Even draped in black, she stole his breath. Men turned as she passed, some tipping their hats, but she seemed oblivious to them. Memories of his mother drifted toward him, her head held high as she’d walked through town holding his hand. Men he’d seen visiting her room, some who returned with frequency, looked at her in open disgust and called her names as she passed. Yet her ivory complexion, as though chiseled from marble, had revealed nothing. Only the slight tightening of her hand around his gave any indication that the taunts had struck their mark.
Larson’s vision blurred. He hadn’t thought of that in years. He looked down at his clasped hands. Two things struck him in that moment, reliving that thinnest of reactions from his mother—the tightening of her hand around his, and the fact that she’d been holding his hand in the first place.
Kathryn crossed the busy street and disappeared into the mercantile. Larson rested his arms on his thighs, bent his head, and waited. Now that he’d found her again, he didn’t know what to do. The thought of following her, watching firsthand as she built a new life without him certainly wasn’t a desirable option. Especially with the life she’d chosen.
Everything within him wanted to confront her. But how could he approach her? What would he say? Imagining the look in her eyes at seeing him now, how he looked, was enough to stay that course of action for the time being.
From cautious inquiry at the feedlot earlier that week, Larson had learned about the loss of his entire herd and that his land was scheduled to go to auction in the fall. “Shame about all that cattle though.” The worker had punctuated his statement with a stream of well-aimed tobacco juice. “I hear disease got ’em, but I’m thinkin’ it was tick fever come up from Texas. Don’t know much about that Jennings woman, other than that she done moved to town and took up with her husband’s foreman. Least that’s what folks is sayin’. Good piece’a land up there though—right on Fountain Creek. I’d make a claim for it if I had the means.”
But even if Larson came forward to claim the land, his land, he had no money to pay the debt. He’d lose it anyway. Plus, he’d face the devastating humiliation of Kathryn’s rejection all over again.
He looked down the block occasionally, keeping an eye on the mercantile. His thoughts were jumbled and he didn’t know where to turn. Isaiah would tell him to talk to God. Larson tried remembering one of Isaiah’s prayers, but couldn’t.
“Talk to Him like you’re talking to me,” Isaiah had said countless times with that smile of his. “Be honest. Tell Him exactly what’s inside you. Only remember that He’s the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. And you’re not.”
At that moment, an attractive young woman passed by, her gaze connecting with Larson’s. She stared at him for an instant, then grimaced and turned, hurrying her steps. Dropping his attention to the boardwalk, Larson pulled his knit cap farther down and turned up his collar. He rubbed a hand over his unkempt beard. Before all this, women had looked at him differently. Much differently. Realizing just how much he’d enjoyed their attention, their second glances, bothered him now. Especially when he recalled how he’d hated catching men looking at Kathryn.
He closed his eyes and hunched over further. Isaiah sometimes started his prayers with Father God but, never having known his father and imagining what kind of man he must’ve been, that particular phrase turned to sand in Larson’s throat. God, I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what to do, where to go. He paused. Isaiah had said to be honest. You’re the one who brought me back here, so I guess I’d appreciate you tellin’ me what you’re thinking and what you’d suggest I do next.
Larson waited for an answer. For the silent whisper he’d heard all too clearly the night before. Nothing came. Emptiness, thick and suffocating, rushed in to fill the void.
He spotted Kathryn leaving the mercantile. She had something tucked beneath her arm—a newspaper, maybe. His eyes narrowed. She was no longer alone. Matthew Taylor casually slipped her hand into the crook of his arm as they walked down the boardwalk, conversing. He’d never seen Kathryn interact with another man that way, and something twisted inside him. He could hear their laughter even over the pounding in his ears.
Taylor walked her across the street and as far as the door of the restaurant, and then Kathryn smiled and nodded at whatever he had said to her. Larson couldn’t miss how his once-trusted foreman hesitated, then watched his wife walk inside and close the door.
Instinctively, Larson reached for his cane but then realized he hadn’t brought it. He mentally counted the steps it would take for him to reach that door, and Matthew Taylor. Thirty at best, even with his irregular stride. Then a wave of hopelessness suddenly crested inside him. For every reason he could think of to confront Taylor and Kathryn at that moment, there were a hundred more that kept him anchored to the bench where he sat. The most compelling being the illegitimate child now growing in his wife’s once-barren womb.
A swift knife of truth bladed through him at that thought and brought his inadequacies into the harsh light of reality. His throat suddenly felt parched. Indeed, through all these years, the burden of sterility had rested upon him after all.
The afternoon faded into evening and the distance to that door—to the life he remembered and had cheated death to reclaim—might as well have been a chasm forty miles wide, with no bridge in sight.
As it neared closing time, Larson watched her through the large glass window of the restaurant, skepticism warring with the courage he’d tried gathering all afternoon. He knew he needed to talk to her, but all the words just tripped over themselves in his head. He’d already lost everything, hadn’t he? So why this tightness in his chest and the impending need to escape? The single prayer he’d held onto as he’d walked up to their cabin upon his return whispered back to him.
God, let her still want me.
Heaviness settled over him. What a fool he’d been, helplessly hoping. But even as he punished himself for having trusted her, a sense of uncertainty still haunted him. Something kept eating at him, something that didn’t make sense. How could Kathryn work all day and all night? And be with child?
A disturbing image came to mind and he winced. He’d been about seven or eight years old when his mother had sent him upstairs to get one of the women. He remembered knocking on Elisa’s partially opened door, and when she didn’t answer, he gave it a gentle push. One look at the bed, and the room started spinning. He’d never seen so much blood. Turned out Elisa had come to be with child and had tried to perform her own abortion, with tragic results. The other women had railed at her for not using the normal aloes or cathartic powders to end the unwanted pregnancy. Larson still remembered the regret on his mother’s face, the detached look in her eyes that night when she’d explained to him that sometimes the powders failed to work.
It hadn’t made sense to him then, but a few years later he’d come to understand what his mother had been saying. The truth of her actions had clearly told him what she’d never possessed the courage to say aloud. That she wished he’d never been born.
The squeak of hinges brought his eyes up. He blinked to clear his vision.
Kathryn exited the restaurant, locking the door behind her. She paused and peered up and down the boardwalk as though looking for something or someone. Then she turned in the direction of the brothel.
He followed her, looking down occasionally for uneven planks in the boardwalk that might hinder his altered stride. He turned over in his mind what he was going to say, wondering if she would even recognize him before he revealed himself. The pounding of a slightly off-key piano carried on the night air and helped to mask the occasional stutter of his step. He worked to catch up with her as she rounded the corner.
“There you are. I wondered if you were going to show up.”
Her voice halted Larson midstride. His courage fled along with the air in his lungs. Kathryn was stopped about ten paces in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Kathryn. I tried to get here sooner, but
. . .”
Larson recognized the voice first, then the man. But the rest of Matthew Taylor’s response was lost in the lilt of Kathryn’s laughter.
Sick-hearted regret twisted his insides until an ache formed in the pit of stomach. He told himself to move, to close the distance between them and get it over with, to expose their betrayal, but his body refused. He stood watching, immobile, as the two of them walked away, arm in arm.
Ashamed of his own cowardice, he turned and walked in the opposite direction, needing to put some distance between himself and Kathryn—and Kathryn with Matthew Taylor.
But her voice, her laughter, played over and over in his mind as the darkened storefronts passed. Hearing it again affected him in a way he’d not expected and that he was loath to acknowledge. Remembering it, a softening somewhere deep inside him unearthed feelings he wished would have remained hidden and revealed a remnant of love for his wife.
But after all she’d done to him, how could he still care for her?
When he glanced up a while later, the faint outline of a white steeple stood out against the dark prairie sky. He walked past the church to the cemetery. Staring down at a grave, his grave, he’d never felt so vacant inside. He’d sold his horse two weeks ago, needing the meager funds for livelihood. He had no mount. No place to call home. No family. Nothing. He might as well be inside the pine box buried at his feet.
He stooped and sifted the mounded dirt through his fingers. Since he wasn’t in that coffin, who was?
Moments passed. He finally stood and brushed the dirt from his hands, then stared up into the star-speckled sky. “So what now, Lord?” he whispered, waiting.
Heaven remained silent, but Larson couldn’t. Not anymore.
Tomorrow he would confront Kathryn and find out why she had betrayed him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BEFORE THE FAINTEST HINT of light challenged the night shadows, his timidity in prayer ceased and Larson poured out every anguished thought to God.
As the sun rose, splintering multicolored rays through the top of the barn loft, it brought peace with it, though still no answers. Larson likened his experience to the night Jacob had wrestled with the Lord. For the rest of his life, Jacob had borne the physical reminder of that struggle. Larson stood and stretched. Like Jacob, he too asked that the Lord would bless him. Then he smiled wryly, massaging the sore muscles of his right leg. God had already seen to giving him the limp.
He thought of Kathryn and prayed again for His timing in all of this, still not having felt a strong confirmation about facing her. But he was tired of waiting. Isaiah always said God’s timing was perfect. Larson only hoped he was following it now.
Kathryn tossed Annabelle a tight smile as she closed the back door to the haberdashery shortly before noon, her nerves in a jumble. “Thank you for coming over and doing this with me. I feel a bit more prepared for it now.”
Annabelle waved a hand as though to say it wasn’t any big deal. “You’ll do fine. You answered every question perfectly.” Seriousness sharpened her expression and she glanced away before speaking again. “I really am proud of you, Kathryn. Of how you’ve gotten along since they found your husband’s body and all. I know it hasn’t been easy. . . .”
For a woman who had life so easy beforehand was the unspoken phrase Kathryn heard in her mind. Though Annabelle didn’t say it, probably didn’t even think it, she had a right to. Kathryn had thought about that a lot—about how easy her life had been, and was, in comparison with Annabelle’s. She wished she could change the situation for Annabelle, help her out of the life she seemed trapped in. Kathryn had yet to broach the subject but hoped this morning’s meeting would provide her a way to do just that.
They parted ways, and Kathryn smoothed her hair and black dress, thankful for Annabelle’s mock interview. Kathryn had checked the newspaper on a regular basis and found a position that sounded promising. She had been hopeful when she’d received a response to her inquiry about the possible new employ, and she didn’t want to be late for her interview with Miss . . .
Kathryn pulled the letter she’d received yesterday from her pocket. With Miss Maudelaine. If she made a favorable impression this morning, the position could be the answer to her prayers.
Much better pay. Room and board. No more working two jobs from dawn to well past dusk. And most importantly, a better environment in which to raise her son or daughter. A twinge of guilt chided her conscience. She hadn’t mentioned being with child in her inquiry letter and hoped that wouldn’t influence Miss Maudelaine’s decision. Lord, open a door for me, please. Considering the opportunities this job would make in her life and in that of her child, Kathryn’s nervousness lessened. Anticipation quickened her pace.
She cut a path across the busy main street and reached into her pocket to finger the delicate metal box, an ever-present reminder she kept close. After her meeting this morning, she would go by the cemetery. It’d been at least a week since her last visit, and that had been late one evening, with Matthew. He’d insisted on going with her, even though she actually preferred to visit alone.
Donlyn MacGregor hadn’t contacted her since the day he’d sent the flowers. Harold Kohlman apparently hadn’t given him her message. She had roughly three more months before the land would be auctioned in Denver in September; then she would lose it for certain. She decided it was time to seek Mr. MacGregor out on her own.
Crowds of midweek shoppers thronged the plank walkway and trailed out the front door of the post office and mercantile. Fearing she would be late for her interview, Kathryn finally gave up trying to push her way through and made a beeline to cut down an alleyway instead.
And ran headlong into someone standing just around the corner.
Air left her lungs at the impact. Her footing slipped.
But the man caught her and steadied her.
Kathryn finally managed to regain her balance. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I—”
She glanced up, but he turned before she could glimpse his face.
“Sir, my deepest apologies,” she offered again to his back, her heart still racing. “I was in such a hurry.”
The man wore a knit cap and long sleeves buttoned at the wrists, despite the June warmth. He was tall and of thin build, and the shirt he wore looked two sizes too big, the seams passing well below his shoulders. His breath came raspy and quick, and she suddenly wondered if she’d hurt him.
“Are you all right, sir?” she tried again, gently touching his shoulder.
He flinched and sucked in a sharp breath.
Kathryn drew back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Only then did she notice the scarred flesh stretched taut over his fists clenched at his sides. He turned slightly, his head bowed, eyes closed. Seeing the furrowed white flesh of his neck and upper right cheek, a barely audible gasp escaped her. He winced at the sound, and Kathryn instantly regretted the thoughtless reaction. What had this poor man been through?
She thought of the fire that had destroyed the bank building and the survivors Donlyn MacGregor had told her about. Then her mind flashed to a badly maimed and scarred man she’d seen visiting the brothel one night. “Men like him got damaged in the war back East. Either that or the mines,” Annabelle had stated matter-of-factly. “Nobody else wants them, I guess. They’re still men, though, so they come here to get that need met.”
Determined not to gawk, Kathryn stole a quick glance at the man beside her. Had he experienced that kind of rejection? He turned farther away, as though her presence somehow caused him more pain, but something about him spoke to her heart. Perhaps it was the way his shoulders were stooped, giving the appearance of nearly breaking beneath an unbearable load.
Unable to think of anything else to say, she turned. When she got to the corner, she hesitated, then looked back. The man was leaning against the building, his face in his hands.
Larson’s heart pounded out an erratic rhythm. He blew out a steadying breath.
Kathryn’s gasp at seeing him had wounded him more deeply than he could have imagined. Certain she was gone, he raked his hands over his face. He didn’t know which hurt him more—her reaction to him or the raw truth that she hadn’t recognized her own husband.
But the question lingering in his heart had been answered.
Even if he were to come back from the grave, she wouldn’t want him. Not like this.
He’d been waiting in the alleyway on the chance of seeing her, planned on approaching her sometime before she reached the restaurant. But then he’d lost her in the crowd. And then . . . Oh, God! He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. With her face so close to his, seeing her eyes in that instant—his mind had gone completely blank. His courage had evaporated.
The scent of lavender, and of her, still lingered in the air around him. Her hair like silk against his face, her body pressed briefly against his in the fall. She was so beautiful.
He looked in the direction she’d gone. Her stride had held purpose. Not knowing what else to do, he headed in that direction.
Larson spotted her minutes later at the far end of the street. She’d stopped at an outdoor cafe and now stood searching the tables of people. An elderly woman seated alone looked in Kathryn’s direction and arched a brow. The woman’s white hair glistened like morning frost in the sun. She had a regal air about her, and she smiled as Kathryn approached.
Feeling slightly emboldened by his confidence that she wouldn’t recognize him, Larson chose an empty table within earshot of theirs. It was partially obscured by a large cottonwood, but that suited his purposes well. He sat with his back to them and willed his pulse to slow.
“So tell me, dear, what job would you currently be holdin’ here in town?”
Larson leaned slightly backward upon hearing the older woman’s voice. Smooth and inviting, it bore a lyrical inflection that hinted of Irish heritage. He strained to hear Kathryn’s answer above the other conversations drifting around him.
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