Cheryl St. John - [Copper Creek 01]

by Sweet Annie

  “The waiting is so hard,” she said.

  He curled a springy tendril of her hair around his forefinger. “You’re not tellin’ me anything I don’t know.”

  “Well, why do we have to wait for a house? I’d have all I’d ever need right here.”

  “There isn’t even a real stove.”

  “I can barely cook anyway.”

  He chuckled, but then sobered. “Annie, babies come when people get married. We couldn’t bring a baby to this place.”

  Warmth seeped through her belly and her limbs at those astonishing words. Tears burned behind her eyes at the miraculous thought of having her own baby. She laid her forehead on his chest. “You’re so sensible and so wise and…and I can’t believe you want me. I’ve always thought no one would want me—that I couldn’t have a life like other people. Now I believe I can.”

  She raised her head and met his glistening black eyes. “I believe you can, too,” he said. “I believe you can do anything you want to.”

  “Well, I want to marry you,” she declared.

  He pulled her up for a sweet lingering kiss. “I want that, too. Let’s be patient a while longer.”

  “They’re not going to change their minds,” she warned him. “I’ve been fighting their constraints my entire life.”

  “I know,” he said, threading his fingers through hers, palm to palm. “But we have to wait, so let’s hope that somethin’ changes in the meantime.”

  Change didn’t seem likely to her, but she guessed she could hope if he could.

  “I’d better take you home,” he said a short time later. “We both need our sleep. If your parents woke up, we’d both be in more trouble than we can deal with. We took a big chance tonight.”

  “I know. But I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

  He stood and pulled her to her feet with a pained expression. “Let’s go.”

  “We can do this again,” she suggested.

  “We have to be careful,” he replied. “I don’t want to give them fuel for their hatred.”

  “They don’t hate you, really.”

  “They’d rather see me hit by a train than living in the same town,” he disagreed. “It’s cooled off out there, you’d better wear my coat for the ride home.” He lifted a wool jacket down from a peg and held it out. Annie slipped her arms into the engulfing garment that carried his scent.

  He saddled a different mount for the short ride home, helped Annie atop the horse’s back from a barrel near the door, and led him outside. He climbed up behind her and she leaned back against him.

  Luke buried his nose in her hair, inhaled her sweet fragrance, and wished their time together didn’t have to be only a stolen hour here and there.

  He walked the horse along the shadowy black streets, taking as long as he could to reach the lane where the stately Sweetwater house stood. He never traveled this way that he didn’t remember the day they’d met and think of the vivacious girl who had captured his admiration and interest.

  Annie still possessed that same zest for life, the same youthful spontaneity and deep appreciation for things most people took for granted.

  “It’s torture not being together,” she told him after he’d lifted her down and helped her into her chair.

  “How well I know,” he agreed.

  “I’m so happy,” she whispered, and he knelt in front of her to kiss her one last time. “Nothing has ever made me as happy as being with you. Not in my whole life.”

  “Then I’m a very lucky man.” He took her hand from his cheek and pressed it against his heart. “You’re in here,” he told her. “I’m taking you with me.”

  “It’s a good place to be,” she said, closing her eyes in the moonlight. “Safe. Warm. Loving.”

  He kissed her lips. “Remember that.”

  When she opened her eyes, tears glistened. “I will.”

  “Shall I push you closer to the house?”

  “Just a little.”

  He stepped behind her chair and propelled it toward the Sweetwater home.

  “That’s far enough,” she said and handed him his coat.

  “Remember,” he said into her ear from behind, then turned and loped back to his horse. From his vantage point, he watched through the trees and she rolled herself up the ramp to the porch. Several minutes later, the light in the window she’d indicated came on, and after a brief moment, was extinguished.

  Shrugging into the coat that now smelled faintly of lilacs, Luke hauled himself up onto the gelding’s back and with the command of his heels, rode away.

  He turned the animal’s head away from town and bent low over his neck, urging him to run. He rode with abandon, the instructions to the horse automatic, because his mind was anywhere but on the ride.

  Leaving the road, he skirted the edge of a lake, pounded along a trail above a canyon, and continued on. They had taken a foolish risk tonight. What if someone had seen them—what if her parents had missed her and been waiting? What if they sent her away to keep her from him?

  That had always been his fear, and now the fear of separation was greater. Would the fact that she was an adult keep them from sending her off? Perhaps they would have missed her as much as he would’ve, and that’s why they’d never done it. He didn’t want to take her from them. He just wanted to love her.

  Because he did love her. As much as he directed his mind to steer from that thinking, the fact was inevitable. Indisputable. He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her. Annie. His sweet Annie.

  He had reined in the horse and now walked him around the edge of the lake to which he’d somehow returned. His blood still pounded hot and thick in his veins. Even after the wind had seared his face and nostrils he could smell her on his hands and his clothes and see her face in the star-studded sky.

  Luke stopped walking and stared up into the heavens. He hadn’t told her. He hadn’t said the words that would make being separated even harder. The words welled in his chest, burned on his tongue, blurred his vision and made the stars overhead streak together. They’d been there for so long, for an eternity, without recognition or expression. They tore from his throat like a volcanic explosion.

  “I love her!” he shouted across the water and his tortured voice echoed back to him: I love her-er-er! “I love Annie Sweetwater!” I love Annie Sweetwater-ater-ater.

  A frog or a turtle splashed into the water from the nearby bank.

  The night remained as silent as death, the stars bright pinpoints of icy brilliance. She knew. And she felt the same.

  Her frustration must be a hundred times as bad as his, because she couldn’t ride out her release, couldn’t shout to the heavens, couldn’t work up a sweat over the forge and purge her mind and body with work.

  The toe of his boot came in contact with a good-size rock. He kicked it and winced at the pain that shot through his foot. Picking up the heavy stone, raising both hands over his head, he heaved it as far as he could into the water.

  After a satisfying splash, a ring of circles expanded in increasing sizes in the moonlight.

  But she loved him. He’d stopped the words from falling from her sweet lips. In her heart she was his.

  Now he had to find a way to make her his in all respects. He needed a house. That was the first order of business. And he set his mind to planning just how he could make that happen. He would build Annie a house. And then he would make her his wife. And then he could stop scaring night creatures and maybe even sleep…in her arms.

  Luke mounted the horse and kicked him into a run.

  Chapter Eight

  Luke sat in the lobby of the bank, the warmth of the summer morning not enough to cause the heat prickling along his spine and the moisture forming on his upper lip. He withdrew the handkerchief he’d tucked into the inside pocket of his best worsted wool coat and dabbed at his skin, hoping no one noticed.

  He’d never done this. He’d never had to ask anyone for money. He’d built his livery the hard way, the honest way,
through sweat and labor, a dollar at a time, a horse at a time, a board at a time, until his dream had taken shape.

  He’d hoped, planned maybe, in the back of his mind, that it would never come to this—that he’d never be sitting here—never be asking for a loan. But when life boiled down to just the bare facts, Annie meant more than his pride.

  The man at the one open teller window cast him another quizzical glance from behind steel bars. The bald-headed man sitting at a desk outside Eldon Sweetwater’s office had been eyeballing Luke ever since he’d arrived forty-five minutes ago. Luke’d never been inside this bank before. He didn’t trust his money here, and he’d never doubted the wisdom of that choice.

  As luck would have it, Burdell arrived through the front door just then, did a double take when he saw Luke sitting in the straight-backed chair, and with a scowl, marched to his father’s office and entered without knocking.

  The bald fellow jerked his gaze from Luke to a stack of papers in front of him. Undoubtedly Sweetwater had deliberately kept Luke waiting just to see him sweat.

  Finally, several irritated swipes of the handkerchief later, Burdell opened the door. “Come in, Mr. Carpenter.”

  Luke crossed the floor and stepped into the lion’s den. Burdell entered behind him and jabbed a finger at a chair.

  Luke glanced around the handsomely furnished office, from the enormous glossy desk topped with brass accessories and a humidor to the leather chairs and the painting of a fox hunt on the wall over a library table.

  Eldon Sweetwater sat in the chair behind the desk, calmly puffing on a cigar. They had spoken in the months since Luke had opened the livery. The man who’d owned and operated the old one had been glad to retire and move to Nebraska to live with his son. The Sweetwaters had no choice if they wanted to rent a rig; they were forced to do business with Luke…but they didn’t have to be civil. They used his rigs and his horses and they paid him and left. They didn’t like it one bit.

  “You must have a good reason for being here.” Eldon folded his hands over his stomach.

  Burdell made himself comfortable in a chair and crossed one ankle over his knee to watch.

  They hadn’t lynched him at the door, so Luke took encouragement from that small fact. “It’s business.”

  “I don’t have any business with you,” Eldon replied.

  Maybe he should start over. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  The man said nothing.

  “I’ve come to ask for a loan. To build a house.”

  Sweetwater raised his brows, looked at his son, then back at Luke. “You didn’t need my help before.”

  He referred to the livery. Luke hadn’t wanted to ask for help then any more than he did now. But things had changed. “I managed the livery on my own. Now I need a loan.”

  “Takes a lot of money to build a house.”

  Luke nodded. “I think you can see that I’m reliable and hardworking. I’m good for the money.”

  “Loans require collateral.”

  “I have the livery. You know that.”

  “Free and clear?”

  “I paid cash for every last nail.”

  “I’m supposed to be impressed, I imagine.”

  “Not at all. But you know I’m good for it.”

  “I don’t know that. You could default on the loan.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Things happen.”

  “Then you’d get the livery.” He had to swallow hard to get that one out.

  “I have no use for a livery.”

  “You’d sell it. It’s worth a pretty penny and it’s making money now.”

  “Then why don’t you pay for your own house?”

  “Well, I haven’t made that much money. Not yet anyway. But I will. I’m the only farrier in sixty miles.”

  Eldon leaned back into his leather chair and puffed until a cloud of smoke circled his head. “Dirty work,” he said and brushed a speck of lint from his tailored sleeve with a clean uncallused finger.

  Burdell made a point of casually examining his fingernails, and Luke held no doubt there wasn’t a speck of dirt under a one of them.

  The warmth of slow-mounting anger inched its way up Luke’s collar. He kept his own work-roughened hands on his thighs and refused to look down at the nails he’d scrubbed for ten minutes that morning. “It’s honest work.”

  The older man’s brows lowered in disapproval. He deliberately waited before speaking again. “Do you have anything else to use as collateral? Jewelry? Gold?”

  “Horses.”

  “I don’t have much use for horses, either.”

  Luke’s anger mounted. The horses would bring plenty at auction and they all knew it. The man was baiting him. He took several even breaths and relaxed his hands on his thighs. “I’m asking honestly for a loan, Mr. Sweetwater. You can turn me down for any reason you choose. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t have a need.”

  “Seems for a man in your position, a house would be a luxury.”

  “You judge every man who comes in for a loan?”

  “It’s necessary for me to judge a man’s ability to pay my investment back. Banks don’t stay in business by losing money.”

  “I can pay it back.”

  Leaning forward, Eldon placed his cigar on the edge of a brass ashtray and stood. “I’m not convinced. You’re not a good risk. This meeting is over.”

  Luke met Burdell’s eyes, but surprisingly they revealed only mild interest in the exchange. He’d expected gloating or in the very least superiority.

  Eldon had turned him down flat.

  He’d expected as much, so the humiliation didn’t consume him. This was Annie’s father, and though he didn’t think he owed the man undue respect, he felt obliged to keep things civil. He extended his hand. “Well, I thank you for your time.”

  Eldon acted as though he hadn’t seen the gesture or heard the words. “Do you have those ledgers prepared?” he asked Burdell.

  Burdell stood and gathered a pile of account books from the top of a wooden cabinet.

  Luke dropped his hand to his side. He gathered his composure and exited the office. The hairless man outside the door stared as he passed. The man at the teller window gave him a nod.

  Standing on the dirt in the street, Luke loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top button of his good white shirt and glanced at his nails. The Sweetwater bank would have been the most convenient to do business with. But it wasn’t the only bank in the county. He could take the deed to his property and ride to Fort Parker.

  After making arrangements with Burt, he packed provisions for a night and saddled a horse.

  During the ride he had plenty of time to regret going to the Sweetwaters’ bank. Father and son were probably laughing their guts out right about now. What had he thought would happen? That the man would have a sudden change of heart? If he knew the house was for Annie, would it make one bit of difference or would it make him fight Luke all the harder? The latter, he feared.

  A suitor was supposed to approach a man for his daughter’s hand. The way Luke had been going about this made him uncomfortable. But what choice did he have? It was this way or no way. The Sweetwaters would never give him the time of day without a fight.

  He wanted Annie. And he was ready to fight.

  In the afternoon shade of a trellis of yellow and crimson nasturtium, Annie sat in her chair on the brick walk that wound through the Sweetwater’s dooryard garden. June had arrived and with it a profusion of dog’s tooth violets and bloodroot, but only a few brief notes from Luke. The time had at least passed more quickly when she’d had a tutor coming each day.

  Once she’d had a female tutor who’d lived with them for almost three years. Miss Brimley had been a patient and kindhearted teacher, but a confidante and friend as well. She’d met and married a baker and moved to Oregon, and Annie had missed her for months. She received an occasional letter, but Miss Brimley was a part of her life that was past.

  She plucked a
white petunia and twirled the coarse velvety stem between her thumb and forefinger, watching the flower spin. Each season she’d entertained herself in the garden for hours.

  It seemed she’d lived her whole life in the past or the future, either remembering how good or bad a particular time had been or looking forward to something better. The present was never quite fulfilling—never anything special to try to hold on to.

  Except when she was with Luke. When they were together, she would give anything to stop time and live in those moments forever. Too bad life didn’t work like that. Too bad she couldn’t make the brief moments with him longer than the endless days and long nights, longer than each unendurable week without him, by simply wishing it.

  The sound of a rig caught her attention. She couldn’t see the street from her position behind the house, but the noise stopped and didn’t continue past. After several minutes Charmaine found her.

  “Uncle Mort let you come by yourself?” she asked.

  “No, Mama came, too. She’s inside.”

  “Oh.” Annie wrinkled her nose. “I suppose Mother will expect us to join them for tea.”

  Charmaine sighed. “I suppose.” She pushed Annie toward the stone bench over which a blooming trellis of climbing fern arched and plopped down on the stone bench. “I have something for you.”

  “What is it?”

  Charmaine drew a folded slip of paper from the reticule on her wrist.

  “Oh!” Annie pounced upon the missive and her cousin laughed.

  She opened the note and read the few heartwarming words: “I can’t bear another week. Tonight. Same place.”

  Annie clutched the note to her breast, anticipation already lifting her spirits.

  “What does he say?”

  “You didn’t read it?”

  Charmaine stuck her lower lip out. “Of course not.”

  “He says he has to see me.”

  “How positively romantic.”

  “He wants to marry me.”

  “How could that ever be? Your parents won’t allow it.”