July 28, 1889

Four years passed, filled with more love and joy than Savannah and Cade thought anyone could ever deserve. Summer had settled warmly over Bitter Creek, and Savannah stood inside Ruby’s bakery with Grace while the last of the cakes were packed into boxes for the afternoon celebration.

“You’re certain Jacob can handle all four children?” Grace asked.

Savannah took one of the boxes from the counter. “He was a bounty hunter long before he was sheriff. He traveled across the country dragging bank robbers and murderers along with him. And he almost always kept them alive.”

Grace gave her a sideways look. “That isn’t particularly reassuring.”

Ruby let out a heavy sigh, resting one hand on the curve of her belly while she directed a young girl toward a tray of cooling rolls. “It was nice meeting you, Grace.”

“The pleasure is mine.” Grace laughed. “I look forward to chatting more when you’re not working.”

“I can’t wait.” Ruby blew a kiss. “Tell me how everyone likes the lemon cake!”

“We will.” Savannah tucked the box against her hip.

“And if you see my husband, tell him I’m coming as soon as I close up.”

Savannah paused in the doorway and smirked over her shoulder. “You could close early. Come put your feet in the hot spring with us?”

Ruby looked scandalized. “On a Saturday?”

Savannah laughed and headed out. “We’ll see you this afternoon.”

She pushed through the door and the two women stepped onto Main Street and looked around admiring everything that had changed since Savannah had first arrived four years prior.

The mercantile had expanded into the building beside it, fresh-painted storefronts lined the road, and construction had begun on a proper hotel near the stage office. Wagons crowded the hitching rails while travelers moved between shops carrying valises and parcels.

Grace marveled. “This isn’t the quaint little town you described in your letters.”

“It’s still little.”

Grace arched a brow, shooting Savannah a look.

She smiled. “Alright. It’s grown a bit.”

Across the street, Cade stood with Gordon near the steps of the mayor’s office, studying a sheet of figures between them.

Gordon had traded the sheriff’s badge for the mayor’s office two years earlier, though he still looked more comfortable in chaps than behind a desk.

Cade noticed Savannah and smiled before folding the paper.

“Road repairs?” she asked as they approached.

“Stage traffic,” Gordon said. “We’ve had three times as many coaches through town this spring.”

Grace looked toward Savannah. “Because of the bath house?”

“Mostly.”

Cade took one of the cake boxes from her. “And because Gordon keeps putting advertisements for his wife’s bakery in newspapers.”

Gordon shrugged. “I married an ambitious woman. She deserves any help I can give her.”

Grace and Savannah both put a hand over their hearts with a unified. “Aw…”

Savannah arched an eyebrow at Cade and he immediately understood. “Don’t start.”

Grace looked between them. “What?”

Savannah smiled sweetly. “I’ve been trying to talk Cade into investing in more advertisements.”

A high-pitched shout came from farther down Main Street. “Fight me, coward!”

Four children came barreling around the corner, each holding angled sticks being brandished as toy guns.

Grace’s four-year-old daughter, Lily, twisted at the waist as she ran, shooting over her shoulder with eyebrows pinched together. Her little brother, Noah, struggled to keep up behind her. Cade and Savannah’s twin girls, Violet and Pearl, followed close behind, one clutching a wildflower in her free hand and the other missing a shoe.

Jacob appeared several yards behind them with one of his boots muddy to the ankle and his hat hanging crooked.

“Having fun, Uncle Jake?” Cade smirked.

“Your children are savages!”

Jacob scrubbed a hand down his face before reaching down to intercept one of the twins as she ran past.

“You said you wanted to watch them.” Cade shrugged.

“And I have been.” Jacob threw the little girl over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and she giggled kicking both of her feet like mad. “That’s how I know.”

Savannah laughed and crouched to catch the other twin.

“Where is your shoe?”

“Mud monster got it.” The little girl pointed vaguely back toward the road.

Jacob straightened. “Don’t ask.”

“Tucker.” Grace scooped up her son. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m on the run,” he said. “But I learned how to live in the wild now… in case I ever have to for real. I even hunted a lizard.”

“Oh?” His mother smiled.

“…and ate it.” The boy gave a single nod.

Grace glared at Jacob who cleared his throat and winced.

“This little monster.” Cade took his daughter off Jacob’s shoulder and gave her a powerful kiss on the cheek. “You know how much I love you?”

“Dis much!” She held her arms out as wide as they could reach. “And Uncle Jake said if I was good, he’d take me fishing tomorrow!”

Jacob grumbled something under his breath.

Savannah nodded toward the wagon. “Come on. We’ll be late. Awanita Springs only gets one fourth anniversary.”

They made their way toward Red Willow Ranch as the afternoon sun climbed higher.

The road west of town had been widened over the years, and a painted sign stood near the turnoff.

AWANITA SPRINGS

Beyond it, the winding cobblestone path led toward the willow-covered hollow.

The place was nearly unrecognizable from the day Savannah and Cade first pushed through the branches and found the steaming, hidden oasis.

A wide bathhouse stood near the main spring, its porch lined with rocking chairs and flower boxes. Guest cabins dotted the nearby rise, connected by narrow walking paths. More willows had been planted along the edges to preserve the secluded feel of the original hollow.

Cade had insisted they leave the oldest trees untouched.

“They were here first,” he always said.

Visitors moved between the bathhouse and cabins while townspeople gathered farther down the meadow around the picnic tables for the anniversary celebration.

Mary waved both arms the moment she spotted them. “There they are!”

Josiah stood beside an open roasting pit, turning a whole pig over glowing coals.

Jacob stopped. “Now that smells like a party.”

Mary pointed a wooden spoon at him. “You stay away from it until supper.”

“I’m the sheriff.”

“I put you in the corner when you were five and I’ll do it again.”

Savannah laughed as Jacob muttered, “Nobody respects the law anymore.”

Long tables had been set beneath the trees, covered with bread, beans, roasted vegetables and every sort of pie Ruby had managed to produce that morning.

Children ran barefoot through the grass while several adults kept watch near the shallow edge of the spring.

Grace paused beside Savannah.

“It still amazes me how the two of you built all this.”

Savannah looked around.

“Not by ourselves.”

Cade came up beside her carrying one of the twins on his shoulders. “I did most of the backbreaking labor.”

Savannah gave him a look.

“And she did everything else,” he added quickly. “I have no mind for the business side of things.”

“Better.” She shrugged with a satisfied smile.

By late afternoon, the meadow filled with conversation and laughter.

Savannah moved between tables greeting guests, pausing often to speak with travelers who had come from as far away as Colorado and Nebraska. Ruby eventually arrived with Gordon, one hand resting protectively beneath her stomach as he carried the last two pies.

Jacob joined Cade near the edge of the meadow with a tin cup in his hand.

“Got another letter from Caldwell,” Jacob said.

“Pfft.” 

Jacob glanced at him. 

“What’d he want, this time?”

“Same thing as last time. Wants me to speak to somebody on his behalf. Claims he’s learned his lesson.”

Savannah joined them.

“Did you answer?”

Jacob took a drink. “Nope.”

Cade smiled.

“Malcolm?”

“Still serving his sentence.”

“And Dale?”

“Same.”

Jacob looked toward the tables and spotted Mary talking to a pretty young woman.

“I don’t recognize her.”

“Another of Ruby’s cousins visiting from out of town.” Cade chuckled. “Sweet girl from what I hear.”

Jacob grinned. “Well, I s’pose as the sheriff, I should go introduce myself and make sure she feels welcome.”

Cade opted not to mention what Savannah said about her stabbing a man on the train with a hatpin for making unwanted advances. “Yeah, cousin. Go work your magic.”

As evening settled over the springs, someone brought out a fiddle. Before long, couples had begun dancing in the open grass between the tables.

The children lasted through two songs before exhaustion finally won. Grace’s little boy fell asleep against his father’s shoulder. Her daughter curled beneath a quilt nearby while Cade and Savannah’s twins stretched out together on a straw pallet, one small hand tangled in the other’s hair.

Savannah stood watching them.

Cade came up behind her and placed his hands on her waist.

“Dance with me,” he whispered against her hair.

She smiled, turning to face him as she slipped her fingers into his. He led her toward the others as the fiddles picked up a slower tune. Savannah rested her head against his shoulder while they moved together beneath the fading light, steam drifting above the willows nearby.

“I love you,” she said.

Cade kissed her forehead. “I love you too.”

She smiled against his shirt. After a moment, she looked up at him.

“Are you still glad you posted that ad? The one for a wife?”

Cade looked past her toward the bathhouse, the cabins, their sleeping daughters and the friends gathered beneath the cottonwoods.

Then he looked back at her.

“Best damned decision I ever made.”

Savannah smiled and lifted her face toward his.

His lips greeted hers as sparks from the fire danced upward, the fiddles carrying through the willows beneath a star-soaked sky. And he had only one thought.

Thank God, life doesn’t turn out like we plan.

THE END