Her Colorado Man

Louis unlocked his top desk drawer and took out an envelope. He tapped it against his other palm thoughtfully before placing it on top of his desk and pushing it toward her. “It’s all here.”

With trembling fingers, Mariah reached for the envelope. Her grandfather’s name had been written in sprawling black script. She slid out the stationery and unfolded the paper.

Mr. Spangler,

I do not know if you are going to understand what I am about to do. I do not know if I understand it myself, but I am leaving Juneau City at the end of the week and will be heading to Colorado.

For the past six years, I have been traveling between tent camps and post offices. There is money to be made in this land, and I have spent my youth acquiring it. I have witnessed plenty of men getting mail from home, and I have often wondered what it would be like to have family waiting for me, wishing I was with them.

Before I was a mail carrier, I worked aboard a whaling ship. I once tried my luck at gold mining, and I have traveled half the world. In all that time I never felt attached to a place. I never had a yearning to settle until I read the lad’s words about the Spangler family. He writes about his mother and you. I feel as though I have been to Ruby Creek.

It makes no sense, but lately I have been homesick for a place I have never been and I have been missing a boy I have never seen. The yearning I read in John James’s letters is the yearning I have felt my whole life. It is a need to be important to someone. And I aim to be that to him if I am able.

I have had some time to reflect on my life these past weeks, and what I now see is that above all I want to make a difference in this world. I want to make a difference in your great-grandson’s life. By the time you get this, you will not be able to reach me, and you could not have said anything that would have changed my mind anyhow. I am on my way to meet John James.

You have my word that I shall not embarrass or hurt the boy. Neither do I intend to disrupt your life or your granddaughter’s. This is something I need to do. I want your great-grandson to have what every boy deserves—a father who cares about him.

Sincerely, Wesley T. Burrows

Hot tears stung at the backs of Mariah’s eyes. Fear and resentment welled up strong and fierce. The words written in black ink blurred in her vision. Blinking, she folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. “This is absurd. We don’t know this man. What right does he have to come galloping in here like a savior on a white horse and weasel his way into our lives?”

Standing, she tossed the envelope back on his desk and walked behind her chair. She grasped the leather in both hands in an attempt to stop her violent trembling. “What are we going to do?”

Her grandfather stood and made his way around the corner of the enormous walnut desk. “There’s nothing we can do. We used his postal box for several years without his permission. He’s caught us in a lie.”

“Which gives him the power to come in here and ruin our lives?” she exclaimed. “What if he’s coming to blackmail us? What better reason could he have to travel across a continent to intrude on our family?”

“Blackmail? That’s a pretty big leap. I’ve read his other letters to John James, and I don’t believe he means us any harm. We’ll deal with anything that comes up when the time arrives, Mariah. There’s no call to jump to conclusions.”

“No.” Panic rose in her chest. “You can have someone stop him before he gets here.”

“Who would I ask to deter him? Your brothers? Your nephews? Just what would I tell them? And what would we do with Burrows once we’d stopped him? He’s not breaking any laws by coming here.”

Mariah didn’t like feeling trapped, and she didn’t like anyone having the control over her that this Wes Burrows had at the moment. The man was up to no good. “No one has ever seen him,” she said. “When he gets here, we’ll say he’s an imposter.”

“Mariah, that would—”

“I know—it would raise too many questions and still create a scene for John James.” She paced several feet away and then walked back to face her grandfather.

“I’m going to take his words at face value,” Louis said. “He wants John James to know he has a father who cares about him.”

“He doesn’t have a father who cares about him,” she said in a tight voice. “I’m not blaming you for anything.” She took a step forward and leaned to rest her hand on his shirtsleeve. “When I came back with a baby, I was relieved that you’d already told everyone the story about a husband. It spared me the embarrassment of making explanations. I accepted the lie because it was convenient. And even when Otto sent those first letters, I could have stopped you from giving them to John James, but I didn’t.” Her throat burned with the truth and the scalding honesty. “I wanted him to believe he had a father.”

She swallowed hard and a trembling began in her knees. “This man coming here is taking the lie too far. Even if his intent is harmless, and he pretends to be a father, he’ll leave eventually. Desertion will only hurt John James more in the end.”

Louis moved his arm to grasp her hand and hold it between both of his. “Let’s say he visits for a few weeks. And then he goes back where he came from. Things will go back like they were and John James will have had a father like all the other children.”

“But it’s always been a lie.” She couldn’t push her voice past a whisper because her chest ached too fiercely. Maybe the lie had allowed her to pretend there was someone out there who would be returning one day.

Louis released her and stared out the window. His hair glowed silver in the sunlight. “It’s a little late to tell the truth,” he said, turning back to level a gaze on her. “Or is there a chance the child’s real father will show up one day?”

She looked into his eyes, eyes that had always looked upon her with loving trust and kindness.

The truth would tear her family apart.

With a dull pain in her chest, she shook her head. “No. He’ll never show up.”

“I’ve never pressured you, Mariah,” he said kindly, and it was true. Nor had he ever condemned her. His love for her had never wavered. “My deepest regret is that you don’t trust me with the truth…but I trust you.”

“You and my father are the only men on this earth I trust,” she said with the acidic taste of guilt on her tongue. But then she repented in her thoughts, because she had four brothers who would die for her at a moment’s notice. “Well, there are my brothers, of course…but I don’t trust this stranger.”

He took several steps to take her in his arms and hold her against his satin vest. He smelled of spice and shaving soap and everything dear and familiar. She had to hold back a sob or drown in a torrent. “Whoever this outsider is, I don’t plan to welcome him or treat him kindly,” she warned. “Even if he were my gadabout husband, no one would expect me to welcome him with open arms after all these years.”

“We’ll do what we have to,” Louis answered. “We’ll do what we believe is right for John James.”

“Wes Burrows doesn’t know what’s right for John James. He doesn’t even know us.” Her voice broke, and she caught herself before she lost her composure. “I’ll figure out what he’s up to,” she said. “And I won’t let him hurt my son.”

She loved her grandfather with every beat of her heart. He’d meant well. They’d both believed that saving her good name and giving her son an identity was best for him. John James had never suffered the indignity of being born out of wedlock, and she’d been spared shame and embarrassment.

Until now.

Chapter Two

That evening as the sun slid toward the western horizon, Mariah caught a ride home in the back of a company wagon leaving the yard. Her brother Arlen gave her an arm up, and she leaped over the side to take a seat in the bed beside her family members.

Arlen lived in the family home with Grandfather and their parents, as did she and John James, her two younger sisters, a widowed aunt and her cousin Marc’s family.

Mariah’s family had lived in a separate house once, but when her mother’s sight had failed, they’d moved into the big house so Henrietta wasn’t alone during the day. Now Wilhelm and his family lived in the house they’d vacated, which was only several hundred feet from this one.

For practicality, all of the Spanglers lived within a half a mile radius of the brewery and each other. Grandfather said it was like having their own Bavarian district. They shopped, worshipped and visited in Ruby Creek on a regular basis, though, always taking an interest in the community and usually attending church.

The good-natured chatter and teasing between cousins and siblings was lost on her today; her thoughts had been narrowed to one subject—and one person—since that morning.

The wagon slowed and Arlen, along with her cousin Marc, jumped down. Arlen reached back for Mariah’s hand and Marc helped his wife to the ground. Faye adjusted her skirts and took his hand as they headed toward the rear entry.

Men and women parted in the yard, the men headed for the washhouse. Mariah followed Faye in through the sun porch to the enormous kitchen filled with mouthwatering aromas. Her aunt Ina turned from one of the steaming cast-iron stoves to welcome them with a smile.

Mariah’s mother sat on a wooden stool near a chopping block, peeling potatoes. “Hello, Mama,” Mariah greeted her.

“How was your workday?” Henrietta asked and raised her cheek for a kiss.

“It was long.” Mariah joined Faye at a deep sink to scrub her hands. “I’ll be down to help with supper after I wash up and change.”

“There you are!” her cousin Hildy exclaimed when the two of them nearly collided in the doorway. “John James has been waiting for you.”

Hildy didn’t live with them. She had worked in the brewery for a couple of years, but most recently she’d been a companion to Henrietta. She preferred helping with the household chores and watching over the younger children to a brewery position, and the arrangement suited everyone. Hildy had no children of her own.

“I gave the children toast and eggs after school,” Hildy told her. “Though they’d have much preferred your mama’s cookies.”