Her Colorado Man

Seeming startled that he’d addressed her directly, she nodded.

“What do you do?”

She, too, checked to see that no one overheard. “I oversee production and handle promotional events. Right now we’re getting ready for the Exposition that opens in Denver July 17.”

“I’ve heard talk of it. I read in the New York Times about the mining companies creating exhibits. Railroads and artists will have displays, too. They’re going to start a two hundred and fifty horsepower Corliss engine on opening day. I read that the Denver hotels are booked already.”

He’d been reading newspapers for the past couple of months, first while recuperating and then aboard the ship. Her surprised expression said she hadn’t expected him to know so much about it.

“Over a year ago, I reserved an entire floor of rooms at a hotel. We’ve constructed a building inside the grounds where we’ll cook, store lager and have displays of the brewery’s history. An outdoor beer garden will be set up for entertaining.”

“Sounds like an enormous undertaking.”

“We’ll be giving away beer the whole time. We have special bottles and labels. Handling the advance production has been a yearlong project. Some of us will be on site at all times, soliciting contracts. Now that we’re bottling, this is an opportunity to spread our product and our name across the country.”

It was more than she’d said since he’d arrived, and her enthusiasm for her subject was apparent. “Making beer is an unusual occupation for a woman.”

“Not for a Spangler woman,” she replied. “My mother and grandmother worked at the brewery. It’s a family business.”

He tilted his head. “I admire that.”

She lifted her bright gaze and searched his face as though seeking his sincerity. She was lovely, this prickly woman, but her blue eyes sparked fire.

Her resentment was understandable. He was butting into her family. And because she had a secret she didn’t want revealed, she wasn’t calling him on his deceit. He wouldn’t let himself feel bad about that. He was giving her son more than he was taking from her.

John James giggled and pulled his pant leg away from the puppy’s nipping teeth, and Mariah turned her attention. Her entire expression softened when she looked at him.

Louis spoke to Wes about his friend Otto, whom Wes had known over the years he delivered mail from the Juneau City station, so they shared the loss of a friend.

Eventually the children grew tired and sought out their parents, and a trio of women came to stand before Wes and Mariah.

“We prepared your room,” the one named Annika said. She was the same height as Mariah, but with much paler hair and a sprinkling of freckles. “Would you like me to help John James get ready for bed?”

Mariah stood quickly. “No, I can do it.”

John James looked up at Wes with a hopeful expression. “Will you tuck me in?”

Wes glanced from his cherubic face to Mariah’s barely disguised scowl. She gave a stiff nod that must have pained her.

“I will,” he replied.

“Give us ten minutes,” she said and took the boy’s hand. “Annika, please show Wesley the way.”

Her sister perched in the spot Mariah had vacated. “We’ve all been eager to meet Mariah’s husband. John James has been talking about your arrival for weeks.”

Wes smiled politely. “Pleasure to meet you, too, ma’am.”

“Did you find any gold?”

“A little here and there. I settled on a job that was as good as gold, and a sure thing.”

“As long as you survived the bears,” Dutch added from across the room.

“There was that,” Wes answered, and several of them laughed.

“Don’t crowd the man,” Louis said good-naturedly.

Eventually Annika got up to lead Wes through the foyer and up a wide set of curved stairs that opened into a comfortable open area with sofas, desks and shelves full of games and books.

“This is where the youngsters who live in the big house play and do their schoolwork,” she explained. “John James’s room is on the left down this hall.” She stopped and indicated an open door.

Wes thanked her with a nod and entered.

John James lay in a narrow bed with a thick flannel quilt folded down to the bottom. On the other side of the room, a sleepy-eyed Paul watched them from a similar bed.

Mariah, who’d been sitting beside her boy, stood and backed away from John James’s side, so Wes could approach.

“Hey, big fella,” Wes said to her son.

“Hey. How come you walk like that anyway?”

“Got my leg stuck in a bear trap last winter,” Wes told him. “It’s all but healed now.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” John James told him, his eyes solemn.

Wes’s chest got tight. “I’m glad, too.”

“I dreamed about you a hundred times.”

“You did?”

“Uh-huh. An’ you look just like I dreamed.”

“Did I walk like this in your dreams?”

“Don’t matter none to me.”

Uncertainty overcame Wes in a torrent. This was why he was here. This boy needed a father. But how would he know what to do? How would he show John James love and teach him all he needed to know to grow up to be confident and proud? He didn’t even know how to tell a child good-night. “Sleep well,” he said.

A moment of silence passed.

“Papa?”

He wouldn’t feel bad. He wouldn’t. “Yes?”

“Mama says I’m not too big for hugs.”

Wes’s throat constricted. This impressionable, fragile little person believed Wes was the father he’d been yearning for. Wes had set himself up for an unbelievably huge responsibility. It didn’t matter he’d never been on either end of a night like this. It didn’t matter he couldn’t find words. It didn’t matter where he’d come from or that he had no previous examples of fatherhood or family. All that mattered was making a difference in this child’s life…a difference for the better.