“Excuse me?” She eased her hand from his arm and hid it safely in the folds of her skirt.
“My spare mount.” Amusement lit his eyes. “She’s a gentle old girl and would serve you well.”
“Oh.” Uncertain how she felt about him practically laughing at her and confused about what the right thing was to do, Annie turned back the way they had come.
In one long stride, he fell in beside her. “I’ve had Sally since I was a boy. My pa gave her to me, and she’s been a faithful horse. Never bucked or bit and fared better on the trip here than I had hoped.”
Unpredictable didn’t begin to describe Caleb Hutton. Now the tight-lipped loaner was spilling history with a schoolteacher’s flair.
Annie stopped and faced him. He wasn’t the only one full of surprises. “Thank you for your kind offer to ride Sally on a river excursion. I think that is a splendid idea.”
* * *
That night Caleb lay with his hands linked beneath his head, his lamp trimmed low, ignoring the barn cat meowing at the stall door.
He mulled over the pastor’s morning message, picking through the seeds he’d sown in the past five years. Not much had sprung from his meager plantings and yet the quiet walk with Annie had set his heart to galloping and his dreams to spinning. But what did he have to offer a beautiful woman with mahogany eyes? A box stall in a livery stable?
He saw again the warm parsonage he’d left in Missouri. And Mollie Sullivan—far from warm as he compared her now to Annie. He’d had a calling and a home when he’d lost Mollie to someone of greater means.
He was a fool to think Annie would give him a second thought.
A light scratch lifted his attention to the rafters, where a black-and-white feline walked the crossbeam like a high-wire performer. Without a sound, it leaped to the railing along the wall and dropped to the floor.
He chuckled as she neared his bedroll.
“Won’t the horses let you sleep with them?”
She purred against his hand and pressed her head into his rough blanket. He missed the heavy quilts back in the parsonage, the colorful spreads pieced together by the Women’s Society. He’d never properly thanked them for their labors—another shortsighted sin.
He’d thought only of himself in Saint Joseph. Of marrying the prettiest girl in the congregation, of listing converts beneath his name, of counting the people who sat in the walnut pews of his sanctuary.
His sanctuary. Not the Lord’s.
He grimaced at his arrogant attitude.
When had he fallen from serving God to serving himself?
The cat curled into a ball at his side and wrapped her tail around her face. He stroked her back, ran his fingers through her soft fur.
“Forgive me, Lord,” he murmured. “Give me another chance—tell me what to do. Not just for a warm hearth and a woman’s love, but for You. I’ll stay in this barn if it’s what You want. Just show me what to do, how to get back to the place I should be.”
He reached toward the crate and trimmed the lamp until the wick smoked out, then rolled to his side. He closed his eyes and soon drifted across a ripening wheat field, golden heads bent beneath a scuttling breeze. He saw himself running through the field—running toward an aging man who stood open-armed, tears streaming down his face and into his beard.
Caleb fell at the man’s feet but was embraced and lifted upright.
And after that, Caleb dreamed no more, but slept as soundly and deeply as he ever had.
* * *
By the time Caleb broke ice on the water trough, fed the horses and made his way to the mercantile the next morning, a crowd had already gathered around the potbellied stove. He removed his hat and stepped into the boisterous group helping themselves to Martha’s fresh cinnamon rolls and arguing the merits of the recently elected president. Had he been in the states and not on the frontier, Caleb would have cast his vote as a citizen ought.
“Lincoln won by a landslide,” said Jeb Hancock, a tall freighter from Illinois. His chest swelled more than the last time he’d been in the livery.
“Yesiree, got us a good ’un this time,” Hancock boasted.
A stumpy miner jostled to the front and grabbed two rolls. His crumpled hat and ragged canvas coat bore witness to a played-out claim.
“It’s the end, I tell ya, the end.” The miner shoved one roll in his mouth and the other in his pocket and headed for the door.
“Good riddance,” Hancock called over those who crowded the stove. “Naysayer.” He swiped his buckskin coat sleeve across his mouth and downed his coffee dregs.
Annie stood at the back counter watching the commotion with concern. When Caleb caught her eye, she brightened and seemed to relax. Or was he just seeing what he wanted to see?
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Caleb edged his way closer to her, grateful for the warmth radiating from the old stove.
“Mornin’,” he said.
“Good morning.” She retrieved a covered plate from the sideboard and handed it to him. “You almost didn’t make it in time. Martha brought only two pans of cinnamon rolls.”
Her welcome sang through his heart like a hymn. “You saved this for me?”
She took his hat and hung it on the peg holding her coat. “I think half the town followed their noses in here this morning.”
A sliver of hope worked into Caleb’s chest as he pulled the checkered napkin from the plate. The spicy aroma made his mouth water, and he looked into her eyes.
“I kindly thank you, Annie.”
She blushed and busied herself smoothing the creases from her apron. “You’ll have to stand, I’m afraid, but it shouldn’t be long. Milner, the editor, will no doubt be leaving soon since the paper comes out today.”
Caleb remained at the group’s edge, inhaling Martha Bobbins’s handiwork and Whitaker’s coffee. The men talked politics and claim jumpers, comparing both to an upcoming turkey shoot sponsored by Jedediah Cooper.
The saloon owner snagged a roll, waved it above his head and promised a twenty-dollar gold piece to the man who shot the biggest wild bird.
“More than a hundred men have already laid out the five-dollar entry fee,” Cooper boasted. “But any of you could be the winner. Don’t be left out.”
“Not in here.” Daniel Whitaker raised his voice above the cheers. “You’ll not be doing your business in the mercantile. Take it elsewhere.”
Cooper was ingenious, Caleb would give him that. But Whitaker was honorable.
Caleb glanced toward Annie and caught her pained expression. Something had happened between her and the saloon keeper, something unpleasant. Caleb felt the room’s temperature spike.
God help Jedediah Cooper if he’d been inappropriate with Annie.
“Caleb?”
Her tone pulled him from morbid thoughts. She stared at his hand gripping the fork like a weapon.
He relaxed his fingers and cut another bite from the roll. Turning the other cheek was a worthy rule to follow, but not where a young woman was concerned. If Cooper offended Annie, Caleb would not be turning a cheek away from him, regardless of how ingenious the man appeared to be.
“Is something the matter?” She touched his arm as lightly as her voice touched his ear.
The gesture fired through him like heat roaring from Henry’s forge. Sweat beaded at his hairline.
Martha called for Annie, and Caleb silently thanked the woman for her timely rescue. He stepped back as far as possible from the hot stove, afraid that he’d already filled the cramped room with stable perfume.
Chairs scooted across the floor, some snagging on the braided rug. Tin plates clattered in a dishpan on the stove, and Daniel Whitaker met his customers at the front counter, where he accepted their coins and thanks and wished them
a good day. Martha busied herself with the dishes, and Annie ground coffee beans and filled the pot with fresh water.
Caleb pulled a low-back captain’s chair away from the stove. His vengeful thoughts about Jedediah Cooper surprised him, but he stopped short of repentance. No man dared lay an unwanted hand on Annie Whitaker, and he didn’t mind being the one to ensure that.
He didn’t mind at all.
Because he was losing his heart to the spirited young woman, even though he’d sworn never to let such a thing happen again.
The brass bell sang out as the last customer left, and Daniel returned to the stove, where he chucked in a black lump from the coal bucket and adjusted the damper. He sat with a hefty sigh, rubbed his hands across his aproned girth and shook his head.
“Martha, you’ll make a fat man of me yet.”
Martha laughed and splashed at the sideboard, dunking plates in the rinsing pan and handing them to Annie, who dried them and stacked them on a shelf.
“Oh, Daniel, you are good for my heart.”
Caleb glanced up from his disappearing breakfast and caught a boyish grin on the older man’s face. He winked at Caleb and smoothed his mustache.
Caleb finished his cinnamon roll in three hearty bites. His plate had barely emptied when Annie’s hand entered his view, open and waiting.
His first thought was to take her hand and kiss it, but he held himself in check. He had no idea how Annie would feel about such a gesture, and it wasn’t his place to offer it. So he gave her a smile.
“Thank you, Annie.”
She returned his smile, and her eyes lingered. Oh, Lord, how could he bear to see her every day, knowing he had nothing to give her but a broken heart and broken vows?
The bold truth sobered the warmth right out of him. He wrapped both hands around his cup, planted his elbows on his knees and stared at the braided rug beneath his feet. His eyes followed a red strand that wove through the pattern and circled halfway around the rug before giving way to a dark brown. Maybe he needed to give way himself, leave now rather than wait until spring. He could make Denver in three days. He’d saved enough to stake himself for a few weeks.
“You joining the hunt?” Daniel asked, breaking Caleb out of his reverie.
“No, sir. I don’t own a rifle.”
Daniel’s mustache twitched and his eyes narrowed. “A cowboy like you with no gun?”
Too late Caleb recognized his blunder. “I have a sidearm, for snakes and such. But I’ve never been a hunter.”
Whitaker leaned against his own knees, as much as his belly allowed. He threw a cautious look toward the women, who were still busy with the dishes, and then lowered his voice and looked Caleb dead in the eye.
“What do you do? And don’t tell me you’re good with horses. You’re hiding something, son, and if you’re taking an interest in my Annie—which I can see you are—you’d best be telling me now rather than later.”
Chapter 10
Whitaker’s stare burned like hot iron.
Caleb cleared his throat. He hadn’t hidden his affections for Annie any better than he’d hidden himself from the Lord.
He huffed out a breath and decided to come clean. Annie and her father both deserved that, after all they’d done for him.
“I was a preacher.”
The confession set Whitaker back in his chair, but he never took his eyes off Caleb. One white brow cocked like a pistol hammer. “That explains it.”
Exposed, Caleb started to rise. Whitaker stopped him with a quick hand.
“You’ve got a way with words. I heard it when you prayed over breakfast that day, and I hear it when you talk to Annie.” He looked up as the women went into the back room. Then he asked, “What happened?”
Caleb breathed easier with Annie and Martha out of earshot. He thought of the old man in his dream, who looked nothing like Daniel Whitaker, but maybe there was a connection.
Maybe confession was a stop on the journey home.
“I pastored a small church back in Saint Joseph, on the edge of town. About forty people.” He paused for a moment, adjusting to the sensation of talking about himself for the first time in a long time. “I wasn’t any good. No converts. Just the same people every Sunday, living the same lives.” He cut a look toward Whitaker. “Except one.”
Might as well spill it all.
“She wasn’t living the life I thought she was. Then she accepted a wealthy banker’s proposal—a man who also happened to be on the deacon board.”
Whitaker reached for the coal bucket and added another piece to the stove. “Over yours.”
Caleb nodded, feeling the fool again.
“So you left.”
Whitaker’s look was more compassionate than judgmental, but Caleb didn’t want the man’s pity. He wanted the man’s daughter, and that was becoming more unlikely by the minute.
“I figured those people needed a real pastor. Someone older with more experience. I sent word to the seminary so they could find someone else.”
Whitaker leaned back in his chair. “So who called you to preach?”
There it was—the question Caleb had dodged for half a year until recently. He knew the answer, he just didn’t know why his calling hadn’t worked out.
He met Whitaker’s eyes and caught Annie’s fire in them.
“God called me.”
“And do you suppose God changes His mind about that sort of thing?”
Seminary lectures scrolled through his memory, but Whitaker’s question made it personal. “No, sir.”
“You’re familiar with the eighth chapter of Romans, the twenty-eighth verse?”
He was. It lay like a banked ember awaiting discovery. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
The called.
The words scorched Caleb’s soul.
“You can’t outrun God, son. I’m no preacher, but I for sure know that much.”
Annie came in from the back room, and the flame in Caleb’s chest burned deeper. Her eyes lit on his, and her smile nearly sucked the breath from his lungs. What would she think if she knew the truth?
He shoved his hat on. Or rather, when she knew the truth.
He needed distance. Perspective. Air.
He stood and set his cup in the dishpan. “Thank you, ladies.” He turned to Whitaker. “And you, sir.” Then he left the store before he crumbled to ash in front of them.
Cold air slapped his face and bit through his shirt as he made his way back to the livery. He shoved through the door and into a wall of heat. Fire blazed in Henry’s brick furnace. Everywhere—extremes.
Caleb grabbed the pitchfork as he walked up the alleyway. “Mornin’.”
Henry’s hammer paused in its dance against the anvil, and he looked at Caleb. “And a good one it is.”
For some.
“After I finish the stalls, I’ll be heading out for a while. Be in this evening.”
Henry took a step back and craned his neck toward the spare harnesses and tack hanging against the last stall.
“Everything is mended and soaped,” Caleb said. “Finished Saturday night. The Turk brothers and Hancock are already gone.”
Henry took to his work. No frown, no affirmation. “Fine by me.”
Caleb reached for the wheelbarrow and pushed it into the alleyway. He could never tell what Henry was thinking unless the man came right out and said it plain.
Caleb should take lessons.
Nell whiffled a low greeting as he opened her gate. “Missing Annie, are you?” The mare tossed her head as if she understood and rumbled deep in her chest.
I know the feeling.
By noon he had the stalls cleaned and
fresh bedding laid for all fifteen horses and mules inside. He saddled Rooster and hand-fed Sally a fistful of oats. “Maybe next time, ol’ girl.” He rubbed the bay mare’s shoulder, truly hoping for a next time. “If the way is easy and Annie doesn’t change her mind, we just might be taking another ride before the big snows fly.”
Or he might be riding on out of town alone, snow or not. He hoped to have some direction after his trek today.
He buttoned his waistcoat and duster against the cold, then mounted the gelding and rode through town, half expecting Annie to be sweeping the boardwalk in front of the mercantile. As he passed by, he saw her busy inside with a customer. Just as well.
The river ran low and easy enough to cross, but he kept to the north side and Rooster took quick to the trail. Slate-blue clouds hunched over the distant ridges, threatening a storm. A soaking might be part and parcel of his day.
He needed a good drenching, something to wash away his indecision and wring out the uncertainty in his soul.
He skirted the brick-colored granite guarding the canyon across from the Indian encampment. Mountain Utes, he’d been told. Wintering near the mineral springs, living off deer that fed along the river.
Beyond the red monolith, the canyon tightened to a narrow green valley that hugged the river with cottonwood clusters, bushy grass and spiny, fingerlike cacti. A wide creek spilled from cedar-scattered hills on the south side and joined the river in laughter.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. He’d give all his earnings for a merry heart, or at least the understanding of what was weighing him down.
The dream had unsettled him, and it hung with him still. Especially after today’s inquisition by Daniel Whitaker. He didn’t begrudge the man’s watchful eye for his daughter, but he’d cut near to the quick.
It didn’t take a seer to know what the dream meant. It was about a kind of homecoming. Trouble was, Caleb didn’t know where home was because he didn’t have one. Hadn’t had one since he’d left his parents’ place for school and the ministry.
The farther he rode, the more carefully Rooster chose his footing on the roughening trail. An occasional piñon pushed up through the rocky soil, holding its own in the rugged landscape. The hills pulled themselves into straight-walled battlements, red rock layers jutting out like planks at a sawmill. Scrub oak and juniper jammed the rock crevices.
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