The Cowboy's Baby Page 10

  She walked toward him, saw his friends and hesitated. “You’ve got…company.”

  “My friends Slink and Luke. Miss Caldwell,” he said to the men. Slink had already jerked to his feet and backed away but Luke rose and nodded formally.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”

  Anna tipped her head in acknowledgment but retreated so fast Colby wondered she didn’t trip and fall on her rear.

  “Did you want something?” he called after her.

  “No. Nothing.” She ducked out so quickly he could almost believe she’d never been there.

  He stared at the dark wood of the door. What had she wanted? Maybe only to spend time with him. The idea filled him with sweet hope.

  Slink wouldn’t stay after that.

  Colby went to the door with the men. “Feel free to come back anytime.”

  Anna watched out the window as evening shadows pooled between the house and church. She knew she had turned into a spy, but she couldn’t help it. The first time she’d discovered those strange men dropping into the church, she’d been shocked, dismayed even. But when it continued day after day, she grew suspicious. These were the friends she’d seen Colby with after his wife died. Drunk and disorderly for the most part.

  Could he be toying with the idea of leaving again?

  She hated to be suspicious of him. Especially when every day she found something more she liked about the man.

  She liked the way he seemed to know how to play with Dorrie—gentle but not babyish stuff. Even though Dorrie’s speech was little more than a babble she understood what was said to her. He talked to the child with real words.

  The other day he brought her a little puzzle he’d made from wood scraps. Anna wanted to say Dorrie was far too young for such games but she held her tongue and waited to see how he would handle his child.

  “Look, Dorrie. A puzzle.”

  Dorrie babbled excitedly.

  Anna laughed. “A whole paragraph that we don’t understand.”

  Colby grinned. “I know what she said. She said, ‘Thanks, Da-da. It’s the best puzzle I ever got. Now show me how to make it.’”

  Anna shook her head. “Seems you both have a good imagination.”

  “We understand each other.”

  A quiver of fear trembled through Anna. She suppressed a desire to grab Dorrie, whisk her into the bedroom and lock the door behind them.

  Colby’s presence threatened Dorrie’s security even more than it threatened Anna’s.

  She did not want either of them to be hurt.

  “That’s my girl.”

  His words pulled Anna from her thoughts. Under his supervision, Dorrie had pushed together the few puzzle pieces. He seemed as pleased as she was at her success.

  Colby’s head bent close to Dorrie’s. Dorrie’s hair was lighter but no doubt would darken to the same color as Colby’s. They looked at each other, grinning widely, and Anna could not deny the similarity in their facial features any more than she could deny that Dorrie thrived with Colby’s attention.

  So did Alex. He seemed to have grown six inches and gained a self-confident stride after helping Colby with the church repairs. She liked the way he had managed to get Alex to hold his head up and speak directly to him.

  Take your time. Be cautious.

  Anna had turned away, pretending to be busy at the stove. Was it too late to be cautious? She couldn’t deny she liked the way he smiled so readily and laughed so often. Seems her heart had gone it’s own way.

  She liked sharing her love of music with someone—someone whose eyes flashed blue depths when their gazes connected.

  How could she feel this way toward him and yet still be full of suspicion? One day she felt close to him as if they had recaptured the earlier days of their relationship. The next moment she knotted up with fear and mistrust. She trusted God. Colby insisted that meant trusting God was working in his life. Could she do both? She didn’t know.

  On top of that, she worried what his presence meant to her role as Dorrie’s mama.

  She tightened her lips. Her own security felt a little shaky, too, when she considered her reactions to the man.

  Anna had vowed to stay away from the church when he was working but to be completely honest, she’d hoped for another satisfying evening of music with Colby.

  Instead, she watched as two pairs of tough-looking men slipped into the church. She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if she should alert Father, then she dismissed the idea completely. Father would say the church was open to the public. Anyone was welcome to go in and pray and meditate.

  But were they doing that? Or tempting Colby to his old way of life?

  She sighed heavily. Suspicion and selfish longing for a repeat of the kind of connection she’d felt a few nights ago twisted like sheets left too long on the clothesline. How was it possible to feel such conflicting emotions at the same time?

  She turned from the window. But almost immediately returned to it. If those men left soon she could still hurry over before Colby departed.

  As if her thoughts had prodded them, the men crowded out the front door, paused to speak to Colby again then shuffled down the sidewalk talking together.

  She waited until they were out of sight.

  Suddenly she didn’t care about music. She wanted to find out what was going on with those men. “I’m going to the church,” she called to Father and rushed across the yard.

  Before she reached the door, she heard the sound of Colby playing the mouth organ and faltered as her heart and mind warred with one another. Pushing aside the way the music filled her with memories of shared pleasures, she cranked her spine into stiff attention and marched into the building.

  Colby stopped playing and grinned at her.

  She cranked her spine a notch firmer. Not even his smile of welcome must be allowed to divert her. “Colby, what were those men doing here?”

  He slowly lowered his hands to his lap as his smile fled. “You object?”

  “Depends on why they’re here.”

  “You think they’re up to no good?”

  She waggled her hands. “Is it so hard to just tell me?”

  He shrugged. “Seems to me you’re judging without cause.”

  “I just want to know.”

  “When are you going to learn to trust me?”

  Trust. Dear God, how I want to. And yet how afraid I am he’s going to leave again. She narrowed her eyes and stared hard at him, revealing nothing of her errant feelings. “When I can be sure it’s safe to.”

  He nodded slowly and repeatedly. “You mean when you can be sure there are no risks. Well, I can’t promise you that. No one can. Did Rose promise she would be here forever? She didn’t have a say in it, did she?”

  Pain spun through her and erupted in a cry. “How dare you compare yourself with Rose?”

  “I’m not. But isn’t that where our suspicions and failures started?”

  “You left. That’s where they began.”

  “I’m sorry. I had nothing to offer you.”

  “All I wanted was someone to hold my hand. Be my friend.” The ache she’d denied since he’d left consumed her. It swept away reason and caution in its relentless invasion. “I waited for you to come. Then I waited for you to come back. When you did, you brought a wife.” It took the last trembling remnants of her self-control to clamp her mouth shut so she wouldn’t say more.

  He stared past her. “I thought you knew.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t love her.”

  She gasped. “What a dreadful thing to say.”

  “She knew it. We didn’t marry out of love.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because we found comfort in sharing our circumstances. She was under the guardianship of an uncle who confined her to the back room and worked her like a mule.” Slowly he brought his gaze back to her and she read the pain, the confusion, the desperation that almost made her cry out again. “Besides, do
n’t you see? It was the ultimate form of running away.”

  Pain scorched every breath, every pore of her that he would marry someone he didn’t love to what—escape her? “Why?” she whispered. “Why did you have to protect yourself against me?”

  “It wasn’t you. It was me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Me, either. But all I can say is I’ve reached the end of my running. I am back to stay.”

  His words promised things she wanted but they barely scratched the surface of her defensiveness. He said it was because of him but it was her that had been hurt. She could not comprehend.

  “I was afraid of disappointing you. Failing you.”

  “You keep saying that as if I had somehow put unreal expectations on you. If I did, I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t. Like I said. It wasn’t anything to do with you.”

  “And what happened to this thing that sent you running? This thing you don’t seem able to identify?”

  “Maybe I outran it.”

  “What? What is it? And what if it catches up to you again?” Why couldn’t he give a straight answer? Though if he said she was it, that might prove more than she could handle.

  He took her hands and faced her squarely.

  She wanted to pull away but his look held her like a freshly spun spiderweb made with steel threads.

  “I don’t know why I ran. Maybe I will never understand. But this one thing I do know, forgetting what is behind and reaching for those things that are better. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That’s from Philippians, Chapter 3. Your father explained it was like running a race. If I look over my shoulder I’m slowed down. I might get off course or even stumble. I’m not looking back. I’m not going back. The only direction I’m running is straight for the prize of the high calling of God.”

  Her mouth dropped open. She blinked. This was not the Colby she remembered—uncertain of who he was, what he was. “You’re different.”

  He grinned as he squeezed her hands and pulled her so close they were almost nose to nose. “You’re finally getting it.”

  She jerked back, stunned by his words, even more stunned by his assurance.

  “Isn’t it about time you started to accept me?”

  “I—” She couldn’t finish. This was what she wanted. This closeness. This assurance. Yet— “Those men?”

  He sighed and pulled away. “I can see it’s going to take some time. Those men are the ones I used to drink with. They’ve come to hear about God. You see, I told them I was changed….” He let his words trail off.

  But she understood what he didn’t say…his former drinking buddies were more ready to believe him than she.

  “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  “Of me?”

  “Of being hurt, disappointed.” She tore her gaze from him, but felt more lonely than ever and slowly shifted until she met his eyes again.

  He nodded. “Anna, there are no guarantees in life. I can’t give you any. No one can. But you can’t pull life around you like a blanket and hope that you can somehow prevent anything unpleasant.”

  Hadn’t Laura warned her things would change? She couldn’t stop it. Normal change was one thing and not particularly welcome at that.

  Walking into a situation that held as much threat as promise was quite another.

  His voice grew husky. “Don’t you ever want more for yourself than to run your father’s home?”

  Did she? She allowed a door to creak open so she could see inside where her secret longings and denied dreams resided. What she saw filled her with an ache as wide as the Dakota horizon. She longed for more. She wanted it all—her own home, a husband who loved her, children added to Dorrie’s sweet presence. It was impossible. Unattainable.

  Frighteningly different.

  She closed her eyes and prayed for wisdom and common sense.

  Colby’s whisper persisted. “Don’t you wish you could have your own home? Your own family?”

  Eyes still closed, she nodded slowly.

  “Then trust me.”

  Her eyes flashed wide as she realized what stood in the way of doing so. “I need to know what makes you run.” Giving him the benefit of doubt, she corrected herself. “Made you run.” Until she did, it would be a specter hovering in the corners, able to send him down the road if the conditions gave it more strength.

  She rose with as much dignity as her shaking limbs allowed and head held high by dint of her rigid self-control, she returned home.

  That should have been the end of it. But how could it be when he joined them for every meal, when she had but to look out the window to glimpse him at work and when her heart continued to ache after him. When he spoke words of encouragement to her and offered so much leadership to Alex.

  She couldn’t seem to turn around without memories of him.

  He’d sat in that chair holding a skein of yarn for Rose and listening to Anna’s spelling words.

  He’d stood at her side at the cupboard washing dishes as she dried, telling her of the stampede of cattle in a vicious storm when he was but fourteen and on his first cattle drive.

  He’d stood in the middle of the front room and stared in awe as she came from her room in her new outfit, one Rose had made ’specially for the Christmas program.

  Even the church was full of memories—current ones of singing and playing music together, sharing bits and pieces of the years they’d been apart— intermingled with the past when he had eagerly listened to every word Father spoke as if seeking something to fill a vast hunger.

  Why did he run? If she understood perhaps she could trust him not to do so again.

  But until then…

  Chapter Eleven

  Colby stepped into the kitchen as familiar as any home he’d ever known. The aroma of fried chops, apples and cinnamon greeted him. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scents and felt a sensation of peace and blessing. This is what home should be like, not the fear-filled uncertainty of his younger years. “Smells great in here.”

  “Anna made apple pandowdy,” Alex said. “She makes the best in the world.”

  “Alex,” Anna scolded. “How would you know?” She smiled apologetically at Colby.

  As their gazes connected he acknowledged that all he’d wanted all his life was right here in this room, in the smile of one woman—Anna. Why he’d left her even once was beyond understanding. Yet he had done so twice, three times if he counted Nora. But now he wanted to be with her, together with Dorrie, part of Anna’s life forever. He was trying to trust God to make it possible yet the one thing she wanted he could not give—the reason he had left. He could have said because he feared he would become like his pa. She would have understood that. But it wasn’t honesty and he wanted nothing but the truth between them.

  What about what you did?

  He could never tell her that awful truth. It was part of what he had left behind. Pastor Caldwell assured him that God forgave and forgot the past. Colby intended to do the same.

  Yet what if his past found him? It scared him through and through. He hoped no one noticed how stiff his joints seemed as he moved to the table and sank to a chair.

  Over the meal, the Caldwells frequently shared how his or her day had gone. He remembered this ritual from when he was younger, remembered how foreign it had seemed at first. He couldn’t have imagined sharing around the table with his pa. He learned to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open, ready to duck if necessary.

  But the practice had made something deep inside him feel warm and welcome.

  It still did.

  After initial awkwardness with him sitting at the table, they had resumed the habit.

  Alex barely waited for his father to say “Amen” before he bounced to the edge of his chair. “The race is coming up. I’m going to try and win the hundred-yard dash.”

  Colby kept his opinion to himself. He’d only once or twice seen the boy move faster tha
n a snail’s pace. But his enthusiasm was commendable. “I could help you practice.” He’d gone to school so seldom but one teacher, Mr. Gates, had taken an interest in making sure Colby could both read and run. Colby grinned. Two skills he found equally useful throughout his life.

  “Would you? Great.”

  Alex’s gratitude made him grin. He glanced at Anna and saw her gleaming smile. She mouthed the words thank you. His heart swelled up his throat, making it impossible to swallow until he jerked his gaze away. She’d been truly friendly since the day they had talked about the men coming to the church. Friendly but reserved. Waiting for the answer he couldn’t give. Anna told how Dorrie had said please so clearly. But her eyes shared so much more with Colby—mutual love of this child, and if he looked deep…hope for more. She turned to her father.

  “How was your day, Father?”

  Anna’s question slid through his mind like fresh cream, sweet and smooth. He understood it wasn’t what she said but the sound of her voice that had this effect on him. Slowly he lifted his head to steal a glance at her as she spoke to her father. If only he knew the answer as to why he ran, he would willingly give it. But he’d told her all he knew— he believed he had nothing to offer her.

  He remembered the power of prayer. Father God, help me understand what made me feel I had to leave.

  “The Booker family are all feeling better. I enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in their company.”

  Colby stared at the pastor, wondering at the way he ducked his head. Totally unlike the directness he expected but no one else seemed to notice and Colby decided he had a suspicious nature.

  Three pairs of eyes turned toward Colby. It was his turn. “I finished fixing the roof today.”

  “Good,” Pastor Caldwell said.

  Colby checked for Anna’s reaction, expecting a smile of happiness at his progress. Instead, her eyes turned dark and bottomless. She held his gaze and in that moment he was sure he felt a promise and a wish.

  Then Alex passed her the potatoes and she looked away.

  Had she thought how he would soon be finished? Did she wonder if he would leave? Wanting to put her mind at rest he spoke again. “I see Rawlings is looking for help at the feed mill. How long has he had that sign up?”