Best Kept Secrets — Barbara Dan

No one in Happy Valley ever suspected Walker Simmons' deep, dark secret. Indeed, how could they? Easy going, well liked, and dependable, Walker Simmons is just your average, easy-going cowboy. He works hard, cracks jokes when the going gets tough, and even comes up with pretty fair Sunday sermons in his spare time at church. Not that he's a holier-than-thou kind of guy. No calling down fire and brimstone on cowpokes hung over from Saturday night. None of that. Walker Simmons is a friend to everyone, be they saint or sinner, man, woman or child. Never married, though a few young ladies cast a hopeful eye in his direction . . . But all that changes one bone-chilling day in March of 1889, when tragedy struck at the Gunderson's ranch down the road. Secretly in love with his best friend's wife Mitzi for years, Walker convinces the grieving young widow that with a ranch to run and a ten-year-old son to raise, she needs a man around the place to do the heavy lifting. And, oh, yes, by the way, perhaps they should tie the knot, so as not to shock the neighbors? Deeply moved by such neighborly concern, Mitzi accepts his proposal. And so this happy bachelor moves in to fill her late husband's shoes. It doesn't take long before the sparks begin to fly!