The wagon wheels creaked a steady rhythm against the dusty trail as Sarah Mae Henderson clutched her father's letter to her chest. The parchment had grown soft from countless readings during the long journey from Boston, but the words remained as clear as the day she'd first received them. "Come home, daughter. The ranch needs you, and so do I."
She gazed out at the endless expanse of Nebraska territory stretching before her, golden wheat fields dancing in the summer breeze like an ocean of grain. It had been five years since she'd left Cedar Ridge to attend the Teachers' College back East, five years of learning proper etiquette, literature, and the refined ways of city life. Now, at twenty-three, she was returning to a world she'd almost forgotten—a world of cattle drives, barn raisings, and community suppers where everyone knew everyone else's business.