Mail-Order Groom. Lisa Plumley

quarter mile from the Morrow Creek adjunct telegraph station, Adam dismounted. With all his senses alert, he staked his horse near a patch of fresh grass, then gave the gelding a pat on the neck. “Behave yourself. I won’t be gone long.”

      The beast nickered. Damnation. He’d done it again.

      Talking to the horses was Mariana’s province. Feeling beyond foolish, Adam ducked his head, then headed out on foot with only his rucksack for company.Riding straight up to the station was a risk he couldn’t take. It was possible Bedell was already there, ensconced in his new “home” with yet another woman who fancied herself fortunate in love at last.

      As far as Adam was concerned, the confidence man deserved a special place in hell for taking advantage of lonely women. He deserved much worse than that for what he’d done in Kansas City.

      A few minutes’ hike brought Adam within sight and earshot of the station. Stealthily he circled its boundaries. He’d scouted the place days earlier with Mariana, learning the lay of the land and the locations likeliest for an ambush. Today, everything appeared unchanged. All the same, Adam felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Frowning, he kept on moving.

      Birds chirped, unconcerned by Adam’s arrival. A squirrel stopped, stared at him, then dashed up a tree. A few yards away, the station hunkered on sloped ground, surrounded by ponderosa pines and the occasional scrub oak; the mountain loomed behind it. Gaining a foothold amid the fallen pinecones and crunchy dried needles was tricky; so was imagining a woman lonesome enough to accept an offer of marriage from a hard-nosed killer.

      Not that any of them knew that’s what Roy Bedell was, Adam reminded himself as he crouched to survey the shingled log cabin station and its peeled-log porch. All of Bedell’s “brides” had considered Bedell a kindred spirit—at least until he cleaned out their prized belongings, absconded with their savings and broke their hearts. Adam wanted a better fate for the woman in the photograph, but Mariana was right—something was off-kilter here.

      Muscles tightening, Adam withdrew his spyglass. He aimed it toward the station’s twin windows. Several minutes’ patient watching rewarded him with a view of Mose Hawthorne, the man who hauled firewood, repaired equipment and sometimes manned the telegraph. He arrived every day on a sporadic schedule and spent his nights in a cabin closer to the town of Morrow Creek.

      Most people did. Those who came out west wanted to be near a town site, where they could find friends and necessities and convivial conversation. Adam didn’t know why the station’s proprietress had accepted her isolated assignment. The detective in him reasoned that she probably had something to hide. The man in him hoped she liked to be alone … the same way he did.

      But that was outlandish. It didn’t matter whether he felt a kinship with the woman—whether he thought he understood her. She was a mark. He’d vowed to protect her. Nothing else mattered.

      A thorough check revealed that she wasn’t at the station. Adam searched harder. He’d glimpsed her once, but only from a distance. Now, as odd as it sounded, he wanted more … and was denied. As though sharing Adam’s disappointment, the place’s big calico cat slunk into view, stared at him through baleful eyes, then vanished. A rhythmic tapping issued from inside the cabin.

      Silence fell. Mose Hawthorne moved from the desk to the cast-iron stove, fiddling with something. A few minutes later, the scent of coffee filled the air. Lulled by the peaceful tableau, Adam released a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.

      Everything was fine. She was fine. Bedell wasn’t here.

      Adam tucked away his spyglass. He slung his rucksack over his shoulder, then turned. At the same instant, something came at him. Something big. Something long and rough. A tree branch.

      In confusion, Adam ducked too late. The branch walloped him on the side of the head. He went down with an involuntary grunt.

      The damp tang of moss and dirt filled his nostrils. Again the branch came down. It whacked the ground, collapsing his fallen hat like a squash under a cleaver. Adam shoved. His palms skidded on twigs and leaves. He forced himself upright again.

      The branch caught him in the side. His breath left him.

      “For the last time, stay out of my business.”

      Bedell. Even woozy and gasping, Adam recognized that pitiless voice. It had haunted his dreams for well over a year.

      Mariana. If Bedell or his brothers had gotten to her first, she wouldn’t have survived. Roughly, Adam sighted Bedell. He honed in on his bland face with its underachieving whiskers. His fist followed his gaze. With a surprised shout, Bedell fell.

      Adam seized the man’s coat and hauled him upward. Without his customary hat, Bedell looked young. Too young.

      Disoriented by Bedell’s baby-faced appearance, Adam hesitated. It didn’t feel right to hit a skinny, callow youth.

      “Ah.” Unmistakable cunning filled Bedell’s voice, erasing all impressions of innocence. He sighted something over his shoulder, then nodded at it. “You do have a weakness.”

      Reflexively Adam twisted to look at whatever Bedell had seen. He drew his firearm, then turned back to Bedell. He fired.

      At the same time, another shot rang out.

      The birds fled the trees. Both men fell.

      Savannah nearly walked right past the curiously squashed-up flat-brimmed hat lying on the ground outside her station.

      She was so intent on retrieving her repentant fiancé’s telegraph message that she glanced at the hat, did not think much of it and kept on striding toward home. Her encounter with the family at the depot platform had reinforced the dreams that had driven her west, and Savannah knew she wouldn’t accomplish those dreams by dawdling. Besides, her nose fairly twitched with the seductive fragrance of coffee brewing. She wanted to get home, grab a restorative cup and check the wires with Mose.

      Then she glimpsed a man’s fallen body. He lay with one arm out flung, his face hidden. His knees gouged the dirt as though he’d been dropped cold while crawling toward her station. He looked like one of the lifeless “prizes” that her calico mouser, Esmeralda, sometimes left on the station’s front porch.

      Chilled by the realization, Savannah sank to the ground beside him. Too late, she saw that the leaves nearby were speckled with blood. Now so were her hands and her dress.

      This could only be one man. One man—late but determined.

      “Mose!” Savannah yelled. “Come quick!”

      Her husband-to-be had arrived at last and if he died before she could marry him, they were both in big trouble.

       Chapter Two

      Several hours later, Morrow Creek’s sole physician, Dr. Finney, stood in Savannah’s private quarters at the station.

      Near him on her rope-sprung bed, the man she and Mose had carried inside now lay insensible in the summertime heat. His clothes were mucked with sweat and dirt and blood, but Savannah had instructed Mose to give him her bed anyway. The man’s face was filmed with perspiration, defying her attempts to cool him.

      Lowering her improvised fan, Savannah gazed in concern at the man. Naked from the waist up—a necessity for Dr. Finney’s treatment—he now lay atop the bedding, silent and pale, arms akimbo.

      “It’s not decent to leave him exposed this way,” she said.

      “It’s not decent for you to be here at all.” Dr. Finney tugged uncomfortably at his necktie. Crossly he shoved medical instruments in his bag. They clinked in place beside a tattered book on animal husbandry, two tins of curative powder and a bundle of bandages. “As soon as you’re able to round up some help, I’d suggest you and Mr. Hawthorne move this man to town.”

      “And where shall we move him to?” Savannah asked. “The Lorndorff Hotel? The saloon? Miss Adelaide’s