How presumptuous. She should let her father propose first. And, of course, if he did, Annie faced a solitary future. Caleb Hutton’s handsome face worked into her memory with shocking clarity. Annie shuddered.
“Are you still sleeping in that drafty old barn, dear?”
Annie glanced at the small but sprightly source of local gossip. Of course Martha knew about their living arrangements. There was nothing in town that Martha did not know.
“For the time being,” Annie said. She lowered her voice. “I’m hoping to speak to Mr. Cooper later today and convince him to rent us the entire store. 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.”
Annie laughed and folded the fabric into a smooth square. Then she wrapped it in brown paper and tied it with twine.
Martha dug in her reticule for a silver coin and handed it to Annie. “I wish I had an extra room in my cabin, and I’d have you and your father stay there.” She stole a quick peek toward the back and pushed an imaginary stray lock beneath her ruffled cap.
“And you’re a sweetheart for even thinking of us,” Annie said as she made change and wrote out a receipt. “Thank you ever so much, but don’t you worry. I’m sure I can talk Mr. Cooper into being a bit more generous before the snows come.”
Annie hoped that merely saying the words out loud would make them true. But she knew better than that. She was going to have to be clever when it came to Mr. Cooper. She just didn’t know quite how yet.
Chapter 3
Caleb followed the river upstream to where it cut through a granite canyon and around a jutting red rock sentinel west of town. Two log cabins squatted in a cottonwood grove. He guessed the mineral springs were at hand, for the Ute Indians he’d heard of camped several hundred paces away against a sheer rock wall. Their fires sent smoke spiraling above a stony ridge.
Surely the river was a certain path to the high country grassland, but Daniel Whitaker had said the banks choked off a few miles in. Caleb didn’t have daylight to waste on a hunch, so he turned back and headed north along a narrow valley. It climbed beneath a sawtooth ridge—evidence enough for how the Rockies came by their name.
The yellow ridge scraped sky on Caleb’s right, and orange sandstone abutments jutted from the hillside like upraised floorboards. To his left, Fremont Peak’s lesser points pushed skyward, a prehistoric beast straining against its rocky confines. Strange country, this land that drew cattlemen and gold seekers alike.
Ahead the trail curved deeper into the mountains toward his longed-for escape. He hoped to make the Lazy R by early afternoon.
Rooster’s head bobbed to his steady gait, and the rocking rhythm set Caleb’s thoughts to churning. Annie Whitaker’s sweet biscuits sure beat the hard tack he’d choked down earlier that morning. Why hadn’t he mentioned that instead of how handy she was with a broom?
He touched his boot heels to Rooster’s side. The horse quickened his pace but not enough to outdistance thoughts of molasses-colored eyes that warmed Caleb’s insides.
A woman like that would make a man’s life brighter in this bleak country. Be it laughter or anger, light danced in those eyes.
To distract himself, he reached forward and grabbed a handful of Rooster’s coarse mane, pulling his fingers through it.
Annie’s hair must be soft as a baby’s whisper.
He jerked his hand back. He had to be loco. After his remark that morning, Annie Whitaker wouldn’t give him another biscuit if her life depended on it, much less the chance to touch her hair.
Caleb angled his horses west as they climbed between scrubby peaks. Bent and twisted juniper soon gave way to scattered pinion and cedars that stretched against a cloudless blue. Air as fresh and fine as he’d ever breathed filled his lungs with promise and his heart with hope. He could start over here. Find his footing again.
By midday the trail broke into a wide plateau dotted with grazing cattle. Several hundred head, he figured. In the distance, low buildings hugged the base of a steep rise—the Lazy R ranch house and barns. Caleb touched his heels to Rooster’s side, and the gelding eased into a gentle lope. Cool water, a pile of hay and a new life lay just across the grassland.
He slowed to a trot as he approached a gated entrance bearing a leaning R. As he pulled up, he studied the carver’s handiwork that hung high between two massive timbers, then rode beneath and took the next quarter mile at a walk. Anticipation rose in his chest. The payoff for his long trip was close at hand.
The main barn shaded two cowboys and a horse. One man stooped beneath the saddled mount’s back leg, his rasp scraping through the thin air as he smoothed the hoof. A vaquero held the reins, his leggings trimmed with a line of silver conchos.
The shoer dropped the foot, and both men eyed Caleb and his horses as they stopped at the corral.
Caleb nodded. “Afternoon.”
He stepped off Rooster, flipped the reins over the top rail and offered his hand. “Caleb Hutton. I hear you’re looking for ranch hands.”
The shoer shook Caleb’s hand but cut a glance at the vaquero.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Saint Joseph, Missouri. In the paper there. I saw an ad for the Lazy R.”
The man’s eyes flicked over Caleb like Daniel Whitaker’s had, but this time judgment followed.
“We got all we need. You’re too late.”
Caleb’s heart stumbled. “I’m good with horses. Doctor livestock, too.”
The vaquero’s shaded eyes cut away to the near hills.
The shoer spit a black stream to the side, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“No more bunks, son. Sorry, we’re full up.” He turned away, slid the rasp into a small wooden box and unbuckled his leather apron.
Caleb rehearsed the miles he’d ridden. He couldn’t make it back to Missouri before winter. He cleared his throat, pushed through the tightness.
“Are there other ranches around here in need of a hard worker?”
The vaquero swung onto the horse. Sunlight glinted off his long-roweled spur as he reined the horse around and headed for the nearest bunch of cows. The farrier plopped a brown bowler on his head and squinted at Caleb.
“Wrong time o’ year. Winter’s comin’ on, and most spreads are gettin’ ready to hunker down. No brandin’, nothin’ that calls for extra help till spring. Come back around then.”
“But the ad—”
“There’s a lot o’ men lookin’ for work, son. We filled up quick.” A black spot flew from his mouth and darkened the dirt at his feet. “Try the saloon in town. Hotel might have somethin’ for you with all the miners comin’ down for winter. Or the sawmill.”
Reality slapped Caleb, cold and hard. He’d been a fool. Gone off half-cocked on no more than a paper promise. He’d not bunk at the Lazy R tonight or anytime soon.
He wanted to rant—holler about the miles he’d ridden, the dust he’d eaten, the new start he had to find. He wanted to preach about turning away the poor and the destitute. But he was no longer a preacher. He had no right.
He stripped the reins from the fence and climbed into the saddle. “Thanks anyway.”
The first sign of emotion crossed the man’s face. “Sorry, son, that’s just how it is. Hope you make out.” Then he grabbed the toolbox and walked into the barn.
Caleb reined Rooster back the way they’d come. He wasn’t about to ask for a place to sleep for the night, or even water for his horses.
He did not beg.
At the high gate, he headed east for Cañon City and heeled Rooster into a lope. T
he sun pressed toward the peaks behind him, on the run from the coming night. It pulled its warmth with it and threw a brassy light on the ridge ahead, where yellow flared through a dark pine blanket.
Caleb had read about the aspen that flecked the mountains—those white-barked trees that bore gold men didn’t hunt, the kind that showed itself year after year as witness to a providential hand.
He snorted. Providence. That was one thing he didn’t need.
Providence had drawn him away from his father’s wishes and proven livelihood. Providence had left him without a bride, a living or a place to lay his head. And Providence had led him to the hollow hope of a fresh start.
His gut knotted against the blasphemy, and he kicked Rooster into a dead run. Maybe Providence wasn’t to blame.
Maybe he had done all those things to himself.
* * *
Cooper hadn’t been in for his mail, and Annie fumed. When she didn’t want to see him, he managed to slither in and curl himself around their stove, following her with his glassy eyes. But today he kept his distance.
Well, she wasn’t afraid to meet him in his own territory, despite her father’s warnings. She’d be in and out of that saloon like a needle through a quilt and they’d be sleeping warmer because of it.
“Daddy, can you mind the store while I run an errand?” Annie exchanged her apron for her cloak and fastened it up to her neck. She’d not give Cooper and his kind anything to look at.
She reached the door before her father answered and paused with her hand on the knob. She looked over her shoulder for his whereabouts.
“Hurry back.” The front counter muffled his reply, and he stood, red-faced from bending over.
Annie’s nerves pushed her out the door before he had a chance to ask her destination.
She pulled her hood against her neck and drew deep satisfaction from her heels clacking on the boardwalk. Mr. Jedediah Cooper would agree to her terms, or wish he had. How dare he force them to live in the livery stable while his whiskey cases littered the back room?
At the end of the block, she stepped into the dirt street and hurried across to the walkway that fronted the Fremont Hotel and Saloon. People around here certainly were fond of John C. Frémont. It’s a wonder they hadn’t named the town after the explorer.
She slowed her steps as she approached the saloon, well aware that unmarried women were the exception in this town and did not show their faces in drinking establishments unless they, well, weren’t good, churchgoing women. But she had to talk to Cooper, and she didn’t want to wait for him to slink down to the store for his precious whiskey. She and her father needed a better roof over their heads and they needed it now.
Her left heel involuntarily stamped the boards. Oh—she had to control that reflex or Cooper would laugh her out of his saloon.
Stretching to her full height, she raised her chin and opened one of the saloon’s double doors, catching her flushed reflection in the oval glass.
Nearly empty this early in the day, the space could easily have passed for a ballroom had it not been for the tables and the long mirrored bar against the west wall. Cooper himself stood behind it, his head bent as if ciphering his accounts. The stale scent of tobacco seeped from the red-and-gold-papered walls, and the odor cloaked her like a shroud.
Annie pulled the door closed and cleared her throat.
Cooper looked up, his frown melting into a lascivious leer as he recognized his caller.
Annie’s left hand still held the doorknob. Her grip tightened.
“Come in, come in, my dear child.” Cooper tugged at his brocade waistcoat and made his way from behind the bar, weaving slowly through the empty tables like a python to its prey. “What brings you to the Fremont this fine day?”
Wishing she’d worn gloves, she accepted his moist hand in a brief greeting, then quickly balled her fingers beneath her wrap.
“I want to discuss renting the entire store from you, Mr. Cooper.” She held his gluttonous glare, determined to keep up a bold front in his presence.
He gestured to the nearest table and pulled out a curved-back chair. “Please, be seated, Miss Whitaker. Care for a brandy?”
Her throat tightened. “No, thank you. I simply want to discuss the store. If you recall, my father and I rent the front half and more, but there remains a small space behind the dividing wall that we could use.”
For living quarters, but he didn’t need to know that.
His eyes swept her length and back again, as if tearing the cloak from her, and then settled on the hand that held the doorknob as he stepped closer.
Sensing how she must appear a frightened child, she let go but stood firmly in place. “How much more do you need for the use of all the floor space?”
Cooper shifted his appraisal to the fingers of his right hand. He curled them against his palm as if examining his nails. “I’m using that space for storage right now.”
“I understand, but surely you have room for your whiskey cases here in the saloon.” She reviewed her rehearsed argument. “Perhaps behind the bar or in a back room where they would be much handier, don’t you think?”
She scanned the room and noted two closed doors—one near the bar that led to the hotel and one at the opposite end of the back wall. “I’m sure my father will be happy to help you relocate the crates.”
Cooper’s eyes matched his beloved amber liquor. No doubt they hid as much evil in their depths as the corked bottles behind Annie’s makeshift kitchen.
“Well, it will inconvenience me, but I suppose we might work out an arrangement.”
Her skin chilled at the insinuation in his shadowed gaze. If she and her father didn’t need a warmer place to stay this winter, she’d slap that disgusting smirk right off his puffy face.
The door smacked her hard in the back. Both hands flew up as she fell against Cooper’s chest. Fighting to regain her balance, she pulled from his clutches and whirled to see who had hit her with the door.
Two men quickly yanked off their hats as they realized what had happened.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” one said in a rush. “I’m sorry—I didn’t expect anyone to be standing so close to the door. Especially a lady. I should have been more careful.” He bobbed his head like a worried goose and fled to the safety of the bar. His companion she recognized as Magistrate Warren, who frowned at Cooper, replaced his hat and followed.
Cooper’s eyes focused on Annie’s right cheek, and she quickly reached for the hair knocked loose by the sudden jolt. She tipped her head and repinned the mass, furious that her hair betrayed her when she was bargaining with such a pagan.
He coughed, regained his composure and waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s yours,” he said. “I’ll send someone round to pack up the crates. No need to concern your father.”
Startled by the greedy man’s sudden change of heart, she sensed the need to keep a sober face. He wasn’t the type to give anything away—unlike her father. Unless they came to some financial agreement, Annie didn’t trust him to abide by his generosity.
“Mr. Cooper, I insist on paying for the space.”
A storm gathered in his eyes.
Realizing her blunder, she recanted. “Thank you, Mr. Cooper. We do appreciate your generosity. Would you be so kind as to take a small additional amount each month?”
Distracted, Cooper glanced at Warren and the other man waiting at the bar and tugged at his waistcoat. He fingered a gold watch, flipped its cover open for a quick reading and returned it to a shallow pocket.
“Whatever you say, Miss Whitaker. Write up an agreement and give it to my man when he comes for the crates.”
He bowed a brief goodbye and left her standing at the entrance to the saloon.
Annie exited and quietly shut the door behind her. Her heart threatened to lea
ve her there and race ahead as she strode toward the mercantile.
She’d done it.
Or had something else changed Jedediah Cooper’s mind and opened his miserly grip?
No matter. She and her father would not freeze this winter, or have to traipse through the mud and snow to get to the store. Thank You, Lord.
The bell above the door announced her return, and she hurried to the back and hung her wrap. Her father sat near the stove, coffee in hand. She hoped he’d forgive her blatant disobedience when he learned of her success with Mr. Cooper.
“What took you out in such a hurry, Annie?”
His dear, trusting face turned her way.
Lord, forgive me for going against his wishes.
She snugged her apron around her waist, retied the string and planted a kiss on his cheek. Could they afford the extra rent? And how much should they pay? Enough to keep Cooper from thinking they were robbing him, but not so much that they couldn’t get by.
No more free biscuits to passing strangers.
And no more dried apples for Nell. Or not as many.
Promising herself that someday she’d have china dishes again, she filled a tin cup with coffee.
“I’ve made a deal, Daddy, and I need your help.” She settled into the chair next to him. “And I need you to promise you won’t be angry.”
His brow dipped, and a cloudy look banished the earlier calm. “What have you done now, Annie?”
She held the cup below her lips and blew across the hot liquid. “I found us a place to stay.” His stare bore into her until she felt it melting away all her good intentions. “Now, Daddy, you mustn’t be upset. You know we can’t spend the winter in the livery. We’d freeze.”
“There are no rooms at the hotel.” His voice was flat. “I check on a regular basis.”
“You’re right.” A hasty sip and she jerked her head back, her lip protesting against the hot coffee.
“Where did you go?”
She lowered the cup to her lap, straightened her back and focused on the stove. “I spoke with Mr. Cooper, and he agreed to let us rent the entire store. Now we can live in the back like we talked about.” She peeked at her father’s face. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
The Cowboy Takes a Wife Page 4