Chapter One

South Dakota, 1870’s

Pain stabbed through Holly O’Leary’s forehead. A million stars exploded before her eyes when she tried to move. She flopped back on to the floor of the wagon. She wasn’t injured, but her back ached, a deep throbbing pain that had nothing to do with the accident, and everything to do with her advanced pregnancy. Gritting her teeth she struggled to raise herself.
She let out a scream, pain tore through her as she tried to sit up. The canvas on one side of the wagon was rent in two, the ends flapping wildly in the wind.
Once she could focus her eyes, she glanced through the gap. The wagon was tilted precariously over a steep drop to the valley below. It was held in place only by a partially uprooted tree. A strong gust of wind would cause it to topple off, and plunge down the steep slope.
Further down the heavily treed slope she was horrified to see her husband Denis, impaled on a shattered tree. Death would have been instantaneous, as a branch had speared through his chest.
The impact of the crash had sheared the shaft from the front of the wagon, and the horses had toppled over to their deaths also. She had to get out of the wagon, but because of the angle it was wedged at and her advanced stage of pregnancy, she couldn’t climb or jump down.
On hands and knees she crawled to the back of the wagon to peer out. Impossible for her to climb down unaided. It was too high off the ground. Flopping back on a pile of blankets, tears coursed down her cheeks as she sobbed with pain and fear. If she died her baby would perish also. Maybe this was their punishment for flouting God’s law by making a mockery out of their marriage vows.
Surely Denis’ sin was the greater, but she hadn’t known of the deep, dark secret that he carried. To be honest, had she known she would probably still have married him because she was desperate. Working in a tavern playing the piano and cleaning up after patrons was poorly paid, so it would not have been long before she would have been required to service the customers upstairs like the other soiled doves. 
Denis’ offer of marriage had been a lifesaver. He had been twenty years older than her twenty one years, but reasonably presentable. Clean and prosperous looking.
She scrubbed at the tears with her knuckles. Fool that she was not to have thought how strange it was for him to want to wed her after only a few meetings.
He hadn’t been a bad husband, but was cold and distant. Only later had she found out why. He had provided well for her, and was excited about the baby. Once she found out the true reason he had married her, she felt defiled, filthy and degraded.
Her sobs grew louder, shaking her slight frame, making her backache worse. The throbbing in her head had subsided to a dull, persistent ache now.
Why had she been so foolish as to not realize why Denis never touched her even though they shared the one bed for months? How, on the few occasions he claimed his husbandly dues, he had always been drunk.
He was hot tempered, volatile and argumentative in drink, but had never raised his hand to her. Probably didn’t care enough to bother. She was a convenience for him. A wife gave him respectability, a baby even more so. It hid his terrible secret. He had a lover, well, quite a few lovers as it transpired.
Her stomach curdled, bile rose up into her throat, spilling out of her mouth. She wiped it from her chin with the sleeve of her gown. His interest wasn’t in women. It was men! The biblical word to describe such deeds would have made her ill had she spoken it out loud.
Maybe it was for the best that they died out here in the wilderness. Denis’ argument with the wagon train master before they even made it to the Black Hills, and his rash decision to go it alone was meant to be. A sudden peace settled around her. No more guilt over her marriage. No struggling to care for herself or her child. Better if she closed her eyes, and let the serenity of death wash over her. Better for a baby to die in the comfort of a mother’s womb rather than suffer in this cruel, cold world.