“It’s . . . good of you, to t-take an interest in the poor orphan, of course,” Babcock stammered. Then, recovering his pulpit poise, he added sternly, “But that man is another matter. You must see that having Arly’s killer working here is hardly the thing. The whole town’s buzzing.”
The Hawk hadn’t even been here one day yet, and already the word had spread like wildfire, Kate thought wearily.
“Would you like to order him out, Reverend?” she asked, her tone deceptively mild.
“Yes, Reverend, would you?”
The little man gasped and whirled, paling when he saw The Hawk in the doorway, his left shoulder—calculatedly keeping his gun arm free, Kate supposed—propped against the doorjamb as if he had been there listening for some time.
She had to admit he was an intimidating sight. Tall, lean, and clad in solid black, the only break in the darkness of his clothing the smooth brown leather of the gunbelt strapped around his slim hips. The dark sleekness of his hair only added to the overall effect; it brushed over his shoulders, blending with the black of his shirt, and making the vivid color of his eyes even more of a shock.
“Was there something you wanted to take up with me?” Josh asked pleasantly.
Babcock went even paler, for once seemingly incapable of speech.
“That’s all right,” Josh said in an exaggeratedly soothing tone. “I’m sure you didn’t mean for me to leave before I . . . paid my debt.”
“Your . . . debt?” Babcock said, squeaking.
“I knew you’d understand, you being a preacher. Why, I’m sure you preach this very thing in your sermons, don’t you, Reverend? That a man should own up to his responsibilities? Pay his debts, especially those of honor?”
“Of . . . course,” Babcock said, sounding only slightly less squeaky as he eyed Josh warily.
“Then I’m sure you’ll pass the word that I’m merely doing my duty. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, I made Mrs. Dixon a widow. I’m sure you, and your congregation, will understand that I feel it’s my responsibility to help her until she’s on her feet again.”
He said it so smoothly, so convincingly, that Kate almost believed him herself. Just as his actions all day long almost had her believing him. He’d been prompt, polite, and productive, doing everything she asked, and a few things she hadn’t realized needed doing. He’d not complained at all about the cramped quarters of the storeroom, and when she’d brought him some leftover corn bread at noon, he ate it with manners better than she’d ever seen from Arly, and thanked her graciously rather than embarrassing her by pointing out that this wasn’t in their agreement.
In short, he acted exactly like a man might who felt genuinely sorry about having left her a widow. Like a man who felt guilty over what had been an instinctive act, committed to save his own life.
“You do understand that, don’t you, Reverend?” Josh said, his voice as smooth as a snake’s tooth, and about as deadly.
“I . . . of course. Of course. Only thing a man can do,” the reverend sputtered.
Josh moved out of the doorway, and the little man darted through it like a rat making its bolt-hole just ahead of the cat. Kate stifled a giggle, then nearly gasped at her own temerity; she barely recognized herself anymore in this irreverent woman she seemed to have become.
“That should keep him out of your way for a while,” Josh said as he pulled the door closed behind him and walked over to her.
“Yes,” she said, examining the next ribbon in her pile carefully, “thank you.”
She sensed rather than saw him shrug. “I figure cleaning out the no-accounts is part of my job.”
Her head came up sharply. “Reverend Babcock, a no-account?”
Josh grinned at her. She was almost getting used to it, this odd sensation that seized her whenever he did it.
“I don’t have much patience with folks who spend their life telling others how to live theirs.”
She couldn’t stop herself from smiling back at him. “He’s surely good at that,” she said.
When his grin broadened, and her heart seemed to lose track of its rhythm, she hastily turned her gaze back to her ribbons and resumed her sorting.
After a moment, because she couldn’t seem to stop this, either, she said with a sigh, “I doubt anyone ever told you how to live your life.”
“If they did, it clearly didn’t take.”
Something, some undertone of seriousness made her look up at him. His expression was distant, his eyes unfocused, as if he were looking inward. Then his jaw tightened, as if he didn’t like what he saw. She quickly returned her attention to her task, before he noticed she was watching him.
She tugged on a pale pink ribbon, separating it from the pile and setting it aside. It would match perfectly the cloth Deborah had bought the other day, although her friend declared herself far too old at thirty for such frippery. She would give it to her, Kate thought, as a token of thanks for the friendship that had often been the only thing she’d had to hang on to. Deborah would have to take it—and use it—then.
She smiled. It was wonderful to be free to do such things; Arly would have slapped her at the very idea of giving anything away.
“You should smile more often.”
Josh’s soft words brought color to her cheeks. She didn’t dare look up, for fear he would see.
“It’s a nice smile,” he said.
“And you are a smooth talker, Mr. Hawk.”
He sighed. “I thought we agreed you were going to stop that.”
She looked up at him then. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I did agree . . . Josh.”
He smiled. Now that, she thought, was a nice smile. And it was yet another example of the irony that a man like this should have a smile that could melt a candle across a room.
He moved then, reaching into the tangled pile of ribbons. He plucked one out and held it up.
“You should save this one for yourself. Wear it in your hair, maybe.”
“Me?” She gaped at him. “Why?”
“Because it’s the color of your eyes.”
She looked at the ribbon he held, an inch-wide strip of gleaming honey-gold. She looked back at his face, certain he was taunting her. But there was nothing in his expression except sincere assessment as he held the ribbon up to her face.
“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “That ribbon’s a lovely gold color. My eyes are just . . . a very odd brown.”
“Different,” he conceded, “but not odd. And they do match this gold ribbon, Kate.”
Her breath caught; although he’d asked her to use his given name, he’d never used hers before. It made her feel decidedly odd. She didn’t know what the feeling was, and hastened to speak before he realized something was wrong with her.
“I’m hardly the type to wear ribbons, Mr.—Josh.”
“Why not?”
“Why?”
His dark brows furrowed. “I thought females liked things like ribbons, to make them feel . . . female.”
“If such things suit them,” Kate said with a half shrug.
“And they don’t suit you?”
She sighed. “If you try to fancy up a mesquite tree, it’s still a mesquite tree. It only looks plainer next to the frills. And foolish.”
Josh dropped the ribbon on the counter. Kate thought he would go away now, but instead he reached out and tilted her head back with a gentle finger under her chin. Shock rippled through her at his touch, and she stared at him, lips parted as she tried to remember how to breathe.
“Mesquite,” he said slowly, “is a fine thing. The beans can be used for food. The root makes good fuel in barren country. The wood can be used to build. It doesn’t need to be fancy.”
Kate heard herself audibly gulp for air. She
knew she must look a fool, staring at him like this, when all he’d been doing was talking about . . . trees. And agreeing she wasn’t the frills-and-ribbons type of woman.
“I . . . have to go start supper,” she said desperately, even though she knew it was a good hour early.
For a long moment he didn’t move, didn’t pull his hand back, and she felt the heat of his touch on her skin like the flare of a fire when a log broke. Something flickered in his eyes, something hot and intense that she’d never seen before. Then at last he drew back. Kate turned and darted away, barely remembering to pull the roller shade on the door to indicate Dixon’s was closed.
She raced to the back of the store, through the storeroom, pulled open the door to the kitchen, and hurried inside. She closed the door behind her and leaned on it, breathing heavily, feeling as if she’d run from here to the Notch and back.
And she knew what she looked like. Exactly what she’d looked like.
She’d looked like Reverend Babcock, terrified and scrambling to get away from The Hawk.
Chapter 5
“WHAT’S WRONG with Miss Kate?”
“How the hell would I know?” Josh growled as he lifted the keg of gunpowder from the floor to the counter.
His head was aching this morning from a restless, sleepless night spent staring at a book that couldn’t exist, a book that made him feel strangely warm and comforted every time he touched it, a fact that made him very nervous.
And thinking about the fact that when he’d touched Kate Dixon yesterday, he’d been nearly swamped with a rush of unexpected and unwanted physical need, hardening his body with a speed that had left him breathless. And he didn’t know which seemed more impossible.
Or, he admitted now, which bothered him more.
He glanced at Luke, realizing he’d been sharp with the boy for no reason other than he wasn’t very happy about the way his thoughts had been running him in circles all night.
“Sorry,” he muttered. And it wasn’t until then that what the boy had said truly registered in his mind. Something was wrong with Kate?
He frowned. He knew she’d been startled when he’d touched her; she’d looked back at him like a wild doe frozen with fear. But surely she couldn’t still be upset over that, he thought. Could she?
Why not? You are.
The answer came back at him as if from that small voice inside his head that warned him when he was headed into trouble. That small voice he’d learned to listen to.
He didn’t understand it. It wasn’t as if he’d kissed her; he’d barely touched her. And she was hardly the kind of woman who usually caught his eye. But, he supposed, if a man went without a woman long enough, even a touch on the cheek could have an arousing effect. Even if the woman wasn’t . . . beautiful.
An arousing effect. What a pissant description of what had happened to him. He’d gotten so hard so fast he’d nearly groaned out loud. Over the plain, too-tall woman whose husband he’d just killed.
He frowned again.
“What’s wrong with you?” Luke asked, giving him a decidedly wary look.
Shaking off that fruitless speculation, Josh picked up the hammer he’d put on the counter, and reached for the nails he’d set out to finally fasten down that loose board which had been annoying him every time he walked over it and it twisted beneath his feet.
“I didn’t get much sleep,” he said.
“Oh.”
Luke watched as he knelt down to push against the board, to find the crosspiece beneath. He found it, hammered home a nail, then a second one for good measure. He stood up, tested the board with his foot; it held steady. With a grunt of satisfaction, he set the hammer back down.
“Did she get bad news?” Luke asked. “I saw Mr. Boardman give her a paper when she walked by the telegraph office. Mr. Rankin says telegrams are usually bad news.”
Josh gave the boy his attention then. “A telegram?”
Luke nodded. “I think so. She looked kind of upset when she read it, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
Josh glanced toward the storeroom where Kate had retreated and closed the door, saying she had to go over some accounts. He hadn’t been sure if she really had work to do there or was simply avoiding him after yesterday. The thought that it was something else entirely, that perhaps she’d simply received bad news, both relieved and ruffled him, and he wasn’t pleased with the combination.
“Maybe it was personal,” he suggested.
“I dunno,” Luke said doubtfully. “She never gets telegrams, or letters, or nothing.”
No doubt because there was no one who gave a damn about her, Josh thought grimly. If what she’d told him about her father was true, that he’d given her to Arly Dixon for a pair of boots, it didn’t seem likely her family would be sending their condolences on her loss. For that matter, he wasn’t sure Kate would tell them, if she even knew how to reach them.
But what had upset her, in whatever message she’d gotten?
“Maybe you oughta go ask her,” Luke said. “She’ll tell you.”
Josh looked back at the boy. “What makes you think she’ll tell me?”
“You’re grown,” Luke said with the fatalistic acceptance of youth. “Grown folks talk to each other. Besides, she likes you.”
Josh blinked. “What?”
“Well, she looks at you like she likes you,” Luke amended, but Josh wasn’t sure he cared for the alteration. “Not like she looked at ol’ Arly.”
“I hope not,” Josh said under his breath.
“Well, if I’d had to live with ol’ Arly, I’d be right happy that someone did him in. An’ I’d for sure like the one who did it, too.”
“Oh.”
That, he supposed, made a certain kind of sense. More sense than what he’d first thought when Luke had spoken of how Kate looked at him. The woman was freshly a widow, after all. She was hardly about to be making eyes at anyone. Especially the man who’d killed her husband, no matter what the circumstances.
Not that it mattered. Widows of any kind weren’t his type, although he knew more than one man who wasn’t above using a woman’s loss to his advantage. But for him, widows were too close to death, and he had too much of that in his life already. He preferred to keep such things purely a business transaction; women he could pay and then leave, without feeling he’d hurt them in any way. No decent woman would have anything to do with him, anyway, nor would he want them to. A woman would have to be a fool to come to care about a man like him, when every moment could be his last. He’d decided long ago women took an unfair share of the pain in this world. He didn’t want to add to it.
But something had added to Kate’s pain, if Luke was right.
“I’ll go see,” he finally said. “Watch the store.”
Luke lit up at that bit of trust. “Yes, sir!”
He found her sitting on an empty crate, a piece of paper in her hand. She looked up at him, then away, but not before he saw the disheartened look in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then, squaring her slender shoulders, she stood up.
“I have to find other suppliers.”
Josh looked at the telegram. “Something to do with that?”
She looked down at the paper in her hand, then crumpled it up. “The Bartons heard that Arly was dead. They don’t want to do business with me.”
Guilt slammed through Josh, making his voice harsh. “Why? Just because you’re a woman?”
She sighed. “A woman alone. And Arly always told them I was . . . stupid. Useless. A nuisance. They don’t trust me. They don’t think I can run this place.”
Josh couldn’t think of a thing to say. She was in this fix because of him. But had she really been b
etter off with Arly Dixon alive to abuse her? He didn’t know. He didn’t feel like he knew much of anything anymore. Except that he never should have stopped in Gambler’s Notch, no matter how broke or thirsty for coffee he’d been. He shoved his hair back with one hand, trying to think of what to do.
“If only Fort Bridger hadn’t been shut down this year . . .” Her voice trailed away, and Josh saw her gather herself. When she went on, the determination in her voice sounded forced. “It doesn’t matter; I’ll find a way. I’ll send word to Granite Bluff that they can just turn their wagon around and head back to Rock Springs and—”
“The wagon is already in Granite Bluff?”
She nodded. “It was due here yesterday. But when they heard about Arly, they stopped halfway.”
He winced; that was his fault, too. If Arly had merely gotten himself killed in a local brawl, word would likely never have reached Rock Springs so quickly. But he’d been killed by The Hawk, and that meant the news spread fast.
He set his jaw. The Hawk had brought this on her; it was up to The Hawk to do something about it.
“Who are these men? Friends of your husband’s?”
Her mouth quirked. “I don’t know if Arly had any friends. But he dealt with these men all the time. He’d tell them what he wanted, and they’d have the supplies shipped into Rock Springs on the railroad, then bring them here by wagon. It was more expensive, but Arly didn’t like to leave here for long enough to go himself.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Josh said. The wife who was closer to a slave might up and disappear on him, he added silently.
“Is the load paid for?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “No. Arly always paid when it arrived.”
“Do you have the money for it?”
“Yes, I set it aside as soon as we got word it was on its way . . .” Her eyes widened as if she’d just heard what she’d said, and Josh read her thoughts easily.
“I’m not a thief, Mrs. Dixon,” he said flatly.
“No, you’re merely a killer,” she retorted, a little sharply.
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