Travis’s heart beat triple time because he figured Ivy was going over what he had told her—possibly making up her mind about things.

“Unless I agree to go with you to marry that man...” Ivy’s voice was barely above a whisper. It almost seemed as though she was talking to herself. “...the ranch will be lost and my helpless sister will have no home.”

Travis nodded his head. Losing the ranch would be hard on everyone but it would be especially ruinous for frail Agatha.

“I can’t rightly say I want to get married, especially to some stranger.” Ivy gazed over at him, her eyes narrowed. “Can’t quite figure why he’d want to marry me either. Maybe he’ll just give you a friendly loan, being neighbors and all.”

“He needs the ranch. He’s running for territorial legislature of Wyoming so being the owner of respected property will buy him votes.”

“Gosh almighty,” she murmured then gazed out at the rain dripping from the tree branches all around.

“All day long I’ve been walking and thinking, thinking and walking, my head all abuzz...and, Travis, I want to be with my sister.”

His heartbeat raced, he began to sweat even though he was cold.

“And I sure don’t want the two of us living in a tent beside the road.” She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Looks like you’ve got yourself an heir, Travis Murphy. As long as I can bring my mouse.”

He hugged her quick and hard, couldn’t help it. “Bring a dozen if you want to!”

“One’s trouble enough.”

“Let’s go back to the inn. It’s not far.”

“Your horse would appreciate it. Poor thing’s getting soaked.”

He stood, placed her hat on her head then gathered up the tarp.

“You won’t be sorry, Ivy. I swear on my life you won’t be.”

“I’ll ask one thing.” She touched his arm. He liked the feel of her fingers there. He liked the way her eyes looked extra blue with raindrops spattered on her lashes. “Will you take me back to the River Queen? I need to make peace with my uncle. I promise I won’t carry on and beg to stay. Just... I need to say my goodbyes.”

“I’ll do anything, Ivy...anything you ask.”

Whatever was in his power, he would do it.

* * *

She’d vowed not to wail and carry on, but the promise was proving hard to keep.

“Goodbye, Tom,” she said. Tom was the last of the crew she embraced in a hug. She held on a little longer than the boy might be comfortable with, but there was still one person to bid farewell to and she was putting it off.

Uncle Patrick. She was not sure she could do it.

The weakling in her wanted to run away and wave goodbye from a distance.

The one and only way she would be able to manage was to remember that this was what he wanted for her. What he wanted so badly that he was willing to give up what he loved the most...all right, what he loved nearly the most.

It had taken some time, and some talking with Travis on the way back to the River Queen, to be able to accept it because the way she had first looked at things, the selling of the Queen was a betrayal.

Ivy had always considered the boat to be her legacy...but maybe something else was her legacy instead.

Something big and vast. Acres upon acres of land. To hear Travis go on about it, the whole time his voice filled with wonder.

And it was all hers until she married. Then, she reckoned, it would belong to her husband. That didn’t set well.

A husband could do what he wanted where his wife was concerned. If he decided that she and Agatha ought to live in the barn he had the power to send them there.

Gull-durn it, that was a worry for another time. In this moment she had her heart full of saying goodbye.

Standing on the main deck, she looked up to see her uncle gazing down at her. He pushed away from the rail then began his descent down the steps. She listened to his footsteps, picturing where he was by the creak that each board made. Every sound this vessel uttered was carved on her heart.

She strained to hear because it was like the boat was talking to her, saying its own goodbye.

Travis stood on the shore with a pair of horses. All her worldly goods, which were not many, had been stuffed into the saddle packs.

Travis waved. She nodded back.

Too soon, Uncle Patrick was there, holding his arms wide for her to rush into them.

His embrace swallowed her, was nearly her undoing, but she held together, remembering that she was going to Agatha.

She wanted to say that she forgave him for keeping the secret of her past but her throat was too tight for words.

“I love you, Uncle Patrick,” she managed to whisper against his chest.

“And I love you, my brave little love.” He set her at arm’s length but didn’t let go. “This is for the best.”

She nodded because her voice might betray her and she did not want him to think she believed otherwise.

“What will you do, uncle?”

At least Ivy was headed to a new future...whatever it ended up being. For Uncle Patrick, he’d never lived any place but on the water.

“I’ll think of something.” He patted her head and smiled. “Now that I’ll be a landlubber, maybe I’ll get married.”

“That would be fine.”

“I’ve got something for you, Ivy.” He dug into his pocket. “Well, two things.”

He slipped her mother’s pendant about her neck. She reached up, closed it in her fist. It felt right to have the memento back where it belonged.

“And here.” He pressed an envelope into her hand. “It’s money. This marriage is a good thing—I want that for you—but a woman should have something of her own, in case of hard times. Your groom doesn’t even have to know about these funds. Travis has agreed to store them for you should you need them...which I don’t think you will, given that your intended is well-off.”

Uncle Patrick stared at her for a long moment. She reckoned he was memorizing her face, same as she was his.

Slowly, he turned her about, his hands firm on her shoulders.

“Off with you now,” he said. “Go with your young man and claim your future.”

She wished Travis was her young man, she’d feel a sight more comfortable about this whole thing if he was. Travis was at least a friend, instead of a stranger.

Silently, she nodded then walked over the gangplank toward the unknown, pausing for only an instant to feel the aged wood rocking under her feet.

“Goodbye, you wonderful river,” she whispered.

Then Travis was there, offering his hand. She took it and stepped ashore.

Chapter Four

Ivy stopped on the gangplank. Her hesitation was slight, barely more than a couple of heartbeats, but in that second Travis felt the future balance on a razor’s edge.

If she changed her mind—and no one would blame her for it if she did—the lives of those he loved would be damaged forever.

But then she came to him, taking the hand he offered, but more than that...accepting the future he offered.

“I bought you a horse,” he said, stating the obvious because he did not know what else was appropriate to say. “But back at the ranch you own a hundred more.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes at the pretty little mare that he had purchased. The horse was guaranteed to be gentle. He believed it; friendliness shone from her soft brown eyes.

“You want me to get up on that thing?”

“I thought you liked horses.”

This might be a setback. It would be Christmas before they got home if they had to walk to Wyoming.

“I do. I like them fine. I was talking about the saddle. Never been on one before.”

“You’ve never ridden?”

“Not much call to on a boat deck.”

“I reckon we can lead them for a mile or two, then when you’re comfortable, I’ll show you what to do.”

“Could take a lot of leading,” she admitted.

“I know this is all so strange to you.”

She nodded. “It feels like I’m going to live on the moon.”

“You’ll grow to like it. Everyone will welcome you like you are a queen.”

“I never aspired to be a queen...not even a princess.”

“I only meant that they will be forever grateful.”

Ivy stroked the mare’s nose, whispered something to her that he could not hear.

“Uncle Patrick is watching from the hurricane deck,” she said with a backward glance. “I reckon it would make it easier for him to see me riding. That will make him think that I’ll be all right.”

“You will be all right, better than all right.”

“Easy for you to say, my friend. You aren’t the one marrying a stranger.”

“Let’s take this thing step by little step. Starting with learning to ride.”

She took a breath, patted the pouch on her hat. “Sure is a long way up there.”

“Nice view of things once you settle in, though.”

“How do I go about settling in?”

The easiest way to get her on the horse would be to put his hands on her rear and hoist her up. But Patrick Malone was watching and Ivy’s rump was—

He had to look away quick. The heir was not meant for him. He’d better not let ruinous thoughts creep into his mind. Better to cut them off at the beginning before they got out of control.

Making a cup out of his joined hands, he indicated with a nod that she should put one foot in the cradle of his hand. “Hold on to the saddle horn and hoist yourself over.”

“Here I go. Make sure you catch me if I start to topple over the other side.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

But what did happen was that in rising, the ample curve of her breast, clad only in worn flannel, passed within an inch of his nose.

His heart thumped harder. He would not let that happen either. She had called him friend and so he would remain.

Anything more and he might just as well not have ripped her from the life she loved.

Although, as ripped as she no doubt felt, she had made the decision to go with him of her own free will. Yes, it had been aided by the sale of the boat, but still, no one had forced her.

“You look fine up there, Ivy.” He smiled up at her then mounted his horse. “You’ll make a good horsewoman.”

She turned in the saddle, waved to her uncle and gave him a big smile. “That’s a bit hopeful. Critter hasn’t even moved and I feel like I’m going to lose my breakfast.”

“You won’t.” He urged his horse forward and the mare followed. “All you have to do is hold on—your sweet girl will trail after my horse.”

“I’m putting my trust in you, Travis.”

Somehow, that simple statement made him want to deliver her back to her uncle. Her life was about to be spun about in a twister. Riding a horse instead of a ship was the least of what was to come.

But for now, she meant that she was trusting him to teach her to ride. “The rocking of her gait isn’t so different from the rocking of a ship. See how she rolls just like a deck.”

“If I fall off the deck, I’ll hit water. I fall off this saddle it’s hard ground.”

“This new life will be strange for a while,” he said, glancing behind and seeing that the River Queen had disappeared from view. “I’m here, Ivy, you don’t need to worry.”

* * *

Ivy was worried.

No longer worried about falling out of the saddle, but on this second night camping outside, she wondered if she would ever sleep again.

The land, while not quite silent, was lacking in the comfort of human sounds. With the exception of Travis’s deep, even breathing, that is. The man slept like a baby in his mama’s arms.

At home on the Queen, Ivy had been lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the boat and the knowledge that someone was always awake and keeping watch. She would stir in the night to hear footsteps going past her door, then whispered voices as the watch changed hands.

Out here there were rustling critters in bushes, owls and bats overhead...worst of all were the howls of coyotes and wolves moaning over the land.

She sat up suddenly from her bedroll, too aware that there were no walls, no buffer of water between her and them.

“Travis?” she called. He lay stretched out, relaxed, on the far side of the fire.

He lifted his hat from his face to...yes, to glare at her. But, gull-durn it, it wasn’t her fault that the wolf sounded closer and bigger than it had five minutes ago.

“That wolf’s getting closer. Little Mouse is nervous about it.”

“Not a wolf, a coyote, and it won’t come near the fire.”

He’d assured her of that three times in the past few hours, but in her opinion, it did sound closer.

“She’s also cold. She’s used to being in my room all warm and cozy.” Truthfully, the mouse was probably toasty inside her pouch. It was Ivy who was cold.

And sore. Every time she felt a mite comfortable trying to rest on the ground, her muscles would begin to ache. One couldn’t spend all day in the saddle without paying a price.

All right, Travis could, she would have to admit. But as much as he assured her that her aches would go away, she didn’t believe it...not any more than she believed this little fire would keep a pack of hungry predators at bay.

Travis sat up, rubbed his hand over his face. Then with a groan, he reached for the woodpile and tossed two logs on the fire. Sparks crackled toward the treetops.

“That better?”

“Warmer,” she admitted. “But it seems to me that it sends a big signal, letting those hungry critters know where we are.”

“They already know it. Have you gotten any sleep at all?” he asked in a gruff, accusing voice.

She shook her head. Maybe it would help if she loosened her braid like she did at home.

Untying the leather thong, she shook her head then ran her fingers through the messy hank. She had a brush but it was in her saddle pack and that was at the edge of the small clearing where the firelight did not reach. She was not going over there for anything.

“How long ’til daylight, I wonder?” Not that it would be such a relief since she would then be required to get back in the saddle. A whole new collection of aches and pains would cramp her muscles and make her bones hurt.

“Four hours,” he said, seeming certain about that even though there was no watchman calling out the hour to the pilot.

“I’m sorry for sounding sharp.” He got up from his side of the fire and came to hers. He sat down a friendly distance away.

Funny how she wished he’d move even closer. He was large enough to give off a wave of warmth.

“After a while, you’ll get used to this.” He indicated the dark beyond the fire’s reach.

“If that’s so, why’d you bring your gun over here?”

“It’s for the two-legged varmints.”

“Folks?”

“Ivy, haven’t you ever run across someone who wanted to harm you?”

“Reckon I might have, but my uncle and the roustabouts were always nearby.”

He set the gun down between them. Maybe he figured if a two-legged marauder did invade their camp, she would help by picking up the side arm and dispatching the troublemaker in a single shot. He would not be reassured to know that Uncle Patrick did not hold with guns aboard the Queen. She was as likely to shoot Travis as the invader.

Since she felt as helpless in her new world as a bald baby, she didn’t tell him this.

“I’ve been wondering,” Travis said, sounding conversational.

If conversation would keep him awake and on her side of the fire she’d speak everything that came across her mind.

Beginning with, “So have I. Will my...that is, well, my husband...will he mind sharing his home with Little Mouse?” Not that it mattered in the end. She had kept her existence a secret from Uncle Patrick; she could as easily keep her a secret from...what was his name? Waldo, Wilfred? Winston? Gosh almighty! She’d been so caught up in everything she’d plum forgot her intended’s name.

“What made you decide to come with me? To take on all this?” Travis asked, ignoring the interruption of her nonsense question. “You might have refused...left us to deal with things on our own?”

“Uncle Patrick sold the boat. I no longer had a home.”

“That wasn’t all of it.” He looked at her, clearly searching behind her eyes for the true answer.

“Agatha, of course.” She was the one and only reason.

At the end of all this was the person she had been longing for all her life. The one she had thought was a dream, an imaginary friend. No longer a hazy desire. Agatha was a flesh-and-bone sister. She had stepped out of the mist and become family.

And with the new bond Ivy would find—or rediscover maybe—love. The fact that she had no solid memories of Agatha did not take away from the new emotion Ivy felt for her.

“No one else would have been able to make me leave my uncle, no matter how much a landlubber he becomes after the Queen.”

“All of us on the Lucky Clover are beholden to you.”

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I reckon if it weren’t for my sister I wouldn’t be here.” Gull-durn it, she did sound ungrateful. Mighty ungrateful when he’d offered her something that most women never even dreamed of. “I’ll do my best not to let you down.”

“I don’t see how you could,” he said.

“I could take one look at my groom and run like a Sunday Chicken.”

“William English is a handsome man.”

William...she’d do her durndest to remember it next time.

“I don’t know a thing about running a ranch.”

“You won’t need to. That’s my job.”

“But I want to. If it’s really mine, I won’t sit about as useless as a feathered hat.”

“You don’t like pretty feathered hats? Most ladies do.”

“Why I’d feel sorry for the bird those feathers first belonged to every time I put it on. Besides, they’d tickle my neck. I tell you, Travis, when it comes to their appearance, ladies can be as foolish as peacocks. Struttin’ around in their finery with nary a care for comfort. Downright traps is what those feathers and lace are.”

Travis made a noise under his breath. Sure wasn’t a happy sound. More like a curse but without the word formed.

He crawled back to his side of the fire, stretched out then covered his face with his hat.

“Don’t know why you’re so prickly, Travis Murphy. You don’t have to wear them.”

He grunted again, then pretended to be asleep.

She was not mistaken that the wolf pack—and she was gull-durned certain they were not coyotes—had come closer. Since Travis had taken his gun and stored it under his saddle, she hoped he was right about the fire keeping them away.

“Sure do hope this ranch house you’re taking me to has four solid walls,” she grumbled.

For some reason, that made Travis chuckle in his false sleep. She was relieved to hear the sound.

* * *

Travis knelt beside the kindling he had stacked for the night’s campfire. He paused in igniting the match to watch Ivy wading in the knee-deep stream.

Her pant legs were rolled up to her thighs. Her braid dangled over her shoulder as she bent at the waist, peering into the water. Little Mouse clung to the collar of her shirt, peering at the water as intently as Ivy was.

She had promised fresh fish for supper. Without fishing gear he couldn’t figure how she’d manage it.

No doubt they would end up eating jerky and hardtack again tonight. But for now he was enjoying watching her try to catch a fish. She moved gracefully through the rushing stream, sometimes standing as still as an egret before she glided a few more steps.

Behind her, the land rolled away to the horizon where the setting sun streaked the clouds in brilliant orange. He’d rarely seen a prettier, more dramatic vista.

This incredible, once-a-year sunset was the perfect backdrop for a once-in-a-lifetime woman.

The scene before him was one that he would always cherish, no matter where his life took him...or hers took her.

Once in a while there were moments out of time that one could only embrace.

But a second later, the thought of where Ivy’s life was about to take her suddenly turned his stomach sour.

In the beginning, when he had begun his search for Eleanor, he’d given her future no more than a passing concern. Any woman would certainly want what he was offering: land, wealth and a prominent husband.

Women all over the state would envy Ivy.

All of a sudden he could not look at her. He lit the kindling and added three small logs, watching while the sparks caught and the tiny flames reached for wood.

He was beginning to fear that she was the one woman who would not want what he offered.

She wanted her sister, yes. But the rest?

Hearing water splash and Ivy laugh, he looked up.

“Got us a big fat one, Travis!” She held up her catch, waving it victoriously in her fists. Little Mouse slipped but caught Ivy’s shirt with four pink paws and scrambled inside her breast pocket. “Want one more?”

“That one’s big enough for three!” he called back.

For a moment, he tried to picture her in a frilly dress nipped tight at the waist like the ladies wore them. She would look lovely. There was no denying it. But would it make her happy?

From what she’d had to say about fashion so far, he doubted it.

All he could hope for was that she would learn to be comfortable with it. The future of everyone at the Lucky Clover depended upon her being willing to become elegant.

“Heat up the pan while I gut this critter,” she said, standing beside him now, her calves and ankles spotted with water that sparkled on her skin with the final rays of the setting sun.

He glanced up at her; the satisfaction of catching dinner bare-handed made her blue eyes light up with pleasure. The mouse crept out of her pocket then crawled up her shirt to sit on her shoulder.

Was it even possible for Ivy to become elegant? Would she end up with a crushed spirit, the same as had happened to her mother?

There would be no divorce for Ivy, though. No second chance at life. William English was not a cruel man, but he was ambitious. His wife would be a reflection of him. Perfection would be required of her.

Given who he was, William would be a perfect husband, a match to his perfect wife, at least in the public eye.

If that did not turn out to be the case privately, William would never allow divorce to ruin the ideal image.

“Better get that pan going!” This time Ivy’s voice came from beside the stream. “I’m so hungry I’d fight a bear for this fish!”

He watched her while he fetched the pan from his saddle pack.

Kneeling beside the water, she sliced the fish down the middle. Scooping out the innards, she tossed them into the stream.

They had spent thirteen nights on the road to Cheyenne. The first three had been sleepless misery, but not the last ten. In fact, night before last she had only woken him once, fearing that she heard a bear rustling in the shrubbery.

Which, she had. But the small brown critter had fled when Travis banged the fry pan and the kettle against each other.

“Gosh almighty, you’re brave!” she’d declared, grinning at him in clear admiration.

Then she’d slept on his side of the fire the rest of the night without waking. But last night she’d slept on her own side of the fire.

Funny how he’d been the one to wake up, hoping the sounds in the night would be Ivy Magee coming to lie beside him again.

As much as he knew it was wrong to want that, he’d continued to toss about, seeing images of her in his mind and wondering if...wondering nothing. Unrestricted wondering would be a big mistake.

Watching her now while the pan heated, smiling with pride at her filleted fish, he knew it was a damn good thing that they would reach Cheyenne in two days.

That was when he would need to begin making a lady out of Miss Eleanor Ivy Magee. She wouldn’t feel so friendly toward him then, and he might find it easier to resist her earthy charm.

There was no doubt that she was going to resist the restrictions on her dress and behavior. Looked at fairly, who was he to force them upon her?

Only the man fighting for the survival of the Lucky Clover and everyone on it.

He could only hope that after a time, she would come to see that this new life was for the best.

Given time, she would forget the ways of the river and embrace being a fine lady.

Curse it, that thought ought to put him at ease. All it did was turn his belly sour, keeping him from anticipating eating his share of that hand-caught fish.

Chapter Five

There were some things Ivy had gotten used to, even come to enjoy.

One thing was the sway of the horse’s gait beneath her was no longer frightening. So far, she hadn’t tumbled out of the saddle. She reckoned she wouldn’t, now that she was better used to things. Besides, it really wasn’t that far to the ground.

Another was—and this did surprise her—as long as Travis was close by, she was able to fall asleep beside the campfire. It didn’t appear, after all, that she was going to be eaten by a wolf or torn to pieces by a marauding bear.

Also, the folks they had met along the way were as friendly as pie.

But gosh almighty, just when she’d begun to think she might get by living away from the wide and wonderful Missouri River, she’d set eyes on the South Platte.

“This ain’t no river, Travis!” She’d stood at the bank, staring in dismay at the ribbon of brown cutting the land. “Why, a body couldn’t even paddle a canoe down the middle of this mud puddle.”

In her mind, a respectable river ought to gurgle and ripple. It ought to be overhung with trees. For as far as she could see, those green beauties were scarce.

Land stretched out forever, unbroken by anything but the skyline of Cheyenne, which Travis had called the Magic City.

It was their destination today and even though they were still a couple of hours away, she could see tall buildings against the bright blue sky.

“This river is the life blood of your ranch,” he explained. “It’s what keeps your cattle watered.”

He looked nervous. Could be he thought she might hightail and run, given how ugly things were compared to where she had come from.

Here she was, though, and she would have to make the best of things. In the end, it was her sister she’d come to be with and the sad state of the water didn’t count for much by comparison.

Maybe she’d get used to looking up and seeing an ocean of rolling hills instead of a mountain range. As long as she had Agatha, she’d be happy enough.

But that was some miserable looking water.

“How’s a body to swim in the natural?” She wagged her finger at the sluggishly flowing water.

Travis Murphy’s jaw sagged. “Life is different now, Ivy. You just can’t go freely around like you did before.”

“I reckon I can if there’s miles of land that’s mine. I suppose I can do what I want to on it.”

“Maybe.” His frown set deep in his brow. “I guess I can send one of the help with you if you’ve got your heart set on bathing in the Platte.”

“Help?” Her heart flipped over on itself.

“Hired women? Ladies who work in the house?”

“I hope I’m not supposed to be in charge of them.” She’d never been in charge of anyone but Ivy Magee. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about that. I reckon they know what to do fine all on their own.”

“They do.” Poor Travis looked more worried by the minute. “But they might need your opinion, or advice once in a while.”

“Don’t know that I can advise anyone who already knows what they’re doing better than I do.” This whole business troubled the daylights out of her.

Travis walked to the shoreline. He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, staring at the water slogging slowly past.

“I reckon you wish someone else was the heir.” It bothered her to think that he did, but she couldn’t blame him for it. “I’ll do my best not to shame you.”

“Shame? I’m so damn grateful for you, Ivy.”

He turned to face her. Those lush green eyes all but made her weak in the knees. They reminded her of home...of the river and the trees. He tugged gently on her braid then let go so quickly that it was as if her hair had burned him.

“I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he said.

“I’m plum obliged.” She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I reckon I never had a better friend.”

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