The Cowboy's Baby

by Linda Ford

  He sensed her hesitation, as if she couldn’t decide if their feelings should be allowed to progress or not. He smiled. He had all the time in the world to prove she could trust him.

  She served the meal then toyed with her very tasty brown beans and corn bread as if they had no more flavor than chalk.

  “These are delicious, Anna. You’re an excellent cook.”

  She looked at him then, her eyes wide as if his words surprised her. And he saw something more, a flash of pleasure at his praise. Her eyes brightened. Her mouth curved sweetly. “Thank you.” Her gaze lingered no longer than a heartbeat but in that brief encounter he saw something he cherished— an acknowledgment of something warm and sweet between them.

  He grinned, happy he’d managed to bring a smile to her lips. Even happier because of what he’d seen—she felt something toward him though she might not be willing to admit it yet.

  He enjoyed the rest of the meal even though Anna’s gaze darted away from him each time he looked her direction. Her actions only made it plainer that she had feelings for him but they frightened her. He silently promised he’d never again give her reason to fear opening her heart to him.

  In the next few days, Alex found excuses to check on Colby and offer help if the work interested him. He sauntered over again as Colby prepared pieces of lumber to fix the roof. “Whatcha’ doing?”

  Colby explained how he had to repair the structure. “Want to help?”

  Alex gave the lengths of lumber a dubious look. “Is it hard?”

  “I wouldn’t think it would be for a boy your size.” He’d already noticed Alex avoided anything challenging. “Besides, hard work builds muscles.” He had his sleeves rolled past his elbows. He shoved one higher and flexed his biceps to show Alex. “I’ve been working hard since I was twelve. And it hasn’t done me any harm. Isn’t that about your age?”

  Alex shoved his hands behind his back as if ashamed of his lack of muscle. “I’m fourteen.”

  “Only one way to get muscles—build ’em with use.”

  Alex hesitated about ten seconds. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m going up the ladder. You hand me these one at a time.” It wasn’t hard work. A six-year-old could handle most of it. “It will save me a pile of time not having to run up and down.”

  Alex did as Colby suggested. When the boards were all up top, Alex climbed the ladder and started to join him.

  “I don’t think Anna wants you up here.”

  “Yeah, she’ll get mad if I get on the roof.”

  “Anna gets mad?” Did she still struggle with a temper that made her slam doors? “I don’t believe it.” She always seemed so calm and in control. “What does she do?”

  “She tweaks my ear.”

  Colby choked back a laugh at the injured tone in Alex’s voice. Little did he know how innocent a tweak on the ear sounded to Colby and what a mercy that was the worst Alex experienced.

  Until he’d found his way to this family he had no idea how gentle life could be. He’d wanted a share of it. Had found it for a time. He’d left for what he figured were pretty good reasons. But no matter how far he went, how bad he was, how hard he drank, how loud he roared, he could never get away from wanting that sort of family, and the belonging he’d experienced nowhere else but here. Even if Anna never let him back into her life, at least Dorrie was in the sort of family he ached for. He consoled himself with that fact. “You can hand me nails as I need them.”

  He and Alex worked in companionable silence as he nailed the new pieces into place.

  A door opened and closed next door.

  Alex groaned. “I forgot I’m supposed to be getting Anna coal.”

  “Run along and do it. And if you’ve caused her any inconvenience, the manly thing would be to apologize.”

  “I will.” He raced off to the coal shed.

  Colby returned his attention to roof repairs. Suddenly he got the feeling someone watched him. He sat back to check the surroundings and stared straight into Anna’s face—just inches away at the edge of the roof. His heart burned up his throat and he reached to steady the ladder. “You shouldn’t be up here.”

  “Why not? Didn’t you say it was perfectly safe?”

  “Yes. No.” For a man. Not a woman. Especially not a woman who owned a large portion of his heart.

  The past few days there existed a tension between them—a not unpleasant sense of anticipation, as if things were about to change.

  He prayed it was so.

  “Are you here to help?” He sounded as doubtful as he felt. This was not her work. She had her hands more than full running her father’s home. That gave him pause. Would she ever be able to leave? What would happen to Alex if she did? He chomped down hard, not liking the questions he’d raised.

  She laughed. “I don’t think you need my kind of help. No, I’m here to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For what you’re doing with Alex.”

  He shuffled about to sit cross-legged so he could face her and sought for the right words to say. A few days ago, she didn’t want Alex helping him, feared he might come to harm. But in that short time, she’d changed her mind. Now she was grateful. It was a bigger beginning than he could have thought possible. “Anna, I don’t deny I’ve given you plenty of reason to doubt me in the past. But I vow by everything I care about that I’ve changed.” It wasn’t only his determination that made his words true. It was what God was doing. “You can trust me. You can trust God to help me.” His voice grew deeper as he risked speaking his desires. “You and I could be friends again.”

  Caution darkened her eyes.

  His chest tightened as though someone squeezed him hard. He shouldn’t have said anything. It was too soon.

  She tipped her head, squinting against the brightness and searched his gaze. Some hair had fallen from her usual roll and the breeze tugged it across her cheeks.

  Resisting an urge to capture the wayward strands and tuck them behind her ear, Colby held still, let her delve deep into the peaks and valleys and secret places of his soul.

  With a deep sigh, she lowered her eyes.

  He felt both seared by a hot sun and watered by a gentle rain.

  “We’ll see.” She started down the ladder and paused. “Again, thanks for helping Alex.”

  Anna’s thoughts tangled inside her head.

  How could they be friends if she didn’t trust him? A portion of her wanted to. Another portion warned her to remember his past. What did she want to believe?

  She heard the answer deep inside her and it frightened her. She wanted to believe he was different. She wanted to believe he planned to be part of Dorrie’s life. A part of hers. Knowing she could so easily switch back and forth from mistrusting Colby to actually enjoying his company and wanting to be friends, caused Anna to lose an hour or more of sleep.

  Pain grabbed her heart in a cruel fist and gave it a vicious twist as she remembered watching Rose and baby Timmy die. In that moment she knew she would never again let herself care about someone who might be snatched from her, or who might leave her like Colby had a habit of doing.

  If only she could discuss her problems with Rose. But she hadn’t had that privilege in four years. She gave a frustrated sound—half sigh, half moan. How could she be so confused?

  Next morning, as soon as she finished cleaning the kitchen, she told Father, “I’m going to visit Laura.” She had to talk to someone. Perhaps Laura would have some good advice. After all she was now a married woman with children of her own.

  Over tea, she and Laura discussed how baby Gloria had grown. “She slept through the night Saturday.”

  “Seems only yesterday Dorrie was that small.” Her fears and worries rushed from their hiding spot in the back of her mind where she pushed them daily and tried to pretend they didn’t exist. “Laura, what will I do if Colby tries to get her back?” It wasn’t the subject she really wanted to discuss but she feared talk about her mixed
-up feelings for Colby would only make Laura think she was weak and fickle.

  “Is that what he wants?”

  “He said I was doing a good job of raising her. He said he didn’t intend to take her away.” Unless Anna gave her full approval and she couldn’t see that happening. She loved the child as her own.

  “You don’t believe him?” Laura rocked baby Gloria as they talked.

  Anna turned her teacup round and round and tried to find words to express her tangled thoughts. “I want to believe him. But I don’t know what to think.”

  “Anna, what’s really bothering you?”

  “I…I can’t seem to decide what to think of him. Sometimes I want to believe he is as good as he seems.” Slowly, hesitantly, her feelings almost too fragile to voice, she told how he worked with Alex and how he’d helped with Dorrie. “We have even enjoyed playing music together but—”

  “What worries you?”

  “I don’t want to start trusting him only to have him walk away again.”

  Laura paused to lay the baby in her cradle. She refilled their teacups and took her seat again before she answered. “Anna, are you beginning to care for Colby in a special way? Is that what frightens you?”

  “I—” She gulped as her mind stung with so many things she didn’t want to face—her need for more than what she had, her fears at things changing. She was comfortable with who she was, what she had. She liked her security. She wanted to give the same security to Dorrie. “I don’t want anything to change.”

  Laura smiled. “Anna, things must change. Alex is almost grown. He’ll be wanting to do things away from home soon.”

  Anna thought of how eager her brother seemed to help Colby. Was it only the beginning of Alex leaving?

  She didn’t want to think about it. If she could she would pull Alex close and keep him there.

  “Dorrie will go to school. And before you know it, she’ll be wanting to marry and start her own family.”

  Anna chuckled looking at Dorrie babbling away as she played with a doll Laura gave her. “She can barely walk and her vocabulary is limited to half a dozen words. I hope she isn’t thinking marriage already.”

  Laura laughed, too. “Not yet, of course, and hopefully not for a long time but my point is things are going to change whether you want them to or not.”

  “I wish they wouldn’t.”

  “But life can’t stand still. Anna, my dear friend, I have known you a long time. I’ve watched you cope with tragedies and challenges that would knock most of us to the ground. But it seems to me that you’ve wrapped life around you in a tight little ball. Isn’t it time you let go and let God bring something new into your life?”

  Anna squeezed her hands into fists. The idea of change frightened her. In her experience change hadn’t proven to be a good thing. “I don’t think I can handle it.”

  Laura laughed until her eyes watered. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed to get out between chuckles. “This from a young woman who has handled more in the past few years than most of us handle in a lifetime, God willing.”

  “I only did what I had to do.” Shaking with uncertainty and doubting her ability every step of the way. “And only with God’s help.”

  “Will God help any less in the future?”

  Laura’s soft words smoothed Anna’s concerns. “It would be different if I knew I could truly trust Colby.”

  “I wish it weren’t so but people can’t always be trusted. All I can say is take your time. Be cautious. And trust God to show you the way.”

  As Anna returned home she thought of Laura’s advice. Take your time. Trust God. Be cautious.

  Did that mean she should avoid Colby? Or explore their relationship? She didn’t know but when Father handed her the list of hymns at supper, a thrill of expectation raced through her and she stole a look at Colby. “I’ll practice them tonight,” she murmured. Neither of them needed to speak to know they would play the hymns together.

  As soon as Dorrie was asleep, she slipped over to the church. The room was warm from the afternoon sun. Dust drifted in the air accompanied by the cedar scent of newly sawn lumber. She didn’t see Colby and could not deny the way her heart dipped with disappointment.

  Chapter Ten

  Colby heard her enter as he sat cross-legged in front of the cross where he’d been for some time, thinking and praying. He could understand why Anna felt the cross was so special. He, too, found it easier to direct his thoughts heavenward as he sat there.

  “Anna, I’m in here.” He waited for her to join him, sensing a calmness in this place that made it easier to speak honestly without fears and doubts getting in the way.

  He turned as she slipped into the room and at the eager look on her face, his heart took off like a wild horse. He wondered it didn’t leap from his chest. She cared. Lifting a hand he reached for her. “Come and sit beside me.”

  She hesitated only fractionally before she took his hand and let him draw her to his side. She sat close enough he barely had to shift for their shoulders to brush. When she didn’t make any effort to move, his heart settled into a steady gallop.

  “I was sitting here praying. And remembering.”

  “Remembering? What sort of things.”

  A smile started deep in his heart and slowly spread to his lips, rounding his cheeks and filling his eyes. “You and me.”

  She lowered her head and studied her hands curled in her lap.

  He felt her uncertainty as forcefully as if she’d pressed her palms to his chest and held him at bay. But there were things that needed to be said, things worth keeping despite all that had come after. “Remember the first time you baked bread?”

  Her head came up then, surprise swathing her features. And then she whooped with laughter. “That’s your top memory? What a disaster. I had to bury it in the garden.”

  He chuckled. “Several weeks later the Kleins’ dog dug it up and dragged it all over town. No one could figure out what he had.”

  “Rose knew but she never let on.”

  “It was a lot of fun.”

  “More like embarrassing. Do you know how I dreaded that someone would figure out what it was and that I was responsible?”

  He reached for her hand. Again, she let him. He examined her long fingers, turned the palms upward to see little scars where she’d nicked herself with a knife and hard little calluses at the base of each finger—evidence of how hard she worked.

  The air between them was fragile with hopes and expectations.

  Slowly she withdrew her hand. “Colby, what brought you back?”

  Her whispered words strummed through his heart. He ached to tell her the whole truth but he couldn’t.

  If she knew…

  If anyone found out…

  “I didn’t like what I was becoming.”

  “What?”

  “My old man.”

  Something flared in her eyes. Something he took for compassion, maybe even hope. And she claimed his hand, gently squeezing it.

  Her touch raced straight to his heart and grabbed it.

  “Is that why you run? Because you think you’ll be like your father?”

  He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles as he studied their joined hands and considered her question. Why did he leave when Rose died? What was he afraid of? Why did he leave again when Nora died? What filled his heart with such dread that he had jumped on his horse and rode straight into the jaws of trouble in the hopes of cauterizing his thoughts?

  Anna waited patiently, insistently. She deserved some sort of answer even if he didn’t have one.

  “I knew I couldn’t be what you needed.”

  She gave his hand a brisk shake. “What did you think I needed?”

  He didn’t know. He shrugged.

  “So what’s different now?”

  The question caught him squarely between the eyes and he grunted. Had anything changed? Had he changed? “Maybe nothing. I only know I’m through running.”

&n
bsp; She studied him for a long moment, looking past his words, past his own doubts and questions, straight to the depths of his heart.

  He hardly dared breathe as he faltered between letting her see all his secret inner places and the need to shelter them. Slowly, under her intense study, he opened himself to her, all except for one corner, which he barred behind thick doors.

  She must never know.

  Finally, she nodded as if satisfied. “God’s hand has been on you since the first day you rode into Steveville.”

  Yes. She accepted he was changed, that he was through running. He wanted to leap up and shout to the heavens his joy. Instead he grinned until his ears wriggled in protest.

  She pushed to her feet. “I need to practice the hymns.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  The look she sent over her shoulder gave him even more joy. “Hoped you would.”

  Colby smiled as he measured boards to fit the wall. Playing music with Anna last night had been especially happy as they shared a new understanding. He felt as if she had opened her heart and welcomed him. Just a bit. Still tenuous. But progress.

  He heard a shuffling in the entryway and went to investigate. He found Slink and Luke, another old buddy. Luke had obviously tried to polish his appearance. His old woolen pants had been brushed until only a few flecks of straw remained. He’d slicked back his hair and tried to shave though from the number of nicks Colby guessed he needed to sharpen his razor. Or steady his hand. He twisted a battered bowler hat in his fingers.

  “Slink here said you know something about God.”

  “I tried to tell him what you said but I got it all mixed up.” Slink’s face wrinkled in concern.

  “So we thought best we come and ask you to tell us.”

  “Glad to.” He led the men inside and explained what he knew.

  A blast of sunlight filled the room as the back door opened. Facing the glare he couldn’t make out who stood in the doorway.

  Then the door clicked closed and Anna stood blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer interior. “Colby?”

  His heart did a rat-ta-tat against his ribs at the sound of his name on her lips. “Over here.”