Dismissed from the conversation, and glad of it, Dent hunkered down over his food and focused on eating.
“Yes ma’am.” The girl laid her fork down and shoved her glasses up a bit. “I taught elementary school for six years, but I love books so much that when I had the opportunity to move to the library, I jumped at it.”
Dent stabbed a dumpling and almost laughed at the girl’s history. Since she was about as exciting as a brick, he figured she’d fit right in with Evergreen. A schoolmarm and a librarian. At least he’d never be arresting her for anything. And maybe he had noticed she was a little on the pretty side. He risked a quick glance to confirm that. Her cheeks were soft and smooth, flawless, and the color of a ripe peach. Dainty auburn curls wafted gently around her face as she moved. Dent ducked back to the safety of his meal.
Doc pushed a biscuit around his plate as he sopped up the remaining chicken broth. “In case you were wondering, Miss Tate, the town doesn’t know much about your personal history.”
An odd, stilted tone in the man’s voice drew Dent back in. He saw the cautious exchange between Miss Tate and her hosts. Something had been said without being said, but he couldn’t have cared less. He had his own matters to worry about.
Susan picked up the pitcher and poured more water for herself and Miss Tate. “The search committee tells me you will be starting a library as well as teaching?” Dent heard the forced cheer, getting them past the unspoken message.
“Yes ma’am.” Miss Tate wiped her mouth and set her napkin on the table. “Because of my work at the library, I’ve met many, many patrons who love to share the joy of reading. I’m sure we’ll have hundreds of books donated by spring.”
“Oh, that’s so exciting. I love to read, too.” Susan rose and started to clear the table. “Well, we’ll have dessert and coffee in the living room.”
“Let me help,” Miss Tate started to rise.
“No, no,” Susan shook her head. “You’re a guest. You and Dent go on in.” She waved a hand toward the hallway. “Henry and I will bring in the pie.” Susan pulled Dent’s plate away from him, although he wasn’t done. He followed it stubbornly for a moment, but her raised brow convinced him to let it go. Not sure why she was in such a hurry to get him away from the table, he licked his fork, and surrendered it. “Fine. I’ll stoke the fire.” He rose and left the room.
Amy could have huffed her indignation at the marshal’s abrupt departure from the room, but clearly he would not have noticed. He seemed totally absorbed in his own matters.
“He was raised better, Miss Tate,” Doctor Woodruff rose and proceeded to assist his wife by picking up his own plate and glass. “I hope you’ll overlook his preoccupation. It’s been a difficult day for him … for everyone.”
“Ben was probably his oldest friend.” Susan hoisted a stack of dirty dishes to her hip and hooked two mugs with her fingers. “And … he’s never dealt well with grief.”
Considering the circumstances, Amy should have let it go. Not being escorted from the dinner table by a gentleman was certainly not the worst thing that had ever happened to her. No, it was more than that. The marshal looked right through her, as if she wasn’t even in the room. She’d been through quite a bit lately, but still had some pride. Being treated as if she were no more important than a rug on the floor stung.
Susan backed up to the kitchen door, her arms full of dishes. “Go on, now. We’ll be right there with the pie and coffee.”
Amy nodded at her and Doc and slipped across the hallway to the parlor. She found the marshal kneeling at the fire, his hand resting on the poker, his thoughts somewhere far away. She hesitated interrupting his reverie and took the moment to study him. Obviously not yet thirty, weathered lines fringed the corners of his eyes, giving him an air of wisdom and experience men back East didn’t possess. His brooding reminded her of Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff. She would admit, though, there was something comforting about him. She attributed this feeling to his badge.
That night intruded on her thoughts again, threatened to start her heart racing, and she knew it would be a long, long time before she ever let a man near her again...even a lawman. She pushed the hopelessness of the future away and laced her fingers over her stomach, quelling the queasy feeling trying to rise in her. After a moment, he still hadn’t noticed her standing there. A little frustrated, she stepped quietly into the room, allowing the swish of her skirt to announce her. He rose to greet her...and said absolutely nothing.
The awkward moment stretching on to ridiculous lengths, Amy finally thought of something to rescue them. “I’m sorry for your loss. I understand the sheriff was a friend.”
“Yes ma’am. Thank you.”
The silence fell again. The marshal shoved his hands into his pockets and smiled weakly. She had seen men who were socially inept and men who were disinterested in conversation. Amy realized he gave disinterested new meaning. Breaking eye contact as a mercy to him, she dipped her head, smiled, and strode over to the settee. Taking a seat, she sighed inwardly. As a houseguest, she certainly couldn’t pick and choose the Woodruffs’ company. And she supposed she should be grateful the marshal wasn’t a chatting magpie.
But neither was he pleasant. Oh, she knew she should make allowances for his circumstances, but his brusqueness was annoying. And frankly, rude. She hoped to avoid him as much as possible in the future.
5
Hands clawed at Amy in the cloistering blackness, trying to strangle her. Screams—hers—interwove with deep, ominous laughter. The sounds echoed all around her. She fought, struggled, writhed, trying to get away. Fear burned in her blood. Her heart raced, pounding hard like a drum in her ears. The hands reached her throat. She opened her mouth to scream—
And sat bolt upright in a strange bed, her fingers pressed against her lips. Breathing hard like a winded horse, she took in the room, unfamiliar and menacing in the moonlight. An open wardrobe loomed like a bear. A dress form stood in the corner like a watchful ghost. She hid her face in her hands and tried to rein in her galloping pulse. She breathed. She prayed for peace. She listened to the silence.
The panic retreated and she slowly climbed from the bed. Rubbing her arms against a non-existent chill, she trudged to the window. From the second floor of the Woodruffs’ home, which sat on a hill, she had a high, wide view of Evergreen. Awash in the silvery radiance of a full moon, the town slumbered peacefully. Somewhere off in the distance, a coyote yipped and howled as bats dove and twirled in the night. Amy leaned her forehead against the chilly glass and wondered when she might, finally, sleep without nightmares.
Movement below drew her attention to a shadowy figure. A man stepped out from beneath the eaves of the bank, scanned the street, hunched over, and hurried down the side of the building. At the corner, he knelt down and...reached beneath the bank, as if stashing something...or retrieving something. Amy couldn’t tell in the darkness. Either way, he quickly got to his feet and ran off behind the building.
She watched for a few more minutes, but the man did not return.
A yawn reminded her that the bed was growing cold, and sleep beckoned enticingly. With a last glance back at the bank, Amy crawled beneath the covers and curled into a warm, cozy little ball. In the morning, she would tell someone what she’d seen.
Amy arrived at the one-room schoolhouse a good thirty minutes before her students were due. She walked in the front door and discovered, to her delight, three young girls in pinafores, dusting her desk, arranging flowers in a pail in the center of it, and washing the chalkboard. They appeared to range in age from about eight to fifteen or so, and had to be sisters. All three had blonde hair, stout builds, and round faces.
They stilled in their activities when they saw her, then huge grins split their faces and they rushed toward their new teacher, all speaking at once.
“It’s our new teacher!”
“You’re so pretty!”
“Do you like the flowers?”
Laughter, rich an
d sincere, bubbled up from deep within her, and she let it gush out. She had hardly smiled in the last several weeks, much less laughed, and knew in an instant that God had sent her to the right place. She hugged the little girls and then took a step back from them. “Thank you so very much for this wonderful welcome, girls.” She reached for the oldest one’s hand. “I’m Amy Tate.”
The girl, fresh-faced, with rosy cheeks and a big smile, was built like a lumberjack. She shook Amy’s hand, squeezing it firmly and with eagerness. “Yah, it is good to meet you, too. I am Lisette.” Her German accent was quite pronounced, but Amy got the gist. “These are my sisters, Greta … and Matilda.” Each youngster curtsied as her name was mentioned.
“I am nine,” Greta announced with pride.
“And I am twelve,” Matilda curtsied again.
The girls were simply precious, and Amy was delighted with her new friends. She prayed the rest of the class would be so welcoming.
Dent settled into the cowhide chair in front of Judge Lynch’s desk and leaned toward his boss. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
The judge looked up from the report he was reading—Dent’s report—and the hard steel in his eyes hinted at a storm. Lynch was old, rumored to be eighty, but still sharp, with a mind that used a black-and-white approach to legal affairs, and moved faster than a locomotive. Dent suspected he was about to be hit by that train.
“First things first. How was the hanging?”
“Clean, sir.”
Judge Lynch leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his sizable gut, regarding Dent with a displeased expression. “Then let’s cut to heart of this, son. On top of complaints in the last two years from two sheriffs and one marshal about your heavy-handed tactics, now I’ve got this report in which you confess to negligence. Negligence that cost the life of a prisoner and one fine man who was an outstanding law enforcement officer.”
Dent licked his lips. He didn’t know any formal complaints had been filed. Ben’s death on top of those didn’t bode well. “I’m willing to take full responsibility, sir.”
“Darn right you will.” The judge took a deep breath, as if to keep his temper from flaring out of control. Seemingly satisfied, he leaned forward and picked up the report. “Dent, you’re one of the bravest officers I have, and I’m fully aware you do what you do because you’re hunting for your father’s killer, but lately you’ve become...well, I don’t think it would be a stretch to call you an avenging angel. In fact, I’ve heard you referred to as the Grim Reaper.” Dent started to protest, but Judge Lynch tossed up a finger, cutting him off. “Vengeance and justice are not the same things. I feel you’ve gotten the two confused. Or maybe you never had ’em right in the first place.”
“Beg your pardon, Judge, but does it matter? I have arrest warrants in my pocket when I go after these men. When they resist arrest, I’m within my rights to do what needs to be done. Why do my motivations matter to the law?”
“They don’t. They matter to me. “
The clipped answer surprised Dent, and he didn’t understand it. The judge must have read his confusion. Wagging his head, the big man rose slowly and wandered over to a bust of Abe Lincoln. “Dent, you’re a good man, but you don’t see the whole puzzle … just your piece of it. I thought when I let you on the force—which I did because your father and Ben always spoke so highly of you—I thought you would come to understand the difference between peace officer and vigilante. When you go after a man and your motivation is vengeance, what makes you different from him?” He raised an elbow and rested it on Abe. “You need some time to think things through. I only wish I’d done this sooner.”
“Done what?”
“You’re hereby suspended, pending an investigation into Sheriff Ben Hayes’s death. Suspended without pay.”
Dent jumped to his feet. “Without pay?”
Lynch straightened up, daring Dent to challenge him. “And, per a request from a fine, upstanding member of the community, you will—in the meantime—act as the interim sheriff in Evergreen.”
Dent’s knees almost went out from underneath him.
“Oh,” Lynch returned to his desk and sat down, “your other duties will not be impacted by this suspension. You have a gift, and we need it.”
6
Dent kept a few things at a boarding house in Cheyenne and his horse down at the livery. Mad enough to spit nails, he collected everything and saddled Ginger, cursing Judge Lynch underneath his breath as he tossed his saddlebags over the horse’s rump. Checking the cinch one last time, he stepped up into the saddle...and sat there.
Evergreen.
He hadn’t spent more than a night or two there since his pa was killed. Nothin’ but bad memories haunted the place.
Well, he hoped everybody was happy. Doc musta written the request out for him to be sheriff in town. He reckoned he’d be eternally grateful and would make sure Doc knew how grateful.
Since he owned it now, Dent would stay at Ben’s ranch...which felt all wrong. It wasn’t Dent’s place. Never could be.
At least money wouldn’t be an issue. Dent made a good living from his gift, as the judge had called it. In between engagements, however, he figured he would go stark-stirring, ever-loving nuts in quaint Evergreen. What was there to do if he could not get his warrants and go after the bad men that needed hanging?
Fit to be tied with this turn of events, he spurred Ginger and headed off for his personal purgatory.
Amy stood behind her desk, smiling and waving as her students filtered out into the late afternoon sunshine. Overall, she counted the day a success. She was relieved and exhausted, but, best of all, excited. She liked her students, and they seemed to like her. For the first time in a long time, she had hope the future was still bright.
The room emptied, and she realized one student still remained at his desk. Israel Packett had snuck in late, sat in the back, and didn’t say much the whole day. At recess, he and the older boys had played baseball together. A lanky teenager of fourteen or fifteen, with disheveled chestnut hair, and scrawny arms that poked too far out of his sleeves, he reminded Amy of her little brother George.
Like George, Israel was a bit quiet. She sensed the boy was liked well enough, as it had been a friendly, boisterous baseball game earlier in the day. Yet, when it was over, he withdrew off to himself. Perhaps the shiner around his right eye had something to do with the subtle distance he kept from the other students. Whatever the case, she was glad he’d stayed behind. Now she might find out about his black eye.
“Israel, is there something on your mind?” She skirted her desk and walked back to him as the boy stood up. Nearly as tall as she, he ducked his head and nodded.
“Yes’m.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “I mean, no ma’am. Not really.”
Amused by his nervousness, Amy bit back a smile and waited.
“I just wanted to tell you … the last teacher told me I shouldn’t come to school.” Amy gasped. Israel took a breath and brushed his dark hair off his forehead. “That I was too far behind now and I should get a job. I thought you should know, ’case you agreed with him.”
Hope burned in his bright, young face, and Amy’s heart melted. “Israel, I wouldn’t say you are behind. I learned today that the children in this school are at many different levels. If you want to stay and learn, you are more than welcome in my classroom.”
He straightened up instantly with the encouragement. “My pa thinks I can’t do more. He thinks it’s a waste of time, reading with the little ones. But Ma read to me a lot.”
Amy treaded lightly here, not wanting to contradict a father she didn’t know, but crushing the boy’s hunger to learn was not acceptable. “I think a man can accomplish anything he sets his mind to.”
Israel glowed like she’d lit a torch on the inside of his soul. “My ma used to say that same thing exactly.” He grabbed the baseball from inside his desk and hugged it to his chest, breathless with, Amy hoped, eagerness to learn. �
�She had pretty hair like you. I miss her.” Israel spun and bounded from the room before she could reply.
Amy felt...exhilarated. Her first day in Evergreen, and she not only adored her students, but thought she might have a real calling here. Especially for young Israel. She watched the boy from the door of the school. He jogged on his way, tossing his baseball into the air and catching it, over and over. Just before he rounded the corner to disappear behind a huge boulder, he stopped the ball and waved. Amy waved back. Grinning from ear to ear, he ducked behind the rock, to follow, she assumed, a road out of town.
All right, Lord, she thought, I’m believing You will bring something good out of what happened to me. Please help me to help these children, especially Israel.
Exhaling softly, she turned her attention in the opposite direction. Toward town. Evergreen was less than a half-mile away but tall, ponderosa pines and one rolling hill blocked her view of it. She listened, but couldn’t make out any sounds other than the birds overhead, along with an early fall breeze dancing in the trees. A lovely afternoon...yet the quiet, the isolation, began to prey on her nerves, stalking her like a panther. She was alone. Vulnerable. Sweat beaded on her upper lip.
God, will I ever get over this? Can’t I be alone for one minute without feeling like I’m going to faint from fear? Please, God, calm me...
She’d barely finished the prayer when Susan drove over the hill. She waved and pulled right up to the door. “Your ride, Madame.”
Amy smiled and curtsied, amazed at her relief. “Thank you, Susan. I’ll just get my shawl and lock up.”
The Brides of Evergreen Box Set Page 3