Welcome to Novel PASTimes! It’s a pleasure to meet the man who will be the first to survey the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. How did you manage that assignment?
I’m proud to be a member of the Army Corps of Engineers, ma’am.
So that means you must be a graduate of West Point. What class?
The class of 1866. Since then I’ve completed surveys in the field, helping Wheeler out west, and then worked on monuments in our nation’s capital.
From the Wild West to Washington D.C. Which did you like better?
The frontier, hands down. I couldn’t wait to get back into the field. Although this wasn’t exactly the assignment I had been hoping for.
Oh? Why do you say that?
For one thing, my father the Colonel disappeared in that area two months ago, and no one knows what happened to him. For another, the moment I arrived at Fort Wilverton to meet my team, I discovered Meg Pero was going to be my photographer.
A lady photographer? I didn’t know the Army allowed such things.
Normally we wouldn’t, but there’s another lady along, our cook and the wife of our cartographer. And Meg’s good at what she does. I’ll give her that. But she was the last person I wanted along on this expedition. We’re running late in the season, it’s critical our survey align with another going on down in the canyon proper, and it may be dangerous. No reason to bring along the woman I once thought I was going to marry.
Did you just say you were going to marry Meg Pero?
I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor, ma’am.
You mentioned danger. What concerns you about the North Rim?
It’s said to be a most stunning display of natural beauty, but we’ll be facing wildly fluctuating temperatures, scant water, predators like mountain lion, vermin like rattlesnake. We might meet flashfloods, wildfire, and lightning storms. Meg would be safer heading back east.
So, are you going to turn her away?
No. I can’t leave without a photographer, and she’s the only one available. Like it or not, I have to take her with us.
What did she say when you told her?
She just smiled in that way she has and claimed her photographer father had always said nature would kill him if man didn’t do it first.
“I’m not afraid, Ben,” she told me. “This is a grand adventure. Think of the vistas we could capture.”
All I could think about was how easily she could recapture my heart.
Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.
Yes, ma’am, and I better get to it. You’ll be able to learn how Meg and I, and the survey, came out in A Distance Too Grand, by Regina Scott.
Thanks for allowing us to get know you a little better!
Regina Scott is the author of more than 45 works of warm, witty historical romance. Her writing has won praise from Booklist and Library Journal, and she was twice awarded the prestigious RT Books Reviews best book of the year in her category. A devotee of history, she has learned to fence, driven four-in-hand, and sailed on a tall ship, all in the name of research. She and her husband of 30 years live south of Tacoma, Washington, on the way to Mt. Rainier.
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