A Wanted Man: A Stone Creek Novel. Linda Lael Miller

Chinaman, strong for his size, nodded at a go-ahead from Jolene and turned Pardner’s tub over onto its side, so the water poured down through the gaps between the floorboards.

      “I ain’t bathin’ in the same tub as no dog, Harlan,” Willie told his friend stoutly.

      Harlan sighed. “Willie, sometimes you are a trial to my spirit,” he said. “That mutt was probably cleaner than you are before he even set foot in this place.”

      “Them steaks are about ready,” Jolene informed Rowdy, giving Pardner a dark assessment. “I don’t reckon the dog could eat out back, instead of in my dining room?”

      “You ‘don’t reckon’ right,” Rowdy said pleasantly. With cordial nods to Harlan and Willie, he made for the bathhouse door, Pardner right on his heels.

      * * *

      LARK MORGAN WATCHED slantwise from an upstairs window of Mrs. Porter’s Rooming House as the stranger strode across the road from Jolene Bell’s establishment to the barbershop, the dog walking close by his side.

      The man wore a trail coat that could have used a good shaking out, and his hair, long enough to curl at the back of his collar, gleamed pale gold in the afternoon sunlight. His hat was battered, but of good quality, and the same could be said of his boots. While not necessarily a person of means, he was no ordinary saddle bum, either.

      And that worried Lark more than anything else—except maybe the bulge low on his left hip, indicating that he was wearing a sidearm.

      She frowned. Drew back from the window when the stranger suddenly turned, his gaze slicing to the very window she was peering out of, as surely as if he’d felt her watching him. Her heart rose into her throat and fluttered there.

      A hand coming to rest on her arm made her start.

      Ellie Lou Porter, her landlady, stepped back, her eyes wide. Mrs. Porter was a doelike creature, tiny and frail and painfully plain. Behind that unremarkable face, however, lurked a shrewd and very busy brain.

      “I’m so sorry, Lark,” Mrs. Porter said, watching through the window as the stranger finally turned away and stepped into the barbershop, taking the dog with him. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

      Lark willed her heart to settle back into its ordinary place and beat properly. “You didn’t,” she lied. “I was just—distracted, and you caught me off guard.”

      Mrs. Porter smiled knowingly. There wasn’t much that went on in or around Stone Creek, Lark had quickly learned, that escaped the woman’s scrutiny. “His name is Rowdy Rhodes,” she said, evidently speaking of the stranger who had just entered the barbershop. “As you may know, my cook, Mai Lee, is married to Jolene’s houseboy, and she carries a tale readily enough.” She paused, shuddering, though whether over Jolene or the houseboy, Lark had no way of knowing. “It’s got to be an alias, of course,” Mrs. Porter finished.

      Lark was not reassured. If it hadn’t been against her better judgment, she’d have gone right down to the barbershop, a place where women were no more welcome than in her former husband’s gentleman’s club in Denver, and demanded that the stranger explain himself and his presence in her hiding place.

      “Do you think he’s a gunslinger?” she asked, trying to sound merely interested. In her mind she was already packing her things, preparing to catch the first stagecoach out of Stone Creek, heading anywhere. Fast.

      “Could be,” Mrs. Porter said thoughtfully. “Or he might be a lawman.”

      “He’s probably just passing through.”

      “I don’t think so,” Mrs. Porter replied, her face draped in the patterned shadow of the lace curtains covering the hallway window.

      “What makes you say that?” Lark wanted to know.

      Mrs. Porter smiled. “It’s just a feeling I have,” she said. “Whoever he is, he’s got business around here. He moves like a man with a purpose he means to accomplish.”

      Lark was further discomforted. She barely knew her landlady, but she’d ascertained at their first meeting that Mrs. Porter was alarmingly perceptive. Although the other woman hadn’t actually contradicted Lark’s well-rehearsed story that she was a maiden schoolteacher, she’d taken pointed notice of her new boarder’s velvet traveling suit, Parisian hat, costly trunk and matching reticules.

      Stupid, Lark thought, remembering the day, a little over three months before, when she’d presented herself at Mrs. Porter’s door and inquired after a room. I should have worn calico, or bombazine.

      Now, in light of the stranger’s arrival, she had more to worry about than her wardrobe, plainly more suited to the wife of a rich and powerful man than an underpaid schoolmarm. What if Autry had found her, at long last? What if he’d sent Rowdy Rhodes, or whoever he was, to drag her back to Denver or, worse yet, simply kill her?

      Lark suppressed a shudder. Autry’s reach was long, and so was his memory. He was a man of savage pride, and he wouldn’t soon forget the humiliation she’d dealt him by the almost-unheard-of act of filing for a divorce. Denver society was probably still twittering over the scandal.

      “Come downstairs, dear,” Mrs. Porter said, with unexpected gentleness. “I’ll brew us a nice pot of tea, and we’ll chat.”

      Lark wanted to refuse the invitation—wished she’d said right away that she needed to work out lesson plans for the coming week, or shop for toiletries at the mercantile, or run some other Saturday errand, but she hadn’t. And she’d surely aroused Mrs. Porter’s assiduous curiosity by jumping at the touch of her hand.

      “Thank you,” she said, smiling determinedly and under no illusion that Mrs. Porter wanted to “chat.” Lark knew she was a puzzle to her landlady, one the woman meant to solve. “That would be very nice. If I could just freshen up a little—”

      Mrs. Porter nodded her acquiescence, returned Lark’s smile and descended the back stairway, into the kitchen.

      Lark hurried into her room, shut the door and leaned against it, staring at her own reflection in the bureau mirror directly opposite. She’d dyed her fair hair a dark shade of chestnut, in an effort to disguise herself, but her brown eyes, once her greatest vanity, were her most distinguishing feature, and there had, of course, been nothing she could do about them. She supposed she might have purchased dark glasses and pretended to be blind, but her funds had been nearly exhausted by the time she reached Stone Creek, and she’d needed immediate employment. Even in an isolated place like that one, where teachers were hard to come by, nobody would have hired someone with such a hindrance and, besides, the illusion of blindness would have been almost impossible to sustain.

      Keeping her hair dyed was hard enough.

      She laid a hand to her bosom and forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply. She mustn’t panic. Most likely Mr. Rhodes was merely passing through, whatever Mrs. Porter’s speculations to the contrary.

      Lark smoothed her crisp black skirt, straightened the cameo at the throat of her white shirtwaist, patted her hair. She’d been reckless, keeping the clothes from her old life, and she should have changed her first name, too, as well as her last. Autry had taken everything else from her—her pride, her self-respect, her dignity. She’d fled with her favorite gowns, two weeks’ allowance, and the money he kept hidden in the humidor in his study.

      A few garments and the name her mother had given her at birth seemed little enough to claim as her own.

      After steadying herself as best she could, Lark walked decorously to the top of the stairs, glided down them and swept into Mrs. Porter’s spacious, homey kitchen. The huge black cookstove, with its shining chrome trim, radiated warmth, and the delicious scent of brewing tea filled the room.

      “I’ve set out a plate of my lemon tarts,” Mrs. Porter said, with a nod to the offering in the center of the round oak table. “Mr. Porter loved them, you know.” She paused, sighed sadly. “Dear Mr. Porter.”

      Lark