This trip to and from the train went a lot faster than his first one. The hay on the sleigh made it more comfortable and warmer, too. He and Jud used some of the time traveling to the train to brush the snow off the hay and stir the dry stalks to the top. They’d also spent time catching up. Jud was married. Welles couldn’t completely wrap his thoughts around that, partially because his mind was on Sophie, as it had been since he’d discovered her in the house. He couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t married. She was so pretty with those unique light blue eyes. He’d never seen another pair like them, and admitted they were even more striking than he remembered. She’d grown up, too.
He couldn’t get his mind around the fact she lived with Gramps, either. Or that the town had forsaken Sophie the way they had. If not for Lola, and her generous donations, the school building, which also doubled as the church, would never have been built. Had everyone forgotten that? Other questions filled his mind all the way to the train and again on the way back.
The passengers and train workers had been glad to see them, and he was glad they were all still fine, and now bundled beneath the blankets he’d taken from his grandfather’s house. The blizzard hadn’t let up, and Welles was concerned about the horses. They were working up a sweat pulling the heavy load through the snow that was up to their knees. The pair of buckskins were a good-looking team of workhorses, not saddle ones, and he wondered where his grandfather had acquired them. Another question.
“Not much farther now!” the sheriff shouted.
“Go straight to the hotel,” Welles shouted in return. “Get these folks inside.” The mother had her baby tucked beneath the covers with her, but he was still worried about the little guy. Before the storm had hit, the baby had been giggling and cooing at anyone who’d looked his way. They, that mother and baby, were the reason he’d walked through the blizzard to get help. The other four passengers were men, and could have survived being out in the cold. For a time. The way this storm was still raging, they’d all be lucky to make it back to town.
Any amount of sun that had been filtering through the clouds and snow faded fast, and by the time they rolled into town, the darkness made seeing even more difficult. As the horses drew up next to the hotel, Welles jumped over the side of the wagon and reached up to take the swaddled baby while Jud helped the woman down.
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “Thank you for coming back for us.”
Welles handed her the baby. “Get inside the hotel. The doc should be there. Have him check you for frostbite.”
“I will. Thank you again,” she said, already hurrying toward the door being held open.
“I’ll help you get the horses to the stable,” Jud said.
The wind still had them all shouting at each other. “No. You get home to your wife. I’ll see you when this storm blows over!” Welles climbed into the driver’s seat and released the brake, giving the horses the freedom to move forward on their own. They’d find the stables by intuition faster than he would in this darkness.
His intuition was good, too, and about the same moment he had the urge to pull back on the reins, a door opened and the inside of the livery appeared. So did Sophie.
“Pull all the way in,” she shouted. “There’s room for the sleigh.”
There was room; the barn was big, and neat and clean. That wasn’t what he was concerned about. “What are you doing out here?” His shout echoed off the walls and high ceiling because he let it out about the same time she shut the door. Setting the brake, he jumped down. “And what are you wearing?”
“Your old clothes,” she said while looking into the sleigh bed.
They were his clothes, and he was jealous of them. With her cheeks all rosy red, her long hair sticking out from beneath the brim of the hat, and those britches hugging her hips and legs, she was more becoming than any woman he’d ever seen.
“Where are the passengers?”
Stepping over to unhitch the harness yoke, he answered, “At the hotel.”
A frown formed and made tiny wrinkles between her dark brows. “All of them? Eve—even the woman and baby?”
“Yes, the doctor is there to check everyone for frostbite.”
“Oh.”
She set into unharnessing the team, and his intuition kicked in again, sensing something he could only describe as sadness or disappointment coming from her. Assuming it could only be because of the passengers, he said, “There wasn’t room for all of them at the house. They’ll be more comfortable at the hotel.”
Her gaze met his briefly as she lugged the heavy collar off one horse. He couldn’t decipher if there was doubt in her eyes or confusion. She’d turned away too fast. He couldn’t figure why she’d want a house full of strangers, either. That wasn’t the Sophie he knew. She hadn’t liked strangers. Leastwise not all of the ones that kept the bat doors of the saloon swinging while she’d lived there.
That had been five years ago, and people change. He had during that time.
He pulled the collar off the other horse, recalling how vigilant Lola George had been about those strangers getting anywhere near her daughter. Sophie’s bedroom had been on the far side of the room behind the bar, and both doors had been guarded. The one leading into the back room always had someone stationed near it, and the one leading into Sophie’s room had an iron door with a lock that rivaled the ones at the jail.
He knew for certain how strong that door had been because he’d helped the blacksmith, Bronco Larson, install it shortly after Lola and Sophie had moved to town. That summer was when Sophie started hanging around the livery. School wasn’t in session and she’d been bored staying in that little room all day. Lola had asked Gramps if it was all right, and Gramps had asked him.
It wasn’t as if he’d been able to say no. He’d felt sorry for Sophie. Though her room held the finest furniture of any room in town, and she’d had dresses and toys that made the other girls jealous, she’d had a lonely little life.
Knowing that, and being able to relate since he’d lived alone with Gramps since his parents had died when he’d only been three, he’d given her a few small jobs, brushing the horses or filling their grain bins, all of which she completed perfectly. She’d been good company, too, full of the latest gossip that a child her age shouldn’t have known. He’d enjoyed her daily visits. Until that final summer—somewhere throughout the winter she’d gone from a girl to a young woman—and he realized he was looking forward to her visits more than he should. He was five years older than she was. She’d only been fourteen, he nineteen, and liking her too much had started to worry him.
Which was part of the reason he’d listened to Colleen and went south instead of north. He was supposed to have gone to buy horses; instead he’d ended up at the gaming tables in New Orleans.
Switching his train of thought while leading one of the big horses into their stall, he said, “These are some fine horses.”
“Yes, they are,” she replied, leading the other one into its stall. “I named them Ben and Bob. B and B for short. I hope you don’t mind.”
Both big horses, B and B were in between them, making it impossible for him to see her. “Why would I mind?”
She walked around the back end of the horses. The wrinkles between her brows were back, as was her doubtful and confused look. “They’re your horses.” She grabbed two old saddle blankets and tossed one his way while walking back to the other horse. “They’re the first horses you had delivered after you left. Don’t you remember?”
While using the blanket to dry off the horse, he contemplated his answer. After arriving in New Orleans, which is where he’d discovered Colleen had stolen a goodly sum of money before leaving Big Springs and that the money she’d stolen had been his grandfather’s, finding a way to pay his grandfather back became his mission.
He’d done that at the gaming tables. Lady luck seemed to become his best friend. That was where these horses had come from, and several others. Some men didn’t know when to stop, and wouldn’t until they’d lost everything they owned.
“I’d acquired these two unseen,” he finally said.
Her silence had to be accompanied by another one of those wrinkled brow looks.
He was right. It was there as she poked her head around the horse he was still drying.
“Unseen?” She shook her head. “No one buys a horse unseen, especially you.”
She would know that about him. It was the other things about him he hadn’t wanted her to know. Then and now. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know. But Lola had. Colleen had told him so. Shrugging his shoulders, he went back to drying off the horse. “I trusted him.”
Sophie hadn’t been able to believe most everything he’d said since the moment he jumped out of the sleigh, and this one wasn’t believable, either. He was a stickler when it came to horses, those he bought, sold and rented out. Then again, maybe she’d never known him as well as she’d imagined, because five years ago she’d never have believed he’d run off with a dance-hall girl and his grandfather’s money. But he had. Run off with Colleen and every last dime Chester had at the time.
She’d been devastated by that. By his absence. He’d been the only thing she’d liked about this town, and it didn’t get any better after he left. In fact, it became worse. If it wasn’t for Chester, she had no idea what she would have done.
“I was sorry to hear about your mother.”
Sophie had to draw in a breath before she could answer. Few people made any form of reference to the death of her mother. Not then or now. She figured they thought reminding her of who her mother had been would sully them, and she had come to accept that. “Thank you.”
“I wish I would have known sooner.”
Hanging the wet saddle blanket she’d used to dry off Bob over the rail, she asked, “Why?”
“Because I could have...”
His silence said he was trying to come up with an answer, but there wasn’t one. She knew that. “There wasn’t anything anyone could have done.”
“I could have sent you some money or something,” he said.
She withheld a sigh. “For what?”
“Whatever you needed it for. To move somewhere else. Or, well, I don’t know, just whatever.”
The butterflies taking flight in her stomach said he’d stepped up beside her, and all the swallowing in the world wouldn’t settle those fluttering wings inside her. Closing her eyes didn’t help, either. That might have made breathing more difficult than those silly butterflies.
She opened her eyes and twisted in the opposite direction, walking toward the grain bin to give B and B each a can full.
He followed. “I’ll feed them. You go inside.”
Anger rose up inside her. She’d been feeding the horses since he’d left, and liked it. The horses didn’t mind who her mother had been. “Why are you here?” She filled both cans at the same time and moved toward the horses. “After five years, why do you just show up? In the middle of a snowstorm?”
He took one of the cans. “I didn’t plan to arrive in the middle of snowstorm. I just wanted to see Gramps. It’s been five years.”
She knew exactly how long it had been, and knew history wouldn’t repeat itself. Not for her or Chester because she wouldn’t let it.
They both emptied their cans into the feed troughs.
“Put out that lantern. I’ll get the other one,” he said while taking the empty can from her.
Sophie took down the lantern hanging on the post, extinguished it and hung it back up, keeping one eye on Welles the entire time. She should be glad he was home. For Chester’s sake. He wanted Welles here. Talked about it all the time. Despite his orneriness at times, she had come to care about Chester almost as if he was her grandfather, and knew he wasn’t getting any younger. Which meant she had to be on guard for both of them. Chester and herself. If the rumors she heard were true, Welles couldn’t be trusted. No gambler could be. Shortly after she’d been born, her father had decided he’d rather gamble away his money than take care of his wife and child, and had left. Never to be seen again.
“Ready?”
“Yes.” She pulled on her mittens while walking around the sleigh. He grabbed a traveling bag out of the bed, blew out the last lantern and met her at the door.
The big door snagged on the snow as they pushed, but it opened wide enough for them both to squeeze out. The snow was still falling, the wind still blowing, leaving drifts for them to trudge through.
She tucked her chin into her coat collar as they moved forward. Speaking was impossible. Not that she had anything to say. There were a dozen questions swarming her mind, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to know the answers to most of them.
He hooked his arm through hers and said something, but the wind made it impossible to hear as he pulled her forward at a quicker pace. The darkness and blowing snow made it impossible to see. Although she’d made the trek from the livery to the house and back again a million times over, the blizzard made the familiar pathway confusing. By the time they reached the steps to the house, Sophie was so turned around, she was certain she’d never have made the short distance by herself.
Chester pulled the door open as soon as they stepped onto the porch.
“I was starting to worry about you two,” he said.
“So was I,” Welles said. “I would never have thought I’d get lost between the house and the stable.”
“You didn’t get lost,” Sophie said while pulling off her mittens. “You brought us right to the door.”
“The front door.” He pulled off his hat and gloves. “I was aiming for the back one.”
His grin, which was as mischievous as she remembered, made her heart flutter. He used to do that all the time. Make her heart flutter. Back then he’d made her smile, too, especially on days when she’d thought there was nothing to smile about.
“Best get those wet coats off before you start dripping on the floor,” Chester said. “I have a pot of coffee on the stove.”
“You always have a pot of coffee on the stove,” Welles said. Then glancing at her, he asked, “That hasn’t changed, has it?”
Sophie bit her lips together as she shook her head. The glimmer in Welles’s eyes had her remembering happy days. Happy times. Something she hadn’t allowed herself to do in a long time.
Welles never took his eyes off her as he removed his coat. “Some things never change.”
The air stuck in her lungs as her heart skipped a beat. He looked older, more mature than before, and if anything, that increased his handsomeness. His eyes were as dark brown as Chester’s coffee, and thickly lashed, and like always, had a slight squint as if they were hiding a deep, dark secret that he’d never reveal. “No, some things don’t.”
“I’ll take your coat to the kitchen,” he said.
Regaining an iota of her senses, she shook her head at the hand he held out. “That’s all right. I got it.” Gathering all of her wet things, she carried them into the kitchen and hung them near the stove, leaving hooks open for him to do the same. Then she sat in the chair, removed the heavy boots she used for barn work and replaced them with the shoes she wore around the house.
She should go change her clothes, too, but needed to check the pot roast she’d put in the oven. Thinking there would be others for supper, she’d made plenty. Far more than the three of them would eat.
“Sit down, Welles,” Chester said. “Tell me about all the places you’ve been.”
Welles sat, and if she’d been thinking about changing out of his old clothes and into one of her dresses, she wasn’t now. She wouldn’t miss hearing what he had to say for all the clothes in the world.