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T he aroma of campfires and food cooking floated out to meet the folks coming out to the circle of wagon trains.

Even though it was late August and still hot, a nice little breeze seemed to promise that fall was on the way.

A few wildflowers poked their colorful heads up through the tall grass on either side of the rutted pathway.

When they were close, Lily could hear the laughter of children and musical instruments being tuned.

“Sounds like the party is getting ready to start,” Matt said as he parked his wagon behind Elijah’s buggy. He tied off the reins and got off the buckboard and helped Lily down first. “Save the last dance for me.”

“Just the last one?” Lily asked.

He took her hand in his. “I’d like to have all of them, but the last dance means you go home with me.”

“Always,” she assured him. “But aren’t you forgetting something?”

“The cake!” He dropped her hand and took a couple of steps toward the back of the wagon.

“We’ve got it under control.” Holly had already gotten out of the wagon. “Just show us where to put it.”

“Mama can take care of where it needs to be, but for now we’ll just set it wherever we can find a place,” he said. “Just follow me and Lily. And thank you for handling it for me.”

“You are very welcome,” she said.

Maggie met them and motioned for Iris to set the cake in the middle of a long table made by setting a couple of boards on two water barrels off to one side of the center circle.

“Just set it right down there in the middle of the other two cakes. One for the bride”—she pointed to one decorated with yellow roses—“a chocolate one for the groom, and this one for the couple.”

“That is so sweet,” Iris said.

“The Irish do things up right,” Maggie whispered. “If they had a general store and a post office out here, they would have their own town and wouldn’t even need Autrie.”

Lily glanced over at Matt and could tell that the wheels in his mind were spinning round and round as fast as hers were. She wondered just what it would take to turn the sheep farm from a community into an actual town.

“That was such a sweet ceremony, and I’m so glad that Daisy is going along with us as far as Dodge City,” Maggie was saying when Lily left the future behind and came back to the present.

“We haven’t had time to get acquainted with the other folks on the train, so it’s comforting to have her close by. ”

Had someone told Lily that she would ever hear words like that from a preacher’s wife, she would have thought they had cow patties for brains.

“Did I hear that woman right?” Iris whispered as she set the cake in the middle of the makeshift table. “Isn’t she the preacher’s wife you told us about in a letter?”

“Yes and yes,” Daisy answered from right behind the four of them. “It’s like we’re living in a different world.”

Claude took Daisy’s hand in his. “Thank you all for joining us today in the celebration of mine and Daisy’s wedding,” he said in a loud voice. “We are starting off our marriage tomorrow morning by joining all y’all on this wagon train.”

Everyone, including Lily, applauded, but she felt like a hypocrite. She really wanted Daisy and Claude to stay right there on the sheep farm—or ranch, or whatever it was called. She had visualized them raising their children together. If they were ever able to have any.

Matt drew her close to his side and whispered, “Are you having second thoughts about staying or going?”

“Are you?” she fired back.

“Not in the least, but you looked sad right then.”

“I am sad that I’m losing the best friend I ever had in my whole life, but I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I made her feel guilty. She is happier than I have ever seen her, and part of me is glad for her,” Lily tried to explain.

“And the other part?”

“Is a pure hypocrite,” Lily answered. “I told her to go, but ...”

“‘The mind says one thing, the heart says another,’” Matt said. “‘It’s only when they agree that things work for the best.’ Those are Uncle Elijah’s words, not mine.”

“He’s a smart man,” Lily said. “But now I have to go find my friends. I’ve been neglecting Iris, Jasmine, and Holly. They don’t know anyone. Daisy is the new bride, so she’s got things to do, and here I am, not introducing them to the folks that live here.”

Matt pointed toward the table where all three of the ladies were visiting with Claude’s and Matt’s sisters—Abigail included, who shifted her gaze over to Lily several times as she talked to them.

Lily had shared the comradery of those three friends for a long time, and they wouldn’t tolerate anyone saying negative things about her.

“Looks to me like they’re all getting along, so you don’t need to worry,” Matt said.

As soon as Claude and Daisy finished feeding each other a bit of cake, the women stepped up to help serve lamb chops, beef steak, and all kinds of fresh vegetables, right alongside thin slices of the cakes—chocolate with chocolate icing, white with buttercream, and spice with burnt sugar.

Everything looked to be going well. Not even Holly’s expression had changed when she was talking to Abigail, so evidently the young woman knew to bridle her tongue at a wedding reception.

“I’m so glad folks are making them welcome.

” She glanced over her shoulder at the “Just Married” sign tacked to the side of the rig that Daisy and Claude would be living in until they reached their dream place.

And she wished that she and Matt were sharing a bed that night in the back of a wagon—or anywhere else, for that matter.

You want to go on a journey after all? the voice in her head asked.

No, I just want to sleep with Matt, she answered.

Iris nudged Lily’s shoulder and startled her. “It’s hard to believe that all these people are so nice to us.”

“Not just these women, but the ones in Autrie, too,” Lily told her. “I will be going into town when they have the women’s meetings to help out. Y’all will go with me, right?”

“Absolutely,” Iris answered and nodded toward the musicians. “What are they doing?”

Matt gave Lily’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and answered, “They’re fixing to dance in a circle around the bride and groom to bring them good luck and happiness. Uncle Elijah started the tradition years ago, and he’s beckoning to me.”

Lily took a step back and said, “Then go show me how it’s done.”

He jogged over to the men and women gathering around the bride and groom and nodded toward the musicians. The fiddles whined, and the two bagpipe players created a haunting sound. Abigail left the table and came over to stand beside Lily, and she did not look happy.

“Matt likes you a lot and is a lot like our father,” she said.

“I like him, too,” Lily said.

“I’m not as forgiving as my father,” Abigail said bluntly. “I know what my mother did before she married, but I want better for my brother. I want him to have an untarnished bride.”

Abigail never took her eyes off the dancers, who were now doing all kinds of fancy steps and moving around the bride and groom at the same time. Lily’s eyes kept darting from Matt out there having a wonderful time to Abigail, who had pasted on a fake smile.

Had she heard Abigail right? Had she really said that the family would accept her living within the community, but not if she married Matt?

“Does everyone feel like you do?” she finally asked.

“Matt and Claude have been the heads of the farm since my dad got hurt, and Seamus wanted to step down. Now Matt will make the decisions,” Abigail answered.

“But he’s out there dancing and doing a fine job of it,” Lily argued.

“This is a big ranch,” Abigail said, like that was important.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lily asked.

“Think about it. Now that Claude is gone ...” Abigail let the sentence hang and walked away from Lily to join the ring of dancers.

Lily finally got the drift of what she was saying, and her own Irish temper rose up from her toes.

Abigail thought she was out to get a stake in the business—nothing more than an opportunist. In Lily’s mind, that was even worse than being called a soiled dove.

She had been a fool to believe that everything would turn out to be all peaches and cream for her.

Maybe she should change her mind at the last minute and crawl up on the buckboard of Daisy and Claude’s covered wagon.

She was strong and could help out on the trip, and she didn’t mind sleeping out under the stars at night.

Perhaps Elijah had another wagon up for sale and she could buy it from him.

Then she and all four of the others could start over somewhere in a faraway territory.

The dancing stopped, and the next song the musicians played was much slower. Claude took Daisy in his arms and began to waltz her around one of the many open fires in the middle of the campsite. Lily couldn’t be upset with her, not even for a single second, not when she looked so happy.

Matt appeared in front of her and held out a hand. “May I have this dance?”

“Yes, sir, you may,” she answered.

Every nerve in her body told her to ignore Abigail, but her heart was a different matter. Finally, she looked into his eyes and asked, “How much does family mean to you?”

“Everything,” he said and held her closer.

When the dance was over, he led her over to a quilt and waited for her to sit down before he eased down beside her. “Someday I hope to have sons to pass this business on down to. I want to teach them all about sheep farming.”

“What if all you get are daughters, or if you don’t get children at all?” She could almost feel her heart breaking.

“Then I’ll teach my daughters the same as the boys—and if I get none, there’s lots of nephews and nieces on the farm for me to train up to take my place when I am old,” he said with a grin. “Why are you asking this?”

Lily wasn’t sure if she would ever be a mother. That was another reason for her to walk away now: to give Matt a chance to find an untainted wife—a pure woman with no sordid past who would give him a houseful of sons.

She forced a smile. “I just wondered. You love your sisters and brothers very much, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. Even though you haven’t seen them in years, don’t you love your family?”

“No, I don’t,” she replied. “They didn’t stand by me when I needed them.

My brothers were all older than me and left home when I was just a baby.

My mother didn’t really want another child, but .

..” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words—that her mother had often whispered in the presence of other women that she’d done her wifely duty and wound up with another squalling kid.

“Well, look around you,” Matt said. “You have a big family now that loves you. But out of all of them, I love you the most.”

“I love you, too,” Lily said.

And that’s the very reason why I have to end this relationship, she thought. It will break my heart, and I will write you a long letter tonight. You’ll be better off without me, and you will find a woman who deserves a good man like you. One whose past does not hinder your dreams.