Blacksmith Brides

by Amanda Barratt

  Had she not told him she’d never intentionally hurt him? Could he not allow himself to believe her?

  Lord … She sighed. Help Bo see, please.

  By the time she reached the smithy, a boulder almost crushed her chest. Ethan stood at the doorway, face pale as a cacophony erupted from inside. Leah dashed to her brother’s side to see Bo jerk a wooden box from a shelf and fling it with all his might. Metal pieces scattered across the workbench, floor, and shelves. It obviously wasn’t the first he’d hurled.

  Box empty, he slammed it on the ground and leveled a vicious kick to the container. It crashed into the wall and splintered.

  “Bo!” Heart pounding, she waded inside, careful not to slip on the cluttered floor. “Stop, please.”

  As if he didn’t hear, he jerked another box, this one larger, from a shelf.

  “Bowdrie Allen, talk to me!”

  He turned, eyes flashing. “I got nothing to say right now, woman. Get out.”

  “Don’t you speak to my sister like that,” Ethan roared. He charged across the room and slammed into Bo, managing to knock him down, though Ethan landed on his backside.

  The man drew his wounded hand to his chest and swore under his breath. “Stupid kid.”

  Before she could stop herself, Leah landed a hard smack to his cheek, and for one horrifying moment, they locked gazes. His jaw clenched, his eyes smoldered, and he almost shook—but he didn’t lift a hand against her.

  Her eyes brimmed. “Don’t you ever say such a thing to my brother or sisters again. Ever.”

  As she turned to help Ethan to his feet, the boy’s eyes grew huge.

  “No, Bo! Not—”

  Leah turned to see him hurl something—long and cylinder-shaped—at the far wall. It struck with a clang and clattered into pieces.

  Looking like he’d been gutted, Ethan rose. “I made those! I made that brace, and you destroyed it.”

  All the fire in Bo’s demeanor drained then. “Oh God. Oh God in heaven, what have I done?”

  “You ruined it.” Ethan backed away. “You ruined everything.”

  “Ethan.” Bo choked his name. “Wait. Please!”

  The boy ran, leaving her to face Bo alone.

  “Leah, I’m so sorry.” He breathed the apology, reaching for her hand.

  “Don’t.”

  At the vigorous shake of her head, he pulled back. “Tell me what I can do to make it up to you.”

  “I don’t think you can.”

  Bo sat in the smithy, the brace he’d thrown lying on the desktop in pieces, it’s unblemished mate beside it. For hours, his thoughts had swirled from the incidents at the church to his rage in the shop to Ethan and Leah running out.

  “God, I really messed up.” And there was no fixing it. No sense even asking for a miracle. He should’ve tried harder to push her away—saved them both this painful outcome. It was a false hope that he’d ever be capable of true friendship or love.

  A sharp rap at the entrance drew Bo’s attention, and Sheriff Yeldin stepped into the doorway. The lawman’s gaze traveled the room.

  “Something happen in here?”

  It figured Yeldin would stop by. He always seemed to show when things turned bad.

  “I happened.” The admission heaped more shame across his shoulders.

  “You busted up your own place?”

  “I was angry. Reckon you know why.”

  “I do.” Yeldin paused. “You still angry?”

  “Reckon not.” Not since he saw the hurt in Ethan Guthrie’s eyes. Hurt he’d inflicted. In its place grew shame, embarrassment, hatred of just how broken and ugly his life truly was, but no, the fight was gone.

  The sheriff nodded to the chair near the anvil. “Mind if I sit?”

  Bo waved at the chair.

  Yeldin picked his way over, dragged the chair back, and sat. “Need you to hear me out on something.”

  Bo closed his eyes. “Go on.”

  “I know you as well as anyone, don’t I?” At his nod, Yeldin continued. “You’ve told me about your upbringing.”

  “Yeah.” Where was the lawman going with this? Not in the direction Bo had thought. He’d expected to be run out of town, but that didn’t appear to be the sheriff’s direction.

  Yeldin started to speak. “I, uh, I talked to your brother, and the story he told is different than yours.”

  His insides went numb. “You sayin’ I lied?”

  “No, sir.” His friend’s tone was firm but compassionate. “As a lawman, I find the truth amongst all the various stories people tell me. I listened to the tale Reese told then tried to marry it up to yours. I think you’re both saying what you believe to be right, but I think there’s an angle neither of you considered.”

  “Yeldin, I’m tired. Spit it out.”

  “Will you talk to your brother—with an open mind?”

  Anxiety knotted his muscles. “You’re asking a lot.”

  “It’s important, Bo.”

  A war waged in Bo’s thoughts. Reese didn’t deserve any more of his time. But Yeldin hadn’t steered him wrong yet. If he said it was important …

  “If anybody other than you asked me, I’d say no.”

  “Then you’ll say yes?”

  Could this day get any worse? “Not happily. Where do I find him?”

  The sheriff walked to the smithy door, only to return with Reese and his wife.

  At their approach, Bo stood, nerves zinging.

  “Bo.” Reese nodded.

  His brother’s eyes were rimmed with black and his nose was badly swollen. Bo had expected to take satisfaction in that, but it only brought sadness. “Reese. Ma’am.” He cursed Yeldin silently. Today was not the day for this. Of course, no day was.

  “I’m Katie. Your sister-in-law.” She smiled, though her eyes were wary.

  He wouldn’t tell her it was a pleasure—not when it was so awkward. Instead, he lifted his chair and placed it next to the other. “Sit, if you want.”

  As they took the chairs, Bo opened one of the desk drawers and tossed a folded gunny sack to Yeldin. “Open that, would ya?”

  Puzzled, the lawman did so. Bo dropped the leg braces and all their broken parts into it. “Set that beside the desk for now.”

  Yeldin knotted the top and set it aside. Then Bo sat on one corner of the desk, the lawman leaning against the other.

  “Reese, go ahead.” Yeldin nodded.

  “You said something earlier that I didn’t understand.”

  Bo wasn’t an educated man. Didn’t know a bunch of highfalutin words. What could his brother possibly have misunderstood?

  “Your exact words were ‘God would say it’s wrong to sell your kin. Especially to the likes of Coop.’ What did you mean by that?”

  Bo squinted at the man. “Has your memory gone soft in the last twenty-four years?”

  “You think I sold you to Coop?”

  Bo leaned toward his brother. “He told me so himself, right before he marked me.”

  “Marked you?” Reese shook his head. “I don’t understand your meaning.”

  “I’ll make it real clear.” He stood, untucked his shirt, and drew the garment over his head, revealing Coop’s brand.

  Just like Leah had, Katie gasped. Pain flashed in Reese’s eyes.

  “A month after you walked out on me, I ran away, figuring to find you. Coop caught me a day later, hauled me back, and beat me. I tried again about three months later. Coop beat me again—worse that time. When I was able to stand upright once more, he burned his name in my chest and told me I belonged to him, that you’d sold fourteen years of my life into servitude in his smithy.” He narrowed his eyes. “I always wondered … what was fourteen years of my life worth to you?”

  Reese paled. “I didn’t sell you to him. Six months after Ma died, her friend, Anna, came to our house. She’d been away awhile, had married Coop, and they’d moved back to town. She wanted to introduce Ma to her new husband. Hearing of Ma’s death and what we were f
acing, Coop offered to take you in.” He pinned Bo with a firm stare. “He offered, Bo. I never tried to pawn you off on anyone.”

  “Maybe not, but when the opportunity presented itself, you jumped at the chance.”

  “Bo …” Yeldin warned. “Keep an open mind.”

  He fell silent.

  “Coop said they’d raise you until I could take over the job. It was the best chance we had to survive and make something of ourselves. But I was paying Coop and Anna for your upkeep. I started sending five dollars a month. A year later, Coop wrote, said he needed more. So I sent seven, then ten.”

  Bo chewed on that, his irritation growing. “That ain’t what Coop told me. I was forever reminded just how dear he paid for me.” Bo pulled his shirt back on then sat, fatigue stealing through him. “He’d always tell me how bad I musta been for my own kin to sell me like that. And how it cost him to save me from you.”

  Yeldin cleared his throat. “Here’s what I think. Coop saw two green kids who’d be easy to swindle. Reese, you were desperate for a way to keep your family alive. When Coop and Anna showed up, you took their help, not knowing Coop’d continue upping the money he required for Bo’s keeping. And Bo, he probably figured you’d grow up strong like your brother. Once Reese was out of the way, he could spin a few lies and have free labor for years.”

  Reese groaned. “I feel like such a fool. He played us, Bo.”

  “What were you paying him for?” Bo asked.

  “Clothes, shoes, food, doctoring. Whatever you needed.”

  “I never saw that money. I wore rags most of my youth. If I asked for anything, I was told how much they’d already spent for me.”

  Reese’s voice shook. “Of course you didn’t. He kept it.” He rocked to his feet and paced. “If I’d known, Bo, I never would’ve left you there. Please believe me.”

  “I don’t know what to believe. He said you sold me. You say you were paying for my upkeep. Either way, you abandoned me with no word.”

  Reese spun on Bo. “No. Not without word. I wrote you—one letter before I left to explain why I had to go. Then two a month. He promised to read them to you.”

  “He never read me nothin’.”

  Reese fairly shook as he paced again. “I knew you’d fight me if I told you I was leaving, so I left while you were asleep. Before I went, I took a piece of Ma’s pretty stationery—you remember, that pink paper she got so angry at you drawing on?”

  Bo’s recollection sparked.

  “I wrote you a letter on that stationery because I knew you’d recognize it. I said I was going to find a way to support us, but I’d be back, and that I loved you. That I’d write you as I got settled. I always wrote on Ma’s pink paper. At least until it ran out. Then I bought yellow.”

  Bo jerked. “Yellow?”

  Reese nodded. “I remember writing on that first yellow sheet—explaining why it wasn’t pink.”

  “Yellow …”

  Katie stood. “That means something to you, doesn’t it?”

  He moved toward the door. “Wait here, please.” He pinned Yeldin with a look. “All of you.”

  Bo nearly ran to his house and, barging through the door, opened the chest in the corner. He unloaded the top layers of clothing and blankets until he reached the treasures underneath. There, he opened the wooden box Ma gave him the Christmas before she died, and extracted its contents. Pink and yellow papers in hand, he stalked back to the smithy and thrust them toward Yeldin.

  “You did get them!” When Reese rushed forward, Bo leveled his splinted hand against his brother’s chest.

  “Those would show up every few weeks at Coop’s place, usually in the tinder bin. He never said they were letters for me. Neither Anna nor I could read, so we didn’t know what they were. But the pink paper reminded me of Ma, so when I could, I sneaked ’em out of the bin and hid ’em.” He shrugged. “It felt like finding a little piece of her.” He glanced the sheriff’s way. “Yeldin, I trust you. Please take any one of those and tell me what it says.”

  The lawman unfolded the top letter. “It says, ‘Bo, I hope you’ll understand someday. I have to leave for a while. I don’t want to, but there are no jobs here, and I have to find a way to support us. That’ll be harder if I have to keep watch over you while I’m doing it. That’s why I’m leaving you with Coop and Anna. They’ve promised to keep good care of you until I can take over that job. Things have been hard between us since Ma passed, but I hope you know how much I love you. I’ll write soon. Love, Reese.’”

  A boulder sat on his chest. He shot an awkward glance at each, ending with Reese. “You’re telling me the truth.”

  “Yes. The next letter I wrote said I’d found work in a factory in St. Louis. Later, how I got to know an attorney for the company, and he took a shine to me. Two years later, I came into his office and read the law. After four years of study, I became an attorney myself. Ever since, I’ve been trying to find you. Writing letters, making trips—”

  Katie sidled up next to Reese. “He wouldn’t rest until he found you. We even gave up our St. Louis home to travel the West these last few years, taking work where we could as we looked.”

  Bo could scarcely breathe. When Reese settled a gentle hand on his shoulder, a cry tore from Bo’s lungs. Reese pulled him close, settling their foreheads together as years of pain broke free in great body-shaking sobs.

  When he finally drew back from his brother and dried his eyes, they were alone, the nearest smithy door pulled partially closed. He must’ve looked confused.

  “Katie and the sheriff stepped out to give us some privacy.”

  Bo stared at his brother. “Never in a hundred years would I have thought we could stand in the same room without me wanting to kill you.”

  A lopsided smile crossed Reese’s lips. “Didn’t you try that this morning?”

  Laughter boiled from Bo’s gut, though it dissolved into another knot of emotion. He gulped several deep breaths to calm himself. “I am so sorry,” he whispered once he could trust his voice.

  “If a broken nose is the price of regaining my brother, I’d endure it again.” His gaze flicked to Bo’s hand. “What about your hand? Is it broken?”

  “I hit someone.” He relayed the details, and Reese cringed.

  “What possessed you to hit him?”

  He scuffed a boot on the floor. “I didn’t like what he was saying about a lady and her kin.”

  “Would that be the redhead at church? Katie thought she was someone special to you.”

  “Leah Guthrie.” His chest tightened. “I hoped she was becoming someone special, but I messed up pretty bad with her earlier.”

  “What’d you do?”

  Before he could answer, Sheriff Yeldin peeked in. “Bo? Ethan’s missing.”

  Chapter 13

  Hello, Mrs. Kelso.” Leah smiled at the barber’s wife. “You haven’t seen my brother Ethan today, have you?”

  She hoped for a more favorable reply than at the previous homes she’d checked.

  “No, dear,” the gray-haired woman said. “Not since church this morning.”

  The rock that filled the pit of her stomach grew by half. She’d checked every house on Mrs. Kelso’s street, and Hope was canvassing the next. Dusk was upon them, and no one had seen Ethan since he ran from Bo’s shop.

  One of the foul words the McCready boy had uttered rumbled through her thoughts, and her cheeks burned.

  Lord, forgive me that thought, and please … help me find Ethan.

  “Thank you for your time.” She turned toward the street, but Mrs. Kelso called out.

  “Quite a kerfuffle at church today, wasn’t it?”

  She shuffled to a halt. Was she about to be blamed for disrupting the service? It wouldn’t be the first time. While the disruptive actions were Bo’s alone, there was that element in the church that cast blame on her for inviting him.

  “It was something. Now if you’ll excuse me, I—”

  “That Bowdrie Allen near
ruined dinner on the grounds.”

  Oh, he’d done more than ruin the picnic. He’d made her love him when he’d made Mae’s braces, then he’d shattered her heart when he broke one.

  She smiled. “I understand why you’d think that, ma’am.”

  The woman’s sanctimonious tsk-tsk grated on Leah’s nerves, and she lifted her chin. “However, I would think one so upstanding as you would be more concerned about his interrupting the fine sermon, not the dinner.”

  The woman’s eyes rounded. “Well. Believe you me, I was.”

  “As I suspected.” Leah gave a syrupy smile.

  “Rumor is you’ve been keeping company with Mr. Allen.”

  Her hackles rose. She wouldn’t defend her actions to this old busybody. Particularly since she wouldn’t continue to keep company with Bowdrie Allen.

  She mustered her sweetest tone. “Now, Mrs. Kelso. The book of James says anyone who thinks themselves religious but doesn’t bridle their gossiping tongue, their religion is in vain.” She smiled again. “I wish I could stay, but I must find my brother.”

  The woman gasped as Leah marched toward the street again.

  With a sigh, she turned at the corner to find Hope.

  She’d left the awful scene at the smithy in tears but had somehow managed to collect herself enough to return to the church and gather her sisters. They’d searched town in hopes of finding Ethan, but he’d disappeared. She’d not panicked then. The boy was plenty capable of walking home. But when the Petersons stopped by late that afternoon, her worry had reached a fever pitch. Mr. Peterson accompanied them into town to tell Sheriff Yeldin while Mrs. Peterson stayed with Mae in case Ethan returned home.

  Rounding the corner, she found Hope walking her way.

  “Anything?” she called out.

  Her sister scowled. “No sign of Ethan, but that Burl McCready is awful.”

  “Why? Did he hurt you?”

  “He threw a rock at me.”

  “He what?” Leah looked her sister over. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Those boys were prowling around, so I tried to ask ’em about Ethan. They darted into an alley without answering me, so I followed, and when I got close, I could hear Burl urging little Jess to do something he obviously didn’t want to do. Jess kept asking what would happen if they were caught.”