The stagecoach lurched over another rut, and Norah Callaway's head cracked against the wooden frame hard enough to make her vision blur.
She didn't complain. Complaining required energy she'd stopped wasting three states ago.
Across from her, a cattle merchant snored with his mouth open, filling the cramped compartment with breath that smelled like whiskey and rotting teeth.
Beside him, a woman in an expensive traveling coat held a perfumed handkerchief to her nose and stared out the window with the practiced indifference of someone who'd learned to ignore unpleasant things.
Norah had learned that skill, too, though not by choice.
She pressed her palm against the leather satchel on her lap.
Everything she owned in the world condensed into one bag that weighed less than hope and more than pride.
Inside were three dresses, a sewing kit, her mother's silver thimble, and the letter that had changed everything.
"Mrs. Callaway, your arrangement with Mr. Harlon Greer is confirmed. Stage arrives Sorrow Creek the 14th. Someone will meet you. Reverend Morris."
Seventeen words.
That's all it took to reshape a life.
The woman with the perfumed handkerchief finally spoke without looking at Norah.
"You're the mail-order bride?"
It wasn't a question.
Norah kept her expression neutral.
"I'm traveling to meet my husband. Yes."
"Harlon Greer's place."
The woman's lips twitched.
Not quite a smile.
Something colder.
"I heard about his situation. Six boys and a failing ranch. You must be desperate."
The cattle merchant stirred, cracking one bloodshot eye.
"Or stupid."
Norah's fingers tightened on her satchel, but her voice stayed level.
"I'm neither desperate nor stupid. I'm practical."
"Practical?"
The woman tested the word like it tasted bitter.
"Is that what you call marrying a man you've never met? Moving to the edge of nowhere to raise someone else's children?"
"I call it survival," Norah said quietly. "Same as anything else."
The truth was more complicated, but these strangers didn't deserve it.
They didn't need to know about the factory fire in St. Louis that took her husband and left her with debts she couldn't pay.
They didn't need to know about the landlord who'd suggested alternative arrangements for rent.
They didn't need to know that the choice wasn't between marriage and freedom.
It was between marriage and the streets.
So yes, she was practical.
The stagecoach crested a hill and Sorrow Creek came into view.
Norah's first thought was that someone had given the town the wrong name.
It should have been called Surrender, or maybe Dust.
Buildings leaned against each other like drunks trying to stay upright.
The main street looked more like a suggestion than a road, barely visible under layers of dirt that seemed permanent.
A few horses stood tied outside what might have been a saloon, too tired to swish their tails at flies.
"Welcome to paradise," the cattle merchant muttered, finally sitting up.
The woman with the handkerchief gathered her belongings with practiced efficiency.
"The hotel is passable if you're not particular, which you shouldn't be. This far west, particular gets you nowhere."
The stage rolled to a stop outside a building that proclaimed itself the general store in faded letters.
The driver's boots hit the ground with a heavy thud, followed by the creak of the door opening.
"Sorrow Creek," he announced unnecessarily. "Watch your step."
Norah climbed down, her legs stiff from three days of travel.
The street was empty except for a man leaning against a post outside the saloon, watching her with the kind of interest that made her skin crawl.
She turned away, focusing instead on retrieving her bag from the back of the coach.
"You Mrs. Greer?"
The voice came from behind her, young, male, and carefully neutral.
Norah turned to find a boy of maybe 16 watching her with eyes that looked decades older.
He was tall and lean in the way of someone who'd grown fast and hadn't filled out yet.