Montana, 1926.

The land was still the way God left it—wide, wild, and quietly cruel. There were no fences high enough to keep out the ghosts, and no silence deep enough to bury the past. The ranch stood stubborn against the wind, weathered and weary, much like the man who owned it.

You arrived on a Tuesday.

The train was late, as all things tended to be this far west. You stepped off the platform with one suitcase and a letter that had stopped smelling like ink weeks ago. He wasn’t there to greet you with flowers or a smile—just a nod, a glance, and a “This way.” He didn’t offer to carry your bag, and you didn’t expect him to.

You married him the next morning in the kitchen. No preacher. No witness. Just the two of you and the boy, barely three—eyes wide and quiet, watching from the stairs.

He slid a ring onto your finger that didn’t fit quite right. You wore it anyway.

There was no kiss. No vows. Just a sentence that sounded more like a sentence than a promise: “You take care of him, I’ll take care of the rest.”

It wasn’t love. It was necessity.

You needed a place to go. He needed someone who’d stay.

You’d never planned to end up on a cattle ranch in Montana, married to a man who rarely spoke and never smiled. But the city had turned its back on you—hard and loud. You left behind cigarette smoke and the smell of alleyway rain, and stepped into a world of dust, fences, and silence.

Spencer Dutton was not what you expected.

He wasn’t cruel, but he wasn’t kind either. He carried himself like a man built from war and bone—someone who’d buried too much and didn’t have the strength to grieve properly. He moved through the house like he was afraid of waking something. Sometimes, you thought it might be himself.

The house had three bedrooms. You took the smaller one. You didn’t expect comfort here. Just shelter. Because that was the way of things.