A Life Restored (37 page)

“I wonder, Mrs. Anderson, just how well you know your husband.”

“Well enough,” she shot back as she dished food onto her plate.

“Shall we put your knowledge to the test then?” he challenged.

She didn’t respond.

“What do you know of his various occupations in Cincinnati?”

Caroline took another step forward.
 
Perhaps if she ignored him, he would drop the conversation.

“Thief.
 
Scoundrel.
 
Womanizer.
 
Drunk.
 
Gambler.
 
Has he ever told you he spent time in jail for robbing a bank?”

The air rushed from Caroline’s lungs.
 
Thief?
 
Bank robber?
 
Surely not.

“Ah, I see you don’t believe me.
 
Perhaps Mrs. Colter can enlighten you.
 
I’m sure she knows firsthand what her brother-in-law was involved in.”

Robbery.
 
Again, Garrett reminded her far too much of the stagecoach robber.
 
“I’m sure you know a great deal about robbery yourself, Mr. Garrett.
 
Ever rob a stage by chance?”

The color rushed to Garrett’s cheeks. “Don’t be coy with me.
 
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that one of the robbers confessed and he turned in the other.
 
Ah, there’s my associate.
 
If you’ll excuse me.
 
Have a pleasant day.”
 
He turned and started to leave.
 
“Oh, Mrs. Anderson, if you’re looking for your husband, you might try the saloon.”

The heat rushed to Caroline’s cheeks as Garrett stepped from the line.
 
The others nearby started whispering.
 
Obviously they overheard Mr. Garrett’s last remark.

Robert Garrett chuckled as he neared his associate.
 
As fortune would have it, his associate found a man that strongly resembled the new Robert Garrett.
 
It was easy to convince Bart to turn himself and the look-a-like in—especially with the promise of rescue.
 
Too bad that rescue would accidentally end Bart’s life.

No matter.
 
He had served his purpose.
 
The scapegoat would hang based on Bart’s testimony.
 
And no one would be able to trace any of this back to him.

“Is it done?” he asked his associate.

“Yes.”

“Good.
 
When can you start the next phase of the plan?”

“Already getting familiar with Colter’s patterns.
 
We’ll set the whole thing into motion after his men come back from the cattle drive in September.”

Garrett smiled.
 
“You’re not concerned that there will be too many men there?”

“No.”

“Excellent.
 
I’ll see that the payment is delivered per your instructions.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Garrett put on his poker face, though he beamed inwardly.
 
Things were going very smoothly with Owens.
 
No one had been able to prove a connection between him and the missing Colter cattle.
 
He was still supplying reliable information.
 
He wondered if perhaps Owens had done something similar before.
 
He thought he recognized his name as someone he heard of in Texas, but he couldn’t remember with certainty.

Choosing him had been a good decision.
 
Little by little he helped eat away at Colter’s wealth.

Time was his best ally and the longer Colter suffered, the better.
 
Soon enough, Colter would regret the day he left Texas and made an enemy of Robert Garrett.

Chapter 38

Thomas entered the saloon and headed straight for the bar, his anger still burning.
 
He should have been in that race.
 
He should have won it.
 
Instead he was a crippled spectator on the sidelines.
 
He hadn’t ridden a horse since the night of his injury and he likely never would again.

God, I thought you took care of those who came to you.
 
Why won’t you take care of me?

Not waiting for an answer, he ordered some whiskey and sipped it slowly.

Why was it some people’s lives just turned out perfectly and with such little effort?
 
Adam’s announcement about Larson Stables—now there was a man who had everything and it seemed good things just happened to him.
 
Stable, loving family.
 
Good home.
 
Gorgeous and talented wife.
 
Baby on the way.
 
Then he gets his own business handed to him.

Thomas snorted and polished off his whiskey.
 
He nodded to the bartender for more.

Why couldn’t his life turn out more like Adam’s?
 
He had a terrible life growing up.
 
Suffered tremendous losses.
 
Got in with the wrong crowd and ended up in jail.
 
He lost the last of his family—he was the only Anderson left.
 
The job he loved, he lost.
 
He got a beautiful woman pregnant and now he was saddled with a wife and soon to be with a child.

He kicked himself for that last thought.
 
Caroline, no matter how she entered his life or what led her to become his wife, she was the best thing in his life.
 
She was a good wife when she didn’t nag him or tell him how he should go about finding a job.

And she was beautiful, too.

Taking another sip of his drink, he dreamed of what their life together could be like if he could just find that place where he fit in.
 
He would work hard and give her a home.
 
She would make him hearty meals every day.
 
They would have more children and raise a family—one so different from what he grew up with.
 
All of it in this nice town.

“I hoped I had seen wrong,” Perry Quinn’s voice stirred him from the pleasant images in his mind.

“Perry.”

“What are you doing in here, Thomas?
 
Was that change in you while you were on my ranch all just a game?”

The knife of conviction pierced his heart deeply.

“It was one of the most real things in my life.”

“Then why are you sitting in here drinking it away, while your wife worries about you out there?”

Caroline was worried?

“I should have been in that race.”
 
He raised his glass to his lips and Perry swiped it from him before he could sip.
 
“Give that back.”

“No.
 
Self-pity and living in the past are only going to drive you deeper into the bottle.
 
You need to stop.
 
You need to take a good look at your heart with a clear mind, not one clouded in the haze of alcohol.”

Thomas reached for the glass again.
 
Perry held it away from him and turned it over, spilling the contents onto the floor of the saloon.

“Hey!”

“Why are you wasting the new life God gave you?”

“I’m not!
 
I’ve been trying to get a job but everything I try fails.
 
Seems God could expend a little energy to help me out here.”

“Hasn’t he provided you with each of those jobs?”

Thomas’s objection died on his lips.
 
He hadn’t really thought about it that way before.

“So many new believers think that once they start trusting God that everything will be perfect.
 
They won’t experience pain or loss.
 
They won’t struggle with keeping a job.
 
They won’t argue with their wives.
 
Whatever it may be, we have somehow decided how
we
think God should act.
 
How
we
think he should show his love to us.

“But, it doesn’t work that way.
 
Bad things still happen.
 
I still lost my wife.
 
I still had to struggle to get through day after day after day without her—the ache so deep, so painful, I thought I would die before it ever dimmed.

“You know what I learned through that experience?”

Thomas shook his head.

“God was still right there with me.
 
He never left me.
 
He was there to help me with that pain.
 
He could have brought my wife back, but he didn’t.
 
He could have eased the pain quicker, but he didn’t.
 
Instead, he stood by my side, working on my heart.
 
I learned to trust him so much more in that time of my life than I had in the easy times.”

Perry paused, sighing heavily.
 
“You see, he hasn’t left you.
 
He’s given you each of those jobs to do the best you could.
 
Trust him to give you the next, and the next, and the next if that is what it takes.
 
He’s let you experience the love of a wonderful woman.
 
He’s poised ready to shower the next blessing—if you’ll do your part.
 
Trust.”

Thomas looked down at the bar top.
 
What was he doing here?

He knew.
 
He was doing what he always did.
 
He was trying to solve his problems with his same old bad habits—drinking, gambling.
 
It wasn’t working.

Oh, what a fool he was!
 
The change in his heart on that day in Perry’s cabin—it was real.
 
He had been set free!

Then he forgot it all.
 
He started looking at all the ways his life wasn’t what he had wanted it to be.
 
He forgot he was free.

As Thomas sat up straighter, Perry slapped his shoulder.
 
“Go.
 
Go find your wife and enjoy the afternoon with her.
 
Then, let tomorrow’s problems be handled tomorrow.”

He stood and thanked Perry, then left the saloon.
 
He spotted his wife under the same tree as before, this time with a plate of food balanced on the round bump of her belly where his child grew.

Lord, I’m so sorry I keep messing things up.
 
Help me to care for them—my wife, my child—in the way that I should.
 
And help me to trust you for a job.

He made his way to the food tables and dished up a plate of food.
 
Then he found his wife.

“Save me a seat?”
 
Thomas asked.

Caroline shaded her eyes as she looked up.
 
A smile lit his face.
 
She patted the spot next to her, confused by his strange change in mood.

Once seated, he leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek.
 
The smell of alcohol on his breath wiped the smile from her face.
 
That must be it then.
 
He had been at the saloon, just as Garrett said.

“Mmm.
 
The venison and beef stew you made is good.”

She nodded her head.

Having finished their meals, Adam and Julia excused themselves to go watch the miners compete in a rock picking challenge.

If Garrett had been right about where Thomas was most recently, could he also be right about Thomas robbing a bank?

She nervously tapped her finger against her temple as her husband devoured the food on his plate.
 
Should she ask him?

“What’s bothering you?”

“What makes you think I’m bothered?” she replied.

“That thing you do with your finger.
 
Usually means something is up.”

Her heart softened some towards him.
 
He knew her well enough to know her nervous habit.

She sighed.
 
“It’s just…
 
Someone told me something about you that I…
 
I don’t want to believe, but I want to know if it’s true.”

“What?”
 
He set his empty plate aside.

“Did you spend time in jail?”

The happiness flew from his demeanor.
 
An edge of wariness tinged his voice.
 
“Did Hannah say something?”

“No.
 
Robert Garrett.”

The scowl returned.
 
“What were you doing speaking to Robert Garrett?”

“I wasn’t speaking to him.
 
He was behind me in line and he started the conversation.
 
It was very one-sided.”

“What exactly did he say?”

Caroline looked away.
 
Maybe she shouldn’t tell him.
 
What if he got more upset?

He reached for her hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles.
 
His voice was soft when he spoke.
 
“Tell me what he said.”

“He said you robbed a bank.
 
That you spent time in jail.
 
That you’re a drunk and a gambler.”
 
Her voice caught.
 
She didn’t want to believe she married such a complete stranger.

Thomas withdrew his hand.
 
He sat straighter, drawing her gaze to him.
 
He looked away.

“I…
 
When I lived in Cincinnati, I was rebellious, young, wild.
 
I hung out with some bad men and I began to act just like them.
 
It was the only place that I felt like I fit in.”

He turned to look her in the eye.
 
“I did try to rob a bank.”
 
He snorted.
 
“A man was injured and it was my brother who saved his life.
 
I drank a lot back then.
 
I gambled and very often won.
 
I did spend time in jail, for the bank robbery.

“But, by an odd coincidence—or maybe it was God—my sentence was to serve in the army.
 
So I served.
 
I was in the infantry at first.
 
Later, I became a dispatch rider.
 
That’s how I ended up here.
 
I was assigned to ride mail between some of the western forts.

“Once the war was over, I was free.
 
I thought my brother settled in La Paz, so I looked for work that would let me search for him.
 
I got a job as an express rider.
 
Then I found out he died and that Hannah lived here.”

Thomas dropped his gaze to his misshapen leg.

Caroline’s heart moved from anger and betrayal to sympathy.
 
No matter what his secrets were, he was still her husband.
 
She heard the excitement and joy in his voice as he talked about dispatch riding and the express job.
 
He was made to work with horses.

“It’s hard—not riding anymore—isn’t it?”

Thomas closed his eyes.
 
“I doubt if I will ever find anything so completely suited to me again.”

She had to know one more thing.
 
“Did you gamble away hundreds of dollars recently?”

Thomas’s eyes flew open.
 
“Something else Garrett said?”

She nodded.

“Yes.
 
I’m sorry, Caroline.
 
I know I have failed you so many times.
 
I’ve failed myself.
 
It wasn’t until even a few minutes ago that I realized I’d gone astray again.
 
I stopped trusting God.
 
I let Him down and I’ve let you down.”