Romancing the Widow

by Davalynn Spencer

  “I had it laundered.”

  She looked at him with something near gratitude before tucking the expression safely inside. “I see that.”

  What had he expected?

  He turned on his heel. He wasn’t going to apologize.

  “Please, won’t you have a seat?”

  Her offer stopped him and he looked over his shoulder. She held out a delicate white hand, indicating a chair at the end of the porch. For reasons beyond his comprehension, he followed her suggestion.

  His boot steps echoed on the old wood, drawing him out into the open. Away from the shadows. He sat.

  She laid the bundle on the swing and looked at him. Then she raised her eyes to his hat. He removed it and hung it on one knee. She almost smiled.

  “Thank you for finding the apron and having it cleaned.”

  He could nearly hear the top stone layer crumbling from her wall. “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  “You may call me Martha.”

  Another layer toppled and he risked a question. “Is it Stanton or Hutton?” Hearing the query aloud convinced him it was none of his business.

  She considered her lap, rolled her lips as if holding something back. He was a fool.

  “That is a very good question, Mr. Jacobs.” She lifted her gaze to the back of the church house a few yards beyond the front gate. “I began as Hutton, spent a short while as Stanton, and now I am Hutton again.” She turned her focus to him, bold and unembarrassed, just as she had at the train station. Had it been only three days and not his entire life that she haunted his thoughts and clouded his mind?

  Wicked and deadly men had dared look him in the eye and none had the effect of this injured woman. The linen sling mocked him.

  “How is your shoulder?”

  She tilted her head to the right and the guileless gesture shot an unwelcome dart of sympathy through him.

  “Stiff, but that is to be expected. The sling is bothersome and it seems I can do nothing but sit and think.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Her gaze flicked sideways, but she quickly recovered. “Thank you, sir. I should not have plunged into the street without looking.”

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. The steel in his jaw melted like an icehouse afire.

  “It’s Haskell.”

  Chapter 7

  Martha stilled before the blue scrutiny, cool and clear as a mountain lake. So much for her resolve to rebuke the mysterious Mr. Jacobs. He’d been headed off the porch and out of her life. Why had she stopped him?

  “The name’s Haskell,” he repeated.

  Quite aware of her tendency to stare, she forced her eyes down. “Haskell it is, then.”

  The screen door creaked and her father stepped outside. “I did not realize we had a caller, Marti.” He crossed in front of her and offered his hand in greeting.

  Haskell stood. “Sir.”

  “What brings you by, Mr. Jacobs?”

  “Haskell, sir, if you don’t mind.”

  The parson nodded and threw a quizzical glance at his daughter. “Have you invited our visitor for supper? I’m sure your mother has plenty, and I happen to know she has a peach pie set aside.”

  Martha’s stomach clinched and all reasonable thought fled. Invite the man to supper? She cut him a look as he put his hat on and moved toward the porch steps. “By all means, Mr.—Haskell—please, stay to supper.”

  He looked at her father as if testing the water, then jerked a nod. “Thank you.”

  Her father offered his right arm to help her rise from the swing. “Let’s not keep your mother waiting, Marti.” His mouth quirked at one end, a sign she recognized all too well. A joke was at play and she was more than likely the brunt of it. She had half a mind to tell Haskell Jacobs to go eat with his horse. But when he stepped forward and held the screen door open, she swallowed the words.

  Papa was right about the peach pie. Its flaky aroma threaded around her empty belly. She hadn’t eaten much at dinner after noticing a certain man at the opposite end of the café. Now she had to face that man at her parents’ table. Lord, help me.

  “Annie, you remember Haskell Jacobs,” her father said. “He’s agreed to share our supper this evening.”

  Her mother turned a startled expression on the three of them but softened it with her usual grace. “How good of you, Mr. Jacobs. Caleb, please bring another chair from the dining room.”

  Martha moved to her place at the table but their guest anticipated her. He pulled the chair back, waited for her to seat herself, and then gently assisted her in scooting forward.

  Her mind swirled like a river eddy. What kind of man meets privately with her father, pays good money to launder an old apron, holds her chair—and looks like the dark and handsome villain in a dime novel? Not that she ever read such things.

  She pulled the napkin onto her lap and her mental ledger to the forefront. He’d even apologized for something she was at least partially responsible for. That final admission tugged her chin down in chagrin. Four marks for Haskell in the positive column and one in the negative for running her down with his horse. Two, maybe. His dark demeanor could be viewed as secretive. But handsome might slip into the number five slot on the other side.

  Unfaithfulness jabbed a pointed finger as Joseph’s fair image dimmed.

  Her father returned. Haskell waited until Martha’s mother was seated before taking his own chair.

  Circumstances were against her. Or was it God? She pleaded silently that her parents break with their custom of holding hands in prayer and her plea was denied. Her mother sat across from Martha, to her father’s right. This forced their guest to the end, placing Martha between the men.

  Her father laid a hand on her right arm. She hesitated. At an arched warning from her mother, she lifted her left hand to Haskell who took it in his as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Well, he had held her in his arms like a sack of flour. He might as well hold her hand.

  Her neck warmed. If her pulse flashed through her fingers as it did her throat, he’d know and she would die of humiliation right there at the table.

  “Amen.”

  With blood pounding in her ears, she hadn’t heard her father’s prayer and sat momentarily frozen. Haskell raised his brows in question and she jerked her hand from his. Laughter sparked in his eyes. Would it be completely inhospitable to stab him with her fork?

  After the tasty remains of a beef stew, her mother dished up large servings of warm pie and passed around a pitcher of cream. With a childhood favorite before her, Martha almost forgot her current predicament—until she lifted her fork and realized that Haskell Jacobs was observing her.

  She cut through a golden slice of peach.

  “I’m going to take you up on your advice, sir, and visit your son, Whit.”

  “Good.” Her father poured cream over his pie and set the small white pitcher in the center of the table. “I’m sure he can give you solid information.”

  Martha and her mother exchanged an unspoken question and waited for the men to reveal what lay behind their cryptic conversation.

  They said nothing.

  She had never been good at keeping her thoughts to herself, especially as far as her brother was concerned. “About?”

  Haskell flashed a blue glance and set down his coffee. “I am looking for someone and your father believes Whit may be able to give me some insight into this person’s behavior.”

  That was about as unspecific an explanation as she had ever heard. Her left hand paused against the table’s edge, peach juice dripping from the fork tines onto her rose-edged plate. She looked to her father with expectation, years of practice ensuring that he sensed her curiosity.

  He ignored her, continued eating his pie and
addressed her mother.

  “Weren’t you thinking of driving out to visit Whit and Livvy and the boys, dear?” Innocence pooled around his eyes as thick as the cream around his peaches. She had never thought of her father as one to hedge. And she had learned long ago that leaving in a huff was most undignified, as was stomping one’s foot beneath the table. It took everything in her to do neither.

  Her mother shot Martha a peculiar look. “Yes, I was, but I’d not had opportunity to talk it over with Martha, see if she felt up to riding out to visit her nephews.” She paused, teacup in hand, watching Martha over its edge.

  Felt up to? Her mother had thrown down a gauntlet, and Martha was certain she had done it deliberately. She despised prissy women who feigned frailty as the weaker sex and her mother knew it. The woman had imbued her with the opinion, for goodness’ sake.

  She pulled herself straighter, adjusted the sling and smoothed her lips into a sickeningly sweet smile. “I’d love to. We could go tomorrow.”

  “Perfect.”

  She stared at her enthusiastic father.

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind Haskell riding along with the both of you. You could show him the way, and he could serve as a sort of escort.”

  Martha’s jaw must have banged against the table, but she could not help it. Never had either her mother or she ever been escorted to Whit and Livvy’s. She stole a glance at Haskell who wore a mask as impenetrable as hammered steel.

  By the meal’s end, conversation had swayed from picking apples and the price of hay to the start of school and a basket social planned at the church, with Haskell invited, of course.

  Martha rose to help her mother clear the table. Haskell stood as she did but did not retake his seat. Instead he lifted his hat from the back of his chair.

  “Thank you, ma’am, Pastor, for sharing your supper.” He nodded to Martha. “Miss Martha.”

  Her father led him to the front door. Martha stole to the parlor entry and waited on the kitchen side, out of view.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for here in Cañon City.” Her father paused. “I know I did.”

  Haskell mumbled something low that Martha could not decipher and then left.

  She hurried back to the table and grabbed the empty pie tin before her father reappeared. Combing through her family history, she searched for what he had found in Cañon City. She came up with two items: his renewed calling and his wife.

  * * *

  The Hutton women’s cooking could pull a man’s heart out through his gullet and plop it in his plate. Haskell crossed the street to Cache, who stood dozing at the livery rail with a back leg cocked. He stripped the reins and swung up, hoping the hot springs bathhouse hadn’t closed for the evening.

  The prospect of accompanying the widow and her mother to Whit Hutton’s ranch held all the promise and curse of a double eagle: a valuable commodity a man could lose his life over.

  He rode out of town and followed the railroad tracks to the mouth of the gorge where a path veered toward a footbridge suspended across the river. He tethered Cache at a railing with two other horses and took to the plank bridge. Halfway across, he stopped and peered over the side at the dark water. The steady wash raised a voice unheard unless one stood close enough. Constant, steady. Changing in volume only as the seasons changed their colors, he surmised. Raging with spring floods, whispering beneath an icy mantle. Persistent, nonetheless. Always there.

  Lights flickered through the hotel’s windows and he continued toward them.

  Not much was constant in his life, other than the hunt for those who broke the law. Again an unnamed longing surged through his soul, a swollen stream of discontent. But its churning did not soothe him. It merely emphasized his isolation.

  The Royal Gorge Hot Springs Hotel offered a bath for fifty cents and he bought two. Rumors and pamphlets had been right. The thermal waters eased the tension in his neck and shoulders and back. If Cache were not waiting across the bridge, Haskell would rent a room and spend the night.

  As it was, his relaxed legs barely carried him back across the footbridge.

  Accustomed to the cool evenings of the Rocky Mountains in early fall, Haskell wakened enough to mount his horse and ride for town with a clear plan. At First Street he turned south and paralleled the river to the overgrown path he’d followed the day before.

  He ground-tied Cache and then moved soundlessly through the trees toward Doc Mason’s barn. A dim light glowed between the siding slats, and tense voices rose within.

  “You won’t be bringing any more horses to this barn. Do you hear me?” Doc Mason’s high-pitched tones quivered with anger. Haskell picked his way through the leaves and fallen branches behind the barn and stopped near the back door, closed but leaking light at its edges. A lantern on the far wall backlit the doctor’s face and that of a taller, slightly built man. A cloth bound the taller man’s right thigh, and he held his hand fisted against it.

  “They aren’t here, are they?” The thin man gestured wildly toward the empty stalls and flinched at the effort.

  “I don’t care. I won’t have stolen horses in my barn. And you should be in bed with that gunshot wound.” Doc cursed and took the lantern from the wall. Shadows fell across their faces but in the lowered light Haskell saw the shine of blood oozing through the thin man’s bandage.

  “That ranger was asking about you yesterday. I should have let him haul you off. Would have, if it weren’t for your ma.”

  Haskell ground his teeth. The doctor just incriminated himself in harboring a fugitive. And Haskell’s hunch about the nurse had also been right. But he needed evidence, and without the horses, witnesses or a direct confession, he had nothing.

  Pastor Hutton’s hunch had panned out. Tad Overton was his man, and as far as Haskell could tell, the lanky man favoring his right leg was none other.

  Doc left the barn and Overton followed.

  A horse nickered out front—Doc’s buggy nag, more than likely. Haskell stole around the far end of the barn and up to the corral where the horse twitched an ear his way. Doc and Overton went up the back porch steps and inside, and the light dimmed as they made their way to the front of the house.

  Those four stolen horses could be anywhere by now. Overton could have sold them to the Utes or the hack owners who carted people back and forth to the hot springs. A rancher could have run them in with his own band, turning a blind eye to the new shoulder burns.

  He retraced his steps to Cache and led the horse downstream to a clearing where he mounted and continued to the livery.

  Would Whit Hutton buy stolen horses?

  Haskell doubted it. Something about that family felt strong and true, like a deep-running current that held them all together. But he’d find out for himself in less than twelve hours, for tomorrow morning he was accompanying the Hutton women to the ranch.

  Crickets raised a chorus. A dog yelped and a gate hinge squeaked. Ahead of him a yellow orb inched above the horizon like an out-of-place sun. He pulled up to watch.

  The full moon hefted itself against the night, appearing bigger at the horizon’s edge than it would later as it mounted the sky. Haskell chuckled to himself at the phenomenon that had puzzled him as a child.

  “It’s all in your eye,” his father had said. “It’s no different when it starts than when it reaches its zenith.”

  His father had him hold a penny at arm’s length, right next to the rising moon, and note its size. Together they’d spent the night on bedrolls by a campfire—Haskell and the man he admired most in the world, Tillman Jacobs, Jefferson Ranger.

  Hours later, his father woke him. The moon dangled from the night like an empty saucer.

  “Hold out your penny,” his father had said.

  Haskell would never forget the sense of discovery that washed over him when he lift
ed the copper coin and saw the moon was the same size as it had been when it first peeked through the pines.

  “That’s called perspective, son. Things are not always as they appear. Judge wisely—with evidence—and you will do well.”

  Those words still guided him. Haskell had spent most of his life pursuing that first taste of discovery. That thrill of uncovering the hidden or solving an enigma. It was the drive that pushed him to be a ranger, like his father, and it fueled his determination to find those who spurned the law and to see justice done.

  Anticipation gripped his insides. Tomorrow would bring him closer to the horse thief he sought. And closer to the complex Martha Hutton Stanton, now Hutton again, as she had put it. A day in her company might wreak havoc with his powers of observation, for if he admitted the truth to himself, he was drawn to pursue her as surely as he pursued the snake that stole another man’s horse and profited from it.

  The copper-haired beauty pulled him like night pulled the moon across the sky.

  He had to get Whit Hutton alone, away from the women, and talk to him in private. Hutton might have a tip on the horses, information connecting Overton to them or word of their whereabouts.

  Without a sound lead, Haskell had no grounds to bring Tad Overton in.

  And if he did make a viable connection, what would Martha think of him then—when he rode away with her former beau in handcuffs?

  Chapter 8

  Sitting in the parlor as her father read by lamplight and her mother darned socks was absolutely out of the question. What was Martha supposed to do? Stare out the windows into the night and fume?

  Betrayed. Bested. Beaten. A vocabulary list formed in her mind, filling with words disloyal to the parents who had raised her and loved her. But they still tried to control her. She stood and walked to the door where she paused at the screen and breathed in the night air.

  “I’m going to sit outside for a while.” Without waiting for a reply, she escaped to the porch swing and fell into its restful arms. Haskell’s tall presence seemed to linger on the porch where he had sat earlier in the day.