“You were mad about a lot more than me not bringing that plate back pronto.”

“Oh, dear. I should have known. But then I thought—”

She stopped, blushed.

“You thought…?” Witt prompted, fascinated by the mix of emotions that washed across her face.

She bit her lower lip, shook her head. The color in her cheeks was rapidly changing from rose to scarlet.

She had very kissable lips.

He bent closer. He couldn’t help himself. She drew him like a magnet drew iron. “Yes?”

“I thought you thought I was too…forward. That I was…”

Closer still. “Yes?”

“Chasing you.” The words escaped on a gasp.

Witt’s head spun. Molly Calhan? Chasing him? Him?

He liked the thought. A lot.

The Lawman Takes a Wife

Harlequin Historical #573

Praise for award-winning author

Anne Avery’s recent works

The Bartered Bride

“Rich in historical detail and lush in characterization…Anne Avery takes her place with the best.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

Summer Fancy

“…laugh-out-loud funny and sweetly sensual…if you’re looking for a book to lift your spirits, this is definitely the one!”

—Under the Covers Web site

“Summer Fancy is a funny, engaging, sexy love story…a wonderfully told story to read…anytime you want to fall in love.”

—The Old Book Barn Gazette

#571 THE WIDOW’S LITTLE SECRET

Judith Stacy

#572 CELTIC BRIDE

Margo Maguire

#574 LADY POLLY

Nicola Cornick

The Lawman Takes a Wife

Anne Avery

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available from Harlequin Historicals and
ANNE AVERY

The Lawman Takes a Wife #573

This book is for Dame Agatha and Phinneas T. Dogg,

who have stuck by me from the first.

And in loving memory of Osa, the Wonder Bear,

who tended to shed.

Contents

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 One

“What’d I tell you? That’s him.”

“You sure?” Bonnie Calhan frowned down at her eight-year-old brother. With the superior perspective of her eleven years, she’d learned to be cautious—even making Dickie cross his heart and hope to die wasn’t always a guarantee you could believe him. Now that he’d grabbed hold of this latest wild notion of his, there was just no telling at all.

Dickie wasn’t paying her any mind, anyway. He was standing on tiptoe, face pressed against the tall, narrow front window of Elk City’s sheriff’s office, straining to see inside.

“Are you sure?” she insisted, poking him to make him listen.

He grudgingly backed away from the window and dusted his hands on the seat of his overalls. “Certain sure. Saw him come in on the train last night. He was carryin’ a rifle an’ a saddle an’ askin’ for the mayor. An’ I heard him sayin’ somethin’ about the sheriff’s office. Honest. Couldn’t be nobody else.”

“Anybody else.”

He shrugged, irritated. “See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Bonnie eyed him doubtfully, then cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the rain and dirt-blotched window. The effort was wasted. What with the grime, the natural distortions in the crude glass, and the sharp contrast between sunlit street and shadowed interior, she couldn’t see anything except a dark bulk hunched over a desk at the back of the room.

But it was the sheriff’s office, and they’d been expecting the new sheriff for weeks, now. Much as she hated to admit it, Dickie was probably right.

“All right,” she said, reluctantly giving in as she usually did, sooner or later. “But if you’re wrong…”

“I ain’t. You’ll see.”

“Yes, I will. And don’t say ain’t. You know Mother doesn’t like it.”

She tried to take his hand, but he scowled and dodged out of reach. “Don’t you go bossin’ me, Bonnie Mae Calhan! Just ’cause you’re bigger’n me an’—”

“Oh, come on. If we’re going to do this, there’s no sense dawdling.”

His scowl deepened. “You sound just like Mother.” But when Bonnie moved toward the door, he was a half step ahead of her.

Bonnie halted on the threshold, blinking against the sudden transition from sunlight to shadow. Dust coated the raw plank floor and hung in the air like a gauzy curtain, obscuring details. Not that there was anything worth seeing except the desk and the man behind it.

He looked up at their entrance, but she couldn’t make out much more of his features than she had outside.

“Yes?” His voice was deep, pleasant to the ear.

“Are you—” The words stuck on her tongue like molasses.

All of a sudden, she was even less certain of the wisdom of this visit than she’d been when she’d given in to Dickie’s pleading. What if he laughed at them? Or gave them a tongue lashing for wasting his time like old Mr. Garver was always doing? Or worse, told their mother?

Bonnie blenched at the thought of what her mother would say if she found out.

Dickie had no such reservations. “You the new sheriff?” he demanded, boldly stepping forward.

“I am.”

Dickie threw her a look that clearly said, told you so! and edged a little farther into the room. “You really a gunfighter, like Freddy Christian said you was?”

The man’s mouth abruptly thinned to an intimidating straight line. “No.”

The single word rumbled in the dusty air like distant thunder. He deliberately set aside the papers he’d been reading, then shoved back his chair and came around the desk toward them.

Seated behind the battered old desk, the man had looked impressively large. On his feet and up close, he was downright intimidating—more like a mountain on legs than a man. The floor jumped with every step he took.

Bonnie backed up a foot.

Her brother didn’t budge, but he hunched his shoulders and stuck out his chin so he could swallow. If his eyes opened any wider, his eyeballs would pop out.

The sheriff loomed over them. Bonnie had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. Her throat tightened. There was an awful lot of jaw on that sharply carved face of his.

He stared down at her unblinkingly.

Bonnie backed up another step and clasped her hands behind her, where he wouldn’t see their trembling.

The sheriff turned to Dickie. “Who is Freddy Christian?” His voice seemed to shake the walls around them, despite its mild tone.

“A friend,” said Dickie in a very small voice. He gulped and added, a little louder this time, “He’s a year younger’n me, but he knows ’most everything ’cause his dad, see, he’s the editor of the paper.”

The sheriff considered that a moment, then, “How old are you?”

Dickie rubbed his hands on the sides of his overalls. “Me?”

The sheriff nodded.

“Eight. Nine come October.” Dickie hesitated, then cocked a thumb in Bonnie’s direction. “This here’s my big sister, Bonnie. She’s eleven.”

Those coal-black eyes turned back to her. After a moment’s sober study, the sheriff politely ducked his head by way of acknowledgment. “Miss Bonnie.”

Bonnie flushed. She’d never had a grown-up gentleman call her Miss Bonnie before. And now that she’d had the chance to study him a bit more, the new sheriff didn’t seem nearly as hard as he had a minute earlier.

On the other hand, he didn’t seem any smaller, either.

“I’m Dickie,” her brother announced, drawing the sheriff’s attention back to him. “Richard James Calhan. Named after my dad and granddad. My mother—”

“Our mother,” Bonnie snapped. She was happy to leave the talking to Dickie, but she didn’t care to be left out altogether.

“Our mother, then,” Dickie conceded, annoyed. He wasn’t willing to interrupt his recital to argue with her about it, though. “She runs Calhan’s General Store. Guaranteed best store in town! If we don’t have it, we’ll get it, no extra charge.”

The sheriff mulled over that bit of information, too. “If your ma runs the store,” he asked at last, “what’s your pa do?”

Dickie’s face fell. Over four years had passed since their father had died in a coal mine cave-in and he still had nightmares at times. For that matter, so did Bonnie, though she would never admit it. Mother already had enough to worry her.

“Da’s dead,” Dickie admitted reluctantly.

That admission was usually enough to launch a dozen questions about how he’d died and when, and how they were getting along without him. At the very least it got an “I’m sorry to hear that” kind of response, regardless if the person was sorry or not. But this man mountain neither asked rude questions nor offered false sympathy. He accepted the statement with the quiet composure that seemed as much a part of him as his broad shoulders or big feet. Bonnie found his calmness strangely reassuring.

With one smooth motion, he squatted on his heels in front of them. The change in position brought him to eye level with her.

“So,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Bonnie looked at him, then she looked at Dickie. This was all Dickie’s idea, not hers. She’d only agreed to come with him because, if he was right, she didn’t want to be left out of the excitement. But that didn’t mean she wanted to take the blame if he got into trouble, instead.

“Dickie’ll tell you. This was his idea, not mine.”

Dickie, ever the showman, swelled with importance. “It’s this,” he said, pulling a rolled-up newspaper out of his back pocket and holding it out to the sheriff. “We wanna report a bank robbery.”

Calhan’s General Store was filled near to bursting with ladies who had gathered to inspect the new collection of winter dress goods. Since it was unthinkable that any self-respecting woman in Elk City would let the other ladies get a jump on her in the matter of selection, each of them had made a point of arriving early, only to find that everyone else had been possessed of the exact same thought. By the time Molly opened the door at 9:00 a.m. precisely, the boardwalk in front was jammed. It was eleven now, and while the lengths of cloth and ribbon and lace had shrunk, the crowd appeared to have grown.

As she always did, Molly had gotten up early so she could arrange the new bolts of cloth and boxes of buttons and trim in an attractive display on top of the broad oak counter that ran the length of the store.

It took her hours to set up the display, and hours more to straighten up after, but the ladies only needed a couple of minutes to create chaos out of her carefully constructed order. Molly suspected that was part of the attraction of this novel method of selling and the main reason she always sold three times more sewing notions and more yards of cloth than any other dry goods store this side of Denver.

Dealing with the ladies was never easy, however. Not only did she have to cope with their often heated competition for the more popular fabrics and notions, she had to sort their questions and requests out of the confusing babble of conversation and gossip that always reigned at these events. At the end of the day, she inevitably emerged with a headache and a satisfyingly well-stuffed till.

As long as the till was full, she never begrudged the headache. The store was Bonnie’s and Dickie’s future, after all.

And hers, of course. She tried not to forget that.

At the moment, though, she didn’t have time to think about the future. It was all she could do to deal with the present—measuring and cutting and tallying orders while answering the dozens of questions being flung at her from all sides. The gossip and chatter she ignored, as much out of habit as out of necessity. No merchant could afford the luxury of gossip or of choosing sides, and her position as a widow and Elk City’s only female store proprietor made her more careful than most.

That didn’t stop the ladies, however—the latest rumors had been flying thick and fast all morning. At the moment, a recent arrival held undisputed center stage.

“The new sheriff’s in town,” Coreyanne Campbell said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

The announcement caused a gratifying stir. Even Molly put aside her scissors for a moment, intrigued.

“Arrived last night on the train,” Coreyanne added, her vast bosom swelling with satisfaction at being the first with the latest news. “From what I hear, he was packing a saddle and a rifle and a bedroll and not much else.”

“The sheriff’s here already?” The large silk daisies on Emmy Lou Trainer’s hat bobbed dangerously. “I’d heard he wasn’t coming for a couple of weeks, yet.”

“Wouldn’t you know! And no one expecting him so we could give him a proper welcome.”

Molly couldn’t tell who had spoken.

“Probably Josiah Andersen’s fault,” the widow Thompson snapped. “He may be mayor, but he never could get anything right.” Her sharp, narrow little face looked extra pinched with disapproval. “High time that man got here, though. Must be a month or more since the town council offered him the job.”

As the crowd murmured agreement, she took advantage of the diversion to grab a length of blue-and-white Sheppard plaid she’d been eyeing for the past twenty minutes. She fingered it, judging the weight and feel of it, then brought it to within three inches of her pointy little nose and squinted.

“Weave’s off. Be a tough job to get that straightened out.” Without letting go of the cloth, she craned forward across the counter so Molly couldn’t ignore her. “How much you asking for this, Molly?”

“Fifteen and a half cents a yard,” Molly said, and braced for what came next. It didn’t matter what price she quoted, Thelma Thompson would say it was too dear, and then she’d start to haggle.

“Fifteen and a half!” gasped the widow, scandalized. Her thin face flushed. “Ridiculous! It’s not worth a penny over ten.”

Molly ignored the protest and unrolled a bolt of a silk-and-wool blend for another of the ladies. “I remember you were talking about making yourself a new suit, Ida, so the minute I saw this, I thought of you. The green’s just your color. Go with your eyes, you know.”

“That’s nice, Molly,” Ida Walker said, smiling. “Trust you to remember. Though I don’t know…” She slid her work-worn hand over the fine cloth doubtfully. “What with young Will growing out of his britches faster than I can think, and big Will talking about buying some land up Oh-Be-Joyful Creek…well…”

“Did you hear me, Molly Calhan?” Thelma sniffed and tightened her grip on the plaid. “Not a penny over ten. It’s scandalous, the price of things these days. Absolutely scandalous!”

“You could probably get it for twelve and a half or thirteen cents a yard in Denver, Thelma, but then you’d have to pay for the train and your meals, you know. Don’t forget, I can’t buy things in quantity like the big Denver stores can, and that’s besides having to pay for the freight. And you know how high freight charges are getting to be!”

“I still say it was wrong to bring in someone from outside,” said Emmy Lou Trainer, dragging the conversation back to the new sheriff. The daisies quivered with her indignation. “Especially when we had perfectly good candidates for the job right here in Elk City.”

Emmy Lou’s husband had been one of the unsuccessful candidates, but the other ladies politely forbore to mention that fact. Three months ago, when there’d been no clear winner after four rounds of voting, the town council had decided to bring in a sheriff from outside the community rather than see the city split into factions. Everyone had thought the suggestion inspired except Emmy Lou.

“Josiah Andersen says he comes well recommended,” said Coreyanne. Her husband was drinking partners with the mayor, so she got all the scoop on city hall goings-on. “Seems the town council from someplace up north had been talking to him about a job. According to Josiah, Elk City’s lucky to get him.”

The widow Thompson wasn’t interested in new sheriffs or town councils. She especially wasn’t interested in Josiah Andersen’s opinion on anything since the two had been feuding for years.

“You know I’m too old to be making that trip to Denver if I don’t have to, Molly Calhan,” she protested. “And my widow’s pension certainly won’t cover something as dear as this plaid. Besides, Ben Dermott over to Gunnison always gives me a discount, me being a widow and all. I was just sure you would, too. You ought to understand how it is, not having a man around to provide, yourself.”

“What did he look like?” Louisa Merton asked. “The sheriff, I mean.” Louisa was nineteen and pretty and known to be on the prowl for a husband, and rumor had it the sheriff was still unclaimed. “Did you see him? Is he…nice?”

“I didn’t see him,” said Coreyanne, “but my Ed said he’s big. Real big. And quiet. Didn’t say much, Sam says, even when he was treated to a round or two in Jackson’s saloon.”

She shook her head, lips pinched shut in disapproval of anyone, and especially the new sheriff, being seen drinking in Jackson’s Saloon. Especially if they were seen drinking with her husband. Ed Campbell had a fondness for drink that almost exceeded his fondness for his well-built wife, and Jackson’s was far more likely to cater to his weakness than any other of the town’s establishments.

Worries about her husband’s drinking and the excitement of a new sheriff couldn’t compete with the attractions of new yard goods, however.

“Could I take a look at that pink silk, there, Molly?” Coreyanne said. “It looks like it’d be just the thing to go with my old gray suit. Sort of spruce it up, if you know what I mean.”

“But what did he look like?” Louisa had a one-track mind when it came to men. “Is he handsome?”

“I’ll give you thirteen,” said Thelma grudgingly.

“Now, Thelma.” Molly passed the pink silk down the counter to Coreyanne. No one paid any attention to Louisa.

“Thirteen cents a yard,” said the widow, pulling the plaid out of Ida Walker’s reach. “That’s my final offer.”

Molly repressed a sigh. “Let me think about it, Thelma.”

She’d give in eventually. Both of them knew it. None of the other women would touch that plaid until they were sure Thelma had either gotten what she wanted or given up the hunt—and Thelma never gave up. The woman could wear down rock with her nagging if she set her mind to it.

“What’s his name? Is it true he’s not married?” Louisa asked of nobody in particular. “I heard he was at least thirty. If not older!” Her face went white at the thought of still being single at the advanced age of thirty.

“His name’s DeWitt Gavin, and he’s thirty-three, Sam says,” Coreyanne informed them with satisfaction. She started to say something else, then bit back the words.

“What else have you heard?” demanded Emmy Lou, leaning closer. “Is he married? I’d heard he was going to be living in that room at the back of the sheriff’s office. There’s not enough space there for a cat to turn around in, let alone a family.”

“Nooo,” said Coreyanne, still uncertain. “He’s not married.”

“Well, then?” said Emmy Lou. All the other ladies stopped breathing so they wouldn’t miss a word of whatever came next.

Coreyanne glanced at them nervously, but it was clear to everyone present that her information was simply too good not to be shared.

“I told Sam I wouldn’t say anything, but I know he didn’t really mean I couldn’t tell you ladies. After all, you’re my friends.”

“That’s right,” said Emmy Lou. “We are. You know you can trust us!”

“Well…”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Coreyanne,” Molly said sharply, yanking on a piece of wool felt that had gotten tangled around a bolt of flannel. She tugged the fabric to straighten it and started to roll it back up. “If you promised not to tell—”

“You can tell us!” Thelma interrupted. Even talking Molly down on the price of the plaid took back seat to the pleasurable possibility of scandal.

Coreyanne caved in.

“He’s divorced!” she said in a theatrical whisper loud enough for all to hear.

A collective gasp shook her audience.

“Can you imagine?”

No one said a word. The news was just too thrillingly awful to treat so lightly.

Molly knew the silence wouldn’t last long. “I can imagine, but it’s none of my business to try.” She flipped the bolt over another turn, giving a snap to the fabric as she did so it lay straight and taut.

“No, but—”

“No buts, Coreyanne!” she snapped. She kept her gaze fixed on the bolt. She’d never liked confrontation or conflict, but sometimes it couldn’t be avoided, no matter how much she wished it could. “I won’t listen to gossip of that sort! You know that.”

“Well, I will,” Emmy Lou said. Nothing fazed Emmy Lou, especially not Molly’s straitlaced notions of propriety and good manners. Especially not when it came to dirt about the man who’d taken the job that rightfully belonged to her husband.

“What did she do that he’d divorce her? It must have been something pretty bad.”

“Mmm,” said Coreyanne doubtfully. She cast a nervous glance at Molly, then at her friends. There wasn’t a chance she’d get out of the store without sharing whatever juicy tidbit her Sam had shared with her. “Well, according to what my Sam heard, he didn’t divorce his wife. She divorced him!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Well, I never! In all my born days, I never!”

Molly glanced at the avid faces in front of her, every one of them focused on Coreyanne. There was only one way to get the ladies’ attention off the sheriff and his disreputable past and back on the business at hand.

“Tell you what, Thelma,” she said to the widow. “I’ll let you have that plaid for fourteen cents a yard. I can’t do better than that, and neither can you. And Coreyanne, did you want the silk? If you don’t, Sally, here, was interested.”

A discount and competition for a coveted fabric! As one, the ladies abandoned the sheriff and plunged back into the fray. The distraction wouldn’t hold for long, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

Distraction or no, as she measured lengths of fabric and rang up sales, Molly couldn’t help wondering—what could the new sheriff possibly have done to make his wife take the scandalous step of divorcing him?

Witt Gavin had no trouble finding the store little Dickie Calhan had mentioned. It was a good-sized clapboard building with a one-and-a-half story false front facing the town’s main street. From the busy cross street running alongside the store, Witt had a clear view of the sign painted in big red letters on the whitewashed siding: Calhan’s General Store. Guaranteed Best Store in Town! If We Don’t Have It, We’ll Get It, No Extra Charge!

At least the boy had gotten that part right.

As for his wild tale about strangers who skulked down alleys and loitered around the town’s main bank whenever the mine payrolls were delivered…

Witt propped his shoulder against the building opposite Calhan’s, crossed his arms across his chest, and studied the scene before him. From where he stood, Main Street stretched north through town, headed straight toward the Elk Mountains that gave the town its name. The street’s unpaved expanse was lined on either side by false-fronted wood buildings and a dozen impressive brick ones. Saddle horses and teams hitched to a variety of buggies and wagons were tied at rails on either side of the thoroughfare. Several blocks up, a covered public well occupied the middle of an intersection, readily accessible to any citizen who lacked the convenience of a private one.

Nearer at hand, catercorner to Calhan’s General Store, stood a substantial brick building with an aura of sober respectability that immediately identified it as Elk City’s main financial institution. The sign over the door said Elk City State Bank in bold gold letters. It was more a concession to convention than an absolute necessity—the place was impossible to miss.

If there’d been any suspicious goings-on, a sharp-eyed, intelligent boy on the boardwalk in front of Calhan’s would have spotted them right off.

And if there weren’t any suspicious strangers, Calhan’s boardwalk was the ideal place for a boy with an overactive imagination and a taste for the lurid tales in dime novels to dream some up.

Elk City was a decent, workaday place that boasted good railroad connections, coal, lumber, water and some of the finest grazing range in the state of Colorado. It was also well off the more traveled roads and rail lines that laced the state. Payroll or no, the town wasn’t the sort of place he’d expect to find a bunch of desperadoes intent on a shoot-’em-up bank heist.

Witt watched as an old woman with a shopping basket over her arm made her way along the opposite side of Main. Every man she passed doffed his hat. Several exchanged a few pleasant words, as well. There was something comfortable about the scene, as if the folks he saw were glad to be right where they were. That wasn’t something you could say about every town he’d ever been through. Not by a long shot.

With hard work and a little luck, Elk City just might be the spot where he could finally put down roots, buy some land, some cattle. Maybe even get married. He was almighty tired of boarding house meals and narrow beds for one.

At the thought, the old, familiar hollowness came back. Witt shoved away from the building, disgusted with himself and his mush-headed daydreams. There wasn’t a woman in her right mind would want him, even if he’d had more than a dream to offer her, which he didn’t. Besides, if Clara hadn’t been able to abide him, it stood to rights nobody else would want to try.

He’d might as well not waste time reminding himself. The mistakes he’d made were well-plowed ground, yet for all the time he’d spent working that field, thinking it over, worrying about it, he’d never yet gotten a crop of anything but weeds out of it.

He’d do better to tend to his work, and right now that meant introducing himself to Mrs. Calhan and finding out if she’d noticed anything to indicate her son really had seen something, no matter how improbable the boy’s tale sounded.

As he crossed the street, Witt was conscious of a number of curious glances directed his way. Word had obviously gotten around that Elk City’s new sheriff was somewhat oversize. He ignored them. Over the years, he’d gotten used to the attention even if he’d never learned to like it.

He’d even gotten used to checking an unfamiliar boardwalk before he stepped on it to make sure it would hold his weight. Calhan’s boardwalk was sturdy enough and neatly swept, which was promising. The broad front windows were so clean they gleamed, which was even better.

Witt glanced at the display behind that glass and stopped dead in his tracks.

The proprietors of dry good stores generally had two ways of filling their front windows—either they stacked their excess supplies higglety pigglety on the broad display shelves built under the windows, heedless of appearance, or they crammed in as many unrelated items as they could until it was next to impossible to sort out anything from the heaps and piles and mounds of merchandise.

Mrs. Calhan had done neither. Instead, she’d constructed an intriguing arrangement of boxes of various sizes, then draped a length of shiny, bright-red cloth on top. The fabric spilled over the boxes and gathered in glistening folds in the spaces between them, for all the world as if it had been carelessly flung there, then forgotten. Yet there was something about the arrangement, something about the way the cloth caught the light, that drew the eye from one displayed item to another and then another, so that Witt felt as if he were being irresistibly drawn into the store.

Of course, it was possible the secret to the display’s attraction was that it offered nothing but candy—and Witt had a sweet tooth whose roots went all the way down to his toes.

He moved closer, studying the riches laid out before him. There were peppermint sticks in a tall glass jar, and chocolate creams in a box lined with shiny gold paper. There were licorice jawbreakers, and bright-yellow lemon drops, and candied nuts, and cream balls, and lady kisses, and an assortment of chocolate biscuits and bars arranged on a silver tray. There was a bowl of candied peanuts and another of mouthwatering pecan pralines. There was a little metal pirate’s chest stuffed with French bonbons that were as tempting to Witt as pieces of eight would be to a pirate. And there, right in the middle of it all, was an enormous glass jar tied with a bright-red ribbon and filled to overflowing with gumdrops in every color of the rainbow.

Witt let out the breath he’d been holding, and licked his lips. And then he pulled open the broad screen door and walked into paradise.

Chapter Two

A shadow claimed half the light in the store.

Molly looked up from straightening the disaster the ladies had left in their wake and found a mountain standing in her doorway. The mountain held out a hand to make sure the screen door didn’t slam shut behind him, then took a cautious step forward, squinting against the change from the bright sunlight outside.

Slowly, she set down the drawer of buttons she’d been about to put away. Coreyanne Campbell had said the new sheriff was big, but Molly hadn’t pictured anyone quite this big. Who would have? The man stood six three in his oversized stocking feet, maybe more. He’d have to have his clothes special made for him—those broad shoulders wouldn’t fit into any ready-mades she knew of, and she’d done her best to scout out all the options for her customers.

And his face…

Molly’s fingers closed around the edges of the drawer.

If the man himself was a mountain, the core of him had been made out of granite. His face was all hewn slabs and hard lines, like the stark, gray rock that jutted out of the nearby Elk Mountains. Life had slashed grooves at the side of his mouth and the corners of his eyes, but it hadn’t softened one angle of the sharp-edged nose or that uncompromising jaw.

There was an awful lot of jaw.

Slowly, deliberately, Molly raised her gaze to meet his.

Gray eyes gleamed from beneath heavy lids. Even with the light behind him, shadowing his face, they seemed alive and bright and warm. Wary, almost. She had the odd sense that he took in more in one glance than most people saw in an hour of looking.

“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” she said, “What can I do for you?”

He snatched his hat off and, squinting, lowered his head to look for her in the shadows at the rear of the store. “Ma’am?”

When he came forward, his movements were quiet, controlled, but that didn’t stop the floor joists from creaking in protest at the weight. She could feel the jouncing with each step he took.

The glass in her display cases rattled softly.

“You’re Mrs. Calhan, the proprietor of this store?” His voice rumbled up from somewhere deep in that big chest like distant thunder over the Elk Mountains. Just like the thunder, it sent a shiver of charged awareness down her spine.

“I am. And you must be Sheriff Gavin.” She smiled. “The ladies were talking about you just this morning.”

Too late she remembered what they’d been saying.

His expression didn’t change, yet she sensed a tension in him that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. To cover her gaffe, she extended her hand over the counter. After a moment’s hesitation, he gingerly took it in his own large, callused paw.

The warmth and the hard, masculine strength of that hand wrapped around hers made something inside her squeeze tight. It had been four years since Richard had died. Four long, hard and often lonely years.

“Welcome to Elk City, Sheriff.” She slid her hand free, palm tingling from the contact. “We’re glad to have you here at last.”

“You’ve had trouble?” The question came too quickly, as if he’d had it prepared beforehand.

“Oh, no,” she hastily assured him. “No trouble. Not really. Not that sort of trouble. Only, if there were trouble, we’d rather have a sheriff around than not.”

He nodded, glanced at the disordered counter, then let his gaze slide along the shelves of goods that lined the walls behind her.

Nervous, she nudged a couple of the button boxes in the drawer on the counter in front of her. The faint clack of the buttons shifting was comfortingly normal.

“I take it you’re introducing yourself to the shopkeepers?” she said. “That’s very commendable, such dedication to duty. And on your very first day, too.”

That came out a little more stiffly than she’d intended. She was used to men who weren’t much on conversation—a couple of her customers shopped mostly by grunting and pointing—but she wasn’t used to being quite so aware of the male on the other side of the counter. It was…unsettling. And strangely intriguing.

“We—the shopkeepers here in town, I mean—we’re very glad to have you. Things were getting to be so…difficult. Arguments, you know, about who was going to be sheriff and—” She smiled. “Well, let’s just say there was a good deal of discussion before the town council agreed we’d be better off getting a man with your…er, your experience.”

Heaven help her, she’d been about to say “your reputation.” Surely it was her imagination that his shoulders stiffened as if he were expecting a blow.

“I’m not sworn in yet,” he said, deliberately not looking at her.

“I’m sure Mayor Andersen will take care of that little matter just as quickly as he can.”

“Mmm.” His gaze slid from the table in the center of the store with its eye-catching stacks of tinned fruits, to the glass-fronted case where she kept the sweets, to the rack made of antlers that displayed a range of ropes and twine, then over to the artful arrangement of tin washtubs and willow baskets that she’d hung on the wall at the back.

At the sight of a man mannequin with a rolled theatre bill in its waxen hands and sporting a ready-made suit, stiff-collared white shirt and bowler hat tipped at a rakish angle, he blinked and glanced back at her, clearly surprised.

“Never seen a store quite like this.”

His eyes were blue, Molly realized, not gray, as she’d thought. She wrenched her gaze from his face before it became obvious she’d been staring.

“It’s proven very handy, putting things on display like this.” There was an odd little catch in her throat. She cleared it, tried again. If she hadn’t known it was mere foolishness, she’d have sworn she could feel the heat of him clear across the counter. “This way, folks can find what they’re looking for without me having to fetch it off some shelf or dig it out of some drawer first. Saves a lot of time for everyone.”

She didn’t tell him it also increased her profits significantly. With so much right out in the open where customers could get their hands on it, more often than not they walked out of the store with at least one or two things they hadn’t intended to buy but hadn’t been able to resist. Sometimes they bought so much they forgot what they’d originally come for and had to come back to buy that, too.

Molly smiled at the mannequin. Since she’d installed it in the store, she’d doubled her sale of men’s hats and fancy dress clothes. Sales on cravats and ties had more than tripled and showed no sign of slacking. She’d already started to look for a child-size mannequin to go with it.

She hadn’t bothered with a female form since there were cheaper ways of tempting her women customers.

The sheriff wasn’t interested in mannequins any more than the rope and twine. His gaze swung back to the glass-fronted display case where she kept her candies and sweets.

Without speaking, he walked over, making the floorboards groan at every step. Staying safely on her side of the broad counter, Molly followed.

“Saw your display out front.” He bent forward, forehead furrowing as he studied the array of riches behind the glass.

From this angle, she could see the back of his neck. His hair was too long and poorly trimmed. It brushed over the top of his collar in a ragged ruffle that made her itch to set it right. She’d always trimmed Richard’s hair, just sat him in a chair and gone to work with her scissors until he was neat and presentable. Better than any barber, or so he’d always said.

Her hands twitched at the memory of how a man’s hair felt sifting through her fingers, of the heat and texture of his skin.

She smoothed her palms down the sides of her skirt, cleared her throat. “Did you like it?”

Confused, the sheriff glanced up from his perusal of the case’s contents. “Like it?”

“The display. In the window out front. Did you like it?”

“Oh.” His jaw worked as if he were chewing on the question. “It was…nice. Real nice.”

“Thank you.”

If he heard her, he gave no sign of it. His attention was riveted on the display. After a moment’s careful consideration, he pointed with a blunt-tipped finger. “Those chocolate drops, there. They the bittersweet kind?”

Molly craned to see what he was pointing at. “No, that’s milk chocolate. But I can get the bittersweet if you’d rather.”

He shook his head but didn’t take his gaze off the collection of sweets. Molly had seen that look in the face of children who couldn’t decide how to spend their precious pennies, but she’d never seen a grown man take it so seriously.

“Try one of these chocolate creams,” she said on impulse, moving behind the case. She slid open the glass door at the back and plucked a cream in its paper nest from the box. “They come all the way from New York. Try it.”

He eyed the chocolate on her open palm, then glanced at her, clearly embarrassed.

“Think of it as a welcome to Elk City,” she said.

Delicately, frowning in concentration, he plucked the chocolate from its nest, then popped the thing into his mouth whole. She watched his mouth work as he tongued the confection, fascinated in spite of herself. His eyes closed and an expression of bliss softened the hard lines of his face.

“Good?”

He blinked back to an awareness of where he was. “That’s…fine. Real fine.”

He said it reverently, like a man who’d experienced a small miracle. She wasn’t sure, but that looked like the faintest trace of a blush under his dark tan.

“Told you!” Smiling, she impulsively slipped a half dozen into a little paper bag. “Have some more.”

He glanced at her, then the bag, then backed away, shaking his head.

Molly waved the bag slightly, just enough so he could hear the shifting of the paper-wrapped sweets inside. “It’s not a bribe, you know. And it’s rude to refuse.”

His eyes locked with hers.

“Please,” she said.

Reluctantly, he reached to take the sweets. “Thank you, ma’am. That’s…very kind.”

She laughed. “Not at all. It’s plain good business. If I get you hooked on them, you’ll have to come back, now won’t you?”

There was no mistake this time—that really was a blush under the tan.

It wasn’t until the screen door to Calhan’s General Store had banged shut behind him that Witt realized he hadn’t thought to ask Mrs. Calhan about the bank or if she’d seen any suspicious strangers lurking in any alleys. Nothing but that one question if she’d had any trouble, then he’d shaken her hand and whatever smarts he’d ever had had flown out the window. All he could think of was how cool and strong and feminine her small hand had felt encased in his, and how pretty her hair was, especially those soft strands that had pulled free to drift along her cheek and the back of her neck.

It’d been all he could do to keep from staring. Seemed like he’d looked at darned near every single box and bag and bale in the place rather than look into those cool green eyes that seemed to throw off sparks every time she smiled.

So much for tending to his proper business.

Disgusted, he tugged his hat low over his brow, propped his hands on his hips, and scowled at a hipshot bay lazily twitching away flies at the hitching rack in front of him. The packet of chocolate creams in his pocket rustled with his every move. The taste of chocolate lingered on his tongue, rich and sweetly heavy.

Hell of a way to start a new job.

So what did he do next? Besides make a damned fool of himself?

He scanned the street, trying to decide if it was worth the effort to follow up little Dickie Calhan’s tale, or if he ought to just do what Mrs. Calhan had thought he was doing in the first place and introduce himself to a few more of the storekeepers and businessmen along the street.

Nothing to say he couldn’t do both at the same time. And then there was the meeting with the mayor and the town council. Six o’clock, the mayor had said, and don’t be late.

Shifting his gun belt a little so it rode more comfortably on his hip, Witt stepped off the boardwalk and headed toward the bank.

From the shadowy safety of Nickerson’s Riding Stable six doors down and on the other side of the street, Bonnie and Dickie Calhan watched the sheriff walk out of their mother’s General Store. The sound of the screen door slamming behind him came like a distant thunderclap.

Bonnie poked her brother in the ribs with her elbow. “Now we’re in for it. Told you, didn’t I? Carrying tales like that. Mother will make us scrub the floor for a week because of this!”

“Weren’t carryin’ tales,” Dickie growled, poking her back. “It’s the truth and you know it!”

She watched the sheriff tug his hat lower on his brow, prop his hands on his hips, then scan the street from one end to the other. Slowly, like a man who was looking for someone. Or two particular someones.

Ignoring Dickie’s squirming protests, she grabbed the back of her brother’s overalls and tugged him away from the open stable door.

“I’m going home and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come, too. Besides, Mother said we were to clean the lamps and carry out the ashes from the stove.”

Dickie dug in his feet and pulled free. “We don’t gotta do it right now, do we? She didn’t say nuthin’ about right now.”

“No, but look.” She pointed toward the store.

Her brother turned just in time to see the sheriff hitch his gun belt on his hips, like a man who wanted to be sure it sat right in case he needed to go for the gun it carried. And then he stepped off the boardwalk, headed their way.

Dickie was right behind her when Bonnie scooted out the back door of the stable and ducked down the alley, headed toward home as fast as her feet could carry her.

A fair amount of money had gone into Elk City State Bank’s fancy tiled floor and carved oak paneling and shining brass fixtures. The building wasn’t overly big, but it was solidly built, exactly the respectable, prosperous-looking sort of place a man might think could be trusted to keep his hard-earned savings safe.

The clerk who guarded access to the bank’s nether regions looked up at Witt’s approach. When it became clear that Witt was not going to go away, he reluctantly removed his wire-rimmed glasses, folded them, and set them precisely in the middle of the enormous bound journal he’d been writing in.

“May I help you?” His thin lips pinched together as if the prospect of helping anyone with anything was bitterly distasteful, and helping Witt more distasteful still.

Witt couldn’t help wondering if the fellow found it difficult to breathe. His shirt collar was the tallest, stiffest piece of torture Witt had ever seen, and it was cinched in place with a fussily knotted tie that would have strangled a lesser man. Witt’s throat hurt just looking at it.

“I’m looking for the president,” he said, forcing his gaze away from the clerk’s neckware.

“Mr. Hancock is busy at the moment.” The man’s voice was as pinched and tight as everything else about him.

“Tell him the new sheriff would like to talk to him.”

“The sheriff?”

Witt nodded, meeting the man’s disapproving stare impassively.

When he showed no sign of budging, the clerk sighed and got to his feet. “What name shall I say?”

Judging from the way the fellow walked, his shoes pinched him even more than his collar.

However much the clerk might resemble a dyspeptic fish, the bank president was a handsome devil who looked like he belonged in big-city boardrooms and expensive men’s clubs, not workaday coal mining towns like Elk City.

He looked, in fact, a lot like Clara’s fancy man, Witt thought, and felt his hackles rise.

“Sheriff Gavin!” The man smiled and extended his hand over the low railing that fenced off the office area from the lobby. “Gordon Hancock. Welcome! Speaking as the president of Elk City State Bank and as a member of the town council, I’m damned glad to meet you! And you’re already on the job! Excellent! Excellent!”

The clerk sniffed, slipped his glasses back into place and pointedly buried his nose in his journal.

Hancock opened the railing gate with a theatrical flourish. “Come on back, Gavin. Let’s talk.

“Drink?” he added a moment later as he waved Witt to a chair in his office and closed the door behind him. “I know it’s still a little early in the day, but—”

Witt glanced at the bottles of expensive whiskey that stood atop a low cabinet, then set his hat on one of the two chairs in front of the desk and deliberately claimed the other. “Thanks, no.”

Hancock shrugged and came around the big oak desk to take his seat. He shot his cuffs, rested his perfectly manicured hands on the leather blotter and leaned forward, smiling.

Witt had to fight to suppress his irritation. “You’re on the town council.”

Hancock’s smile widened. “That’s right. As president of Elk City’s largest and most important bank, I regard it as my responsibility to help guide this fine city of ours into the future. There’s great things happening here, Sheriff. Great things! And you’ll be a part of them, I promise you.”

He flipped open a brass-trimmed humidor and extended it across the desk. “Cigar? Cubans, straight from Havana.”

The sweet, rich smell of expensive tobacco filled the air.

Witt shook his head. He liked a good cigar as well as the next man, and a good Havana didn’t come his way every day, but he didn’t like Hancock and he didn’t like the idea of being charmed as the banker was obviously trying to charm him.

“No?” Hancock chose a cigar, sniffing at it appreciatively. “Gold and silver now, they go up and down. But Elk City’s built on coal, and coal…”

He paused to pull a small, silver-handled pocketknife out of his pocket. Frowning in concentration, he neatly cut off the tip of the cigar, then lit it with a match from a fancy glass holder and puffed the cigar into glowing life.

Witt kept his expression impassive.

“Ah!” Hancock tilted back in his chair. He blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, then smiled in satisfaction. “Nothing quite like a good cigar. Unless it’s a good woman, heh, sheriff?”

“Coal?” Witt prompted. He didn’t like men who made leering references to women, either.

“Ah, yes. Coal.” Hancock took another deep drag. “Coal’s going to be around for a while, Sheriff. You can take my word on that. A long while. The faster the state grows, the more we’re going to need it. It’s not very glamorous, of course. Not like gold or silver. But, oh! the things you can do with it!”

Behind his big cigar, he smiled, and his eyes glittered. Watching him, Witt was reminded of a hungry wolf he’d once faced, years ago.

Hancock lowered the cigar to study him. “Ever thought about it, Sheriff? All the things you can do with coal?”

Witt shook his head. He’d never been much of a talker, but Hancock didn’t want a response. He wanted somebody to talk at, somebody to show off for.

“Railroads, Sheriff! Think of ’em! And that big steel mill down in Pueblo. And the electric plants going up around the state. There’s not much of that yet, but someday electricity will be for more than just a factory here and there, you mark my words. And our homes! Where would we be without coal to heat our homes and cook our meals, eh, Sheriff? People might give up buying gold and silver, but they still have to eat and keep warm, don’t they?”

Hancock punctuated his remarks by stabbing at the air with the glowing tip of his cigar. With the last point, he glanced down at that bit of fire in his hands, and smiled, a small, secret smile just for himself. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep draw, held it, then pursed his lips and slowly exhaled.

“Yes sir, Sheriff, coal’s going to be around for a while, and that means Elk City’s going to be there, too. Growing, expanding, getting richer every day, by God!”

“And you want to make sure someone’s here to keep those riches safe for you.” The dryness in Witt’s voice wiped the smile off the banker’s face.

“That’s right.” His eyes glittered coldly. “Not that there’s much to worry about in the way of trouble around here. A few drunks on payday, a quarrel between a shopkeeper and a customer every now and then. That’s about it. We’d like you to keep it that way.”

Witt gave a small, noncommittal grunt. It’s because of Clara, he told himself. I’m thinking of that smooth-talking fancy man she fell in love with. It has nothing to do with Hancock. Nothing.

“Paydays for the mine,” he said, remembering Dickie Calhan’s tale. “Gotta be a lot of money coming in for those payrolls.”

“True.” Hancock smiled in wolfish satisfaction. “A very great deal of money, and we take good care to keep it safe, I can assure you. Only a few people know what train the money’s coming in on. Even some of the railroad and bank people aren’t informed. That way, there’s less chance of the train being stopped and robbed. No sense in stopping a train when all you might get is a few wallets and women’s purses for your troubles.”

Witt remained silent, waiting.

“This bank is solid, too, of course. You saw. Solid brick, bars on the windows, and the best safe money can buy. The mines, of course, have their own guards for when the money is actually being paid out.”

“Are you the only bank that handles the payrolls?”

Hancock shook his head, took another drag, blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “No, but we handle the majority. All the big mines, certainly.”

“And you’ve never had an attempt on the bank or the payroll?” Witt persisted.

“No, I told you. Nothing like that.” Hancock was growing irritated. “Watch the saloons. A few of the men get drunk and rowdy, but that’s as far as it goes. We’ve never had more of a problem than that. But if we do…” He stared at Witt across the desk, his eyes hard and unblinking. “If we do, then you’ve proven you’re the man for the job. That’s why we hired you, you know. Because you proved you knew how to deal with real problems.”

A chill swept down Witt’s spine. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come now, Sheriff. There’s no need to play the silent hero here, between the two of us. Frankly, that little incident with those two bank robbers over in Abilene is what convinced us to hire you. Convinced me, anyway. I had to do some arguing to talk some of the other council members into the idea. They weren’t sure they liked the idea of a gunfighter serving as our sheriff.”

“I’m not a gunfighter.”

Hancock looked skeptical. “You’re not trying to tell me you didn’t kill those two, are you? We checked into that incident pretty thoroughly, and—”

“No, I’m not going to say I didn’t kill those men. I did. But I’m not a gunfighter.” After five years, he still found himself sweating, just thinking of it.

“But you faced them down, right there in the street, didn’t you?”

“It happened outside the bank, yes. They—”

He stopped. He didn’t owe this man an explanation, but he should have known the minute that little Dickie Calhan asked him if he was a gunman that he would have to face it. Like divorce, the fact that he’d killed two men—two boys, dammit—wasn’t the sort of thing people forgot.

“I’m not a gunfighter.” He shoved to his feet. “If that’s what you and the town want, Hancock, hire someone else.”

“No, no. Sheriff!” Hancock was on his feet, hands raised, palms out, the still smoking cigar between his fingers. He smiled. “Please. Forgive me if I’ve offended you. My choice of words was…ill-considered.”

Witt’s hands twitched with the urge to punch that handsome face.

“I’d best get going.” He bent to retrieve his hat.

Hancock deliberately set the cigar on the rim of a massive polished stone ashtray. “You know about the council meeting tonight?”

“Six o’clock.”

“In the town hall. You know where that is?”

It wasn’t because of Clara. “I’ll find it.”

“Good. Good.” Hancock came around the desk. “I’ll see you there, then.”

Witt gave a curt nod of acknowledgment. He didn’t trust his tongue for more.

The instant they stepped out of the office, the clerk looked up, face squinched in disapproval. “Mr. Hancock? There’s Mr. Dermott here to see you.” His face pinched a little tighter. “And Mrs. Thompson.”

“Mrs. Thompson.” Hancock turned pale. “What—”

A thin, stooped little woman popped up from one of the chairs set near the office railing. “My accounts, Mr. Hancock! I want to speak to you about my accounts!”

“Mr. Dermott was here before you, Mrs. Thompson,” said the clerk, peering at her disapprovingly from over the rims of his glasses.

A stout, middle-aged gentleman occupying the chair farthest from Mrs. Thompson’s waved his hands to indicate he’d rather wait than be dragged into the discussion. Both the combatants ignored him.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your accounts,” the clerk insisted. “I reviewed them myself, just last week. Accurate to the penny and so I told you.”

The woman sniffed. “As if that makes me feel one whit better, Hiram Goff! You’re so tight your shoes pinch, but that doesn’t mean you’ve the wits God gave a goldfish or you would know a two from a twenty at the back end of the day.”

Gordon Hancock’s smile was getting a little forced around the edges. He cleared his throat. “I’m sure if Mr. Goff says your accounts are accurate, there’s no need for you to worry, Mrs. Thompson. In fact, now we have Sheriff Gavin on the job, you can stop worrying about anything.”

She looked Witt up and down. “So you’re our new sheriff.”

The corner of Witt’s mouth twitched. He could make two of her, with some left over, but that didn’t bother her in the least. He’d seen banty roosters that weren’t half as feisty. “Yes.”

“Sheriff Gavin—” Hancock began.

“Can speak for himself, I shouldn’t wonder,” the old lady snapped. She leaned closer. For a moment, Witt had the feeling she was going to poke him, as if he were a smoked ham and she was judging the balance of meat to bone.

“Well?” she demanded. “You can speak for yourself, can’t you?”

Witt stifled the grin that threatened. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

He nodded.

“Huh!” she said, and skewered Gordon Hancock with her stare. “Hired yourself a fool for a sheriff, did you? Trust the mayor for it. Isn’t a thing in the world that Josiah Andersen can’t foul up, including hiring a sheriff.”

“Mr. Dermott…” Hancock began, a little desperately.

“Though if it’s a choice between a fool and Zacharius Trainer, I’d rather have the fool. At least there’s a bit more of this fellow than that old windbag, Zacharius.”

“Mr. Dermott,” said Hiram Goff with a pinched little frown, “has left.”

Witt clapped his hat on his head and sidled toward the railing gate. “Ma’am.” He glanced back at Hancock. “Six o’clock.”

“I’ll just see you out.” Hancock darn near trod on his heels following him out to the boardwalk in front. “Good of you to drop by, Sheriff. I’m glad we had this little chat, just the two of us.”

Witt gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Not real talkative, are you, Gavin? But that’s all right. We hired you because you’re a man of action. Proved that in Abilene.” Hancock beamed, then clapped him on the shoulder as if they were old friends. “You do the right thing at the right time, we won’t care how few words you use to tell us about it. Guaranteed!”

From the shadowed safety behind her storefront windows, Molly watched Gordon Hancock escort the new sheriff out of the bank. Hancock was a handsome fellow and by far the best-dressed man in town, but it wasn’t Hancock she was watching.

From the looks of it, DeWitt Gavin didn’t have much more to say to the bank president than he’d had to say to her. That made her feel a little better. Not a lot, but a little. For a few minutes there, she’d been fool enough to think he’d been rather more dangerously aware of her as a woman than most of her customers ever were.

She watched as Hancock slapped the sheriff on the back, just as if they were good friends and had known each other for years. The sheriff’s expression was so impassive, she couldn’t tell what he thought. When he stepped off the boardwalk and started up the streets, she shifted to get a better view.

Despite his size, he moved with a deceptively lazy ease that got him from one place to another quicker than it seemed. Scarcely a minute had passed since he’d stepped out of the bank before he disappeared through the post office door.

Just as well, she told herself, regretfully abandoning the window. She had better things to do than get interested in a man. Any man, let alone one with nothing more to his name, it seemed, than a saddle and a rifle and a bedroll. A woman her age with two children to worry about should have better sense than that.

But still she couldn’t help pausing in front of the tall, narrow mirror she’d mounted on the outside of one of the storage cabinets for the convenience of her customers.

The sight was enough to make a grown woman cry. If this was how she’d looked when Sheriff Gavin had walked into the store, it was no wonder the man had had a hard time looking her in the face, then run as soon as he could.

Blushing, she hastily tucked up the tendrils that had escaped her bun, scrubbed the pencil smudge from her cheek, and tugged her shirtwaist into place. And then she sternly turned away to finish the task of putting up the rest of the notions and yard goods.

No matter what the town gossips might say behind her back, she was doing just fine without a man in her life. Richard had been a good husband and a kind lover, but he was dead and the dreams they’d shared and the children they’d had were her responsibility now, and hers alone. So far, she’d done all right by both the dreams and the children, but there were times…

Molly sighed, remembering the brief feel of her hand in Sheriff Gavin’s, the comfortable, solid, eminently masculine bulk of him.

Sometimes it was awfully hard to be a widow when she was still young enough to hunger for the pleasures of the marriage bed. The prospect of years of cold sponge baths in the middle of the night was too grim a possibility even to consider.

Chapter Three

As the broad double doors of Jackson’s saloon swung closed behind the last of their party, Witt surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. Almost nine. He sighed and snapped the case shut.

That six o’clock meeting in the town hall had lasted just long enough for a brief swearing-in and handshakes all around before they’d adjourned to the Grand Hotel’s private dining room—at the taxpayers’ expense, no doubt—for dinner and drinks and a sometimes heated political debate.

Three hours later, their political differences temporarily discarded under the mellowing influence of the Grand’s best whisky, the council had adjourned again, this time to the livelier environs of Jackson’s saloon.

Only Hancock had bowed out, saying something about a widow and the attentions due her that had roused good-natured laughter from the other council members and a strong urge on Witt’s part to flatten the man’s pretty nose. It was none of his business to wonder who the widow might be, but Witt found himself hoping it wasn’t Mrs. Calhan.

Mayor Andersen clapped him on the shoulder, driving out the thought of the woman and her smile and the tempting way those stray locks of hair had drifted against her cheek and throat.

“Move on in, man, move on in! Can’t stand in the doorway blockin’ traffic, you know!”

Witt slipped his watch into his vest pocket and stepped to the side, out of the way. Bert Potter swayed after him.

“Good place, Jackson’s,” he said with only a faint slurring of his sibilants. He cast a slightly bleary gaze over the room. “M’wife hates it. Won’t speak to me for a week after I’ve been in.”

“That so?” said Witt.

“Yup.” Bert looked around in satisfaction. “I try’n come once a month, at least.”

As Elk City’s only pharmacist, Bert had inquired right off into the general condition of Witt’s stomach, bowels and liver. The assurance that all Witt’s organs were in good working order and in no need of a revivifying tonic had been met with a resigned sigh. Since then, the man had been industriously trying to pickle his.

As the mayor stalked to the bar to order a bottle of whiskey and some glasses, Billie Jenkins, proprietor of Jenkins Hardware and one of Elk City’s leading businessmen, sidled closer.

“Don’t tell my wife about this, will you?” he said in what he no doubt thought was a low voice. He hiccuped solemnly. “She thinks I’m at a council meeting.”

Bert frowned. “Hell, Billie. If she don’t know what you’re up to by now, I’ll eat my boots.”

“Damn good thing there ain’t a chance in hell of that, Bert,” a man at a nearby table jeered good-naturedly. A rancher from the looks of him, rather than a miner. “Them’s the damned ugliest boots I’ve ever seen.”

“Savin’ yer own, Tony!” his victim returned. “And mine ain’t caked with that peculiarly odiferous stuff that’s adornin’ yours!”

Tony laughed and rose to his feet, gesturing to the empty chairs at the opposite side of his table. “Pull up a chair and join us.”

He eyed Witt, grinned, and stuck out his hand. “Judgin’ from the size of you, you’d be the new sheriff. Heard you were in Jackson’s last night. Zacharius Trainer must be some put out.”

Witt took Tony’s proffered hand. Before he could ask who Zacharius Trainer was and why he should be some put out, Josiah Andersen returned, loaded with glasses and a bottle.

“Don’t let Trainer worry you, Gavin,” he advised. “He don’t mind we didn’t elect him sheriff. It’s the missus Trainer you gotta look out for, not ol’ Zach. She’s twice as mean as he is, and carries a grudge, besides.”

Laughter swept the table. While Josiah passed the glasses round, Witt studied the room around him. Last night had been a workday night and the place had been relatively quite. Tonight, however, was Friday and the place was crowded.

According to the mayor, there wasn’t much else in the way of entertainment in Elk City except two smaller, less popular saloons at the opposite end of town and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s reading room. And that, thank God, Josiah had said, was closed of a Friday evening.

Though there were a few women scattered here and there through the crowd, none of them had the look of trouble. They were with their men and it didn’t take much looking to realize that an invisible and unmistakable hands-off sign had been posted on every one of them.

The men in Jackson’s didn’t seem to mind. The ones who wanted a woman had already taken the last train into Gunnison, twenty miles away. According to Josiah, who’d said his wife would have a stick to him if she ever found out he’d dare think such a thing, Elk City’s one lack was a good whorehouse.

The respectable ladies of the town had long since forced the closure of the two brothels that had provided the early miners’ entertainment. Josiah admitted the establishments had never been all that impressive, but they’d been Elk City’s own, and he missed them.

There were still a couple of women who entertained visitors privately, though, and the mayor had taken pains to tell Witt exactly who they were and where they worked. He hadn’t come right out and said it, but Witt had the feeling it would be as much as his job was worth to drive the last of those enterprising females out of Elk City. So long as they minded their business and didn’t disturb the peace, he didn’t have any intention of trying.

A checkers game in the corner had drawn a few onlookers, all of whom were more than willing to tell the players what they ought to have done and to argue over the differing strategies. In the opposite corner, a burly miner sat picking out a song on a battered, out-of-tune piano that didn’t look as if it had ever had much in the way of better days.

The pianist’s friends were urging him to play something else, anything else but that same, damned “Clementine” with which he’d been assaulting them for hours. Impervious to their pleas, he simply played louder. He couldn’t possibly have played worse.

The air reeked of cheap whiskey and cheaper cigars, and the language coming from a couple of the patrons would have gotten the ladies of the church going something fierce. A freckle-faced boy kept busy moving the spittoons and cleaning up the spills, and so far as Witt could see, there wasn’t anything other than the foul language that a boy his age shouldn’t be seeing or hearing.

Friday night at Jackson’s was remarkably peaceful. Provided the checker players didn’t turn violent from a surfeit of advice, Witt decided he could stop worrying about trouble. If this was the wildest Elk City had to offer, his tenure as sheriff was going to be a mighty peaceful one.

He settled comfortably back in his chair while a dozen threads of conversation swirled around him. Beneath the noise, he caught the faint rustle of the paper bag of chocolates in his shirt pocket as he shifted.

He stilled, but not soon enough to stop the sudden itch in his palms, and the bigger itch a little lower down.

Maybe not so peaceful, after all.

The Elk City Ladies’ Society biweekly meeting was in full swing. The group, which was presently engaged in making quilts for a church-sponsored orphanage in Chicago or New York—there was some disagreement about which, though they were all agreed it would be one or the other of those licentious hellholes back East—had assembled in Elizabeth Andersen’s parlor for this week’s session.

“The new sheriff’s been busy,” Coreyanne Campbell said approvingly. She finished pinning the fabric she was piecing and reached for the spool of thread on the table in front of her. “Already been to half the stores in town, introducing himself around. My Sam ran into him coming out of Potter’s Pharmacy this afternoon. Had a nice talk, the two of them, or so Sam said.”

Everyone tactfully refrained from mentioning that Sam and the sheriff already had a basis for friendship since the two of them had spent the previous evening drinking in Jackson’s saloon.

“Heard he visited you first, Molly,” Emmy Lou Trainer commented. Above the gold-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of her nose, her eyes narrowed. “That true?”

“He visited me,” Molly replied noncommittally. “I have no idea if I was the first, but he did stop by.”

After he’d left the bank, she’d watched him work his way from store to store down the street. Which was sheer foolishness, and probably due to her having been so tired and suffering from the headache generated by that morning’s free-for-all. At least, that’s what she’d told herself when she’d caught herself staring out the window for the dozenth time that afternoon, waiting for him to reappear. Simple curiosity. It had nothing to do with the cut of his jaw or the breadth of his shoulders or the way he’d looked, savoring that chocolate.

Becky Goodnight, whose husband ran the smallest and least profitable general store in town, reached for the scissors that lay on the table beside her. “My George wasn’t impressed. The man didn’t have much of anything to say for himself, or so George said.”

Emmy Lou’s mouth pinched into a frown. “He’s certainly big enough. MayBeth Johnson said the floor shook with every step he took.”

“It would, as rickety as the Johnsons’ old building is.” The snick of Becky’s scissors seemed viciously loud.

Molly winced. George Goodnight had been spending most of the small profits from their store on a fancy woman down in Gunnison lately, so Becky was awfully touchy these days. It was easier to take her resentments out on her flourishing competitors than to admit that her husband wasn’t much good as a storekeeper, and an utter failure as a husband and father.

Sometimes, when she started thinking about remarrying, Molly remembered George, gave a little prayer of thanks for the good years she’d had with Richard and made herself think about something else entirely.

Nineteen-year-old Louisa Merton sighed, oblivious to Becky’s problems. “I was in the Johnsons’ store when he came in. I swear, I was never so disappointed in all my life! He looked so…old. He wasn’t at all handsome and he didn’t say two words when MayBeth introduced us.”

Old? thought Molly. She frowned down at the pieces of the wedding ring quilt in her lap. DeWitt Gavin wasn’t old. And only a mooney young girl like Louisa would think he wasn’t good-looking.

“And on top of it all, he’s divorced,” Louisa added, heaving another, deeper sigh. “At least Mr. Hancock’s always been a bachelor.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone chasing him!” Emmy Lou protested, clearly shocked.

“Wouldn’t have done me any good if I had. The only lady he ever looks at is Molly, and she’s always turning him down.”

“Really?”

All eyes turned on Molly.

Molly bristled under their stares, but managed to say evenly, “Louisa is mistaken. Mr. Hancock has not come courting me and never will.”

Which was the truth. Though he’d never been so crass as to say so outright, Gordon Hancock was interested in gaining her bed, not her heart.

“But he asked you out to dinner at the Grand, Molly. I heard him,” Louisa insisted.

“A business discussion,” she lied.

“Gordon Hancock never invited my Zacharius to dinner for a business discussion,” Emmy Lou observed tartly.

“Probably because he couldn’t afford the bill for the drinks,” said Thelma Thompson.

Thelma didn’t do much quilting—too expensive for a poor widow woman she often said—but that didn’t stop her from showing up at the meetings. Especially when they were being held at Elizabeth’s house. Elizabeth’s cook made the best sweet biscuits in town, though it wasn’t the quality so much as the quantity and the fact that they were free that was the main attraction for Thelma.

Elizabeth hastily passed the widow another plate of biscuits. “Well, I’m sure even a dedicated banker like Mr. Hancock likes to get out once in awhile.”

“Then why doesn’t he ask me?” Louisa demanded.

“Chit your age?” Thelma said, clearing the plate. “Why ever for?”

“At this rate, I’ll never find anyone to marry,” Louisa wailed. “Never!”

“I’m sure you’ll find somebody eventually, dear,” said Elizabeth. Before Louisa could demand to know just when that might happen, she added, “What I’d like to know is what the sheriff did for his wife to divorce him. He doesn’t seem the type to have a miss—” She glanced at Becky. “Be a troublemaker. He just doesn’t seem the type.”

She looked around the circle. “I don’t suppose anybody’s heard the details?”

“You’re married to the mayor.” Emmy Lou stabbed her needle into her quilting pieces as if it could have gone straight to the hearts of those who had deprived her husband of the position he deserved. “Seems to me you, of all of us, ought to know.”

Elizabeth stiffened. “You know I don’t interfere in Josiah’s business. Such things aren’t appropriate for a lady.”

“Huh!” said Thelma around a mouthful of sweet lemon biscuit. “I shay—”

“Watch the crumbs!” Without looking, Elizabeth slapped a napkin into Thelma’s hand. “Besides, I’m sure Josiah and all the members of the council investigated the matter thoroughly before they agreed to hire the man.”

“Doesn’t seem right, bringing in a man we don’t know anything about, a man with a scandal in his past when there was perfectly good candidates—” in the midst of battle, Emmy Lou’s carefully cultivated grammar tended to desert her “—for sheriff right here in Elk City. Why, if the town council had had a brain among ’em, they would have seen straight off that my Zacharius was—”

“Are you accusing my husband of not knowing what he’s doing?”

“Not only of not knowing, but of deliberately ignoring the good of Elk City just so he could—”

“But doesn’t anybody know what Sheriff Gavin did to make his wife divorce him?” Coreyanne persisted, more to stop the brewing quarrel between Emmy Lou and Elizabeth than because she really wanted to know.

The would-be combatants breathed out in angry little huffs, torn between their personal animosities and the attraction of a scandal.

“Most likely he was a womanizer,” said Emmy Lou with a challenging glance at her rival. Everyone in town knew Josiah Andersen had an eye for the ladies.

Elizabeth flushed. “Probably drank too much and beat her.”

Molly set her sewing in her lap. She’d only just met the man, but already she felt sorry for DeWitt Gavin. “Maybe it was her fault.”

Her calm statement got everyone’s attention.

“Her fault? Ridiculous!” snapped Emmy Lou. “He’d have divorced her, if that were the case. And Coreyanne said it was definitely she who divorced him. No decent woman would divorce her husband if she weren’t driven to it.”

“Maybe she wasn’t really a decent woman,” Molly insisted. “Maybe she had a…a lover and wanted to marry him, instead.”

“Or maybe she was really a criminal. A thief, perhaps or even a murderess!” Louisa Merton’s eyes were shining at the thought. “I read a book like that once, where she was really wicked, but the hero was really good and loved her anyway and he convinced her to repent and—”

“Nonsense!” snapped Thelma, Emmy Lou and Elizabeth, all at once.

“You read too many of those trashy romance novels,” Emmy Lou added quellingly, “and I’ve a good mind to tell your mother so.”

The light went out of Louisa’s eyes; her shoulders slumped.

“But even if it was his fault, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t make some other woman a good husband,” said Coreyanne, ever the peacemaker. “Maybe he’s settled down. Or maybe she drove him to it somehow. I’ll bet the right woman could keep him in line.”

Several heads around the room nodded in agreement. A couple turned Molly’s way, expressions alight with keen-eyed speculation.

“Sheriff Gavin seemed quite respectable when he stopped in my store,” Molly said, more sharply than she’d intended.

“Looks are one thing,” said Elizabeth Andersen primly. “Respectable’s quite another.”

“And you should know,” Thelma Thompson said.

One of the women at the far end of the room tittered.

“Respectable or not, he didn’t look so bad to me,” Coreyanne interjected quickly. She smiled dreamily, remembering. “Even if he is big enough to make two normal-size men. Those eyes, you know, and that deep voice, and that big, broad chest.”

Even Emmy Lou paused respectfully a moment, thinking of his chest. Thelma reached for the second plate of biscuits.

Molly remembered all too clearly how big Sheriff Gavin had seemed, standing there in the sunlit doorway, remembered how the floor had bounced beneath his weight. She knew the rumors about his past, yet what she’d thought about all afternoon was not his size or his disreputable past, but how strong and safe he’d seemed, and how gentle his voice had been, and how he’d looked, blushing. And though she’d tried to forget, she could remember, all too clearly, just how warm his hand had been when it had closed so securely around hers.

The memories had been playing havoc with her good sense all afternoon. If she wasn’t careful, they’d be wandering through her dreams, as well.

“Would anyone like more tea?” she said, picking up her cup.

Witt had rather liked the song, “Clementine.” He could have sat through it without a word of complaint three, or even four times running, if he’d had to.

After a half hour spent listening to it being played, over and over and over, and badly at that, he was debating whether to shoot the piano or the piano player. Neither one would be considered a great loss, so far as he could tell, though the miners might miss the piano.

“He gets this way every now and then.”

“What? Who?” Witt wrenched his gaze from the burly piano player.

“Crazy Mike.” Fred hooked a thumb in the piano player’s direction. “He gets this way every now and then. Decent sort when he’s sober, and the best miner in five counties, but he’s got a temper like a sore-footed mule when he’s drunk and a kick to match when he starts throwing those fists around.”

“Does he get drunk often?”

“Couple times a year, maybe. Maybe three.”

“It’s the melancholy, shee,” said Billie Jenkins, leaning across the table confidingly. He was having a hard time keeping his head up. Jackson’s whiskey wasn’t half the quality of the Grand’s, but it was a whole lot cheaper, and Billie had been enthusiastically saving money ever since he’d walked in the door.

“Ol’ Mike, he had a girl, onct,” he added by way of explanation. “Pretty girl. He was gonna marry her.”

Fred grinned. “Named Clementine, if you haven’t figured it out.”

“She left ’im.” Billie pooched out his lips in drunken frown. “Broke his heart, poor bashtard.”

“Women’ll do that to you,” said Bert Potter, blinking and nodding sagely over his half-filled glass. “Every time, women’ll do that to you.”

“Only if you’re damn fool enough to get hitched to ’em,” said Josiah Andersen heartily. He winked at Witt. “Or if you can’t get rid of ’em once you do.”

Witt’s jaw tightened. He shoved his chair back.

He’d shoot himself before he’d sit through another round of that damned song, and he wasn’t about to try pushing his authority to convince the miner to stop.

“You’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. “Work to do.”

Whatever objections his companions might have made were cut short by a furious bellow from the direction of the piano.

“Gol durn it! Don’t you go tellin’ me what t’play!

”Crazy Mike surged to his feet like an angry buffalo, all snorts and dangerous, threatening bulk. The crash of his chair falling echoed loudly in the sudden silence.

One of his companions gave him a queasy grin. “Ah, now, Mike, you know we didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Mike glared at the cringing men in front of him. “You told me t’quit playin’.”

“Didn’t tell yuh t’quit! Just t’play somethin’ differnt.”

Mike advanced a step. The miners retreated two.

“You din’t like my song.”

“Not t’say we didn’t like it,” said one of his hapless friends.

“‘Clementine’s’ a fine song, Mike, just fine,” the other hastily assured him. “But dammit! You been playin’ it fer God knows how long an’—”

“Don’t cuss!” Mike roared. “You know I don’t approve uv cussin’!”

Three steps in retreat. “Sure, Mike. Sorry about that. Din’t mean t’—That is—”

“Ah, hell,” said the man beside Witt. “That’ll about do it for tonight, I’m thinking.”

The patrons nearest the door abandoned their drinks without a backward glance and escaped into the night. The freckle-faced boy, who’d been collecting empty glasses at another table, slowly set the ones he held back down, then sidled closer, eager for a better view.

The sharp crack of a pistol made even Witt jump. Crazy Mike wasn’t wearing a gun belt—most men didn’t even own a gun—so he must have carried it shoved in the waistband of his pants. Right now the weapon was pointing at the floor, which had a new hole in it and a number of fresh wood chips scattered across the surface.

Witt quietly got to his feet.

“Ain’t nobody tellin’ me what to play,” Crazy Mike insisted, swinging around to confront the saloon’s wary patrons.

“Put the gun down.” Witt didn’t raise his voice, but in the silence, his words carried clearly.

The miner’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who’re you?”

“I’m the new sheriff, and I’d appreciate it if you’d put the gun down.”

Mike grunted. “Make me.”

Witt studied him for a moment, then slowly unbuckled his own gun belt. He set it on the table, much to the consternation of his drinking companions, then held up his hands, palms out.

“Put the gun down, Mike.”

Mike shot a hole through the painted tin ceiling.

“Watch the damned chandelier!” warned the outraged proprietor.

This time, Mike deliberately aimed at that battered brass fixture. His shot sent bits of paint flying from a new hole in the ceiling a good four feet to the right of the first.

“God dammit!” Jackson roared.

Mike swung toward him, the gun wobbling in his unsteady hand. “Don’t cuss. Ain’t right t’cuss.”

A warning gesture from Witt stopped Jackson from fishing beneath the bar for the gun that was undoubtedly hidden there.

“Sure, Mike. Sorry,” Jackson said through gritted teeth.

“Whyn’t you come back and play fer us, Mike?” one of the miner’s friends suggested.

Mike shot the piano. Twice.

He would have shot it again, but he was out of bullets.

Moving slowly, with both hands up where Crazy Mike could see them, Witt worked his way toward the angry miner. The crowd happily moved out of his way. No one offered to help.

For that small favor, Witt was devoutly grateful. He’d dealt with enough Crazy Mike’s over the years to know that “help” of that nature only made things worse. To men like Mike, one man coming after them was a joke.

Half a dozen eager citizens was a threat that provoked more violence and got a lot of people hurt.

And it would take half a dozen normal-size men to stop someone as big as Mike.

He hadn’t met many men even as big as he was, but Witt was willing to bet Mike topped him by a good two inches or so and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. The man had arms that looked like tree trunks and fists the size of a nine-pound sledgehammer.

Five feet from the miner, Witt stopped.

“Nice night out, Mike,” he said conversationally. “Let’s you and me go for a walk, shall we?”

Crazy Mike tossed aside the useless gun and came at him like a bear, roaring with rage, shoulders hunched, eyes glittering with the light of battle.

Witt sidestepped, then punched him in the gut as he passed. Hard.

The miner’s roar died in a choking grunt as he doubled over, clutching his middle. He staggered, tried to straighten.

Witt hit him again.

Crazy Mike sagged, then slowly toppled onto the floor, face first. The floor shook when he landed.

Witt could hear the crunch as Mike’s nose smashed into the wood. He winced and ruefully rubbed his knuckles. The damn fool was so drunk, he didn’t have the sense to roll.

Silence held Jackson’s saloon in a grip of iron.

One of Mike’s friends stepped forward, fists half raised in the wary, defiant stance of a man who felt obligated to defend his friend but wasn’t all that happy about it. Witt looked at him, raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry. The fellow wavered for a moment, then lowered his fists and sheepishly slunk back into the crowd.

Witt scanned the rest of the gaping patrons. “A couple of you gentlemen want to help me get him to the jail?”

“You’re gonna put Crazy Mike in jail?”

“Well, I’ll be a—”

“Damn straight he’s going to put Mike in jail,” said the mayor, pushing through the crowd. “It’s about time Mike realized he can’t go around doing as he damn well pleases.”

“You might want to watch your language,” Witt advised, suppressing a grin. “The gentleman clearly objects to vulgarities.”

The gentleman in question groaned and tried to shove to his knees. Witt reached to help him up. Mike’s head bobbled. He stared at the proffered hand for a moment, bleary-eyed, his mouth working like a dying fish’s. In the end, drink and the effects of a broken nose won out. He glared, grunted, then his eyes rolled up in his head as he quietly slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

Chapter Four

It was nearing ten when Molly called good-night to the last of her friends. This late, most of the town had settled peaceably behind their doors. Lamps shone through windows, but here and there the houses were dark, their inhabitants long since tucked into bed.

A few people strolled past her—a man alone, head down and hurrying home; two men laughing; a couple, arms entwined, oblivious to anything outside their world of two.

The sight of them only reinforced her sense of isolation.

Four years. That’s how long she’d been a widow.

Sometimes, especially whenever she glanced at the photograph of Richard that hung in her small parlor, it seemed like only yesterday that he’d gone out to work and never come back. There were still times, usually when she was tired and her thoughts had wandered, when she would hear a sound and look up, expecting to see him walk in the door. And sometimes, in the night, she’d turn in her sleep and reach for him, wanting his warmth and his strength, needing to feel his lean, angular body curled around her, shielding her from the world outside their door.

There were even times when she was wide-awake, without the distraction of wandering thoughts or a weary body, when she would find herself physically aching for his touch and the glory of what they’d shared in bed.

Especially what they’d shared in bed.

She had never been one of those simpering misses who blushed at the mere thought of kissing a man, but she knew, now, that she had been fortunate in her choice of husband, for Richard had been kind and more than willing to teach her the secrets of what was possible between a man and a woman who loved each other. She’d never asked him where he’d learned his secrets, and he had never told her. She’d never thought it mattered, for once he’d married her, he had given everything to her—his heart and soul; his dreams. Eventually, even his life.

It was his dying that made her angry. He had gone into the mines because he wanted to earn more money to pay off the debt they’d incurred to start the store and a little extra to put aside for the future. Richard had always been impatient, eager to move ahead, and he’d seen the mines as the fastest way to get what he’d wanted. They’d quarreled about it horribly.

She regretted the quarrels. She regretted even more that, in the end, she’d been proven right.

Immediately after Richard’s death, when creditors were pressing her to close the store and sell off the inventory, she’d spent long, sleepless nights scheming how to save Richard’s dream and her children’s future.

Calhan’s would be different from all the other dry goods stores, she’d decided. Better. Bigger, someday, when she could manage it.

Richard hadn’t been buried a week before she began changing things. At first, the changes were more for distraction from her grief than for the work itself. Eventually, however, the new ways had taken on a life of their own, challenging her and helping to make the long hours and sometimes exhausting routine more bearable.

She’d started with a few eye-catching displays on the counters and tabletops. Gradually, as her confidence in herself and her ideas had grown, she’d ordered more merchandise that her competitors didn’t carry and tried more adventurous approaches to displaying what she had.

The man mannequin had been the talk of the town. People had wandered in just to have a look at the thing, and often as not they’d wandered out again with something else they hadn’t planned on buying. She’d paid for it in three months with the profits from the extra sales.

What she had realized, and none of her male competitors had yet understood, was that women were the ones who controlled the money in most households, not the men.

Oh, men were quick enough to buy tools and hardware and an occasional pouch of tobacco—they were, she’d found, particularly fond of fancy patent tools—but they were generally happy to pass responsibility for everything else to their wives. Women bought the family’s food and shoes, chose their clothes or the cloth to make them, and decided which medicines and tonics to stock to keep them well. It was the women who selected the furniture and decorated the home, then bought all the supplies to keep that home swept and polished and functioning as it ought.

It was an insight that had changed her life because once a woman was in her store, Molly knew how to hold her attention long enough to tempt her to open her pocketbook.

She hadn’t looked back since.

Sometimes she thought she didn’t dare. Though four years of hard work had paid off the debts and allowed her to put a little money aside, she couldn’t help worrying about the future. She still needed an occasional loan to finance her expansion. Was, in fact, considering her largest loan yet for a move that would increase the size of Calhan’s by half again. But what if the state was hit with another panic like the one in ’93, when the price of silver plummeted and nobody had any money for anything, even sometimes the essentials? What if the coal ran out and the mines had to close? What if something happened to her?

What if, what if, what if. There were so many things that could go wrong and so little she could do to stop them if they did. And, oh! how much easier it would be if only there was someone to share the worries and responsibilities with her, someone on whom she could depend, no matter what.

Molly drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, shivering a little in the cool night air. She didn’t usually waste time thinking about such things, but tonight, somehow, she couldn’t stop.

When she reached Main Street, rather than crossing it as she usually did, then walking down Elm Street to get home, she turned to the right. She’d pass the store on the way.

And the jail, a small voice inside her said.

She stifled the voice and kept walking.

This time of night, even Main Street was quiet, the buildings dark except at either end of the street where Elk City’s three saloons were lighted and open for business.

A burst of masculine laughter coming from somewhere ahead of her made her stop. When the jail door opened, spilling the faint light of an oil lamp across the walk, she muttered a word she would have washed Dickie’s mouth out for using and shrank into the shadowed doorway of Dincler’s Barbershop.

A moment later, half a dozen men stepped out, laughing and joking among themselves. They clumped off the boardwalk and into the street, clustered like reluctant partygoers leaving the fun.

“You take good care of your guest, now, Sheriff, you hear?” one of the men called.

“Don’t let his snoring keep you up!”

The attempt at humor brought more laughter from the men, but not a word from the sheriff. He stood, a silent presence in the faint wash of lamplight, watching them, neither friendly nor distant. Simply…there.

The laughter died. A couple of the men shuffled their feet.

“You did good, Gavin,” someone said at last. “Just want you to know that. You did good.”

The others murmured agreement. They would, she knew, have been more comfortable if the sheriff had laughed or joked right back at them, or made one of those vulgar comments men were prone to when they thought ladies weren’t present.

One among them broke the spell by clapping a companion on the back.

“Come on, boys. The night’s still young. Wouldn’t want to upset the missus by comin’ home too soon, now, would we?”

To Molly’s relief, they headed away from her, down toward the other end of town and the two saloons whose lights shone in the distance. She hadn’t worried that any of them would bother her if they did discover her huddling in the shadows, but men were as gossipy as women, no matter how much they denied it. The last thing she needed was word going round that she’d been hiding in the shadows outside the jail at an hour when a sensible woman would have been home and in bed.

To her dismay, the sheriff lingered in the open doorway.

He propped his shoulder against the frame, crossed his arms over his chest, and tilted his head to stare at the star-swept sky. The light behind him outlined the broad shoulders, deep chest and long, powerful legs, but left his face in shadow.

Why didn’t he just go in?

Why didn’t she just walk past? a mocking little voice inside her head demanded. A polite nod, a friendly greeting. Good evening, maybe. Or maybe just, Sheriff. And he’d say, Ma’am, or, Evening, and that would be it.

And if he did say something, she’d just explain that she’d been startled by the men suddenly emerging onto the street, which would be true. He’d nod, and maybe he’d apologize for having startled her, and then she’d say she had to get home, and he’d say, Of course, and maybe, Good night, and then maybe he’d go in and shut the door and forget all about it. Forget all about her.

Her stomach twisted, just at the thought.

Molly peeped out of her hiding place. The man hadn’t moved an inch.

He made a compelling figure standing there, his big, powerful body cast half in golden lamplight, half in shadow. She still couldn’t see his face, but she remembered with disconcerting clarity the strong lines of cheek and jaw, the piercing clarity of those blue-gray eyes that seemed to take in everything at a glance.

From the look of him, he might have been a thousand miles away.

Was he thinking of his wife? she wondered. Or of another woman, perhaps? A woman he’d loved so much that his wife had chosen to divorce him rather than live with the constant reminder that he had set another before her?

It had to have been another woman. She’d scarcely met the man, but she couldn’t imagine anything else he might have done that would have driven a woman to the scandal of divorcing him.

Yet if he’d loved another, why hadn’t he remarried the instant he was free of his first marriage?

Whatever it was that haunted him, he evidently found no solace in those cold, distant stars for he straightened suddenly and, without a glance to either side, turned and stepped into the building. An instant later, the door clapped shut behind him, throwing the street back into darkness.

Molly sank into her own shadows, heart pounding, fighting against a sudden urge to knock on the door and ask if she could help, if there weren’t something she could do to fill his yearning silence.

The thought was utter madness.

She forced herself to wait a minute, then two, to be sure he wouldn’t return. When she could stand the wait no longer, she tugged her shawl more closely about her and hurried across the street, turned toward home and walked as fast as her feet could carry her.

Witt picked up the oil lamp he’d left on his desk and carried it back to the single, windowless cell that served as Elk City’s jail. His first guest was a great deal too large for the lumpy, metal-framed bed. Crazy Mike’s big feet, still clad in their heavy miner’s boots—no one had been the least inclined to make him more comfortable by removing them—stuck out over the end by a good eight inches. His head was propped at the other end with only the single thin pillow to cushion the steel frame.

He looked like hell, but his broken nose had stopped bleeding long ago. One of his friends, an unprepossessing gentleman rejoicing in the name of Gimpy Joe, had washed off the worst of the blood, but that was as far as anyone had been willing to go.

Mike hadn’t roused to any of it. Having at last yielded to the influence of all the whiskey he’d consumed at Jackson’s, he’d gone from a faint to a dead sleep from which the angels would have a hard time rousing him before he’d slept it off.

Witt made sure the cell’s chamber pot was within Mike’s reach if he did wake up, checked the lock on the cell door one last time, then retreated to his own small room beside the cell. The only real differences between the two spaces were that the walls of his room were painted wood, not raw metal bars, and he had a window and a door that wasn’t anywhere near thick enough to shut out the sound of Mike’s snoring.

Eventually, he’d have to find a proper place to live, but for right now, this would serve. So long as he didn’t end up with too many guests like Crazy Mike, that is.

Slowly, he undressed. Hat, vest, gun belt he hung from nails driven into the wall beside the bed. His boots, side by side, claimed the floor at the foot. With every movement, the soft rustle of the paper bag in his shirt pocket reminded him that there were other things in life besides barren rooms and drunken miners.

Slowly, he pulled the small bag of chocolates out, then set it on the rickety table beside his bed. In the lamplight, he could see the stains where the oil of the chocolate had seeped through the paper.

He’d already eaten three of them, and with every slight rustle of the paper, with ever sweet bite of the chocolate, he’d found himself thinking of Mrs. Calhan.

She’d laughed at him, there in the store. He’d felt it, even though she’d clearly taken pains to cover her amusement beneath that sweet, friendly smile of hers.

The thought made him droop. He did that to women, made them laugh. A big man like him, clumsy and hulking and likely as not to get his tongue tangled around every other word, at least when pretty women like Mrs. Calhan were around. He’d often wondered why Clara had married him, knowing how she liked everything around her to be just so. But, then, they’d grown up together and she hadn’t had much to choose from, so maybe he’d just been the best of a bad lot.

The thought never brought much comfort, but it was better than admitting she had used him until she had a better offer, then discarded him as easily as she’d have tossed out an old shoe.

Strange how he never felt a fool when he was with men. Not that he’d ever been what you could call talkative, but at least he didn’t mumble and stumble, and God forbid, turn red at every other word. Not when he was with men.

And not when he was around children, either. He liked children and he usually found, once they’d gotten over their dismay at his sheer size, that they liked him and were comfortable around him. Kids never expected much of a man except that he be a man. But a woman, now…

Witt frowned, then picked up the bag of chocolates, turning it in his hands, remembering.

Women like Clara—pretty, marriageable women—seemed to think a man should have a tongue that worked slick as silk and always had just the right words on the tip of it. His tongue had never worked that way and he didn’t expect it ever would.

He knew he’d made a fool of himself in Calhan’s this afternoon.

He’d been staring at Mrs. Calhan and thinking how smooth her skin looked, and how pretty her hair was—brown like a thrush’s wing, with a dozen colors all mixed in so subtly that you couldn’t really say it was brown, but you couldn’t say exactly what it was, either. Maybe if he saw it in the sun, free of that neat little twist she kept it in—

Witt bit his lower lip, cutting off the thought, and gently set the bag of chocolates back.

The thought of that drift of hair on her cheek and nape had plagued him something fierce. Even as he’d gone about his business, introducing himself to the businessfolk up and down Main Street and getting the lay of the land, he’d been thinking about those wayward strands of hair and how soft they’d feel, brushing against his fingers.

The thought of Gordon Hancock’s fingers sifting through her unbound hair had been enough to make him grind his teeth.

But there was no sense thinking thoughts like that. It wasn’t right, and all it would do would be to lead him into trouble.

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