Christmas Eve of 1895 will be the loneliest one yet for Trucker, a nomadic cowboy.
Raised without a father’s guiding hand, Trucker had been run out of Pine Valley when he’d stood up for what he’d deemed to be the right thing to do.
While traveling around the country and winning races with horses he’d trained to become champions, he laments the girl he’d left behind in Pine Valley and the life they could have had together—until the girl and her father show up unexpectedly and ask him to work with a horse intended for her betrothed.
All Standing Love
“She’s a beauty,” said the tall man with gray hair, an aristocratic nose, and gentle blue eyes as he stroked the neck of the horse he’d just purchased. His small daughter with the same eyes as her papa stood quietly at his side.
It was on account of those blue eyes Trucker had allowed the stranger to make an offer on Sweet Pea when he rode her into Cobblestone that morning with the intention of entering the town’s annual horse race. Not that it’d been his goal to sell the horse he’d bought from a farm he’d discovered during his travels.
A year ago, when he’d first caught sight of the bay as it stood quivering in the cold spring rain alongside a dilapidated fence, he’d made it his business to find out who owned her.
The recently widowed woman had flashed him a suspicious look when she’d opened the door and heard his declaration to buy the sadly neglected horse. However, the amount he’d offered changed suspicion to greed.
After listening to her tell a pitiful account of her life for the better part of an hour, he’d increased his offer by ten dollars. With triumph, she grabbed the money from his outstretched hand, told him a bridle would cost him an extra five, and to help himself to the good for nothing “old nag.”
There’d been signs of neglect in Sweet Pea’s hide, and she’d balked at any noise louder than a pebble skipping across water, but he’d taken his time with her, taming her fear of humans and thunder. A few months later, Sweet Pea had transformed into a champion. With Trucker’s training, she’d won five racing events that’d earned twenty times what Trucker had paid for her.
“I promise my daughter will take good care of her,” the man added, holding out his hand to Trucker. “Won’t you, Henrietta?” Smiling radiantly, the child nodded, her huge eyes on the horse. “It was good doing business with you...”
“Trucker.” When the man’s eyebrows rose, he added, “Just Trucker. No last name.” As Trucker shook the man’s hand, he thought of another who’d loved horses when she was a little girl. Emersyn Birmingham.
The woman he wanted for a wife. The woman he had no right to call on.