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Weak, rain-drenched sunlight filtered through the lace curtains at the window of the Pacific Express passenger train, casting a dappled pattern on the white sheet of stationery that Eden Paxton clutched in her hand. As the luxury car chugged along the track to crest yet another steep grade on its way to Denver, she reread the words written on the paper for at least the tenth time in a week. Assimilating their meaning gave her the same sense of vertigo she often experienced when she looked down from high places. In short, her whole world had been tipped off its axis, all her hopes, dreams, and plans drifting away from her like pollen in a high wind.

Her fiancé, John Parrish, had ended their engagement, not because he no longer loved her but because his highfalutin parents, San Franciscans of considerable social prominence, disapproved of Eden's lineage. According to them, she lacked a "purebred" pedigree and therefore was unsuitable to be John's wife or the mother of his children. John hadn't even had the courage to tell Eden in person but instead had sent her this dreadful letter.

Five years of my life, she thought bitterly, wasted on a pampered milksop who lacks the backbone to defy his father and mother. Even more telling to Eden, John had failed to stop his parents from vilifying her reputation in order to gain public support for him. It was unseemly for a man to end his engagement to a respectable young lady without just cause, so the Parrish family had whispered the ugly truth about Eden's illegitimate birth to anyone who would listen, not caring a whit about the embarrassment they might cause Eden or her mother, Dory. Every time Eden thought about it, she burned with anger. Yesterday morning she and her mother had left the city in disgrace, scorned by lifelong friends, snubbed in places of business, and turned away from houses they'd visited for years. They were now pariahs in San Francisco, a place they had both considered home. The humiliation had been complete and as sharp as a stiletto.

How could John have allowed his parents to behave so shabbily? Eden didn't care so much about the consequences for herself. All the fussiness of city life had set her teeth on edge at times, and she'd grown impatient more than once with her flibbertigibbet friends who cared more about their appearance than anything else. But it had broken Eden's heart to see her mother mistreated. A stiff-necked butler at the home of one prominent family had glared down his nose at Dory Paxton as if she were a cockroach and ordered her off his employer's porch. Dory had handled this dismissal like a grand lady, holding her head high as she quit the property, but Eden would never forget the pain she'd glimpsed in her mother's eyes.

As if guessing her daughter's thoughts, Dory curled slender fingers over Eden's wrist, forcing her hand and the letter to her lap. "Please, darling, no more fretting on my account." A delicate blonde with gentle blue eyes, Dory flashed an overbright smile. "I've wanted to live closer to your brothers for years. Truly I have. Every time we've visited them at one of their ranches, my heart has broken a little when it came time to leave. I thought about relocating. The only reason I never acted on it was because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving you behind. You were so in love with John. Your future seemed to be all mapped out. I couldn't be in two places at once, so I decided to stay put."

Eden no longer felt certain that she had ever truly loved John. She'd shed a few tears after receiving his letter, but then anger had taken over. Where was the heartbreak that she should be feeling? Why wasn't she devastated and filled with despair? When a woman truly loved a man, she surely felt something besides outrage and secret relief when he walked away.

The thought troubled Eden. How could she have misread her own feelings so completely? Even more worrisome, why had she never seen how weak and spineless John was when it came to displeasing his parents? She considered herself to be a fair judge of character. With four older brothers to educate her, she'd learned at an early age that not all men could be trusted. And yet she'd trusted John, accepting all his flimsy excuses for postponing their nuptials, never once suspecting that he no longer wanted to marry her. Perhaps that was why she felt only anger—because he'd made a complete fool of her. If Eden possessed one trait in goodly measure, it was pride. Being made to look ridiculous didn't sit well with her.

"Everything will work out fine," Dory went on. "You'll see. Remember how wonderful it was when we lived on the ranch in California before Ace started winning big at cards? Despite the struggles, we pulled together after Joseph Senior died, and we all became so close—a real family."

Privately, Eden couldn't help but think the term ranch was a little too grandiose for the scraggly patch of land and three-room shack that they'd been forced to call home when they finally reached California. But her mother was right otherwise. As a family, they had made many wonderful memories during those lean, trying years—target-practicing, going on hunting trips for meat, playing games in the yard after the day's work was completed, and then gathering for evening meals, grateful to have food, no matter how simple the fare. Later, when Ace began winning at cards, their circumstances had drastically improved, a rags-to-riches story, but when Eden revisited some of her fondest childhood memories, she often recalled the shack and the wondrous love that had warmed every drafty room.

Early Dawn Catherine Anderson Paperback: Mass Market $7.99 add to cart Read more...