The Lawman Takes a Wife

by Anne Avery

  But now?

  Molly sighed and slumped back against her pillows, then slowly drew the covers up to her chin. She had to face it, all that wasn’t enough. Not any longer.

  Calhan’s wasn’t enough. The satisfying, sometimes harried routine of her life wasn’t enough. Even her children, as much as she loved them, weren’t enough to fill the empty places in her soul, the places she hadn’t even admitted were there until DeWitt Gavin had walked into her store and made her remember that she was a woman long before she was a storekeep and a mother.

  Chapter Eleven

  Molly was late opening the store the next morning. With the exception of the days following Richard’s death, she had never been late, and she had no doubt about whom to blame. DeWitt Gavin had robbed her of her sleep last night, wandering through her waking thoughts and her sleeping dreams with equal arrogance. He hadn’t been one whit more communicative in her dreams than he was in person, either.

  The thought made her laugh. She was still laughing when she came around the corner of Calhan’s. Despite the lack of sleep, there was a bounce to her step this morning that had her skipping up the boardwalk steps as lightly as if she were a girl again. The bounce vanished at the sight of the three ladies standing on the walk in front of the store’s locked front door.

  “You’re certainly chipper this morning,” Emmy Lou Trainer said, frowning a little to show she didn’t much approve of chipper.

  “We were starting to get worried,” Coreyanne Campbell added. “It’s not like you to be late.”

  “But then, it isn’t every evening that she walks out with our good-looking sheriff, now is it, ladies?” Elizabeth Andersen added, beaming and giving her a knowing wink.

  Molly couldn’t stop the flush seeping up her throat and across her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you ladies would be here so bright and early or I’d have made a point to be on time.”

  “If you’d been at the Ladies’ Society meeting last night, as expected, you would have known,” Emmy Lou said, laying the stress on the word would.

  “The meeting!” Molly fumbled with the lock, grateful for the distraction. Any one of the three of them was sharp enough to see her secrets clearly written on her face. With them all together, she hadn’t a hope unless she could get out of the morning sun and into the shadowy depths of Calhan’s. “I completely forgot about the meeting. These days, seems like I’m behind on everything. Orders, bookkeeping—”

  “But not so much behind you won’t go out for an evening’s stroll,” said Emmy Lou disapprovingly.

  “Now, Emmy,” Elizabeth chided gently.

  “He really is good-looking,” Coreyanne added. “And he seems awfully nice, too. We’re all very happy for you, Molly.”

  Molly’s heart sank. If Coreyanne was sharing in the gossip, there wasn’t a hope in heaven that the rest of them would keep their noses in their own business and leave her to tend to hers.

  As long as they didn’t scare him off.

  At the thought of DeWitt Gavin being scared off by a passel of ladies half his size, Molly giggled. She covered it with a cough and swung the door open. “I suppose you want to order the bunting and whatnot for the Founders’ Day festivities, just like last year. That’s what the meeting was about, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Elizabeth said, sweeping in past her. “We can’t seem to find the records from last year, but we were sure you’d be able to tell us what we got.”

  “Of course,” Molly murmured, turning the sign on the door to Open.

  “And you’ll sell them to us at cost, just like last year?” Emmy Lou demanded, sailing in on Elizabeth’s heels.

  “Yes, of course I will.” Molly rolled up the shade on the window on the right.

  Coreyanne paused in the doorway just long enough to lean close and whisper, “Don’t you worry, Molly. We all approve of him. Even Emmy Lou. All except for his being the sheriff, you know.”

  Molly almost jerked the second shade right out of its mountings.

  Because he couldn’t trust himself to keep away from Calhan’s, Witt saddled the big, heavy-muscled bay he’d bought from Nickerson’s stable shortly after he’d arrived and rode out to visit the various mines that surrounded Elk City. They weren’t really in his jurisdiction, but it never hurt to make yourself known, just in case.

  To his embarrassment, the tale of his encounter with Crazy Mike McCord had spread. Every place he stopped, sooner or later someone brought it up. And just as soon as they did, there’d be someone offering him a drink on the strength of it.

  “Mike’s a good man,” said one manager, topping up the glass of whiskey he hadn’t let Witt refuse. “Wish I had a dozen like him. Used to be there wasn’t a steadier man in all of Colorado. Damn shame about the woman. Once he gets to thinkin’ of that Jezebel who ran off on him, he gets to drinkin’, and then he’s as useless as a three-legged mule for days after.”

  “Good job, that,” said another cheerfully, cracking open a new bottle of whiskey in honor of the occasion. “I hear you gave the fellow a good talkin’ to. Hope he paid attention. Although I don’t mind admittin’,” he added with a wink, “it’d be a good thing for my fellows if Mike wasn’t quite up to snuff come Founders’ Day. There’s always a few competitions got up between the mines. Mike’s a hard man to beat when he’s in top shape.”

  “I don’t suppose you box?” another foreman inquired, sizing up Witt through narrowed, speculative eyes.

  “Nope,” said Witt. He didn’t feel up to saying much more than that. This was the seventh mine he’d visited, and the hospitality had been a great deal more generous than he was accustomed to.

  Right now, the level of whiskey in the bottle on the desk was considerably lower than it had been a half hour before, and though he had insisted on adding water to his glass—a practice the foreman hadn’t hesitated to castigate as downright indecent and an insult to any thinking man—he was still having trouble focusing.

  “Pity,” said the foreman sadly. “You’re damn near big as Mike, and if you could flatten him, drunk or no…” He shook his head, then heaved a sigh of resignation. “We don’t find somebody bigger’n Mike purty quick, he’s bound to take top prize, just like the last few years.”

  “That right?” said Witt. If he squinted just so, he could make the edge of the desk stop wavering, but it was taking a lot more energy than it ought.

  “Yup. Foreman over at the Gradie Rose, where Mike works, he’s got a standin’ bet that nobody can take old Mike. Bastard’s won near a hunnert dollars off me over the past couple’a years. I’d purely love to get a little of my own back. Purely love it.”

  By the time he rode up to the Gradie Rose Mine that afternoon, Witt was having a hard time keeping upright in the saddle. It wasn’t that he was drunk, exactly, but all those glasses of whiskey and bottles of beer when he hadn’t had much of anything to eat were beginning to have an effect. If it weren’t for the fact that the Gradie Rose was his last stop and that he didn’t want to create any ill will by ignoring one mine after he’d visited all the rest, he would have pointed the bay toward town and trusted the beast’s instincts to get them both back where they belonged.

  To his relief, neither the manager nor the foreman of the Gradie Rose was available. He was about to leave word that he’d come back some other time when the office clerk interrupted him.

  “There’s Mike,” he said, pointing to a great, black-faced bear of a man coming out of a long shed. “His shift ain’t due to change for another half hour yet. Musta had to come up for something.”

  Mike spotted them at the same moment. He stopped midstride, frowned, then abruptly changed direction and came their way.

  “I’ll just leave you two to discuss old times, shall I?” said the clerk a little too heartily. He was gone before Witt could draw breath.

  Witt sighed and said a silent prayer that Crazy Mike wasn’t the kind to hold grudges.

  The miner came to a wary halt a couple feet a
way. “Sheriff.”

  “Mr. McCord.” Impossible to read the expression on the other man’s face. Coal dust coated every visible inch of him. Only his teeth and the whites of his eyes were not covered with dust. Under the coating of coal dust, his nose was still a little swollen.

  “You lookin’ for me?”

  Witt shook his head, then wished he hadn’t. “Nope. Just visiting the mines.”

  Mike squinted up at him doubtfully. “You look a mite pie-eyed t’me. Hope you don’t mind my sayin’ so?”

  “Nope.” Witt couldn’t help chuckling, though it made his head ache. “Talked to damn near every mine foreman in the county today, and every one of ’em wanted to drink a toast in your honor. Or maybe I should say, in mine.”

  The big man blinked, then threw back his head and roared. “That’s a good’un, that is! Wait’ll I tell the boys!”

  Witt winced. “You go right ahead. Me, I’m headed back to town for a thick steak and about a gallon of coffee.”

  “Not a bad idea. You wait a bit for me t’wash up, I’ll go back with you. Not that you need to wait.” The grin on Crazy Mike’s face was making the coal dust crack. “Way you look, you won’t move faster’n a slow crawl, anyway.”

  Witt didn’t really want the company, but he couldn’t argue with the logic. Besides, there wasn’t any sense in making an enemy of the man. And Mike was right—if he tried to move any faster than a walk, the jouncing would likely jar the top of his head right off.

  In the end, since Mike didn’t own a horse, they ended up walking with Witt leading his mount. It wasn’t the sort of exercise he favored, but looking down at the big miner had made him dizzy and the last thing he wanted was to make a damn fool of himself by falling off.

  Sober, Mike McCord proved to be intelligent, well-informed, and ambitious. It was the ambitious that surprised Witt.

  “I was on my way to foreman,” Mike admitted. “I was workin’ hard and savin’ every penny I could. Wanted to offer my girl—”

  “Clementine,” said Witt, and blinked. The drink had loosened his tongue more than he’d realized.

  Mike nodded. “That’s right. Clementine.” He looked a little wistful. “Prettiest little thing you ever saw. Golden curls and the biggest, bluest eyes…”

  His voice died away. For a moment, he seemed a thousand miles away, remembering, then he grimaced and shook his head regretfully. “Guess the more she thought about it, the less she liked the idea of bein’ married to an ugly old buffalo like me.”

  He held out his hands, fingers spread. “No matter how much I scrub, I can’t get rid of the black. Coal gets into a man’s skin, see, just burrows right in and won’t come out no matter what. Pretty woman, now, she don’t much like that. Leastwise, Clementine didn’t. One evenin’ I come for a visit and her ma, she told me Clementine had just upped and left with some goodlookin’ feller from back East. You know, the kind that bathes regular an’ dresses nice an’ wears that good smellin’ stuff the ladies like.”

  Witt’s mouth twisted. “Samuel Kroshack, to a tee.”

  “What?” said Mike, startled.

  “Fellow my wife ran off with,” Witt explained. The admission caught him by surprise. He’d never talked about Clara with anyone. “She wanted a fancy dressin’ man, too. One who didn’t look like a damned fool drinking from a teacup and who knew all the right things to say in public.”

  “That so?” Mike eyed him thoughtfully. “Way I heard it, she was the one divorced you.”

  Witt shrugged, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “Didn’t see any sense in dragging her through the courts.”

  The big miner mulled that over, then nodded. “I can see that. Man looks a damn fool when his wife runs out on him like that.”

  “That, too.”

  They walked on a ways in silence before Mike spoke again. “Heard you was walkin’ out with Missus Calhan.”

  Witt choked.

  “My landlady was talkin’ with the cook this morn-in’,” Mike explained. “Place like this, word gets around.”

  “We went for a walk.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s what I heard.”

  “It’s not the same as walkin’ out,” Witt insisted, cursing the whiskey fumes that had loosened his tongue and made his head feel two sizes too big for his shoulders.

  Mike shrugged. “Maybe so, but folks around here, they don’t see much difference between the two.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, just enough to be menacing without being an outright threat. “She’s a fine lady. You treat her right, you hear? You don’t…” Mike flexed his meaty hand, then closed it into a fist the size of a boulder.

  Witt eyed him right back. Damned if he wouldn’t take the fellow, drunk or not. “You got any interests that way?”

  “Me?” Mike looked surprised. “Heck, no. The lady’s above my touch. But she’s always been nice to me. I wouldn’t like to hear anyone’s been messin’ with her.”

  “Me, neither,” said Witt thickly.

  “Good,” said Mike. “That’s good.” He grinned, suddenly, and gave him a friendly slap on the back that almost dislodged a lung. “I like you, Gavin. Darned if I don’t.”

  Witt staggered, sucked in air, and was, for the moment, devoutly grateful that he did.

  Molly crumpled yet another scribbled sheet of figures and angrily tossed it at the already overflowing trash can under the counter. No matter how she added things up, this expansion she’d been planning was going to be expensive. A thousand dollars worth of expensive.

  The sum was enough to take her breath away. A thousand dollars! Why, she and Richard hadn’t had much more than that when they’d first taken the notion to run a store over twelve years ago!

  Not that she didn’t have the money—she had more than that invested in gilt-edged stocks and bonds, with a bit put away in the bank, but she didn’t like dipping into Bonnie and Dickie’s future like that. She’d taken out loans in the past when she’d wanted to expand and always managed to pay them off early, and she was convinced she could pay off another. But she’d never asked for anywhere near this much before.

  The only thing good she could say about it was that it had distracted her from other, more troubling matters. Her first three customers hadn’t been the only ones to have heard of her evening stroll with the sheriff—around here, a woman couldn’t get dust on her petticoats without somebody hearing about it and telling half a dozen others—but that wasn’t the problem.

  The problem was her own too active imagination building castles on some very shaky foundations. If any of her customers guessed just how often she’d thought of that kiss she’d so boldly claimed last night, they’d have tied knots in their tongues from all the flapping. Let them suspect how easily that hungry heat washed through her at the thought of his physical response and they’d probably choke on all the words that would come tumbling out.

  The only way she’d managed to get through the day was to concentrate on this last, careful review of her plans.

  Molly scanned her notes and figures, and reviewed the list of new merchandise she’d order. It was all there. Anything less than a thousand and she wouldn’t have the cash to do it right. And if she didn’t do it right, she might as well not do it at all.

  Nothing for it but to grab her courage in both hands and do it. She’d been scared before and it had all worked out. It would work out this time. She’d make sure it did. The only really hard part of it all was asking Gordon Hancock for the loan in the first place, and she could handle him as long as things stayed on a strictly business basis.

  With Hancock in mind, she took extra time to tidy her hair and clothes, then carefully pinned on her hat so the narrow brim with its edging of silk roses sat just so. When she caught herself wondering if DeWitt Gavin would like the hat and the way she looked wearing it, she wrenched herself away from the mirror.

  After one last check to be sure she had everything, she gathered up the folder with her notes and calculatio
ns, flipped the sign to Closed, added the smaller sign that said, Back in Half an Hour, and locked the door behind her.

  Hiram Goff was his usual disapproving self, but he grudgingly admitted that Mr. Hancock was in. After a moment’s consultation with the great man himself, he even more grudgingly ushered her into his office.

  “Mrs. Calhan! What a pleasant surprise!” Hancock smiled that wide, white-toothed smile that she so disliked and came around the desk to welcome her.

  Molly took the chair he indicated, then watched with scarcely concealed disgust as he claimed the chair beside her.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He leaned closer. His voice became softer, slightly more intimate. “Not that you have to have an excuse. You know you’re welcome anytime.”

  Molly shifted her chair to face him, which meant her knees would conveniently be in the way if he tried to move closer. “I’m interested in taking out another loan, Mr. Hancock.”

  “Another!” He laughed. “You’ve been busy, I see. Always planning and scheming, eh, Mrs. Calhan? Work, work, work!”

  “Just like any other serious businessperson, Mr. Hancock.” She extended the folder. “I’ve worked up my notes and calculations, made a list of what it would be spent for. It’s all right there.”

  “You’re always so…organized,” he murmured, taking the folder. He didn’t bother to open it. “And how much are you thinking of this time? Three hundred? Four? I believe the last loan was for four hundred, wasn’t it?”

  “Four-fifty, and paid in full three months early. But I need a thousand this time.”

  That brought him up short. “A thousand!”

  “And not a penny less.” The words came out boldly enough, but her stomach squeezed at the thought of so large a debt.