A Change of Scenery, page 27
She was good. He looked carefully at each one, noting her clear focus and the way each told a story. Until he came to a photograph of himself he didn’t know she’d taken.
They were in the meadow on her second day at the ranch. He was lunging Barlow, and she’d caught both him and the horse in the frame. She’d caught his heart as well. Stitched it up as tight as a new seam on one of those costumes she worried over.
He glanced at her watching him now, her cheeks pink with a shy smile.
“You can’t have that one.”
He shuffled through the remaining pictures, stopping at the first of what she’d taken at the rodeo. He tucked it under his arm and slid the rest into the envelope. “You’re good enough to get a job at the newspaper.”
Surprise made her dark eyes dance. “You think so?”
“Sure enough. In fact, the editor’s out there right now. Why don’t you go take a picture of the she-bear. Bet your grandmother would like to see that.”
The dancing stopped. “She-bear?”
There he went again, puttin’ his foot in it before he thought things through. He reached for one of her hands, hoping to soften the blow. “Would it have made any difference if we’d known? Would it have stopped her charging us, or kept her from robbin’ ranchers?”
Her eyelids fluttered and she hugged the envelope. “No, I guess not. But doesn’t this mean there could be cubs?”
His insides twisted at thought of her blaming him for orphaning a couple of bear cubs. How could he make her understand a cattleman’s—
“If there are, won’t they grow up to be the same threat?”
He nearly laughed outright but caught hold of it in time. Instead, he swept her up and swung her off the floor. “Not necessarily. Not every grizzly is a cow-killer. But I’ve gotta say, the way you think, you’ll make a fine rancher’s wife, Ella Canaday. A fine wife.”
~
Ella cherished those three words almost as much as the words most woman crave from the man they adore—I love you. Something about a fine wife said Cale believed in her, a common theme in that cowboy’s repertoire.
Her cowboy. Clara had been right all along.
She played them over and over in her mind like a movie reel that rocked in time with the train. Mabel and most of the company had ridden back to Chicago in a different car than Ella, but it was no matter. She would not work again with Selig Polyscope or any filming company. Mr. Thorson and the troupe were returning to Cañon City next year, but she would be busy at the ranch helping Helen “wrangle” three little Hutton boys, as Cale called it. Possibly serving up cookies and lemonade if the company came again to the Rafter-H.
Most importantly, she’d be loving her cowboy, an occupation that she believed would take up most of her days and all of her nights.
Anticipation danced through her as the train subtly slowed in its approach to Grand Central Station. Leaning to catch the city through the smoke-washed window, she saw it with new eyes—eyes that remembered the pristine mountain views of Colorado, open ranges, and clear skies. The hulk of a grizzly bear filling the bed of a ranch wagon, and an old farmhouse table covered with freshly baked berry and apple pies. Things she had never dreamed could change her forever.
Yet she was not the only one who had changed.
Apparently, her trip west had altered her father as well, for both he and Nana met her at the station, and he pulled her into an unsophisticated embrace in full public view. His eyes glistened when he set her back at arm’s length, and he swallowed hard against uncharacteristic emotion.
“I’ve missed you, Ella.”
“Come along, Patrick, you’re blocking the way. Let me have a look at our girl.” Nana’s eyes brimmed, and she squeezed Ella with surprisingly strong but trembling arms.
Worry tripped Ella’s heart, and she encircled her grandmother’s waist as they walked to the platform to collect her luggage.
Ahead of them, Mr. Thorson, Pete, Mabel, and others from the company gathered their bags and trunks and set off. Only Mabel looked back, her expression unreadable but lacking her earlier scorn.
A black Hudson touring car with canopy awaited Ella’s family at the curb, their former carriage driver behind the wheel. No surprise, really, for her father had spent every waking moment at the Chicago Automobile Show in February. She knew it was only a matter of time before he had the latest and sleekest motorcar available.
He helped her into the spacious back seat, concern wrinkling his brow.
“It’s all right, Father. I’m doing much better. In fact I’ve ridden in several automobiles this summer, and I’ll tell you and Nana all about it this evening.” Though she doubted she would mention her first encounter on Cañon City’s Main Street and the runaway horse.
Nana could not keep her questions at bay and talked nonstop all the way home, recounting her delight in Ella’s few letters and descriptions of the Western countryside.
Feeling a bit guilty for not having written more, Ella mentioned how quickly the time had gone and how totally consumed she had been in her work.
“I met some marvelous people in Cañon City who I’m sure you would enjoy visiting with. And in my satchel, I have the photographs I promised you. But let’s wait until after dinner, shall we?”
That evening, Ella dressed in a tulle lace tea dress for the formal meal, a most uncomfortable affair after growing accustomed to lighter suppers in split skirts and boots. In the drawing room later, her grandmother exclaimed over the photographs, her father a little less so, particularly over those of Cale lunging the mare and roping steers.
“What a handsome cowboy,” Nana said, her eyes shining with anticipation. “Is there any particular reason you have several photographs of him? That is him at the rodéo, isn’t it?”
It would take hours to share her experiences and new dreams with dear Nana, and during the next several days she did just that, including recently made plans for a fall wedding to be held at the little white clapboard church in Cañon City.
Nana’s trembling hand gripped her own one afternoon, and a deep sigh preceded the woman’s benedictive words. “The Lord has blessed you, dear, in answer to my prayers. I only wish I could meet the young man who helped mend your torn heart, but that is not to be.”
Dark eyes as sharp and deep as ever belied the frailty Ella recognized in her grandmother’s constitution. The advancing years were doing so quite rapidly.
“I cannot make the trip, my dear, but I will be with you in spirit,” she said with a pat of Ella’s hand. “Rejoicing in your decision to give love another go.”
Ella added the promise to the string of Nana’s pearls already adorning her soul.
Over the next few weeks, several letters traveled between Cañon City and Chicago, not only from Cale whom she did not expect to write at all, but from Helen who allowed the boys to include pictures they’d drawn for Ella’s benefit.
Cale’s bold script mirrored his broad shoulders and square jaw, free of embellishment but full of purpose. He wrote of the rustlers’ arrest—the two arguing men she had photographed at the rodeo, and he thanked her for her part in solving the case. They’d been caught selling beeves, as he put it, to a Cripple Creek butcher who verified that the brands had been “run”—which meant changed, he explained.
Helen’s letters were full of plans for the wedding and questions about what Ella wanted in the way of flowers and bridesmaids and the flavor of cake that Clara had insisted she bake.
Ella promised to write Clara herself.
Were a couple hundred people too many for the big “feed” at the ranch after the wedding, Helen wanted to know. Based on reaction to a recently released Selig Polyscope flicker including a certain river-crossing episode, plenty of folk wanted to come. Including Cale and Hugh’s sister Grace.
Did you know, Helen wrote, that Cale’s grandparents, Caleb Hutton and Annie Whitaker were married at the church? His folks as well, Whit and Livvy. You’ll be the third generation, and I’m sure the grandest-looking couple of the bunch.
The boys were fighting over who got to help do what, but Helen assured Ella that she’d find sufficient work to keep them occupied.
Hugh had come around to the idea of a wedding—somewhat—Helen offered, and Ella smiled at the woman’s cautionary wording. However, the mention of the boys’ father left her in awe at yet one more unexpected turn of events.
Rather, a turn of heart. Fate, she had learned, had no such power. Only love.
The force of it sent her to her father’s study one afternoon, praying for courage and grace.
He invited her to join him on the green brocade settee near a window, the first time she could remember him doing such a thing. There, he took her hand in his. “I love you, Ella. You are the image of your mother, and that has made it hard on me. But I had no right to make it hard on you.”
Stunned by his admission yet eagerly accepting the love she had craved, she threw her arms around his neck. “I love you too, Papa.”
The childhood endearment tightened his arms around her.
Bolstered by her earlier prayer and her father’s seeming change in demeanor, she shared what she had witnessed in Hugh Hutton.
Her father’s jaw and the grip he held on her hand tightened somewhat, but he remained receptive. And when they left his study later, he was not nearly as stiff as before. He would always be somewhat reserved and formal—it was his way. But over the next several weeks, he softened by degree, and assured her that he would be on hand for the wedding.
~
In early October, Ella arrived a second time at Cañon City’s Denver & Rio Grande station.
The scenery had changed.
Autumn gilded the cottonwoods along the Arkansas River and swept the sky a brilliant blue. The train slowed to a hissing stop, and she gathered her satchel and smoothed her skirt, craning her neck for a view of the platform and a certain cowboy.
Quickly she picked him out of the crowd, a head taller than most of the people milling about, tugging his collar, taking his hat off and putting it back on. As nervous as she had ever seen him.
Gripping her satchel strap in one hand and the iron handle beside the door in the other, she took the steps down to the platform only to be caught up by two strong arms that squeezed the laughter from her.
“You have a way of sweeping me off my feet without warning, Mr. Hutton.”
The dimple stitched, so close to her face that all rational thought fled.
“Something I intend to do every day for the rest of my life, Mrs. Hutton-to-be.”
Right there in front of everyone who cared to watch, his lips captured her breath and every quivering nerve ending she owned.
They broke from the kiss when three cheering little boys bounced across the platform, Helen in tow, attempting to scold them into submission while dabbing her eyes with a hankie.
Feet at last on the planks, Ella hugged all four of them, realizing that never before had she felt so much like she belonged. She straightened and squeezed her own eyes tight against what threatened until hard, gentle hands framed her face.
I love you and a fine wife came to mind again, words from this cowboy’s lips that she treasured above all others. And then his voice rose from deep in his chest, a tight, graveled whisper of another phrase that changed her perception of all that surrounded her and all that would surround her forever.
“Welcome home, Ella. Welcome home.”
~ ~ ~
Thank you for reading Book 4 of The Cañon City Chronicles series,
A Change of Scenery.
If you enjoyed Cale and Ella’s story,
I would so appreciate a brief review on your favorite book site.
You might also enjoy reading The Front Range Brides series. Start with the prequel, Mail-order Misfire.
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Acknowledgments
It takes many hearts, hands, and hours for a book to come to completion, and for this I am grateful. I’d like to thank advance readers Nancy Huber, Jill Maple, and Amanda Beck; my editor Christy Distler; and you, the readers, for allowing the Hutton family saga to continue with the fourth generation, Cale and Ella. But most of all, I thank our good and loving God for pouring His stories into me and allowing me to tell them.
Thank you for reading Inspirational Western Romance. If you would like to leave a brief review on your favorite book website or other social media, it would bless my boots off!
About the Author
Bestselling author and winner of the Will Rogers Gold Medallion for Inspirational Western Fiction, Davalynn Spencer can’t stop #lovingthecowboy. When she’s not writing, teaching writer workshops, or playing on her church worship team, she’s wrangling Keeper the Cowdog and mouse detectors Annie and Oakley. Connect with her via her website at www.davalynnspencer.com.
~May all that you read be uplifting.~
Davalynn Spencer, A Change of Scenery
