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High Plains Reunion

By Patricia Collier

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Chapter 1



1869
Southeast Wyoming Territory

Owen Matthews sat sipping his coffee, a drink that his housekeeper, Libby, proudly stated was strong enough to melt a spoon. He agreed. Only some cream or milk could make it palatable. Fortunately, their cow provided those.
Libby sat across from him, her coffee forgotten as she read her niece’s letter. As she unfolded the last crease, something dropped to the scarred, wooden table that served them well for meals or any chore that required a surface during the cold, winter months.
He quickly placed his hand upon it before it could slide beneath the table. It looked like a photograph. As he turned it over, he froze, his heart thudding as he gazed upon the familiar face of the woman. A little girl stood beside her, her expression that of a bored child that wished to be elsewhere.
He must have muttered at sight of the pretty, young woman who sat seated by the child.
“What is it?” Libby exclaimed. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I have. Who is this?”
Libby peered at the photograph. “Oh, that is my niece Ginny and her daughter Kittie.”
“Ginny?” Owen questioned.
“Ginny, short for Virginia,” Libby replied, a smile upon her lips.
“Virginia Graham Matthews?” Owen asked.
“Yes. Didn’t I mention that Ginny and you have the same surname?”
“Yes. I thought she might be married to a relative of mine. But I didn’t consider another choice.”
“And what would that be?”
“Wives usually have the same name as their husband.”
The older woman peered queerly at him. “What do you mean?”
“Your niece is my late wife.”
“Oh, quit your joshing,” Libby replied as she waved her hand at his words.
“I’m not joshing,” he stated.
“I didn’t know that you were married,” she responded, her brows knitted together as she stared at him.” Then she recalled his previous words. “What do you mean by your late wife?”
“I was told that she died in a buggy accident with her father.”
Libby lifted an eyebrow before she looked down at the photograph for a moment, then met his gaze. “Her father was killed in a buggy accident along with our cousin, Mattie. Mattie and Ginny both had dark brown hair. They resembled each other. Ginny wrote that people thought for several hours that she had been killed. Word spread in the community that both father and daughter were victims.”
“All these years I thought she was dead. I never told anyone about my marriage.”
“You never knew that you had a daughter,” Libby stated, sadness in her voice.
He shook his head, slowly running his hand through his blonde hair.
The door opened to admit a young man who uncovered his coal black hair as he hung his hat on one of the pegs near the door of their cabin. He grinned at them as he walked over to the table. “How is your niece?”
“Sit down and join us, Zac,” Owen said as he picked up the photograph. “I would like you to meet my wife and daughter.”
Zac half-smiled at him. “You’re joshin’ me.”
Libby snorted at his words, causing Zac’s half-smile to disappear.
“I’m afraid not, cousin,” Owen replied.



1869
Tennessee

Ginny stared at the letter in her hands, which were trembling as she dropped it onto the colorful quilt that covered her bed. Owen is alive.
When a month had passed without word from him in the last days of the war, she had written to inform him of her father’s death and the good news that he had a daughter. Her letter was returned, along with a letter stating that as soon as Owen had recovered from his wound, he had left for the Dakota Territory. He had thought she was dead.
He had been wounded, and she had not known. She had no address for his family, so she just wrote his name on the envelope, then addressed it to Matthews Ranch, Dakota Territory.
She had allowed that her first letter might have been lost, but when he did not answer the second one, she had assumed that he had not survived his journey home.
Then one of the women at their church, at which her father had been the minister, suggested that he had deserted her. The woman had been spiteful, wanting to inflict pain because she had married a Union officer.
When she gave birth to Owen’s child, her father was already dead. As soon as she had recovered from Kittie’s birth, she traveled to his sister’s home in Manchester, Tennessee, where she had remained until now. Aunt Libby and Owen wanted her to bring Kittie to live with them on the ranch.
Wyoming Territory, as it was now called, might as well be the Moon. She had always been thankful that there were no Indians with which to fight here. Owen had told her that their winters were long and very cold. And the wind blew, making it colder. Then there was the snow.
Would she feel anything for Owen? She had wavered between mourning him and hating him for the past years. But he had not known that she was alive. He did deserve to know his daughter, and Kittie deserved to know her father. At four years of age, she already felt different from the children that sat with both a mother and a father in church. After the recent incident, she knew that they must leave Manchester.
They would travel by train to the Wyoming Territory. Owen had sent their fare. They would have first class tickets which provided a berth in which to sleep. She really had no choice. She must give him a chance to be a husband and father.

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