“See ya later, Zach,” Pete said, observing Zach as though he was carrying a big old pine tree down the aisle.
Craning his neck around the bulky load, Zach headed toward the door, the bolts of colorful calico to his right. Turning, he nudged the unlatched door with his backside. When it stuck, he gave it a hard shove.
“Get off!” a female voice yelped from the mercantile platform outside.
He whipped his head around just in time to see a flourish of hands flailing, skirts ruffling and wings flapping.
“Go!” she hollered, waving her hands madly.
A barn swallow bolted from the woman’s fancy feathered hat into the crisp September air. She spun around and backpeddled, stumbling toward the edge of the four-foot boardwalk.
Dropping the crates with a clank and clatter, Zach bolted into the late afternoon sun. Snaked out a hand to grab her. Missed.
As she tumbled to the mud-slopped ground with a delicate splat, he shot off the platform, landing on his feet beside the woman. He hunkered down at her side. “Are you all right, ma’am?” He touched her shoulder.
“I’m fine. Just dandy,” she sputtered, her mouth a resolute line and barely visible from beneath her wide-brimmed, dirt-splattered hat that had been knocked askew. She struggled to lever herself from the mud’s sloppy grasp.
“Here, let me help you.” He pulled the woman up to a sitting position then retrieved her small handbag, and after wiping the mud from it onto his breeches, held it out to her. “Here’s your bag, ma’am.”
She hunkered down and whispered, “Where’s that horrible bird? Is he still here?” A heavy thread of desperation flashed through her words even as a wavy lock of rich auburn hair tumbled from beneath her hat.
“He’s gone.” Zach scanned the rooflines. “Flew the coop. At least for now, anyway.”
“You mean he’s likely to return?” she yelped. She ducked her head between her shoulders as though she was about to be swooped down on by an entire flock. “Because I’m scared to death of birds.”
He didn’t believe he knew this woman, hadn’t even gotten a good look at her with that pretentious hat draping over her face, but the fact that she was so obviously unsettled by a harmless bird struck a chord of compassion in his heart.
He settled a protective arm around her shoulder and angled a glance at the mercantile overhang where the barest makings of a nest had been wedged onto a strut. “I hate to break the news to you, but with that nest he has started up there, he’ll likely be back.”
She gave a muffled screech, and with muddy hands, shielded her hat-draped head as if she was being pelted by egg-size hailstones.
“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” He gently grasped her arm. “I’ll protect you if he returns.”
With the wagons clattering by and horses plodding through the streets, he almost missed the long breath she inhaled right then. But he couldn’t miss the way she stiffened, her spine growing straight and unyielding, as though she’d been jarred to her senses.
She pulled away from him and with mud-caked fingers, primped the ruffled white shirtwaist beneath her fashionable silken wrap. “I can manage just fine by myself.”
He shook his head at her show of stubbornness. Something about this woman was vaguely familiar. Her voice … with its rich lilting tone, and her slender fingers … the way they tapered to a delicate end, and then there was the almost prideful way she’d diverted his concern.
Angling his head down, he tried unsuccessfully to peek at her from beneath the mud-wilted brim. When he took in the bedraggled state of this spritely stranger, and her seemingly unconcerned attitude about her condition, he couldn’t help but be slightly amused. The hat she wore, big and looking more like a small garden of frippery than a head covering, dwarfed her petite frame.
The sound of wildly flapping wings broke through his musings. She must have heard it too, because the woman balled herself up tight as the bird braved another approach.
“Go on, bird. Shoo!” He waved off the curious winged creature with one arm and folded the other around the trembling woman. His heart skipped several beats as she burrowed against his chest, her warm breath seeping clear through his shirt.
He could’ve stayed right here with this little lady in his arms for the next hour. Maybe more. Even in spite of the noticeable way a gaggle of older women had gathered outside the hotel, their lips tight disapproving lines as they stared in his direction.
He’d never quite felt like this before. He’d never gotten close enough to know what this felt like. In years past, his annoying stutter would crop up, unbidden, chasing him away from the very idea of love. And once he’d been made foreman, he’d been too focused on doing the best job he could to spend any kind of thought on a woman.
Scooping her into his arms, he lifted her from the mud and crossed over to the walkway, giving little notice to the dark slime that now caked his arms, hands and down the front of his shirt.
But the soft gasp that came from her lips just now … he definitely couldn’t ignore that.
She scrambled to free herself from his arms, jerking him from his temporary lapse of wits. “What in the world?” she sputtered, irritation sharply framing her words.
“I said I’d protect you if he returned, and that’s what I was doing,” he defended, a little put out by her abruptness.
“Please … put me down!” she demanded, breathless.
He grinned at her endearing grasp for control, and held on. “You might want to take that thing off your head if you’re planning on protecting yourself.” He settled her feet on the boardwalk. “With all those feathers and leaves and whatnot, I’d say it’s a little too tempting for that nesting bird. He probably thinks he’s discovered a perfect fall and winter home.”
Stomping mud from her fancy buttoned boots, she tugged the brim of her hat down all the more, hiding her face nearly completely. “I’ll leave it on, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” With unabashed curiosity, he looked on while she brushed at her skirt. With the delicate way she was going about it, she may as well have been trying to remove a smudge of innocent dust, not a thick layer of reddish-colored mud. He could hardly blame the spirited woman for being so on edge. After all, her entire backside was coated in a slimy layer of mud. She was probably mortified. Humiliated. Downright mad.
With that silent acknowledgment, he drew his neatly folded handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out like an olive branch. “Here. Take this.”
Clutching the front edge of her hat, she lifted it into place with more dignity than he’d expect, given her filthy condition.
“This might help a litt—” His words died on his tongue as she tipped up her face and met his gaze.
His breath whooshed from his lungs. He stared, wide-eyed, his vision pulsing black. White. Then splotching in an array of colors as he took in the woman standing before him.
Ivy. Grace. Harris.
He blinked hard in the hopes of producing some other image than her.
The one and only love of his childhood heart.
His boss’s daughter.
And the sole reason he’d suffered years of humiliation.
She stared at him for a long and lingering moment. Her lips parted and then fell open as wide as her sparkling eyes.
Zach’s blood thickened in his veins as he met that beautiful, memorable spring-green gaze of hers. He’d never forget it—with just one glance his knees used to grow as flimsy as a blade of grass bent by