Sweet Annie
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Cheryl St.John
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16,5K
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17
Chapter One
Copper Creek, Colorado 1888
“I know this wagon isn’t as fancy as your Papa’s carriage,” Annie’s cousin Charmaine apologized for the second time. “But we are going to have ever so much fun at Lizzy’s this afternoon.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Annie said, arranging herself on the pad of blankets Charmaine had prepared in the wagon bed. “You know I don’t get to do things like this when Mama and Papa are home.”
“Lucky for us, your mother agreed to accompany Uncle Eldon to Denver this time.”
“You ladies stay out of trouble.” Annie’s Uncle Mort lifted Annie’s chair into the back of the wagon. It rolled toward her, and Annie set the brake.
Charmaine smoothed her russet-and-cream-printed broadcloth skirts and climbed up to the driver’s seat with her father’s assistance.
Annie observed her cousin as she sat and took up the reins. “Are you sure you know how to drive this thing?”
Charmaine frowned at her. “I’m positive. I’ve done it plenty of times, haven’t I, Daddy?”
“She has,” he assured Annie good-naturedly. Uncle Mort was her mother’s brother, and neither her aunt nor her uncle were as strict or possessive as Annie’s parents. The best times of her youth had been spent here on their ranch during the infrequent occasions that her parents had traveled together and entrusted her care to her aunt and uncle.
Not that they didn’t respect her parents’ wishes and enforce rules, such as no riding, but where there were no specific guidelines, they allowed Annie to make her own decisions. Like today’s trip into town to visit Charmaine’s school friends.
“Have fun, girls.” Uncle Mort waved them off.
Annie held on to her hat and ignored the bumps to enjoy the ride. The sun warmed her through her clothing, and she inhaled air pungent with the scent of freshly turned earth in a nearby field.
“We’re going to make boutonnieres for Lizzy’s wedding,” Charmaine called. “Lavender ribbon, with tiny paper flowers.” Her cousin chattered on, and Annie surveyed the spring-dressed countryside. Purple aster blanketed the hillsides with brilliant color.
“I’m going to stop at the stable and ask someone to drive us to Lizzy’s, then take the rig back until we’re ready,” she called down. “That way we don’t have to try to wheel you over the boardwalks and stairs and the dirt street on the way.”
Annie nodded her consent. Charmaine did like to make things convenient, and Annie hated to be an encumbrance. Her cousin slowed the rig in the shade of a new building.
“So this is the new livery!” Annie said, shading her eyes and perusing the freshly painted building. “I heard the hammering and pounding from my room for weeks.” The Sweetwater home was several streets away, but close enough for the sound to carry on a clear day. Annie’s curiosity had been piqued, but to her frustration, her dinnertime queries had been ignored.
A tall, broad-shouldered young man stepped into the wide-open doorway, and the reason for her parents’ stubborn refusal to discuss the new livery became unmistakably clear.
Sun glinted from hair as black as midnight. He wore a loose shirt, laced up the front, and trousers tucked into tall black boots. A healthy-looking male, tanned and confident in his surroundings.
Luke Carpenter.
Chaotic images tied to more chaotic feelings bombarded Annie’s senses: Luke smiling his irrepressible smile and giving her a forbidden taste of freedom; Luke with blood spattered on his shirt, blood trickling from his lip, looking confused and humiliated; Luke noticing her in the mercantile and nodding her way before her father caught him; Luke riding that beautiful white-stockinged horse as though he and the animal were one.
Once, a few weeks after that horrible incident at her birthday party, he had leaped the hedge as she sat in her chair on the side lawn, enjoying the sun.
She’d inquired about his injuries, and he’d shrugged off the subject. And then Burdy had arrived home.
They’d crossed paths only briefly through the years—a banker’s daughter moved in different circles than the ranchers—but Annie had seen him many times from a distance.
“Mornin’, ladies.” His voice, now a deep mellow tone, brought a tremulous flutter to her chest. He stepped toward the horse. “Put ’im up for you?”
“Actually, if it wouldn’t be a bother, we’d like you to drive us to the Jamison home, then bring the rig back.” Charmaine’s voice had changed since Annie had last heard her speak sixty seconds ago. Where had that throaty breathlessness come from?
“No bother at all,” Luke said, and leaped up onto the springed seat beside Charmaine. The wagon dipped with his weight and Annie’s stomach did the same.
“You two ladies look mighty pretty today,” he said, and cast an inscrutable look over his shoulder.
Annie blushed, thankful he had to turn back to navigate the street. She studied her hands against the blue-sprigged satin of her velvet-trimmed dress, then grabbed the side of the wagon when he clucked and the horse stepped forward.
“We’re helping with the decorations for Lizzy’s wedding,” Charmaine said. Good Lord, was that a Southern accent? “The wedding is only two weeks away, you know.”
“You’ll both be going?”
“Oh, yes, we wouldn’t miss it, would we, Annie?”
Luke nodded and listened to Charmaine’s girlish chatter. Within minutes he drew the horse and wagon up before their destination. He helped her cousin down from the seat. Charmaine blushed and cast him a coquettish glance from beneath the brim of her bonnet.
Annie stood. Normally, she would have walked to the end of the bed and waited for her uncle’s or cousin’s help, but she didn’t want Luke to notice her clumsiness, so, feeling painfully awkward, she stayed put.
He rounded the wagon and lowered the gate. She avoided looking at him as he lifted her chair effortlessly to the ground. He leaped onto the back of the wagon beside her, and her gaze flew upward.
His thin and lanky body had developed into an eye-pleasing study of muscle and grace. Broad shoulders blocked a good portion of the street behind him. Deliberately, she refocused her attention.
Eyes as blue as the boundless spring sky studied her back. Her gaze lowered a notch, took in a fine straight nose, mobile lips curved into a smile, and a scar at the edge of his upper lip.
“Let me help you, Miss Sweetwater,” he said politely in that disturbing voice.
Her face flamed, yet somehow she managed to speak. “Thank you.”
He gathered her into his arms, just like her brother and father and uncle did all the time, but this was different. He was not a family member. He was a full-grown man—a strong, graceful stranger. Annie was self-conscious of her helplessness, ashamed to be such a burden and to have him see it.
She immediately circled her arms around his neck, feeling his hard body pressed along her side and hip, and studiously avoided the sun-kissed face so near hers.
With amazing agility, he crouched on the back of the wagon then lowered her to the ground. With a few powerful strides, he carried her around the back of the wagon. Annie felt like one of her Dresden dolls in his solid arms.
Hands fluttering between the handles and her stand-up collar, Charmaine stood waiting behind Annie’s chair. Annie had never hated the conveyance as much as she did at that moment. She wanted Luke to carry her on past, carry her somewhere where there were no wheelchairs or limits or attentive caregivers.
But of course, he didn’t. Luke placed her gently on the seat, disentangled his arm from her skirts and arranged them neatly across her knees.
“Thank you,” Annie said, but she couldn’t make herself meet his eyes again.
“My pleasure.” He must have glanced at Charmaine. “What time would you like me to bring the rig back for you?”
“You’d better come by three, if that’s convenient. My Mama expects me home to help with dinner.”
“I’ll see you then. Ladies.”
Annie saw only his boots move away and then glanced up to watch him leap onto the wagon seat with an economy of motion.
“My, my, my…” Charmaine said breathlessly. “You know he built that stable and owns it himself,” she offered.
Annie hadn’t known that. “I don’t hear news of Luke Carpenter.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” They both watched until the rig was around the corner and out of sight. “Word has it he saved on his own to build the place.”
“He did?” Annie knew little of business or the cost of things.
“That’s a big accomplishment. Most people would have taken a loan.”
“Oh.” She met Charmaine’s eyes, comprehending the significance. A loan came from a bank, and her father owned the only bank in Copper Creek. Sudden embarrassment at her father’s unjustness flared hot in her cheeks.
“I barely remember that day of your birthday party,” Charmaine said, apparently thinking back to where the trouble had started. She was almost two years younger than Annie. “How old were you?”
“Ten.”
Charmaine pushed the chair toward Lizzy’s house. “But you remember it well?”
Hardly a day went by that, while being tied to the earth in this chair, she didn’t remember the day that she rode into the wind and tasted freedom for the first time—only to have it snatched away and scorned like it was something ugly.
She remembered all right. How could she ever forget? And how could she forget that Luke had been the one to suffer for it? In more ways than one, she knew now.
“I remember it very well.”
