<< Go Back

The 12 Brides of Summer - Novella collection #4

By Davalynn Spencer, Vickie McDonough, Diana Brandmeyer

Order Now!

Thou wilt shew me the path of life.
PSALM 16:11



Chapter 1

Colorado, 1886

Lucy Powell’s ears pricked at her children’s excited voices. She looked from the vegetable seed packets to the candy counter where a tall bearded man reached for Elmore’s ear. Three quick steps took her past a table before she stopped. The man squatted and her son’s eyes widened at sight of a copper penny. Cecilia, ever the guardian, stayed her little brother’s hand.
“We don’t take things from strangers, Elmore.”
Lucy clutched the packets she’d already chosen and listened for her son’s reply.
“He ain’t no stranger, Sissy. That penny come out of my ear.”
Cecilia pulled him back with a sharp whisper, eyes narrowed at the man. “It’s just a trick. He fooled you.”
Elmore’s lower lip bulged, and Lucy suppressed an impulse to intervene. Intrigued by her daughter’s protective instincts and partially hidden by a display of granite ironware, she inched forward, waiting to see if Cecilia had the pluck she suspected.
“Pardon me saying so, miss, but you’ve got something in your ear, too.”
The man’s warm voice touched forgotten places in Lucy’s mind and weakened her daughter’s defenses as well. He reached toward one dark braid, and six-year-old eyes rounded at a second mysterious penny. Lucy covered her mouth and blinked back a burning sensation as he straightened and laid both coins on the counter.
“I’d thank you kindly if you’d help me out with these since I have other things I need to tend to.”
Lucy stepped forward. The man set his hat on, turned on his heel, and strode squarely into her.
“Oh!” Seed packets scattered as she flailed for balance. The man’s arm linked around her waist, and he jerked his hat off and mashed it against his leg, dangling her from his arm. “Pardon me, ma’am.”
Emboldened by her motherly motives and the ragged beard sweeping her forehead, Lucy gathered her footing, pushed out of the man’s grasp, and bent to retrieve her potential garden. He joined her, scooping up most of the packets as she scooped up her breath.
“No harm done.” She accepted what he’d gathered and scoured the beard bristling above her before lifting her eyes to meet his. She stilled at their clarity—blue as the sky. And slightly familiar.
“I hope you don’t mind them having a sweet.” One eye tightened at the corner with an unspoken thought.
She regarded her children whose hope plastered their faces like a newspaper headline, then returned her attention to the man. “How very kind of you. Thank you.”
He nodded, and stepped around her toward the hardware. Lucy tried to imagine what he looked like clean shaven. Clutching the seed packets, she joined her children who were less concerned with her near trampling than with how many licorice whips could be bought for a penny. Cecilia’s calculating pleased Lucy, though guilt warred with sensibility as she justified not treating her children to this simple pleasure since their father had died. She did not have money for nonessentials, not with saving everything to buy supplies for the summer. And were it not for Mr. Wellington’s generosity at the mercantile, they’d have even less. His tally always came out different than what Lucy calculated. He’d best not let Cecilia help him with the order.
May was spent, school out for summer, and Lucy and the children left tomorrow for the ranch to salvage what they could from winter’s neglect. Ranch seemed such a grand term for their two sections and handful of cows, but it had been William’s dream, and Lucy determined not to let it die as well. By now their small herd must be scattered to the hills and their hay field decimated by deer. But she and the children could plow and plant, round up and repair. Rubbing the tightness that lately pulled between her neck and shoulder, she sagged against the counter.
“You all right, Mrs. Powell?” Fred Wellington’s squeaky question announced his approach and she straightened. The man’s generous spirit must be what endeared his wife and daughter to him, for Lucy could not imagine living day in and day out with that voice. Though it couldn’t be much worse than living with no husband or father’s voice at all.
Glancing toward the stranger, she found him looking at coffeepots of all things. Mr. Wellington’s daughter, Priscilla, had come from the back and wore lovely flushed cheeks as she presented a varied selection to the man whose voice could melt ice on a winter pond.
“Mrs. Powell?”
“Oh—yes, Mr. Wellington.” Straightening, she stashed her curiosity and opened her reticule. If only the stranger could work his sleight of hand with her meager savings, then she would not be weighing the value of sugar over sorghum molasses and Arbuckles’ over tea. Wellington penciled her items on his notepad, tore off the sheet, and slid it across the counter. Lucy read the figure and drew a deep breath. “I don’t know what we—”
He raised a palm to interrupt. “Good Lord takes care of us all, Mrs. Powell. ’Sides, what the Spruce City school board gives you I am sure would not keep a tiger in stripes.”
“Fredrick, really.” The man’s wife swept around the end of the counter and swatted his shoulder with a feathery touch. What a pair they were, one tall and squeaky, the other plump yet elegant. But a pair, two halves of one whole. “It’s none of our business what Mrs. Powell receives.” Rosemary Wellington’s cheeks puffed with a pleasant smile as the children giggled over the sacks her husband handed them with much more than a penny’s worth in each.
“Thank you, Mr. Wellington,” Cecilia said in her most proper voice.
“Thank you,” Elmore parroted.
Rosemary shook her head. “Looks like Mr. Reiter has been at it again.”
Reiter. That was it. Buck Reiter, the next rancher over the ridge who ran horses with his widowed sister. Pulling the draw on her reticule, Lucy turned casually toward the hardware and stole another quick glance. The man helped raise his nephew, from what Lucy had heard, though that was years before she and William came to Spruce City. The boy was grown and married now, just last Christmas, if she recalled correctly.
Ducking her head, she fingered the hair knotted at her neck and caught the sweep of her black wool, so dark and hot for the summer’s work ahead. Tomorrow she’d pack it away. Cows and coyotes would not notice if she put off her widows weeds a bit early.
“I’ll load your supplies and have you on your way quick as a wink.” Wellington hefted a sack of flour on one shoulder and headed out while his wife shuttled the children through the door to wait on the boardwalk. Then she turned to Lucy.
“I am so glad you’re not leaving us, dear, but do you have anyone to help you? There are several strapping boys here in town who could lend a hand.”
Indeed there were, but with what would Lucy pay them? Free spelling and arithmetic lessons they’d left behind for the summer? She smiled at Rosemary’s kindness. “I want to see what needs doing first. Maybe then I’ll have someone help me find the cattle and build up the woodpile.”
Lucy shivered, but not with cold. The woodpile had indirectly led to William’s death when rogue lightning struck the tree he was cutting. A throat cleared and she looked up to see Mr. Reiter crumpling his hat in his hands again. She squelched the urge to slap his fingers.
“We’ve wood for three winters at our place, ma’am. I’d be happy to bring over a wagonload.”
The man confessed to eavesdropping, yet showed not one shred of embarrassment. She pulled the cord of her already tightened reticule and looked out the storefront windows. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. We will be fine.” Accepting Mr. Wellington’s deliberately poor ciphering skills was one thing, but taking charity from a neighbor she could never repay was quite another.
His retreating boots pricked her pride. A part of her wouldn’t mind seeing the deep-voiced Buck Reiter drive into their yard with a wagonload of wood. But a bigger part feared letting anyone see how bad things really were.

Order Now!

<< Go Back