This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.

Ruby didn't know how long she'd been kneeling in the dirt, her knees stained and soaked. The rain pounded her back and dripped down her face so she could barely see the rough cross, the only sign of the life—the body—that lay beneath the ground, save for the neat rectangle of freshly-turned earth.

Less than twenty-four hours earlier, she had gazed on her husband's smiling face. Then, after hours of waiting for him to return, a vaguely familiar man—David Nolan, the sheriff from town—came to her instead with a sombre expression that turned Ruby's stomach cold the moment their eyes met.

There had been an accident—a simple, stupid accident—that had thrown Peter from his horse. Possibly spooked by wolves, though that was unusual during the day. He landed head-first on a rock, killed instantly. Painless.

Gone.

She was lucky, they told her, that the preacher was still in town to perform the funeral—but what did she care about that?

Ruby leaned forward and dug her hands into the mud, her face contorted in a silent pain that was barren of tears as she tried to swallow the bile that rose in her throat. Her stomach felt like it was filled with lead, a deadly weight stuck inside her that had sucked away all her energy.

No tears came—just a dull ache that threatened to take over, and she prayed for the ground to swallow her whole, too—to let her soak into the earth along with the rain.

And yet, the nagging question came—what next? If she was really left here, and not buried with Peter—what was she going to do? Winter would come fast, and she had nowhere to stay. She didn't have enough money to board in town for all those months—especially since Prince and Lady, their most valuable possessions, were long gone—and there was no way she could travel back to her grandmother before spring.

As much as Ruby tried to quiet her mind, the worries for her future filled her thoughts as she scrambled to piece her new reality together.

Not my future. Our future. Her hand flew to her belly as she had to remind herself that she had so much more to think about now than just her own well-being.

"Excuse me, ma'am," a soft voice barely cut through the rain. Ruby looked over her shoulder to see a man standing behind her. He was tall with red hair that was rain-soaked and flattened, wearing spectacles through which he squinted to see her—an effort made almost futile by the downpour. He looked to be older than her—though by how much, Ruby couldn't tell, especially in the rain, with his features scrunched up in either sympathy, or poor vision, or both.

He clasped his hands around his hat, playing with it almost nervously as he tried to choose his words.

What on earth could this man have to say to her? David Nolan had already put everything in order for the funeral, and his wife, Mary Margaret, had already urged her to consider her plans for the future, making it clear that time was a luxury unavailable to her. And yet, surely they could let her grieve for one more day?

Ruby clenched her fists as she waited for him to explain himself, and she stared at him as if to dare him to offer some bumbling condolences.

"I'm Archibald—Archie—Hopper, and I'm truly sorry about your loss," he said quietly, and Ruby had to strain to hear him. His words were not unexpected, and yet, he said them so earnestly that her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, against her better judgment.

"I-I have a proposition for you," he stammered, looking down at his hands before meeting her gaze once more. Ruby kept her eyes fixed on him, unsure what to think as she waited for him to continue. Then, he knelt to the ground, and Ruby's heart started to race as she realized what was happening.

"I know it's not the right place, or the right time"—Ruby's eyes widened—"but I thought that if we marry, it'll help solve both our problems."

Ruby turned back around to face the grave—the cross marker—and shifted the dirt, which had become thick mud, into a pile around the wooden cross. Was this really happening?

Still, the redheaded man continued in his even, soothing tone. "You'll have a roof over your head, and my son will have a mama. I know it sounds crazy," he added quickly, "and the timing's unlikely, but you have to understand, the preacher's leaving the area tomorrow and he's not going to be back until spring. And I ask this, only for my son—I'm thinking that he needs a woman's hand." The warmth with which this man spoke about his child caught Ruby's attention as she listened to the rest of his proposal.

"I know it's not the perfect solution, but when the wagon train heads back east in the spring—I'll pay the passage so you can go home."

Ruby listened to all this with her back to the man, her focus on her hands moving over the mud, and she tried not to look at her wedding ring that glinted in contrast to the dark earth. As he finished his speech, she stopped, frozen, her senses screaming as she tried to take it in.

Home. All she needed to do was get through this winter, and then she could go home.

For the first time since he'd started this speech, Ruby turned to face him—to really look at him. He was kneeling down in the mud, eye-level with her. His expression was soft with concern, and she thought she could see clear, blue eyes behind his spectacles—clear eyes that held such warmth towards her—that trusted her with his son, even though he knew nothing about her.

Clear, blue, warm eyes that offered her a way out.

"You'll help me get back home?" she asked softly as she felt her own eyes brim with tears.

"If that's what you want," he nodded. His mouth opened and then closed—his eyes always fixed on hers, and Ruby couldn't look away. He licked his lips before finally saying, "I'll leave you to think on it, ma'am." Then, he placed his hat on his head, tipped the brim towards her, stood up, and walked away. Even after he'd disappeared from sight, Ruby stared out across the grassy landscape, unable to decide what to make of the man who would take in a grieving widow as his own wife—a strange woman as a temporary mother to his child—and give a lost woman shelter for the winter, without any scandal or risk to her reputation, and with relatively little for her to do on her part. And all that just to send her away, at his own expense, come spring.

Ruby's hand settled on her stomach once more.

He would help her—them—get home.