Caliber Detective Agency - Box Set - Case Files 1-6 Read Online Free PDF Page B

prepared to leave the home of his cousin, Fergus Steele. Fergus, his wife Robina and his father Braden, stood outside their cabin to bid him farewell. Standing beside Robina was her daughter, Catrina. The little girl had green eyes and long, dark hair, just like her mother.
    Jake had meant to only stay with his family overnight, but had now been with them for three days. Being with his uncle and cousin had reawakened memories of his own family and he also enjoyed being in their company. He had spent too much time away from people he loved, a condition he hoped to banish permanently once he got to Dallas.
    Fergus reached up to shake his hand. “It was good to see you again cousin.”
    “Same here,” Jake said. “It was good to see all of you, and I’ll make sure to get back here someday.”
    “I don’t suppose you’ll have much trouble finding work in Dallas, that’s a city on the grow.” Braden said.
    “I hope I don’t, but being a soldier is all I really know how to do.”
    “Well good luck to you Jacob, and God bless.”
    With a tip of his hat, Jake took off and headed east, as the newly risen sun painted shadows behind him.
    He arrived in Dallas three days later. The trip should have only taken two, but his horse was not a young animal, and Jake didn’t want to wear the poor creature out, and so he took his time while pondering over what awaited him.
    He and Eva Heimlich had lived for years as family, despite the fact that they weren’t related. Eva’s parents had taken Jake in when he was orphaned at twelve and gave him a home.
    However, on Eva’s sixteenth birthday, Jake could no longer fight his feelings for her and, while alone in the barn, he took her in his arms. As Eva returned his affection, Jake was both thrilled and frightened, for even though he loved her, he knew he was not ready to settle down.
    Three months later, while a week shy of his seventeenth birthday, Jake Caliber joined the army and rode away from Eva, in the intervening years they had written each other several times, but Jake had received no word from her in a long while and now feared that she had found someone.
    For his part, he had sown enough wild oats for three men and wished only to settle down, and with the right woman beside him, he might even start a family of his own.
    Jake left his horse at a livery stable and then went to see the barber, where he got a shave and a haircut. They also brushed three days of trail dust from his clothes and shined his boots. Afterward, he walked over to the National Hotel. In her last letter, Eva wrote that she had gotten a job there as a maid.
    The desk clerk was a man with a handlebar mustache and a bald head. He looked up from reading the paper and smiled at Jake.
    “Good day sir, and welcome to the National Hotel.”
    “Howdy, I’d like a room.”
    “Yes sir, and how long will you be staying with us?”
    “For now, why don’t we just say one night.”
    “Yes sir, and if you’ll just sign right here...”
    As he signed the registry, Jake asked the man a question.
    “Do you have a girl by the name of Eva workin’ here?”
    “Sure, you know Eva? She’s a great girl, yes sir, Eva Grant is one of the best employees the National has ever had.”
    “Grant? She must have married.”
    “She sure did, she married Ray Grant; he’s a bricklayer and a hell of a nice guy.”
    “I’m sure he is,” Jake whispered, as his heart sank into his stomach. Afterward, he trudged up the stairs, and as he opened the door to his room, the desk clerk yelled up to him.
    “Hey mister, here comes Eva now, why don’t you come back down and say hi?”
    After tossing his saddlebags inside the room, Jake took a deep breath and then walked down the stairs, as he reached the lobby, a young woman with curly black hair entered.
    “Eva, a friend of yours is here looking for you.”
    The young woman appeared perplexed as she stared at Jake.
    “I don’t think I know him Rollie. Do I know you