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our work. She started to walk away.
Miss Johnson. I m not trying to be nosy, but I m fond of Jim, he s been with me
since his mother died, and I d hate to see him get hurt, he called after her. Jim s a
lonely man, and liable to read something into your kindness, maybe take it for a deeper
kind of caring.
Catherine nodded curtly. Your point s taken. I ll be considerate of his feelings.
She left the stable, and as she walked past the shop fronts on Main Street her mind
worried frantically at his words. What did Rasmussen know or guess about their
relationship? Would he keep his suspicions to himself? If gossip spread, how badly
would it affect her position here?
She despised herself for worrying about her reputation and her job. Pain stabbed
through her at the image of a lonely, loveless young man which Rasmussen had evoked.
Poor Jim, with no one to talk to, no one to care for him, and only the company of horses
all these years. No wonder he d taken to her so quickly, and blossomed at her attention.
The livery man was right. She must be very careful how she treated his tender heart.
Chapter Sixteen
Jim s new work at Karak s mill was no more challenging than carrying boxes of
alcohol at the saloon or shoveling shit at the livery stable. There was a lot of heavy lifting
as he filled sacks of grain from the silo, tied them, loaded them onto handcarts, and
hauled them out to a railroad car. Dusty chaff floated in the air making him sneeze, and it
tickled in his throat even when he was outdoors.
After spending a day loading fifty-pound sacks of grain on top of a night of breaking
prairie sod, his shoulders ached so badly by the end of the day he could barely move
them. As he trudged toward home, he knew there was no way he could work at the
Crystal tonight. He should tell Murdoch, and he needed to get a message to Catherine
about the change in his situation. But in the end, he stumbled through the stable, ignoring
the horses greetings as they poked curious heads out of their stalls, and collapsed onto
his bed. He slept like the dead until morning.
The second day was like the first, but without a pre-dawn fire to wake him. Jim rose
and tended the horses; feeding, watering and letting them out into the corral. He knew
Rasmussen wouldn t exercise the horses and King couldn t stand being penned for long,
so Jim took the horse on a hard canter across the prairie. He rubbed him down and
returned him to the corral before heading to the mill.
Jim s muscles had stiffened overnight and each movement was agony as he lifted
and carried the heavy bags. After a while, the foreman gave him a break, setting him to
some light, general cleaning, sweeping up the golden chaff from the mill floor and
organizing a storage room. The mindlessness of the work gave Jim plenty of time to
dwell on Catherine. He wondered if she d been disappointed when he didn t turn up
yesterday. Did she miss him at all? When he skipped the lesson again today, would she
suppose he d given up?
He had to explain to her that he wanted to continue, but it would have to be on
Sunday, his only free day of the week. Using the limited words he d learned so far, he d
write a note this evening and slip it under the schoolhouse door.
As he worked, his mind wandered, reliving the few times they d kissed and touched,
especially at the river. Memories of her pale skin dappled by sun and shadow, her breasts
rising and falling as she breathed and the taste and feel of them made his cock harden. He
glanced around the open floor at the other workers intent on their tasks, then reached
down to adjust the bulge in the front of his pants. He returned to his task, cutting the
twine on a bundle of coarse linen sacks and storing them in their bin.
A tap on his shoulder startled him. The constant throb of the machinery that turned
the mill wheel shook the floor from his feet all the way into his bones, so he hadn t felt
the subtler vibration of approaching footsteps. It was the foreman, Tom Peters.
Go to Karak. Peters pointed toward the office and repeated, Karak.
Jim nodded, and turned to obey.
It was nice to get out into fresh air, if only for a few moments while he walked
around the side of the building to the office. He gazed into the slate-gray sky, watching a
flock of geese winging south. The clouds still lingered, but there was still no rain. When
would a storm finally break?
Passing the clouded windows of Karak s office, Jim saw a couple of figures moving
inside. His boss had company. Should he interrupt or wait for the man to leave? Jim
hesitated at the side of the building in the overgrown weeds, waiting but also enjoying a
brief break in the long, back-breaking day.
The office door opened and two men emerged, Jim s droopy-eyed attacker and
Karak. The hair on Jim s neck bristled as he watched the man descend the few steps from
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