CHAPTER
3

Zach Hamilton strolled the two blocks between the bakery and Sinclair’s Lumberyard with a heavier step than usual. Something had been off with Miss Kemp today. Nothing he could put a finger on—the buns had melted in his mouth as always, the coffee scalded his gullet just the way he liked, she’d smiled at him as she did every day—but the atmosphere had felt . . . weighted.

He shook his head as he crossed Market Street, sidestepping a man on horseback and waving absently to Mr. Gordon, who was unlocking the corner hardware shop.

Miss Kemp and her weighted atmosphere were none of his concern. Zach’s days of getting involved in other people’s troubles were past. He’d done his duty. More than his duty. Now that he’d started carving out the freedom he’d craved his entire life, nothing would lure him off his path. Not even a pair of dimples and golden-brown eyes that matched his favorite breakfast food.

After thirty years of life, he was finally his own man, free to pursue his dreams, his goals. No harsh taskmaster of a grandfather working him into the ground, no orphanage matron dictating his every waking moment, no younger siblings depending on him for their survival. Not that he begrudged Evie or Seth the years he’d spent looking out for them. As families went, they were better than most. A little naggy from time to time, but they always had his back.

Even when he didn’t deserve it.

Zach slammed the door on that bit of discomfort from the past and concentrated instead on the future he’d plotted for himself. One that entailed freedom, financial security, and absolutely no farming. He’d choose sawdust over dirt clods every day of the week.

Perhaps living unencumbered wasn’t the grandest of aspirations, but for a fellow who’d spent his entire life gritting his teeth as circumstances dictated his path, having the freedom to make decisions as they came without worrying about how his choices might impact anyone other than himself was a luxury that would never grow tiresome. If he wanted to leave the lumberyard and take a job laying track for the railroad, he could. If he decided to ride down to Galveston and catch a ship bound for England in order to see the queen, no one would stop him. Not that he had any desire to do either of those things, but simply knowing that he could gave him a level of contentment he’d never enjoyed before. Strange how light a man could feel without the weight of obligation pressing down on him.

As Sixth Street dead-ended at the T&P Depot, Zach pivoted left into Sinclair’s Lumberyard, opened the office door, and stepped into chaos.

Ah, yes. Last Tuesday of the month. The day Mrs. Audrey Sinclair had breakfast with her sister and saddled her husband with their zoo of children. Monkeys hung from the rafters, a dancing bear twirled amid chairs and cabinets, and a lady riding an elephant paraded past.

The oldest two children were in school, thank the Lord, but the remaining four ran amok in the office. Not that Zach’s business partner seemed to care. He tromped around on all fours, giving two-year-old Tali an elephant ride across the carpet. The little girl grabbed his neck and giggled in glee as Reuben Sinclair reared up on his hind legs to see who had entered.

“Zach! Just in time. Peel Ash and Zeb off the ladder, will you? Their mother will have my hide if they fall.”

Zach had been giving the office a fresh coat of paint yesterday and had left the ladder out in order to touch up any missed spots. Thank heaven the paint remained sealed up tight in its canister in the corner. He didn’t want to think about what mischief the twins could manage with half a can of paint.

Zach carefully sidestepped three-year-old Ephraim, who’d decided that spinning in circles until he got dizzy enough to fall over was the best game ever invented, and made a grab for the boys whose competitive quest for the top step had set the ladder to wobbling enough to give even Zach’s heart palpitations. Fastening a fist onto each boy’s suspenders, Zach swung the twins off of the ladder and let them dangle a couple feet off the ground on either side of him.

“Where do you want ’em?”

Reuben reached behind his back to hold his daughter in place as he rose to his feet. He shifted the little girl to his front and reached out to halt the whirling dervish that was Ephraim. Reuben was only a couple years older than Zach, but he’d married early and obviously taken the charge about being fruitful and multiplying to heart.

“I thought to let them climb on the wood piles until Audrey gets back, but I didn’t want to unleash them without reinforcements.”

“Shoulders, Mr. Zach. Shoulders!” Ash demanded, his little body growing heavy at the end of Zach’s arm.

“Yeah! Shoulders!” Zeb was never one to let his twin outdo him. They might not be identical in appearance, but they possessed the same adventurous spirit and rivalrous nature.

With a grunt, Zach complied and hefted up both boys, setting one on each shoulder. He moved his hands to their waists to secure their seats even as they tucked their heels into his armpits.

Reuben chuckled. “You’re a big pushover. You know that, right?”

Zach shrugged, or would have if his shoulders hadn’t been held down by two crowing boys. “I figure they can clean out the cobwebs while they’re up there. Hand me a rag.”

Reuben made a show of looking around. “Don’t see one handy. Just use their hair. Those mops ought to be good for something.”

“No, Papa.” Zeb squirmed, his fear of spiders a well-documented family fact.

Zach lowered him to the ground while his sibling, the cleverer of the two, grabbed Zach’s hat and crammed it on his own head. It probably fell down to his nose, but Zach had to give the kid credit. He’d outsmarted the two adults at their own game.

Zach shared a wink with Reuben, who seemed equal parts exasperated and proud of his son’s antics.

As Zach straightened, Ash hooked a leg around his neck to situate himself more securely. “Giddyup, Mr. Zach!” He grabbed Zach’s ears as if they were reins.

How much longer until Mrs. Sinclair returned? Zach rolled his eyes and grabbed the boy’s ankles. Didn’t matter. It was already too long.

Reuben held the door open and shooed Ephraim and Zeb through it while Zach ducked to ensure Ash didn’t hit his head on the jamb.

Steering the kids past the dressed lumber shed, Reuben let them loose in the raw lumber section. There were more planks and posts to climb on, and since none of the wood had been planed, the kids couldn’t do much to hurt its value.

Zach crouched to let Ash scramble down. The lad shot off to join his brother, who now had a head start climbing the stairsteps of wood planks.

A grin tugged at Zach’s mouth. Kids might be a hassle and crimp a man’s freedom, but seeing them laugh and play without a single care stirred satisfaction in his crusty soul. This was what childhood was supposed to be like. Not the mishmash of tragedy and hardship he’d been forced to endure.

“You’re good with them,” Reuben said without turning to look at Zach. He knew better than to take his eyes off his energetic brood. “It’s the reason I chose you from the other applicants I had last year.”

Shock vibrated through Zach. Him? Good with kids? Ha! He did all he could to avoid the little monsters.

Reuben chuckled softly. “You might grumble and grouse about them, but you let them climb all over you. You even took little Tali when Audrey shoved her at you that first day. Remember?”

How could Zach forget? Tali hadn’t even been a year old. He and Reuben had been in the midst of a discussion about buying into the business when Mrs. Sinclair had thrown open the office door, letting a flood of miniature invaders inside. The twins had rushed their father, immediately monopolizing his lap, so she had thrust baby Tali at Zach with some excuse about Simeon, the oldest Sinclair boy, having bloodied his nose and her needing to tend to him while Dinah, the eldest girl, minded the stove. In a blink, Audrey disappeared, leaving a fussy babe in a stranger’s arms and a toddler roaming the floor where he could get into all sorts of mischief.

Zach had zero experience with babies, but he’d raised a little sister from the time she was four, so he figured as long as he didn’t have to change any diapers, he should be all right. A few bounces on his knee had settled Tali, and a quick snatch of Ephraim as he rolled toward the corner edge of the desk had averted disaster until the missus blew back in five minutes later and shuffled the children out with a half-hearted apology for the interruption.

“Audrey wanted me to partner with a family man,” Reuben explained. “Someone established, with a wife and children of his own. She worried a bachelor wouldn’t be dependable in the long run without a family to anchor him to the community. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that you were the one God meant for me to bring into the business. So we arranged a test.”

“That whole bloody nose fiasco was a test?” Zach shook his head.

Reuben slapped him on the back, finally meeting his gaze. “One you passed with flying colors, my friend. Audrey gave your selection her full endorsement after she saw the way the children took to you. She assures me kids have a sense about people.”

Reuben quickstepped to the side to take a dead beetle out of Tali’s little fist before she could get it into her mouth. After tossing the bug into a far corner of the lumber shed, Reuben turned a teasing glance back on Zach.

“Now she wants me to find you a wife so you can start becoming the family man she intended you to be in the first place.”

“Not gonna happen,” Zach grumbled. Family didn’t fit into his plans. Freedom did. A married man wasn’t free. He was tied to responsibilities, demands, expectations. Expectations that could ruin a man when he failed to live up to them. He’d tried the family thing once, only to hurt those he cared about most. He wouldn’t fall into that trap again.

“Here you are.” A feminine voice echoed from the shed entrance.

Reuben’s face lit up, and he turned faster than a spindle on a lathe to greet his wife. She was a tiny thing. Her head barely reached Reuben’s shoulder, and her thin frame gave her a delicate appearance that was pure bunk. She might look like a bird, but she had birthed six healthy babes, and even more impressive, she actually managed to control them. Even now, the menagerie clomped down the stairstep planks with exclamations of “Mama!”

She ignored the calls momentarily, her attention focused solely on her husband as he strode across the expansive lumber shed to meet her. He wrapped her in an enthusiastic embrace, as if they hadn’t seen each other a scant hour earlier, and she gazed up at him with an adoration that pained Zach to watch.

He turned away from the tender display, a far too common occurrence where the Sinclairs were concerned. It was the only downside to this partnership. Reuben was disgustingly in love with his wife and didn’t care who knew it.

An ache radiated through Zach’s chest, but he ignored it. Sure, having a woman who looked at you as if you were the hero of her dreams would have its merits, but since Zach was the furthest thing from hero material, envy served no purpose. No female would ever look at him that way, and it was just as well, since the only thing worse than not having a woman look at you that way was to disappoint one who did and having to watch the admiration seep from her gaze. He knew that pain.

Sweet, cheerful, loyal-to-the-death Evie. The little sister who had adored him, called him her hero, and placed him on a pedestal he had no right to occupy. Yet her adoration made him believe he was better than he was, that he might actually deserve her high opinion. He hid the uglier parts of his nature from her, and for several years had even managed to hide them from himself. But nothing stayed hidden forever, and when the truth of his darkest deed came to light, her adoring gaze had faltered and fizzled into disappointment and shame.

Every time she looked at him after that, he felt the change. A carpenter shaving away at his heart with a chisel couldn’t have hurt more. She might still love him and proclaim him family, but things had changed between them and would never go back to the way they had been before. It was why he’d left.

Part of why he’d left, Zach corrected, as he pasted what he hoped was a passably pleasant expression on his face. The Sinclairs were headed his way, their brood swarming around their feet.

He’d mainly wanted to escape the sorghum farm and cut the familial tether that kept him from the freedom he craved. A freedom he now enjoyed. Audrey Sinclair could scheme all she liked. Zach wouldn’t be shackling himself to any female. Ever.