Colorado Hope(24)

He frowned. Maybe she was right. Put the past in the past. With the money they had—money they’d both earned back in St. Louis and had been saving for their move—they could build a nice little house and maybe someday start a family.

The thought of having a child erupted a sudden ache in his heart. He stopped and caught his breath. How odd. He fought a need, a strong need, to go somewhere, find someone. But who? Where?

He clamped his eyes shut and willed the memories to come, but like a dream upon awakening, the urgency drifted out of reach, and he stood there, unblinking, feeling an uncanny sense of loss. For his parents? Had he lost a brother or sister? Stella said he was an only child. Then why did this feeling grip him so tenaciously?

Frustration mixed with sadness as he resolutely made his way to the land office, his excitement now strangely dampened. As if something in this town were affecting him, stirring his unease and creating a disquiet in his soul.

He shook his head to dispel the feeling, and turning his thoughts to acquiring his quarter section of land, he walked to the land office and opened the heavy oak door.



***



Grace pulled a straight pin from her mouth and poked it through the thick worsted wool. She eyed the line of the hem and made a slight adjustment, then stepped back and studied the finished dress with satisfaction. It felt good to be working again, doing something creative and taking her mind off her constant heartache. As much as she loved her precious son—Benjamin Montgomery Cunningham—seeing Monty’s features in her baby’s face only made her loneliness flare. Oh, how he looked just like his father. At three months, he had a boisterous laugh that made his eyes twinkle—just like Monty’s. He looked at everything with riveted interest, his little head swiveling from side to side taking it all in. He loved it when Grace perched him next to the window, where he tried to stand on his wobbly legs and look out at his world. Grace would hold his chubby little hands while he balanced precariously on his tiptoes, his toothless smile showing his delight in life and his love for everyone. So like his father.

She took the dress off the mannequin and sat in the big stuffed chair to hand-stitch the hem for Mrs. Stroud. A warm winter dress this would be, and of the latest fashion. The back room where she worked, in the spacious dress shop inside the Old Grout building, was drafty and a bit chilly. In the front room a fire blazed, enticing ladies to come inside and get warm. Tildie Hortman, the owner of the shop, was an astute businesswoman with impeccable fashion sense, and she tolerated neither slacking nor sloppy work. But Grace paid little attention to her employer’s complaints. She worked hard and produced quality work, and although Tildie doled out praise stingily as if it were diamonds, Grace knew she approved of her work.

Grace recalled how at one time she’d loved creating patterns to showcase the latest styles from back east. Her customers in St. Louis had money and taste, which made dressmaking enjoyable, for they would tell her to spare no expense to make them look beautiful. She thought of her own dresses, her favorites that she had brought on the wagon with her, now lost forever. During the summer months, she had made a few functional outfits—using the money the Franklins had collected from members of their small church to buy fabric. But they were simple and nothing as beautiful as the ones she had painstakingly created. Which now sat on the muddy bottom of the Poudre River.

But amid all the loss, she had Benjamin. Oh, how she loved him. Even working these few hours a day felt torturous, and when she finished her work, she’d hurry down the streets to gather him up in her arms. She loved cuddling him and smelling his wonderful baby smell. How grateful she was that he’d been born without incident, that her fever and grief had not harmed her little babe. The local doctor, out of kindness, delivered Benjamin without cost, and although the labor and birth had been horrific—made more so by Monty’s absence at this blessed occasion—she came through unscathed, and for that she was truly grateful.

Charity, glad to have a baby in her house once more—after having raised six children—was more than happy to care for Benjamin while she worked. Hopefully, when winter came—and the air hinted its close arrival—she could do piecework at home for Tildie. For now, the woman needed her in the shop for fittings and measurements, but Grace was told that during the winter they mostly kept the shop closed. In the spring, the ladies of town would emerge from their homes like bears from hibernation and descend with their appetites to buy more custom-made clothing.

She threaded her needle and got comfortable in the chair, with the bright kerosene lantern on the table beside her. Five months had passed since she lost Monty. She had spent those months inquiring of everyone she could think of—those in law enforcement, stage coach drivers, cattle ranchers, and any who may have traveled along the Poudre River in recent months. No one had seen sign of either Monty or their belongings. It was as if they had disappeared from the face of the world.