Four days later
Crouched under the tarpaulin she’d rigged for shade, Leah wrung Bo Allen’s gray Henley and shook out the garment. Standing, she found the shoulder seams and gave it a firm snap. The hem cracked, drawing Mae’s attention from the new book they’d borrowed from Doc Bates’s wife.
From the nearby quilt where she sat, Mae’s blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “That Mr. Allen certainly has strong shoulders, doesn’t he?”
His shirt draped over her forearm, Leah arched her back and stretched, then massaged her aching muscles. “I hadn’t noticed.” She tried to sound disinterested.
Grinning, Mae jabbed Leah’s hip with the end of a crutch. “Liar. You can’t help but notice one so handsome as him.”
“Mae Elizabeth Guthrie!” She threw the wet garment at her sister.
The girl dropped the crutch to catch the gray fabric and shook it out again. “You know it’s the truth.” Sighing, she gave an appreciative once-over glance as if Mr. Allen filled out his shirt presently. “If you don’t notice, you’re tetched in the head.” Mae lowered the shirt to tap her skull.
Leah frowned. “You’re shameless.” She crouched again, drawing the last garment from the water, this time, her own blouse. As she reached for the bar of soap, Mr. Allen’s wet shirt sailed back and smacked her hard in the face.
“And you’re acting like an old maid.” Mae glared.
She set his shirt in the basket and began to scrub her blouse. “I am twenty-three years old, Mae. Heavens, I’ve never even been kissed. The moniker applies.”
Truth was, since Pa died, few had paid her a lick of attention. Any remaining male interest stopped after Mae’s illness robbed her of the use of her legs and any remaining inheritance they might have had.
Mae turned serious. “But it doesn’t have to for you. One old maid from the Guthrie clan is more than enough, sis—and I was the lucky one to draw that straw.”
The blunt words knotted Leah’s throat. Why, Lord? Why my beautiful sister Mae?
Mae wouldn’t let up. “But with your reddish-blond hair and fun personality, you’ll make a fine wife. All that’s required is a little effort.”
Leah continued to scrub. “I haven’t the energy for more effort, Mae. I scour the skin from my hands every week to keep the roof over our heads. You and Hope have been easy to raise, but Ethan? Honestly, some days I wonder if I can deal with even one more of his antics. There’s nothing left after all that to seek a husband.”
Mae shot her a sympathetic look. “Maybe it won’t take much extra effort. We have to eat, don’t we?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why not invite Mr. Allen to dinner? Men lose their hearts to good cooks—and you’re a fine one.” Her expression turned almost pleading. “Invite him and see what happens.”
Leah blew out a long breath. “You make it sound so easy, but the little I know of Mr. Allen, he’s not an easy man.” She rinsed the suds from her blouse.
“Yet you think he’s a good man, don’t you?”
She pondered her sister’s words as she wrung the blouse. “There’s goodness in him, yes.” Buried under a tough veneer of hard living, anger, and hurt. Could she muster the stamina to seek the goodness out?
“Leah, you’d be asking him to dinner. That’s all.”
She carried the basket toward the clothesline. “That’s not all. The gossips in town will talk.”
“So? They already talk because of my affliction. Don’t let them bother you.”
Leah sighed and plucked her blouse from the top of the basket. “It feels very forward, like I’m throwing myself at the man.” She applied the clothespins to her blouse before retrieving Mr. Allen’s Henley. Removing the right pin, she lapped the shoulder of his shirt over hers and reapplied the fastener.
“It’s not if you invite our brother’s boss to say thank you for hiring him. That’s called being neighborly.”
Leah pinned the second shoulder and faced Mae. “I’ll pray about it. Now, are you going to read me some of that book like you promised?”
“Of course.” Mae cracked the cover. “Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Chapter one. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’”
Oh, good heavens above. She rolled her eyes.
Mae read on, and Leah grabbed the next piece of clothing from the basket. Lord, what man would want me with my little brother and two sisters in tow?
A strong breeze caught the two garments on the line, fluttered their hems, and released them again. As they settled, the arm of her blouse twined around the arm of Mr. Allen’s.
Several days later
Bo stepped out into the afternoon sun and turned toward the corral. Some fifteen minutes earlier, Red had excused himself to use the outhouse but hadn’t returned. The fact Bo had seen a couple boys skulking near the livery across the street, easily in view of the smithy door, had him wondering. Were they the pair who’d been with Red the night his window was broken?
A quick check of the outhouse proved Red wasn’t there. After Bo had watched the street awhile, one of the kids he’d seen stumbled out of the alley beside the stable then darted into the narrow space again, laughing.
That was where he’d find Red.
Bo angled across the street and crept to the corner, listening.
“… been there a week, and all he lets me do is dump more coal in the fire and pump the bellows. It’s stupid.”
Red.
“He’s prob’ly making you do the boring stuff so’s you can’t pay him back for that window too fast.” This voice was deeper than Red’s. “Using you for free labor.”
“Yeah.” The third voice was high-pitched and chirpy, like from a younger kid.
“He keeps pesterin’ me to tell him who you two are, but I ain’t gonna.” Red again.
“You do and I’ll pound you.” This from the deep-voiced kid.
The threatening tone irked Bo, and he rounded the corner then. Red and the smaller of the two boys—perhaps eight years old—stood nearest to him. The third—half a head taller than Red—stood a few paces beyond. The minute Bo grabbed Red and the smaller boy by their arms, the third one’s eyes bulged, and he charged down the pathway.
Bo dragged both squirming boys out of the alley and wrestled them to the bench near the livery’s entrance.
“Quit your caterwaulin’ and sit.” He pushed them toward the wall, and their bodies folded against the bench.
Bo looked the little boy over. White-blond hair, small frame, maybe seven or eight. “So …” He looked toward Red. “He helped you bust my window?”
Red’s expression turned stony. If the size of the towheaded boy’s eyes was any indication, he was scared witless. Good. Maybe he’d think twice about destroying someone else’s property again.
“Am I to assume that boy who abandoned you in the alley was in on it too?”
“Burl didn’t abandon us,” the blond boy growled.
“Burl. That his name?”
The boy’s eyes widened even more.
“Burl and … who are you, kid?”
“Jess.”
The answer came from the livery’s entrance, where prospector Sean McCready stared him down. The taller boy, Burl, stood slightly behind.
“His name’s Jess McCready, and he’s my nephew.” The elder McCready folded his arms.
Bo inwardly grinned at the unnatural hook to the prospector’s nose, a hook he’d given McCready a year earlier when the miner walked into his smithy and demanded Bo drop everything to do a job for him.
“You got an issue with these boys, Allen?”
“What I got issue with is my smithy window getting broke. I caught this one running away just after it happened.” He nodded at Red. “The other two ruffians ditched him to take the punishment alone, and that ain’t right.”
“And you’re sayin’ my nephews are those … ruffians?”
“Red just said as much.”
“When did this window get broke?”
“A week ago.”
At McCready’s beckoning, Jess darted off the bench and raced to his uncle, who bent to look each boy in the eye. “Is what he’s sayin’ true?”
Burl—about age fifteen, judging by his size—gave an emphatic shake of his head. “No, sir.”
Little Jess appeared less sure but also shook his head after seeing Burl’s response. “No.”
McCready faced Bo, trying to rein in a smirk. “Figure you got the wrong kids, Allen. Easy mistake to make, but from now on, come to me with any issues you got with my kin. Do we understand each other?”
Bo itched to wipe the sneer from McCready’s mouth, but he kept himself in check.
“Red, you got anything to add?” he said, never breaking eye contact with the elder McCready.
Bo thought he caught a discreet head-shake from Burl, aimed in Red’s direction.
“Nope,” the boy muttered.
Sean McCready’s smirk only grew. “Think we’re done here.”
“For the time being.” Bo stepped close and dropped his voice. “But if I ever get the idea you’re sending those little boys to get back at me for breaking your nose, there’ll be trouble.”
“When or if I choose to get back at you, you’ll know.”
A shot of lightning coursed through Bo’s veins at the threat. “Stay away from my smithy—you and any McCready spawn.” He waved Red toward the shop. “Let’s go. Now.”
Sighing, Red started across the street, his twelve-year-old body ramrod straight and screaming his displeasure. Once they reached the shop, the boy whirled. “Are you trying to drive away all my friends?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Burl and Jess! They might never speak to me again after what you just did.”
Bo arched a brow. “It surprises me that you’re still speaking to them.”
“They’re my friends.” He enunciated each word.
“Some friends. They let you take the blame for their actions, threaten to pound you if you tell, and make you pay to replace my window. Seems to me, you’re getting the raw end here.”
“Am not!” Despite the rebuttal, Red deflated, his mind obviously churning.
“Go on believin’ that, kid.” He jerked a large, sturdy crate off a low shelf and slid it across the floor. Selecting a piece of scrap metal, he walked to the anvil and beckoned to Red. “Got a project for you.”
With a frustrated groan, Red walked to the bellows and started pumping.
Bo split the air with a sharp whistle. “Over here.” He turned the sturdy crate upside down in front of the anvil.
Surprised, Red approached as Bo measured and marked a spot on the piece of iron. “What’re you making?”
“I’m not. You are. It’s about time you start doing something useful.”
He instructed Red on heating the small metal piece, and once it was glowing, the boy grabbed the tongs from the wall hook and brought it to the anvil.
“We’ll start simple and work our way to more difficult techniques. You’re gonna take this and taper the end into a point.”
“How?” Red held the tongs out to Bo.
“Don’t give it to me. You said I don’t let you do nothing interesting, so you’re doing this one.”
Understanding lit the boy’s eyes. “All right. Which hammer?”
Bo handed a small cross peen to Red, who stepped onto the crate. From behind, Bo nudged the boy’s feet wider.
A memory flashed—of some twenty-odd years earlier when he’d begun learning blacksmithing techniques at age seven. His taskmaster had been harsh, abusive. He’d berated Bo often, struck him for even the smallest mistakes.
“What do I do?” Red’s question snapped him back from his contemplations.
Before he found his voice, he thought of pretty Leah Guthrie. She’d asked him to extend the firm hand she’d struggled to provide the boy. But firm and harsh were two very different things, and finding that balance was suddenly important to him.
God, I ain’t sure how to do this. Please, if You’re listenin’ … If You care … help me get this right.
He stepped up behind Red. “Hold the metal at an angle, like this….” Bo took Red’s hands, positioning them, his touch far gentler than his mentor’s ever was.