Loving the Horseman Page 6

  The sprouting city sang with commotion, the street considerably more crowded than when he’d ridden in that morning. Hammers pounded from inside rising buildings, and freight wagons moaned beneath their burdens. Drivers whistled and cussed at their animals, and people on foot hurried along the boardwalks with apparent purpose.

  And his purpose?

  It wasn’t washing dishes, that was for sure, but evidently some part of him thought otherwise.

  He grabbed his horses and led them toward the livery. What would Annie Whitaker think when she returned from unpacking and found the plates and cups drying on the sideboard? Would she see his efforts and wonder what they meant?

  He sure enough wondered. Even Mollie Sullivan hadn’t had this effect on him.

  At the stable, he slapped dust from his hat and turned his back to the building across the road, grabbing hold of the last bit of optimism he could muster.

  An oak of a man stood before a brick furnace at the back wall, sleeves rolled above massive forearms. One hand held tongs that gripped a glowing horseshoe atop a stump-mounted anvil, while the other hand wielded a hammer. The man lightly tapped the iron, then raised the shoe to appraise its shape. Another tap, and he dunked the hot shoe in a bucket of water.

  Caleb approached. “Mornin’,” he offered above the hissing bucket.

  The smithy retrieved the dripping shoe, held it to the anvil, and eye-balled Caleb. “Mornin’.”

  “Name’s Caleb Hutton. Might you be Henry? Daniel Whitaker sent me round. Thought you might be needing some help.”

  The leather-aproned man laid the hammer across the anvil and held out a blackened hand.

  “I’m Henry Schultz. You know anything ‘bout livery and stock?”

  “Yes, sir. Been around horses my whole life. Shod a few, birthed a few, and trained even more.”

  Henry didn’t release Caleb’s hand but turned it over. “Looks mighty soft to me. Like a preacher.”

  At the word, Caleb flinched, and Henry released his grip. Burning as if he’d touched the glowing iron instead of the smithy’s hand, Caleb held his gaze. “It’s been a while.” His jaw tightened. “But I haven’t forgotten. Just lost a few callouses.”

  Henry chuckled. “Well, if Whitaker sent you to me, I’ll give you a try. I do my own shoein’, but you can clean stalls and feed. Soap and mend the tack, and keep the freight drivers off my back.” He jerked a thumb over his bearlike shoulders. “They park their wagons in the yard.”

  The offer wasn’t as alluring as cowboying all day, but it was work.

  “Don’t pay much ‘cause I don’t got much.”

  Caleb was in no position to argue. “Whitaker mentioned a closed stall you lent out to someone else who moved on.”

  “That would be himself and his daughter.”

  Caleb hid his surprise. That explained why Annie had refused his help with what he’d thought were stores. Rooms must be harder to come by in Cañon City than he thought if Whitaker was forced to board in a barn. Why hadn’t they moved into the store to begin with?

  Henry turned to the anvil, raised the hammer, and pinged on the perfectly curved metal. “They just moved into the back of the mercantile. You’re welcome to it, but it’ll lower your pay by two bits a week.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Henry jerked his head toward the front. “First stall on the right. I’ll throw in some straw for bedding, and you can put whatever you’ve got in there. You got a horse?”

  “Two. But I can turn them out in your corral for the time being.”

  “That’ll be fine. I’ll deduct their feed from your pay, but they probably won’t eat as much between the two of them as Whitaker’s mare.”

  Caleb let himself smile. “That’s what he told me. Asked if I’d take a look at her.”

  “Across the alley from your new room. At the end.” He dropped the shoe in a wooden box. “You start today?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Settle in and start on the stalls. Stock’s all been fed this morning. Give them fresh water and hay at dusk. The pump’s out by the corral.”

  Caleb nodded, put his hat on, and left the barn with a lighter step. His eyes lit on the building across the road. For the first time, he saw the cross above the door and nearly uttered a prayer of thanks. It would have been the first in a long time.

  He unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down, dumped his tack and bedroll in the box stall, then led the animals around to the pole corral. Rooster trotted through the gate and kicked his heels, then dropped to the ground and rolled. Sally did the same, grateful, Caleb assumed, to get free of their burden.

  He came close to the same feeling himself.

  Inside the stable, Whitaker’s mare watched him over the stall door and stuck her nose in his chest when he reached her.

  “Looking for those apples, aren’t you, girl.” He finger-combed her pale forelock and ran his hand down her thick neck. Stepping inside the stall, he spoke softly as he worked his way around her, picking up each foot to check its condition and taking a discreet look while he was down there.

  Her back was smooth and strong, not swayed, but her belly protruded on each side like a barrel. Suspicion urged his hands on, his fingers palpating, feeling for tell-tale bumps.

  She slapped her tail and reached back to nip his shoulder.

  “It’s all right, girl.” He straightened. Whitaker wouldn’t be too happy with Caleb’s findings. The man’s yellow mare had about sixty days before she foaled.

  By the time he mucked out all the stalls, mended tack, and fed the horses, late afternoon had tucked down behind the western peaks and shadows filled the livery. Tired but grateful for the sense of accomplishment in his aching back, he opened the door to his new home and stopped short.

  He hadn’t noticed it when he’d tossed in his tack, but the smell wasn’t right. Something sweet hung in the air, something that didn’t belong in a horse barn. Perfumed soap or …

  He drank in the summery scent of mahogany hair. The Whitakers had lived in this stall long enough to leave their mark.

  Annie’s mark.

  He ignored the tightening in his chest as he felt along the walls for a lantern he’d seen earlier, then pulled a match from his pocket and struck it against the lamp’s base. The tiny flame threw shadows into the rafters and hayloft. Lifting the glass globe, he held the match to the wick, then pinched out the flame before dropping the match back in his pocket. A quick adjustment of the wick revealed his lodgings.

  A mound of fresh straw lay against the inside wall, and he spread it out and topped it with his bedroll. He hefted his saddle to the hay rack and hung the bridle from the horn. The floor was surprisingly clean for dirt, and he smiled to himself. Annie Whitaker had taken her broom to it.

  His stomach cried treason as he plopped onto his bedroll and dug through his saddle bags for a scrap of dried beef. Instead he found his Bible.

  The book had once been food for his soul. As he thumbed through the pages, a thin copper casing fell to his lap. Mollie Sullivan’s sweet face looked up at him, and his empty stomach plunged to his feet. He slipped the image back between the pages of Jeremiah.

  The weeping prophet. An appropriate place to hide the cause of his own sorrows.

  He set the Bible next to the lantern as a sudden rap on the stall door sent his hand to the Colt tucked inside his canvas.

  “Hutton. You asleep?”

  Caleb scrambled to his feet at Daniel Whitaker’s voice and drew the door back. “Just settling in.” He shoved the pistol in the back of his pants.

  Annie held a cloth-covered dish, and a rich aroma curled into Caleb’s face. Her father stood behind her.

  “Hoped we’d find you here,” Daniel said.

  Caleb took the plate, and his fingers brushed Annie’s warm hands. “Thank you.”

  A shy smile curved her lips and she smoothed her apron. “We thought you could use a good meal.”

  “I appreciate it.” More than he cou
ld say.

  Her smile deepened and she stepped back.

  “Looks like you made out all right with Henry.” Daniel peered over Caleb’s shoulder into the stall.

  “Yes, sir, thanks to your recommendation. Work and a roof over my head.” He looked up into the open rafters and wondered again why the stable had once housed the Whitakers.

  But it wasn’t any of his business.

  “Have a good night, son.” Daniel motioned a farewell and turned toward the broad front doors.

  Annie threw a side glance at the mare’s stall, then followed her father.

  I know the thoughts that I think toward you.

  The familiar words rose with a wonderful aroma, and a tightness gripped Caleb’s chest as he closed the stall door. He eased onto his bed roll, leaned against the wall, and lifted the checkered cloth from the plate.

  “Thank you,” he said to no one in particular, laying the cloth in his lap. With relish, he grabbed the spoon buried in the thick stew. The first real meal he’d had in weeks.

  ~

  Pleased, though not completely satisfied, Annie stood in the center of the small storeroom, with hands on her hips that evening. Since they now had extra space, she and her father had assembled the two rope beds they’d purchased in Denver and pushed one into each corner behind the dividing wall. In between, Annie had unrolled a large braided rug and topped it with a small table, lamp, and two chairs. A shelf against the back wall held a basin and pitcher and served as storage for their personal effects. And a camel-back trunk hid their extra clothes and blankets and a few items from the hope chest she’d left behind in Omaha.

  Meager furnishings, indeed, but the sproutings of home.

  “And you’d be thinking what, Annie?” Her father stood in the doorway to the store front, studying her thoughtful mood.

  She reached to clasp his hands in hers.

  “I’m thinking how much better this is than the stall at the livery.” And wondering how Caleb will fare at the barn.

  He looked around the room. “Almost like home, isn’t it?”

  “When we have a bigger table and a real cookstove, then it will be closer to home. But this space is too small for all that.” A deep sigh escaped her. “Someday we’ll have a real house.”

  He stepped into the room and squeezed her shoulder, then turned to face the doorway. “We’ll be needing a curtain here for privacy during the day. But with the stove out front, we should keep this open at night for warmth.”

  “I’ll set out some canvas for Martha when she comes by tomorrow. I’m sure she can make us a curtain in no time with that fancy sewing machine of hers.”

  Her father coughed and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “What makes you think she’ll be in tomorrow?”

  “You know very well what.” Annie picked up the folded quilt on her straw ticking and shook it out. “She’s been in every morning since we got here—ever since she discovered what a handsome and eligible father I have.”

  His face suddenly reddened. “Confounded woman.”

  “Don’t you mean confounding?” Turning to hide a rising giggle, Annie retrieved two more quilts from the trunk, dropped one on her bed, and handed the other to her father. “That woman is taken with you, and I think you know it.”

  He huffed at her remark and sank onto his bed with a grunt.

  “Don’t let her get away, Daddy. She’d be good for you.”

  He met Annie’s look with a worried frown. “Don’t you go tryin’ to marry me off. I don’t need Martha Bobbins making my life more worrisome than it already is.”

  “Daddy, you’ve been alone for seventeen years. Don’t you think it’s time for a companion?”

  He fretted with the quilt, and finally tossed it across the foot of his bed. “You’re the one who should be looking for a beau, Annie. I’ve had my turn at life. And the Lord’s blessed me with two beautiful daughters and a good business. I’ve no need for anything else.”

  His unselfishness touched her deeply, but she knew he enjoyed Martha’s attentions.

  Annie traced one of the red eight-point stars on her quilt. She expected no man to call on her here in Cañon City—even if they did outnumber women six to one. Most had gold dust in their eyes or whiskey on their breath. Jedediah Cooper’s flushed face materialized in her mind, and she shuddered.

  “You’re cold.” Her father reached for her quilt. “I’ll stoke the fire and hold this in front of the stove while you get ready for bed.”

  She handed him the bright quilt, her favorite.

  “That Caleb Hutton showed himself a gentleman today, didn’t he?”

  Stunned by the comment, she stared at her father. “Why do you like him so much? Because he says sir and ma’am every other breath?”

  Flustered for some inexplicable reason, she busied her hands, drawing several pins from her hair. “We don’t know anything about him other than they turned him away from the Lazy R. That might be a warning in itself.”

  Her father’s brows raised above an elfish twinkle. “Manners never did anyone any harm. And I believe that boy is honest and good.”

  “Well, I think he’s hiding something. There’s more to him than he’s telling.” She pulled her loose hair over her shoulder and began braiding it. “And he’s no boy. He’s at least twenty-five.”

  Annie’s left foot twitched as her father chuckled all the way to the stove, but she held it firmly to the floor and unfastened her shoes. After all their travels and finally settling where nary a grass blade grew along the dusty streets, she’d worn the soles desperately thin. She had half a mind to order a pair of men’s boots—if she could find them small enough. They were made so much sturdier than the thin-soled shoes women had to choose from.

  What would Caleb Hutton think of her if he saw her stomping around Cañon City in men’s boots?

  And why would it matter what he thought?

  She chided herself as she shed her multiple skirts and petticoats and slid beneath the blankets, recalling her room upstairs in Aunt Harriet’s home. How often had she complained each summer in the thick, humid air that kept even a simple breeze from whispering through the open windows.

  She tugged the blankets to her chin and gritted her teeth, refusing to pine away for that ornate home, even if it did have a lovely fireplace in every bedroom and real bed warmers in the winter …

  Sitting up, she looked around the room, her mind assessing each object for one to serve her purpose.

  “I thought you’d be tucked in up to your ears by now.” Her father draped the warm quilt over her and pushed the edges under the ticking.

  Annie laid back and burrowed into its comfort, the smell of warm fabric tickling her nose. “Thank you, Daddy. This is wonderful. But I just remembered the bed warmers at Aunt Harriet’s. We didn’t think to bring them with us or buy any in Denver.”

  Her father laid one arm across his stomach and propped his other elbow on it as he rubbed his chin. “I’ve an idea.”

  He retrieved his coat from the wall pegs, took the oil lamp from their small table, and strode to the back door. “Be right back.”

  Within minutes he returned with a brick under one arm and another in hand. He set them both on the table and bolted the door. “I saw these lying next to the building when we were moving in this morning. I’ll set them on the stove and, as soon as they heat up, we’ll put one at your feet and the other at mine.”

  His cold-nipped cheeks bloomed as he shot Annie a proud grin. “Sound good to you?”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  Before long, the warm quilt, a hot brick at her feet, and the long day’s labor conspired against her, and she drifted from her storeroom corner into the land of hopes and dreams. But even there, cold, crisp air brushed her face and gold leaves fluttered against a bright blue backdrop.

  Bundled against the autumn chill, she walked with a basket of apples on her arm, approaching a stranger who stood before a small white church. He held his hat in his hands and his d
ark head bent as if in prayer.

  She touched the man’s shoulder and he looked up. With a start, she gasped at the pain on his face and drew back from the sorrow-filled eyes of Caleb Hutton.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  By sunup Caleb had all the stock fed, watered, and blowing their warm, belly-filled breath through the livery, dulling every memory in his brain but that of horseflesh and hay.

  His stomach had forgotten the previous night’s hot meal, and he swung open the wide stable doors and headed for the mercantile in hopes that Annie Whitaker was making fresh biscuits.

  Keeping his eyes from the church across the road, he focused on the smoky finger curling from the mercantile rooftop, beckoning him. His breath clouded before him in the cold air, and he shoved his hands in his coat pockets.

  He now had a place to sleep, honest work, and good food—much for which to be thankful. So why did he still feel … cheated?

  He dusted his hat against his leg, then stepped through the mercantile door to the chime of the overhead bell. Annie stood at the back counter, and her father fed the stove. The aroma of fresh coffee vied with coal dust and the merchandise of a fully stocked store. It was a tableau he was beginning to count on more than he wanted to admit.

  “Mornin’, Caleb.” Whitaker grabbed another tin cup.

  The bell rang a second time as Caleb closed the door, and Annie looked over her shoulder. Caleb nodded a greeting, and she smiled briefly before returning to her work. The simple gesture set his ears to ringing as loud as that brass bell.

  He took the cup Whitaker offered and sat, trying not to look at Annie while he was talking to her father. It was harder than he would have thought.

  “I’d say it’s all perfect timing.” Whitaker took his seat and looked at his daughter. “We moved out of that stall yesterday morning and into the back of the store here—thanks to Annie’s insistence that Jedediah Cooper rent the whole blamed place to us, not just the front.” One white brow raised in a crook and the other pointed toward his nose. “Not that I approve of her methods.”

  Looking unusually meek under her father’s stern glance, Annie brought a large cast-iron skillet to the stove. It brimmed with thick white gravy.