Winter Winds
of Wyoming
Also by Caroline Fyffe
Prairie Hearts Series
Where the Wind Blows
Before the Larkspur Blooms
West Winds of Wyoming
Under a Falling Star
Whispers on the Wind
Where Wind Meets Wave
Winter Winds of Wyoming
Colorado Hearts Series
Heart of Eden
True Hearts Desire
Heart of Mine
*An American Duchess
McCutcheon Family Series
Montana Dawn
Texas Twilight
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Evie
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Heather
Moon Over Montana
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Kathryn
Montana Snowfall
Texas Lonesome
Montana Courage
Montana Promise
Stand Alone Western Historical
Sourdough Creek
Stand Alone Contemporary Women’s Fiction
Three And A Half Minutes
Winter Winds
of Wyoming
A Prairie Hearts Novel
Book Seven
Caroline
Fyffe
Winter Winds of Wyoming
Copyright © 2020 by Caroline Fyffe
All rights reserved by the author.
www.carolinefyffe.com
Winter Winds of Wyoming is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead, is wholly coincidental.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recording, by information storage and retrieval or photocopied, without permission in writing from Caroline Fyffe.
Cover design by Kelli Ann Morgan
Interior book design by Bob Houston eBook Formatting
Proudly Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Also by Caroline Fyffe
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter 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 Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Other Books by Caroline Fyffe
Excerpt of Montana Dawn
Order your copy of Montana Dawn today!
About The Author
Please consider joining Caroline’s
Facebook Readers Group
where you’ll find sneak peeks of upcoming books,
cover reveals, giveaways, and so much more!
Sign up for
Caroline’s New Release Announcements
& never miss a book!
Chapter One
Logan Meadows, Wyoming Territory, December 1883
“For a man who’s just cheated a life of slavery, and most likely death, I’m a sorry example of cheer and goodwill.” A cloud of frosty air engulfed Dalton Babcock’s face. “Ebenezer Scrooge has more Christmas spirit than me.”
Christmas is only two and a half weeks away.
The small apartment above the Logan Meadows sheriff’s office felt cramped. Dalton stared a hole through the sheet of paper laid out on the rickety desk where he sat. One side of the sheet was labeled Clients and on the other, Cases. The paper was otherwise blank. His plan to open a detective agency hadn’t thrived.
Before being shanghaied by Hugh Hexim’s men, he’d been gainfully employed as a security guard for a construction site in San Francisco. To supplement his income, he’d helped a private investigator who rented the apartment next to his. Dalton enjoyed searching for clues, putting together pieces of a crime puzzle, and solving mysteries. But that occurred in San Francisco—a city vastly populated compared to Logan Meadows. In the coastal community, jealous spouses paid dearly to have their husband or wife followed, suspicious they kept someone else on the side. Employees embezzled from employers. Expensive jewelry disappeared from duly locked safes. Logan Meadows, on the other hand, had barely evolved from frontier days.
Annoyed, Dalton slapped the pencil he held onto the desk with a thwack. Ignoring the sharp teeth of hunger gnawing his belly, he stood and stalked to the window. Below, near the hitching post across the street, Gabe Garrison strummed Christmas carols on his guitar with Seth Cotton accompanying on the fiddle. Happy townsfolk stopped to listen. Not lingering too long in the cold, they stayed a few minutes and then hurried away. So many new faces to meet and old friends to remember.
Dalton shivered in his wool-lined coat that did little against the bitter cold. He shoved both hands into his armpits, glaring at the jolly scene transpiring on the street. As impossible as the fact seemed here in Wyoming, the small apartment above the jail didn’t have a woodstove. The upstairs living space had been an afterthought, converted from a storage room long after the building was constructed. Because of that, the stovepipe from below had been routed along the exterior wall. When Dalton could afford to, he’d install a woodstove of his own. Until then, he’d best throw his pride to the wind and join Albert and Thom downstairs before he turned into a block of ice. He’d huddle next to their heat and thaw his bones. “I’m not a polar bear,” he muttered wryly, still rooted to the spot. His belly, empty since the meager meal he’d consumed several hours earlier, grumbled another protest.
Outside, snow began to fall. Across the street, the pitched roofs of Harrell’s Haberdashery, Lettie’s Bakery, Ling’s Laundry House, and Doctor Thorn’s medical office slowly turned white. Here and there, wreaths of varying sizes, decorated with red
and green bows, hung above windowsills and on doors. A twenty-foot-tall Douglas fir had been erected yesterday in the middle of the street between the haberdashery and the saloon. Tomorrow evening, the town would gather to add the decorations. Dalton spotted Nate Preston and Markus Donovan playing in the loft of the livery, trying to catch snowflakes in their hands as they hung from the upper door by one arm.
Feeling grumpy and in need of some Christmas cheer, Dalton wrestled up the window to a blast of frigid air.
“Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of Stephen. When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even...”
The rich voices deepened the ache in Dalton’s chest. Almost six weeks had passed since he’d stepped off the train to a welcoming crowd at the Logan Meadows depot. He’d been delivered from purgatory by Jake Costner and his sisters, Adaline and Courtney. In all reality, if Jake hadn’t shown up in Newport when he had and then acted on his good instincts that the ragged prisoner with the caramel-colored eyes being held in the trainyard resembled his friend, Dalton would now be in Alaska, slaving in Hexim’s gold mine. Or perhaps he’d be dead. In the drug-induced state he’d suffered, Dalton had been in no condition to save himself, even though he’d wanted to. God had sent deliverance in the name of Jake Costner.
Then, after only a few days in Logan Meadows and to his utter dismay, Dalton learned his life savings had been absconded from the bank in San Francisco. The dishonest bank owner gambled away every cent entrusted. The man had been tried, convicted, and now served a life sentence, but his incarceration meant little to Dalton. If not for the generous ten dollars Albert loaned him upon arrival, he’d be hard-pressed to eat.
Dalton shoved an icy hand into his pants pocket and fingered the money.
I need work. Real work. And soon!
Below, wrapped in a stylish, dark-burgundy winter coat with a fur-trimmed hood, Tabitha Wade walked beside Hunter Wade, her husband and part owner in the Bright Nugget saloon, a gloved hand tucked into the crook of his arm. At this time of day, the two were most likely headed to the Silky Hen for their noon meal. Marigold Canterbury, Tabitha’s mother, walked alongside, her flitting gaze taking in the sights.
Dalton had heard the story of how the older woman and Tabitha fended off a killer bounty hunter, saving the Lings’ young daughter, Lan. A lot transpired in Logan Meadows in the months he’d been away.
When he scanned the opposite direction, Dalton sucked in a breath, his heart thumping against his ribs. Susanna Robinson Preston approached with a wicker basket swinging on her arm. Some six months ago, he fancied himself in love with Susanna. Thought they might even make a life together. But she’d chosen Albert. Watching her, he pressed a hand on the sill, his throat tightening. Could he really live in the same town with her? See her every day?
Tabitha and Susanna halted directly below Dalton’s window. Hunter stepped inside Albert’s office.
As much as he enjoyed seeing Susanna’s and Tabitha’s smiles and hearing their laughter, their jovial moods made him feel worse and his plight all the more clear. He couldn’t remain in Logan Meadows on charity. As a man, he had to earn his way. Albert, kind fellow that he was, provided this apartment for free. Well, not exactly free, but a rent of one dollar a month was practically nothing. If a paying case didn’t present itself soon, he’d consider other options—one being returning to his hometown of Breckenridge, where his parents lived. Or go back to San Francisco. But starting over again would take some money—funds he didn’t have.
About to turn away from the window and head downstairs, he halted.
A buckboard came up the street, leaving tracks in the thin layer of new fallen snow. The wagon pulled up directly across the street. Maximus and Clementine, Win’s shaggy winter-coated buffalo, gazed at the arrivals from behind their corral fence.
Jake, Daisy, and… Adaline.
Since arriving in Logan Meadows, a day hadn’t passed when Adaline hadn’t searched him out in his office, the mercantile, or the Silky Hen Café to ask some question a local could easily have answered. She made him feel special. Memories of how she’d nursed him when he’d been so sick in Newport—first, the stormy night in the abandoned pig shed and then, high in Freddy Bennet’s treehouse—warmed his heart. Their conversations and the sound of her voice awakened something deep inside. He wasn’t sure what the stirrings meant, but he was too cold to think about the reasons just now.
“I’m past due for coffee and a warmup downstairs by the woodstove.” Albert issued an open invitation along with the one-dollar rent. “I won’t consider the hospitality as charity just yet. Hopefully, I’ve already hit the bottom of my barrel, but one just never knows about fate.”
Chapter Two
“Come in, Dalton,” Albert called as Dalton stepped through the door. “Pull up a chair. You just missed Hunter.”
As expected, Susanna and Albert sat side by side at his desk, eating from the basket Dalton previously saw draped over Susanna’s arm. At the sight of her, the heaviness of his heart returned. Her dark-blue woolen dress fit like a glove. A row of bright white buttons began at her neckline, marched down her chest, and disappeared below the desk. Dalton’s face warmed and he cut his gaze to her wavy black hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck, not a strand out of place. His memory hadn’t done her justice.
The sheriff held a golden-brown chicken leg—fried to perfection—and a wide smile split his face. A second untouched plate, Dalton assumed for Nate, sat on Albert’s desk as well.
Not only beautiful, but she works at the restaurant! Who could ask for more?
Albert used the drumstick to point toward the iron stove in the back of the room. “A fresh pot of coffee is on the stove brewed not five minutes ago. Help yourself!”
Dalton steeled his senses against the aroma of the fried chicken, being careful to keep his gaze trained far away from their plates. He’d be humiliated if either knew how hungry he was. Especially after how he and Albert competed for Susanna’s hand only a few months back. Losing her stung. But no one could have won her away from Albert—at least, that’s what Dalton told his injured pride. He recalled with bemusement how they’d gone to fists under Shady Creek bridge, right in front of Violet Hollyhock. The granny took them both to task for acting like schoolboys. Dalton sported a black eye for his efforts and Albert a bruised face. With such demeaning history, he’d rather keep his lack of funds to himself. A man could only take so much.
“Thanks, Albert.” He kept any hint of shiver out of his voice. “I don’t mind if I do. Much obliged.” He dipped his chin and smiled. “Good day, Suzie.”
Albert chuckled and lifted a shoulder.
Dalton wouldn’t get his goat today.
“Good day to you, Dalton,” she replied.
Her green eyes sparkled, totally unaware of the playful jab between the men.
Reaching out with a napkin, she wiped a spot of something from Albert’s chin.
Albert lifted a brow and smiled.
Marriage agrees with her plenty. And Albert, too. Dalton headed to the back of the room, conceding to Albert’s non-verbal teasing, the cold of the day, and the burning of his empty stomach. As he poured, warmth seeped through the folded cloth from the metal handle. The heavy pot felt mighty good. Finished, he took a deep gulp and ignored the scalding heat, after which he set his ceramic cup on the small stand next to the stove. He held his hands out, standing as close as he could without looking silly.
“You surviving upstairs?” Susanna asked.
He glanced over his shoulder to find her staring.
“Before we married, Albert used to complain about the cold all the time. You need to install a woodstove.”
Albert straightened. “Complain? I was just making conversation.”
“Sure, sure,” Dalton responded. “Living in the icy wonderland isn’t that bad. Especially since I can come down here to warm up.” Inching closer to the heat, he reached for his cup and took anot
her long draw. Coffee never tasted so good.
Albert cleared his throat. “I have something I’d like to ask you, Dalton.”
“Oh?” He turned in their direction and warmed his backside. Feeling almost human again, he smiled. “Go on. I’m all ears.”
Albert set the cleaned drumstick bone onto his plate and wiped his hands on a napkin. “I have several projects in mind to build Nate for Christmas. Along with some other tasks for my wife.” He glanced at Susanna and smiled. “But with my job, I never find the time. The days keep passing.”
“By the way”—Dalton glanced at the untouched lunch plate and lifted his brows—“I saw Nate not long ago. If you’re looking for him, he and Markus are in Win’s loft. At least, they were right before I came down.”
Susanna went to the window and looked out.
“You were saying, Albert?”
“Since you’re looking for work, I believe I’d like to take some time off. But only because I know the town will be in good hands. I know and trust you—”
Hope welled in Dalton’s chest. “You want me to fill in?”
Albert rose and met him in the middle of the room, the two standing eye to eye. “Only for a short time. Most likely, you won’t have much to do and you can still continue to cultivate your own clientele. I’m not one to take time off, but in light of the son I never knew I had having so recently come into my life, I think time’s arrived that I do. I’d also like to take Susanna and Nate on a short trip. You know, before the real snow falls. Just over to New Meringue for a few days.”
Susanna whirled from the window. By the look on her face, the trip was a surprise to her as well, and one she wholeheartedly approved. She’d never looked at Dalton with such an expression.
Albert winked and nodded. “We’ll only be away a handful of days, but I’d keep you on, making the rounds, until after the New Year.”
“A-Albert?” Susanna stammered.
“What? Is wanting to spend some uninterrupted time with my new wife and son so unbelievable?” He closed the distance to Susanna and clasped her hands. “Sound good, sweetheart? Would you like to take a trip? And then have me around the house all day long—at least, for a time?” He gazed at Susanna’s wide eyes. “Susanna? Say something.”