Amelia rode her horse down the road heading towards the town she'd left behind months ago. A couple more miles and she'd reach the outskirts of Paradise, the town that had helped raise her. She'd thought about taking the stagecoach but decided to buy a horse and ride for several days through the countryside from Stockton through a couple of towns straight to where she'd hoped to find him.

Ethan Cord, the marshal of the town though she'd hated it when he accepted that job and the responsibilities that came with it. It had broken them apart; well she'd actually done that when she let the job come between them. She'd had months away to do plenty of thinking about it and she'd reached a decision.

She'd return back home and together they'd try to figure out what to do next…how to find their way back together. The job was part of who he was and for him to separate himself from it by walking away, it'd change him. She realized she didn't want to do that to him.

But it'd been difficult to reach that point. The first month, she'd tried to get as far away as she could go…or run because that's what she'd been doing. Then when she'd gotten hundreds of miles away she started exploring the world around her, partly not to remember what she'd left but because she'd waited her life to do it. She'd migrated to America from a country located thousands of miles across nothing but ocean, she'd watched the same view for months looking over the railing as the ship glided through the water. It carried a lot of goods that would be shipped to America along with hundreds of people crammed in cabins where they slept in bunks and shared wash facilities. She'd been with two sisters who had lived in the valley where her grandparents had had their cattle ranch.

She'd stayed there when she hadn't been traveling the Outback with her father, from village to village often camping out under the stars in between them. He'd tell her the stories of when he'd been a boxer and then later a horse trainer who'd worked on different ranches.
America had been much different than where she'd left, and she'd been shell shocked when she'd arrived still a young girl. The family she'd stayed with put her to work from before sunrise to after the sun went down. Pierce breezed one day into her life and threw her a life preserver and she'd grabbed hold of it.

She'd married him very young and divorced him still quite young after he'd run off on her. But by the time she divorced him, she'd fallen in love with someone else. Ethan had rubbed her the wrong way at first, because he seemed to bring violence to Paradise which was bad for business…but she realized later how unfair she'd been about him.

The trees that breezed past her now looked familiar. She knew she was getting close to the turnoff towards the covered bridge that would take her into town. The road looked deserted but then that wasn't unusual this time of the day.

She glanced behind her but knew she hadn't been followed. The men who had followed her must be long gone. So she urged her horse on forward down the road heading into town.

Ethan stood in front of the altar in front of God and half the town of Paradise and knew he'd made a mistake. Across from him was this woman with straight blonde hair around her shoulders, wearing a white dress and a veil. A minister was set to marry them and the ceremony had just gotten started.

It hadn't been a marriage of love exactly but maybe it someday would be. It's just that some judge in some county across the country had decided that it wasn't seemly for his three nephews and one niece to be living with an unmarried man, a single father. Not if other arrangements for custody could be made and a couple in Mankato in Minnesota had offered to raise them instead.

A God fearing couple with one child of their own and plenty of space in their house for Lucy's children to live…a mother figure who would always be waiting for them after school and a father with a safer and more stable profession. Someone much different than him. He couldn't deny that he'd brought danger into the house where his family resided but he loved them and wasn't about to give them up.

So he'd known he had to get married and quick…but the woman he loved was Amelia and she had already left him. He didn't think she'd be coming back soon anyway…even though John Taylor said she'd return, because she'd be driven to stop traveling and come back home. If only he could wait…but the children…if the judge ruled in favor of the Carters…he'd lose them forever. A stagecoach would take them to the train station in Stockton and then…they'd travel near halfway across the country to their new home.

He couldn't go with him, he knew his place was here and it wouldn't change anything because the judge…more than hinted that his influence in their lives should be minimal. A man sitting in a bench in a courthouse thousands of miles away who knew nothing about him except what was written in an affidavit in a document.

A lawyer had given him one piece of advice, get married and have a wife to provide a stable environment and so he'd wound up engaged to Millicent. Her father owned a piece of the railroad and wanted his daughter to get married to a man like Ethan and so when Ethan had proposed, he'd gotten the man's blessing.

But even as Millicent prepared for the wedding, Ethan's heart wasn't in it. After all, Amelia had snatched a big piece of it when she'd left him. It'd tore him up when he realized this time he couldn't ride out to catch the stagecoach and stop her, sweep her up in his arms and hold her for the longest time…no…if he tried to do that, he'd push her away from even faster.

John Taylor advised him just to set her free. If she and him were meant to be together, she'd return and the Indian knew the answer to that already…being an excellent judge of human nature.

Still no sign of her, nothing in the mail or over the wire that she even existed anymore but he'd stand on her porch still feeling the heat of the summer day fade away gently or while he lay in bed at night, he knew he'd dream of her and she'd be with him.

So how in the hell had he wound up loving one woman and set to marry another? It had been for the children so he wouldn't lose the family he'd got left. So he'd woken up, washed up, gotten dressed, while being too nervous to eat much breakfast. The children had quietly done their chores, more subdued than usual and somehow they all wound up in the decorated church by early afternoon.

Ethan had attended services in this church; he'd helped rebuild it when Claire the oldest refused to let her dream of religion in Paradise die. He'd killed a man there, an ex-convict posing as a preacher who'd tried to hurt everyone important to him to get revenge. But today was different, he was getting married and he had cold feet…but he had to do it. The children's lives with him depended on one sacred promise.

So he and Millicent looked at each other and then turned to face the minister while everyone else hushed inside the building.

Amelia slid off her horse and tied the reins loosely by the saloon. Paradise didn't look much different than it had months ago. She'd left wearing a nice dress and hat and returned dressed like a cowboy, the disguise she'd chosen when she fled the scene of a murder.

Oh she hadn't done it herself but she'd been there and she knew the person killed. Two men holding guns saw her too and one fired at her before she was able to get away. The town's only main street loomed quietly, all the shops were closed up and no people walked in or out of the buildings. Even Tiny had closed his livery and Axelrod his mercantile. Where was everyone?

Then she saw that there were horses tied up around the church and some wagons, including one decorated with what looked like…that fitting of a bride and groom. Oh, some couple was getting married, and she wondered if she knew them. Should she go inside the church, but then she looked down at her clothes which had attracted dirt during her ride. She looked a sight anyway with her hair in a tight braid wound up into a bun above the nape of her neck.

At least she didn't hear the hoof beats of horses behind her meaning that the men had followed her all the way here. She knew she lost them but she still half expected to see them again.

The church door opened and she saw a couple of men come out. She didn't really recognize them but people moved in and out of Paradise all the time. She decided to check the wedding out, maybe slide into a seat in the back where no one would see her. So she headed up the steps.

Ethan started sweating, was it hot or was he just nervous? He felt trapped in his clothes and underneath the flower laced trellis. The minister started talking but he only half listened. He saw Dakota standing next to him and the children in the front row of the audience.

John Taylor sat behind them, giving him this look…it just made Ethan glance away. He didn't want to be reminded right now of what his friend had told him.

"We gather here today to witness this man…Ethan Cord and this woman…Millicent Wordsworth join in holy matrimony…"

Ethan pulled at the collar of his shirt. Maybe he was feeling hot and he saw the bride smiling at her father in the audience who beamed with his happiness. Ethan wasn't sure that Mr. Wordsworth would like him for his daughter but he clearly saw the advantages of having a marshal for a son in law. He ran some businesses that might need the extra security he told Ethan at the rehearsal dinner, so could he count on him? Ethan didn't know what to say but he knew Millicent was helping him keep the children so there had to be a price.

Was it one he'd ultimately be willing to pay? He thought maybe it might be too late to ask that question.

Amelia couldn't believe what she saw in front of her.

"Ethan…?"

A couple sitting in front of her didn't recognize her as they turned around to look. She just smiled and felt faint. What in blazes was going on here? She left for a few months and now he was getting married…but then she realized she hadn't left much hope of coming back. Obviously he had chosen to go ahead with his life, maybe he needed or wanted a more reliable woman in his life to help him raise the children, not some ex-fiancée who had run away from him. But she'd been scared that was all and it took her a while to decide not to have it run her life.

The minister talked on but Amelia barely heard him…she tried to leave her seat to walk down the aisle to stop the wedding but her legs felt heavy, weak as if she were walking through thick mud after a severe rain storm. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Oh…she couldn't let this happen. She had to stop the wedding and tell him how much she loved him.

Then he seemed to look up at her, looking so handsome, ruggedly so in his suit. Just like he'd been at their own attempts at a wedding. His eyes narrowed and she knew he saw her in the congregation.

"Amelia?"

Their gazes locked as they focused on one another…and then the door swung open and the men who'd been chasing her stormed in the church and started waving guns. She had to stop them from shooting anyone before it was too late.

But when she lunged towards him seemingly in slow motion, the guns fired. She cried out silently as she saw Ethan get hit and fall to the ground next to his stunned bride.

Amelia woke up with a start as the stagecoach started to cross the covered bridge heading into Paradise. Her heart thudding in her chest and her palms feeling damp…so it had been a nightmare after all…Ethan hadn't been shot and he hadn't been about to marry another woman.

But she knew three months had gone by and as she looked out the window out to where her old house still stood waiting for her, she put her hand on her abdomen unaware of it.

Only knowing she had something to tell him.