A Cowboy's Heart. Liz Ireland

      By the time the words registered, Paulie had slapped the door shut behind her and disappeared inside. Will stood on the porch of Dwight’s building for a moment, sure he’d heard wrong. Or seen wrong. That was Paulie he’d just bumped into, wasn’t it? He pivoted and went back inside to check.

      Sure enough, there was Paulie, her crazy hair braided and smashed under one of her pa’s old hats, moving along the shelves of Dwight’s, scooping up matches, pointing to dried beef and fruit and quickly calculating the amounts of corn meal and coffee she could take along with her.

      Will strode toward her. “Never mind, Dwight,” he told the store’s short, balding proprietor. “You can just put all that stuff away, Paulie. Unless you’re buying it for Oat.”

      His words barely fazed her. “I’ll be more of a help to you than Oat will,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she turned back to the store owner. “I guess a pound of coffee will do, Dwight.”

      Will rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Paulie. For heaven’s sake. I can’t be hauling a girl along with me.”

      “Why not? You can haul an old boozy whiskey trader.”

      “That’s different.”

      “Why?”

      “He’s a man, that’s why.” He’d be damned if he was going to spend precious minutes explaining the facts of life to Paulie. “Now be reasonable, Sprout.”

      She put her hands full on her hips and glared up at him. “You can’t go out alone, and if you go with just Oat, you’ll be as good as alone. Now I’ve told you my opinion on the matter. You should call out the proper authorities. But since you won’t take my very sound advice, you’ll just have to put up with my company.”

      Will looked away from her, annoyed. Dwight still had his hand in a large sack of coffee, not certain whether he should start scooping it out or not.

      “You’ll slow us down.”

      Paulie hooted at that idea. “I can ride better than Oat, and I can shoot better, too. And see better.”

      “Leave Oat out of this. As far as I’m concerned, adding you to the crew will be travelling with two handicaps instead of one, only you’re a different kind.”

      “What kind?”

      “The female kind,” he said.

      She screwed her lips up wryly. “That’s a fact I suppose you’re just apt to notice when it suits you!”

      “You’re not going,” he repeated, more forcefully.

      “You can’t stop me,” she said. “If you don’t allow me in your party, then I’ll follow you. And that would be even more dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

      He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Darn it, you know chasing an Indian is no job for a girl.”

      “It’s no job for a cowboy, either, but that isn’t stopping you.”

      He sighed, then appealed to Dwight for assistance. “Will you please tell this stubborn girl that she can’t just pick up and chase after Night Bird?”

      Dwight had been standing in blank confusion, but now that he understood exactly what they were up to, the wrinkles disappeared from his endless forehead and his mouth dropped open in awe. “Night Bird!” Dwight exclaimed, in the same fearful tone that everybody used when referring to the infamous criminal. “Well, I’m glad somebody’s chasin’ him—as long as they chase him away from these parts. I haven’t slept a wink for weeks.”

      Thanks, Dwight, Will thought with disgust.

      Paulie beamed at him triumphantly. “See?” she asked, taking her purchases up to Dwight to tally up. “Even Dwight wants me to go.”

      “What I don’t see is why you feel so all-fired determined to tag along with me and Oat. Don’t you think we can find Night Bird ourselves?”

      “It’s the part after you find him that’s worrying me—and it would be worrying you, too, if you had the sense God gave a garden slug.”

      “She’s right, Will,” Dwight put in. “Night Bird is one mean hombre to mess with.”

      Paulie paid for her purchases, and they left the store. She was headed straight back across the way to the saloon, but Will stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.

      She flinched under his grasp, and two splotches of color appeared on her cheeks. Funny, he couldn’t remember the old Paulie blushing before—except occasionally when he’d teased her. Now she was turning pink all the time.

      He chalked it up to nerves.

      “Look at you,” he said. “You’re already skittish. Have you considered how you’ll feel when we’re that much closer to finding Night Bird?”

      “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.” She ducked her head, and lowered her voice as she assured him, “I’ll take care of you, too, if you’ll let me.”

      Something in her tone, in her gaze, made him assure her, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He squeezed his hand more firmly on her shoulder. “Honestly, Paulie. There’s got to be some reason why you’re willing to risk life and limb by going on this expedition.”

      She looked up at him for a long moment, studying his face. He could see his own concerned reflection in her green eyes. And then she glanced away. “You might find this hard to believe, but while you were away, Mary Ann and I got to be friends.”

      He did find that hard to swallow. Not that Paulie wouldn’t befriend Mary Ann—Paulie would talk to anything that talked back. But what would delicate, feminine Mary Ann have in common with a rough ragamuffin like Paulie Johnson?

      She licked her lips, then looked up at him again. “Pretty good friends,” she continued. “So you see, I’ve got my own reasons for wanting to go. I’m just going to look after somebody I care about, too.”

      He nodded curtly, touched by her words. Somehow, her claim of friendship changed things. He had a respect for friendship, for people looking after one another. Maybe it went back to the way Mary Ann’s dad had always looked after him. “I admire you, Paulie,” he said. “Not many people feel the bond of friendship so strong, especially for someone as different from themselves as Mary Ann is to you.”

      She shrugged modestly. “It’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any number of people.”

      A thought suddenly occurred to Will. “What you were saying before, about Mary Ann going to San Antonio...she didn’t confide any such scheme to you, did she?”

      “No,” she replied, “it was just a hunch.”

      They crossed to the old lean-to Paulie used as a stable and she began readying her saddlebags with the things she’d bought at the store. Will did likewise. As they stood side by side, Paulie finally piped up, “Are you sure you aren’t going after Night Bird just to prove something, Will?”

      “Prove something? Like what?”

      “Well, maybe that you were the man who truly deserved Mary Ann.”

      He felt a muscle in his tense jaw twitch. For a moment, he considered confiding in her, telling her how guilty he felt for sending that letter, for not just waiting till he got home to explain to Mary Ann why he just couldn’t see them getting married. Maybe then she wouldn’t have gone off and married Oat, and then been kidnapped by that madman.

      But he couldn’t think about that now. He just had to concentrate on his responsibility toward her. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want to find her. It’s not right for people to sit around and do nothing when a renegade is snapping innocent young women out of their beds.”

      They saddled up Paulie’s horse