Her Colorado Man by Cheryl St.john Page B

top of her head. He couldn’t help remembering the sight of the wavy tresses flowing across her shoulders, her breasts peeking through filmy fabric.
    The ivory skin across her cheekbones took on a pink hue, as though she suspected where his thoughts had traveled.
    “Who does the hiring?” Wes asked.
    “My father,” she replied. Was that a hint of pleasure he detected in her voice?
    She had barely finished her eggs and toast when a bell rang from outside.
    “That’s the wagon headed for the brewery.” She took a man’s cap from her hip pocket and settled it over her hair at a jaunty angle. “Your books are beside the front door, John James.”
    “Bye, Mama.” He hugged her, then turned to Wes. “We ride to school in the other wagon that’s out front.”
    Wes joined the children, who were driven to school by Sylvia.
    As they entered the small white schoolhouse, John James introduced him to each youngster they passed. “This is Wesley Burrows, my papa,” he told them proudly.
    “Miss Saxton, this is my papa,” he told the woman greeting all the children.
    The pleasant-faced woman offered her hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Margaret Saxton.”
    “Wes Burrows, miss.”
    “We’ve heard all about you. John James has been bursting with excitement, awaiting your arrival.”
    “I was pretty eager to get here, myself.” He turned to John James. “Be on your best behavior today.”
    “Yes, sir.” The boy beamed a smile as he waved goodbye.
    Wes exited the schoolhouse and settled his hat on his head. Still on the seat of the wagon, holding the reins, Sylvia waited for him. “Want a ride to the brewery?”
    “That where you’re headed?”
    “No, I do the shopping for Mama and help Hildy with laundry and chores. But it’s easy enough to drop you off.”
    He climbed up. “Seems everybody in the family pretty much has their place, taking care of the house and running the brewery.”
    She flicked the reins over the horses’ backs. “If you’re wondering if you’ll fit in, the answer is yes. We all want Mariah to be happy. And she needs her man around to be happy.”
    Being referred to as her man was almost uncomfortable, but on a deeper level, he liked it. He sat a little straighter on the hard seat. “I guess it seems odd to a family like this that…that she hasn’t had her husband here all this time.”
    “I can’t speak for everyone, but Mama and Annika and I don’t hold it against you that you took off the way you did,” she said. “You’re here now.”
    “Everyone has been very kind.”
    “Everyone wants what’s best for Mariah—and John James,” she replied.
    Wes’s first glimpses of Spangler Brewery held three smokestacks billowing gray plumes into the sky. Drawing closer, he made out the perfectly flat land where several three- and four-story buildings sat in precise arrangement around a courtyard, with smaller buildings between. The tallest brick structure sported a cupola with a weather vane.
    “That’s where the offices are,” Sylvia said, pointingto the building he’d noticed. “Grandfather and Papa are in there.”
    She reined the horses to a halt. He thanked her and climbed down with his weight on his good ankle.
    The enormous courtyard bustled with activity. Teams of horses pulled loaded wagons toward an open-sided building and four men stood in the shadow of a tall brick clock tower, holding a conversation that involved energetic hand waving. One man beat his hat against his thigh as he spoke.
    Wes headed beneath the arched brick entryway, through a set of heavy doors and into a silent lobby.

Chapter Six
    A man in a three-piece suit greeted him.
    “I’m here to see Friederick Spangler,” Wes told him.
    “I’ll let him know you’re here,” the man said and proceeded down a long hallway, giving Wes too much time to wonder what Mariah had told her family about him—rather about her supposed real husband. He might as well plan some fancy dancing if subjects he