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Colton wanted to be forgiven as well. Perhaps he was even telling the truth about his feelings.

He’d been quite adamant with Rosie, and as he said, Emma had never known him to lie.

He was confident enough in himself to speak his mind and to face the consequences or challenges that might come from that.

Emma put her face in her hands. It was all so confusing and frustrating. Cheyenne was supposed to be a new start, so why did it feel like she was drowning in the same old problems?

A knock sounded at the front door, and Emma slowly got to her feet. What if it was Colton? She wasn’t ready to talk to him. She glanced down the hall as the front screen door opened.

“Emma, it’s your father!” Rich Johnson’s bellowing voice filled the house.

“Well, this is unexpected.” Emma stepped into the hall to greet him. She found Lucille following behind.

“We decided to drive back into town with Gary. Had some shopping to see to and thought we’d say hello.”

“Do you want to stay the night? I can arrange things in the guest room.”

“No, we need to get right back. We’re commencing to get ready for roundup. Cows calved early, and the boys are itchin’ to get it all tended to.”

Emma hugged her father and forced a smile. “Well, I was just having lunch. Why don’t you come and eat with me?”

“I have a meeting to attend, but I’m sure Lucille would enjoy that.”

Her stepmother smiled. “I would indeed.” She embraced Emma. “I want to hear all about what’s been going on.”

Emma looked away. It was going to be a long day.

“I have to say, I was surprised by your invitation to lunch, or should I say your insistence that you needed to meet with me,” Rich told Colton.

“When I saw you folks ride into town, I thought maybe God was helping me out. I mean it was—”

“Are you ready to order?” a waiter asked them, interrupting Colton.

“Yeah,” Rich answered. “Bring me a steak—rare—and fried potatoes. Black coffee.”

The waiter looked at Colton. He nodded, knowing that nothing had tasted good since his fight with Emma. “I’ll have the same.”

The man left them to their discussion, but Colton wasn’t at all sure where to start. He looked at the table and said nothing. It was Rich who finally broke the silence.

“You seem mighty troubled about something, son. Why not just tell me?”

Colton looked up and heaved a sigh. “I was just wondering where to start.”

Rich laughed. “Start at the beginning. I’m figuring this probably involves Emma.”

“Yes.” Colton straightened. “To be quite blunt, from the moment I first met her, I loved her. I never even believed such a thing was possible. I said nothing because she was my brother’s girl.

I didn’t want to do anything to interfere with their plans.

Not only that but I was much too settled and .

.. lackluster for Emma. She was full of life and excitement.

Tommy was too. They seemed a perfect match.

“Added to that, my father’s heart was giving out, and I was focused on handling all the legal details of the family business.

I did my best to ignore my feelings and forget about Emma.

Then Tommy got killed, and Emma and Rosie wanted to move up here to Cheyenne, and the thought of losing Emma was far more troubling to me than leaving business undone in Texas and pursuing her. ”

“So what’s the problem? She seems to like your company well enough. If you’re asking my permission to court her, you have it. Not that you need it.”

“No, it’s far more complicated. After Tommy died, Emma inherited a great deal of money and other things.

Tommy left everything he owned to her, which made Emma the majority stockholder in our family railroad.

This happened because my father and his sister had gone into making the railroad together.

They were equal partners, and when my aunt died, she was partial to Tommy and left him all her shares.

Then when our father died, Tommy inherited one-fourth of his stock.

Tommy always left the business dealings to me, so our brothers, while jealous of the value he now owned, weren’t worried about the situation. ”

“But now that Emma holds the stock, they are?” Rich leaned back in his chair. “That does cause problems.”

“They came up with what they thought was the perfect solution. They insisted I come to Cheyenne and get Emma to marry me so we could retain ownership of the stock. Rosie overheard them haranguing me about it, saying I owed it to the family. But that wasn’t why I came to Cheyenne.

I couldn’t bear the idea of Emma leaving my life.

I came to convince her that I loved her and wanted to marry her for real.

“Then the other day I got a telegram from my brothers pressing me to marry Emma and get the stock secured quickly. I left it in my pocket, and Rosie found it and showed it to Emma. She believed the worst of me, and now she won’t speak to me.

She makes sure to be absent any time I’m around.

Mr. Johnson, I love your daughter. I’m not playing her false, I promise you. ”

Rich shook his head. “You’ve got yourself in a pretty good mess.”

“Rosie doesn’t even believe me. How can I hope to convince Emma?”

“And you thought I could help?” He gave a laugh. “Emma hasn’t listened to me since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. She’s not going to start now.”

“She might. She’s changed. Watching Tommy die, nearly dying herself, it changed her heart. She’s gotten right with God.”

“What about you, son? You get right with God? Seems to me you can’t move forward with Emma until you square that away.”

Colton shook his head. “I want to. Last week when the reverend talked about Matthew ten, verse twenty-eight, it chilled me to the bone. ‘And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’ I re member my mother sharing verses, and that was one of them. I wanted to go forward when there was an altar call, but I was afraid Emma would think it was just for show.”

“Do you believe God sent Jesus to die for your sins, son?”

“I do now. I remember a time when I believed it as a child, but I let my father convince me otherwise.”

“Do you believe Jesus rose again from the dead?

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Romans ten, verse nine says, ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’ John three, verse sixteen says, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’” He paused and gave Colton a smile.

“That’s about the extent of my memorized Bible verses, but the point is, God loves you and wants you to be saved and gave us Jesus in order to do it.

You’ve accepted that it’s true and have confessed to me that you want to be saved. Therefore, you now belong to God.”

“I don’t have to do anything else? Perform some sort of deeds?”

“If you had to do that, you’d be saving yourself instead of God saving you.

You can’t work your way into salvation. There’s nothing you can do to save yourself, Colton.

We Christians follow in baptism and fellowship, communion and such, but at the very heart of the matter is one thing: accept Jesus as Lord and be saved. ”

“I do.” Colton leaned back and felt a weight lift off his shoulders. “But now what?”

“Now the hard part begins. Satan will do what he can to rob you of your peace and joy in Christ. He’ll do what he can to convince you that God’s salvation isn’t that simple.

Oh, we encourage Christians to pray and read their Bible daily, to get baptized and tithe.

We encourage them to do good works for God.

But those things won’t save you. Only Jesus saves. ”

“How can you be sure of that, Mr. Johnson? Seems much too simple a solution for something that keeps a soul out of hell.”

“Are you familiar with the crucifixion—when they nailed Jesus to the cross?”

“I am.”

“Remember one of the malefactors who hung on a cross beside Jesus who asked Jesus to save him, and Jesus told him He would? Told the man he’d be with Jesus that very day in paradise. He was condemned to die and had no hope but Jesus. And Jesus was enough.”

Colton slowly nodded. “I see what you mean.”

Just then, the waiter brought their food. Colton felt his stomach rumble at the delicious smell wafting up from the plate.

“Mr. Johnson, Mr. Benton, would you mind if I joined you for a moment?”

Colton looked up to find Robert Vogel. He glanced over at Rich, who was already nodding.

“It’s fine by me, Rob. Is the town keeping the peace?”

“For the most part,” Rob replied, taking off his hat. “I hate to interrupt, but I need to speak with Mr. Benton. And you’re welcome to stay too, Mr. Johnson. I don’t want to interrupt your meal.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Vogel?” Colton asked.

Rob gave a hesitant smile. “I want to ask permission to marry your sister.”

Colton hadn’t expected that at all. He knew the young man was sweet on Rosie but had worried he wanted only to toy with her affections. He hadn’t expected him to want to propose marriage. Apparently, the man was as honorable as Emma suggested.

“Isn’t this kind of quick? I mean, you’ve only known her a couple of months.”

“I knew from the first moment I laid eyes on her that she was the one for me. I know that might sound impossible, but I knew it from the very start.”

Colton felt a tightening in his chest. He glanced at Rich, who was smiling. He couldn’t very well tell Rob that he didn’t believe in such things after just telling Rich that was how he felt about his daughter.

“Rosie doesn’t have a dowry. She’s not going to bring a big inheritance into the marriage.”

“I don’t care about that, Mr. Benton. I love her. I can’t imagine my life without her. I want to take care of her and provide for her. I have a small savings, enough that we can get a place of our own. My job is good, and the town much calmer than when my father took the same job twenty years ago.”

“You know that Rosie isn’t like other women. She’ll never be able to do a lot of things, and the things she does do, she might do much slower than others.”

Rob smiled. “She’s more driven to accomplish things than anybody I know.

But the fact is, we can’t all be good at everything.

My pa is good at building things out of wood, but I make a mess of it every time.

I am good, however, at tearing apart a gun and putting it back together.

I’ve given thought to becoming a gunsmith.

I just seem to understand how to handle them.

It doesn’t matter if Rosie’s good at everything so long as she’s happy.

And I intend to do what I can to make her happy. ”

Colton couldn’t deny the young man’s sincerity, nor could he fault his answers. He knew what it was to love someone so much that it didn’t matter what they had or what they could do.

“I promise you, Mr. Benton, I’ll always put her first and take good care of her and anybody else who comes along.

I know you and I haven’t sat down and had long talks about life or gotten to know each other as well as maybe you’d like, but that will come in time.

If you let me marry Rosie, we’ll be family, and you’ll always be an important part of our lives. ”

“Have you prayed about it, Rob?”

“I have. I’ve been doing nothing but praying about it since I first met Rosie.” He grinned, and Colton had never seen a happier expression on anyone’s face. “I’m praying right now.”

Rich snorted a laugh, and Colton had to chuckle as well. “Then you have my permission to ask Rosie for her hand.”

For a moment his response took Rob by surprise. It took Colton by surprise as well. He’d never figured to give his sister’s hand to anyone, and now here he was, agreeing to let a stranger marry her.

He looked at Rich and shook his head. “Now if I can just figure out how to convince Emma that I am just as sincere in my feelings for her.”