Colorado Hope(29)

No, no, no . . . she keep saying to herself. It couldn’t be Monty. But it was. He could be no other. A year’s absence—no, not even a hundred years’—could cause her to forget his face or his stature. He’d walked in with a bit of a limp, and a thin scar marred his right cheek, but she had not a speck of doubt this was her Monty.

She wiped her face and stumbled backward, finding the brick wall of the building and sliding down against it into a heap. She curled into a ball and wept, confused and hurting, as if someone had pummeled her with fists. How could he do this to her? Had he pretended he did not know her? Why would he have married another? It made no sense, none at all.

She poured out her heart in prayer, begging God to help her, to bring Monty back to her, into her arms. She lost track of time, and her legs grew numb. She lost all feeling in her fingers as she wept in the cold alley and clouds blew in to blot out the sun. What had promised to be a warm, hopeful day turned stormy and threatening.

She’d thought the long winter had ended, but now she realized it had truly just begun.



***



As Malcolm approached the door to the surveyor’s office, he looked over at Stella, whose thoughts seemed miles away.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, stopping on the boardwalk and disengaging his arm from hers.

“Why, no,” she said, surprised. “Why do you ask?”

“You seem bothered. Worried.” He could tell she was doing her best to hide her consternation, and that troubled him.

She wave a hand in dismissal. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just . . . remembering how, a year ago, you had fallen into the river and I had to help pull you out.” She shuddered. “The river was so cold, and you were so hurt. I-I thought I’d lost you.”

A lone tear dribbled down her cheek, and Malcolm touched it with his finger. Once again, he was reminded of how indebted he was to her—not that she meant to make him feel that way. But he couldn’t help it. He just wished he felt more than indebtedness toward her. He wished he . . . loved her.

Was something wrong with him? Just about any man would give his best horse for a woman as beautiful and devoted as she. But then he thought about the recent months they’d spent together in their modest little cabin along the South Platte. She’d grown sullen and restless, and he thought it was due to her wanting a baby—her maternal instincts acting up—but when he suggested that, she laughed—a sort of bitter, mean laugh. As if he was foolish to suggest that. He realized then that they had never spoken about having children. It appeared she didn’t want any, although why she wasn’t with child yet puzzled him. But he wanted children, very much so, and yet, when he thought about having children with her, his mind went blank and his longing faded.

He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. He studied her distraught face. “But that’s all in the past,” he said, trying to lighten her mood. A year. Had it been that long ago? He breathed in a deep breath. And still—no memories. He had finally accepted the fact that he would probably never remember his past. But his dreams plagued him, and he had not said a word to Stella about them. Were they only dreams? He hated to think so.

“I’ll be a while.” He pointed to the hotel on the corner. “Would you prefer to wait in there, get yourself a cup of coffee?”

She patted his arm and smiled, but he could tell her thoughts were still troubled. “Yes, I’ll wait for you there.” She planted a kiss somewhere on the vicinity of his cheek and crossed the street with care, avoiding the deep mud puddles and horse droppings that hadn’t been removed yet by the morning street cleaners.

He walked into the assessor’s office—a spacious room with large windows and paneled in rich dark wood and smelling like cigars—and headed to the long front counter, where three men stood speaking animatedly. He immediately recognized the new sheriff with his broad-rimmed slouch hat and a shiny tin star pinned to his brown woolen vest. Malcolm had attended the town hall meeting in which the sheriff had spoken to the crowd after his appointment. The man seemed decent and upstanding, fastidiously dressed, and he had a bushy brown moustache that cast a shadow over his mouth and side whiskers that ran down his wide face. His eyes were big and gray, shrouded by thick brows, and they rested on Malcolm as he came up to him.

The court clerk was in his thirties and short, with a lean face and bony body. He seemed a bit nervous or shy, and wore thick spectacles that made his eyes look like a bug’s. His light-brown hair was curly and unruly, and his clothing hung loosely on him, as if his mother had dressed him in a hurry and forgotten to comb his hair. But the man had a warm and friendly face, and Malcolm immediately liked him. Maybe he reminded of someone in Malcolm’s forgotten past.