Page 1 of Thunder Pass

1

A hush fell over the ballroom. Not a whisper of a breath could be heard. Even the chandeliers seemed to pause their brilliant sparkling. The elegant guests—men in black tuxedoes and women in exquisite shoulder-baring gowns—let out gasps of awe. Such a sophisticated crowd wouldn’t normally blink an eyelid when someone new appeared at the top of the curving marble staircase.

But this new someone was different. None of them had ever seen anyone quite like her. She stood for a moment, gazing down at the upturned faces below her, a mysterious Mona Lisa smile on her face. A low buzz filled the room. Who is that gorgeous creature? Where did she come from? Is she royalty? A duchess? A princess? A star?

She picked up the hem of her skirt and took the first step down.

A dancer. She must be a dancer. So graceful. Every movement is perfection.

She’s waving at someone…who does she know?

No, not waving, she’s scattering diamonds across the room. Diamonds! Come on, let’s get some!

And the crowd surged toward her, chattering and squawking and…

“Get a hold of yourselves,” Ruth Chilkoot scolded the hens flocking to her from all sides of the chicken run. “I feed you every day, you don’t have to act like you almost died of hunger overnight.”

She scattered another handful of feed, broadcasting it far enough away that the hens would give her some space.

The diamonds created showers of rainbow light as they arced through the air. They landed in the upswept hair of the ladies, on the broad tuxedoed shoulders of the men…

“What does a tuxedo even look like?” she murmured to Maisie, the oldest hen of the flock, and her favorite. She and Maisie had an understanding. Maisie never rushed her and always laid her eggs in a nesting box instead of a random place in the enclosure where Ruth would have to hunt them down. In return, Ruth always kept a secret treat for her, something she took from her own plate. Today it was a slice of apple. “I’m sure they’re very elegant, but none of the books have a picture of one. It’s the kind of thing I’m embarrassed to ask anyone about.”

That’s why she was asking a hen.

And that wasn’t embarrassing at all.

Even though she smiled wryly at that thought, the fact remained that there were so many questions like that. She couldn’t ask anyone here at the farm about tuxedoes, because they probably didn’t know either, and if they did, they considered them vain and worthless.

She couldn’t ask anyone in Firelight Ridge, because then she’d be revealing the depth of her ignorance. Tuxedoes were clearly something everyone knew about—everyone normal, that is, or at least everyone who hadn’t been raised as a Chilkoot, separated from the rest of the world.

Time to collect the eggs for breakfast. She waded through the flock of hens, scattering the rest of the feed as she went, then stepped into the coop where the flock roosted and laid their eggs.

For a while, she’d thought she’d found someone she could pepper with endless questions. Gunnar Amundsen owned the only auto shop in town, and he too had grown up in Firelight Ridge—although not in an isolated compound like her. She’d figured that he knew how ignorant she was of huge swaths of the outside world. But then he’d kissed her. She’d liked it, and had instantly assumed they’d be getting married. His shocked laughter had made her realize she’d made a huge mistake and he couldn’t possibly understand.

She’d quickly ended their barely budding relationship and had avoided him ever since.

Except in her dreams and fantasies. In those, he was often bare-chested, as on the covers of her secret stash of books. His summer-sky eyes were kind and understanding as he swept her up in his arms and carried her upstairs to his bed.

A dreamy smile touched her lips as she searched the nesting boxes and various nooks and crannies where the hens liked to tuck their eggs away. Her basket was nearly full already. The early summer was when the farm’s egg production soared, which was good because that was also when they all had a lot of work to do. The gardens and greenhouses and fields still had to be tended, even though only a fraction of the Chilkoot family remained.

About a year ago, her father Luke’s insane Ice Falls scheme had been stopped just in time, and he and his co-conspirators had been arrested. With Luke and her mother Naomi and sister Soraya and quite a few others now in custody, she was the one responsible for the remaining children. No one else had volunteered for that role, not even any of her three aunts who still lived at the compound—Magda, Carrie, and Saffron. They were all older and had no patience for kids anymore.

Only she had stepped forward. At the age of twenty-seven, she’d agreed to become the temporary guardian of ten children between the ages of six and sixteen, who may or may not be related to her by blood.

Speaking of the children…Sarah, the oldest, popped her head around the post at the entrance to the coop. “I’m sorrrrrry,” she moaned. “This is my job, I know. I had some homework to finish up.”

Ruth bit back a snort. School was over for the year, but Sarah wasn’t giving up homework. She couldn’t blame her. All of the Chilkoot kids were behind because they’d been homeschooled by Ruth, who’d been homeschooled herself and had barely managed to teach them to read and write and do basic math.

When Maura Vaughn, an actual teacher, had agreed to hold classes for all the Firelight Ridge school-age kids, Ruth had been tempted to sign up herself.

As if she had time for remedial elementary school.

As if that wouldn’t be the ultimate embarrassment.

“It’s okay,” Ruth reassured her. “I like coming in here. It’s peaceful.”

Sarah cast a skeptical glance at the milling, squawking throng of hens and roosters. “I suppose. Anyway, I’ll take one of your morning chores to make up for it. Which one do you hate the most?”

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