The Cowboy Takes a Wife Read online

  ANNIE WHITAKER HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PLAIN JANE

  But in the bustling gold-rush town of Canon City, Colorado, she turns heads, especially that of cowboy Caleb Hutton. Annie’s seen Caleb many times in her father’s mercantile, and she’s surprised and pleased when he takes a special interest in her.

  Caleb’s faith was shattered when his fiancée jilted him for a wealthier man. But as he gets to know Annie, his view of women—and God—soon takes a turn for the better. Can Annie’s steadfast faith help the former preacher find his way back to his calling and a second chance at love?

  “Mornin’, ma’am,” he said.

  Her face came alive with recognition and a slight smile tilted her mouth. “Now I remember. You rode by last evening, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded a thank-you to the man who handed him a cup.

  “I didn’t recognize you at first.” She quickly scanned his attire and glanced away.

  Caleb rubbed his jawline. “I shaved this morning. I imagine that made a difference.”

  She smiled fully then, and it warmed him as much as the hot tin threatening to blister his hands.

  “I imagine you’d like some biscuits.” She stood as she spoke, and without waiting for his answer, moved to the back of the room, where she placed two golden mounds on a plate. Turning, she raised a tin. “Molasses?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  She fetched a fork and presented it to him with the plate and a quick glance. “I hope you enjoy them.”

  As a former man of many words come Sunday morning, he found himself nearly mute in her presence.

  Books by Davalynn Spencer

  Love Inspired Heartsong Presents

  The Rancher’s Second Chance

  The Cowboy Takes a Wife

  DAVALYNN SPENCER’s

  love of writing has taken her from the national rodeo circuit and a newsroom’s daily crime beat to college classrooms and inspirational publications. When not writing romance or teaching, she speaks at women’s retreats and plays on her church’s worship team. She and her husband have three children and four grandchildren and make their home on Colorado’s Front Range with a Queensland heeler named Blue. To learn more about Davalynn visit her website at www.davalynnspencer.com.

  Davalynn Spencer

  The Cowboy Takes a Wife

  This book is dedicated to the indomitable spirit of those who through trial have burnished their faith

  to shine brighter than the purest gold.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Annie Whitaker clenched her jaw and wrapped her fingers around the arms of the front-porch rocking chair. It was better than wrapping them around her older sister’s throat.

  Of course Edna thought heading for the Rocky Mountains was a bad idea. Everything was a bad idea unless she’d thought of it first.

  Perspiration gathered at the nape of Annie’s neck. She uncurled her fingers and relaxed her jaw. Using her sweetest voice, she shifted to Edna’s favorite topic. “Do you have your eye on any particular fella who’s been calling lately?”

  Edna batted a silk fan through the heavy air and lowered her gaze. The porch swing creaked as she toed it back and forth. “Maybe,” she said.

  Annie rolled her eyes, grateful that Edna couldn’t see out the side of her head like a mule. She rubbed her cheek to hide her smile at the joke.

  Annie guessed Jonathan Mitchell topped Edna’s list. He was financially successful, well-bred and handsome in a soft sort of way. And she fully expected Daddy to turn the mercantile over to Mr. Mitchell when he left next month.

  When they left.

  Annie planned to be on that stagecoach with her father come he— She stopped at the forbidden word and glanced at her sister, who always managed to read Annie’s improper thoughts.

  But why shouldn’t she say that word? It was in the Bible. And it certainly applied to Omaha at the moment, which was heavy and hot as an unbroken fever.

  Heat waves rolled over their aunt Harriet’s vast lawns and rippled the distant trees into a surreal horizon. Annie unfastened the top button on her thin blouse. She detested summer—particularly July—almost as much as she disliked Edna’s propensity for being coy.

  “Annabelle May.” Edna glared. “Don’t be indecent.”

  “Don’t be absurd.” Annie released the second button out of spite. “It’s unbearably hot, and there’s no one to see besides you and Aunt Harriet. And she’s half-blind.” So much for her “sweet” voice.

  “Well, I never.” Edna’s eyelashes whipped up the humidity even more than her fan.

  Annie pushed out of the rocker and leaned over the porch railing. Even the copper daylilies bordering the Victorian home struggled to hold their heads up in the afternoon heat.

  Edna’s brow glistened with perspiration. “A little warmth does not give a lady license for indecency.”

  Tired of the heat as well as Edna’s attitude, Annie stomped her foot and spun toward her sister.

  “Daddy wants to go to Cañon City, and I’m going with him. You can stay here in Omaha with all your beaus and Aunt Harriet if you like, but I’m not letting our father go alone.” Annie reset a loose pin in her unruly hair, then fisted her hands on her hips. “It will be an adventure. ‘Pikes Peak or Bust,’ they say. All those gold seekers need to get their supplies from someone. Why not Whitaker’s Mercantile?”

  “Humph.” Edna expertly flicked her wrist, folding the hand-painted silk fan for emphasis. “That’s all you think about—adventure. You and Father both.” She palmed damp ringlets off her pale forehead, then reopened the fan for a fresh attack. “I can’t believe he’s willing to pull up and take off for those ragged mountains at his age. He should stay here and increase his holdings. The mercantile is doing quite well. Why start over someplace else and risk losing everything?” Edna fluttered furiously and aimed a guilt-inducing glare at Annie. “Including his life and yours.”

  Annie folded her arms. Edna’s threat echoed their aunt’s petulant scolding. Aunt Harriet was bound by tradition and the social constraints of widowhood, and she dripped resentment over her brother’s freedom to do as he pleased.

  Well, that was Aunt Harriet’s choice, not Annie’s. Annie preferred to experience all she could, even if it meant risking her life in the Rocky Mountains. Zebulon Pike, John C. Frémont and others had conquered those peaks. Why not Daniel Whitaker and his younger daughter?

  “Cañon City isn’t even established. It’s an upstart supply town, Annie, on Kansas Territory’s farthest edge.”

  Annie rested against the railing and focused on the window’s beveled edge behind the swing. “I know what and where it is.”

  “What it is is uncivilized.” Edna slowed her silken assault, tempered her tone. “You know what that means. They have no law yet, and probably even less order with all those gold-hungry miners and speculators and wild, drunken cowboys.”

  “And bank clerks and preachers and storekeepers.” Annie pressed her open neckli
ne flat against her collarbone. “Be reasonable.”

  An unreasonable request when it came to her sister.

  Predictably, Edna stiffened and assumed a superior posture. “And Indians. You know wild savages live there, as well as all along the way. Don’t forget what the Utes did at Fort Pueblo just six years ago.”

  Annie gritted her teeth, barring hateful words that fought for release. She and her sister had waged this verbal war about the West more times than she cared to count. She refused to chew that piece of meat again.

  A rare breeze suddenly swept the wide front porch, and Annie imagined mountain air whispering along high canyons. She braced her hands against the railing, closed her eyes and recalled what she’d read about the Arkansas River falling from the Rockies, cold and full-bellied with snowmelt. A marvelously deep gorge squeezed the river into raging white water and shot it onto the high plains through a wedge-shaped valley. And guarding the mountain gateway, that brand-new town—Cañon City.

  Oh, to be part of something new and unpredictable. To see that canyon, and hear the water’s roar...

  Edna’s lofty tsk interrupted the daydream. “I know the stories, too.” Annie’s eyes flew open to see her sister’s shaking head and mirthless lips. Edna read her mind as easily as a dime novel.

  “Do you know that at last count Cañon City had only seven hundred and twenty residents?” Edna said.

  Annie raised her chin. “Daddy and I have discussed it.”

  The fan snapped shut. “Do you know that out of that number six hundred are men?” Edna shuddered.

  “They’re men, Edna. Not animals.”

  “Don’t be so sure, dear sister. With numbers like that, I dare say those men are hard-pressed to maintain their humanity.”

  “This is 1860, not the Dark Ages.” Annie stepped away from the railing, tempted to undo a third button just to see how fast Edna could flail her fan. “We are going, and we are leaving in three weeks with or without your approval—or Aunt Harriet’s.”

  Annie marched into the house and down the hall to the kitchen, where she retrieved the lemonade pitcher from the icebox. No doubt she’d not have such a modern luxury in Cañon City. She poured a glass, let it chill with the cold drink and then held it against her forehead and neck.

  The shocking relief conjured images of clear mountain snowmelt. Goose bumps rippled down her spine. The Arkansas must be delightfully cold, nothing like the Big Muddy slogging along dark and murky on its unhurried journey to the Mississippi.

  At nearly a mile high, Cañon City was close to Denver City’s famous claim. That in itself had to present a cooler climate. Much more pleasant, even in the summer. She figured Edna didn’t know that.

  Guilt knifed between her thoughts, and she regretted her snippy attitude. But Edna infuriated her so. How had they both come from the same parents?

  Annie felt a familiar ache. That was one thing Edna did know that Annie did not—their mother’s comforting arms.

  She doused the pain with a sweetly sour gulp of lemonade that quite reflected the two Whitaker sisters. Annie fingered the corners of her mouth, certain that she was not the “sweet” one. She and Edna were no more alike than the dresses they wore.

  Edna was polished satin. Annie, plain calico.

  Was that the real reason behind her determination to go west with Daddy?

  She slumped into a kitchen chair and traced the delicate needlework on the tablecloth. Several eligible young men called on the fair-haired Edna. But no one called for the wild-maned Annie.

  She pushed a loose strand from her forehead as tears stung her eyes. Swallowing the dregs of jealousy, she whispered, “Forgive me, Lord. Help me love my sister. Even if I don’t like her very much sometimes.”

  The screen door slammed against its frame, and Edna’s full skirts rustled toward the kitchen.

  Annie rushed to the icebox and filled a second glass with lemonade for her sister.

  It was the least she could do.

  Chapter 1

  The late October sun bled pink and gold, impaled on an uneven ridgeline. Caleb Hutton stopped at the lip of a bowl-like depression, leaned on his saddle horn and studied the jagged silhouette. He could just make out a shadowy monolith jutting from the mountain and at its base a narrow green vein that pulsed across the valley floor. To the right a dozen buildings stood below a craggy granite spine. The faint sounds of hammers and people and livestock drifted across the valley.

  Cañon City.

  The fledgling town huddled north of the tree-lined Arkansas River, where canvas tents, lean-tos and campfires sprouted. Approaching from due east, Caleb crossed the valley and rode into town past a livery, corral and framed-in shops. A white clapboard building stood across from the livery—a schoolhouse or a church.

  He stopped at the largest structure, the Fremont Hotel, dismounted and looped both horses’ reins around the hitching rail. Rooster tongued his bit and Sally heaved a sigh. Caleb patted the gelding’s neck, slapped dust from his hat and stepped through the hotel door in need of a room and a bath.

  He found neither.

  Rumors had been right. The burgeoning mine-supply town was full to bursting. Every chair in the crowded parlor held a man, and laughter and cigar smoke drifted from the open doorway to the adjoining saloon. Caleb’s empty stomach roiled, and he returned to his horses.

  Besides the substantial brick-faced hotel, the saloon and a few other establishments, buildings in varying degrees of completion lined the short, broad street. Fading daylight drew carpenters and masons from their work and into their wagons, but others lingered along the boardwalk. Mostly miners holed up for the winter, Caleb supposed, from the looks of their grimy dungarees and whiskers.

  At least he’d beat the snow.

  Rooster’s head drooped over the rail, eyes closed. Caleb rubbed beneath the red forelock.

  “Tired as I am, are you, boy?” After gathering the reins, he mounted the gelding, pulled Sally along behind them and turned back the way he had come. The river should be running low and smooth with summer long past, and the cottonwood grove he’d seen on his approach would be hotel enough.

  He’d keep the horses with him rather than board them at the livery and sleep somewhere else alone. After three months under the stars with the animals’ heavy presence nearby, he doubted he could sleep without them anyway.

  Come dark he’d brave the cold water for a bath.

  Near the street’s end, a woman swept the boards in front of a narrow storefront. Above her hung a painted wooden sign: Whitaker’s Mercantile. As he rode nearer, she stooped to reclaim something, and a hunk of chestnut hair fell over her shoulder. She leaned her broom against the building and twisted her locks into a knot. He didn’t realize he was staring until her eyes flashed his way, challenging his steady observation.

  As he came even with the store, he touched the brim of his hat. “Evening, ma’am.”

  She dropped her hands as if caught stealing but held his gaze, nodding briefly before she turned away.

  Caleb swallowed a knot in his throat. He reined Rooster toward the river, down the gentle slope to the cottonwood grove, and set his mind on making camp. No point digging up what he’d spent the past three months riding away from.

  The horses drank their fill, and he hobbled and tethered them close by. Didn’t need some hard case sneaking off with them while he slept.

  The breeze danced downstream and shivered through the trees. Caleb’s campfire was not the only glow along the river and he was grateful for its warmth. As he cut open his last can of beans, he counted a half dozen flickering lights scattered up and down the banks.

  Beneath his saddle lay his father’s old friend, a Colt revolver. Good for snakes, his pa had always said. On the backside of Kansas Territory—as anywhere—some of those snakes had two legs and
would likely kill to get what they wanted. He would not fall victim.

  He sank onto his bedroll, eased back against his saddle and waited for the stars to show—again. He could nearly chart them from watching them wink into view each night, as constant and familiar as his horses.

  Restfulness settled over him for the first time since he’d left Saint Joseph. The muscles in his neck and legs relaxed, and tension seeped from his spine as the river chattered a few feet away like a secret companion.

  Three months riding alone had given him plenty of time to think about his life, where he’d been and where he was going. One more day and he’d be at the Lazy R, where cattle outnumbered people fifty to one.

  Suited him just fine.

  He pulled off his hat and linked his fingers behind his head.

  He knew his way around horses better than most, thanks to his pa, rest his soul. Cows weren’t that much different.

  At least they wouldn’t be sitting in pews waiting for him to say something inspiring.

  He snorted at the image, but guilt twisted his gut. He’d tried his hand at people and failed. God must have made a mistake.

  Or Caleb had misheard.

  A twig snapped, and he slid a hand beneath his saddle. The hammer’s click cut through the silence and drew a quick confession.

  “Don’t shoot, mister—don’t shoot.”

  Caleb aimed for the voice, though the tremor in it revealed the owner’s young age.

  “Show yourself,” he ordered.

  Another snap and a boy stepped from between the horses, arms raised stick straight as if he were being hung by his thumbs.

  “I ain’t stealin’ nothin’, mister—I swear.”

  Caleb sat up. “Right there’s two things you shouldn’t be doing.”

  Firelight licked the boy’s skinny neck, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yessir. What’s that, sir?”

  Caleb eased the hammer back and lowered his gun. “Stealing and swearing. Both will get you into trouble.”