Jared's Runaway Woman

Jared Mason gave himself a mental shake, silently admonishing himself for blatantly ogling the woman across the street. True, she was pretty; he could tell that even from a distance. And true, he’d been cooped up on the stage for days—and before that, weeks on the train—and this was the first woman who’d caught his eye, so he guessed he owed it to himself to enjoy the view.

Yet that wasn’t what he was here for.

Jared adjusted his grip on his valise and satchel, and headed down the street toward the hotel the shotgun rider had told him about.

Walking, stretching his legs felt good. Jared kept his pace steady, more interested in looking over the town than getting to the hotel.

Crystal Springs, Colorado, seemed like a prosperous place. Jared spied stores, restaurants, a bank, a hotel and several other businesses. Men in suits roamed the street alongside cowboys carrying guns on their hips, miners with long beards, women in gingham dresses. The town looked clean, and from the talk he’d heard on the stagecoach, the place was growing.

Another new face among the townsfolk wouldn’t draw much attention, Jared decided, and that suited his purpose well. He needed to blend in, to look like he belonged. The element of surprise was essential. He’d known that since he set out on this trip, several weeks and thousands of miles ago.

After crossing the Mississippi, Jared had abandoned the private railroad car and sent it back to New York, continuing the journey in the cars with the other passengers. Over the next weeks at some of the train stops, he’d slowly changed his appearance.

Suit, silk shirt and cravat exchanged for Levi’s trousers, vests and cotton shirts. Italian leather shoes gone, replaced by boots. A wide-brimmed black Stetson hat. He’d bought a pistol and shoved it into the holster on his hip; he had yet to fire it but he did know how to load it.

The transformation of his appearance had been completed somewhere in Kansas. Jared didn’t recall exactly where now. The train depots, the small towns, the scenery had blurred a long time ago.

In the town of Cold Creek, about fifty miles to the east, Jared had abandoned the train. He couldn’t take another day of cinders and smoke blowing in through the open windows, the clacking of the rails, the relentless swaying, the screaming whistle. He boarded the stagecoach bound for Crystal Springs.

Jared glanced down at the satchel he carried and the technical journals tucked inside. They’d saved his sanity, along with the newspapers he’d bought along the way.

All he’d been able to do for the duration of the crosscountry trip was read. And think. Think about what he’d lost. And what he’d come here to get back.

At the corner he stopped and eyed the Crystal Springs Hotel across the street, suddenly anxious to get inside, book a room, get cleaned up and grab a few hours of sleep. But his gaze swung to the general store down the block and the spot where he’d seen the pretty woman standing in the doorway. She was gone now, but her image lingered in his mind.

She’d had a market basket on her arm so she was probably shopping. For supper, maybe? For her family?

A raw surge of emotion ripped through Jared. A cozy home. A warm kitchen. A good meal on the table. Someone special waiting.

“Damn…”

Jared bit off a worse curse as the painful reminder of why he’d come here twisted inside him. He trudged on toward the hotel, as anxious as ever to get this job done. Once more he silently vowed he wouldn’t go home empty-handed. And after this long, arduous journey, he wasn’t particular about how he accomplished his task.

But he wouldn’t fail. He’d head back east quickly.

As soon as he got what he’d come here for.

Chapter Two

“That’s not what I heard,” Lily Vaughn said, raising her eyebrows.

Kinsey glanced up from the two pans of frying chicken on the cookstove and looked at her friend at the worktable beside her. Lily was only a few years younger, pretty, with a head full of wild golden curls she struggled to keep contained in a bun at her nape.

“What did you hear?” Kinsey asked.

Lily looked around the kitchen, causing Kinsey to do the same. The big room held enough cupboards, cabinets and workspaces to provide the two meals a day necessary to keep the boardinghouse residents happy. Kinsey had come to work there, cooking and cleaning, shortly after arriving in Crystal Springs.

“Well, I heard that after church last Sunday, the two of them went for a walk down by the creek and—” Lily leaned in and whispered in Kinsey’s ear.

She gasped and pulled away. “My goodness, she—”

“Are you two girls gossiping again?”

Nell Taylor came through the swinging door from the adjoining dining room, giving them a stern look.

“Because if you are,” Nell said with a sly smile, “you’d better wait until I get in here so I can hear it, too.”

Kinsey giggled, at ease in the Taylor home. Not only had Nell given her a job but she also allowed her to live in a room off the kitchen at the rear of the house. It was small, but plenty big enough for Kinsey and Sam. Nell had given Lily a room up on the third floor of the big house next to her own when the young woman had come to work for her a few weeks ago.

Nell’s husband, the woman was fond of saying, did things in a grand way, except save money. He’d died, leaving his widow nothing but the house. Nell had converted it into a boarding home and managed quite nicely with Lily and Kinsey as hired help.

“I was hoping Kinsey would have some gossip for us, Nell,” Lily said, returning to the biscuit dough on the worktable. “Did you hear anything more about that hateful old Miss Patterson while you were in town this afternoon?”

“Some people prefer to think of Bess Patterson as set in her ways,” Nell pointed out.

“I think she’s mean and completely unreasonable,” Lily said. “What sort of woman would hold a church hostage—just to get her own way?”

“It’s her money,” Nell said. “She can decide what she wants the church to look like.”

“I still say it’s shameful,” Lily declared.

Kinsey thought the same but didn’t say so, as she stirred the pot of potatoes boiling on the stove. The town’s only church had burned to the ground and Bess Patterson, the wealthiest and, some said, most peculiar woman in Crystal Springs, had offered to pay for its rebuilding—provided the structure met her specifications. So far, none of the plans met with her approval.

“I didn’t hear anything new on the subject at the general store,” Kinsey offered.

Both Lily and Nell looked disappointed. Nell got a stack of plates from the cupboard and headed back into the dining room.

“So what is new in town?” Lily asked, cutting biscuits from the dough.

The image of the stranger from the stagecoach bloomed large in Kinsey’s mind. He’d lurked in her thoughts ever since she’d hurried into the general store this afternoon to avoid his gaze, and once again his memory made her stomach a little jumpy. But just why that happened, she wasn’t sure.

“Well?” Lily prompted.

“Nothing,” Kinsey said quickly. “Nothing’s new in town.”

“Not a thing?” Lily asked hopefully, as if it might prompt her to recall something.

Stalling for time and struggling to put thoughts of the stranger aside, Kinsey glanced out the window at the boys playing in the neighbor’s yard. She spotted Sam quickly, running and waving a stick alongside the Gleason boys. Dora Gleason had four sons; one more child in her yard didn’t matter one way or the other, she’d said. Sam was close to the same age as the Gleasons and they all got along well.

“I saw Isaac in town,” Kinsey said softly.

Lily’s spine stiffened. “Sheriff Vaughn, you mean?”

“I mean your husband.”

Lily jammed the biscuit cutter into the dough and, after a few minutes asked, “Did he say…anything?”

“He said—”