Chapter One

      Proud Bend, Colorado, April, 1883

      “Did I read that right?” Clare Walsh peered up from her chair at the Recording Office in Proud Bend, Colorado. She blinked rapidly. “My parents are gone?”

      Standing over her with a deep frown, Noah Livingstone lifted the telegram again. A moment ago, Clare had thrust it at her supervisor, hoping and praying she’d misunderstood the shocking words. She now watched him scan the paper yet again, her breath held so tight that her lungs hurt.

      Please, Lord, let it not be so.

      “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, Miss Walsh,” Noah hedged.

      She rolled her eyes. “They’re on a ship that’s now missing! How else am I going to put it?” She didn’t care that her tone was sharp. The telegram that had arrived less than fifteen minutes ago held nothing that warranted polite hedging, even from the calm and reserved Mr. Noah Livingstone.

      She swallowed and bit her lip. Her parents’ steamship had been lost at sea.

      Noah pulled up a chair and sat close to her. The Recording Officer scanned the telegram one more time, as if, like her, he might hope to read something different in it. When his gaze lifted to hers, his intense blue eyes softened.

      Her heart flipped.

      “The telegram says that their steamship is overdue at Liverpool, England,” he said in a gentle tone that rolled over Clare in the soft, soothing way she so appreciated. “It says it may have been lost at sea.”

      The office around them was small, already crowded with two desks, numerous filing cabinets and a small glassed-in private office for Noah. With the other clerk, Mr. Pooley, hovering close by, the whole interior felt suddenly claustrophobic. Noah carefully folded the telegram and set it down on Clare’s desk, before taking her cold hands into his.

      His fingers were warm and the grip, while not hard, was firm enough to offer a welcome sense of security. When she sniffed, his fingers tightened around hers.

      She could also smell the scent of his soap, faint and slightly stringent, as he leaned closer to her. She wanted to inhale deeply, it was so pleasing, but fought back the urge. This was hardly the time.

      It had been six weeks since her parents left rather hastily for the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany. They were to be gone for six months in an attempt to bring relief to her mother’s crippling arthritis. A cure, touted by the new doctor who’d moved to Proud Bend last summer, offered hope where there hadn’t been any before.

      She and her superior sat and did nothing for the longest minute of her life. Noah stared at their interlocking hands. Clare’s gaze wandered from his ruggedly handsome face to fall upon an open letter on her desk, another portent of bad news that had arrived by an errand boy mere minutes before the telegram. In it, the bank manager had firmly requested a meeting to discuss her parents’ overdue mortgage payment.

      Her whole body then seemed to coil and tighten. She wanted to push everyone away, to shout and deny both sets of terrible news.

      But then she shut her eyes again, took several deep breaths and fought the impulse. She was stronger than this. She could handle any situation.

      She also wanted to stop herself from gripping Noah’s warm hands even tighter. In all the months she’d worked here, he had been nothing but professional with her. To have this—this sudden familiarity—was quite frankly too much of a comfort for the modern woman that she was.

      Still, Clare took it just the same, as she recalled the last day before her parents left.

      Six weeks ago, while Mother had ushered Clare’s much younger brothers into her bedroom with her so they could help her pack up the last few items, Clare’s father had divulged that he’d emptied his bank account, paying only March’s mortgage payment. He had been concerned that they might need extra funds for the long journey and promised to return whatever money he had left once they arrived in Germany. Clare had expected the money any day now.

      With an inward cringe, she stole a furtive look at the letter she’d left open on her desk a few minutes ago. Her father had knowingly left her broke. He knew the next payment would be overdue. Why had he done that?

      “When exactly did their ship leave?” Noah asked quietly.

      Clare looked at him through blurring tears as she reluctantly untangled their fingers. She fumbled for the small calendar on her desk, all the while staring at the bank’s letter.

      “They left for New York six weeks ago, and arrived there a week later. Father had wired me the name of the steamship they’d booked passage on.” She flipped to the previous month on which she’d written the name. Her voice quivered. “The SS Governor was to leave three days after they arrived. Crossing the Atlantic is supposed to take two weeks. The ship was due to arrive at Liverpool two weeks ago, and then depart immediately for Rotterdam, where they were to take a river barge to Baden-Baden. If all had gone well, they would have arrived at the Kurhaus by now and the money would be en route back to me.”

      Clare cleared her throat. “According to the telegram, the ship is two weeks overdue. When was the telegram sent?”

      Noah picked it up again. He consulted the clock on the wall. “Early last night. The ship’s company office in New York sent it.”

      Clare nodded glumly, hating how little the telegram told her. What had been done to find the steamship? Had other ships been told to look out for Governor on their journeys across the Atlantic? Maybe the ship had been found, and another telegram with good news was on its way to her.

      “Anything could have happened,” Noah told her softly. “We don’t know for sure that they’re gone. Don’t think the worst yet.”

      Clare pulled back her shoulders. Those kind words were meant to be a comfort, but they felt like a smothering cloud of smoke. She opened her desk’s bottom drawer, exposing her purse. “I need to tell the boys,” she muttered as she stood.

      Her little brothers, Tim and Leo, were in school right now, but Clare could remove them for the day. Miss Thompson, their schoolteacher, would understand.

      Noah jumped to his feet, stepping quickly sideways to block her exit from the back area of the Recording Office. Mr. Pooley, the other clerk who had been hovering close by, threw a fast look at him. “Don’t tell them yet,” Noah said.

      Clare stopped, rolling her own gaze up to his handsome face. Tall and slim, yet as strong as braided wire, Noah Livingstone had a rancher’s frame with tanned features and clear blue eyes. In his day suit, he was a fine figure of a man. If it were any other circumstance, she’d revel in the thought of how close he stood to her. It would warm her the way a stovetop warmed milk pudding. He was everything she could admire in a man.

      Clare blinked away the thought. She should be ashamed of herself for that disrespectful notion at such a time as this. Thankfully, Noah had been nothing but professional with her. Still, he was a man she could relish watching anytime, if she was given to such folly.

      She gave herself a firm mental shake. Yes, it was a good thing that college had schooled such romance out of her. College, and her mentor, Miss Worth, had taught her that women needed to be strong at all times and independent to the core. There will come a day, Miss Worth often predicted, when women will have as many rights as men. It was time women earned those rights by setting aside simpering affections for the less fair sex.

      Men. Boys. Her brothers.