Eden Winslow steps off the first train into the brand new Freshwater Creek station with a photograph in her glove and nine months of letters in her carpet bag. The whole town has turned out to celebrate. So has Owen Carrick, the railroad engineer she has crossed a continent to marry.
There is only one problem. He has never written her a single word.
The good women of Freshwater Creek wrote every letter. They placed the advertisement, chose her from the replies, sent his photograph, and raised her fare. They meant to confess to him before the train came in. The train came early.
Now an honorable man stands on a crowded platform with a choice no honorable man can make: expose the kindest women in town as frauds and shame an innocent bride in front of everyone, or smile, offer his arm, and live inside a lie he never told.
Carrick means to confess tomorrow. He means to confess every tomorrow. But the letters, he discovers, are full of true things about him, and the woman who fell in love with them is braver and finer than anything he could have written for himself.
And someone in town is counting on the truth coming out at the worst possible moment.
Genre: Romance