prologue

Central Nebraska, 1880

Lena Walker stiffened and glared into the face of the man before her. “I will not marry you, Dagget Shafer. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.”

His small, dark eyes narrowed, and despite the thick black beard covering most of his face, skin as bright red as a cardinal’s feathers shone through. “You will change your mind, Miz High and Mighty. You can’t run this farm by yourself and rear those two younguns. You’ll either starve or get sick and die.”

“I can work this land and raise my children just fine by myself,” she said with a lift of her chin. Perspiration beaded her forehead and trickled down her back as she fought her rising temper.

“I dare say you’ll live to regret your decision not to marry me. A woman needs a man to take care of her and tell her what to do,” he shot back. “And if you had the sense to look around, you’d see there ain’t many eligible men in these parts.” He turned to face the entrance of the sod dugout, used as a barn, then whirled back around. “Of course, now I see you’d make a bad wife. I need a woman who knows the meanin’ of doin’ what her husband says and where her place is, not some sassy, purdy face. Miz Walker, you ain’t got what I need. You ain’t fit for any man.”

Swallowing another sharp retort, Lena glanced at the bucket of water in her hands and, without thinking, tossed the contents into Dagget Shafer’s face. Probably the closest thing he’d seen to a bath in a year. “Get off my land.” Venom riddled her voice. “We don’t need the likes of you.”

For a minute she thought Dagget might strike her. She dropped the bucket, grabbed the pitchfork leaning against the dugout wall, and silently dared him to step closer.

Dagget must have sensed she meant business because he plodded toward his mule, muttering something she couldn’t make out.

Lena started to challenge his view of her fitness to be a wife but held her tongue. She’d run him off, and that’s what she’d intended. How could he think she’d be interested in a man who never bathed, had the manners of a pig, and refused to step inside a church? Her heart ached for his six children who no longer had a mother, but her sympathy didn’t extend to marrying their unbearable father.

“Mama, you all right?” eleven-year-old Caleb asked, peering around the corner of a horse stall.

She took a deep breath to settle her pounding heart as Dagget rode away, his legs flapping against the sides of the mule. “Yes, Son. I’ll be fine.”

He picked up the empty bucket. “I’ll go fetch some more water.”

Lena nodded and laid her hand on her son’s shoulder. “Thanks, Caleb.”

He glanced up through serious, sky-blue eyes. “I’m glad you’re not marryin’ him, Mama. We do just fine by ourselves.”

Suddenly the whole incident seemed funny. The thought of Dagget standing there with water dripping from his greasy beard to his dirty overalls, nary saying a word, was priceless. Caleb took to laughing too, and their mirth echoed from the sod barn’s walls.

“We do need help,” Lena finally admitted. “But it will be by God’s hand, not by Dagget Shafer or any of the others who seem to think I’m begging for a husband.”

“We work good together, Mama,” Caleb insisted.

She smiled into the face of the boy who looked so much like his departed father, with the same dark brown hair and tall, lanky frame. “Right now, you, Simon, and I are doing all right, but tomorrow may bring something else. God will provide; I’m sure of it. But I need to talk to Him about the matter.”

That night, after the embers from the cow chips no longer produced a flicker of orange-red, and the only sounds around her were her sons’ even breathing, Lena prayed for guidance.

Oh, Lord, what do You want me to do? This place needs a man to run it, and the boys are too young. I know the men who have come asking me to marry them could run this farm proper, but Lord, none of them were fit. She shook her head in the darkness, dispelling the visions of the other two farmers who had indicated a desire to marry her. One of them was old enough to be her father, and the other reminded her of a billy goat—with a disposition to match.

Lord, Dagget made me awful angry today, and I’m sorry to have lost my temper. I’ll apologize the next time I see him; I promise. It’s my pride, I know. I’m sorry, and I’ll do better.

Life simply didn’t seem fair. Men could come looking for a wife, even place a notice in one of those big newspapers back East. They took advantage of women who had no one to help them when circumstances took a bad turn.

Suddenly an idea occurred to her. If a man could find himself a bride by placing an advertisement, why couldn’t she find a husband?