The Lawman Takes a Wife

by Anne Avery

  He couldn’t help but smile. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

  Since she’d already thrown the washrag at him, she had to settle for splashing him, instead. He laughed, but didn’t bother to dodge.

  “You’d have a hard time making me any wetter.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll bet your socks aren’t as wet as mine.”

  He wiggled his toes experimentally. “You’d lose.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”

  She laughed, then, and the sound of it washed through him like sunlight.

  “Next time, Mr. Gavin. Next time.” She rose, still laughing, then shook out her sodden apron.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I need some dry clothes and a hot cup of coffee. But only after we’ve cleaned up this mess in here. I swear, you could drown a cat with what the darned dog slopped out on my floor.”

  Witt started to get to his feet when it hit him, just like that—he was in love with Molly.

  The revelation shook him so, he damn near fell headfirst into the tub.

  It took them a good half hour to empty out the tub, carry out the tarp and mop the floor. The mound of dirty dog hair Molly bundled up in the old sheet she’d spread on the floor and put in the shed to empty when she burned the rest of the week’s trash.

  By the time the kitchen was restored to its usual tidy state and she’d put a pot of coffee on to brew, Dickie had gotten Pete dried off, taken him out on the new leash and collar for one last walk, then wearily but happily led him up to bed. Molly was willing to bet her son hadn’t heard one word of her reminder that the dog could sleep on the rag rug in his room, but was not to be allowed up on the bed.

  Pete might be dry, she thought, plucking at the still damp front of her dress, but she was getting chilled in her wet clothes. Witt didn’t look any drier.

  He was slouched in a chair, playing with the braided leather leash he’d given Dickie, and frowning. His hair stood up in spikes and there was a streak of dirt across his chin. His clothes were still dark from the soaking he’d gotten.

  He looked as if he belonged right here in the quiet, lamp-lit kitchen. As if he belonged with her.

  “You know,” she said, and wondered if he could hear the hungry tightness in her voice, “I think there’s a shirt and a pair of my husband’s trousers that might fit you. Well enough so we can dry your things off by the stove while we have that coffee, anyway.”

  She picked up the smallest lamp and hurried out of the kitchen before he could object—and before she could lose her nerve. There’d been a couple times when they were bent over that tub that she’d been tempted to lean a little closer and claim a kiss. She was absolutely sure there’d been more than a couple times when he’d had the same idea.

  It wasn’t just the thought of kisses that troubled her, however. She could remember every hard curve and angle and line where the back of her hand had rubbed against him while she’d scrubbed Pete. The memory was enough to start a little fire burning, deep in her belly, and another, hotter one, lower still, there, between her legs. It had been a long time since she’d felt such hungry need, and that frightened her as much as it stirred her blood.

  As she knelt beside the trunk where she’d put Richard’s clothes away four years before, she hesitated. Four years wasn’t so long, after all. Not to mourn a kind and decent man like Richard, a man she’d loved with all her heart and soul.

  But Richard is dead, she told herself, and I am alive and in love again. Richard, of anyone, would be the first to understand and wish me well.

  With deliberate care, she lifted the heavy lid. She pulled out a woolen shirt, then burrowed deeper for the corduroy trousers that had been too big for her husband.

  “Here they are,” she said, bustling into the kitchen a few minutes later. “They’ll probably be a little snug, but they’ll do while your things dry. You can change down here,” she added when he looked doubtfully around.

  “I don’t think I should—”

  She didn’t give him a chance to finish. “I’m going up to change my dress. I won’t be long. I don’t know about you, but I need that coffee.”

  He laughed despite his embarrassment and took the clothes she offered. She hurried out again before he had a chance to say more.

  It wasn’t coffee she’d been thinking about, but him and how it would be to unbutton his shirt, button by button, then slide it off over those broad shoulders. The thought made her blush and fumble with the fastenings of her dress. She didn’t want to take too long changing because he might well slip away in spite of his wet clothes.

  Before she went down, she stopped to check on her children. Bonnie was neatly bundled under the covers, fast asleep. Dickie was sprawled across his bed, with blankets and sheet rucked up on one side and trailing off the bed on the other. Pete, as Molly had known he would be, was on the bed, curled into a ball tight against Dickie’s stomach. She couldn’t tell whether it was the dog or the boy who was snoring.

  Witt should see this.

  Molly blinked, startled by the thought.

  Yet, why not? There wasn’t a man in five counties who liked children more than DeWitt Gavin. It had gotten so he could hardly walk a block without picking up one small admirer or another. And he’d been kind to Dickie.

  Besides, he was responsible for the dog.

  Moving quietly so as not to wake the sleepers, she crossed to the stairs. Halfway down, she stopped and leaned over the railing.

  “Sheriff? Witt!” she called, keeping her voice low. It would be easier simply to get him from the kitchen, but she didn’t dare go that far for fear she’d loose her nerve. She wanted him to see what having a family meant, wanted to share this one small moment, knowing that he would understand.

  “Ma’am?” At her beckon, he came up the stairs, treading cautiously. Despite his care, the steps creaked beneath his weight. “Is something wrong?”

  She smiled and shook her head, ignoring the high-water pants and the too tight shirt straining across his chest, then pressed a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence. When she turned, he followed.

  At the door to Dickie’s room she stopped. “I thought you ought to see what you’re responsible for,” she whispered, and raised the small lamp high so its light filled the room.

  He glanced at her in surprise, then crossed to the bed. Molly silently trailed after him.

  She’d thought he’d smile, maybe give a little chuckle. She hadn’t expected to see such sudden, intense yearning.

  For a moment he just stood there, staring. Then, without a word, he bent to throw back the covers and gently shifted Dickie to a more comfortable position. Pete raised his head, ears pricked, tail thumping.

  “Stupid dog,” Witt murmured, then shifted the dog as gently as he had the boy, and tugged the covers back into place.

  Dickie muttered something in his sleep, snuggling deeper under the blankets, and wrapped his arm around his dog. Pete licked his nose, glanced at them as if to make sure they wouldn’t bother his boy further, then settled back, tucking his nose into his belly with a contented sigh.

  And still Witt lingered, hungrily watching them.

  If she’d had any last doubts about the wisdom of loving DeWitt Gavin, they died right there, unmourned. When he crept out of the room at last, she followed, shaken by the unexpected insight into the man.

  He didn’t pause on the stairs, didn’t even make much effort to be quiet. By the time she walked into the kitchen, he had already wadded his wet clothes into a bundle and retrieved his hat and gun belt.

  “Best be going,” he said. His hand was on the doorknob, his expression distant and expressionless. “I’ll bring the clothes back tomorrow. Will that be all right?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Thanks for the offer of the coffee.”

  And then he was gone, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the kitchen, still h
olding the lamp.

  Eventually she roused to lock the door and bank the fire in the stove. She set the coffeepot aside and returned the cups and sugar pot and spoons to their places on the shelf. Witt had set it all out on the table, but arranged it so the width of the table would be between them.

  Molly smiled, thinking of how it would have been with him across the table from her, tugging on shirt sleeves that were a good two inches too short, trying not to spill his coffee or meet her gaze. He’d probably have been thinking about the kisses they’d shared, there in the middle of Pearl and State. It was only fair, since she’d thought of them so often since.

  As she did every night, she turned down all the lamps except the one she carried, then checked the windows and doors to be sure they were closed and locked. In the parlor, she paused in front of Richard’s photographic portrait.

  The protective glass reflected the light when she raised the lamp, blinding her and hiding her husband’s face. She blinked, and lowered the lamp, and found him smiling at her. Gently, and with understanding.

  Tears started in her eyes.

  “You were a good man, Richard Calhan,” she whispered, brushing her fingers over the glass. “A good, good man.”

  When she went up the stairs this time, there was peace in her heart. Richard would have understood, and been glad for her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  DeWitt Gavin was a no-good, no-account, low-down, miserable coward.

  Molly glared at the Acme Patented Washing Machine—None Better! calendar hanging on her storeroom wall. Eleven days had passed since he’d fled her kitchen, ten since she’d returned home from Calhan’s to find the shirt and trousers she’d loaned him sitting on her back step, neatly folded, without so much as a note of thanks attached. She hadn’t had a word from him since. Hadn’t so much as seen him walking past the store in all that time. Not even once.

  “He’s a coward and a fool,” she informed Pete, who was sitting on the floor at her feet hoping for a handout.

  Pete pricked his ears and tried to look sympathetic.

  “And don’t try to tell me he’s not interested because I won’t believe a word of it. He’s the one who kissed me, after all!” Molly abandoned the calendar in disgust.

  Pete barked and jumped to his feet, tongue lolling, tail furiously wagging.

  “And you,” she sternly informed the dog, “are wasting your time. I know all about the stew meat that idiot sheriff bought for you. And the chops. And the ribs and the bits of liver and the chicken gizzards he cadged off Mrs. Boulton. And if you think I’ve forgotten about those biscuits or the fried egg, you have another think coming.”

  Pete’s head drooped. The wagging tail stopped wagging. With a sigh of long suffering, he slumped to the floor, then laid his head on his paws, pointedly not looking at her.

  Eleven days of good food had put a sheen on his coat and plumped him up so his bones no longer stuck through his coat. Eleven days of being spoiled and cosseted and fawned over by Dickie and Bonnie had also given him an inflated sense of his own importance. He slept on Dickie’s bed at night and sat under the table during meals, and lately, whenever Dickie left him at the store, he’d taken to begging from every customer who walked into Calhan’s.

  It hadn’t helped that Witt kept slipping him treats, Molly thought sourly. Not that Witt had bothered to tell her anything about it! Oh, no! These days the sheriff was cowering in his jail and ducking down alleys to avoid running into her. But Dickie had told her, and that had only added to her irritation with the man.

  Spoil the dog and ignore her, would he? Well, they’d just see about that!

  “Come on, Pete,” she said, slipping off her apron. “We’ve got an errand to run.”

  Witt wasn’t in the jail or the barbershop or the post office. He wasn’t at Mrs. Jensen’s having a late lunch or poking through Jenkins Hardware or talking with the old-timers on the bench outside of Potter’s Pharmacy. She stopped by the other general stores, the newspaper, the Chinese laundry and even the Women’s Christian Temperance Union reading room, to no avail. She didn’t try any of the three saloons.

  Everywhere she went, Molly left word that she was looking for the sheriff and would be much obliged if they’d just send him over to Calhan’s when they saw him. “Founders’ Day, you know,” she’d say, and everyone would nod and at least try to look as if they believed her.

  Pete finally ran Witt to earth in Nickerson’s stables. They were walking past the open stable doors when Pete perked up, nose twitching, then gave an excited bark and dashed into the stables. Molly found him dancing around Witt’s feet, trying to get his attention. No one else was in sight.

  “No, no food,” said Witt sternly, glancing down.

  He was grooming his horse and his back was to her, which gave Molly a moment to get her heart rate under control. Absurd that even the back view of him could set her every sense on alert.

  “Where’s Dickie?” At Witt’s query, Pete barked and tried to dance on his back legs. “Don’t beg. No self-respecting man ever begs.”

  “He wouldn’t beg if you wouldn’t keep feeding him when he did.”

  The horse brush fell from Witt’s hands, making the horse toss its head and sidle away. Slowly, Witt turned to face her. From the quick rise and fall of his broad chest, it seemed he was having difficulty breathing.

  “Good afternoon, Sheriff,” said Molly sweetly, pleased with her effect on him.

  Witt swallowed nervously. “Ma’am.”

  “Ma’am?” She frowned, considering that, then moved closer. Eleven days of frustration were making her feel bolder, and just a little bit mean. “After foisting that disreputable mutt on me, I think you ought to call me something besides ma’am, don’t you?”

  “Mrs. Calhan?”

  “How about just plain Molly?”

  He licked his lips, then stooped to retrieve the horse brush. When he straightened, his face was redder, but he seemed a little more in control of himself. Looks could be deceiving, though. He was holding the brush so tightly that the bristles were mashed into his palm. That had to hurt, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “That wouldn’t be very—” he groped for a word “—respectful.”

  She moved closer still. He took a step back. He would have taken another if the horse hadn’t been in the way.

  Her own heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear herself think, yet seeing him, seeing the proof that he wasn’t indifferent to her, made her dizzy and breathless herself.

  Eleven days! a little voice in her head screeched.

  She lowered her voice so that only he would hear. “It wasn’t very respectful for you to kiss me right there in the middle of Pearl and State, but I don’t recall objecting.”

  For a moment, she wasn’t sure if he was even breathing at all. Then he gasped and sucked in air. Satisfied, she backed up a bit.

  “Anyway,” she continued in a more normal voice, “that’s not really why I came.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She tugged on the edge of his vest to straighten it. “I need some help with the decorations for Founders’ Day.”

  “Decorations.”

  “Your voice sounds a bit…tight. Does your throat hurt?”

  He shook his head. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the shadowy stable.

  “That’s good. As I was saying—I’ll just take this brush, shall I? You keep squeezing it that way, you’ll ruin the bristles. I’ll set it right here so it doesn’t get lost. There. Now, where were we? Ah, yes! Decorations!”

  She smiled. She was beginning to enjoy this, after all.

  “You know Mr. McCord and some men from the community have volunteered to put up the public decorations? You heard that? Good! Anyway, they’re going to be decorating the streets and town hall and places like that, but they’re not going to decorate businesses like mine.”

  He made a strangled sound at the back of his throat.

  “Did you say something? No? I
could have sworn you started to say something.” Actually, he’d sounded like a duck whose neck was being wrung. “Well, as I was saying, Mr. McCord and his friends aren’t going to hang decorations for me, but I thought you might. Just a little bunting, you know, looped from the roof.”

  “Roof?” said Witt.

  Molly’s smile widened. She wouldn’t have let her children torment a housefly like this. She couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more.

  “That’s right. A half hour’s work maybe. I have the ladder and a hammer. Would ten o’clock be good for you? It would?” He hadn’t moved or made a sound. “Excellent! I’ll have everything ready, I promise. Well, I won’t take up any more of your time. I’m sure you must be very busy these days since I never seem to see you anymore. Ten o’clock, then. Let’s go, Pete. Bye!”

  She couldn’t remember when she’d last had so much fun, Molly decided, grinning, as she headed back to Calhan’s.

  If he’d realized how good it could feel to pound on something, Witt grimly admitted the next morning, he would have turned to carpentering long ago. He leaned back a bit to study the nail he’d just driven, decided it could go a little deeper, and picked up the hammer again. Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Damned satisfying, this pounding on things.

  He dug another nail out of the rusting tin can Molly had given him and pinned the next big loop of red, white and blue cloth to the front of Calhan’s General Store. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Molly had had the bunting, the step ladder, the hammer and the can full of nails waiting for him when he’d walked in the door at ten. He’d checked but hadn’t seen any gloat at the edges of her smile, but even that hadn’t done much to relieve the tension in him. In one fast flanking maneuver she’d gotten past every last one of his defenses yesterday—all without breathing hard or working up a sweat. If it weren’t for his razor-sharp memories of Clara and her scornful comments on his abilities as a man and a husband, he’d have surrendered long ago.

  At the thought, Witt ground his teeth together and clobbered another nail. Bam! Bam! Bam!