An Unexpected Redemption

by Davalynn Spencer

  He wanted to just haul her down to the church and marry her on the spot like Cade had Mae Ann. But he sensed that things needed to be different for Betsy this time around. Not a big wedding, but a big lead-up to it.

  She’d teared up last week when he’d asked to court her. Not what he’d expected. She wasn’t the crying, swooning type, which was one of the things about her that appealed to him. She had more fight in her than frivol, but she was still full of surprises. Predictability was not one of them, however, though she had been right about Maggie, who finally came right out and asked her if she’d stay on permanently.

  They’d all gone back to eating dinner in the dining room—Clay included—and Maggie had approached the subject in her typical fashion.

  “I’d like you to give Mr. Rochester notice and come work for me.”

  Betsy stared. Clay kept shoveling in pot pie, as if he was afraid he’d be kicked outside with the dog.

  She set her fork down and dabbed her perfectly clean mouth. “Do you need a type-writer?”

  Maggie clicked her tongue. “No, of course I don’t. I need someone to run this place. It’s become too much for me, and I think you are just the person for the job.”

  Betsy had exchanged a quick glance with Garrett, edgy as usual, as if to say, “I told you so.”

  He’d kept a chuckle inside, but he didn’t have to now, and Pearl raised her head and looked at him from her mat by the potbellied stove.

  “What’s so funny?” Prentiss limped to the near end of the cell and gripped the bars.

  “Not you, that’s for sure.”

  Garrett got to his feet and pointed Pearl to the cell. “Guard the prisoner till I get back.”

  Blamed dog walked over and curled her lip with a rumble. He ought to take up side bets on her savvy of the English language.

  Fall had rolled off the mountains and settled in town, stripping all the leaves from the trees and blowing its crisp breath down Main Street and the neck of anyone who wasn’t prepared. Garrett raised the collar on his coat.

  No more fires since the library, but Rochester was doing a healthy business in premiums, from the looks of things. Batwing doors wouldn’t be out of place with the traffic going in and out of his office.

  Not to be taken advantage of, Widow Fairfax had hounded the man until he’d coughed up the money to tear down and rebuild the back of the library, replacing the old clapboard with brick. Garrett admired her tenacity.

  He crossed the street for the livery, and gave the sky one more glance—so blue and clear it almost hurt his eyes. He figured he owed George Booth a heap of thanks. In fact, he owed George a telegram about the recent goin’s on in town.

  Erik was busy at his anvil, and Clay was cleaning stalls, whistling an unfamiliar tune against the ping of the hammer. At Garrett’s approach, the boy stopped and stood straight as the pitchfork handle he was holding.

  Garrett reset his hat. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for the other night.”

  Clay dropped his gaze and shoulders and fiddled with the fork. “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not. I jumped to conclusions that could have been costly. I’m asking you to forgive me.”

  The boy looked so shocked, Garrett was afraid he’d quit breathing.

  He put a hand on top of the stall’s half door. “You all right?”

  “Uh, yeah. I mean yes, sir. It’s just that no one’s ever asked me that before.”

  Black thoughts rolled through Garrett’s skull over what he knew Clay wore beneath his shirt. “Well, they should have. And I am.”

  Clay looked at him with such strong emotion, Garrett nearly second-guessed himself. But his grandfather had been right about a lot of things, and this was one Garrett would hold to as long as he had air in his lungs.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Yes sir, what?”

  The boy swiped the back of his hand across his eyes before standing straight and tall. “I forgive you.”

  Garrett jerked a quick nod. “Obliged.” He slapped the stall door. “Don’t be late for supper. Maggie won’t let you off the hook. You’ll be washin’ dishes or pickin’ chickens or some such.”

  Clay grinned near like Pearl. “I’ll be there.”

  “Can you run a hammer?”

  The boy glanced back at Erik.

  “Not that kind. Hammer, nails, wood planks, and levels.”

  “I’ve done repairs, and I’m willing to learn.”

  “Good. When Erik hasn’t got you working on something for him, we’ve got a barn to build for Maggie Snowfield. You up to it?”

  The boy nearly grew a foot. “Yes, sir.”

  “See you at supper.”

  Betsy had given notice, as Maggie put it, and today was her last day with Rochester. Garrett crossed the street, flipped his collar down, and stepped inside the attorney’s office.

  “Good afternoon, Sheriff.” Seated behind a stack of papers, Rochester didn’t bother to get up. “I thought you might be by this afternoon.”

  He thought right.

  Betsy blushed most becomingly from her small table across the room and gave Garrett a shy smile. “I’m almost finished with this last correspondence.”

  “Take your time. I’ve got all day.”

  Rochester leaned back in his chair and fingered his thin mustache. He may not have been behind the fires, but Garrett still didn’t trust him. Just because he walked upright didn’t mean he wasn’t a varmint just waitin’ to grab hold of an unsuspecting passerby.

  If George Booth said he was a gold-fanged snake, then snake he was.

  Betsy rolled the paper out of her type-writing machine and took it to Rochester for his approval.

  He read through it as slowly as possible, then looked up at her.

  “I hate to lose you, Mrs. Beaumont.”

  Garrett crossed his arms, hiding the fists he’d like to bury in Rochester’s gut.

  “But I understand that life is full of twists and turns. It’s been my pleasure to have you in my service.”

  He pulled a large book of checks from the top desk drawer, filled out one, and handed it to her.

  Surprised by what he’d written, she started to speak but stalled at Rochester’s pale hand raised in protest.

  “Remember me kindly. You may meet another young woman who is skilled at type-writing, and I would appreciate you sending her my way. Though I will be surprised if anyone’s skills surpass yours.”

  Garrett thought he’d be sick.

  “Thank you.”

  With that simple parting, she returned to her desk and picked up the crate that was under her table.

  Garrett loaded the machine, and they left the narrow, airless office of Anthony Rochester, Esquire.

  Once they rounded the corner, he leaned toward her. “Will you miss working for him?”

  She snorted.

  ~

  Betsy felt free. As free as the mares in late spring when Cade and their pa turned the band out on the high parks. She wanted to hike her skirts and run all the way home—her new home, the Snowfield mansion.

  But it wasn’t really a mansion, just the biggest, grandest house in Olin Springs. She’d seen true mansions in Denver, at least from the outside. Besides, Garrett was walking her. Courting her, she supposed. She’d never been courted, truly. She’d thought she had, until she realized too late that she’d merely been duped in the midst of her sorrow.

  A heavy sigh rolled out ahead of her, and her steps slowed. She’d not told Garrett he’d been right. In all the excitement of the library fire, fighting off the photographer at the livery, and Maggie asking her to take over the boarding house that wasn’t a boarding house, she’d forgotten about what sent her searching for him that night.

  How grateful she was that he had pressed past her façade. Today was a perfect example, when he showed up to carry her type-writer back to Maggie’s. Rochester still made her skin crawl, in spite of his spotless manners. Something about the man wasn’t quite right, and sh
e was grateful that she had not been alone with him when she took her leave.

  “What is it?”

  Gentle concern edged Garrett’s dear voice.

  She looked up with trust she’d never expected to feel again. “Just thinking how glad I am that you came to help me with my type-writer today.”

  “You’d have done fine without me. You hauled it once from the depot all by your sweet lonesome.”

  She stopped cold and turned to face his brash honesty. “Are you admitting that you watched me hobble away with that crate on my sore hip, and never said a thing?”

  Those laughing eyes shone like silver coins. “Not so, Betsy Parker. I offered to carry it for you, but you flatly refused.”

  He was right again, of course, and that was just too many rights for one afternoon.

  “Humph.” She picked up her skirt and her pace and outdistanced him to the front gate. He chuckled behind her all the way into the house and up the stairs.

  At the door to her room, she felt a sweep of modesty even though he’d already been in it. Soon they would be sharing this room, or the one that had once been Maggie’s and her husband’s, complete with a small parlor and a bay window overlooking the orchard. She and Garrett must discuss it, but not now, not here.

  “You want to set that on the floor for me?”

  Lost in self-conscious thoughts of the future, she’d not noticed him waiting while he held the Remington, the crescent dimple in play. She snatched the crate out of the way, and he set her type-writer in place, for what reason, she didn’t really know. Perhaps she would find time to practice and keep her skills in top condition.

  Garrett turned toward her, still in no hurry. She held the empty crate, and with the other hand tentatively brushed her fingers across the scar on his cheek. He took her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips, his eyes dark and hungry.

  Her breathe fled, her heartbeat close behind. “How did you get it?” She’d wondered since she first met him.

  His jaw tightened, his eyes shaded, and he released her hand. Taking the crate from her, he set it against the wall, then looked out the window.

  “A mistake I made a long time ago.”

  She waited for him to go on, but he did not. Instead, he walked out to the landing.

  Justice raised its prideful head, and she marched after him, stopping him before he descended the stairs. “So it’s perfectly fine for me to relinquish my past to self-forgiveness, but not you?”

  He didn’t face her, but spoke harshly to the open air above the hallway that ran the length of Maggie’s house. “It’s not the same thing.”

  She wanted to know him, the real person, even the hidden parts, and she longed for him to share all of himself with her. To hold nothing back.

  “Garrett,” she whispered and lightly touched his sleeve.

  He flinched.

  “I don’t want anything between us.”

  His left hand came up and covered hers on his arm, reassuring her with its rough warmth and strength. “I have to get back to the jail.”

  And then he was gone. Down the stairs and out the door in the time it took her to draw a deep breath. She gripped the banister and stared at the ornate oak door that had closed soundlessly behind him, as solid and impenetrable as his parting look.

  She’d been warned to back off, and she wasn’t so sure she liked that.

  What was the point of marrying—if that was Garrett’s intention when he used the word court—when one closed himself off to the other?

  Cold and lonely nights in a Denver rooming house rushed back with brittle clarity, and she rubbed her arms against the memories. In spite of Maggie’s warm house, she shivered. Was she making the same mistake all over again?

  “There you are.” Maggie looked up from the hallway, her white topknot disheveled and her apron askew. “Could you help me in the pantry, please?”

  Betsy hurried downstairs, shelving her worries in the face of Maggie’s need. “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “I have a mouse cornered behind the flour barrel, and I’m having a difficult time catching him.”

  Betsy shook her head in amazement. “I’m surprised you reacted this way.”

  “Oh, it’s not reaction, dear. It’s response, and that’s altogether different. We get to choose our responses—anger, trust, kindness, et cetera. More often than not, we just don’t think about it.”

  “And you chose mercy over a stiff broom?”

  “Heavens, yes. I don’t want to kill the mouse, just relocate it.”

  If Mama’d had that sentiment, Betsy and Cade would have been permanently employed relocating field rodents. “All right. Have you a bowl you wouldn’t mind using to capture it?”

  Maggie reached for a cookie tin and removed the lid. “Use this. I’ve been saving it for some reason, and this one sounds as good as any.”

  “Perfect. Now a dust pan and a broom—not for spearing, just for herding.”

  From behind the pantry door, Maggie retrieved both items and handed Betsy the pan. “I will herd. You corral.”

  Betsy squatted in the narrow space and held the tin’s open edge against the floor, facing the flour barrel. “Ready when you are.”

  Maggie slid the broom between the wall and barrel, and out came the mouse, straight into the cookie tin. Betsy clapped it down flat on the floor.

  “You did it!” Maggie clapped.

  “Now to get it outside.” Lifting the tin just enough to fit the dust pan beneath it, Betsy scooped up her prisoner. Maggie hurried to open the back door, and Betsy rushed out. Set free in its new orchard home, the creature scurried around a tree.

  “We make quite a team.” Maggie dusted her hands together. “Life is full of choices, as is running this house, which you’ll soon learn.” She twisted her apron into place and went back inside.

  Betsy resented the lesson. She’d been making choices since her mother asked her if she wanted syrup or jam on her hotcakes. Or what dress she wanted to wear. One pigtail or two.

  She walked over to the blackened earth where stacks of fresh-cut lumber waited to be raised into a barn, and her gaze traveled beyond to the pasture fence and trough. It was there that she and Garrett had first begun to open their hearts to each other. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but that was the beginning of something new and hopeful. Would it all come to an end so soon?

  The question weighed her down as she went back to the house and returned the dust pan to the pantry.

  “Let’s keep that tin, dear. We may need it again.”

  Betsy washed her hands along with the cookie tin, then set it against the sink to dry. “What do you plan for supper?”

  “I’ve a soup bone simmering, and we’ll add a few vegetables. If you’ll mix up a batch of corn bread, that should stick to everyone’s ribs tonight.”

  Betsy tied on an apron, found a paring knife, and started in on carrots and turnips, onions and squash.

  “I’ve been thinking, dear. About the wedding. I’d love to host a reception for you and Garrett here at the house, and invite your family, the library ladies, and anyone else you’d like to have come celebrate with you. I haven’t held a party here in I don’t know how long, and I think it would be grand. What do you say?”

  Tears marshalled in Betsy’s throat and rose to press against the back of her eyes. One blink sent the first traitor down her cheeks, followed by its fellows.

  “Why, whatever is the matter?”

  Maggie’s small hand on Betsy’s shoulder drew a sob from her aching chest. “What if Garrett doesn’t come back from Cedar City? He hasn’t exactly asked me to marry him.” Like a weak-witted school girl, she pressed her apron against her face.

  “Posh. Of course he will ask you.”

  The confident tone raised Betsy’s head. “How can you be so sure?”

  Maggie looked at her as if she’d asked how to peel a potato. “Because he’s in love with you, dear. Can’t you see that?”

  “But h
e’s keeping secrets from me. If he loved me, wouldn’t he share everything with me?”

  Maggie salted the broth on the stove and added pepper and spices. “Do you need to know everything in order to love him?”

  Whose side was the woman on, anyway? “But we shouldn’t have secrets between us.”

  “True, secrets should be few and far between. Such as a pending gift, a surprise outing, a woman’s personal matters—such things as that. But why must he tell you every detail of his life before you entered it? Unless he was a scoundrel, ruffian, or mean-spirited soul, and I highly doubt it, or running from the law, of course, and I highly doubt that too, since he is the law in our fair city.”

  Betsy had not yet applied the word love to how she felt about Garrett. Frankly, it frightened her. She’d thought she loved Edward and that she knew him. That had not turned out well.

  But Maggie’s question bore deeper, down into her core. If she truly loved Garrett, would she love him less if he told her everything from his past? Had she told him everything?

  “You know what the Lord has to say about a person’s past.”

  Maggie’s stirring paused, as if waiting for someone to fill in the empty space.

  Betsy had nothing. Instead, she picked up a turnip and pared away the pink rim around the top.

  “‘Behold, I make all things new.’”

  She looked at the woman standing before the stove, painfully aware that Maggie was not the subject of that sentence. She’d heard it before in church.

  Maggie set the wooden spoon aside and faced her, pressing her veined hands down the front of her apron. “Maybe we should let Him do just that.”

  CHAPTER 25

  A vein in Garrett’s neck throbbed like a hoof beat. Why’d Betsy have to ask him to dig up the one thing he didn’t want to exhume?

  He’d told her about growing up in his grandparents’ Texas home, about driving herds north. Even about settling in as a deputy for George Booth in Abilene for a spell. In spite of all that, she’d pinpointed the one thing he couldn’t shake, the one thing that faced him every time he shaved.

  The air in his lungs cinched off, and he stopped at the back of the jail, bent over with his hands on his knees, and tried to ease the band around his ribs.