Madame Sue Soderburg stopped, her face drawn, a cigarette burning in between her fingers despite the early hour. “They’re framing me for Roberta’s murder.”

On the mantle, a photograph in a tarnished frame showed a stern man, two children, and a woman with a hauntingly blank stare.

The little girl giggled and patted Needle’s trunk. “I think the tree heard me.”

The canyon stretched before them under a half-moon. Cattle shuffled along the dusty trail below. Someone was stealing her livestock again.

It is with reverence and a hush of winter stillness that I present to you this series of letters from Mrs. Marian Tate—a young widow dwelling alone in the Kansas Territory during that first long, uncertain season of 1855.

Sagebrush Ridge Territory of Kansas September to April 1855   The wind whispered secrets through the tallgrass of the Kansas prairie, rustling the pages of Marian Tate’s latest letter. Ink stained her calloused fingers as she carefully formed each word, her gaze often drifting towards the figure resting on the cot in the corner of her small cabin. Hank Dawson. He’d arrived weeks ago, a broken man found near her property line, feverish and clutching a shattered leg.   Marian,

Her badge caught the sun just as a rider thundered down Main Street, raising a cloud of red clay behind him. Mercy recognized the horse before the man: the gray Appaloosa with a split ear. Wild Rye, Everett Tate's mare.

Margaret Abernathy found the journal six months after Robert died....Then a name appeared that she’d never heard before.

Harold listened intently, his expression serious. “Those townies are all bluster. But you gotta be careful. Don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you scared.” He then grinned, his eyes twinkling. “Though I gotta admit, using Maharani as backup was a stroke of genius!”

Cottonwood Springs Nebraska Territory 1863 The stagecoach rattled to a stop, sending plumes of dust into the parched air of Cottonwood Springs. Lillian McAllister clutched her valise in one hand and steadied her bonnet with the other as she stepped down onto the wooden platform. The town stretched before her, a single dusty street lined with weathered buildings that had seen better days, much like the weary faces that turned to appraise her.   "Schoolteacher?" the stagecoach

Her mind wandered to the meaning of the larkspur, a flower embodying joy and an open heart...

With curiosity, she lifted the bouquet. The scent of lavender transported her instantly back fifteen years to summers at her grandmother’s cottage in Provo Canyon, to herb gardens and flower presses, and to Matt.

A rifle shot cracked through the quiet, the bullet slicing past Jed’s ear with a hiss like an angry rattler. He kicked Comet into a hard gallop...

One of those? You never raised a red tent.

He was 15 when the circus rolled into town one crisp, autumn day. For a week the townsfolk patronized The Greatest Show on Earth...

“We survived a winter,” he had told her that morning, pressing a calloused hand against her cheek, “but it will take work to thrive in the

A splash of color caught her eye near the garden fence; delicate purple and yellow blooms pushing up through the thawing soil. Pansies.

Alina and Dr. Rigby's happy conclusion.

Jed Smith takes his job riding for The Pony Express seriously as he traverses the plains and mountains to deliver the mail.

Alina and Dr. Rigby both make wishes. Will they come true?