A Timeless Romance Anthology: Old West Collection Page 14

  When her feet touched the ground, he didn’t move away.

  “Susannah…” His voice had a husky timbre. He stood so close, she could feel his body heat.

  She touched his face lightly, fingertips grazing over the rough patch on his cheek, feeling the texture of the stubble on his jaw line. She felt his arms encircle her, pressing her to him, and as she ran a hand through his raven hair, she knocked off his hat. Ignoring the loss, she put her arm around his neck and raised her mouth to his. Feeling the moistness of his lips, her own parted, and she abandoned herself to a flood of hunger and desire, things she hadn’t felt for such a long time. His breathing quickened, and she could feel his pulse under her fingers at his temple, beating in time with her own.

  When his lips moved to her cheek and then to her hair, she held him close and murmured, “Oh, Wesley.”

  He stiffened. He pulled away, and she opened her eyes. He was still breathing hard, but he wasn’t looking at her.

  “Douglas? What’s the matter?”

  He didn’t answer, but shook his head as he bent to pick up his hat. He slapped it against his knee to get the dust off.

  “Douglas?”

  “The devil of it is, you don’t even know.”

  Realization began to dawn. She had called him by the name of her dead husband. Susannah’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean it.”

  Douglas began untying Sweetie’s lead rope.

  Susannah tugged at his shirt. “Douglas, please listen to me.”

  “There’s nothing for you to say. You already said it.” He turned to face her. “It’s another case of Wesley being everything I’m not, and there’s no way I can compete with a dead man.”

  She shook her head, tears running down her face. “That’s not the way it is.”

  He gave the watering trough a vicious kick. “Have you thought about the life you’da had with him? When the money ran out, what would you have lived on?”

  She had been thinking about it lately, and the fact that he voiced questions she had been reluctant to speak put her in a defensive mode. “That’s none of your business!”

  “How could he leave you like this, working from dawn to dusk, carrying buckets of water from the spring? I’ll bet he made sure you had plenty of those useless books. I’ll bet you have stacks of them.”

  She covered her ears. “I’m not going to listen to you say hateful things about him.”

  He replied, but with hands over her ears, she couldn’t hear. She could see the angry expression on his face, though, and it took the starch right out of her. She walked to the house and sank onto the porch, and when she looked up, he was astride the sorrel.

  He touched the brim of his hat. “I won’t stay for dinner. In fact, I’ll be eating at Gertie’s from now on. Good-bye, Miz Brown.” He kicked the sorrel to a lope.

  “Douglas, wait!”

  If he heard her, he didn’t respond, and he didn’t look back as he rode down the lane and out of her life.

  Chapter Ten

  Though she felt like holing up in her dark bedroom as she had when she lost Wesley, the sound of Lady announcing the discomfort of a distended udder made Susannah get out into the early morning sunlight and accomplish something. She milked the Jersey. Took care of the milk. Fed the chickens. Made cottage cheese. Slopped the pig. Walked to town to make her deliveries.

  Each night, as she ate a solitary supper, she realized how lonely it was without Douglas, and every time she turned on the tap and got running water, her heart ached for the man who’d made it happen.

  A week after the visit to the cemetery, she met Ivy Patterson in town. Susannah would have avoided the meeting, but Ivy popped out of the back door as she was handing the milk jug to the Pattersons’ cook.

  “Why, Susannah Brown. Are you ailing? You look positively haggard.” Ivy wore a dress of lavender cotton lawn, her dark hair piled high and ringlets falling artfully over one ear.

  “Good afternoon, Ivy.” Susannah wished she could leave right then, but the cook had gone to get the milk money.

  Ivy checked her image in the back door windowpane. “I suppose you know that Wesley’s brother, Douglas, has been having supper with us every day this week.”

  “Why would I know that?”

  “Family connection.”

  “He doesn’t live with his folks. I rarely see him.”

  “Oh?” Ivy raised one brow. “Fanny Miller saw you riding double out by the cemetery last week.”

  “Douglas gave me a ride home.” The cook appeared. Susannah gratefully pocketed the coins and turned to go.

  Ivy stepped in front of her. “When he was here yesterday, he mentioned to my papa that he’s thinking of marrying.”

  Susannah felt blood drain from her face. She put a hand on the door jamb for support.

  Ivy cocked her head. “I swear, Susannah, you look positively ill. Do you need a drink of water?”

  “No thank you, Ivy. I’m fine.” She pushed past and untied Sweetie, who was tethered to the fence. Walking as fast as she could, Susannah kept her head down, lest someone see her tears threatening.

  It was hard enough to think that she had lost Douglas, but that he would marry Ivy Patterson was too much to bear. Reaching Main Street, she turned at the corner by the courthouse and ran straight into a man as he stepped off the boardwalk into the street.

  She didn’t realize who it was as she apologized for the collision. He must not have known either, for when Douglas turned to face her, his eyes got wide. They stood for what seemed an eternity, neither speaking, gazing at each other.

  Finally he spoke. “Afternoon, Miz Brown. Are you not well?”

  “I’m fine.” But though she mouthed the words, no sound came out.

  Silence again.

  He gestured toward the courthouse. “I just came to town to fill out some forms. I’m getting ready for something I’m fixing to do.” He held up an official-looking document, complete with a seal.

  She moistened her lips and tried again. “Ivy told me.”

  “Did she? She wasn’t supposed to—” He frowned. “Never mind.” Touching his hat, he turned, bounded up the boardwalk stairs, and entered the general store.

  “Come on, Sweetie,” Susannah murmured. “Let’s drag our broken heart home.” She glanced back at the merchant’s door and saw Douglas watching her from the window.

  The walk back to Hidden Spring was the longest it had ever been, even longer than that first day when she had to carry two milk pails the whole way. Towering, black-bottomed clouds approached from the north, and she quickened her pace, not wanting to get caught in the rain.

  “That would really complete my day,” she told Sweetie.

  By the time she reached the lower pasture, the sky had turned inky. Thunder rolled across the canyon as jagged lightning bolts connected to the bluffs. Susannah took the saddlebags off and put Sweetie in the upper pasture.

  “Don’t be frightened,” she said. “If you were up on top, you might want to worry, but lightning won’t strike down here.”

  She did the evening chores early, but even so, she had to light the lantern to see to wash up. She wondered whether to leave Lady in the shed overnight, but figured it would probably be another dry lightning storm like the one they’d had last week. The shelter Douglas had built would protect her if it rained. She gathered the eggs and fed the chickens, noting they were roosting early, heads tucked under their wings. After mixing whey into the pig mash, she filled Percy’s trough, and as he smacked his lips over it, she scratched his bristly back.

  When everything was finally done, she retreated to the house and got ready for bed. She braided her hair, blew out the lamp, and lay there, feeling the cool breeze blowing down the ravine. She was grateful for the diversion of lightning flashes and the window-rattling thunderclaps that followed, because they took her mind off the image of Ivy standing at the altar with Douglas.

 
She finally fell asleep, only to be awakened sometime later by Percy’s high-pitched squeals. The storm seemed to have passed, but the moment Susannah opened her eyes, she knew something was terribly wrong.

  Chapter Eleven

  She couldn’t see anything because of the darkness, but a choking smoke filled the air, and a dull roar filled her ears, sounding like wind rushing down the canyon.

  With shaking hands, she found matches and lit the lamp. Turning up the wick, she carried the lamp outside. It was a moonless night, but the house had an orange halo behind it. Fear clutching at her heart, she ran past Percy’s pen to the back. Flames flared up from the ravine, and a blast of hot air hit her like an oven.

  Percy’s squeals were more frantic now, and Susannah dashed to the gate. Fumbling in the dark, she used precious moments figuring out how to undo a latch she’d opened without thinking every other day of her life. She held the gate wide and called the pig, but Percy was nowhere to be seen.

  The roaring in the ravine was getting louder now, and the crackling of pine and cedar was added to the noise. Smoke burned her eyes and made it harder to see. Holding up the lantern, she headed for the source of the keening cries and found the pig in a corner. She quickly set down the lantern then grabbed his hind legs and dragged him out the gate.

  “You’re on your own now,” she called as she pushed him toward the lane.

  Embers rained down from the sky— beautiful, glowing fireworks floating on the wind and landing all around. Some lodged on the cedar shingle roof of the house and began burning so brightly she didn’t need the lamp she’d left in Percy’s pen.

  Putting one arm over her nose, she raced to the chicken coop. She found the birds packed tightly against the wall, making plaintive cooing sounds. Holding her breath and squinting through streaming eyes, she gathered an armful of hens, ran outside, and flung them into the air.

  Just then, the old-man pinyon turned into a thirty-foot torch.

  She dashed back in, the light in the coop much brighter than before, making it easier to see the three remaining chickens. She grabbed them and ran.

  She didn’t stop running until she reached the upper pasture. Sinking to the grass, she watched as the house and everything she owned went up in flames.

  It didn’t take long for the house to burn to a skeleton. The loft crashed down, sending a cloud of sparks into the breaking dawn. After that, though fires continued to flicker, they were smaller, more localized blazes and not the massive conflagration that had engulfed the house.

  A small squawk reminded Susannah she still cradled three hens. She set them down and leaned against a fence post, trying to calculate what she had lost. All her clothing. All her savings. She wiggled her bare toes and added shoes to the list. She didn’t even have a milking bucket.

  About that time, she became aware of the sound of a horse approaching at a gallop. The morning was light enough that she could see as far as the lower pasture. Was it a sorrel? Her heart hammered in her chest.

  She stood and watched the rider approach. Something about the way he sat his horse told her it was Douglas, and when he called her name, she ran down the lane.

  They met at the middle pasture fence line. Douglas dismounted while the horse was still moving and held his arms wide. She ran to him, felt herself folded into an embrace, and immediately began to tremble.

  She couldn’t restrain the shaking or the wave of sobbing that swept over her. He didn’t say anything, just held her close until she regained control. Finally she spoke. “It came so fast. If Percy hadn’t woken me, I’d still be in there.”

  He gave her his handkerchief. “Bobby Schumacher told me there was a fire burning on the bluff, and I was afraid it had traveled down the ravine.”

  “It did.” She wiped her eyes. “I barely had time to save Percy and the chickens.”

  He touched a hole in her sleeve. “I can see how close. You’ve got charred places all over your nightgown. I should’ve cleared out the brush instead of building those shelters.”

  He put his arm around her waist, and they walked to where the remains of the house still smoldered. The only recognizable thing left was the cook stove. “When we build again, we’ll have a summer kitchen,” he said. “And running water. And indoor plumbing.”

  “Sounds wonderful, but how can that happen when you’re going to marry Ivy?”

  His jaw dropped and he turned to face her. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “From her. She said you’d been talking to her father about marrying.”

  “I talked to him about changing my name.”

  “Your name?” Susanna thought about that a moment. “I can understand how she’d get the pronoun wrong, but why do you want to change your name?”

  “For Papa. To say I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “He’ll like that.”

  He poked a pile of smoldering debris with the toe of his boot. “I’m sorry about the things I said that day after the cemetery.”

  “You were right when you said I had boxes of Wesley’s books. That’s a pile of them still burning over there. They’re all gone now.”

  “I’ve got one.”

  “Where did you—” She laughed in realization. “You picked it up the day I met you.”

  He nodded and began to recite, “‘Love, thou art like the waters that flow to Hidden Spring.’” He wouldn’t look at her, but his voice was warm and full of expression as he went through the whole poem.

  When he finished, she said, “For someone who learned to read late, you do pretty well.”

  He shrugged. “I read that poem every night before I go to bed.”

  “Even this last week?”

  “Especially this last week.” He dropped to one knee. “Love, will you change your name to mine?”

  “Um, if you’re going to be Douglas Brown, I wouldn’t be changing my name.”

  “Hadn’t thought about that.” He stood and took both her hands. “Then say you’ll marry me.”

  “I will.”

  He kissed her long and hard then, and she kissed him back, shedding the black heartache of the last week along with the ties to her widowhood.

  “Oh, Douglas,” she sighed.

  “Oh, Susannah,” he murmured as he bent down to kiss her again.

  Click on the covers to visit the Amazon page:

  New Mexican native Liz Adair lives in Kanab, Utah with Derrill, her husband of 50 years. A late bloomer, Liz published her first Spider Latham Mystery just as AARP started sending invitations to join.

  After writing three in the Spider Latham series, Liz moved into romantic suspense with best-selling The Mist of Quarry Harbor. Liz took a break from suspense to write Counting the Cost, a novel based on family history. The book won a 2009 Whitney Award and was a finalist for the Willa Award and Arizona Publisher Association’s Glyph Award.

  Cold River, a romantic suspense, followed, and now Liz is set to bring Spider Latham back to solve a mystery set in southern Utah’s red rock country. Entitled Trouble at the Red Pueblo, it will be released in early summer of 2014.

  Liz is a member of LDStorymakers and American Night Writers Association, and she chairs the annual Kanab Writers Conference. Visit her blog at www.sezlizadair.blogspot.com.

  Chapter One

  1885—Leadville, Colorado

  The Leadville church congregation had exactly nine eligible men. Well, ten, if Lydia Stone considered her new boss the marrying kind. But Mr. Erik Dawson was not the kind of man she could ever imagine kissing... And kissing would be required if she were to become a married woman before she turned the spinster age of twenty-seven.

  The heavy-set reverend of the Leadville congregation closed his sermon, and the choir started to sing. Lydia twisted her hands as the melody rose. As a young girl, she’d loved singing, but those days were over. Her father had been the one to teach her the hymns. After he died, Lydia hadn’t sung much. It was just too painful. God would have to be happy she was even at church. />
  She caught sight of Mr. Dawson sitting one pew in front of her to the far left— his back ramrod straight, as always. Lydia didn’t have to see his eyes to remember that they were deep green— like the shady side of a pine tree.

  Green eyes that could freeze a bear in its tracks. Over the past two weeks, Lydia had heard plenty of stern words from Mr. Dawson to his employees. She doubted that any of the miners cared for their boss, and she was certain he cared nothing for them. Like most of the mine owners, profit was the only concern in Leadville.

  Lydia could respect a stern businessman, yes, but not a hypocrite. She’d heard rumors about Mr. Dawson being sweet on a woman from one of the brothels. Though Lydia tried not to give much credit to gossip, having been the target of old gossips before, she knew there was always a grain of truth in rumors. The fact that Mr. Dawson was at church actually shocked her— a man who frequented the brothel had no place for his black heart inside a holy building.

  The only thing that gave Erik Dawson away as being the tiniest bit human was how his natural curls had fallen out of position, especially with his hat off, and it was now. Lydia forced herself to not steal a peek at the dark curls above his starched white collar.

  Lydia had been an employee of the Dawson Mining Company for a full sixteen days, but already in that short amount of time, she’d narrowed down her list of eligible men. She’d been to church twice and decided that’s where she had to pick from. Plenty of unmarried men worked in the silver mines high in the Colorado Rockies, but not many were churchgoers, preferring instead the atmosphere of one of the many saloons strewn along Main Street.

  Another of the bachelors sat by her— Mr. Parker— close enough she could tell he’d washed up before crossing the church’s threshold. That detail was important to Lydia; church attendance and cleanliness were at the top of her list of required attributes for a potential husband. Although Mr. Parker’s hands were grime stained from working in the mine. Lydia had seen miners scrub their hands with the harshest lye soap, only to have it make very little difference.