Texas Brides Collection (67 page)

When Lydia nodded, May continued.

“So when your mama told me what she had a mind t’do, I says to myself, is this of the Lord or is this somethin’ else? Well, I set to prayin’ and askin’ for Him to stop the foolishness of this if it wasn’t where He wanted you to be.” She leaned forward. “Next thing you know, she gets word from that woman at the school that you’d done a dance in the fountain. Well, that’s when I knowed for sure this was somethin’ that had to happen.”

Lydia leaned against the seat until the broken spring caused her to shift positions. She looked out at the passing landscape, so different from her New Orleans home, as she contemplated May’s words. They made no sense.

“You can’t mean that my mother planned this
before
I got myself sent home from school, May. That just isn’t possible.”

May sat back. “Oh, it’s more than possible. She been pondering on this plan for more’n a year. She say she was worried about your future. Your papa, he knowed about it, too, and he thought it was a bad idea, but only because he wanted you close by. I know he was much aggrieved by what might happen to you after he and the missus was gone.”

Lydia let May’s words sink in. “If that’s true, then why did he let me be sent off to Georgia to Miss Potter’s?”

“He thought you were being sent off to learn how to teach the young’uns. The reverend, he figured that’d be a good trade for you, what with your talent takin’ care of the little ones in the church nursery. When he found out your mama had lied to get you into that fancy boarding school instead of sending you to the teachers’ college, well, he ’bout hit the roof.”

So Papa wasn’t behind sending her off to Miss Potter’s school. That much she could believe. “Why didn’t he come get me when he found out?”

She shrugged. “Well, he never said so to me, but I figure your mama convinced him it would all work out just fine. She’s got a way of doin’ that with your papa.”

“Yes, she does.” Lydia studied her hands for a moment, then lifted her gaze to meet May’s stare. “Do you think Papa will come after me this time?”

May seemed to be considering the question. “I don’t rightly know,” she finally said. “But if I was you, I wouldn’t count on him comin’ right off. He gonna be in New York for two weeks—that’s what your mama said. We been gone a week now, so that means he ain’t even home yet. Far as he knows, you’re still up in Georgia gettin’ refined.”

“But once he comes home, do you think he’ll fetch me back then?”

May looked away. “I just don’t know, Miss Lydia.”

“Well, I do, May, and I’m just going to have to bide my time until he does.”

She gave Lydia a look. “What have you done?”

Lydia shrugged. “I wrote my father a letter and mailed it back at the Menger. I’m sure as soon as he reads it he’ll be on his way to fetch me back.”

“Miss Lydia, when will you learn?” She shook her head. “Your papa, he don’t disagree with this. He gave you a chance, and you didn’t take it. If he comes at all, it’ll be to see that you go through with it.”

The words struck fear in her heart. Then on second consideration she dismissed them. “You can’t be serious.”

“I can’t?” The older woman gave a tired sigh. “Think, chile. What does your papa want more than anything for your future?”

Trail dust swirled into the tiny coach. “That I be taken care of,” she said before giving in to a fit of coughing.

May nodded. “And how has he tried to do that?”

Lydia blinked the dust from her eyes and swiped at them with the backs of her sleeves. “By raising me in a Christian home and seeing that I developed a relationship with the Lord.”

“Uh-huh. And what else?”

She pondered a moment. “Well, by sending me to school and, oh…” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve done this to myself, haven’t I?”

May patted her hand again but said nothing.

Lydia lifted tear-filled eyes toward her former nursemaid. “What am I going to do now?”

“Only thing I know is if the Lord wants you home in New Orleans, He gonna stop all this foolishness, not you.”

The coach rolled past a sign announcing their destination. Any moment the coach would stop, and her new life would begin.

“Yes, but what do I do in the meantime?”

“You do what the Lord tells you, Miss Lydia. That’s always the right thing.”

They lurched forward as the coach halted before a primitive wooden building with a hand-lettered sign above the first floor. In a series of movements that felt like walking through water, Lydia left the coach and stood on a dust-covered walkway made of rough boards and marked by the occasional hole or missing board. To the right was an old woman staring at her from the doorway, her demeanor less than friendly. To the left a trio of roughs eyed her curiously before the coachman shooed them into the saloon.

She glanced down at the instructions Mama had given May, then up at the hand-lettered sign. So this was to be her new home, at least for now. According to Mama, her rent was paid for exactly two weeks. After that she was on her own.

As the driver hefted the first of her trunks onto the boardwalk, a panic like she’d never known before gripped Lydia. After she prayed, she covered the rising fear the way she always had—by squaring her shoulders and walking straight into it. Or, in this case, walking straight into the path of a cowboy who wore a black hat and a crooked grin.

S
cuse me, ma’am.” Caleb took a step backward and helped the little lady back onto her feet, then removed his hat and gave her a nod. “I’m real sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”

“As was mine. I do apologize.”

She was a pretty thing, no bigger than a minute, but with a voice as smooth as silk and a pair of big brown eyes that could cause a man to forget his troubles.

Well, most men might. Not him, though. His troubles were impossible to forget.

Then again, something told him so was this gal.

“You comin’, Cal?”

One more look at the big-eyed gal, and then he nodded and replaced his hat on his head. “Be right there, Ed. Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”

He trotted across the street, then took another look at the lady. A force of nature, she’d already disappeared, leaving a stack of trunks and a dark-skinned maid in her wake.

“Probably best you didn’t tangle with that one,” he said under his breath, although the sentiment didn’t reach his heart.

Not that he’d want a gal who looked so fragile. No, he liked a woman with a little meat on her bones. And while dark hair was nice, he’d always fancied blonds.

“What are you thinking, Wilson? Remember that prayer you prayed? There isn’t a woman alive who’d be interested in you, leastwise not until the Lord changes His mind.”

Then there was the issue of his freedom.

Caleb shrugged off his miserable self-pity to step into the sheriff ’s office. The smell hit him first, then the dust. He reeled backward trying to sneeze and cough all at once and nearly tripped over a pile of lumber that looked to have once been part of the roof.

When he recovered, he saw Ed standing in the door. “You okay, Cal?”

Straightening, Caleb swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Name’s Caleb, Ed, and I’m fine. Just wasn’t prepared, that’s all.”

“Yeah, looks like we got some cleaning and fixing to do in there.” Ed shrugged. “To tell you the truth, ain’t nobody been in there since Sheriff Merritt passed on last winter. The skunks must’ve moved in ’bout the time the sheriff moved out. The roof, well, you got me how that whole thing fell down like that. Must’ve happened when we had that big wind back in January. See, there’s an old piece of roof. I reckon we must’ve had some rotten timbers that didn’t cotton to being pounded.”

Caleb let his gaze sweep the office and adjoining jail cell. No sheriff or prisoners since last winter?

That surely told a man what sort of town Dime Box was. Even if he weren’t about to be the guest of the jailhouse, he might have considered staying around of his own accord. What were a few skunks when the townsfolk were a law-abiding sort? Compared to Tombstone, this place was paradise.

A thought occurred. “If the sheriff passed on last winter, who’s been keeping the peace?”

Ed leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, we mostly been doing it ourselves, the menfolk, that is. Once in a while we get a tough customer who has to be taken over to Millville. Mostly, though, we see a few drunks and the occasional mischievous lad.”

“I see.” Caleb paused. “Well, then, I suppose we ought to be heading out. Millville’s a half day’s ride.”

The Thompson fellow looked at Caleb as if he’d grown an extra ear. “What would we be wantin’ to go to Millville for?”

“Well, I just figured, what with the jail not being usable you might want to put me over there.”

To Caleb’s surprise, Ed began to laugh. At first he chuckled; then he doubled over in full-fledged laughter. When he straightened, he had to wipe his eyes before he could speak.

“You’re a real hoot, Cal.” He gestured toward the place where they’d just come from. “I reckon you can head on over to the Widow Sykes’s place and set yourself up in a room there. Last I heard she had two empty ones. Once we get the jailhouse back in shape, we can move you in here. That to your liking?”

To my liking?
Caleb searched Ed Thompson’s face for signs he was pulling a prank. What he saw looked to be concern. “Anything wrong?” Ed asked.

“Wrong? Well, I guess I was wondering if you’re serious or just pulling my leg.”

There was that look again. “Why would I be pulling your leg? Don’t you like the rooming house? I mean, I know things are fancier where you come from, but I figure a clean bed and a good meal’s the same no matter where you get ’em.”

“I reckon you’re right.” He reached out to shake Ed’s hand. “I appreciate your trust in me, Ed, and you’ve got my word as a law-abiding man that I won’t leave town.”

“You’re too much, Cal.” His amused expression turned serious. “I wonder if we ought to keep this under our hats, though. I mean, once the townsfolk get wind of who you are, well, you and I won’t have a moment’s peace.”

Caleb said a quick prayer of thanks for the reprieve, then beat a path to the rooming house before Ed changed his mind.

Caleb spent four nights at the Widow Sykes’s place and five days at the jailhouse helping Ed repair the ceiling damage and remove all traces of the skunk family that had spent Christmas in the lone jail cell. When questioned as to his reasons for taking on such a task, Caleb had an easy answer: “If I’m going to be spending my time here, the least I can do is make it livable.”

That response satisfied Ed, and just before sundown on the fifth day, they completed their work.

“I best go get cleaned up,” Ed said. “The missus is particular about smelly menfolk at her supper table.” He scratched his head, then glanced over at Caleb.

“Why don’t you join us tonight, Cal? Evelyn sets a fine spread, and I know she’d welcome you. She’s been after me to fetch you home, but I figured with you working yourself to the bone here the last thing you felt like was socializing of an evenin’.”

Along the way he’d met quite a few of the townsfolk, most of them arriving carrying a baked good of some sort. They welcomed him like an honored guest rather than the inmate he was to become, and they all called him Cal, which struck him as odd. Still none of them had invited him to socialize.

He met Ed’s gaze. “You sure about this, Ed? I mean, I’m a—”

“Pa, you still in there? Mama said to tell you she’s buttering the corn bread.”

Ed grinned. “Looks like I’m being called to supper. You comin’ or what?”

Caleb pondered the invitation for a moment before shaking his head. He sure did like a good piece of buttered corn bread. In fact, he loved to eat.

“I really ought not to get used to such luxuries. You tell your wife I appreciate the invite, though.”

Ed studied Caleb a moment, then shook his hand and headed out the door. A moment later he returned. “I know you’re tired and all, but we need to talk about getting you moved in here. What say you fetch your things from the Widow Sykes’s place after breakfast and meet me here? Say eight o’clock?”

“Eight it is.” Caleb straightened his hat and walked out into the dying rays of the last sunset he would see as a free man—at least for quite a while.

“Lord,” he said under his breath, “I sure would like another chance. If You’d see fit to let me get a clean start, I’d be much beholden.”

Bypassing the dining room, Caleb made his way upstairs and kicked off his boots. It would be a shame to spend his last free night alone, yet he felt no need to go any farther than the table where’d he left his Bible.

A sound drifted up and pulled Caleb toward the window. There below, in the sliver of dirt and rocks the Widow Sykes called her garden, the dark form of a person huddled against the far wall. Upon closer inspection he could see skirts.

The sound found him again, and this time he knew it was the sound of a woman crying. While he watched, she doubled over, then sank to her knees.

His first instinct was to leave her be. A woman’s tears were a more dangerous weapon than a gun or a knife, and he generally steered clear of a female packing a damp hankie.