Her eyes were green-gray.
Her voice was low and calm.
She could add a complicated supply order faster than most men in town could find a pencil.
She could lift a flour sack if necessary, though her father preferred she ask for help.
And when she laughed, Will forgot important things.
Like what he had been saying.
Or breathing.
Men proposed.
Rose declined.
A rancher from Silver Ridge once arrived with roses imported at ridiculous cost from Denver.
Rose thanked him beautifully.
Then said no.
A merchant’s son offered to take her east.
No.
A young lawyer promised a large house.
No.
A widower with two children told her she would “make a fine mother.”
Rose replied that his children already had a mother, even if she was dead, and he should remember that before seeking a replacement.
That proposal ended quickly.
The town invented reasons.
Rose was waiting for wealth.
Rose planned to leave Wyoming.
Rose believed no man was good enough.
Rose had secretly promised herself to someone back east.
Nobody looked toward Will Hadley.
Nobody except George Alcott.
George had known Will since childhood and possessed the unpleasant habit of saying exactly what everyone else politely avoided.
Three days before Rose spoke outside the livery, George had watched Edward Marsh ride into town.
Marsh was forty-two.
Successful.
Controlled.
Owner of one of the largest cattle operations in the county.
His clothes were never flashy.
He did not need them to be.
Land gave a man a kind of confidence tailoring could not imitate.
Edward Marsh owned nearly twelve thousand acres, hundreds of cattle, and a house outside town large enough to have six fireplaces.
He was not cruel.
That would have made everything easier.
He was sensible.
Respected.
Stable.
The sort of man fathers noticed.
Which explained why he sat across from Daniel Callahan in the general store’s back office and asked his question carefully.
“Does your daughter have an attachment I should know about?”
Daniel looked at him for a long moment.
Rose’s father was nearly sixty, broad through the shoulders, his hair gray at the temples.
He loved his daughter too much to bargain over her future.
“She makes her own choices.”
Marsh nodded.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not asking for ownership.”
“Good.”
Daniel folded his hands.
“Because you would not get it.”
Marsh accepted that without offense.
“I intend to ask her properly.”
Daniel studied him.
“You’re serious.”
“I am.”
“She may say no.”
“She may.”
Marsh stood.
“I would rather hear no than spend another year wondering.”
That line, had Will heard it then, might have saved him considerable misery.
Marsh left.
Daniel watched him cross the street.
Then looked through the front window toward the livery stable.
Will stood outside tightening a saddle strap.
Daniel shook his head.
That evening, Rose hung laundry behind the Callahan house while her father sat on the porch.
The sunset spread red across the mountains.
Daniel waited until she pinned a sheet to the line.
“Edward Marsh spoke to me today.”
Rose did not turn.
“I assumed he would.”
“You knew?”
“He is not subtle.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“Most people would call Marsh subtle.”
“Most people are not being courted by him.”
Her father watched her carefully.
“He intends to ask.”
Rose fixed another clothespin.