Her Colorado Man

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. 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 the boy if I am able.

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. 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 M. Burrows

Her Colorado Man

Harlequin®Historical

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Praise for

Cheryl St.John

“Ms. St.John knows what the readers want and keeps on giving it.”

—Rendezvous

“Ms. St.John holds a spot in my top five list of must-read Harlequin Historical authors. She is an amazingly gifted author.”

—Writers Unlimited

Her Montana Man

“Emotional, realistic westerns are St.John’s forte, and her latest…is a satisfying, rough-and-tender novel brimming with true-to-life characters and an understanding of the era that fulfills western readers’ hankerings.”

—RT Book Reviews

His Secondhand Wife Nominated for a RITA®Award

“A beautifully crafted and involving story about the transforming power of love, this is recommended reading.”

—RT Book Reviews

Prairie Wife Nominated for an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award

“A very special book, courageously executed by the author and her publisher. Her considerable skill brings the common theme of the romance novel—love conquers all—to the level of genuine catharsis.”

—RT Book Reviews [4 ½ stars]

CHERYL ST.JOHN

HER COLORADO MAN

Available from Harlequin® Historical and CHERYL ST.JOHN

Rain Shadow #212

Heaven Can Wait #240

Land of Dreams #265

Saint or Sinner #288

Badlands Bride #327

The Mistaken Widow #429

Joe’s Wife #451

The Doctor’s Wife #481

Sweet Annie #548

The Gunslinger’s Bride #577

Christmas Gold #627

“Colorado Wife”

The Tenderfoot Bride #679

Prairie Wife #739

His Secondhand Wife #760

Wed Under Western Skies #799

“Almost a Bride”

The Lawman’s Bride #835

The Preacher’s Daughter #851

A Western Winter Wonderland #867

“Christmas Day Family”

The Magic of Christmas #915

“A Baby Blue Christmas”

Her Montana Man #923

Her Colorado Man #971

Other works include:

Silhouette Special Edition

Nick All Night #1475

*Marry Me…Again #1558

Charlie’s Angels #1630

Million-Dollar Makeover #1688

Montana Mavericks

The Magnificent Seven

The Bounty Hunter

As most writers can attest, this rewarding job often takes a toll on hands, wrists, elbows, necks, shoulders and backs.

I am deeply appreciative of Dr. Steven Shockley, who has adjusted my spine more times than I could say, and who instructs me in methods of exercise to attain optimal wellness. I’m not the only one who has a better quality of life because this dedicated chiropractor is concerned with helping patients achieve natural drug-free healing. Thank you, Dr. Steve, for your genuine compassion and for sharing your gifts and abilities.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter One

Ruby Creek, Colorado

May, 1882

“Watch out!”

Mariah Burrows ducked and ran a good six feet before turning back to look up at the crate teetering atop a stack of similar ones in the cavernous warehouse. Three agile young men scrambled from their positions on ladders and beside wagons to prevent it from falling. Two of them were her nephews, the other a distant cousin.

“Don’t stack these crates over twelve high,” she called. “Better that we take up warehouse space than lose eighty-five dollars or someone’s head. We built this whole building just for storing the lager for the Exposition, so let’s use it.”

Her nephew Roth gave her a mock salute and jumped down from the pile of wooden crates. “Grandpa would’ve had our hides if we’d let that one slip.”

“I’d have told your mother not to serve that apfelstrudel you’re so fond of tonight.”

He laughed and took his cap from his rear pocket to settle it on his head. “You’re a tyrannical boss, Aunt Mariah.”

“Mariah!” A familiar male voice echoed through the high-ceilinged building. “Mariah Burrows!”

“Over here, Wilhelm,” she called. At twenty-two, he was her younger brother by two years. He used her full name at every opportunity. Among the hundred plus employees at the Spangler Brewery, hers was one of the few non-Bavarian or German names, and he lived to tease her about it. “What has you out of the office this morning?” she asked.

“Grandfather wants to see you right away.”

She fished for her pencil in the front pocket of the men’s trousers she wore that were her everyday garb. “I’ll be there as soon as I go over the inventory of last night’s bottling.”

“No, right now. He says it’s urgent.”

She tucked her ledger under her arm and rushed to join him. “Is John James all right?”

“Your son is fine.”

“Grandfather?”

“He’s just anxious to have you in the office for whatever reason.”

Relieved, she turned to wave at Roth. “I’ll be back. Go ahead and start stamping those crates near the conveyor. Seven weeks until opening day in Denver.”

Spangler Brewery spread over an acre located roughly two miles from Ruby Creek. The warehouses were situated with platforms a few scant feet from the railroad tracks, and the production buildings sat close to the cold-water streams that poured from the mountains into the wide creek for which the town was named. Three smoke stacks puffed billowy gray clouds into the bright Colorado sky. The mountains to the northeast were still capped with snow, but fireweed and forget-me-nots bloomed on the hillsides nearer. Mariah breathed in the pungent smell of fermented hops.

“I overheard Mama talking in the kitchen this morning.” Wilhelm’s tone was uncharacteristically solemn.

She glanced up at him as they passed the corner of the four-sided brick clock tower that stood in the center of the open yard.

“She said that sometimes Grandpa forgets what day it is for a moment.”

Mariah had noticed the same thing a time or two. Once he’d said something about an occurrence twenty years ago as if it had just happened. But the next moment he carried on with their business. “He seems perfectly healthy,” she said. “It’s almost like he takes a little trip into the past.”

“No harm there, I guess,” her brother said with a shrug.

Near the front entrance, they entered the four-story brick building that housed accounting offices as well as comfortable quarters for her grandfather. Their work shoes padded on the carpet runner that ran the length of the hall.

Mariah smiled a goodbye to Wilhelm and opened one of the carved walnut doors to enter Louis Spangler’s domain. She’d loved these rooms from the time she’d been a child, when he’d indulgently welcomed her to sit in one of the soft leather chairs that sat before a stone fireplace. She’d listened with rapt attention as he spoke of the old days back in Bavaria and his early days in this country, when he and his father and his uncles had built the brewery from the ground up.

He was the only one left from the old country. He and Grandma used to speak to each other in Old High German, a dialect of which their children and grandchildren could only understand bits and phrases. Mariah hadn’t heard it spoken for many years now.

“You must need something important,” she said. “You’ve spent the last three months cautioning me not to waste a minute until everything is ready for the Exposition.”

Louis moved from where he’d been standing at the wide window that looked out over foothills decorated in a dozen shades of verdant green to his desk. He cast her a tentative glance. “We have something important to discuss.”

“About the Exposition?”

“No. Nothing like that.” He waved her to a chair.

Mariah knew better than to rush him. He would come around to the point in his own good time. She made herself comfortable on a wing chair and waited. The concern in his vivid blue gaze unsettled her.

“I have some news. Something that’s going to affect you and John James.”

She sat a little straighter. Four years ago he’d given her a seat on the governing board, and for the first time in its nearly forty-year history, the brewery had a woman in a principal position. He’d always held Mariah in a place of favor. When her son had come along, Grandfather had given him his favor, as well. She anticipated that one day she would inherit her own share of their family holdings. “What is it?” she asked.

“Wes Burrows is coming here. In just a few weeks’ time.”

Mariah heard his spoken words immediately, but their meaning took longer to penetrate her haze of disbelief. They never spoke of the person he’d just mentioned because that person didn’t exist. Hearing it from him now was like hearing that foreign language her grandparents used to use. “Wha-what do you mean?”

“John James’s father is coming to see him.”

A buzz rang in her ears. “But that—that’s impossible.”

“I’m afraid it’s not. I’ve had communication with him, and he’s already left Juneau City. He should arrive early next month.”

Mariah’s first reaction was to stand. Bolt perhaps. But the room tilted at an odd angle, and she collapsed back onto the leather cushion before she fell. “Could you explain, please? How does a man you invented suddenly write and say he’s coming?”

“I didn’t invent Wes Burrows. The man exists.”

She overcame her light-headedness to stand and release the tension ratcheting her nerves by pacing a few feet away and back again. “I thought your old friend from Forchheim was writing those letters.”

“Otto died. I told you that.”

“No. No, you didn’t.” Just the other day she’d read a few of the letters her son had received recently, and there had been subtle differences in the penmanship and the sentence structures, but she hadn’t suspected a different writer.

Mariah placed a hand on either side of her head as though to keep it from flying off. Was her grandfather confused or was she hearing wrong? “If Otto is dead, who has been writing to—and who is traveling to—see John James?”

“I didn’t expect this,” he said apologetically. “Not in a hundred years. Sit back down and let me explain.”

He wouldn’t continue until she complied, so Mariah sat once again and gripped the arms of the chair. “I’m listening.”

“Otto Weiss had been living in Alaska for quite some time when I asked him to help us with the name of someone who rarely checked his postal box, someone whose name we could use and who would never find out.”

“I know that part.” Seven years ago, when she’d told him she was going to have a baby and had no plans for a husband, he’d sent her to Chicago for a year. She’d been surprised when she’d returned home with her baby and learned that her grandfather had invented a husband for her while she’d been away. The story had already been told throughout the family and in the nearby town of Ruby Creek. Supposedly she’d married in Chicago.

The tale continued that her new husband had gone off to the gold fields of the north, leaving her to wait for him, and because of that she’d chosen to move home to her family until his return.

Living with the stigma of a husband with gold fever had been better than her son or anyone else learning the truth. Louis had found a solution. A no-muss, no-fuss absent husband suited Mariah just fine actually. The ruse had kept away potential suitors and given her the freedom to live her life exactly the way she pleased. A pretend husband had been an easy solution.

“Alaska is at the edge of nowhere,” he said. “I never dreamed anyone in Colorado would hear Burrows’s name.”

When he’d shown her the first letter from this make-believe father, he had suggested that his friend would write and send a few letters so John James could believe his father loved him. “A boy needs to believe his father cares for him,” he’d told Mariah. She hadn’t been able to disagree with that. And the truth would never pass her lips. “All along I thought Otto made up a name to use,” she said.

“We should have simply rented a box in a fictitious name,” her grandfather said. “Or we should have said your husband died like we talked about, but John James loved getting those letters. Telling him that would have been like actually killing his father. He believed the man was real. At the time there was no harm in allowing the ruse to continue.”

“I’m as responsible as you are for that,” she said. “But what about the name that I’ve been using—the name I gave my son? This Burrows is a real person?”

“He is.”

The information was too much to absorb. Thinking back, she had noticed a difference in the letters. She hadn’t read all of them, but she read a few here and there for John James’s safety. She’d read more than usual lately because she’d been intrigued by the writer’s stories. “Who are the letters really from?”

“The real Mr. Burrows. Initially he wrote to me because I always help John James with his letters. He asked me to explain why his post box was filled with mail from a child he didn’t know. I made it clear how much the dear boy longed for a father.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “I may have suggested that no harm would come if the charade continued a while longer. And soon this Burrows fellow was writing letters to John James.”

Mariah wiped a hand over her eyes as if that might clear the confusion and concern. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did.” He frowned and his gaze fell to the desktop. “Or at least I thought I did.”

Her heart beat hard and fast at the thought of this stranger coming to expose their lie to her son. John James’s heart would be broken. He would despise her for the lies she’d strung out for so long. A tight knot formed in her stomach at the thought, and suspicion straightened her eyebrows in a skeptical frown. “Why does this man want to come here? What does he expect?”

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.