Her Colorado Man. Cheryl St.John

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СКАЧАТЬ Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter One

      Ruby Creek, Colorado

       May, 1882

      “Watch out!”

      Mariah Burrows ducked and ran a good six feet before turning back to look up at the crate teetering atop a stack of similar ones in the cavernous warehouse. Three agile young men scrambled from their positions on ladders and beside wagons to prevent it from falling. Two of them were her nephews, the other a distant cousin.

      “Don’t stack these crates over twelve high,” she called. “Better that we take up warehouse space than lose eighty-five dollars or someone’s head. We built this whole building just for storing the lager for the Exposition, so let’s use it.”

      Her nephew Roth gave her a mock salute and jumped down from the pile of wooden crates. “Grandpa would’ve had our hides if we’d let that one slip.”

      “I’d have told your mother not to serve that apfelstrudel you’re so fond of tonight.”

      He laughed and took his cap from his rear pocket to settle it on his head. “You’re a tyrannical boss, Aunt Mariah.”

      “Mariah!” A familiar male voice echoed through the high-ceilinged building. “Mariah Burrows!”

      “Over here, Wilhelm,” she called. At twenty-two, he was her younger brother by two years. He used her full name at every opportunity. Among the hundred plus employees at the Spangler Brewery, hers was one of the few non-Bavarian or German names, and he lived to tease her about it. “What has you out of the office this morning?” she asked.

      “Grandfather wants to see you right away.”

      She fished for her pencil in the front pocket of the men’s trousers she wore that were her everyday garb. “I’ll be there as soon as I go over the inventory of last night’s bottling.”

      “No, right now. He says it’s urgent.”

      She tucked her ledger under her arm and rushed to join him. “Is John James all right?”

      “Your son is fine.”

      “Grandfather?”

      “He’s just anxious to have you in the office for whatever reason.”

      Relieved, she turned to wave at Roth. “I’ll be back. Go ahead and start stamping those crates near the conveyor. Seven weeks until opening day in Denver.”

      Spangler Brewery spread over an acre located roughly two miles from Ruby Creek. The warehouses were situated with platforms a few scant feet from the railroad tracks, and the production buildings sat close to the cold-water streams that poured from the mountains into the wide creek for which the town was named. Three smoke stacks puffed billowy gray clouds into the bright Colorado sky. The mountains to the northeast were still capped with snow, but fireweed and forget-me-nots bloomed on the hillsides nearer. Mariah breathed in the pungent smell of fermented hops.

      “I overheard Mama talking in the kitchen this morning.” Wilhelm’s tone was uncharacteristically solemn.

      She glanced up at him as they passed the corner of the four-sided brick clock tower that stood in the center of the open yard.

      “She said that sometimes Grandpa forgets what day it is for a moment.”

      Mariah had noticed the same thing a time or two. Once he’d said something about an occurrence twenty years ago as if it had just happened. But the next moment he carried on with their business. “He seems perfectly healthy,” she said. “It’s almost like he takes a little trip into the past.”

      “No harm there, I guess,” her brother said with a shrug.

      Near the front entrance, they entered the four-story brick building that housed accounting offices as well as comfortable quarters for her grandfather. Their work shoes padded on the carpet runner that ran the length of the hall.

      Mariah smiled a goodbye to Wilhelm and opened one of the carved walnut doors to enter Louis Spangler’s domain. She’d loved these rooms from the time she’d been a child, when he’d indulgently welcomed her to sit in one of the soft leather chairs that sat before a stone fireplace. She’d listened with rapt attention as he spoke of the old days back in Bavaria and his early days in this country, when he and his father and his uncles had built the brewery from the ground up.

      He was the only one left from the old country. He and Grandma used to speak to each other in Old High German, a dialect of which their children and grandchildren could only understand bits and phrases. Mariah hadn’t heard it spoken for many years now.

      “You must need something important,” she said. “You’ve spent the last three months cautioning me not to waste a minute until everything is ready for the Exposition.”

      Louis moved from where he’d been standing at the wide window that looked out over foothills decorated in a dozen shades of verdant green to his desk. He cast her a tentative glance. “We have something important to discuss.”

      “About the Exposition?”

      “No. Nothing like that.” He waved her to a chair.

      Mariah knew better than to rush him. He would come around to the point in his own good time. She made herself comfortable on a wing chair and waited. The concern in his vivid blue gaze unsettled her.

      “I have some news. Something that’s going to affect you and John James.”

      She sat a little straighter. Four years ago he’d given her a seat on the governing board, and for the first time in its nearly forty-year history, the brewery had a woman in a principal position. He’d always held Mariah in a place of favor. When her son had come along, Grandfather had given him his favor, as well. She anticipated that one day she would inherit her own share of their family holdings. “What is it?” she asked.

      “Wes Burrows is coming here. In just a few weeks’ time.”

      Mariah heard his spoken words immediately, but their meaning took longer to penetrate her haze of disbelief. They never spoke of the person he’d just mentioned because that person didn’t exist. Hearing it from him now was like hearing that foreign language her grandparents used to use. “Wha-what do you mean?”

      “John СКАЧАТЬ