by Jillian Hart
“But it’s not Sunday.” He plunged his hands into his coat pockets, perhaps to disguise they were still clenched into fists. “What were you doin’ at church?”
“I wanted to meet the minister, since he will be marrying us.” She felt uneasy with Tom. All that rage, where had it come from? Where had it gone? “What are you doing in the sheriff’s office?”
“I was nearly robbed today and that blasted—”
“Tom!” she exclaimed. He’d sworn, something he’d written in his letter he never did.
“Pardon me for swearing.” Anger leaked out in a huff, and as if remembering himself he blew out a breath, rearranged his face and tried again. “I meant to say, I was carrying a sack of pig feed out to my sled and found someone going through my groceries. Worthless riffraff, just helping himself to what’s mine.”
“Worthless riffraff?” That was no way to talk about another human being. “If someone was stealing groceries, perhaps they were in need—”
“Not my concern.” He untied the mare, who took a step away from him. “I was innocent, but the sheriff hauled me in like a criminal. They just let that kid—”
“What kid?” Christina asked, but she knew anyway. A bad feeling gripped her stomach.
“Oh, some filthy kid.”
“Did he have green eyes, sandy hair and a black coat?” She knew it was true even when Tom didn’t answer. She couldn’t believe it. The way he’d spoken of Toby, a little boy, made her blink back tears. “You didn’t press charges against him, did you? Is he safe with the sheriff?”
“You’re worried about that kid and not me?” Tom yanked hard on the reins. Too hard. The mare whinnied in pain. “You’re my intended, Christina. You accepted my proposal. I deserve your respect. You need to be worried about my feelings, not some—”
“You didn’t answer my question, Tom.” Disappointment hit her hard. She staggered, clutching the hitching post for support. He wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t the husband she needed. “I saw you talking with the sheriff, but I didn’t see Toby. Where is he? Answer me.”
“Let’s get this straight right here and now.” He rose up greater than his nearly six-foot height. “You don’t give the orders around here. Now get in the sled. I’ll drive you to Mildred’s.”
“I’d rather walk.” The wind shifted, driving icy flakes into her face. They caught on her lashes and struck her cheeks like tears. Tom was not her knight in shining armor. He was not the man he’d promised to be.
“You disappoint me. You’re not the woman I expected.” Tom marched around the far side of the mare, lost in the swirl of newly falling snow.
What was happening to her life? It was supposed to be getting better, but instead it felt as if it were falling apart. She watched Tom hop into the sled, snap the reins and the gray mare lunged forward, pulling him away from the boardwalk until the haze of the storm swallowed him.
“He wasn’t being honest with you, miss.” A deep voice boomed with sympathy. The sheriff stood in the open doorway, the door Tom had left open when he’d stomped from the office. “That wasn’t what happened with Toby.”
“Is he all right?”
“Sure, he is. He’s a few doors down with the marshal. Just so you know, Tom tried to use a whip on the boy. Toby says he wasn’t hurt, but if he had been, I’d have thrown Tom in jail.” The sheriff’s tone left no doubt about that. “There’s something else. Not many folks know this, but I’m the sheriff around here so I make it my business to keep an eye on things. You are the third lady come to town to marry Tom. Last summer, a woman was here three days and got back on the train. A second lady fled after a week.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected Tom’s lies about the other women he’d proposed to. Tom had called himself a good, Christian gentleman in his advertisement. She’d expected more of a man who called himself a Christian.
“You need anything, miss, you come by anytime.” The lawman gripped the knob, ready to shut the door. “My office will help any way we can.”
For some reason, the sheriff’s kindness hurt like a blow. He was offering her a hand because they both knew she couldn’t marry Tom Rutger. There would be no Christmas Eve wedding, no happy marriage, no one to love and no home of her own. Her dreams shattered as quietly as the snow falling in the street. She was alone again.
Chapter Seven
“Christina?” Elijah’s heart stopped at the sight of her standing in the swirling cold, gripping the boardwalk rail as if the thin piece of wood was all that kept her upright. He left Toby by the warmth of the stove and fled into the cold with no coat or hat to stave off the blast of northern wind.
“Are you all right?” he called out.
Of course she wasn’t. Dumb thing to say. He rolled his eyes. He’d been so preoccupied with Toby’s situation that he hadn’t been watching out the front window. If he had, he might have noticed what had stolen her smile.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t look up. As he marched closer, his boot strikes muffled by the fast-accumulating layer of white, she squared her slim shoulders and forced the sadness from her eyes. Pure, true blue gazed back at him and he felt a spark in his soul.
“Marshal Gable.” Her forehead creased in adorable furrows, just visible beneath her cap. “I hear Toby had a scare. I’m so sorry for my fiancé’s role in it.”
“The kid will be all right. Something tells me he’s endured worse. He’s wolfing down an early supper.” Keeping a respectful distance, he gestured toward the office window, two doors down. “We’re trying to sort out the problem of what to do with him for the night. I haven’t contacted the territorial agency yet.”
“You’re sending him to an orphanage?” She breezed closer.
“That’s protocol. Not much I can do about it,” he answered, doing his best to sound distant instead of concerned. It was tough trying not to care so much for her; it was tearing his heart out. “For tonight, we’re waiting. All it takes is a telegraph from Helena, and he’s on the train to the closest orphanage.”
“I’ve been praying for a home for him.” Sadness layered her voice. “Maybe it’s not meant to be.”
“I hate to think so.” Elijah held the door open for her when a wind gust rattled it. “I volunteered to find him a place for the night. No one in our office has room for him. The sheriff has offered his sofa, but I was hoping Toby could stay with someone he knew. I was going to check if Mildred had an unrented room she could spare.”
“She’s booked full. I overheard her saying so this morning when I came up for breakfast.”
“Well, so much for that.”
“I could take him.” She tugged off her cap, static crackling through the soft cloud of her hair. Rich brown satin that shone almost russet in the late-day’s light. “My room is small, but we could make up a bed on the floor.”
“It’s a kind offer.” Relief filled him. He strode into the office, hardly feeling the winter’s chill because Christina was at his side. “Toby, look who’s here.”
The kid looked up, spotted Christina and blushed berry red. A piece of boiled potato dropped off his fork and he bowed his head, hiding his expression. “Howdy, Miss Christina.”
“It’s good to see you again, my friend.” She settled beside him on the bench. “The last time our paths crossed, you ran away before I could make good on a promise.”
“Oh.” His face turned a deeper shade of crimson. “Sorry.”
“I’ve been worried about you.” She peeled off one worn mitten and the other. “I’ve even been praying for you.”
“You have?” The boy slumped as if in defeat. “I wish you hadn’ta done that.”
“Why not?” Christina asked in her gentle way.
Toby shrugged, misery curving his narrow shoulders. He stared at his plate, unable or unwilling to speak.
“Well, I’m going to make good on my chocolate cake promise,” she declared in the tone of a woman not used to being thwarted. “No one is going to stop me this time.”
“Toby, if I were you, I’d give in. Christina is a woman on a mission,” Elijah said, pouring a cup of tea for the lady.
“Yes, never stand in the way of me and a mission,” Christina agreed. Humor curved in the corners of her mouth, chasing away the sadness he’d seen earlier, but he knew it was there. He knew something was wrong.
He wished he had the right to help her. He wished she wanted him to be there for her, but her earlier words to him had been clear. He had to respect that. “I can help with your chocolate cake mission.”
“Excellent.” She took the cup he offered. “We’ll get Toby settled in my room at the boardinghouse.”
“What?” The kid’s head shot up. Wide eyes filled with panic.
“It’ll be okay.” Elijah used his most reassuring voice. “Nothing bad will happen to you. You’ll be safe with Christina, and I’ll be right upstairs. Plus, there are those two pieces of chocolate cake to think about.”
Toby bit his lip, looking like his world had ended. Funny, dessert usually had a different effect on kids.
Elijah ruffled the boy’s hair, and a fatherly sort of tenderness touched him. Surprised him more than anything could. “Go ahead, and finish up your meal. Then we’ll head over to the boardinghouse.”
“I was gonna sweep up here first,” Toby said around a mouthful of meat loaf. “I’m a real good sweeper.”
“I’m sure you are. But we’ve got Burke for that,” Elijah said.
“Hey, I heard that,” came an answer from the far corner, where the other marshal sat, finishing up his daily paperwork.
“So finish up eating, kid, but I need your most solemn promises. One that you can’t break.”
“Whadda I hafta promise?” Toby swallowed hard, his fork landing on his plate with a clink.
“You can’t run away like last time. Do you understand?” Elijah thought of all the dangers in the world to a boy alone. “I mean to help you, and so does Christina. Can you stay and trust us to do that?”
He felt the blaze of her gaze on him and the weight of her quiet scrutiny. He did his best to hide his tenderness from her.
“Okay, I promise. It’s gotta be better than the lean-to at the feed store.” Toby hopped off the bench and landed with a two-footed thump. He set down his empty plate, the lamplight emphasizing a spattering of freckles across his nose. “I’ll be real good, Miss Christina.”
“I know you will.” She set aside her teacup to smooth the tangle of hair from his forehead. The kind gesture moved Elijah in a way he couldn’t explain.
“Does you arm hurt real bad?” Toby’s eyes shone with the sadness of an old man’s, as if he carried the weight of the world.
“Not anymore. The swelling has gone down and I can move my fingers, see?” She demonstrated with a dazzling smile.
“I’m real sorry you got hurt.”
“That’s sweet of you, but I’ll be as good as new in no time, don’t you worry.”
Toby was a good kid. He just needed a chance. Elijah shrugged into his coat, surprised at the idea taking root. He couldn’t help thinking of his house and all those empty rooms. He wanted to talk over the pros and cons with Christina but he couldn’t reach out to her. She needed distance between them, and that’s what he’d give her. He opened the door, careful not to look at her.
“Thanks, Elijah.” Toby gazed up at him, buttoning his coat. “It ain’t better being alone.”
“No, it’s not.” He rubbed the top of the kid’s head, not sure at all what he was feeling, but he feared a decision had been made without his being really aware of it.
“Oh, Elijah.” Christina stopped in the threshold, a knowing look in her eyes, as if she could see his thoughts. She looked at him, as if he’d hung the moon and the sun. “I can’t believe what you are going to do.”
His chest cinched tight in one painful twist. The love he’d been holding back? It crashed free like a dam breaking, drowning him in a flash flood.
Rotten timing, he thought. That’s what the two of them had. He watched her join Toby on the boardwalk, the wind dancing through her hair, the cold wind kissing her face. It felt like dying to try to reel in his affections, but he failed. No, nothing, not even his iron will could drive the warmth from his heart. It was here to stay. She would marry another, he would spot her in town or in church with her husband, and later with their children.
From a distance and through the years to come, he knew he would always love her.
* * *
“And I get to sleep in here?” Toby grasped the door frame, as if afraid to step into Christina’s room. He took in the coal heater, the comfortable armchairs and the numerous quilts folded on the trunk beneath the small window. “It’s like a dream like this.”
“Every once in a while dreams come true.” Christina knelt beside the narrow straw tick Elijah had brought out of storage, thanks to Mildred, and tucked the top sheet into a tidy corner fold. “You never know what good turn your life is about to take.”
“If you hope for that all the time, then you just get disappointed.” Toby leaned against the doorjamb, still not able to make eye contact with her. “Good things don’t last long.”
“Sometimes that’s true, but not always.” She shook out a quilt and spread it across the sheet. “But when I was a little girl in the orphanage, I was so unhappy and afraid.”
“You were an orphan, too?”
“And then I was adopted when I was three, almost four. My new parents were wonderful, but they could only afford one child.” She smoothed the wrinkles from the quilt, feeling the old hurt behind her eyes. She’d desperately missed her sisters, who’d been left behind. She could hardly remember their faces, and the loss of the locket with the images of them hurt like a spear to the chest. It felt as if her past was truly gone, as if the last link to her family was broken.
And with what she knew about Tom and his wish for a barn worker as a wife, she feared there might not be a happy family in her future.
“I seen kids adopted where I was.” Toby took one hesitant step in, as if afraid to believe, afraid to trust. “Some of the men and ladies looked like they’d be real nice to a boy, but none of ’em ever picked me.”
“I can’t think why not.” She tucked the end of the quilt beneath the mattress and stood. “You seem like a fantastic little boy to me.”
“I ain’t little anymore.” Toby’s chin shot up, like a tough man of the world. “I can take care of myself.”
“You don’t have to worry about that for tonight.” She plumped a pillow and set it in place. “There. That should be comfortable for you. Can you tell me what happened today with the man and the whip?”
“He caught me digging in his groceries. He was real scary, but I was in the wrong.” Toby reluctantly plunked down on the chair.
“It was an actual horsewhip?” Her insides went cold at the thought, remembering the scars on the gray mare’s flanks and Tom’s heroic story of rescuing the horse.
“Yep. He pulled it out from beneath the seat.” Toby’s face heated. “I jump real fast so he missed me.”
“A grown man should never take a whip to a child.” Molten-hot anger bubbled in her stomach. The sheriff’s words returned to her, reminding her she wasn’t the only woman duped by Tom’s seeming honesty. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
“Me, too.” The lump near Toby’s temple was almost gone, the bruise yellowing.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked.
“A blacksmith. I like banging things with a hammer, and I like horses real well. I can look in their eyes and know what they’re feelin’, so I think I’d be real good at smithin’. If someone would show me how, I could do it. Then I wouldn’t hafta go back to the orphanage.”
“The territory isn’t going to let a child live on his own.” Elijah strode into the room and into the spill of light. “Someone has to look out for you, T
oby.”
“You mean, like the lady at the orphanage?” He bit his bottom lip. What a sweetie, Christina thought, with those honest clear eyes and freckles. With his tousled, flyaway hair and boyish vulnerability.
“Maybe we can find someone better than that lady. That’s what I promised to try to do, right?” Elijah handed over a dinner plate with two generous slices of chocolate cake. “Fresh from the dining room. Mildred cut them big especially for you.”
“Oh, thank you.” Toby’s eyes went as wide as saucers. He grabbed up the fork and dug it into the nearest chunk of cake. “Would you really find someone better?”
“You have my word of honor.” Elijah’s reassurance rang low and trustworthy, a promise made to always be kept, to always be held true. “You can count on me, Toby. Right?”
“Okay.” Toby swallowed hard. Trusting didn’t come easy to him, but he was trying.
She turned her back, trying not to let her admiration for the man build any higher or it just might knock the roof off the boardinghouse. One day a woman was going to capture his interest, and she would be everything he deserved—lovely, kind and devoted. As beautiful as he was handsome, and suited to his upstanding position in the community. Christina’s chest tightened, thinking of that future. She wanted the best for him. She didn’t know why her heart ached so.
“I’ll go fetch more coal.” Elijah left the boy to his dessert. He couldn’t meet her gaze either as he slipped by her, seemingly taking up all the space in the narrow room. “I’m sure you two are settled for the night and then I’ll get out of your way.”
“And I’ll do my best to keep him from going out the window.” She followed him into the hall, into the alcove at the base of the staircase. Sounds from the lobby and dining room filled the air. “Maybe you should know. You’re not in the way.”
“Okay.” He hesitated with one foot on the bottom step. “Thank you for taking him.”
“It’s no problem.”