Wyoming Lawman. Victoria Bylin

Matt spoke amiably, but the sniping annoyed him. The clock had just struck nine. Jasper’s store had been open for three minutes. Annoyed or not, Matt resolved to be polite. “I hear you’ve got a complaint.”

      “I do.”

      “Tell me about it.”

      “One of Fife’s girls came in here and touched things. She left marks on them.”

      Matt kept his face blank. “What kind of marks?”

      “Smudges.”

      If the girl had done real damage, he could have asked her to pay for it—or paid for it for her—and been done with the entire mess. Instead he had to reason with Jasper about smudges. “Could you wipe them off?”

      The man reared back. “I don’t think you understand.”

      Matt hid a grimace. “Maybe not.”

      “She besmirched my property!”

      Matt had arrested a lot of people for a lot of crimes, but besmirching wasn’t on that list. Did he explain to Jasper that nothing had been damaged? Did he fib and tell him he’d speak with Katy? What Matt wanted to do—call Jasper a two-faced hypocrite—wouldn’t solve the problem. The man had a lot of nerve to accuse a cleaning girl of “besmirching” when he himself had visited prostitutes and possibly bribed Ben Hawks to cover it up. If Matt’s hunch was correct, Jasper had done other things, too. He’d been one of the riders who busted out the windows at the Silver Slipper.

      Annoyed, Matt tapped the counter. “Let me see the brush set.”