Nora Travers is a pretty young widow who manages and owns the highly successful Traver’s Hotel as well as other businesses. Her family consisted of immigrants from a northern European country, who later changed their name from Borgen to Brown to fit into American society. Nora’s appearance is quite striking, especially for the backwater town of Latigo. She has beautiful blonde hair, blue eyes and slight European accent which captivates every male in her vicinity. She is well aware of her effect on the men around her but Nora prefers instead to be known as a successful and talented business woman who runs a hotel, a freightline and has other investments. She demands respects and she gets it. Nora Travers is spunky, tough and stubborn and once she makes up her mind nothing will change it. Sometimes she wears work pants and drives her own buckboard, but she also wears matronly Victorian clothing befitting her station in life. This dichotomy symbolizes her dual nature as a progressive woman willing to work in a decidedly man’s world and her ability to fit into society’s ideal female image.
Nora accepted the sole responsibility of the hotel when her husband was murdered by the same man whose bullet left her father paralyzed from the waist down. She has the double duty of managing both the hotel and her father’s care. She enjoys running her own business, is always seeking to invest money in mines, and has newly acquired a freightline in which she was originally just a financial investor.
When Nora and the hotel were threatened by a local rancher, she had the gumption to retain a lawyer, Clay Culhane to fight for her rights. The fact that Nora hired a lawyer instead of a gunman to settle the issue shows she’s also progressive when it comes to frontier justice. Nora knew this was Clay’s first case yet she continued to have faith in him. More importantly, Nora really sparked to the young handsome lawyer, but due to Victorian propriety keeps her feelings tightly hidden away. Since Clay hesitates to take action either, their relationship remains unspoken but clear.
Nora’s other chief admirer is the cantankerous Marshal ‘Gib’ Scott. Nora sees through the Marshal’s gruff and brash exterior and is his closest confidant. She offers the Marshal advice to which he listens most of the time. She knows that she occupies a special place in Gib’s heart. Nora also knows that Gib loves her cooking especially her flapjack recipe!
Both men are shy when it comes to romance but she is well aware of their rivalry over her. She does not discourage this competition and secretly enjoys it. When she threatened to move to San Francisco, each man asked her to marry him, and Nora turned them both down, because their reasons for wanting to marry her did not suit her.
After a needed visit to San Francisco she found that she enjoyed romantic male attention, and that wearing an occasional frilly dress to a formal function can be exciting. Taking the step to experience romance again was not an easy decision for Nora after the death of her husband two years prior. It took her brother-in-law’s intervention to make her realize that holding onto the past was not a good way to live. She later developed a crush on an older man, which did not materialize into a suitable relationship.
Above all, Nora is compassionate and loyal to her friends. When a bounty hunter killed a well-liked member of the community she refused him a room. Even though she has a strong head for business, she does not fail to show that personal loyalty is more important than money to her.
