The Lawman Takes A Wife

Confused, the sheriff glanced up from his perusal of the case’s contents. “Like it?”

“The display. In the window out front. Did you like it?”

“Oh.” His jaw worked as if he were chewing on the question. “It was…nice. Real nice.”

“Thank you.”

If he heard her, he gave no sign of it. His attention was riveted on the display. After a moment’s careful consideration, he pointed with a blunt-tipped finger. “Those chocolate drops, there. They the bittersweet kind?”

Molly craned to see what he was pointing at. “No, that’s milk chocolate. But I can get the bittersweet if you’d rather.”

He shook his head but didn’t take his gaze off the collection of sweets. Molly had seen that look in the face of children who couldn’t decide how to spend their precious pennies, but she’d never seen a grown man take it so seriously.

“Try one of these chocolate creams,” she said on impulse, moving behind the case. She slid open the glass door at the back and plucked a cream in its paper nest from the box. “They come all the way from New York. Try it.”

He eyed the chocolate on her open palm, then glanced at her, clearly embarrassed.

“Think of it as a welcome to Elk City,” she said.

Delicately, frowning in concentration, he plucked the chocolate from its nest, then popped the thing into his mouth whole. She watched his mouth work as he tongued the confection, fascinated in spite of herself. His eyes closed and an expression of bliss softened the hard lines of his face.

“Good?”

He blinked back to an awareness of where he was. “That’s…fine. Real fine.”

He said it reverently, like a man who’d experienced a small miracle. She wasn’t sure, but that looked like the faintest trace of a blush under his dark tan.

“Told you!” Smiling, she impulsively slipped a half dozen into a little paper bag. “Have some more.”

He glanced at her, then the bag, then backed away, shaking his head.

Molly waved the bag slightly, just enough so he could hear the shifting of the paper-wrapped sweets inside. “It’s not a bribe, you know. And it’s rude to refuse.”

His eyes locked with hers.

“Please,” she said.

Reluctantly, he reached to take the sweets. “Thank you, ma’am. That’s…very kind.”

She laughed. “Not at all. It’s plain good business. If I get you hooked on them, you’ll have to come back, now won’t you?”

There was no mistake this time—that really was a blush under the tan.

It wasn’t until the screen door to Calhan’s General Store had banged shut behind him that Witt realized he hadn’t thought to ask Mrs. Calhan about the bank or if she’d seen any suspicious strangers lurking in any alleys. Nothing but that one question if she’d had any trouble, then he’d shaken her hand and whatever smarts he’d ever had had flown out the window. All he could think of was how cool and strong and feminine her small hand had felt encased in his, and how pretty her hair was, especially those soft strands that had pulled free to drift along her cheek and the back of her neck.

It’d been all he could do to keep from staring. Seemed like he’d looked at darned near every single box and bag and bale in the place rather than look into those cool green eyes that seemed to throw off sparks every time she smiled.

So much for tending to his proper business.

Disgusted, he tugged his hat low over his brow, propped his hands on his hips, and scowled at a hipshot bay lazily twitching away flies at the hitching rack in front of him. The packet of chocolate creams in his pocket rustled with his every move. The taste of chocolate lingered on his tongue, rich and sweetly heavy.

Hell of a way to start a new job.

So what did he do next? Besides make a damned fool of himself?

He scanned the street, trying to decide if it was worth the effort to follow up little Dickie Calhan’s tale, or if he ought to just do what Mrs. Calhan had thought he was doing in the first place and introduce himself to a few more of the storekeepers and businessmen along the street.

Nothing to say he couldn’t do both at the same time. And then there was the meeting with the mayor and the town council. Six o’clock, the mayor had said, and don’t be late.

Shifting his gun belt a little so it rode more comfortably on his hip, Witt stepped off the boardwalk and headed toward the bank.

From the shadowy safety of Nickerson’s Riding Stable six doors down and on the other side of the street, Bonnie and Dickie Calhan watched the sheriff walk out of their mother’s General Store. The sound of the screen door slamming behind him came like a distant thunderclap.

Bonnie poked her brother in the ribs with her elbow. “Now we’re in for it. Told you, didn’t I? Carrying tales like that. Mother will make us scrub the floor for a week because of this!”

“Weren’t carryin’ tales,” Dickie growled, poking her back. “It’s the truth and you know it!”

She watched the sheriff tug his hat lower on his brow, prop his hands on his hips, then scan the street from one end to the other. Slowly, like a man who was looking for someone. Or two particular someones.

Ignoring Dickie’s squirming protests, she grabbed the back of her brother’s overalls and tugged him away from the open stable door.

“I’m going home and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come, too. Besides, Mother said we were to clean the lamps and carry out the ashes from the stove.”

Dickie dug in his feet and pulled free. “We don’t gotta do it right now, do we? She didn’t say nuthin’ about right now.”

“No, but look.” She pointed toward the store.

Her brother turned just in time to see the sheriff hitch his gun belt on his hips, like a man who wanted to be sure it sat right in case he needed to go for the gun it carried. And then he stepped off the boardwalk, headed their way.

Dickie was right behind her when Bonnie scooted out the back door of the stable and ducked down the alley, headed toward home as fast as her feet could carry her.

A fair amount of money had gone into Elk City State Bank’s fancy tiled floor and carved oak paneling and shining brass fixtures. The building wasn’t overly big, but it was solidly built, exactly the respectable, prosperous-looking sort of place a man might think could be trusted to keep his hard-earned savings safe.

The clerk who guarded access to the bank’s nether regions looked up at Witt’s approach. When it became clear that Witt was not going to go away, he reluctantly removed his wire-rimmed glasses, folded them, and set them precisely in the middle of the enormous bound journal he’d been writing in.

“May I help you?” His thin lips pinched together as if the prospect of helping anyone with anything was bitterly distasteful, and helping Witt more distasteful still.

Witt couldn’t help wondering if the fellow found it difficult to breathe. His shirt collar was the tallest, stiffest piece of torture Witt had ever seen, and it was cinched in place with a fussily knotted tie that would have strangled a lesser man. Witt’s throat hurt just looking at it.

“I’m looking for the president,” he said, forcing his gaze away from the clerk’s neckware.

“Mr. Hancock is busy at the moment.” The man’s voice was as pinched and tight as everything else about him.

“Tell him the new sheriff would like to talk to him.”

“The sheriff?”

Witt nodded, meeting the man’s disapproving stare impassively.