To Win Her Heart

  Arms hovering at his sides, Levi looked back down at Ornery. New cuts overlapped old scars above his eyes and around his ears. A patch of fur was missing on his snout, as if the skin had been scraped so raw the hair couldn’t grow back. Levi slowly brought his arms in and began rubbing the mongrel’s head. Ornery’s pants increased as his eyes slid closed. When they opened again and stared up at him, Levi felt it. The kinship.

  Ornery was a fighter, too.

  “You looking to retire, boy? That why you came to me?” Levi hunkered down beside Ornery to pet him proper. “Maybe we can help each other. I’ll keep you out of trouble and you keep me out of trouble. What do you think?”

  “I think staying out of trouble is always a good policy for newcomers in my town.”

  At the sound of the masculine voice, Ornery immediately stiffened and growled a warning. Levi craned his neck to scrutinize the man in his doorway. With the sun behind him, the brim of his black felt hat cast shadows across his face, but one detail glared at Levi from its position on the right side of the man’s unbuttoned coat.

  A tin star.

  Chapter Five

  Levi deliberately stayed down an extra moment before rising, trying to gain control of his panicked pulse. The sheriff was just making his rounds. That was all. Yet Levi couldn’t quite banish the notion that his criminal past would somehow be evident to the lawman once he faced him eye to eye.

  Ornery continued to growl, so Levi used the dog as an excuse to tarry. “Quiet, boy.” He rubbed Ornery behind the ears, then slowly pushed to his feet. His height worked to his advantage, bolstering his confidence as he straightened to stand a good three or four inches taller than the sheriff.

  “You the new smith?” The question came out like an accusation.

  “Yep. Levi Grant.” Levi offered a small nod. The stiffness of the man’s jaw didn’t foster the impression that a handshake would be welcome.

  “Conrad Pratt. Sheriff.” He jerked his chin in Ornery’s direction. “Better watch yourself around that mutt. I seen ’im tear a dog’s throat out once. Lost me twenty dollars on that fight.”

  A sick ache churned through Levi’s stomach, but he kept his face a disinterested mask. He’d always hated the dog and cock fights that were used to warm up the crowds before one of his bouts. Men could choose to make a living with their fists. Animals were forced into it, usually through cruelty and abuse until their God-given temperaments were twisted into something barbarous.

  “I think his owner up and left him one day after a loss. I thought about shootin’ him to put him out of his misery, but the thing slunk off before I got around to it. So far he ain’t done more than growl at folks, but I’m tellin’ you now, if he ever turns aggressive, I’ll put a bullet through his skull faster than you can spit.”

  Levi stepped to the side, blocking Sheriff Pratt’s view of Ornery. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “You do that.” The sheriff finally turned his attention from the dog and focused on Levi again. The man took his time sizing him up, lingering overlong on his face. “Have I seen you around these parts afore? There’s something about you that strikes me as familiar.”

  “Hmm.” Levi chose his words carefully. “I don’t know why. I’ve . . . never been here . . . before.”

  The sheriff narrowed his gaze. Levi bit down on his tongue and tried to swallow, but his saliva seemed to solidify into a ball and lodge in his throat. If Sheriff Pratt bet on dog fights, there was a good chance he’d attended his share of bare-knuckle brawls, as well. Had he seen the Anvil fight?

  “Well, it’ll come to me eventually. Always does.” He shrugged his shoulders under his coat, as if brushing off the thought for the time being, and straightened his Stetson. “Welcome to Spencer, Grant. Treat the people here fairly. Keep yourself on the right side of the law, and you and me will get along fine. Mess with my town, and I’ll bury you. Got it?”

  Levi dipped his chin in acknowledgment. Nothing like a friendly how-de-do to make a fella feel at home.

  “Good.” The sheriff tapped the brim of his hat in salute. “See ya around.”

  Levi tapped his own brim in response, deciding it’d probably be in his best interest to see the sheriff as little as possible. The man obviously enjoyed throwing his weight around, and Levi had no desire to be the one to catch it.

  And his first order of business was setting his new workshop to rights and taking inventory of his tools and supplies.

  After the sheriff left, Ornery settled down and curled up in a corner to supervise. Levi appreciated the company. The dog didn’t require conversation, and if Levi happened to say something that hissed a bit, Ornery didn’t notice or care.

  By late afternoon, Levi had a pretty good idea of what he would need to purchase. The previous smith had kept a healthy heap of scrap iron piled up behind the building. Old tools, broken hinges, axles, plows, horseshoes, anything that could possibly be welded or reshaped. He’d need to order several pounds of iron bars and rods for new projects as well as a couple dozen bushels of charcoal. There were enough supplies and fuel to keep him in business for a few weeks, but if any large projects came in, he’d come up short.

  With no hot coals to ignite the forge in the morning, he’d need to come in early to build an appropriate fire. The kindling box was full, though, probably thanks to Mr. Barnes, so there was nothing left to do until tomorrow. Levi figured he had a couple hours before it would be time to meet Claude at the livery, and since Ornery had wandered off a while ago to wherever stray dogs went in the afternoon, he decided to explore the town.

  He’d already seen most of the east side, having stayed in the hotel and eaten at the café last night. He’d visited the bank after treating himself to a cinnamon bun at the bakery next door.

  A wagon and team rumbled out from the livery, heading toward him. Levi waved to the fellow on the driver’s seat and waited for him to pass before crossing to the opposite side of the road. He introduced himself to the man who ran the saddle shop and let it be known that he’d be open for business on the morrow.

  The saloon came next, with its entrance discreetly, or not so discreetly, tucked around the corner. Only two horses stood hitched outside at this early hour, but someone was pounding out a vigorous tune on a piano, as if the house were packed. Bawdy lyrics popped into Levi’s head, lyrics he used to sing with his cronies after a drink or two. Lyrics that now heated his neck with shame as he fought to oust them from his mind. He lengthened his stride, trying to outrun the words and the images they induced.

  He evoked a hymn from memory to replace the tavern song and started humming, “O for a faith that will not shrink, Though pressed by ev’ry foe . . .”

  The rest of the verse eluded him, but he kept humming the music, louder and louder until the saloon was out of earshot. So intent was he upon clearing his mind that he marched past the boardinghouse, general store, drug store, and butcher before sight of the sheriff’s office drew him up short.

  “ ’Scuse me, mister. I’m late.” A young boy pushed past him and dashed down the side street that veered to the right.

  Eager to avoid the sheriff and curious about where the kid was rushing off to, Levi followed. He recognized this road. The steepled church and parsonage beckoned to him from the end of the lane. But the boy didn’t clamber up to either of those doors. Instead, without knocking, he plunged into a large two-story frame house. Levi assumed it was the boy’s home until he moved closer and caught sight of a small wooden sign hanging from the eaves of the covered porch. Library.

  A yearning began to grow within him. He’d started reading books to aid his efforts in circumventing his speech problem and discovered along the way that he truly enjoyed getting lost in a book.

  In grade school, Levi dealt with his lisp by trouncing any kid who teased him. His size and quickness gave him an advantage over other boys, even those two or three years his senior. But he’d had to deal with his dad’s belt and extra chores every time the teacher sent
him home for fighting, so he began searching for another way around his problem.

  In his sixth grade year, the school board hired a new teacher, a short, thin fellow with spectacles and pointy chin whiskers. The first day he caught Levi in a fight, he pulled him aside.

  “Levi,” he’d said, “fighting doesn’t make these kids think more highly of you. It simply makes you a bully.”

  Levi hadn’t been too sure of that at the time. He’d seen the respect in the eyes of the other kids after he pummeled an eighth grader who thought it funny to call him a baby. Yet this diminutive teacher was the first person to address his problem directly, so he listened.

  “If you want to change their opinion of you, you must change your behavior. If they poke fun at the way you speak, expand your vocabulary so that you can substitute other words that are easier to say correctly.”

  “How?”

  “Read. Everything you can get your hands on. Read until words become your friends. Then when you need to find one, they will jump into your mind, waving their hands for you to pick them. And you can select whichever you like, just like a captain choosing a stickball team.”

  So Levi read—stories, almanacs, history books, even the Bible. After school. In between chores. In his bed by candlelight. It took months before he noticed a difference, but he did notice one.

  By the time he quit school at fifteen to work with his father and brother in the smithy, he’d learned to disguise his lisp by eliminating trouble words from his speech. The only unfortunate consequence of this strategy was that it led him to pause and stumble while searching for replacement words. But he preferred to run the risk of people thinking him simple rather than degrade his manhood with infantile diction. Reading had provided a way for him to maintain his self-respect, and in the process, gave him a source of pleasure he’d not expected.

  In fact, a portion of his first prizefighting purse had gone toward buying a copy of Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. He must have read that book more than a dozen times before the saloon owner who managed his fights seized it along with the rest of his belongings the day he was arrested.

  Levi stared at the little wooden sign. It creaked slightly as it swung in the breeze. Would he find a copy inside?

  He stood in the street for a moment, debating whether or not he should go in. Hadn’t the preacher said something yesterday about Miss Spencer running the library? Levi frowned. He hadn’t made the best of impressions on her. Miss Spencer had no way of knowing how difficult it was for him to say her name, so it was understandable that she’d been miffed when he ignored her invitation to use it. Perhaps he’d be better off exploring the inventory at the general store.

  On the other hand, if he was going to make a home for himself in this town, he couldn’t avoid the woman forever.

  Besides, he really wanted to see her book collection.

  Stepping onto the path that led to her doorstep, Levi found himself surrounded by dormant rosebushes. They lined the walkway and bordered the length of the porch as well. The place would be a riot of color in a few months, when spring brought the hibernating flowers back to life.

  He paused before climbing the three stairs to the porch and brushed the worst of the dust from his trousers. Then, spotting the Open sign in the window, he followed the boy’s example and entered the house as if it were any other business establishment.

  Only it wasn’t. It was a home. A woman’s home. And the minute Levi crossed the threshold, he felt about as out of place as a railroad spike in a keg of two-penny nails. There were flowers everywhere. Gilt ones in the wallpaper, woven ones in the rug, wooden ones carved into the hall tree a few paces away. He swore he could even smell them.

  Levi took off his hat and hung it on the tallest hook on the hall tree, its masculine brown design contrasting sharply with the two frilly bonnets below.

  A voice carried to him from the doorway on the left. Letting it lead him, he entered a large, open room lined with bookshelves on three walls. In an instant, he forgot the flowers, forgot his discomfort, and simply drank in the sight.

  The prison library in Huntsville had been larger, but for a personal collection, this was tremendous. A woman perusing the shelves to his right turned to him and smiled as she slid a book free. Levi nodded in return and looked beyond her to the gathering in the back corner.

  A group of about fifteen children of various ages sat on the floor, engrossed in the telling of a story. Eden Spencer perched on the edge of a spindly tapestry chair before them, reading aloud. He could only see her profile, but even from a distance he easily discerned the animation in her features and heard the intensity in her voice.

  Not wanting to disturb the recitation, he moved as quietly as possible to the opposite side of the room.

  Books on cattle, farming, and animal husbandry filled the first bookcase, along with an extensive assortment of horticultural guides. Levi ran his finger along a spine decorated with a bouquet of roses and chuckled quietly to himself. The woman did love her flowers.

  But that wasn’t all. There were also history texts, sermon collections, handbooks on steam engines, and medical advisors. Etiquette guides and cookbooks, carpentry manuals and a series of bound lectures. A reference section contained encyclopedias, atlases, and two dictionaries. He even found a book entitled Practical Horseshoeing by Mr. G. Fleming. Levi made a note of what shelf it was on, just in case he discovered he had forgotten more than he thought he had about being a farrier.

  He reached the back wall and found an extensive collection of children’s literature, poetry, and essays. And when he turned from the bookcase, he found himself nearly on top of Miss Spencer.

  She had just begun to close her book when the children began clamoring for another chapter. A featherlight laugh floated out from her as she opened the cover once again, her finger still holding their place as if she’d known all along she would read more.

  Levi backed away, afraid that if she saw him it would interrupt the magic. There was something so different about her here—something joyous and unguarded, elements that had been missing from their previous encounter. Yesterday at the parsonage she’d been all business, but here she was carefree and alive. The children obviously adored her, and she them.

  “ ‘One night,’ ” she read, her voice subdued, “ ‘a few days after James had left, I had eaten my hay and was lying down in my straw—’ ” she paused to yawn and stretch with theatrical flair—“ ‘fast asleep, when I was suddenly roused by the stable bell ringing very loud.’ ” Her speech accelerated and she leaned forward. “Bong! Bong!” A couple of the children giggled at the face she made as she imitated the bells.

  She went on to tell of a lad named John and his urgency in waking the horse, Black Beauty, and their desperate ride to fetch the doctor for his ill mistress. The poor horse gave his all, and in turn, fell ill himself, thanks to the faulty care of a young stable boy. A lung inflammation, they said. Yet Beauty’s ride had saved the mistress’s life, and despite his sickness, he did not regret his efforts.

  “All right, children. That’s all for today.”

  A collective moan rose from the group.

  “But what happens to Beauty?” one young girl near the front asked, her eyes wide and a bit moist.

  Miss Spencer reached out a hand to stroke the child’s cheek. “You’ll have to come back next Friday to find out, Anna.”

  “But, Miss Spencer . . .”

  A boy yanked on one of Anna’s pigtails, cutting her off. “He dies.”

  Anna’s bottom lip started trembling. The boy snickered.

  “Joseph. Stop teasing your sister.” Miss Spencer set the book aside and gathered Anna into her lap, wrapping her arms around her.

  Before she could offer any comforting words, though, a stoic young lady spoke up from the back. “Beauty won’t die,” she stated with matter-of-fact assurance. “We’re not even halfway through the book yet. It wouldn’t be called Black Beauty if the horse died at the beginning
.”

  “Very astute reasoning, Gussie.” Miss Spencer turned back to the child in her lap. “That makes sense—don’t you think, Anna?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good.” She gave Anna a hug and stood the child up on her feet. Apparently that signaled the end of the session, for the rest of the kids scrambled up, as well. “Don’t forget your school books and lunch buckets,” Miss Spencer called out to them. “And be careful walking home. I’ll see you next week.”

  She leaned to the side to retrieve her book from the floor, then stood. The children filed past in a mass, but she reached out to touch the arm or shoulder or back of each youngster that moved within reach. It was almost as if she didn’t want to let them go.

  They shouted their good-byes and she waved, standing still until the last child disappeared through the doorway.

  Levi enjoyed the warm scene so much, he wasn’t prepared when she suddenly spun around.

  Her gaze flew to his face and she jumped back, a gasp vibrating the air between them.

  Like an idiot, he just stood there staring at her, the only thought running through his brain being that her pale green eyes reminded him of the lacy lichens that grew on the old oak tree behind his father’s house.

  She clutched the book to her chest like a shield. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter Six

  “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” Eden stared at her shoes for a minute before gathering enough courage to look the blacksmith in the eye again. He didn’t say anything, but the shock on his face softened into a hint of a smile. She hoped that signified forgiveness.

  She hadn’t meant to be rude. It was just that Levi Grant was the last person she’d expected to see in her library. Male visitors were rare anyway, but seeing this particular one standing so large and so . . . well . . . close, must have disabled the part of her brain that usually kept her from blurting uncensored thoughts.

  Stretching her lips into a polite curve, Eden attempted another greeting. “Is there something I can assist you with, Mr. Grant?”