Sunday morning dawned bright with warm temperatures. The town's people were buzzing about the new family that was arriving that day. When church ended everyone rushed to the café to wait for the welcome party to begin. Lee had sent a telegram back to Mr. Weiss asking him to stop at the café when they first arrive in town.

They had only been in the café for about 20 minutes when the front door opened and in walked a tall man followed by a woman and two children. Lee approached the man. "I'm Lee Coulter. Are you Mr. Weiss?" He extended his hand.

"Yes, I am Nathan Weiss. Please to meet you, Mr. Coulter."

"Call me Lee."

"If you will call me Nathan." He looked around the room at all the people.

"We wanted to welcome you and our family to Hope Valley, so we decided to have a party for you." Lee told him

Nathan smiled. "That is so nice of you. Thank you." He turned to his family. "This is my wife, Sara, my son Isaac and my daughter Leah."

Rosemary walked over to her husband as Nathan introduced his family. "Nathan, this in my wife, Rosemary."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Hope Valley." Rosemary extended her hand to Nathan, then to Sara.

Elizabeth and Jack approached the family. "I'm Constable Jack Thornton and this is my wife, Elizabeth. She is Hope Valley's school teacher."

Elizabeth stepped forward to talk to Mrs. Weiss about getting the children enrolled in school. She looked into the woman's face; there was something oddly familiar about her. Suddenly, childhood memories started coming back to her; she looked like she could be her friend Sara. "This is going to sound crazy to you, Mrs. Weiss but did you live in Hamilton as a girl?"

Sara Weiss had been looking at the school teacher in curiosity too. "Yes, I did. My maiden name is Kaplan."

"Oh my goodness! It is you. My maiden name is Thatcher." She moved closer to Sara.

"Oh, what a small world we live in. Who would have thought we would run into each other all these years later. Elizabeth!" Sara threw her arms around Elizabeth and the two women hugged and cried happy tears with the men standing nearby in shock.

When the women stopped hugging, Elizabeth took one of Sara's hands. "So you married someone with the same last name as your grandmother." They moved towards a quiet corner of the café to talk.

Sara laughed. "Yes I did but there is no relation. Your husband is quite handsome. How is it being a Mountie's wife? It must be frightening when he has to go out on assignment."

"Your husband is handsome too. I have been lucky when it comes to Jack's work. So far he has only had to leave on assignments a couple of times. When he does go, I worry but I handle it. It bothered me when we were first courting; I almost broke it off because I didn't think I could handle it if he died. Then I saw reason and realized I would much rather spend whatever time we have together with him than to live my life without him."

"There were never truer words spoken." Sara said, then reached over to hug Elizabeth again. "I still can't believe we are seeing each other again after all these years. We have so much to catch up on."

"We do. I would say come join me for tea here at the café after school but I am sure you will be too busy unpacking."

"I would love to join you. I will be needing a break at some point. School gets out when?"

"At three."

"That sounds great. I plan on bringing the children to school in the morning. If you wouldn't mind walking them here to the café I can have them sit at one of the tables to do homework while you and I talk."

"Great! School starts at 8:30."

"Perfect. We should go back to the party the town is so graciously throwing. It was so nice of you to do it."

"Hope Valley is a small town that likes to look out for each other. We felt it only fitting to welcome a new family to town."

"I think I am going to love it here. When we moved away from Hamilton, it was to a small town like this. After we got married, Nathan and I lived in Calgary. I didn't like it much; neither did Nathan for that matter because he is also from a small town but his job took him there. When Nathan found out about this job, we talked it over and he decided take it."

"I'm so glad you did." Elizabeth took Sara's hand as they walked back towards the rest of the party. "I just realized something. Don't you follow dietary laws?"

"Thank you for remembering that. We do, but mostly at home. When we eat out we are just careful not to eat certain things."

"We have roast beef sandwiches, potato salad and different desserts."

"Sounds delicious. I know the children will love the desserts."

Elizabeth and Sara walked back to the party arm in arm. Elizabeth led her friend to Abigail. "Sara, I'd like you to me my close friend and owner of this café, Abigail Stanton."

Abigail reached out her hand towards Sara and smiled. "Please to meet you, Sara."

Sara took Abigail's hand and shook it. "The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Stanton."

"Please call me Abigail. Would you like something to eat?"

"I would love something to eat. I heard there are roast beef sandwiches and potato salad for lunch."

"I will go get you a plate." Abigail squeezed Sara's hand once more then went to get the food.

"Abigail seems nice, Elizabeth."

"She is very nice. She is more than a friend to me; she is one of my sisters. She took me into her home after there was a fire at the school that left me homeless. I was just a stranger; she knew nothing about me and she still took me in. She has been there for me through everything."

"That is so nice. That sounds a little like how we were as young girls. I hope we can be that way again as women."

"And as mothers." Elizabeth whispered. "I'm pregnant."

Sara looked at her, surprised. Then she smiled and threw her arms around Elizabeth. "Oh Elizabeth! I'm so happy for you. You can't be very far along."

"I'm not. I just found out a couple of weeks ago." Elizabeth replied just Leah ran over to her mother with Emily close behind. They hugged Sara and Elizabeth respectively.

"Mama." Leah looked up into her mother's face. "This is Emily. She is so nice. She wants to be my friend and she said Mrs. Thornton is a great teacher. Can I start school tomorrow?"

"It's "May" I start school tomorrow and yes, my plan is to bring you and your brother to school tomorrow." She leaned down to kiss her daughter's head. "Leah, I'd like you to meet Mrs. Thornton. She and I were friends when we were your age."

Elizabeth bent down until she was eye level with Leah. "It's nice to meet you, Leah. I am looking forward to you and your brother coming to school tomorrow."

"It's nice to meet you too, Mrs. Thornton." The young girl grinned. "I love school." Then she and Emily ran off to go talk to some of the other students.

"She's adorable." Elizabeth told Sara.

"She is but she is also a handful." Abigail returned to them with two plates. "Thank you, Abigail." Sara reached for her plate.

Elizabeth took hers and looked around the café. She spotted Jack sitting at a table with Nathan. They were deep in conversation about something. "Looks like our men are getting to know each other. Shall we go join them?"

"I would love to." They walked to the table.

Jack noticed them approach first and he stood up. He took Elizabeth's plate from her and set it on the table, then gave her a kiss before he pulled out her chair. "Hi, Sweetheart. I missed you." He whispered in her ear.

Nathan had just pushed in Sara's chair and he kissed her cheek. "They remind me of us when we were first married. Actually they remind me of us now too."

Sara smiled at him. "They do, don't they?" Nathan sat down next to her and started to eat his sandwich. The two couples ate their lunch getting to know each other, with the Weiss children running up to them every once in a while.

A couple of hours later as the party was breaking up and people went home, Jack went with Nathan to the wagon while Elizabeth walked with Sara to their house with Isaac and Leah running alongside them. The Weiss' would be moving into one of the row houses. "I think you will like the row house. I bought one before Jack and I got engaged. Once he proposed we talked about where we wanted to live. He wanted to build a house for us but it would take a while to build and we wanted to get married right away. So we lived in my house for the first few months after the wedding."

"Where do you live now?"

"Our house is through the trees behind the school. It's just a short walk away from the school."

"That's convenient for you. I can't wait to see it."

"Once you get settled in your home, we will have you all over for dinner."

"We would love that." Sara said as they approached the wagon. Jack and Nathan were already beginning to unload it. Sara, Elizabeth and the children grabbed some things too and before long, all the Weiss belongings were in their home. Jack and Elizabeth said goodbyes to the family, knowing they wanted to get some of their things unpacked and settle in for the night.

Jack pulled Elizabeth's arm through the crook of his arm as they walked home. "That certainly was something that Mrs. Weiss turned out to be your childhood friend." He kissed her cheek.

"I couldn't believe it, Jack. I never expected to see her again and now she is here in Hope Valley."

"I'm happy for you. I look forward to getting to her and Nathan. I mentioned having the family over for dinner sometime soon."

Elizabeth laughed. "I said the same thing to Sara." Elizabeth shivered and moved closer to Jack, wanting to feel his warmth.

Jack noticed her shiver and put his arm around her. He quickened his pace so they could get home faster. Soon they were approaching their home. Once inside, Jack went to build a fire while Elizabeth went to change into her nightgown. Jack came into the bedroom to change his clothes then they went back to the living room to snuggle by the fire together.

"Sara is going to bring the children to school in the morning." Elizabeth told Jack.

"That's good. It's better to get them started right away and into a routine."

"After school she is going to meet me at Abigail's. We are going to catch up some more." She took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips. She could feel him smiling at the gesture. "I told her about the baby."

"I figured you did."

"What did you and Nathan talk about today?"

"He was very interesting in my life as a Mountie. He told me he used to pretend he was a Mountie when he was a little boy. We also talked about how amazing it was that you and Sara knew each as girls and ended up moving to the same town years later."

"It is amazing." Elizabeth agreed, then she yawned. "I'm so sorry, Jack. I am getting so tired. I think the excitement of the day plus being newly pregnant is making me more tired than usual."

Jack stood up, then gathered Elizabeth in his arms. "Then we should go to bed. Morning comes really fast."

Elizabeth rested her head on Jack's shoulder. "It does but I can't wait for tomorrow. Having Isaac and Leah join my class then meeting Sara after school. I'm so excited."

"I can tell." Jack replied as he put her down on her feet, then pushed back the covers, allowing Elizabeth to get in. He walked to his side and joined her. He reached over to caress her face then leaned in to kiss her goodnight. "I love you, Sweetheart."

"I love you too, Honey." Elizabeth settled on to her side and felt Jack wrapped his arms around her. Soon, Elizabeth was asleep, dreaming about her childhood with Sara and what good times they might have in the future.