Epilogue
The Sky Top Ranch
Ten months later
The next summer, on a sunny June morning, Cally stood behind the ranch house at the Sky Top Ranch, along the south edge of the bluff, and looked out over the land.
Her land. Her home.
She thought of her soon-to-be-husband Max. Her love.
A small redheaded bird sang trills from a nearby pine tree, a second bird trilling in reply. Down in the Long Meadow, horses grazed in the long grass. Cattle, far beyond, near the foot of Eagle Hill, gathered like tiny specks along the Summer River.
Up on the bluff, a warm breeze gently fluttered her satin and lace dress, the long white dress custom designed by the royal seamstress of Zalgravia. Around her neck, Max’s wedding gift of pearls lay warm against her skin.
Her silk-gloved hand went to the diamond brooch fastened to the crown of her long lace veil. The rose-shaped brooch was the one her ma had worn when she’d married Cally’s pa, the brooch passed down to Ma from her mother. It had been left in Ma’s will for Cally, to be passed down through the family for Cally’s own wedding day, the gift given to her the night before by Trevor James.
A hint of mist, carried on the breeze from the waterfall dropping over the bluff not fifty feet away, brushed Cally’s face, mingling with the tears that came whenever she thought of her ma. The string quartet out front of the ranch house that would play her wedding march began to tune up, the sound faint over the roar of the waterfall, but Cally had been listening for it.
A hubbub of voices from her wedding guests accompanied the quartet.
She turned from the meadow and started along the dirt shortcut to the back of the house that bypassed the longer gravel path beside the river.
Ma would be real proud of her. She’d made friends with Bart and Kit’s descendants, so much so that she was now considered a true member of the family, something important, seeing as how Cally had built a modern house with all the fancy energy-saving contraptions available farther west along the bluff—out of sight of the other buildings, farther even than Kit’s house had been—plus a small cabin in the clearing beside Sky Lake, the two spots she’d picked out—as a primary shareholder of the ranch—for herself. She’d been welcomed warmly by Max’s parents and sisters when they’d rushed to Mule Stop days after Cally and Max had arrived from the past.
She’d even traveled to Zalgravia several times in the last ten months—oh, she wished she could describe to Ma and Bart the feeling of flyin’ in a jet.
In Zalgravia, she’d stood at Max’s side as he’d introduced her to his extended family and friends, and more formally to the people of his country, and had been welcomed warmly by them, too, folks there seeming to be as enamored of the American West as Max was.
Max himself had found a few things had changed since he’d last been in his country before he’d traveled to the past. A treasured telegram sent to King Maximilian VII from the legendary Sheriff Sam Creede in 1897 was framed and hung in the library at Castle Balmont. Several of the dime novels the nineteenth-century king loved so much featuring the sheriff bore Sheriff Sam’s autograph, each book bearing as well a letter from Sam to the king detailing his latest real-life adventure, autographs and letters that hadn’t been there before Max had gone back in time.
Cally grinned.
After a serious discussion with his father, Max had arranged for his sister Christina to take over for him as heir to the throne if something happened to Max. After all, he’d traveled through time once already. His future wife was from a different century. Max told Cally he wanted to be prepared, just in case, and she loved him all the more for it.
Here, back in Wyoming, he’d had Prince Hugo’s castle torn down at the Crown of the West Ranch, every last nail and board, Max determined more than ever to erase the Evil Prince from this land, from the people of Mule Stop’s memories, replacing Hugo’s terrible deeds with ones full of honor and neighborliness.
A herd of wild mustangs, well fed and healthy, resided at the Crown.
A new house had been built atop the site of the old castle, designed by Cally and Max, for when they returned from their honeymoon. A long honeymoon, long enough to get a good start on her list of places she wanted to travel to. A long honeymoon, to explore the intimacies she and he had waited for until they were married, the way her ma would have wanted.
She skirted the back of the house, the hubbub of voices and sound of string instruments growing louder as she came around on the side opposite the river, next to the front porch, a new checkerboard on the long wood table, the old one—her pa’s—at her own house farther west on the bluff.
In the grass beyond the far side of the drive, a large, elegant tent had been set out for the wedding reception, the scent of fresh-cut flowers and pine in the festive air. Her James family relatives—and there were many—mingled close to the house, formally dressed.
Max’s mother, the Queen of Zalgravia, stood at the front of the flower-decked white chairs set out for the ceremony on the grass close to the river, between the house and the tent. Wearing the latest fancy clothes appropriate for a royal mother of the groom, she was conversing serenely with the European dignitaries invited to the wedding.
The King of Zalgravia, dressed in a formal suit with a heavy antique gold chain and large diamond-studded medallion representing his royal office around his neck, was over by the tent, chatting with pleasure with the man who was to give Cally away—Uncle Bob—and with Max’s best man—Zeb.
Cally’s matron of honor, Melody, hurried to her side.
Uncle Bob cued the orchestra.
Blinking back more tears, Cally started down the petal-strewn aisle between the rows of chairs, her prince standing tall and strong at the other end, the Sky Tops standing tall and enduring in the near distance. The Summer River rushed in the background, her ma’s diamond brooch in her hair.
Moving faster toward her future, she felt her heart swell with love.
She was home.