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Romancing the Widow

By Davalynn Spencer

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Cañon City, Colorado
September, 1888

Martha Mae Stanton yanked the satin ribbon beneath her chin and jerked off the ridiculous black hat. Digging her nails into the fine netting, she ripped the veil away and tossed it on the seat beside her.
A long, hot train ride was one thing. Making that ride while behind a socially dictated curtain was quite another.
Across the aisle, a matron gasped and clutched her reticule to her bulging bosom.
Martha picked up the veil, leaned into the narrow walkway, and dropped the netting on the woman’s shelf-like lap. “Here. You wear it. I’ve had enough.”
The matron sputtered and huffed and swatted the black tulle from her knees as if it were a stinging hornet.
A smile almost made it to Martha’s dry lips but died for lack of sustenance.
She leaned back against the plush green seat and squeezed her eyes shut. The late afternoon sun broiled through her window. Grit dusted her teeth, and perspiration gathered beneath her arms and slid down her back. Late summer had never been so sticky—not in the Rocky Mountains.
Mimicking the matron a half hour later, the Denver & Rio Grande wheezed to a coughing stop at Cañon City’s depot. Steam hissed along the wheels, and a knot tightened in Martha’s neck. She retied the hat as impatient travelers rushed the aisle. Weary mothers herded their petulant young ahead of them, reminding Martha of her former students—and the children she would never bear.
The porter stopped at her seat with a shining smile and tip of his cap. “This be your stop, ma’am. Last one today.”
“Yes—yes, I know.” Through the open door at the end of the car came happy shouts and endearments of reuniting families. She gripped the seatback ahead of her and stood, giving her legs a moment to remember how to proceed.
“May I carry that for you, ma’am?” He reached for her bag.
“No. Thank you.” She curled her fingers into the handle, desperate for something to ground her, something to keep her from running back down the rails.
She made her way to the exit and paused, searching the crowd for her parents.
Caleb and Annie Hutton stood apart, the only two people not huddled with arriving passengers. Upon catching sight of her, a smiling mask formed hard across her mother’s gentle face, one Martha recognized from the countless times her father had dealt with the more unpleasant duties of his clerical calling.
Regret slid from the back of her damp collar and pooled at her waist. Returning had been a mistake. She did not want her family to see her as an unpleasant obligation.
The porter cleared his throat. “You all right, ma’am?”
She plucked at her high collar. “Quite. Thank you.”
Breathing in a dusty draught, she descended to the step and then the ground.
Her father approached and drew her into his arms. Silent. Strong. He held her close, knowing as always exactly what to do.
Her mother wrapped an arm around each of them and bent her lilac-scented hair toward Martha. The fragrance embraced her as closely as her parents and drew her back through the years.
“I am so sorry.” Mama’s whisper fell as gently as her scent.
Martha pulled from their arms and met troubled eyes—her father’s black as her mourning dress but shining with love. Her mother’s burnished and beautiful as ever, though age had etched their corners.
“Thank you,” Martha said. “Both of you. Let’s go home.”
It was a short walk to the buggy, and she and her mother climbed in while the porter helped her father strap her trunk to the back. Settling her carpet bag at her feet, Martha glanced toward the depot’s long covered platform. In a shadowed corner, an abutment jutted from the building and a man leaned against it. Had the sunlight not cut from a sharp angle, she would have missed him in his dark clothing, hat pulled just below the level of his eyes. One knee bent with a booted foot resting on the wall. His thumbs hooked his trousers, draping back a black coat.
It was too hot for a coat of any kind.
She didn’t realize she was staring until he raised his head a hairbreadth and met her eye to eye.
Steeled, perhaps by months of grief, she held his study without reaction, measuring him as he measured her. Lean and alone, like a wolf. So unlike her beloved Joseph.
Dressed in black, as was she in her widow’s weeds.
Her jaw clenched at the phrase, and the tightness coupled like a freight car to her cramping neck. It was bad enough to be shrouded in spirit, bereft and singular after sharing life with a fine and caring man. Her eyes pinched at the corners, dry and tearless. Depleted.
She looked down at her pale hands clutched tightly against the gloomy skirt, as white as Joseph’s still face. The memory seared through her chest, scorching what little vibrancy remained. All her hopes and promises of a future lay buried in a pine coffin.
Her father climbed to the seat, gathered the reins, and tapped old Dolly’s rump.
A shudder rippled through Martha. Cramped as they were, her mother leaned even closer with concern. “Are you ill, Marti?”
The old name rang foreign in Martha’s ears. No one had called her Marti since she graduated and married Joseph three years ago. She glanced over her shoulder as if searching for the name’s rightful owner. The stranger’s eyes caught hers.
Foolishness flooded her cheeks, perhaps a convincing enough sign for her mother to think she was feverish.
“No, Mama, I’m fine. Just—just noticing all the changes in Cañon City.” A flimsy excuse, one sure to wither beneath years of perfected detection.
But the woman had pity on her only daughter and simply patted Martha’s folded hands.
“Yes, a lot has changed since last you were here.”
~
Everyone looked the same to Haskell Tillman Jacobs—road-weary, dusty, and glad to be off the train. Everyone but the red-haired beauty in black.
Anonymity suited him, and he preferred to blend in with whatever background presented itself. But she had stared straight at him as if she knew the man he sought and could tell him the varmint’s whereabouts.
Obscurity returned when the parson drove away from the depot and turned east onto Main Street toward his home at the opposite end. Knowing what people did and where they lived was one of the better aspects of Haskell’s job.
He just hadn’t known about her.
He pushed from the wall, stepped off the wooden platform, and stopped at the second car. When the porter leaned down for the step, Haskell pulled back one side of his coat, revealing the star on his vest.
The man straightened. “Yes, sir?”
“Anyone else on the train?”
“No, sir. This our last stop.”
“I’d like to see for myself.”
The porter stepped aside. “Yes, sir.”
The interior smelled of sweaty clothing, coal smoke, and sour lunches. Haskell walked the narrow aisle, checking the seats for any telltale sign or forgotten belonging.
The porter followed.
“There ain’t nothin’ left behind, sir. I done looked.”
The man obviously took his job as seriously as Haskell took his, but he continued on, pausing at each bench.
Something lay on the floor halfway back. He bent and snatched up the dark netting, wadding it into his coat pocket. Continuing to the next car, he repeated his inspection, then turned to his dogged follower.
“And a fine job you’ve done.”
“You huntin’ somethin’ special?”
The man’s voice carried more than the cursory question. He saw more than most.
“Where did the woman in black board the train?”
“You mean the widow Stanton? Kansas City, sir.”
Haskell fingered the netting. “You pick up anyone in Pueblo today?”
“Just a mother and her two youngin’s. If’n somebody else jumped on the back, I couldn’t say.” Coal-black eyes lifted to the low ceiling. “We carried a body or two without knowin’ it at the time.” He regarded Haskell coldly. “But not in a long time.” His thick brown fingers flexed open and closed.
Haskell nodded and stepped outside. “I’ll have a look.”
When the train arrived, he’d seen no movement on top of the cars, saw no one jump. At least not on the depot side.
He climbed up to view the length of the train and found what he expected—nothing. Squinting back along the rail bed, he noted the few houses huddled near the track with small fenced yards hedging the narrow road between the gravel and their gates.
Working his way down, he jumped clear and walked downtown.
Word had it that the man he sought was last seen in La Junta and headed this way by train. Obviously, the speed and comfort of such travel balanced out the risk, especially for one so gifted at slipping into a crowd unseen.
But Haskell could have missed his prey once the widow stepped down. She’d drawn his eye like a prospector’s nose to a nugget. The hazards of a solitary life, he figured, though he had no intention of being turned from his purpose.
The black netting snagged his calloused fingers as he pulled it from his pocket. Intricate needlework hung from one side, torn thread from the other. Crumpling the ripped piece, he dropped it in a wire basket just inside the front doors of the McClure House.
Across the lobby, the dining room beckoned, and he took his usual table in the farthest corner. A seat against the wall offered a clear view of the guests who dotted the room. He set his hat on an empty chair.
The Yale University professor with more hair on his face than his head dined with his entourage, each member intent upon impressing the Easterner with some tidbit of knowledge.
A serving girl interrupted Haskell’s observation with her coffee and inviting smile.
“Good evening, Mr. Tillman.” She righted the cup on his saucer and filled it to just beneath the brim.
“Evening.”
“Did you enjoy your day?”
She waited expectantly for him to answer, but he didn’t chit-chat with girls young enough to be his daughter and obviously angling for a beau.
“What’s on the board tonight?”
Her good humor slid away and she pulled the coffee pot to her waist. “Roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and peach pie. Will you be dining alone again?”
She didn’t give up easily, he’d give her that.
“Yes.” He reached for the coffee, dismissing her.
She huffed away in a swirl of skirts and stopped at the Bentons’ table, her smile back in place, her coffee at the ready.
If the food wasn’t so good, he’d fill himself in his room on canned peaches and jerked beef. But it wasn’t often he found fare like the hotel offered. Cañon City had more to recommend it than its bath house and hanging train bridge in the canyon.
Which were a couple of the reasons he’d given thought to staying a while. Maybe even settling down.
The young widow’s bold gaze rose before him, framed by her black hat and coppery hair.
Her image nettled him. Irritated him. He had business to tend to and could not be distracted by a beautiful, aloof woman.
“I tell you, the second quarry will be as forthcoming as the first.”
Drawn by the professor’s insistent tone, Haskell raised his cup and tuned his ear to the conversation at the far wall. An animated man, the Easterner waved his fork like a band leader’s baton.
“Finch has made further discovery across the gully and has been digging there for several weeks now with great success.”
The listeners murmured over their plates, and from the gleam of fortune in the speaker’s eye, Haskell guessed the man and his absentee companion—Finch—had uncovered an oil bed or a rich ore vein.
“I am confident that these bones will rival the Allosaurus and Diplodocus unearthed here a decade ago. Perhaps another Stegosaurus will be discovered, even more complete that the first.”
Haskell coughed as the hot coffee slid down his wind pipe. He set the china cup in its saucer and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.
If he recalled his school days accurately, the bald professor in the fine jacket was talking about dinosaurs.

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