A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel

Where did you come from?

And why are you so frightened all the time?

A part of Lark would have loved to answer those questions with stark honesty. Her secrets were a very heavy burden indeed, and Mrs. Porter, while an obvious gossip, was a friendly woman with motherly ways.

“Little Lydia Fairmont is finally learning to write her letters properly,” Lark said, glad of the change of subject. “She’s a bright child, but she has a great deal of trouble with penmanship.”

Mrs. Porter sighed and stared into her teacup. “Mr. Porter loved to read,” she said. “And he wrote a very fine hand. Copperplate, you know. Quite elegant.”

“I’m sure he did,” Lark replied, saddened. Then, tentatively, she ventured, “You must miss him very much.”

Mrs. Porter’s spine straightened. “He’s gone,” she said, almost tersely, “and that’s the end of it.”

Feeling put in her place, Lark busied herself stirring more milk into her tea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Mrs. Porter patted her hand, her touch light and cool. The house was large, and it was cold, except for the kitchen, since the fireplaces in the parlor and dining room were never lit. When she wasn’t at school, where there was a potbelly stove and plenty of wood, Lark either shivered in her room, bundled in a quilt or read at the table where she was sitting now.

There had been no snow since before Christmas, but the weather was bitter, just the same. Would the winter never end? Though spring would surely bring trouble, Lark longed for it with helpless desperation.

“No need to apologize, dear,” Mrs. Porter said graciously. “Have another lemon tart.”

Lark, who had been hungry ever since she’d fled Denver, did not hesitate to accept the offered refreshment.

The back door opened, and Mai Lee, Mrs. Porter’s cook, dashed in, a shawl pulled tightly around her head and shoulders. She carried a grocery basket over one arm, with a plucked chicken inside, its head lolling over one side.

“Make supper, chop-chop,” Mai Lee said.

“Have some tea first,” Mrs. Porter told the woman kindly. “You look chilled to the bone.”

“No, no,” Mai Lee answered, hanging up her shawl and setting the basket decisively on the worktable next to the stove. “Stand here. Be warm. Cook chicken.”

Mrs. Porter rose from her chair, fetched another china cup and saucer from the breakfront, with its curvy glass doors, and poured tea, adding generous portions of sugar and milk. “Drink this,” she told Mai Lee, “or you’ll catch your death.”

Dutifully Mai Lee accepted the tea, only to set it aside and grab the dead chicken by its neck. “I tell man at mercantile, chop off head,” she announced. “But he no do.” Her eyes glowed with excitement. “On way there, I see Rowdy Rhodes in barbershop. He getting haircut. Dog getting haircut, too. Horse at livery stable, plenty of grain.”

Mrs. Porter sat down again, poured herself more tea and took a tart, nibbling delicately at the edge. “Mai Lee,” she said appreciatively, “it will be the Lord’s own wonder if I don’t lose you to the newspaper one of these days. You’d be a very good reporter.”

“I no read or write,” Mai Lee lamented good-naturedly, spreading her hands wide for emphasis before slamming the chicken down on the chopping board to whack off its head with one sure stroke of the butcher knife. “Cannot be reporter.”

“How did you know Mr. Rhodes’s horse was at the livery stable, let alone how much grain it receives?” Mrs. Porter asked, both amused and avidly curious.

Mai Lee frowned as she worked her way through the intricacies of the question, put to her in a language that was not her own. “I hear man talking outside barbershop,” she said finally. “He work at stable.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Porter said. “What else did you learn about Mr. Rhodes?”

Mai Lee giggled. She might have been sixteen—or sixty. Lark couldn’t tell by her appearance, and it was the same with her husband, who joined her each night, late, to share a narrow bed in the nook beneath the main staircase, and was invariably gone by daylight. Both of them were ageless.

From the limited amount of information she’d been able to gather, Lark surmised that the couple was saving practically every cent they earned to buy a little plot of land and raise vegetables for sale to the growing community.

“He handsome,” Mai Lee confided, when she’d recovered from her girlish mirth. “Eyes blue, like sky. Hair golden. Smile—” here, she laid a hand to her flat little chest “—make knees bend.”

“He smiled at you?” Lark asked, and could have chewed up her tongue and swallowed it for revealing any interest at all.

Mrs. Porter looked at her, clearly intrigued.

Mai Lee began hacking the chicken into pieces and nodded. “Through window of barbershop. I look. He wink at me.” She giggled again. “Not tell husband.”

The pit of Lark’s stomach did a peculiar little flip. She’d seen Mr. Rhodes only from a distance; he might have been handsome, as Mai Lee claimed, or ugly as the floor of a henhouse. And what did she care, either way, if he winked at women?

It only went to prove he was a rounder and a rascal.

With luck, he’d move on, and she’d never have to make his acquaintance at all.

Unless, of course, Autry had paid him to track her down.

Suddenly Lark was as cold as if she’d been sitting outside, under a bare-limbed oak tree, instead of smack in the middle of Mrs. Porter’s cozy kitchen.

Mai Lee proceeded to build up the fire in the cookstove, then placed a skillet on top and lobbed in a spoonful of lard. She peeled potatoes while the pan heated, a model of brisk efficiency, and politely spurned Lark’s offer to help.

Mrs. Porter sat in companionable silence, sipping her tea and flipping through that week’s copy of the Stone Creek Courier. Lark set the table for three, while the aroma of frying chicken filled the kitchen. Steam veiled the windows.

Lark picked up a book, a favorite she’d owned since childhood, and buried herself in the story. She’d read it countless times, but she never tired of the tale, in which a young woman, fallen upon hard and grievous times, offered herself up as a mail-order bride, married a taciturn farmer, slowly won his heart and bore his children.

The knock at the back door brought her sharply back to ordinary reality.

“Now who could that be?” Mrs. Porter mused, moving to answer.

A blast of frigid air rushed into the room.

And there in the open doorway stood Rowdy Rhodes, in his long, black coat, freshly shaven and barbered, holding his hat in one hand. Mai Lee had been right about his blue eyes and his smile.

Lark was glad she was sitting down.

“I heard you might have rooms to let,” he said, and though he was addressing Mrs. Porter, his gaze strayed immediately to Lark. A slight frown creased the space between his brows. “Of course, you’d have to let my dog stay, too.”

The yellow hound ambled past him as if it had lived in that house forever, sniffed the air, which was redolent with frying chicken, and marched himself over to the stove, where he lay down with a weary, grateful sigh.

Mrs. Porter, Lark thought, with frantic relief, was a fastidious housekeeper, and she would never allow a dog. She would surely turn Mr. Rhodes away.

“It’s two dollars a week,” Mrs. Porter said instead, casting a glance back at Lark. “Normal price is $1.50, but, with the dog—”

Rhodes smiled again, once he’d shifted his attention back to the landlady. “Sounds fair,” he said. “Mr. Sam O’Ballivan will vouch for me, if there’s any question of my character.”

“Come in,” Mrs. Porter fussed, fond as a mother welcoming home a prodigal son, heretofore despaired of. “Supper’s just about ready.”

No, Lark thought desperately.

The dog sighed again, very contentedly, and closed its eyes.