The Lawman Takes a Wife

by Anne Avery

  It seemed like forever before her mother finally picked her way up the stairs, still in the dark.

  The man had courage, she’d give him that.

  Molly watched as Witt Gavin, after only a moment’s hesitation and at least fourteen trips past the front of Calhan’s—she might have missed a couple, coming and going—walked into the store at eleven o’clock the next morning. That was only an hour later than he usually dropped in for the day’s quota of candy. Not bad, considering.

  Just as it had for every working day of the last three weeks, her heart gave a little leap at the sight of him. This time, however, she didn’t try to hide her reaction behind a wall of ice and good manners. Useless to pretend she didn’t care, or that last night’s kiss hadn’t mattered.

  “Good morning.” She smiled. “Sleep well?”

  It seemed a fair question, since she hadn’t slept at all.

  He blushed and dragged off his hat. The shadows under his eyes were answer enough.

  “Mrs. Calhan.” He started to say something, swallowed it back, and scraped his hand over his hair, instead. “Ma’am.”

  “What will you have this morning, Sheriff?” she said brightly. “More gumdrops? You haven’t had those in a while. Or,” she added, suddenly bold, “how about the lady’s kisses? As I recall, you’re rather fond of those.”

  If any of the ladies in the Society heard her talking that way—if they even guessed at what had happened last night—she’d be Elk City’s main topic of conversation for a month. The thought wasn’t enough to tie her tongue.

  After a sleepless night spent trying to sift through the jumble of emotions his kisses had stirred, she was sure of one thing, and one thing only—that she wanted him to kiss her again. Only longer this time, and with no distractions, like wondering who was watching them and going to tell the tale.

  “About that kiss—”

  “If you’re going to apologize or tell me it was a mistake, I’ll be very offended.”

  His eyebrows knit together worriedly. “Offended?”

  “That’s right. Offended.”

  There was something about him that reminded her of a wild horse when it realized it had run into a trap, something a little white-eyed and sweaty.

  Getting another kiss might prove a little more difficult than she’d thought. The thought made her blush. She hadn’t been this brash even when Richard had courted her all those years ago.

  She hadn’t known what could follow a kiss, either, all those years ago.

  Her blush deepened. Blame it on a night spent tossing in bed until she’d pulled out the edges of the sheets and had to get up and tuck them in again—twice.

  Both times she’d thought of sheets and kisses, and that had made it worse.

  And while she tossed and turned, her emotions had tumbled and skittered around inside her. Like those tiny balls in the children’s game, the one where there’s a picture full of little, ball-sized holes inside a glass-topped box. You tilt the box this way, then that, trying to get all the balls into the little holes where they belong. But the balls don’t want to settle in a hole and stay there, so every time one slips into place, another pops out and, often as not, it knocks another out, as well, and round they go again and again and again. Her emotions had been like that, refusing to sort themselves out so they made a proper picture.

  Better to concentrate on business. She slid back the glass door of the candy case. “So, what can I get for you today? Red-hots? Pralines?”

  He stared at the collection of sweets as if his life depended on his choice.

  She picked up a paper-wrapped square. “Butterscotch?”

  He shook his head.

  “Chocolate creams?”

  “No!”

  Startled, she dropped the cream atop a mound of lemon drops.

  “Those.” He pointed, and made sure to keep a safe distance.

  “But you don’t like jawbreakers.”

  “Kids,” he said, like a man being strangled. “The kids like ’em.”

  He bought ten pennies’ worth, then fidgeted the whole time she weighed and bagged them. She didn’t hand him the bag, however, despite the outstretched hand.

  “Tell me, Sheriff,” she said, suddenly serious. “Were you going to take Mr. Trainer home, or were you going to let Mr. McCord do it? The truth now!” she added when he shifted nervously.

  He stared longingly at the open door and freedom.

  “You were, weren’t you? To save Mrs. Trainer’s feelings.” Molly tasted triumph. She’d been sure of it, there in the 2:00 a.m. darkness.

  Emmy Lou had to hate that her husband had gotten stinking drunk in Jackson’s. It would have been much worse for her, though, if DeWitt Gavin had been the man to bring Zacharius home, not Crazy Mike. It would have been like rubbing salt into a wound. Witt had known that, and been kind.

  He couldn’t meet her stare. His gaze dropped to his hands. He frowned, then picked at a hangnail on his right thumb.

  “Doesn’t pay to rub folks’ noses in the dirt,” was all he said.

  She thought of all the grief Emmy Lou had given him, and was quite sure she wouldn’t have been so generous.

  “No, I guess it doesn’t,” she said gently, and handed him his jawbreakers.

  Bonnie was dragging up the front steps to Calhan’s when the sheriff burst out of the store. At the sight of him, she stopped dead, mortally embarrassed. She’d spied on him and her mother last night, but she hadn’t counted on running into him this morning. Not right here, where there was no place for her to run to.

  He didn’t see her until the last second. She tried to get out of the way, but her foot caught on the edge of a board. If he hadn’t grabbed her, she would have fallen and made a fool of herself.

  Instead of being grateful, she swung at him. “Let me go!”

  Her fury carried weeks of pent-up resentment and confusion. A flailing fist caught the paper bag he carried, sending it and its contents flying. Jawbreakers rained down, a multicolored hail that clattered on the boardwalk, then went careening off in all directions.

  “Damn!” he said, then, “‘Scuse me,” and stooped to pick up a jawbreaker that had rolled to a stop against his toe.

  Bonnie kicked a yellow jawbreaker, sending it bouncing past him, across the walk, down the steps, and into the dirt.

  “Sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t really sorry at all.

  His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Yeah?”

  Squatting on his heels like that, he was her height, and his pale eyes were on a level with hers. They saw far too much for her comfort.

  Too late, Bonnie remembered her grown-up dignity. She tugged on her pinafore, then raised her chin. “You ran into me. When I run into someone, Mama always makes me apologize.”

  His left eyebrow cocked. “And you think I owe you an apology.”

  She nodded. It wasn’t easy with him studying her like that. Didn’t he ever blink?

  “Well, I suppose you’re right about the running into you, so, I’m sorry about that, Miss Bonnie. I apologize. I certainly didn’t mean to do it.”

  The small bubble of triumph popped. It wasn’t going to be that easy, after all. She stiffened her spine, determined not to give in, and suddenly felt very young.

  “So,” he said, “how about an apology from you for all those jawbreakers. If you hadn’t hit at me, I wouldn’t have dropped the bag and lost ’em.”

  Under that calm, unblinking stare that saw far more than she would have liked, her spine wilted; her chin dropped. Bonnie stared at the toes of his boots.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you drop the bag.”

  He didn’t say a thing. She looked up, surprised, and saw the corner of his mouth twitch, as if he were trying not to smile.

  “Didn’t mean to make me drop the bag, but you did mean to hit me?” he said.

  “I’ll pick ’em up.” No way was she going to admit to wanting to hit him. Mother’d make her do the dishes for a month, a
ll by herself, if she ever found out about it.

  Without looking at him, she retrieved the bag, then collected the jawbreakers and tossed them in it, heedless of any dust and dirt they might have acquired in the interim. When she finished, she found him, still squatting on his heels, with three jawbreakers in his outstretched palm. He had an awfully big hand.

  Gingerly, Bonnie took the jawbreakers and dumped them in the sack. When the sheriff rose to his feet, it was like having a mountain sprout up right next to you. He smiled down at her, rousing a funny little warm glow somewhere inside her.

  “You’re pretty good at pickin’ things up,” he said. “If your brother doesn’t work out at the jail, maybe your ma’ll let me hire you, instead.”

  Bonnie’s answering smile died as she suddenly remembered why she’d gotten mad at him in the first place. Deliberately, mouth set in an unyieldingly grim line, she turned the bag upside down and dropped the jawbreakers into the dust of the street.

  His mouth fell open. For an instant he just stared at his jawbreakers. Then he stared at her. Then he threw up his hands.

  “Women!” said Sheriff Gavin, and stalked away.

  She wondered what he meant.

  From the shadows at the edges of Calhan’s front door, Molly watched Witt stride down the street. She’d send Bonnie with an apology and a replacement bag of jawbreakers…later.

  Watching the two of them, listening to their spat, had sent her jumbled thoughts rolling again. But this time, the box had tilted just right. This time, all the little balls had landed in the right holes and stayed there, every one. Her emotions had finally sorted themselves out, leaving her dazed and delighted and wanting to dance.

  She was in love with DeWitt Gavin. And she was going to marry him, no matter what he said.

  Assuming, she thought, her smile widening, that he managed to say anything at all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So then Nick, he tackles the bandit, see, and Robert, his friend—”

  “The one who went bad,” said Witt.

  “No, that’s Jim,” said Dickie impatiently. “Robert’s his friend from school. You know, the one with the dog.”

  Dickie had been recounting his favorite hero’s adventures in the latest issue of Nick Carter, but they’d strolled over half the length of town and Witt still hadn’t managed to get the details straight.

  “Dog. Right.” Witt couldn’t remember any mention of a dog, but he wasn’t fool enough to ask for clarification.

  “So then,” Dickie continued, “Robert, he grabs the other bandit an’ they start rollin’ around on the ground, fightin’, see, and then his friend—”

  “Robert’s?”

  “No, the bandit’s friend.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah. Anyways, he comes in right then an’ Pow! he hits Nick. But Nick’s quick, see, an’ he rolls away.”

  With fierce grimaces, a little vicious boxing at thin air, and many theatrical grunts for effect, Dickie managed to work his way through the story’s big fight scene without further interruption.

  However good the fight, the end of the story was clearly a letdown.

  “An’ then the girl kissed him.” Dickie made a face, as if he’d just sucked on a sour lemon. “To thank him for savin’ her an’ all.”

  He looked up at Witt. “Do girls always do that? Kiss you, I mean?”

  Witt thought of Molly. Just the thought of her was enough to rouse that by now familiar ache of longing.

  “Do girls kiss you? Not often,” he said. “Not in my experience.”

  Not anywhere near as much as I’d like.

  Dickie heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s good. When I grow up, I wanna be a detective, just like Nick Carter, but all that kissin’, it worried me some.”

  “Give it a few years and the kissing part won’t bother you near as much,” Witt said mildly. It would, he knew, be easier to convince the boy that cows could fly.

  Even though the jawbreakers Bonnie had reluctantly brought him were long gone and no one else in town had anywhere near the selection of sweets, he hadn’t been in Calhan’s since last week, when he’d tucked his tail between his legs and run.

  He’d walked past the store a hundred times since then and down the alley behind Molly’s house a hundred more—always at night, when he was making his rounds and nobody was likely to see him. These days, he was smelling roses and tasting chocolate in his sleep, yet he still hadn’t worked up the courage to walk up that path and knock on her kitchen door.

  Or maybe it was just that his good sense hadn’t completely gone, after all. Just because there’d been a lot more fire in her kiss than any of Clara’s had ever had didn’t mean he was the kind of man a woman wanted cluttering up her parlor for the rest of her life. Didn’t matter that Molly wasn’t the kind of woman who’d go around kissing a man for the hell of it, either. She might be a whole lot more willing than Clara ever was, but he wasn’t any less big and clumsy when it came to pleasing a woman and keeping her happy, and he tried to remember that whenever he got to dreaming of what wasn’t going to be.

  “Mother, she likes the Frank Meriwell books the best,” said Dickie, dragging him back to the present.

  “And you don’t.”

  Dickie shrugged. “He’s awful good. Always doin’ what he’s sp’osed to and never cussin’ or gettin’ in trouble.”

  “Says yes, ma’am and no, ma’am and that sort of thing?”

  “Yeah. Pretty dull stuff, you ask me. Oh, he has some good adventures, too, but not like Nick. Now Nick—”

  A dog’s shrill yip of pain cut through his words, then another, coming from the weed-choked alley behind the blacksmith’s shop. Three boys were huddled at the far end, kicking and poking at the scrawny mutt cowering at their feet, too intent on their own entertainment to notice anything else.

  “Here, now!” Even without shouting, Witt’s voice carried clearly. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The boys jumped back, startled. The tallest and scrawniest of the three eyed him resentfully. “Weren’t doin’ nuthin’.”

  “It’s a dog.” The pimply-faced boy—a miner’s child, if Witt remembered right—who’d been the most enthusiastic in the kicking wiped his nose on his sleeve and glowered. “A stray that’s always stealin’ scraps. Jim’s father, he wanted him driven off.”

  Jim, who Witt now recognized as the son of one of the town’s butchers, swung his foot at the cringing lump of dirty fur cowering on the ground at his feet. “Pa tried to shoot him last week, but that mutt run away with a chop, anyway.”

  Witt glanced down at the dog.

  “Poor doggie,” said Dickie, darting forward before Witt could stop him. He knelt beside the dog, which flinched, but held its ground.

  Too starved and battered to run from the looks of him, Witt thought. It might have been better for the beast if the butcher had shot him a week ago. It would have saved the poor creature a week of misery.

  Dickie cautiously stretched out his hand. The dog sniffed, threw a wary glance at his abusers, then craned closer and sniffed again.

  “Good doggie,” Dickie said softly. The dog weakly thumped its tail on the ground and crept a couple inches nearer.

  “Oughta shoot it,” Pimple-face said with a sneer.

  “Putting a beast out of its misery is one thing,” Witt said sternly. “Abusing it is another. I catch you mistreating another animal, I’ll have a talk with your folks. Understood?”

  “It’s just a damn dog.”

  “Understood?”

  Pimple-face wiped his nose on his sleeve again, then shrugged and led his friends away. Their swaggering didn’t quite cover their resentment, or the shame of having been lectured by the sheriff as if they were small boys.

  Witt watched them until they’d slunk out of sight, then looked back at the dog. He’d never seen an uglier mutt. Bones stuck out beneath the matted brown-and-black hide. One black ear drooped. The other, mostly brown, looked as if it had been
set on crookedly. The curly tail was too long for the stubby body and short legs, its long, matted white-and-brown hair dragging in the dust.

  Dickie scratched behind its flyaway ear, crooning admiring words.

  “Best not get too close to that mutt,” Witt warned. “No telling what kind of disease and vermin it’s got. Your ma’ll never forgive me if you go home infested with fleas.”

  “She won’t mind. She likes dogs, too.”

  “I doubt she likes fleas.” He also doubted she’d be too impressed with a mangy mutt like this, but he didn’t say so.

  “I’m gonna call him Pete,” Dickie said, bringing his face down to dog level. “How do you like the sound of that? Pete.”

  The dog licked his face and thumped his tail again, a little more enthusiastically this time.

  “Here, boy. I’ll take care of the dog while you—”

  “No!” Dickie hugged the dog so hard the poor beast whined. “You’ll shoot ’im. Nobody’s shootin’ Pete.”

  “That dog’s half-dead from hunger and abuse. It’d be a kindness—”

  “No. He’s not all the way dead, and he’s mine.”

  Witt sighed. He had an awful feeling that his first confrontation with Molly Calhan in a week was going to be over the top of one determined boy and one very ratty dog. It didn’t bode well for the outcome.

  “You’ll never believe! Such good news! You’ll be so pleased when you hear!”

  Emmy Lou Trainer had swept into Calhan’s, flags flying, and brought all conversation to a halt by picking up Molly’s heavy brass paperweight and rapping it on the counter. One or two hardy souls had tried to continue their private discussions only to be quelled with a look that would have frozen hell itself.

  Louisa Merton, who’d meekly entered in Emmy Lou’s wake, looked just a little breathless. Her eyes, however, were sparking with excitement, putting Molly on full alert.

  “First,” said Emmy Lou, loudly enough for all to hear, “we’ve found a tuba player to round out Elk City’s band so they can play for the Founders’ Day festivities.”

  The crowd managed to control its enthusiasm.

  “Second,” she said, even more expansively, “the mayor has agreed to open the festivities with a speech.”