Kaki Warner (16 page)

Chapter 2

March 1871, Colorado Territory

He should offer assistance. That would be the neighborly thing to do.

Instead, Ethan Hardesty crossed his arms and his outstretched legs and settled back on the bench outside the depot. The woman was clearly out of her depth. Yet she kept at it. He’d give her marks for that, at least.

A gust of wind flipped up the hem of her skirt, giving him a fine view of narrow feet encased in delicate low-top shoes. City people. They never understood that in hard country like this, sturdy footwear was second only to a good jacket, no matter the season.

Hearing a ruckus toward the end of the idling train, he glanced back to see a drover lead a fractious bay down the ramp and hand the lead to an elderly African man who was clearly frightened of the animal. Sawing on the lead and stepping lively to keep his feet from beneath the prancing hooves, the man wrestled the horse over to where the woman was supervising the unloading of a closed four-wheel, single-horse buggy in the Amish style.

It wasn’t going well.

In addition to getting in the way of the freight handlers, she was busy trying to calm the horse and the old man holding him, attend questions and complaints from a cantankerous Negro woman she called Winnie, keep an eye on a mumbling old man—probably her father—and hang on to a squirming badger-sized dog that barked continuously.

It was like watching a circus. A poorly run circus.

Ethan couldn’t remember the last time he had been so entertained.

The man he assumed was her father made a shuffling escape, heading purposefully down the track toward the outskirts of town. Ethan kept him in sight, knowing there was nothing out that way but rough mountain country and waiting for the woman to do something.

She continued to harass the freight handlers.

Ten yards. Thirty. Was anyone watching the old fellow?

Hell.
With a sigh, he rose from the bench and walked toward the woman. On the way, he stopped beside the dancing horse. Grabbing the lead just under the halter, he gave it a yank to get the animal’s attention then looked him hard in the eye. “Stand,” he said with calm authority.

The horse blinked at him, nostrils flared. After a brief staring match, the animal slowly let his head drop enough to ease the pull on the halter. And stood.

Ethan gave his neck a friendly pat and turned to the surprised Negro. “And your name would be . . . ?”

“Curtis. How’d you do that?”

“Hold him closer to the halter ring, Curtis.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the barking of the dog. “And stand by his head where he can see you. That way he’ll know where you are and will be easier to control. And talk quietly to him. He’s just afraid.”

“Me, too,” the old man muttered, but did as instructed.

Stepping around the African woman—Winnie—who looked to be near in age to Curtis—spouses, perhaps?—Ethan approached the circus ringleader.

She was surprisingly small to be generating such a fuss, yet was able to convince two hulking railroad workers to do her biding. Ethan realized why when he stopped beside her. Even with that furrow between her dark brown brows, she was uncommonly pretty . . . in a fine boned, delicate, citified sort of way . . . hardly the type of woman he normally found attractive.

“Would you like some help, ma’am?” he asked.

She gave him a distracted look. “What?”

Remarkable eyes, even with the squint. A greenish hazel that he suspected would look greener if she wore something other than that drab gray dress that did little to set off her gold-streaked hair. Although why he would notice such things was beyond him. He was more partial to breasts, himself. And she had a nice pair of those, too, he was pleased to note.

She noted him noting and narrowed her eyes even more.

Removing his Stetson, he gave a slight bow. “May I help you?”

“With what?”

He tipped his head toward the old man scurrying along the tracks. “Him?”

“Oh, Lord!” Almost crushing his hat, she shoved the yapper against his chest and she raced off, calling “Father,” in a high, panicky voice.

Ethan looked down at the dog in his arms, which had thankfully paused for breath, realized by the cloudy eyes it was blind, and thrust it toward the Negro woman.

She backed off, pink palms upraised. “Not me, suh. I’d as soon throw it under the train, and that would upset Miss Audra, sure enough.”

“Do you want the buggy unloaded, or not?”

She thought about it, then reluctantly took the dog.

By the time “Miss Audra” returned, leading the mumbling old man by the hand, the buggy was on solid ground, Ethan had almost finished harnessing the bay into the traces, and Curtis was tying valises and boxes to the back of the buggy under the barked supervision of both the badger-dog and the Negro woman.

A forceful pair, Winnie and Miss Audra.

Waving Ethan aside when he stepped forward to help, Miss Audra opened the door of the buggy and dropped down the mounting step. “There you are, Father,” she said in a voice much gentler than the one she’d used on the freight handlers or himself.

The old man frowned at Ethan. “Come for the transcripts, have you, Mitchell? They’re not yet ready. The girl has been dreadfully slow this time. You must talk to her, Mary,” he added to the woman waiting for him to board.

Mary?
Ethan thought her name was Audra.

“I will, Father. In you go.”

Once she got him settled with a lap robe over his legs, she took the squirming dog from Winnie and set it in the old man’s arms like she was presenting a precious newborn. “And here’s Cleo.”

The old man grinned. The dog shut up. And the show was over.

If Ethan had expected a ‘thank you’, he didn’t get it. But feeling ornery, he couldn’t let the oversight pass unnoticed. “You’re certainly welcome, Miss Audra. Or is it Mary?”

“Mary was my mother’s name.” She turned to squint up at him. “How do you know me, sir? Have we met?”

“Alas, no. And I admire your ability to disregard those pesky social courtesies and accept my help anyway. If you have no further use of me . . . ?”

She blinked, obviously befuddled. Confusion must run in the family.

“Then I bid you good day.” Hiding a smile, he tipped the Stetson and walked back to the stock car. Renny had already been unloaded. As he tossed a coin to the hostler, he saw the buggy disappearing down the road at a rapid clip. Fleeing, would be more accurate. Much too fast in a lightweight buggy on a rocky country road. He could guess who was driving.

With a mental shrug, he put the woman and her amusing antics out of his mind and quickly saddled the big buckskin, securing his saddlebags behind the cantle with the fiddle case on top.

If he left now, he could make it to Heartbreak Creek in time for dinner. His meeting with Tait Rylander and his wife—the two principals in charge of the Pueblo Pacific bridge line through Heartbreak Creek Canyon—wasn’t until morning. Apparently there were issues with both the right-of-ways and the sluice bringing water from deeper in the canyon. The railroad had sent Ethan in to identify the problems, eliminate them, and get the surveyors back to work so the graders could get started.

He figured it was a two-week job.

A half hour later, he was on his way, Renny stepping out at a fast gait, obviously as happy as Ethan to be off the train. It was a beautiful afternoon with the clarity that only came in early spring before summer’s dust hazed the sky. The mountains still wore caps of white, and the breeze was cool and heavy with the scent of wet earth and new grass. The freshness of it raised Ethan’s spirits and helped dispel the melancholy that always plagued him after a restless, dream filled night.

He had ridden no more than an hour when he saw a familiar black buggy stopped in the road ahead, the back tilted at an odd angle. As he drew nearer, he saw Miss Audra seated on the mounting step beside the open door, shoulders slumped, head drooping in her hands. A sad picture, indeed. The others were some distance away, enjoying a rest under a long-limbed fir. Even from thirty yards, he could clearly hear the badger barking.

“If it isn’t Miss Audra,” he called cheerily as he reined in beside the disabled buggy.

Dropping her hands, she squinted up at him through red-rimmed eyes.

She must require spectacles, he decided. No one would wear that expression without good reason.

“It’s you,” she said in a tone as welcoming as a stepmother’s kiss.

For some perverse reason, he found that amusing. “It is. I see you’ve broken a wheel. How unfortunate.”

She stiffened. “You find that amusing?”

“Not at all.”

“Then why are you grinning?”

“Actually, I was trying for a smirk.”

She gave a snort that ended in a sniffle. Then another. Horrified she was about to cry, Ethan softened his tone. “May I offer assistance? Again.”

Shoving back a wad of hair that had slipped from her matronly topknot, she regarded him through eyes that were suspiciously wet. “Do you have a gun?”

Surprised, he nodded. “I do.”

“Then shoot me, please. I have reached my limit. Not in the head or face, mind you. I wouldn’t want to look a mess in the undertaker’s picture. Here in the heart will be fine.” She placed a hand over the bosom he so admired.

Leaning forward, he crossed his arms over the saddle horn. “Having a bad day, are we, Miss Audra?”

Her top lip curled in a sneer, marring an otherwise lovely mouth. “Armed
and
astute. A potent combination.”

Potent?
How gratifying that she had noticed.

“Well, get on with it.” Closing her eyes, she hiked her chin in a martyr’s pose. “I await your pleasure.”

Even better.
Several pleasurable scenarios came to mind, but he knew better than to voice them. “And the others? Shall I shoot them, too? I could start with the dog, if you’d like.”

She actually seemed to consider it.

“Or I could simply replace the broken wheel.”

Her eyes flew open. “You can do that?”

“I can. Assuming that’s a spare wheel I see strapped to the bottom of the buggy and you don’t mind untying the luggage on the back.”

Hopping to her feet, she bent over to peer under the vehicle, this time hiking her skirts high enough to reveal trim ankles and rounded calves. “Good heavens! I had no idea that was under there.”

“Nor I,” he murmured, musing on what other delights might be hidden beneath that drab gray skirt.

“Excellent.” She straightened, shoved the hair back again and gave him a smile that lit up her face in an unexpectedly alluring way. “What can I do to help?”

Very little, it turned out, but that was due more to a lack of strength than a lack of enthusiasm. If the woman had been as strong physically as her personality was forceful, she could have held up the wagon with one hand while he replaced the wheel.

Instead, he used the biggest boulder he could carry, a sturdy three-foot log to brace under the axle, and a long, stout pole to lever the buggy off the ground—luckily Curtis had packed an axe. Once the buggy was unloaded and the wheels chalked, Ethan positioned the rock a foot behind the rear panel, slipped two feet of the long pole beneath the undercarriage and pushed down with all his strength on the part extending past the rock.

The buggy rose. Curtis slipped the brace under the axle, and from then on, it was simply a matter of exchanging the broken wheel for the spare. Thankfully the women hovered close by, poised to offer helpful tips in case he somehow lost the ability to reason or forgot what he was doing. God bless them.

Soon—even with their help—the new wheel was in place. While Winnie supervised Curtis in the reloading of the luggage, Ethan lashed the broken wheel beneath the buggy then rose, almost bumping into Miss Audra, who had bent down beside him to inspect his knots.

“You’re sure it’s tight enough?”

Ethan’s gaze drifted down her bowed back to the round, pear-shaped bottom pointed his way. “I have no doubt of it.”

“Excellent.” She straightened. “For the second time, I owe you my thanks, Mr. . . .”

“Ethan Hardesty.” He touched the brim of his hat. “And you’re quite welcome, Miss Audra. Both times.”

“Pearsall. My proper name is—oh, dear!”

Turning to see what had captured her attention, he saw her father dunking the dog in a puddle of stagnant water beside the road. Ethan refrained from applauding.

“Father, we’re ready to go now,” she called, rushing toward him.

Propping a hip against the rear wheel, Ethan crossed his arms over his chest and watched her tuck the dripping pooch under her arm then gently steer her father toward the coach. He admired her patience. The woman truly did have her hands full with this scatterbrained bunch, yet she hadn’t once lost her composure . . . except with him, of course, but since that had been his intent, he didn’t hold it against her.

“Where are you headed, Miss Pearsall?” he asked once she’d loaded her father into the buggy and placed the dog, wrapped in the robe, in his arms. He caught a whiff of swamp and was thankful to be riding outside.

“Not far.” Backing out, she blew that errant lock of brownish gold hair out of her eyes and waved the two Africans to their places—Winnie in back with the old man, Curtis up front on the far side of the driver’s box. “A town called Heartbreak Creek.”

“Oh? What a coincidence.”

“You’re going there, too?” Surprised, she turned to face him.

He almost choked.

She was wet. From collar to waist. And cold, judging by the puckered nubs straining against the damp fabric that clung to every rounded curve.

He owed the dog an apology.

“I am,” he said, tearing his gaze away before she caught him again.

“Excellent. Now we can travel together.”

Not excellent. He didn’t want to have to rescue her at every turn. Or feel responsible for her. Or wonder what catastrophe might befall her next. He didn’t need a woman like Miss Audra Pearsall complicating his life.

But she was a beautiful woman.

And two years was a long time.

And he was weary of the night terrors, and awakening to the sound of breaking glass, and reaching for his gun to stop the screams echoing through his mind. It would be nice to feel something other than self-loathing for a change, to be near a woman and not hear those screams in his head.