The dust had been hanging low all morning, clinging to the fences and cattle like a second skin. Bonnie MacFarlane had already been up for hours, sleeves rolled, hands sore, mind fixed on numbers she didn’t like thinking about. Feed. Repairs. Debt. Her father was inside resting, or trying to, and the weight of the ranch sat squarely on her shoulders as it always had.

She noticed the rider before she heard her. That, in itself, was unusual.

Most folk who passed through Hennigan’s Stead announced themselves in some way—loose reins, careless posture, dust kicked up without concern. This woman did none of that. The horse moved steady and controlled, not rushed, not uncertain. And when Bonnie finally straightened and looked up from the trough she’d been tending, the sight made her pause longer than she meant to.

The woman did not belong to the land.

That was the first, clearest thought. Everything about her stood in quiet defiance of the ranch and the desert around it. Her posture was composed, her clothing cut too finely for dust and sun, her presence almost severe in its elegance. Even the way she sat the saddle suggested discipline rather than habit, as though she had learned to ride properly somewhere far removed from scrubland and gunfire.

Bonnie wiped her hands on her skirt, eyes narrowing—not suspicious, exactly, but attentive. Travelers weren’t rare, but this kind was. Easterners passed through sometimes, and the occasional European on business or folly, but they usually looked uncomfortable, out of place in a way that bordered on fragile. This woman did not. She looked intent, as though the ranch was not an obstacle but a destination.

When the rider finally drew close enough for her to see, Bonnie caught the features of the woman’s face. Not Southern. Not Eastern, either.

Russian, maybe.

The thought surprised her with how quickly it surfaced, dragged up from half-forgotten memories of a governess who claimed Paris but spoke something altogether different when she thought no one was listening. Bonnie had been young then, but she remembered well enough.

She stepped forward before the woman could dismount, not out of rudeness but habit. This was her land. Her responsibility. “You’re on MacFarlane’s Ranch,” Bonnie said plainly. “If you’re lost, you’ve overshot most places worth being.”

There was no reason to distrust her. No immediate one, anyway. Still, Bonnie felt… aware.

It was not attraction as she understood it. She had never given much thought to women in that way—never had the time, never saw the point. Men were trouble enough, and she had long since made peace with the idea that she might never marry. But standing there, dust on her boots and sun on her neck, she found herself noticing details she usually wouldn’t.

That unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

Bonnie gestured toward the house eventually, professionalism reasserting itself. “You can speak to my father if you need formal permission,” she said. “But if you’re asking for supplies, rest, or work, that’s mostly my concern.”

Bonnie caught herself looking again to the woman’s face. It stirred something unfamiliar—something she pushed down without ceremony. She was a Catholic woman, raised with scripture and discipline, and even if she held progressive views compared to most in Hennigan’s Stead, this was not a line she had ever considered crossing.

Not because she believed it wrong. But because it had never felt possible.

"So, what brings you to my ranch?"