A Touch of Forever

Book 3: The Cowboys of Colorado

by Jo Goodman

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Historical Romance; Western Romance

Synopsis

Lily Salt has sworn off men. After finally gaining her independence, the last thing she needs is another man telling her what to do. But the handsome railroad engineer from New York isn't at all what she expected. He's kind, gentle...and tempting enough to make her wonder what a second chance at love might be worth.

A self-acknowledged black sheep, Roen Shepard knows what it means to feel alone. Recognizing a kindred spirit in the reserved widow whose fascinating blue-green eyes have seen too much and charmed by the warmth of her ready-made family, the two begin an unlikely friendship.

When a complication from his past follows him to Frost Falls, Roen proposes a mad scheme to protect the new life he's built and keep close the stubborn woman he's accidentally fallen for - a marriage of convenience. But Lily has secrets of her own, and the closer he gets to uncovering them the more he comes to realize that the only truth that matters is the secret to unlocking her heart.

Release date: June 4, 2019

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 416

Sample

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Jo Goodman

Chapter One

Frost Falls, Colorado

September 1901

Back in New York, they called him the black sheep. Not to his face. Or rarely to his face. But he’d heard it whispered in a pitying sort of way in the free-spirited Bohemian circles where his family was revered. Roen Shepard didn’t mind particularly. Depending on one’s view, he supposed it might even be true. It was certainly his family’s view; although the appellation was couched in humor, not pity. They were dreamers. He was not. He’d been stewed in creative juices since birth. Musicians. Painters. Poets. Novelists. Surrounded by so much talent and imaginative genius, something should have inspired him. Nothing had.

He’d never been afraid to try, and so, encouraged by his parents and grandparents, by his siblings and cousins, by his tutors and teachers, he tried his hand at every sort of artistic endeavor.

He was fair to middlin’ on the piano if there weren’t too many sharps or flats, and if he wasn’t required to sing at the same time. For a while, he thought painting might be his forte. He could put a still life on canvas that looked exactly like the bowl of fruit on the table in front of him. It was politely pointed out to him that he represented the fruit too accurately. A photograph would do just as well, his mother said, and that would not do at all. He wrote bad poetry and even worse prose. He’d once revised the first chapter of a proposed novel sixteen times before his father kindly took the pages and burned them.

The differences between him and his family were not only artistic ones. There were physical differences as well, so many of them, in fact, that his brother and sisters teased him mercilessly that he was a foundling adopted by their parents in one of the impulsive, magnanimous gestures they were known for. As he was the only child with green eyes, chestnut-colored hair, and a clumsy, loose-jointed frame that took years to grow into, it was easy to believe the foundling story no matter how often his parents reassured him it was not the case. As for the dissimilarity in appearance, it was all on account of his being a change-of-life baby, his mother told him, although she neglected to furnish an explanation for what that meant.

Thinking about it now, Roen smiled to himself. He was still a fish out of water at family affairs, but as an adult, he’d come into his own. At twenty-nine, he was content with the features that set him apart. He was more athletic than graceful, which made him a better baseball player than a dancer, and at a hair above six feet, he stood half a head taller than all his male relatives. He could joke, before his family did, that he had physical stature if not an artistic one. He could also have pointed out that he was not possessed of the same fiery temperament as the rest of the Shepards, but they would have said he lacked their passion and wouldn’t have understood that he was thankful for it.

Roen studied the drawing he had made in his sketch pad, reviewed the calculations, checking and rechecking his work on the elevations, and, once satisfied, closed the book with a pleasant thump.

It was only then that he became aware that he was not alone, and he guessed that he hadn’t been for some time. Roen could acknowledge that upon occasion he had an extraordinary eye for detail while being oblivious to the whole. This was one of those occasions.

He looked up from his sketch pad and turned his head in the direction of his visitor. He merely raised an inquiring eyebrow.

A lesser man might have flinched at being caught out, perhaps even been unseated from his hunkered position on the rocky outcropping where he was perched like a bird of prey, but Clay Salt didn’t twitch. Roen estimated the boy was eleven, maybe twelve, so that explained both his curiosity and his lack of embarrassment.

“Are you done now, mister? Seems like you might be. Didn’t want to disturb you none while you was working, so I just settled down to watch. I never seen the like before, what you were doing. That much fascinated I was.”

Roen had no recollection of anyone ever being fascinated by what he did, and he looked for mischief in young Clay’s eyes. What he saw were a pair of dark brown eyes, earnest in their direct gaze and without a shred of guile.

“Did you follow me up here, Clay?”

Now Clay flinched. “You know who I am?”

“Uh-huh. Why does that surprise you?”

“Well, you’re new to town. You’ve hardly been here more than a minute.”

“Three weeks. People are friendly, and I’ve been to your church twice. Saw you there with your mother and your brother and sisters. Between the minister and Mrs. Springer, I believe I was introduced to every parishioner.”

“Yeah? Not us.”

“No, that’s true. I misspoke.” Clay and his family sat at the back of the church and were the first out the door both Sundays. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen them fleeing—that was the word that came to mind—while Mrs. Springer was pumping him for information under the guise of welcoming him to Frost Falls. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance now.”

“Are you? Ma said I should leave you be, that your work is too important to suffer the children.”

Roen’s cocked an eyebrow again, this time with a challenging curve. “Suffer the children? Did she say that?”

Clay shrugged, unabashed. “Something like that.”

“I see. So you are in defiance of your mother’s wishes right now.”

“Not really. You didn’t know I was here until you were done so you didn’t have to suffer me at all.”

“True, and I admire your logic even if you are splitting hairs.” Roen saw one corner of the boy’s mouth lift at what he perceived was a compliment, and for the first time Roen had a hint of the rascal that resided within. He was gratified to see it. Until this moment, Clay Salt had seemed unnaturally self-possessed. Roen opened his sketch pad to the page he had just completed and held it up. “Do you want to get a closer look?”

In answer, Clay clambered down from his rock and closed the ten yards that separated them. Roen handed him the book and waited for the inevitable disappointment that would shadow Clay’s features. It wasn’t disappointment, though. It was puzzlement.

“What is it?” asked Clay. He turned the pad sideways as though an angle might offer clarity. “I mean, I see it’s numbers. I know numbers. But these other scratchings? Looks like a hen stepped in ink and walked across your paper.”

Roen tugged on the pad so that Clay had to lower it for him to see. He regarded his work with fresh eyes. He huffed a laugh and ran a hand through his chestnut hair: Δ h Σ D g. “So it does.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s part of the formula to measure the refraction and curvature of the earth.”

“Huh.”

“I need a lot of precise measurements to know where I can recommend that Northeast Rail lay down new track.”

“Huh.”

“You know the earth is round, right?”

Clay’s lip curled. “’Course I know.”

“Good. And because there’s a curve, a straight line isn’t exactly straight, and air refracts light that further distorts the line, so what you see isn’t as precise as my equipment and calculations can be.”

Clay returned the pad to Roen and pointed to the upper-right-hand corner of the page, the only part that made perfect sense to him. “You drew the landscape over yonder, and that double line winding through it, those are tracks, aren’t they? You reckon that’s a place to put down rail?”

“It might be.”

“Huh. That’s Double H land. Hard to imagine Ol’ Harrison Hardy will sell to the railroad. He’s cussed cranky even when his lumbago isn’t bothering him.”

“Good to know, but that’s a problem for another day. Right now I need to pack up and get back to town before dark.”

Clay looked at the sky. “Dark’s coming on fast, but I’ll help you, and I know the way back day or night.”

Chapter Two

Lily Salt did not raise her voice when her older boy attempted to make a stealthy entrance into the kitchen. Neither did she turn around from the stove, where she was stirring a pot of chili. “Clay Bryant Salt.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m going to oil that hinge first thing tomorrow.”

“Won’t help you. I suppose I know when my son’s been wandering and when he’s home.”

“Chili smells good.” He sidled up to the stove and bumped her affectionately. “Better than good, I’m thinking. Might be excellent.”

“I am not mollified. Not even a little.” But she bumped him back while she continued to stir. “Go tell your sister it’s time to set the table and then you wash your hands. Help Ham and Lizzie, too.”

When Clay took a step sideways but didn’t leave the kitchen, Lily was immediately suspicious. She swiveled her head in his direction. He was tall now, as tall as she was, and she hadn’t quite gotten used to it. It pained her some to look him in the eye. He had his father’s eyes and coloring, though in every other way he was nothing at all like his father. Still, the eyes. “What is it?” she asked.

Clay pointed to the kitchen door, where Roen Shepard stood framed in the opening.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Salt,” Roen said, removing his hat and holding it in front of him like a penitent. “I wanted to see your son home safely. I’m Roen Shepard, the engineering surveyor employed by Northeast Rail.”

Lily indicated that Clay should take the long-handled wooden spoon. “Stir,” she said. She thought he was glad to have the spoon in his hand and not hers, though she had never once raised it against him. There were memories of his father not easily erased. “I know who you are, Mr. Shepard.” She crossed a few feet to the table and rested one hand on the back of a chair. She did not close the distance between them.

Roen did not inch into the room, nor did he back away. Lily Salt was regarding him warily, with the innate stillness of a rabbit in the wild sensing something feral in her midst. In deference to what he perceived as distress, he remained rooted where he stood.

It was in the back pew of the Presbyterian Church that Clay’s mother had made her first impression on Roen Shepard. He’d been sitting five pews ahead on the aisle when a cloth ball rolled between his feet. He picked it up, looked around for the owner, and passed it back to a harried mother with a child set to squall on her lap. The squalling was averted, and he was grateful for that, but more grateful that his backward search had afforded him a glimpse of the woman who later became known to him as Lily Salt.

She looked to him as composed and serene as any Madonna rendered in oils by the great artists of the Renaissance. That she was flanked by two boys and two girls, who could only be her children, made her calm seem preternatural. She had the smile of the Mona Lisa, which was to say it was more a smile of imagination than it was of reality, but when he turned away, that perception of her smile lingered.

She wore a wide-brimmed straw sailor hat trimmed with a black ribbon and tilted forward as was the fashion. Her hair, what he could see of it then, was rust red, but her older daughter had hair like a flame and made him suspect that this was Lily’s color in her youth.

When he caught sight of her escaping the church with her children in tow, Roen knew himself to be mildly intrigued. He was saved from expressing any measure of curiosity by Mrs. Springer’s account of the congregation, their lineage, their talents, and their foibles. Amanda Springer was a wellspring of information, most of which he later learned from the minister could be taken as gospel.

So here he was facing Lily Salt, age thirty-four, a widow whose husband had perished in a fire almost two years earlier, mother of four children, seamstress employed in the dress shop owned by Mrs. Fish, and doing well enough on her own that she had no interest in inviting a man into her life, though according to Mrs. Springer, a number of men had tried.

This last was rather more than Roen had expected or even wanted to hear, since he had no interest in such an invitation, but Amanda Springer, once sprung, said what was on her mind. All of it. Her husband, an affable man who tended bar at the Songbird Saloon, seized on the opportunity to disengage her at the first sign she was winding down. Later, Roen rewarded Jim Springer’s strategy by buying him a drink at the saloon, though he never explained the reason for his generosity.

At the risk of Lily Salt turning tail and fleeing her own kitchen, Roen offered a slim, apologetic smile. “Your boy was a help to me,” he said. At the stove, Clay glanced over his shoulder and gave Roen an appreciative eyeful. Roen ignored him. “Thought it was the least I could do to see him home.”

Lily’s slim hand, the one that curved over the back of a chair, tightened so her knuckles stood out in stark white relief. Her chin came up. “I reckon Clay knows the lay of the land a mite better than you do even with all of your fancy instruments.”

Clay stopped stirring and stared openmouthed at his mother. “Ma!”

Roen thought Lily appeared more surprised by her temerity than she was regretful of it. Her lips parted but she had no words. It fell to Roen to supply them. “You’re correct, Mrs. Salt. Clay was a better escort to me than I was to him, and I’ll be taking my leave now.”

“Ma!” This time Clay’s cry was plaintive. “I invited Mr. Shepard to take supper with us.”

“Did you now?” she asked without taking her eyes off Clay’s guest.

“I did. He’s been taking his meals regular at the hotel and I figured home-cooked food would do him right.” He jerked his chin in Roen’s direction. “You can see for yourself that some meat on his bones wouldn’t come amiss.”

Lily’s eyes did not stray from Roen Shepard’s angular face, but it was impossible not to note that her son was correct. The man standing in her doorway probably filled out a black coat and tails just fine, even excellently, but his blue chambray shirt drooped some at the shoulders. The butternut leather vest was loose across the chest, and his denim trousers looked as if they would benefit from a belt and suspenders. Someone needed to take him in hand. That thought flitted uncomfortably through her mind, but what she said was, “The Butterworth serves excellent food.”

She stepped back to the stove, took the spoon from Clay, and set it aside. “Go do what I asked you to do.”

Uncertain, Clay nonetheless hurried from the kitchen.

When he was gone, Lily pointed to the pegs to the left of the door. “You can hang your hat there.”

Roen did as he was told and closed the door behind him. Lily was already turned back to the stove when he was done. Her thick hair was neatly arranged in a braided coil at the back of her head. His eyes settled on the fragile nape of her neck as she bent to her work. “What decided you?” he asked.

“It’s the least I can do to make amends for my son pestering you.”

“Oh, but he didn’t.”

Lily picked up a folded towel and used it to open the oven door. She removed a pan of cornbread, but not before she gave Roen Shepard a jaundiced look that said she knew her son as well as her son knew the lay of the land. It was gratifying that he accepted that silent reprimand and said nothing in return.

The warm fragrance of cornbread was wafting through the kitchen as Hannah came rushing in from the hallway. She skidded to a halt, closely followed by her younger sister Lizzie, and the pair of them held up their hands to show they’d been washed clean. Droplets of water flew from their fingertips as they shook them out. Whatever admonishment Lily meant to say when she opened her mouth to speak came to nothing as Hannah interrupted her mother.

“So you are here!” she said, addressing Roen Shepard. “Clay said you were but I didn’t know if I could believe him. He likes to play tricks. Say hello, Lizzie, to Mr. Shepard.”

Lizzie, at five, was a practiced coquette. She gave Roen a sidelong glance and a sweet smile while tilting her head just so. Her curls, the color of sunshine, swung to and fro when she righted her head. “Hello.” Then she sidled closer to her sister, where she sought the protection of Hannah’s gingham skirt.

“Hello, Lizzie. Hannah. What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

Lily set the pan of cornbread on a warming plate on top of the stove. “Set the table, Hannah. Bowls and spoons. Lizzie, take your seat.” To Roen, she said, “How do my girls know you?”

Hannah answered before Roen could. “We see him in church, Ma. Same as everyone.”

Lily recognized the truth in that, but she also recognized there was something left unsaid. “I was speaking to Mr. Shepard.”

Roen hadn’t moved more than two feet into the kitchen. His place at the table was not clear to him, and he waited to be invited to sit or asked to help. “They introduced themselves when we were in Hennepin’s mercantile.”

Lizzie plopped herself into her chair and swung her feet under the table. “He bought us a bag of licorice whips and horehound drops.”

Lily frowned deeply. “Why would you do that? No, Lizzie, I don’t want to hear from you. I want to hear from Mr. Shepard.”

Lizzie clamped her lips closed and regarded Roen sorrowfully. She had told the truth but her mother’s expression led her to believe it wasn’t the right answer.

Without the least regret, Roen said, “It appears I overstepped, and that certainly was not my intention. Indeed, my intention was to move them along. As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. Hennepin has a large selection of candy and your girls could not decide between the peppermint, the butterscotch, or the horehound drops. It was amusing at first, and then it was painful. I had an appointment, you see, and needed to be on my way, and Mr. Hennepin was giving the girls their due, as a good shopkeeper should. I chose the horehound candies for them and added the licorice whips because I wanted one myself. And that’s how it came to pass. They were grateful and I was on time for my meeting with the town council.”

He thought he saw Lily’s lips twitch, but whether she was amused or skeptical, he couldn’t say. After a moment she nodded once and the subject was closed. Lizzie’s sigh of relief was audible and Hannah actually winked at him. If Lily noticed either girl’s reaction, she did not comment.

“Can I help?” Roen asked as Hannah set bowls on the table.

Lily pointed out a chair. “You can sit yourself there. Ham will sit beside you. The girls opposite. Hannah. See what’s keeping your brothers.”

He assumed from the position of the chairs that it meant Clay sat at one end and Lily at the other. Roen went around the table but stood behind his chair rather than sit down.

Lily cut the cornbread and placed the warm pan on a trivet on the table. As she ladled chili into the bowls, Hannah reappeared with her brothers on her heels. The boys held up their hands for inspection, and when Lily pronounced them fit, they moved to the table.

Unlike his whip-thin older brother, Ham was a sturdy boy with a cherub’s face and deviltry in his eyes. Roen noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes and his hands were considerably cleaner than his feet. As soon as Ham sat, he leaned over to the empty chair designated for Roen and patted the seat. “This is you here, Mr. Shepard. Beside me.” With the unaffected aplomb of a six-year-old, he held out his hand and announced, “I’m Hamilton Salt, by the way, and I am glad to make your acquaintance.”

Lily regarded her younger son with suspicion and then her gaze slid sideways to Clay. He made a show of shrugging just as if he hadn’t been helping Ham master that introduction.

Roen solemnly extended his hand and shook Hamilton’s. “It’s a pleasure.”

“You can sit now,” said Ham.

“I am waiting for your mother.”

“Oh.” His mouth screwed up to one side while he considered this as Lily returned the chili pot to the stove.

Roen skirted the table and held out Lily’s chair for her. She stared at it and then at him. A vertical frown line appeared between her eyebrows. She sat slowly, hesitantly, almost as if she anticipated the chair being pulled out from under her. That didn’t happen. Roen pushed the chair closer to the table.

Ham watched this all with naked curiosity. “She’ll just get up again,” he said. “She always does.”

“Hush,” Lily whispered, and under the table, Hannah kicked him.

“Ow!” He glared at his sister. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because Lizzie’s legs are too short.”

It was true, but it was hardly the answer Ham was looking for. He settled into his seat and tucked his legs under him. He was quiet until Roen took his seat and then he announced, “We pray now,” and bent his head over dimpled hands folded into a single fist.

Roen bowed his head. The prayer was familiar, one he had learned as a child, but he chose to mouth the words rather than give voice to them with the rest of the family.

As soon as every “amen” was said, Ham reached for the pan of cornbread. Lily lightly tapped him on the back of his hand with the bowl of her spoon. “I should let you burn your fingers. We serve our guest first.” She slipped a turner into the pan and removed a square of cornbread. Roen raised his chili bowl toward her and she set the bread neatly on the lip. She did the same for Ham and herself and then let Hannah serve Lizzie and Clay.

“Go on,” Lily said, tipping her head in Roen’s direction. “Tuck in.” She saw him nod, but she also noticed he did not take his first bite until she had. She acquitted him of suspecting that she was trying to poison him. His reticence was born of good manners, and while she was grateful for what he was demonstrating to her children, it made her distinctly uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to this deference and doubted that she deserved it.

Lily’s throat felt thick. She choked down the first mouthful of chili and was grateful that no one noticed her distress. It faded with the second bite and was nothing at all by the third.

“There’s plenty more,” she told Ham as he shoveled chili and cornbread into his mouth. “Slow down.”

“It’s good, Ma. Real good.”

“I’m happy to hear it. Now slow down.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Roen saw Ham dutifully slow the lift of his spoon to his mouth but not the size of his bite. Aware that Lily Salt was watching him now, Roen took care not to smile. Amusement would not have been appreciated just then.

“Your chili is excellent,” he said. “A family recipe?”

“No. Mrs. Butterworth’s. If you take your meals at the hotel, you’ve met her.”

He nodded. “Ah, yes. Ellie. The owner’s wife.”

Clay spoke around a mouthful of cornbread. “She’s the sheriff’s mother. Did you know that?”

“I believe she mentioned that,” he said, his voice a tad dry. “Several times.”

“Well, she’s that proud,” said Lily. “And no one faults her for it. Sheriff Ben is good people.”

“I’ve had the pleasure.” Roen guided another spoonful of chili to his mouth. The aroma teased his senses. “He welcomed me, took me around to meet the shopkeepers and the gentlemen who manage the land office.”

“Dave and Ed Saunders.”

“Yes. The brothers. They’ve been helpful providing me with maps and plotting boundaries.”

Clay said, “Mr. Shepard was looking at Double H land this afternoon, but I told him that Ol’ Harrison Hardy isn’t going to fool with the railroad.”

Lily raised a single eyebrow and regarded her son with a seriously set mien. “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s business between Mr. Hardy and Mr. Shepard.”

As a reprimand, Roen thought it was a mild one, but nevertheless Clay ducked his head and nodded.

Lily served another square of cornbread to Roen. “How long will you be staying in Frost Falls, Mr. Shepard?”

For all that the question was politely posed and made with an offering of sweet cornbread, Roen had the sense that if his answer was more than a few more days, it would be too long. Unless she was anticipating that he would be a frequent dinner guest, Roen couldn’t imagine why it mattered. “It’s never clear this early,” he said, hedging. “It’s hard to project a timeline at this juncture, and Northeast Rail has hired me on to see this through.”

“But roughly,” said Lily.

“I’ll know better inside of six weeks.”

“Oh.”

Roen could see nothing in the placid composition of her delicate features to indicate that she was aggrieved; yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was. Her children, on the other hand, appeared to be delighted.

Hannah said, “So you’ll hardly be a visitor to Frost Falls. More like regular folk.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Oh, it is. Especially since you’re staying in Sheriff Ben’s house, or what used to be his house, and not taking a room at the Butterworth.”

Lily frowned at her daughter. “And just how do you know so much about it?”

Hannah shrugged. “It’s like you say. Everyone here knows everything.”

Lily felt her cheeks warm. It was her own voice she heard in Hannah’s ironic tones. Her daughter was a perfect mimic. “Yes, well, you don’t have to repeat everything you hear.”

“No, ma’am.”

Roen said, “Northeast Rail is renting the sheriff’s house for the duration of my stay. I spend a lot of time in hotels and railroad cars, so this is a welcome change.”

Clay said, “Sheriff Ben likes having someone living in the house. He told me. I work for him sometimes. Me and my friend Frankie Fuller. Odd jobs mostly. I’m real good at a lot of things. So is Frankie.” He tilted his head to the side as he regarded his guest. “You ever have a need for an odd jobber?”

“Clay.” Lily said his name quietly, without inflection, but he nevertheless sat back in his chair as though pushed. “This is supper, and Mr. Shepard is your guest. You can talk business after over cigars and port when the rest of us retire to the front room.”

Her response was so unexpected that Clay’s jaw went slack. Hannah stared at her mother. Lizzie and Ham looked at each other with identical frowns. For his part, Roen threw back his head and gave a shout of laughter.

Lily took this all in, nodded faintly, satisfied, and smiled in a way that suggested she had swallowed a secret.

Chapter Three

Roen Shepard wasn’t sure why Lily’s Mona Lisa smile came to him off and on that evening and again the following morning as he took his seat in church. Because of Ham’s chatter and Hannah’s shushing, Roen was aware when the Salts took their usual place in the last pew. He didn’t turn to acknowledge them, presuming that Lily would not appreciate the attention. She struck him as an isolated individual and one who was not unhappy about it. Her children, on the other hand, were creatures of the never-met-a-stranger variety, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they took after their father in that regard. Except to tell him that Jeremiah Salt had operated a forge and perished in a fire, Amanda Springer had nothing else to say about the man, and Roen hadn’t minded in the least back then. Now, upon meeting the family, he found