A Western Christmas Homecoming. Lynna Banning

silky with an extremely revealing neckline. And fishnet stockings.”

      Rand bit back a laugh. This girl was no ordinary librarian. In fact, he was beginning to realize that Alice Montgomery was not ordinary in any way.

      Sarah Rose stepped out onto the porch. “Marshal, have you had breakfast?”

      “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Rose.”

      Alice stood up. “Mark has a dozen more questions for you, Marshal. While he keeps you busy with the answers, I am going to the dressmaker’s.”

      “Come on in, Marshal Logan,” Sarah invited. “Mark can entertain you while he eats his breakfast.” She disappeared into the house.

      At the doorway, Rand turned to watch Alice make her way down the porch steps and start up the shady, tree-lined street. She was wearing something he’d never seen before, a sort of cutoff skirt that was split up the middle. Blue denim, if he wasn’t mistaken, with what looked like one of young Mark’s red plaid shirts. And polished leather riding boots.

      Inside the boardinghouse, he joined the residents in the dining room, and while they ate flapjacks and bacon he consumed two cups of Sarah’s excellent coffee. Mark peppered him with more questions about his life as a US Marshal, and that helped to keep his mind off Alice and what was coming. She’d looked calm and determined this morning. He wondered if she was feeling a bit apprehensive on the inside, but if she was, it sure didn’t show.

      At the end of the meal, Rooney invited him out to the front porch and sat him down in the swing. “Marshal Logan, I want you to know something. Alice is real special to Sarah and me, and I don’t think her sashayin’ off with you is a good idea. I told her I don’t want her settin’ off on this harebrained scheme of yours, and she—you know what she said?”

      Rand shook his head.

      “It’s the first time she’s ever talked back to me in all the years I’ve knowed her,” Rooney continued. “She said to mind my own business! That it was her sister and her life. Kinda hurt my feelin’s.”

      “Mr. Cloudman, there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to take Alice to a scruffy mining camp in Idaho. But I’m a United States Marshal, and those are my orders.”

      “Yeah, I get that, Rand. Shore am glad it ain’t me walkin’ into a mess like you told me about. I’m gettin’ too old.”

      “Sometimes I get to feeling too old, too,” Rand admitted. “I get tired of folks misbehaving and wish I could find some pretty little place and forget all about the law and justice and all that other stuff I swore to uphold.”

      “Our Alice,” Rooney said with a catch in his voice, “she’s a whole lot more’n just a librarian, Rand. And you better not forget it, you hear?”

      Rand nodded.

      “Keep her safe if you can,” the older man said.

      “You can count on that, Mr. Cloudman. If anything happens to Alice, you’ll know that I’m already dead.”

      Rooney snorted. “Well, hell, mister, that’s what I’m afraid of!”

      Dressmaker Verena Forester gasped, and the bolt of blue gingham in her arms tumbled onto the floor. “You want a what? Say that again, Alice?”

      “I want a fancy dress like a saloon girl wears. You know, with lots of ruffles and a really low neckline. Red, maybe. With sequins.”

      The dressmaker stared at her. “I suppose you’ve got some harebrained reason, Alice, but I don’t guess you’re going to tell me what it is.”

      “I’m taking a job. I’ll be working undercover for the Pinkerton Agency, and I need a disguise.”

      Verena’s mouth sagged open. “Pinkerton! Whatever for? You have a perfectly respectable job here in Smoke River as our librarian.”

      But she no longer had her sister. Alice had spent most of last night mulling over what was worth doing in life. She did have a respectable job as the librarian. She had a perfectly respectable life in a perfectly respectable town. Maybe that was the problem.

      Maybe she could ease the ache in her chest by helping to catch her sister’s killer.

      “Do you have any satin, Verena? Red satin?”

      The dressmaker pointed at a bolt of fabric halfway up a tall display shelf. “Scandalous color. When do you need this creation?”

      “This morning.”

      Verena gave a strangled cry. “Today? Why, I can’t cobble up a dress in that length of time. It takes real effort to sew on a lot of ruffles and sequins. That’ll take some doing. And besides, it’s gonna be Christmas pretty soon, and every woman in Smoke River’s wantin’ something new.”

      Alice smiled at her. “Oh. Well, Verena, I can always go over to the mercantile and buy a ready-made dress.”

      “Huh!” the dressmaker scoffed. “Carl Ness wouldn’t have such a shameless garment in his store. Nobody in town wears such things.”

      “Except for the girls down at Sally’s,” Alice said calmly.

      “Sally’s! How do you know about—?” The dressmaker recovered quickly. “The girls at Sally’s order custom-made gowns, and they give a body plenty of time to sew them.”

      “Verena, please. Could you try? I am pressed for time.”

      The dressmaker suddenly noticed the distress in Alice’s eyes and wilted like an unwatered houseplant. “All right, I’ll do it. Red satin and ruffles...it will be so outrageous you’ll be embarrassed to be seen in it.”

      “Oh, I do hope so,” Alice murmured. “I need to be as un-librarian-like as possible.”

      Verena rolled her eyes. “Give me until noon.” Then she shooed Alice out of the shop.

      Alice went from the dressmaker’s to Ness’s Mercantile, where she bought a bottle of cologne, a boy’s wide-brimmed black Stetson, a lethal-looking six-inch hatpin, a gaudy pink satin garter, and a derringer pistol and a box of cartridges. Then she stopped at the sheriff’s office and talked Sandy, the deputy, into showing her how to load and fire the pistol.

      Keeping busy helped ease the pain in her chest, but she finally ran out of errands. When she returned to Rose Cottage, Rooney and Marshal Logan were sitting on the porch swing and Mark was perched at their feet. Apparently he still hadn’t run out of questions because he posed another one as she came up the front walk.

      “How come you don’t have a fancy uniform like a colonel or somethin’?”

      Rand laughed. “Because it’s easier to sneak up on a criminal if you don’t look conspicuous.”

      Even Rooney laughed at that.

      “What’s ’spicuous?”

      “Conspicuous is what a man wears when he wants to get noticed, maybe by a girl he’s interested in.”

      Mark shot him a curious look. “Are you interested in a girl?”

      “Nope.” At least he wasn’t before he laid eyes on Alice Montgomery. Now he wasn’t so sure. In fact, at the sight of her in that swingy blue skirt and the boy’s shirt that revealed she was very obviously not a boy, he felt a tug of awareness he hadn’t felt in years.

      “Before we leave,” Alice announced, “I have some parcels to pick up at the mercantile and the dressmaker’s.”

      “Whadja buy, Alice?” Mark inquired. “Any caramel drops?”

      Alice smiled at him. “No caramel drops, I’m afraid. I bought a dress. Some smelly cologne. A hat like yours. And a pink garter.” She saw no need to mention the derringer.