Jared's Runaway Woman. Judith Stacy

      Surprise registered on Jared’s face. He shifted. His gaze bounced from her to the gun, around the room and back to Kinsey once more. She saw his mind working, berating himself for underestimating her, for letting her get the drop on him, for losing the upper hand.

      “You’re not taking Sam anywhere,” Kinsey said again, hearing her cold, deliberate words. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. And you have no idea what I’ll do to keep Sam.”

      “Look, I—”

      “Leave town. Don’t come back,” she told him. “Don’t you ever—”

      “Mama?”

      The back door opened and Sam walked in.

      Jared grabbed the gun from her hand.

      A foolish move. It could have gone off, shot him or her, or some innocent bystander. But Jared wasn’t familiar with guns. Kinsey had realized that when she’d seen him fumbling with his holster in the hotel room and it suddenly made sense why he hadn’t joined in the shooting in front of the Wild Cat Saloon the night he’d kissed her in the alley.

      That’s how she’d known she could get his gun from him just now.

      But she let him have it. She wouldn’t struggle for it. Not with Sam in the room.

      The boy looked back and forth between the two of them and alarm showed in his face.

      “Mama?”

      “It’s fine, honey. Everything’s fine.” Kinsey knelt in front of him and pulled him hard against her. Then she glanced up at Jared and put Sam away from her. “Run on outside again, sweetie. Play with the Gleason boys a while longer. Mama will come get you in a bit.”

      Sam gave her a troubled look, but went outside anyway.

      Kinsey rose from her feet and turned to Jared. He had the gun. He had the truth.

      And now he’d have Sam.

      “Make it easy on the boy,” Jared said. “Explain to him what’s happening. I’ll come by for him in the morning. Have him ready.”

      Chapter Six

      She could run.

      The temptation, so deeply ingrained in Kinsey, sprang to her mind the instant Jared had left the kitchen of the boardinghouse. She’d watched from the back porch as he paused for a moment to look at Sam playing with her neighbor’s boys, then moved along. She’d fought the urge to rush into the bedroom, pack their things and head out.

      Two things stopped her. One: the stage wouldn’t be through town for a few more days, the train not until the end of the week. She wouldn’t get very far on foot, or even on horseback, should she turn loose of her carefully hoarded money and buy one. Asking someone in town to hide her was unthinkable, given the explanations such a request would require.

      Two: Kinsey didn’t want to leave town.

      Realizing she and Sam were safe until the following morning when Jared had said he’d return, Kinsey had gone about her chores at the boardinghouse as usual, helping Nell and Lily with supper preparations. Somewhere between peeling the potatoes and serving the apple pie, Kinsey had decided that she didn’t want to be forced out of Crystal Springs. She didn’t want to be on the run again, searching for a new home, making new friends, always looking over her shoulder. She liked it here. She liked her home, her job, Sam’s teacher, his friends, the townsfolk.

      Washing up the supper dishes, Kinsey had decided to stay—and keep Sam with her, of course. Now, after tucking him into bed and slipping on her bonnet and wrap, she left the boardinghouse armed with nothing more than a plan.

      Yet her plans had kept her and Sam safe for five years, had brought her to this comfortable town, had held the Mason family at bay.

      It surprised her a bit that Jared hadn’t known who she was or that the private detective hadn’t discovered it. Apparently, in Clark’s many letters to his family he’d never mentioned her. But why would he? Business, the project he was overseeing, consumed most of his thoughts, as it would any man.

      Now she had a plan that would insure that she kept Sam. A plan, Kinsey believed, that Jared Mason, of all people, would understand.

      Jared understood power. She’d seen it in him when she’d been in his hotel room. The way he held her arms, the way he blocked her exit from the room. Then at the boardinghouse, the gleam in his eye when he realized that he’d discovered she wasn’t Sam’s mother and that he’d gotten his way, that he’d won.

      So if power was what Jared Mason understood, then power was what she’d show him.

      Sheriff Isaac Vaughn stood on the little porch in front of the jailhouse staring down Main Street toward the Wild Cat Saloon. It was dark now and the streets were nearly deserted.

      Isaac turned to her as she approached. In the dim light she saw the gentle shift in his expression, concern, worry that she was on the streets alone.

      Isaac was a big man. Tall, solid. Tough, too. He had to be, given his job as sheriff. Yet Kinsey had never experienced that side of him. To her, Isaac was more an older brother. She’d gotten to know him better since Lily had come to work at the boardinghouse.

      “Evening, Mrs. Templeton,” Isaac said, tipping his hat respectfully.

      “Good evening, Sheriff,” she answered, standing next to him. “I know it’s late for me to be out alone, but something’s bothering me that I want to discuss with you.”

      Isaac shifted. His expression hardened, as if preparing himself for bad news which, as sheriff, he often heard.

      “It’s about you and Lily,” Kinsey said.

      He seemed to wither slightly, the weight of the troubles with his wife bearing down on him for so long now it seemed difficult for him to stand up under the burden any longer.

      Exactly what had driven Lily from the home she shared with Isaac during their three-year marriage had been speculated about by most everyone in Crystal Springs. Everyone had an opinion—it had been the most talked-about incident in town, until the church burned down. It was common knowledge what the two of them had been through, of course, and, collectively, the town’s heart had gone out to them.

      Kinsey knew the whole truth, of course. She and Lily had grown close from all the hours they’d spent cooking and cleaning at the boardinghouse, and Lily had confided in her. Kinsey certainly wouldn’t betray Lily’s confidence by tattling to anyone and adding to the gossip that circulated through town about the couple.

      “I told Lily when she came to the boardinghouse that I wouldn’t take sides between the two of you,” Kinsey said. “You’ll recall I told you the same.”

      Cautiously, Isaac nodded.

      “I haven’t said much, one way or the other, to either of you,” Kinsey pointed out. “I’ve listened to Lily’s side of things. Heard her out. Tried to comfort her, tried to be a friend.”

      “You’ve been a good friend,” he said, “to both of us.”

      Kinsey drewa breath and straightened her shoulders.

      “I think that was a mistake on my part,” she told him.

      “You do?”

      “Yes. The truth is, I never agreed with Lily’s leaving you, moving out of your home, taking a job and living in Nell’s boardinghouse,” Kinsey said, then added softly, “Regardless of the circumstances.”

      Isaac winced and glanced away.

      “I intend to talk to her, try and convince her to meet with you, find a way for you two to put your lives back together and get over…what happened,” Kinsey said. “I wanted you to know that, Isaac.”

      He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

      “I should have done it sooner,” Kinsey