The Widow's Little Secret. Judith Stacy

miles from here. A man he hadn’t thought of in years.

      According to the newspaper, Ingram had died from a fall. Jared had figured ol’ Del was more likely to have been killed by a jealous husband, an irate wife or a poker player with an eye for cheaters.

      Not so, according to the newspaper. Del had made something of himself here in Stanford. Owner of a restaurant, a solid citizen with a sterling reputation, he’d had a life any man would envy.

      Jared touched his hand to the U.S. Marshal’s badge pinned to his vest beneath his coat. Seemed he and his boyhood friend had taken very different roads when they’d parted company some fifteen years ago. This wasn’t the man Jared remembered. But maybe Del had changed.

      Jared sure as hell had.

      The rocker creaked as Jared leaned back and watched from beneath the brim of his black Stetson as the funeral procession passed by. Matched sorrels pulled the wagon bearing the coffin, their hoofs stirring up little swirls of dust. Two dozen mourners followed, all dressed in black, their somber faces flushed red from the raw March wind.

      Jared glanced west. Charcoal clouds hung over the Sierra Nevadas, blocking out what was left of the day’s sunlight. He had nothing to do, no place to go, no one to talk to until morning when he would relieve Stanford’s sheriff of his two prisoners and head to Carson City. Jared may as well pay his respects to Del Ingram, even though he’d never especially liked him.

      A few people glanced at Jared as he fell into step behind the mourners. One woman eyed the Colt .45 strapped to his hip and the badge on his chest when the wind whipped open his coat. She chanced a look at his face, then turned away, wondering, he was sure, who he was and why he was here.

      Jared found himself on the receiving end of a hundred such looks nearly every time he came to a town like this. Not that he blamed anyone, of course. He’d arrive one day, eat supper alone in some restaurant, sleep in a nameless hotel, then take custody of his prisoners the following morning and disappear.

      And those were his good days. Most of the time he was on the trail, sleeping in the saddle, eating jerky and cold beans, hunting down some rabble-rouser who’d broken the law.

      He was used to both—the life and the looks he got. Jared had been a marshal for nearly ten years now.

      At the cemetery on the edge of town, six men unloaded the coffin from the wagon. Del Ingram’s final resting place was deep; freshly turned earth lay beside it.

      Reverend Harris stepped to the foot of the grave, yanked his black, wide-brimmed hat over the tufts of his gray hair and struggled to hold open the fluttering pages of his Bible. The townsfolk gathered in a close knot, straining to hear the reverend’s words. Jared moved off to one side, uncomfortable among the mourners.

      As was his custom, Jared’s gaze moved from face to face, sizing up each person assembled there. He was good at it. It had saved his life a time or two.

      From all appearances, everyone who was anyone in the town of Stanford was assembled to mourn Del’s passing. They all looked prosperous, in dress and in manner. Jared spotted the mayor and his wife; he’d met the man earlier in the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Hickert wasn’t present, but Jared hadn’t expected him to be. He was nursing a nasty leg wound from the shoot-out that had garnered the two prisoners Jared was transporting tomorrow.

      The gathering shifted as Reverend Harris reached for the woman standing in front of him. Jared’s stomach bottomed out.

      “Damn…”

      The widow. Del’s widow. Jared felt like he’d been sucker-punched in the gut.

      He didn’t know how Ingram had acquired a prosperous business, a good home, a sterling reputation—and he sure as hell couldn’t imagine how he’d found himself such a fine-looking wife.

      Even in her mourning dress she looked fit and shapely. She’d draped a black lace scarf over her head, but tendrils of her brown hair escaped in the wind and blew across her pale cheeks. She stood stiff and straight, her full lips pressed tightly together as she gazed past the reverend to some point on the distant horizon.

      Jared thought she looked brave, determined not to break down. He wondered if she’d fully accepted the sudden loss of her husband, dead not quite two days now. He’d seen that happen before, where a long time passed before reality set in—and only then did loved ones fall to pieces.

      Who would be there to hold Mrs. Del Ingram when that happened? Jared wondered. He wondered, too, why the thought bothered him so much.

      He recalled the newspaper article he’d read, and remembered no mention of Ingram having any children. Indeed, no little ones hung on Mrs. Ingram’s skirt, sniffling, reaching up to her. Jared found that troubling. The widow was truly alone now, it seemed, without even a child to comfort her.

      “Let us pray,” Reverend Harris called.

      As heads bowed, Jared pulled out the newspaper, which he’d crammed into his pocket, and searched for the widow’s name. Matilda. “Mattie,” the mayor’s wife had called her in a quote.

      He turned to her again. His breath caught. Mattie Ingram hadn’t bowed her head for the prayer. She was looking straight at him.

      Their gazes met and held. She didn’t blink, didn’t falter, didn’t hesitate, just looked at him long and hard, with the biggest, brownest eyes he’d ever seen.

      Heat flared in Jared’s belly, spreading outward, weakening his knees and making his heart thump harder in his chest.

      “Amen,” the reverend intoned.

      “Amen,” the gathering echoed.

      Only then did Mattie turn away. Flushed, Jared pushed back his coat to welcome the chilly wind.

      He watched her, silently willing her to turn toward him again. But she didn’t. Rigid, restrained, Mattie accepted condolences, then headed back toward town, with the other mourners crowded around her.

      Standing beside the mound of dirt at Ingram’s grave, Jared followed her with his gaze, the bustle under her dark dress swaying, the vision of her deep brown eyes still boring into him. Finally, she disappeared from sight. Jared headed for the closest saloon.

      Almost nobody was inside the Lady Luck when Jared passed through the bat-wing doors. Two men stood at the bar; the gaming tables were empty.

      “Pretty quiet in here,” Jared said to the bartender.

      “Everybody’s paying their respects,” he said, and nodded outside, “down at Mrs. Ingram’s place.”

      Jared should have known that. The mourners would gather at the widow’s house, eat the food they’d brought, and talk one final time about the departed.

      Jared leaned his elbow on the bar. Had he been on the trail so long he’d forgotten how civilized people acted?

      Over the next few hours the saloon filled with men, drinks flowed and the noise level rose. Everybody who came in had something to say about Del Ingram. Jared stood at the bar sipping his drink, trying to block it out. By the time he’d finished his fourth beer he’d heard all the tributes he could stand to hear about the man he remembered to be a first-rate scalawag, the man these townsfolk admired so much.

      Outside, the cold wind whipped around Jared as he headed down the boardwalk toward the hotel. It was dark now. The town had closed up for the night.

      But when he reached the hotel, Jared kept walking. He didn’t stop until he got to the edge of town, to the sturdy house with the picket fence he’d read about in the newspaper. The Ingram home.

      And a fine home it was. Neat, clean, well built. A house fit for one of Stanford’s most prosperous citizens.

      The front door opened and a woman stepped onto the porch, outlined by the glowing lamplight behind her. Jared’s heart lurched. Was it her? Was it Mattie?

      The woman pulled two small children out of the house behind her and