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city girl. She didn’t have enough sense to know a colt from a filly, let alone enough to recognize the danger of strolling into a paddock with a cantankerous old bull. She didn’t belong here, and she wouldn’t last.
    Even folks who did belong didn’t always last.
    He’d learned that the hard way.

Chapter Three
     
    T he redbrick community Christian church at the corner of Main and Second was well attended on this beautiful summer day. Prior to the start of the Sunday service, members of the congregation gathered on the sidewalk, enjoying the fresh morning breeze while visiting with their friends, discussing the price of feed, the new tractor Owen Overstreet bought last week and the gossip saying the youngest Paulson girl had left on the bus for New York City night before last, hoping to make a name for herself on Broadway.
    Standing with a group of men on the Main Street side of the church, Ian saw Shayla climbing the steps to the entrance. She wore a sleeveless dress, butter-yellow in color, that whispered in a soft fall of fabric around her calves. Her hair was braided, the end caught with a satin bow. In her arms she carried a Bible.
    He was a little surprised to see her at church,perhaps because she hadn’t come to services since moving to the valley.
    He watched as she was welcomed by the pastor’s wife, Geneve Barnett. The two women shook hands while exchanging a few words of introduction. Then Shayla moved through the open doorway, disappearing from view.
    Ian excused himself from those around him and made his way inside, curious for another glimpse of his neighbor. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust from the bright daylight outside to the softer light of the sanctuary. After they did, he scanned the room until he found her. She’d taken a seat in the back pew beneath the balcony, a spot that blanketed her in shadows.
    On purpose, he suspected.
    She was an outsider from a big city. She had to feel out of place and maybe even a little bit lonely. Of course it wasn’t his place to worry about her. She was an adult. She could make friends without his help.
    And yet something propelled him forward and into that back pew.
    “Morning, Shayla,” he said as he removed his hat.
    The instant their gazes met, she smiled. “Good morning, Ian.”
    “Nice to see you in church.”
    “Nice to be here.”
    “How are you today?”
    “Do you mean, am I going to faint again?” She laughed softly, a pretty, almost musical sound. “I think I’m over that particular malady.”
    That wasn’t what he’d meant, but he liked the way she could laugh at herself.
    “Good,” he replied. “No more fainting.” He sat down beside her, placing his Stetson on the floor beneath the pew.
    Her eyes widened a fraction, revealing her surprise that he was joining her.
    He didn’t figure she was any more surprised than he was. He hadn’t sat anyplace in this church except the third row, piano side, since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. That had been the O’Connell pew for more than sixty years, first for his grandparents, then for his parents and finally for Ian.
    And Joanne, too, before she died.
    It had been ten years since he sat in the O’Connell pew with his wife by his side, many years longer since there were kids there, whispering and getting dirty looks from their mother. That wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out, but that’s the way it was.
    “It’s a lovely old church, isn’t it?”
    He shook off his unsettling memories and answered, “Yeah. My granddad helped build it after the original wooden building burned down. Hauled the bricks up from Boise in a freight wagon back during the Depression.”
    “Your roots go down deep, don’t they?”
    He nodded. “Real deep.”
    The organist began to play, intruding on their conversation.
    Leaning closer, Shayla whispered, “I’d like to hear more sometime. About how your family cameto this valley, I mean.” She shrugged. “It’s the writer in me. I’m