He raised his eyebrows and reached down to take her hands in his. “What is it?”
She told him about her walk, and about stumbling across the man on the white horse. “But I couldn’t see who it was. He was too far away. All I could make out was a black hat and coat. Or it could have been a darker brown. I wish I’d waited—maybe I could have gotten a better look.”
Cade’s forehead creased. “I’m glad you didn’t. You shouldn’t have said anything at all, Jolie. A stranger riding across our land isn’t someone you want to engage with.”
“I know. I wasn’t thinking clearly. All I could think of was Lucas and how that rancher had seen a man on a white horse.”
Cade shook his head, his mouth set in a determined frown. “There are a hundred white horses between here and Cañon City. It could have been anyone.”
“But there aren’t, don’t you remember? The marshal said—”
“I remember,” he said shortly, and Jolie bit down on her lip before she said anything else.
He didn’t want to learn more about Lucas’s murder. He’d made that very clear. She should have kept this information to herself, at least until she’d discovered more. But she supposed a small part of her hoped he would take this new development and decide that Lucas deserved justice.
“All right.” She gave him a little smile and squeezed his hands. “I promise not to go running after strangers on horseback again.”
The worry on his face fell away, and he lifted a hand to brush a wayward curl from her cheek. “Thank you. Now, may I help you gather up these clothes so you can see what I’ve brought back with me? I promise it’s worth the wait.”
Forcing herself to shove thoughts of the stranger to the back of her mind, Jolie nodded. And as they gathered up the damp clothing, she made a decision.
The next time she was in town, she would find Edie and ask her to relay what Jolie had seen today to her husband and the sheriff.
With any luck, Lucas’s murderer would be found. He—and Cade—deserved at least that much, even if Cade couldn’t see it yet.
Chapter Sixteen
Thebarnwascomingalong nicely when the first snowflakes fell.
“Cade!” Jolie’s excited voice found him, hammer in hand, inside the roofless barn. Her face was flushed pink, and she was wrapped in an unbuttoned coat. “It’s snowing!”
A tiny snowflake, barely anything at all, drifted past his nose. “So it is.”
“All the more reason to get this done,” Horace said as he held a piece of wood in place for Neil.
“Indeed.” Cade glanced up to see a few more flurries float by. It wouldn’t be an ideal place for Old Brown to winter, but it would be warm enough at least. A real stable would need to wait until spring.
“I think it’s lovely.” Jolie stepped back outside and spun around as if she’d never seen snow before.
Cade laughed. “Didn’t you get plenty of this back in Massachusetts?”
“Oh, we did! But it’s different here, somehow. Perhaps it’s because of the mountains. Or maybe it’s because everything feels bigger and wide open.” She grinned at him. “I believe I’ll make some coffee. Do you care for coffee, gentlemen?” she asked Neil and Horace.
They couldn’t have agreed to her suggestion any faster, and she scampered off back to the house, where the new stove sat waiting inside.
“She’ll likely ply you with bread and butter too,” Cade said. “She’s enamored with that stove.”
“Can’t say I’d complain about that,” Neil said.
“I don’t suppose she has a cake or a pie in the oven too?” Horace said, the eagerness dancing on his words.
“Not yet, but I imagine those will be next.” Cade rubbed his hands together against the chill before going back to work.
The cold simultaneously made him work harder and yet want to disappear inside until warmth returned to the valley. But Old Brown needed somewhere to be out of the cold, and any equipment he managed to purchase would need shelter too. And so he kept at it, hammering and sawing and hefting wood.
“You don’t suppose that coffee is ready yet, do you?” Neil asked hopefully after some time had passed.
Cade furrowed his brow and retrieved his pocketwatch. Nearly an hour had gone by since Jolie paid them a visit. “Let me find out.”
