The Untamed Heart. Kit Gardner

      “With two pigtails down to her butt.”

      Devlin had stopped eating and was watching her. Resisting the urge to squirm, she regarded Gramps from beneath ominous brows. “Ready, Gramps? I’ve got to get to town early.”

      “You go on.”

      Willie set her teeth. “I need you to come with me.”

      “You never needed an old man’s help before, Willie-girl. I’m sure J. D. Harkness will be more than happy to help you load up the wagon. Ain’t nobody in the Silver Spur this early.”

      Devlin’s chair scraped against the floorboards and he surged to his full height so suddenly Willie’s breath caught. “I’ll accompany her,” he said. “I’m going to town myself.”

      Willie thrust out her jaw. “That’s not—”

      “If you say so,” Gramps said to Devlin.

      “It’s no trouble.”

      Damn them both for behaving as if she weren’t there.

      “Watch yourself, Devlin,” Gramps said as Devlin settled a tall black silk hat on his head. “The fingers of low-life gunmen get itchy at the sight of a stovepipe.”

      “I didn’t know Prosperity Gulch had any low-life gunmen.”

      “Never can tell anymore. I seen decent fellas turn low-life awful fast when times are hard.”

      “Yes, I suppose they can.” Devlin drew up and held a hand for Willie to precede him out the door.

      Determined not to let her exasperation show, Willie strode out of the kitchen one pace ahead of Devlin, muttering over her shoulder, “I’m riding on the wagon alone.”

      “As you wish,” he murmured. “I’ll saddle my horse.”

      She thought she felt the heat of his breath on her neck and scooted quickly ahead and into the heat of the day before the shivers again whispered over her skin.

      

      Sloan’s nag would have been laughed off the block at Tattersall’s in London. Even men like Sloan who didn’t live and die by their equipage would have known at first sight that the horse wasn’t worth a shilling, much less the ten dollars the livery owner had asked and gotten Sloan to pay for him. He’d been the only horse the man had for sale, as second rate as the shoeing the man was doing on another horse. Sloan could merely wonder if most of the tradesmen and practitioners who occupied the frontier towns were impelled there by a lack of success back East. After all, even he had been drawn here by all the promises, hoping to find some peace on the frontier, hoping to forget his own failures.

      Dismounting, he looped his reins around the hitching rail.

      Willie was tending to her own horse, her back turned toward him. The horse’s sleek lines suggested that he had come with them from that prosperous farm in Illinois, and had probably descended from her father’s cavalry. His eye lingered only briefly on the magnificent animal. Willie moved around the horse and wagon with brisk efficiency, nose jutting even when she was looking down. She’d left him in the dust of her wagon wheels and hadn’t spoken to him since she’d breezed past him in the kitchen.

      Sloan touched his fingers to the brim of his hat and nodded as two women ventured past on the wooden boardwalk. They didn’t return his greeting. He glanced up and down the street. Townsfolk lingered on the walks, outside of the stores, some sitting on overturned barrels, others leaning against the buildings, still others ambling along as if they had no place to be in a hurry. Most were watching him with a kindred suspicion. In this they were not divided.

      Trust would be difficult to earn here, especially since it had obviously been misused by someone. Most probably the railroad, the Eastern capitalists, invisible in their comfortable offices far removed from the hardships of their corporate endeavors. One act of betrayal was all it took to put that hard, fathomless look in people’s eyes and suspicion in their hearts.

      He wasn’t used to being on the outside, wanting to get in.

      He watched Willie climb the steps to the general store and followed after several moments, catching the door by his toe when she pushed it closed behind her. The place was small, crammed from floor to ceiling with wares. Willie was at the counter, reading to a short, mustached man from a list. Sloan lingered beside an aisle of shelves piled high with dry goods. At the end of the aisle, a hard-worked woman stood beside a table stacked with bolts of cloth and skeins of brightly colored ribbon. Sloan watched her knotted fingers fold a length of ruby satin into pleats then drape it over her plain skirt. Her face, worn and rough as the clothes she wore, illuminated with pleasure at the splendor of the material.

      Sloan moved to the counter, well aware that Willie’s voice broke off suddenly when he paused behind her. He got a good look at her list an instant before she crushed it in her fist. Over the top of her head he gave the stony-faced merchant a cordial nod then lowered his head and said, “You’ve nothing for yourself on your list, Wilhelmina.”

      “You can start with the sacks of flour and sugar, Mr. Lewis,” she said, sending the merchant off toward the back of the store. She turned and nearly ran smack into Sloan’s chest. “Devlin, you’re in my way.”

      “So sorry. Hair ribbons are over here.”

      She pursed her lips and looked as vexed as she might look with a bothersome fly. When he moved a step back, she slipped past him in a wave of warm lilac. One arm waved in a vague direction. “Why aren’t you off writing somewhere?”

      “I’ve nothing to editorialize about just yet.” He followed her down the far aisle. He paused when she paused to scan the shelves. “I’m still observing.”

      “Observing?” She reached high on tiptoes, fingers outstretched, backside curving one way, breasts thrusting the other. Sloan stared at her for several moments then quickly retrieved the cans she needed. “Thank you.” She blinked up at him then frowned. “What’s to observe?” Without awaiting his reply, she again brushed past him and disappeared around the corner of another aisle.

      He followed, pausing beside the woman who lingered over the bolt of ruby satin. He offered a brief smile. At once a veil of suspicion shadowed the woman’s features and Sloan could see every trial she’d borne over the years mirrored in her eyes.