Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

S adie gasped and blinked at Mr. Thomas, her heart thrumming in her chest at his words. How could he say something like that without it seeming to affect him in the same way that it did her? He wasn't even looking her direction, but at the horses and his profile didn't change. He was being honest with her, but saying something so charming and smooth, that if it came from another man's lips, she'd suspect them of pandering to her, patronizing her, or downright lying. The way he could be so honest with his feelings was refreshing and one of the reasons that she'd become so attached to him over the month that they'd spent together. Making this trip with him was something that she'd wanted to do even before her aunt suggested that she offer. Even though the two of them had to get up well before sunrise to take care of the barn chores and get on the road so that they could make it to Lawrence by mid-morning.

After they picked which of the colts that were the best for them to make bids on, they took a stroll around the fairgrounds and watched some of the townsfolk and visitors playing games and getting the different varieties of food and snacks available at the fair. She turned toward him as they neared one of the booths. "Before the sale, my father used to let me get a caramel apple. Have you ever tried one before?"

With a small smile and his intense blue-gray eyes fixed on her, he shook his head. "I've never had one. But aren't those for children?"

"Why should children be the only ones who get to have all the fun?" she asked, and then stepped up to the man operating the booth and ordered two. He nodded and gave her two green apples that had been dipped in gooey brown goodness on sticks. With a smile, she handed one to Mr. Thomas.

He eyed it, turning it in his hand. "How do you even get started?"

Smiling up at him, she took a bite of the apple at the widest part. As the candy-coating melt in her mouth, she chewed the tart and sweet combination down with the biggest of smiles as the memories washed over her. The smell of the caramel and the familiar taste could almost make her feel twelve years old again. Nostalgia had her in her grip, but it was a bittersweet feeling instead of the usual painful grief this time. It was because she wasn't alone.

Loneliness felt more like a distant thing. When she was spending time with Mr. Thomas like this, it reminded her of her father. The two men were similar, but somehow not at all alike, either. Still, when she was with Mr. Thomas, she had similar feelings of safety, comfort, and kinship that she had with her father, and being at the fair brought those emotions out even stronger.

After watching her, Mr. Thomas took a bite of his caramel apple. When he pulled it back, she couldn't help but laugh as he had an almost perfect circle of light brown around his mouth and stuck to his beard. His eyes looking confused, he asked, "What is it?"

She shook her head but couldn't stop laughing as long as she was looking at him, so she turned away and pulled her handkerchief from her pocket. Then she asked the proprietor of the apple cart, "Could you wet this for me?"

The man nodded and then dunked the kerchief in the wide barrel nearby that was full of apples for the game of bobbing. Once he returned the kerchief, Sadie wrung it out a little and handed the moist napkin to Mr. Thomas with a gesture to let him know where to find the caramel spots on his beard.

He handed her his apple to hold in return, and his ears turned a little red as he worked to get the candy off. "The apple is delicious, but it makes quite a mess."

While he was cleaning, she had asked the proprietor of the booth if he could cut the apple for her, which he did and then handed it to her in a clean napkin. She offered it to Mr. Thomas.

With a small sigh, he asked, "Why couldn't I have gotten it this way the first time?"

"That wouldn't have been much fun," she said with a smile as she took another bite of her own apple. "You need to have the full experience, sticky beard and all."

After popping a sliced piece of apple into his mouth he shook his head and pointed at the rest of the apple in his hand. "I like it this way much better."

She shrugged, and then they made their way to the registration table where they got a number so that they could bid in the auction as well. A short while after they took their seats and finished their apples, a crowd gathered round, and more people filled the stands. Things were already getting excited as they drew closer to one in the afternoon, when the auction would begin. With nervous energy, Sadie's knee had started bobbing.

When she finally noticed it, she pushed it down with her hand. Mr. Thomas watched her and laughed. "Does that work?"

"Sometimes," she said with a smile.

Then the auction began. The first horse up for auction was always one chosen by the auctioneers as a horse that wasn't likely to fetch a high price, but not the worst of the herd in the sale pen, either. This year they put up a mare and foal. It was a three-in-one package, with the mare rebred to the same stallion for a potential foal the next year. Sadie was always tempted by this sort of deal, but she knew that they didn't have the kind of facility to work with foaling out mares and it would be difficult to pony the young foal all the way back to Tonganoxie, so she sat on her hands and let the first lot in the auction go.

The second and third horses were high-stepping carriage quality horses that she had no interest in. The fourth lot was the buckskin pony that she put up for sale. Her knee started bobbing again, but this time, she didn't care to stop it. The auction company had put one of their own kids on the pony. A ten-year-old boy trotted the pony around the small auction arena and then cantered in circles, before showing that the pony had good breaks and would stop with just the smallest tug. Then the child proceeded to show how well broke the pony was by standing in the saddle and then sliding off the horse's rump before crawling under the buckskin. All while the well-trained pony stood perfectly still.

Sadie couldn't help but smile with pride as the auctioneer's chant rose and fell in his rhythmic style as he called bids, and the price of the pony rose well above what Sadie was hoping to get. This pony had been in her training for five years—since the last auction that she'd gone to with her father. They'd bought it as a yearling, and now at six, he was ready to become a child's horse. Though it would be difficult to make up for all the time and feed that they'd put into the buckskin pony all those years, there was a sense of accomplishment in getting a good price on the pony that she'd put so much effort into.

"Sold for a hundred and twelve fifty," the auctioneer said and slammed down the gavel.

Sadie was more then pleased to get enough money out of the first horse's sale to likely pay for the two or three project horses she was hoping to go home with. She beamed.

Next up for bid was the chestnut gelding with the scar on his leg. Excited, Sadie readied her bidding paddle. The bidding started, and there were two bidders who seemed interested, but the price was still relatively low and evened out when the horse reached twenty-two dollars. And once it evened out, Sadie knew that was the best time to jump in and start bidding. She raised her paddle at the auctioneer's next call. Then it turned out that she'd only needed to bid two dollars and fifty cents more and got the project horse for much less than she'd already set as her maximum bid beforehand.

All three of her other colts brought good prices, since they were some of the best broke horses in the sale, and she knew she'd be going home with enough money to help them stock up with hay and grain for the winter. The auction house did a great job of showing her horses off, in her opinion, since they'd decided to even show how a cowboy could rope and lasso off her bay mare, when she didn't even train the horse to tolerate that. The bay mare didn't really surprise Sadie, though, since she'd always been sensible and fearless.

Afterward, she'd also bought a second chestnut gelding, this one a little taller than the first and a year older. It hadn't been broke yet, but she wasn't worried about its lack of training since it was by the same stallion as Festus, one of her riding horses, and she knew that the temperament on the geldings from that bloodline were very trainable.

As the auction was nearing the end, the palomino came up for sale. Because she had so much money left over, Sadie decided that even though the palomino was likely to reach a price that she'd not wanted to pay originally, it was within her budget to buy the fancy thing after all. When the bidding started, she waited for her lull and then lifted her paddle. Even though the golden colored colt wasn't even two years old yet, the price was reaching fifty dollars.

Then another bid across the way was called out, and she lifted her paddle again to denote her continued interest in buying the colt. When it was matched again across the way, she decided to search to see who the person she was bidding with might be. To her surprise, it was Joe Curtis. He flashed her a sinister smile as soon as they met eyes with each other. Without even looking toward the bid caller, Sadie lifted her paddle, glaring at her former blacksmith.

His grin widened as he lifted his own.

This continued for about five more bids until Sadie felt a gentle hand on her arm. She turned and looked into those concerned blue-gray eyes that made the disdain that she'd felt a moment before disappear. He asked, "Are you sure you want to be bidding so high for that colt?"

His question brought her to her senses as she realized that the bidding was reaching the seventy-five dollar mark. What was she doing? She couldn't afford to spend that much on an unbroke colt. But when she peered back over toward Joe Curtis, she was tempted to raise her paddle again. Her knee started bobbing as the auctioneer was wrapping up the bids.

"Are you all right?" Mr. Thomas's calming, deep voice asked.

When she pulled her gaze away from Joe Curtis's patronizing smile, she found Mr. Thomas's caring, attentive gaze still fixed on her. And slowly, her leg stopped bobbing. It didn't matter. She didn't need the palomino colt, and she didn't need to win the bidding war with Joe Curtis. After letting out a slow breath, she nodded toward him and offered him a reassuring smile. "I'm all right."

And then the auctioneer's hammer hit the block, and he said, "Sold for seventy-three dollars and fifty cents."

Relief flooded over her much more than the tinge of regret that pricked at her. "That was a lot more than that colt was worth getting, especially as a resale project."

Mr. Thomas nodded, smiling back at her. "I think you made the right decision to stop."

"My father always said that if you don't think that you're going to get at least three times what you're bidding on the horse in the next auction after a year of training, then you shouldn't go any higher. I'm not so sure that when that horse is finished it would go for over two hundred dollars next year."

"If he had a longer neck and everything in his training went perfectly so that he became like the buckskin pony, it might be possible," he said with a shrug.

"But that's a lot of ‘ifs' and it took me five years to make the buckskin gelding as broke as he was."

He huffed a laugh as he nodded. "That's highly unlikely then."

"Thank you for stopping me," she said as she rested her hand lightly on his.

The touch of his warm soft skin on the top of his hand made goosebumps rise on her arms and a tingle surge through her whole body. She realized how foreword she was being and immediately pulled her hand back. Her cheeks heated and she turned away. Once she'd taken a few minutes and caught her breath, she chanced a glance toward Mr. Thomas. He sat more stiffly than before and had turned away from her slightly as well. She'd obviously made him feel uncomfortable. She was unsure how to apologize and make things right.

But then they called the auction to an end, and most everyone in the stands drew to their feet. The both of them did as well. It was nearly four in the afternoon by the end of the auction, and her stomach grumbled. The caramel apple definitely wasn't enough to satisfy them for all that they were doing that day. Somehow, it seemed that Mr. Thomas read her mind. He met eyes with her and said, "I saw that one of the carts was selling stew. If you'd like some, I'll get us a couple of bowls and then meet you by sale horses?"

"All right," she said, glad that his attitude toward her had remained unchanged after her faux pas. "I need to settle up with the auctioneer company while you do that."

Nodding, he offered her a small smile and then shoved his hands in his pockets as he went in the direction of the food carts, and she started in the other direction. After she finished settling up, she headed down a row behind the tents toward the sale pen where she'd catch up with Mr. Thomas. She wondered if it was wrong for her to be developing such strong feelings for her new blacksmith. He seemed to have no interest in her in the same manner, and why should he? She was hardly a lady—running around in dungarees and bossing him around all the time. What would a man find attractive about that?

She didn't even attempt to do her hair in the latest styles or to do makeup the way other girls her age did. Fancy dresses and finery were far from her wardrobe. If she wore a hat, it was wide brimmed and made of straw and used to belong to her father. Feathers and bows and trim didn't adorn it either. There wasn't much of anything about the way that she did things that was ladylike. And yet a part of her was willing to give those things a try if they would pique Mr. Thomas's interest.

Her heart fluttered at the thought.

"Oh, now hey there, Missy," a deep voice said as a man sidled up behind her.

Her shoulders eked up toward her ears as her back tensed at the sound of the familiar baritone. As she turned around to face Joe Curtis, she fought back the scowl that she wanted to give him and cultivated a bored expression. "I don't know who you're calling ‘Missy,'" she said as she put her hands on her hips.

He hiked up a brow as he offered a sardonic smile. "You were interested in that palomino colt, huh? He's a handsome one. I bet he's going to make a great riding horse. Maybe I'll even ride him back and fort to Tonganoxie occasionally when I come down to visit Magdalene Bury's Tavern."

"You do that." She fought not to roll her eyes as she turned back around.

He put a hand on her shoulder and kept her from facing away from him. "Or I might be interested if you were to make an offer for him. He could be available for the right price."

Then his hand ran down her arm in a gentle but lurid fashion to her elbow.

She pulled her arm out of his grip. "That's all right. I already bought two good colts to take home."

His sneer returned. "The chestnut with the bum leg?"

"It's just an old scar."

"And that older one that Kenny should have been broke a year ago?"

"Kenny Nelson had an injury during last year's harvest. It's understandable that he didn't have the inclination to break a colt. Chances are that the colt will be even more sensible having had more time to mature."

Joe huffed a laugh. "Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me. I don't see why you didn't buy something fancier."

"Pretty is as pretty does. When you own a livery, you don't need flashy horses to do the job."

"If you say so," he said with a shrug.

When she went to turn away from him again, he took hold of her arm, this time his grip was a little tighter. "What's wrong with you?"

Frowning, she tried to pull from his grip but he tightened it more. "Unhand me."

He shook his head, his glare sharpening. "Not until you make me understand why you would rather shoe your own horses than be a little nicer to me. Why you invite a stranger to come live in your barn and eat in your house when you didn't even offer me dinner even once while I was helping you out for all those years. What's wrong with you?"

His fingers were digging into Sadie's skin, and she didn't like the threatening tone of his question. "I'll ask you again, Joe. Unhand me before we both do something we regret."

Huffing a laugh, he tightened his grip so that it caused her a bit of pain and she thought she might bruise. The he leaned in closer to her. "I regret not taking you up into that hayloft one of those times when we were alone in the barn together. We could have had quite a roll in the—"

There was a cracking sound in the air and the palm of her free hand stung. She'd slapped him. Without even a thought, her hand moved of its own accord. She'd been so shocked by her own action that when his grip loosened on her elbow, she stood there slack jawed instead of pulling away.

Joe's cheek was already turning red where she'd struck him. And his eyes which had been surprised a moment before turned icy cold as he looked down on her with more venom than she'd ever seen in them before. He took hold of her lower arm and started marching away, dragging her behind him.

"Stop! What are you doing?" She stumbled after him, afraid she'd fall on her face if she didn't. "Where are you taking me?"

He didn't say a word and kept marching.

She looked ahead in fear and saw that they were heading to an even more secluded area away from the bustle of the crowds and toward an alley at the back of the businesses there in Lawrence. Dread came over her. No one would know where she'd gone. Mr. Thomas wasn't going to be able to find her. Planting her feet, she tried to stop herself, but he yanked her harder and she stumbled forward again.

"Stop," she cried again, but her voice was getting weaker as fear was overcoming her. "You have no right to treat me like this!"

That made him stop and turn around, his face twisted in indignation. "You think you can just strike me with no repercussions? Since your father's not around to teach you some manners and common courtesy, I guess it's up to me. I should have done this a long time ago."

What did he mean? Her heart and leapt to her throat and fear was overcoming her. She'd never been comfortable around Joe Curtis and now she felt much worse. He shoved her against the wall of a building and put a hand on her neck. When she swallowed, his grip on her tightened. She tried to fight him off with her fists, but he took the arm he had and yanked it over her head. Then he brought his face close to hers and she could smell the alcohol on his breath. Bile rose up the back of her throat. He ran his nose up her cheek and she tried to flinch away, but he squeezed his fingers on her throat.

"I can't breathe," she squeaked hoarsely, "let me go."

He chuckled. "Some saloon girls like when you do it like this."

Saloon girls? What did he mean? Her mind raced in several directions and none of them were good. Fear was overcoming her, and she tried to fight him off again to no avail. He was too strong. What would she do? She couldn't scream and with him pressed against her like this, she couldn't escape. He brought his face closer to hers, and she closed her eyes and tried to turn her face away. And she prayed that the Lord would help her.

And suddenly he was gone.

Doubling over, she coughed now that she could get air through her throat. Her eyes watered and her vision blurred. Through her blurred sight, she found shadows struggling against one another. She heard a growl, someone cried out and something cracked. Swiping away at her tears, she straightened and found a hulking form hovering over Joe with a knee on his back. "Get off of me," Joe grunted.

And then the man on Joe's back turned toward her, his blue-grey eyes fixing on hers with worry filling them. "Are you all right?"

Her throat tightened. It was Mr. Thomas. He found her. Two bowls full of stew lay crashed upon the ground in the alley a several feet away. She nodded to him and her voice cracked as she said, "I am."

"Get off of me!"

Instead of releasing the man under him, Mr. Thomas leaned forward, allowing his knee to grind into Joe's back and making the man groan in pain. Still, his gaze remained fixed upon her's. "Do you want to fetch the police?"

She shook her head. "No. It's all right."

Frowning, he finally looked from her to the man underneath him. "I am only keeping you trapped for as long as you kept my intended. If you apologize to her and to me, I may release you sooner."

"Intended?" Joe asked at the same time as Sadie thought it.

Her heart raced and butterflies launched in her stomach.

"Why else would a man be living with her, and her aunt as chaperone?" Abraham answered, "And that doesn't sound like an apology."

"You're right," Joe said, the anger in his voice dissipating. "I apologize. I didn't realize that she was spoken for."

Mr. Thomas stood, releasing Joe from where he'd been pinned. Slowly Joe stood, rubbing his jaw and rotating his shoulder. Mr. Thomas continued to glare at the man. "Even if she weren't spoken for, you had no right to treat a lady in such a manner. Violence against the fairer sex is only showing weakness of the mind and spirit. Ask the Lord to help you overcome your temptations."

Joe Curtis blinked at him, his face coloring as though he'd not been expecting to be rebuked in such a manner. Then his expression softened and he looked truly repentant. "I… I struggle against my temptations. I'm ashamed of the fact that I lose my temper and ability to control my anger."

Nodding, Abraham said, "Alcohol is not an angry man's friend. The Bible says to that there's nothing wrong with anger, but it can cause us to sin if we let it take hold of us. We have to keep it under control. But drinking spirits can cloud our judgment and sense of right and wrong."

Joe's shoulders fell. "I didn't know you were a preacher."

Mr. Thomas shook his head. "I'm not. But any man can read the Bible for himself and study God's word."

His brow furrowed, Joe looked up at him. "You do that?"

Nodding, Mr. Thomas said, "Everyday."

After a moment of silence, Mr. Thomas stepped forward and set a hand on Joe's shoulder. And then he prayed for him. Surprised, Sadie bowed her head, too. She listened to the words he said and agreed with them in her spirit. It amazed her that a moment ago, Joe had been threatening her, and then Mr. Thomas had fought with him, and now they were praying together, and Joe seemed almost like a different person. The way things turned out were not what she'd expected when she first ran into him in the back of the tents. But she didn't mind.

Mr. Thomas was turning out to be every bit as honorable as his letters had promised. She'd noticed it more and more as she'd gotten to know him. He was the genuine article and not just putting on an act. The longer that they'd gotten to know each other the more certain she'd become and now she wanted to know what he meant about what he said earlier. Was he lying then?