Wildwood. Lynna Banning

the knob and pushed the door inward.

      “Jeremiah?” Leaving the door ajar, Ben turned toward his desk. A stack of unopened mail sat on top of his logbook. Curled up beside it lounged a ball of marbled blackand-white fur. He scratched the cat’s underchin, then reached past the animal to rescue the coffee cup teetering near the edge of the desktop.

      “Jeremiah!”

      A square, bearded face appeared in the doorway. “I’m right here, Colonel. What you need’n?”

      “Whiskey,” Ben growled.

      “Doc Bartel says—”

      Ben yanked open the top desk drawer and rummaged through the contents. “Rufus Bartel is a fussy old coot with an excess of irrelevant medical training.”

      Jeremiah nodded, his soft brown eyes twinkling. “Yessir, Colonel, that he is. Irrelevant.”

      “Nosy old sawbones,” Ben grumbled. His fingers closed over a small brown bottle.

      “Yessir, he surely is.” Jeremiah moved forward, his stocky frame quiet as a cat’s. “That doesn’t make the doctor wrong, though.” He snatched the bottle from Ben’s lips. “Truth is, Ben, you quit drinkin’ heavy. Thing is, you gotta stay quit.”

      Ben snorted. “Jeremiah, I don’t pay you to nursemammy me.” He sucked in a lungful of air as Jeremiah slipped the bottle into his back pocket.

      “No, Colonel. You don’t pay me a-tall, and I reckon you remember why.”

      Ben remembered. Both in the field and when imprisoned at Rock Island, he and Jeremiah had saved each other’s lives so many times the two men were like blood brothers. Half of Ben’s salary was paid to his faithful friend, along with considerable admiration and respect.

      Jeremiah was more than Ben’s deputy. The solidly built man was the only surviving family Ben had left outside of his younger brother. In fact, he felt closer to Jeremiah than he did to Carleton. After the war, when he and Jeremiah had come West, the two had made a pact. Half of whatever one had belonged to the other—whether food, horseflesh, whiskey, or cash money. They drew the line only at women.

      “I need a drink,” Ben ventured.

      Jeremiah grinned, revealing a mouthful of uneven white teeth. “Talked to her, didja?” He nodded his head knowingly. “Thought so. Beats me how a woman can do that to a man inside of ten minutes jes’ by talkin’, but happens all the time.”

      “Jeremiah?”

      “Colonel?”

      “Bring two glasses.”

      Jeremiah executed a quick about-face and moved toward the doorway. “Damn troublous creatures, women.”

      Ben leaned his forehead onto his hands. Yes, damned troublous.

      He didn’t want Jessamyn Whittaker out here, poking about just like Thaddeus had, interfering with his job. A Yankee lady from Boston? She probably hadn’t the sense God gave a bird’s nest. She’d hamstring his progress just as surely as if she hobbled his horse. Thaddeus had been a constant fly in the ointment for years, and nothing Ben had said could deter him. “I got a good nose for news” was all the editor would say.

      That the crusty old man had had. Ben could see in a minute that his daughter was just like him. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He had to decide what to do about her, and fast. A starchy Yankee with soft green eyes was the last thing he needed right now.

      

      Jessamyn plopped the boar-bristle scrub brush into the pail of soapy water and sat back on her heels. She’d scrubbed everything in sight, including the plank floor, until it was clean enough to squeak. The rough oak boards had been so caked with filth she’d scoured them twice with lye soap.

      Next she planned to visit Frieder’s Mercantile to purchase the kerosene she needed to clean the iron printing press and order some other supplies as well—printer’s ink and more newsprint. She’d found her father’s storage cabinets almost empty.

      Tucking a wayward strand of hair into the loose bun coiled on top of her head, she scrambled to her feet and swatted the dust off her work apron. The hem of her blue poplin skirt and the two starched petticoats underneath were gray with cobwebby dirt. Jessamyn seized the garments in both hands and switched them vigorously from side to side.

      Clouds of dust puffed up from the folds of material, making her eyes water and her nose itch. If Miss Bennett could see her now, she’d have apoplexy!

      She studied her red, water-puckered hands. At this moment Boston and the refinements of civilization seemed as distant as the moon. Her bed at the Dixon House hotel the previous night had been uncomfortable, the mattress so thin the metal springs had pressed into her back. Sleepless, she’d tossed and turned, thinking of Papa, of all the years he’d praised her talent for writing, remembering how bereft she’d felt between his newsy, heartfelt letters.

      She also thought about the Wildwood Times. She would do anything to please her father, especially now that he was gone. Running his newspaper would keep him close to her.

      Jessamyn sighed. Her back and shoulders were as stiff as her whalebone corset stays, and her knees ached from hours spent kneeling on the floor. She would much rather set type than do housework, but the place simply had to be cleaned. She couldn’t stand walking on a surface that crunched under her shoes. Grabbing her skirt, she gave it one last, vicious shake.

      “Miss Whittaker?” A man’s low voice spoke behind her.

      Jessamyn gave a little gasp and spun toward the sound.

      Ben Kearney leaned against the door frame, one shiny black boot crossed casually over the other. “Sorry to startle you.”

      With one finger he shoved his hat back on his head. “Opened my mail this morning. I received a letter from an attorney in Portland regarding your father’s will. There’s something you should know.”

      Unaccountably, Jessamyn’s heart fluttered, whether because of his soft-spoken words or the steady blue-gray eyes that bored into hers, she didn’t know. She did know Sheriff Ben Kearney was a most disturbing man! Even with jingly spurs on his boots, he moved as quietly as a shadow, and his speech was terse to the point of rudeness. No “Good morning” or other social pleasantry, just a few succinct words growled from under his dark mustache.

      “Well, Mr. Kearney, what is it I should know? And don’t tramp dirt in onto my clean floor, please. I spent all morning scrubbing fifteen years’ worth of pipe dottle, tobacco juice and God knows what else off those boards.”

      The sheriff’s dark eyebrows arched. His mouth tightened into a thin line, then he cracked his lips and slipped out a few words.

      “Thad owned a house.”

      Jessamyn blinked. A house? Her father owned a house in Wildwood Valley?

      “I thought my father lived here, at the shop?” She gestured toward the back of the office where she’d found a cot, the bedclothes still tumbled, and a washstand and basin next to the small wood stove.

      Ben nodded. “He did. But he’d bought a house. Took the mortgage over from Mrs. Boult when her husband died. Let her live there as a kind of housekeeper so she wouldn’t have to leave. The place is yours now. Big white two-story house. Quarter mile past the livery stable.”

      “Mine? But what about Mrs. Boult?”

      “She’s expecting you. She knows you can’t live at the newspaper office, since you’re a lady.”

      Jessamyn’s stomach flipped over. A house! A house all her own! A house Papa had bought, that Papa had—Good heavens, she hoped it wasn’t the same shambles as the Wildwood Times office! She couldn’t face another scrub bucket for at least a month.

      “I’ll just sponge off my face and get my reticule.”

      Ben watched