The Lawman Takes A Wife

Hancock deliberately set the cigar on the rim of a massive polished stone ashtray. “You know about the council meeting tonight?”

“Six o’clock.”

“In the town hall. You know where that is?”

It wasn’t because of Clara. “I’ll find it.”

“Good. Good.” Hancock came around the desk. “I’ll see you there, then.”

Witt gave a curt nod of acknowledgment. He didn’t trust his tongue for more.

The instant they stepped out of the office, the clerk looked up, face squinched in disapproval. “Mr. Hancock? There’s Mr. Dermott here to see you.” His face pinched a little tighter. “And Mrs. Thompson.”

“Mrs. Thompson.” Hancock turned pale. “What—”

A thin, stooped little woman popped up from one of the chairs set near the office railing. “My accounts, Mr. Hancock! I want to speak to you about my accounts!”

“Mr. Dermott was here before you, Mrs. Thompson,” said the clerk, peering at her disapprovingly from over the rims of his glasses.

A stout, middle-aged gentleman occupying the chair farthest from Mrs. Thompson’s waved his hands to indicate he’d rather wait than be dragged into the discussion. Both the combatants ignored him.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your accounts,” the clerk insisted. “I reviewed them myself, just last week. Accurate to the penny and so I told you.”

The woman sniffed. “As if that makes me feel one whit better, Hiram Goff! You’re so tight your shoes pinch, but that doesn’t mean you’ve the wits God gave a goldfish or you would know a two from a twenty at the back end of the day.”

Gordon Hancock’s smile was getting a little forced around the edges. He cleared his throat. “I’m sure if Mr. Goff says your accounts are accurate, there’s no need for you to worry, Mrs. Thompson. In fact, now we have Sheriff Gavin on the job, you can stop worrying about anything.”

She looked Witt up and down. “So you’re our new sheriff.”

The corner of Witt’s mouth twitched. He could make two of her, with some left over, but that didn’t bother her in the least. He’d seen banty roosters that weren’t half as feisty. “Yes.”

“Sheriff Gavin—” Hancock began.

“Can speak for himself, I shouldn’t wonder,” the old lady snapped. She leaned closer. For a moment, Witt had the feeling she was going to poke him, as if he were a smoked ham and she was judging the balance of meat to bone.

“Well?” she demanded. “You can speak for yourself, can’t you?”

Witt stifled the grin that threatened. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

He nodded.

“Huh!” she said, and skewered Gordon Hancock with her stare. “Hired yourself a fool for a sheriff, did you? Trust the mayor for it. Isn’t a thing in the world that Josiah Andersen can’t foul up, including hiring a sheriff.”

“Mr. Dermott…” Hancock began, a little desperately.

“Though if it’s a choice between a fool and Zacharius Trainer, I’d rather have the fool. At least there’s a bit more of this fellow than that old windbag, Zacharius.”

“Mr. Dermott,” said Hiram Goff with a pinched little frown, “has left.”

Witt clapped his hat on his head and sidled toward the railing gate. “Ma’am.” He glanced back at Hancock. “Six o’clock.”

“I’ll just see you out.” Hancock darn near trod on his heels following him out to the boardwalk in front. “Good of you to drop by, Sheriff. I’m glad we had this little chat, just the two of us.”

Witt gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Not real talkative, are you, Gavin? But that’s all right. We hired you because you’re a man of action. Proved that in Abilene.” Hancock beamed, then clapped him on the shoulder as if they were old friends. “You do the right thing at the right time, we won’t care how few words you use to tell us about it. Guaranteed!”

From the shadowed safety behind her storefront windows, Molly watched Gordon Hancock escort the new sheriff out of the bank. Hancock was a handsome fellow and by far the best-dressed man in town, but it wasn’t Hancock she was watching.

From the looks of it, DeWitt Gavin didn’t have much more to say to the bank president than he’d had to say to her. That made her feel a little better. Not a lot, but a little. For a few minutes there, she’d been fool enough to think he’d been rather more dangerously aware of her as a woman than most of her customers ever were.

She watched as Hancock slapped the sheriff on the back, just as if they were good friends and had known each other for years. The sheriff’s expression was so impassive, she couldn’t tell what he thought. When he stepped off the boardwalk and started up the streets, she shifted to get a better view.

Despite his size, he moved with a deceptively lazy ease that got him from one place to another quicker than it seemed. Scarcely a minute had passed since he’d stepped out of the bank before he disappeared through the post office door.

Just as well, she told herself, regretfully abandoning the window. She had better things to do than get interested in a man. Any man, let alone one with nothing more to his name, it seemed, than a saddle and a rifle and a bedroll. A woman her age with two children to worry about should have better sense than that.

But still she couldn’t help pausing in front of the tall, narrow mirror she’d mounted on the outside of one of the storage cabinets for the convenience of her customers.

The sight was enough to make a grown woman cry. If this was how she’d looked when Sheriff Gavin had walked into the store, it was no wonder the man had had a hard time looking her in the face, then run as soon as he could.

Blushing, she hastily tucked up the tendrils that had escaped her bun, scrubbed the pencil smudge from her cheek, and tugged her shirtwaist into place. And then she sternly turned away to finish the task of putting up the rest of the notions and yard goods.

No matter what the town gossips might say behind her back, she was doing just fine without a man in her life. Richard had been a good husband and a kind lover, but he was dead and the dreams they’d shared and the children they’d had were her responsibility now, and hers alone. So far, she’d done all right by both the dreams and the children, but there were times…

Molly sighed, remembering the brief feel of her hand in Sheriff Gavin’s, the comfortable, solid, eminently masculine bulk of him.

Sometimes it was awfully hard to be a widow when she was still young enough to hunger for the pleasures of the marriage bed. The prospect of years of cold sponge baths in the middle of the night was too grim a possibility even to consider.

Chapter Three

As the broad double doors of Jackson’s saloon swung closed behind the last of their party, Witt surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. Almost nine. He sighed and snapped the case shut.

That six o’clock meeting in the town hall had lasted just long enough for a brief swearing-in and handshakes all around before they’d adjourned to the Grand Hotel’s private dining room—at the taxpayers’ expense, no doubt—for dinner and drinks and a sometimes heated political debate.

Three hours later, their political differences temporarily discarded under the mellowing influence of the Grand’s best whisky, the council had adjourned again, this time to the livelier environs of Jackson’s saloon.

Only Hancock had bowed out, saying something about a widow and the attentions due her that had roused good-natured laughter from the other council members and a strong urge on Witt’s part to flatten the man’s pretty nose. It was none of his business to wonder who the widow might be, but Witt found himself hoping it wasn’t Mrs. Calhan.

Mayor Andersen clapped him on the shoulder, driving out the thought of the woman and her smile and the tempting way those stray locks of hair had drifted against her cheek and throat.

“Move on in, man, move on in! Can’t stand in the doorway blockin’ traffic, you know!”

Witt slipped his watch into his vest pocket and stepped to the side, out of the way. Bert Potter swayed after him.

“Good place, Jackson’s,” he said with only a faint slurring of his sibilants. He cast a slightly bleary gaze over the room. “M’wife hates it. Won’t speak to me for a week after I’ve been in.”