I thought I'd have my bakery in Chicago forever but it all disappeared in a single afternoon. Everything gone–my family business, my home, my future. What was I supposed to do? As a young, single woman in the 1880s, there were very few options.
Fortunately, my twin sister Suzanne had moved to Tombstone and built a business of her own with her husband. She wrote that her husband's best friend needed to get married fast to get a loan to open his fancy restaurant and would I consider it. I missed her enough and was desperate enough to say yes. The only problem was, she didn't tell him I was an accomplished baker in my own right–and that's not what he had in mind at all.
When I stepped off the stagecoach, it was shocking. Tombstone was nothing like what I expected. I'd pictured cactus and dust and lots of gunfights. So as I passed by the Grand Hotel, the library, the schoolhouse and even an ice cream parlor, I thought maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
I got to meet the six Archer sisters and their grumpy, widowed father, and they embraced me like one of their own. I thought things were going well, but the shock on Tripp's face when Suzanne introduced me–her identical twin–had me praying that he wouldn't send me straight back to Chicago. Nothing was waiting for me there but heartache and starvation, and I resolved to do my best to help him make his fancy restaurant a success. That is, if he'd let me.
