On the table sat the letter he’d been reading and rereading for days, the paper creased soft at the folds.
Mr. Daniel Mitchell, it began in a tidy hand, the kind that looked practiced.
The marriage broker in Denver had written again after Daniel’s last message. Try one more time, the man had promised. This one is practical. Strong. Used to hard work. A seamstress, East Coast. Widowed. Not prone to fantasies.
Then the broker had added a line that made Daniel’s jaw clench when he first read it:
She is of a fuller figure, which may suit your harsh conditions.
As if a woman’s body was a piece of winter gear. As if “fuller” meant “won’t blow away in a blizzard.”
Daniel didn’t care about her size. Not the way the broker thought.
He cared about one thing: staying.
Hope, he’d learned, was a dangerous luxury. It came with teeth.
So he treated the new bride like he treated a coming storm. He prepared for it without trusting it.
