She set the coffeepot on the stove and fled through the doorless opening into what was now her new home. Backing against the dividing wall, she fanned her apron in her face, feeling she’d barely escaped from—what?
She surveyed their few belongings and the scant space. They’d been so eager to leave the livery before Cooper changed his mind that they’d hauled everything to the store before Annie had a chance to clean the long-neglected room. Dusty cobwebs laced the ceiling corners, and even more dust covered the windowsill. The entire room needed a good sweeping and washing down, but she’d not pick up the broom with Caleb Hutton around.
Boot steps headed for the back, and she stooped near a carpetbag, pretending to be busy. Tin dishes clinked together in the wash pan on the sideboard. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed her father stuffing mail in letter boxes behind the front counter. It had to be Caleb washing his plate.
She paused in her hasty riffling through the satchel’s contents and imagined him scrubbing the sticky syrup. He must not be married, for surely a man with a wife simply assumed that a woman tended to the dishes. Even her father hadn’t helped in the kitchen, always relying on his sister and daughters to complete such mundane chores.
First an apology. Now a helping hand. Who was this Caleb Hutton?
And why did he catch her fancy?
Chapter 5
Caleb paid for his breakfast and few supplies, thanked Whitaker again for the tip about the livery and headed that way. He’d check with the blacksmith before he stopped at the printing office and the sawmill.
If given a choice, he’d take livestock over letters and lumber any day, though his life had been fairly equally divided between the first two.
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 his heart thought otherwise, for that’s just what he’d done at the mercantile.
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, and the other hand wielded a hammer. The man lightly tapped the iron, then raised the shoe to appraise its shape and dunked the shoe in a bucket of water.
Caleb approached. “Mornin’,” he said above the sound of the hissing bucket.
The smithy retrieved the dripping shoe, held it to the anvil and eyeballed Caleb. “Mornin’.”
“Name’s Caleb Hutton. Might you be Henry? Daniel Whitaker sent me round. Said 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,” Caleb said. “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,” he said. “Like a preacher.”
At the word, Caleb flinched. Henry released his grip. Burning as if he’d touched the glowing iron instead of the man’s hand, Caleb held Henry’s gaze.
“It’s been a while.” His jaw tightened. “But I haven’t forgotten. Just lost a few calluses.”
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.”
Caleb ran his hand around the inside of his hatband. 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.”
The news surprised Caleb, but it explained Annie’s refusal to let him help her unpack 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. “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,” Henry said. “On 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. When he saw the cross above the door, he nearly uttered a prayer of thanks. It would have been the first in a long time.
After dumping his tack and bedroll in the box stall, he led his animals around to the corral. Rooster trotted through the gate and kicked his heels, then dropped to the ground and rolled. Grateful, Caleb assumed, to be free of his burden.
He understood the feeling.
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?” Stepping inside the stall, he spoke softly, then rubbed her neck and withers. 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 telltale knots.
She slapped her tail and reached back to nip his shoulder.
“It’s all right, girl.” He straightened and walked close around her hindquarters and up to her head, trailing his hand along her belly.
Whitaker wouldn’t be any too happy with Caleb’s findings. The man’s yellow mare had about sixty days to go before she gave birth.
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.
Something sweet hung in the air, something that didn’t belong in a horse barn. A perfumed soap or...
That was it. Annie.
He drank in the summery scent of Annie Whitaker’s mahogany hair. She and her father had lived in this stall long enough to leave their mark.
Her mark.
He ignored the tightening in h
is chest as he felt along the walls for a lantern he’d seen earlier. He pulled a matchbox from his pocket and struck one against the lamp’s base. The tiny flame threw shadows into the rafters and hayloft. He lifted the glass globe and held the match to the wick. Then he adjusted the wick and surveyed 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 hayrack, and hung the bridle from the horn. The floor was surprisingly clean, 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 saddlebags for the dried beef. Instead he found his Bible.
He’d once considered the book food for his soul. He thumbed through the pages and a thin copper casing fell to his lap. Mollie Sullivan’s sweet face looked up at him. He slipped the image back between the pages of Jeremiah.
The weeping prophet. Appropriate place to hide the cause of his 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.
“Caleb Hutton. You asleep?”
Caleb scrambled to his feet at Daniel Whitaker’s call and drew the door back. “Just settling in.” He shoved the pistol into the back of his pants. Annie held a cloth-covered dish and a rich aroma curled before 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 could say.
Her smile deepened and she stepped back.
“Looks like you made out all right with Henry,” Daniel said.
“Yes, sir, thanks to your recommendation. Work and a roof over my head.” Caleb glanced 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 door. Annie threw a quick glance toward the mare’s stall and followed her father.
I know the thoughts that I think toward you.
The familiar words rose with the wonderful aroma, and a tightness gripped Caleb’s chest as he closed the stall door. He sat on his bedroll, 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 and enjoyed the first real meal he’d had in weeks.
* * *
Pleased, though not completely satisfied, Annie stood in the center of the small storeroom, hands on her hips. She and her father had assembled the two rope beds they’d purchased in Denver and pushed one into each corner. 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 camelback trunk hid their extra clothes and blankets and a few items from the hope chest she’d left behind.
Meager furnishings, indeed, but the beginnings of home.
“And you’d be thinking what, Annie?” Her father stood in the doorway, 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 squeezed her shoulder, then stepped into the room. “We’ll be needing a curtain in the doorway for privacy during the day.”
“I’ll set out some canvas for Martha when she comes by tomorrow,” Annie said. “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 giggle, Annie retrieved two more quilts from the trunk, then handed one 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?”
Her father spread the quilt 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 good Lord has blessed me with two beautiful daughters and a good business. I’ve no need for anything else.”
Her heart warmed to hear his tender words, but Annie could see that her father enjoyed Martha’s attentions.
Annie, however, 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 said. “I’ll stoke the fire. Give me your cover, Annie girl, and I’ll hold it in front of the stove while you get ready for bed. And I’ll warm up some bricks for bed warmers while I’m at it.”
She handed him the eight-point star quilt, her favorite. He gave her a fatherly look.
“That Caleb Hutton showed himself a gentleman today, didn’t he?”
Stunned by her father’s obvious intentions, she fumbled with her hairpins.
“Why do you like him so much? Because he says ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ every other breath? 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. “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 challenged her father’s merriment. “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 living 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?
Why did it matter what he thought? Annie chided herself as she shed her multiple skirts and petticoats and slid beneath the blankets. As she lay there, she recalled her room 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. She refused to pine away for that ornate home. Even if it did have a lovely fireplace in every bedroom and real bed warmers rather than hot bricks.
Before her father c
ould return with her quilt, the day’s labor conspired against Annie, 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 dark 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 6
By sunup Caleb had all the stock fed and watered. His stomach had forgotten the previous night’s hot meal, and he swung open the wide stable door and headed for the mercantile, in the hopes that Annie Whitaker was making fresh biscuits.
Keeping his eyes from the church across the road, he focused on the smoke curling from the mercantile rooftop, beckoning to him as his breath formed a white cloud in the air with every other step.
He now had a place to sleep, honest work and good food—much for which to be thankful. So why did he feel...cheated?
He dusted his hat against his leg, then stepped through the mercantile door to the chime of the 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 said, grabbing another tin cup.
The brass bell rang a second time as he 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 heart to clanging as loud as that noisy 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 perfect timing.” Whitaker took a 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 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.”
The Cowboy Takes a Wife Page 6