Mail-Order Bride With Secret Fortune Arrives to Burnt Homestead—Rebuilds With One-Armed Blacksmith

Chapter 2

The Frontier Hotel smelled of lye soap and decades of dust that no amount of scrubbing could quite erase. Abigail’s room was barely large enough for the narrow bed, washstand, and single chair it contained, but the window overlooked Liberty Creek’s main street, offering a view of her new reality.

She stood at that window as sunset painted the rough buildings in shades of amber and rose, her mind performing calculations that would have shocked anyone who believed her to be a desperate, deceived mail-order bride.

The truth was considerably more complex.

Inside her trunk, beneath a false bottom her father had commissioned from Philadelphia’s finest craftsman, lay the evidence of Jonathan Thornton’s final act of love: bank drafts totaling thirty thousand dollars, stock certificates, the deed to his textile business—all legally transferred to his daughter’s name. Enough money to live comfortably for years. Enough to purchase property, establish a business, build something lasting.

Enough to make her a target if the wrong people discovered her fortune.

Victor Caldwell possessed both ambition and cruelty in equal measure. If he learned that Jonathan’s “worthless spinster daughter” had actually inherited everything, he would follow her to Montana and beyond. The law might be on Abigail’s side, but Victor had connections, lawyers, and the ruthless determination of a man who believed the world owed him success.