Loving the Horseman Read online

  Annie shook her head. They might freeze to death in the livery, but at least they’d not starve their first winter.

  Hefting the black skillet with a towel, she carried it to the sideboard, where she split two biscuits each on two tin plates and drizzled dark molasses over both servings. After adding a fork to each plate, she joined her father already seated and waiting.

  Settled and warm with food on her lap and her dear father close by, Annie’s brimmed with gratitude as he prayed.

  “Thank you, Lord, for feeding us and keeping us safe. And open Cooper’s heart, Lord. Before it snows, if possible. Amen.”

  Refusing to let their stingy landlord’s image lay claim to her thoughts, Annie forked off a bite and savored the sweet molasses-covered mouthful. She dabbed at her lips with her apron and eyed her father, who heartily attacked his breakfast.

  “You don’t believe that nonsense about skunk cabbage do you, Daddy?”

  He cut into the second biscuit and sopped it in the pooling molasses. “Nope.” Closing his eyes, he chewed slowly and nodded. “Delicious, Annie. Absolutely the best biscuits this side of the Rocky Mountains.”

  Annie swallowed another bite. “You can’t say that anymore.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because now we are in the Rocky Mountains.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mollie Sullivan twittered at Caleb’s sermon. She chirped again and ducked her pretty blond head as a red-winged blackbird took flight from her Sunday bonnet.

  Caleb’s eyes flew open, his chest heaving. Palming his face, he took in the pale sky and birdsong. The horses were still tethered, lipping leaves from the cottonwoods and swishing their tails. Rooster looked his way and swiveled an ear.

  Caleb sat up, threw back his blanket and canvas, and pulled on his boots. Someone was frying salt pork. Probably Springer Smith’s ma, considering the direction from which the savory smell came.

  He reached into his saddle bag for his last bit of jerked beef and a biscuit he’d been saving, and laid them on his bedroll. Then he found his razor and soap, turned toward the east, and stopped at the spectacle.

  Low clouds slid along the fiery horizon, black and backlit with red and gold and splayed out like the hand of God. Unbidden came the phrase, Your mercies are new every morning.

  Would he never stop hearing them—words he’d known as a child, handled as a man, turned his back on as a failure?

  One more day.

  He walked to the water’s edge and squatted near an eddy. The first cold dash brought Mollie to mind again. Her image had appeared first thing every morning since leaving St. Joseph, and he dreamed of her almost every night. But this time her features weren’t as clear. They were blurred, somehow, by a sorrel-haired woman with a broom.

  He huffed. Many a woman he’d seen in towns he’d ridden through, but none had outshone Mollie in his mind’s eye. Not when he laid down to sleep or when he rose in the morning. Not until now.

  Dousing the vision with another cold splash, he smoothed his hand over his cheeks and checked his fingers for blood. He shook out his razor, folded the wrapper around the shrinking soap bar, and returned them both to the saddle bag, where his hand brushed worn leather.

  The familiar rub sent fire up his arm. He pulled out the book, wondering why he’d bothered to bring it, then shoved it back. Old habits were harder to break than an uncut yearling. But he didn’t need to open those pages. The words rolled through his mind like living coals.

  Two bites finished the hard tack and another the dried beef. He saddled Rooster, tied his bedroll across Sally, and led the horses out of the trees. Laughter drew his gaze upstream, where Springer splashed in the shallows with a small girl. A bit cold to be getting wet so early. Probably fetching water for their mother.

  Cottonwood leaves fluttered like paper coins, and the treetops flashed gold as the sun found them. A warning hung in the autumn chill.

  Caleb rode toward town and turned onto the main street. Two freighters climbed to their wagon box, and the larger of the men gathered the reins and called to the mules. The wagon creaked in complaint as it rolled away from the mercantile.

  Had they slept by the river or under their wagon at the livery yard? Or did they have homes, loving wives, and warm stoves?

  Envy jabbed a finger in his gut. Wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.

  He shook his head to silence the voice, and considered the number of fires at the river, the clusters of tents and canvas lean-tos. Stark witness to the town’s greatest need.

  Smoke curled a welcome from the stove pipe atop the mercantile. Good a place as any to get directions to the Lazy R. He stopped, flipped his horses’ reins around the hitching rail and stepped inside.

  The aroma of hot biscuits and fresh coffee nearly bowled him over. The broom lady and an older man sat close to a potbellied stove, plates balanced on their laps. Each looked up at Caleb’s entrance, and the man nodded and waved him back.

  “Coffee’s ready. Annie just made a fresh pot.”

  Annie.

  She watched him without expression, her upswept hair a coppery crown above deep clear eyes.

  Caleb removed his hat and kicked one boot against the other to knock the dust from his feet. “Thank you, sir. Coffee sounds good right about now.”

  The woman watched as he covered the short distance and took the empty chair across from the stove.

  “Mornin’, ma’am.”

  Her face came alive 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, ma’am. 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 friendly glance. “I hope you enjoy them.”

  As a former man of many words come Sunday morning, he found himself nearly mute in her presence. “Thank you, ma’am.” Clever.

  “Name’s Daniel Whitaker.” The older man extended his hand. “Annie here is my daughter.”

  Caleb switched the fork to his left hand and returned the greeting. “Caleb Hutton, sir. Nice to meet you.” He looked at Annie. “And you, ma’am.”

  Mahogany eyes flashed his way, then hid beneath dark lashes.

  “Where might you be headed so late in the year, Mr. Hutton?” Whitaker sopped a biscuit and filled his mouth.

  Caleb quickly swallowed a warm, sweet mouthful. “The Lazy R. In fact, that’s why I stopped in, to see if you could tell me how to get there.”

  “You thinking about signing on?”

  “Yes, sir. I hear they’re looking for hands.”

  Whitaker gave Caleb a smooth once-over but kept his appraisal to himself.

  Annie leaned in with the coffeepot and refilled the cup he’d set at his feet. Her hair smelled like a summer day, a gentle contrast to the faint coal taste in the room.

  “The Lazy R is upstream about eight miles west, but you can’t follow the river,” Whitaker said. “Once you get to the hot springs at the end of town, take the trail around to the right and on up a long pull. The Lazy R starts at the top. If you keep going, you’ll end up in the South Park country, and above that, the gold fields, but that would take a day or so.”

  Clawing the earth for yellow ore didn’t appeal to Caleb, though he knew the lure of easy money had drawn men by the thousands to these mountains. The only gold he’d ever had his eye on
fell in ringlets around Mollie Sullivan’s face. And he’d gone bust with her as quick as any miner in a cleaned-out claim.

  “I’ll find it.”

  Eager to be on his way, he daubed the last of the molasses with a piece of biscuit and stood to take his cup and plate to the back.

  Annie reached for his plate. “I’ll take those, Mr. Hutton.”

  “Thank you again.” He swallowed hard, looking for the right words. “I imagine you’re as good with those dishes as you are with the broom.”

  A dark look sliced him in half. Her chin jutted higher, and she whirled around and strode to the cupboard at the back.

  Feeling the fool, he glanced at the store owner, who wore a peculiar grin.

  Caleb cleared his throat. “I meant—”

  “No mind, son. We know what you meant.” Whitaker pushed out of his chair and walked behind the counter, where he wrote something on a piece of paper.

  Caleb plunked his hat on, regretting his woeful attempt at small talk, and dug in his waistcoat for a coin.

  “No charge, Mr. Hutton.” Whitaker raised an open hand as if forestalling an argument.

  At that, Annie spun again, hands fisted at her narrow waist. Fire sparked in her eyes.

  Whitaker coughed and wiped a hand across his mouth, extending the other to Caleb.

  “Good luck, son. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  Caleb nodded and left the store with more questions than answers. Why had Whitaker made such a remark when Caleb had clearly stated his destination? And why had Annie taken such offense at a compliment, ill-put at best?

  And why did he want to see more in her eyes than fire at his foolishness?

  ~

  “Daddy.” Annie’s left foot punctuated her frustration with a sound stomp. “We’ll go broke with you giving away breakfast to every saddle tramp that wanders in here.”

  Her father picked up a feather duster and turned to the shelves behind the counter.

  “And how many saddle tramps have we had this week, Miss Annie?”

  Even in profile his grin was obvious, and his use of the old childhood endearment only added to her ire. “Quite a few, I’d say.”

  “And how many did I charge for their food and supplies?” He feathered the top of a liniment tin.

  She folded her arms, completely aware of where this was going.

  “Well?” Her father glanced her way, a glint in his eye.

  “All of them.” Her left foot ached for another stomp, but that childish response had prompted him to call her by her childish name. She leaned to the left and imagined pushing her shoe through the plank flooring. “Except him.”

  “You mean Hutton.”

  “Hutton. Humph.”

  Her father tucked the feather duster beneath the counter and rested his hands on his ample middle. “Isn’t that what Edna usually says?”

  Humiliation flooded her cheeks. Daddy was right. But still. “Didn’t you hear what he said to me? That I must be as good at washing dishes as I am at pushing a broom?”

  Her father’s expression softened, but his eyes twinkled like a Christmas saint. “I think he was trying to pay you a compliment. Just take it at that and nothing more.”

  Some compliment. The man might have said almost anything else and done no harm. He could have mentioned the coffee, or her fresh biscuits, or … or …

  Men.

  She tugged her apron strings lose and cinched them tighter into a knotted bow. If she had Edna’s emerald eyes and yellow hair, that drifter would have found plenty to say. But she kept that indictment to herself, recalling how sad her father had looked this morning hunched over on his pallet.

  The memory doused her fury, and she slipped behind the counter and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Never you mind, Daddy. We’ll get enough customers to make up for that cowboy.”

  She hoped. Sometimes her father’s generosity outweighed his common sense.

  She returned to the back and set a pan of water on the stove for washing their dishes.

  That drifter’s insult would not have stung so if it had come from a common-looking man. One that didn’t carry himself with bridled confidence. One without two dark pools for eyes and the breath of untamed country about him.

  She scraped a soap curl into the water and added the plates, forks, and cups. By the time she had the counter cleaned, steam rose from the dishpan. Was it her imagination, or did water boil quicker in Cañon City than in Omaha?

  Certainly her emotions seemed to. Just the thought of Hutton’s expression as he’d downed her biscuits made her pulse kick up.

  How could Daddy be so generous where customers were concerned and so stingy toward Nell?

  Flustered, she moved the pan to the back counter, nearly scrubbed the white specs from the blue enamelware, and soaked her apron in the process.

  Nell was too big to be a pet, but she was the next best thing. Annie loved the horse’s warm breath on her face, the large, kind eyes, and the velvety nose that sniffled her hand for dried apples.

  Guilt wiggled under Annie’s collar at the purloined apple rings she sneaked into her skirt pockets each evening to treat the ever-hungry mare. Daddy wasn’t the only one who gave away food. But if he kept squandering their profits on cowhands like Caleb Hutton, they’d have barely enough to live on and would need to sell the mare for sure. She rubbed angry tears away with the back of her hand at the very thought.

  The bell clinked, and she turned to see Martha Bobbins flutter through the door with her customary smile.

  “Oh, Daniel dear. I’m so glad to see you’re here this morning.”

  “Daniel dear” shot a nervous glance toward Annie and tugged at his apron straps.

  Annie hid her giggle over the dishpan. Martha Bobbins certainly lived up to her name. The woman bobbed in at least once every day to buttonhole Annie’s father with a “dire necessity.” As the only seamstress in town, she made everything from dresses to dungarees, and she depended upon Whitaker’s Mercantile to supply her needs. She even had a foot-treadle sewing machine. Not many people knew about it, but Annie had seen it when she’d delivered several lengths of denim to Martha’s tidy cabin.

  But the plump little widow came in mostly to see Annie’s father, and it didn’t bother Annie one bit. Martha’s material needs couldn’t begin to outweigh her father’s need of attention from a woman his own age—someone other than his monopolizing sister, Harriet. Which was the best reason Annie could think of for moving to Cañon City, a town much too uncivilized for the likes of her aunt.

  Her conscience twinged.

  Yes, Martha Bobbins was more than welcome.

  Annie dried her hands on her apron, adjusted the pins slipping from her hair, then joined her father and Martha at the front. Already he blushed as Martha fluttered over the fabric he’d spread across the counter.

  This time she fingered a creamy silk.

  “I think this will be perfect for the bride, Daniel.” Martha snared him with a knowing glance.

  He flushed crimson.

  “That is lovely, isn’t it,” Annie said, rescuing him from a painful position. She stepped close to his side and patted his back. “We were right to bring it, weren’t we, Daddy?”

  He cleared his throat and pulled at his mustache. “Thanks to your good judgment, Annie.”

  She unfolded the fabric, extending a long, smooth swath. “And whose dress are you making, Martha, if I may pry?”

  Martha twittered and waved Annie’s self-judgment aside. “Hannah Baker. She and the Reverend Robert Hartman are getting married after Christmas. Don’t you think that is the most romantic thing you ever heard?”

  Daniel slipped away, and Martha’s smile weakened.

  Annie reached across the silk to touch her arm. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Disappointment edged the little woman’s eyes, and she sighed heavily.

  Annie leaned over the counter and whispered, “Give him time. You’re making headway.”


  The comment colored Martha’s cheeks with a youthful blush, and a whispery giggle escaped from behind one hand. “You really think so?”

  Annie couldn’t resist a conspiratorial wink, then returned to safer territory. “So why are Hannah and Pastor Hartman waiting until after Christmas?”

  “His brother—also a preacher, you know, from up in Denver with a fancy brick church and a steeple—said he couldn’t get down to do the ceremony until after all the holiday fuss. Hopefully he won’t get snowed in. You know how we always get a heavy storm before the new year.”

  Annie nodded as she unfolded several more lengths of the luxurious fabric, though really she didn’t know. This would be her first winter in Cañon City.

  She flicked a glance at the seamstress and considered the possibility of Pastor Hartman’s brother performing a simple ceremony for another couple during the same visit.

  Inwardly shocked at her presumption, she checked again to see if Martha could read her mind as easily as Edna did. Apparently, Daddy couldn’t. Would he figure it out? Of course, if he did, Annie faced a solitary future.

  Not a completely foreign thought, given her appearance, her often prickly disposition, and the fact that she had yet to meet a man in Cañon City even close to what she considered eligible, in spite of their numbers.

  Caleb Hutton’s handsome face worked into her memory with shocking clarity. She shivered.

  “Are you all right dear? You haven’t caught a chill from sleeping in that drafty old barn, have you?”

  Of course the small and sprightly source of local gossip knew about their living arrangements. There was nothing in town that Martha did not know.

  “For the time being, we are perfectly fine.” Annie lowered her voice. “But I’m hoping to speak to Mr. Cooper later today and convince him to rent us the entire store, not just the front. We could turn the back into a sleeping room of sorts.”

  Martha tsked and shook her head. “What a leech he is. Pardon me, dear, but it’s the gospel truth. He shouldn’t ask one penny more than you already pay, the old coot. I’ve a mind to charge him double for the next apron he orders from me, just to show him.”