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

perhaps Mai Lee was saving the bit of ham for her hardworking husband. For all Lark knew, it might be the only thing Hon Sing had to eat.

      No, she couldn’t give such a morsel to a dog.

      In the end, she cut a slice of bread and buttered it generously, then tore it into smaller pieces. She was approaching Pardner with this sustenance when the kitchen door suddenly swung open and Mr. Rhodes strode in.

      Pardner gave an explosive bark of jubilance and nearly trampled Lark in his rush to greet his master.

      Mr. Rhodes bent, ruffled the dog’s ears, spoke gently to him and let him out the back door, following in his wake.

      Lark, recognizing a prime opportunity to make herself scarce, stood frozen in the middle of Mrs. Porter’s kitchen floor instead, one hand filled with chunks of buttered bread.

      Mrs. Porter returned before Mr. Rhodes reappeared, her cheeks pink from the cold and religious conviction. Beaming, she untied the wide black ribbons of her Sunday bonnet. “You missed an excellent sermon,” she told Lark. “All about the tortures of eternal damnation.”

      “Sounds delightful,” Lark said mildly and with no trace of sarcasm, depositing Pardner’s refreshments on a chipped saucer and setting it on the floor. Having lived two years under Autry’s roof, she knew the highways and byways of hell, and had no desire to revisit the subject.

      Mrs. Porter removed her woolen cloak and hung it on one of several pegs beside the door. “You really should consider the fate of your immortal soul,” she said.

      The door opened again, and Pardner bounded in, his master behind him.

      “Wouldn’t you say we should all consider the fate of our immortal souls, Mr. Rhodes?” Mrs. Porter inquired, looking for support.

      “Rowdy,” Mr. Rhodes said. He watched Lark as he took off his hat and coat and hung them next to Mrs. Porter’s bonnet and cloak, probably noting the high color that burned in Lark’s cheeks.

      His perusal made her uncomfortable, and yet she could not look away.

      “Yes, indeed,” he told Mrs. Porter, in belated answer to her question. “I’ve run afoul of the devil myself, a time or two.”

      If Lark had said such an outrageous thing, Mrs. Porter would have taken her to task for flippancy. Because Mr. Rhodes—Rowdy—had been the one to say it, she simply twittered.

      It was galling, Lark thought, the way some women pandered to men—especially attractive ones, like the new boarder.

      “You’re personally acquainted with the devil, Mr. Rhodes?” Lark asked archly, when Mrs. Porter went into the pantry for the makings of supper.

      “He’s my pa,” Rowdy answered.

      3

      ROWDY RARELY LOOKED at Lark Morgan during the Sunday supper of hash, deftly made by Mrs. Porter since it was Mai Lee’s night off, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of her.

      He should have been thinking about his pa or about Gideon or about the meeting with Sam O’Ballivan and Major Blackstone coming up the next morning.

      Instead the mysterious woman sitting directly across the table from him, intermittently pushing her food around on her plate with the tines of her fork and eating as though she was half-starved, filled his mind.

      She hadn’t told him anything about herself. What Rowdy knew, he’d gleaned from Mrs. Porter’s eager chatter.

      Lark was a schoolteacher, never married, popular with her students.

      She’d been in Stone Creek for three months, during which time she’d never sent or received a letter or a telegram, as far as Mrs. Porter could determine. And Mrs. Porter, Rowdy reckoned, could determine plenty.

      Lark Morgan’s clothes gave the lie to a part of her story—they were costly, beyond the means of any schoolmarm Rowdy had ever heard of. He wasn’t convinced, either, that she’d never been married; there was a worldliness about her, as though she’d seen the seamy side of life, but an innocence, too. She’d been a witness to sin, he would have bet, but somehow she’d managed to hold her expensive skirts aside to avoid stepping in it.

      Mentally Rowdy cataloged his other observations.

      She’d dyed her hair—there was a slight dusting of gold at the roots.

      Her dark eyes were luminous with secrets.

      She was unquestionably brave.

      And she was just as surely afraid. Even terrified at times.

      He’d joshed her a little earlier, claiming the devil was his pa, and she’d flinched before she caught herself.

      Could be she was a preacher’s daughter, and the devil was serious business to her. Some folks, Rowdy reckoned, paid so much mind to old Scratch and his doings that they never got past a nodding acquaintance with God.

      Mrs. Porter finished her meal, setting her plate on the floor so Pardner could have at the leftovers, and set about brewing up a pot of coffee. A lot of people didn’t drink the stuff at night—said it kept them awake—but Rowdy thrived on it. Could consume a pot on his own and sleep like a pure-hearted saint until the dawn light pried at his eyelids.

      Lark hesitated, then took a second helping of hash. She was a small thing, with a womanly shape, but Rowdy had seen ranch hands with a lesser appetite. He wondered what kind of hole she was trying to fill up with all that food.

      His own hunger appeased, he excused himself from the table, noting the look of relief that flickered briefly in Lark’s eyes, and scraped what was left of his supper onto Pardner’s plate. When he returned to his chair, the pretty schoolmarm was clearly startled, bristling a little.

      “I’ll clear away the dishes,” Rowdy said to Mrs. Porter, once she’d gotten the coffee started and showed signs of lingering to fuss and fiddle.

      Mrs. Porter looked uncertain.

      “It was a fine supper,” Rowdy told her. “And I’m obliged for it.”

      The landlady’s eyes shone with pleasure. “I am a little weary,” she confessed girlishly, sparing nary a glance for Lark, who seemed torn between tarrying and rushing headlong for the back stairs. “Perhaps I shall retire a little early, leave you and Miss Morgan to get acquainted. Mai Lee and the mister ought to be home soon. I always leave the back door unlocked for them.”

      Lark rankled visibly at the prospect of being alone with him, but she didn’t rise from the table. She’d put down her fork, and her hands were out of sight. Rowdy was pretty sure, from the tense set of her shoulders, that she was gripping the sides of her chair with all ten fingers.

      Rowdy stood, out of deference to the older woman. “A good night to you, Mrs. Porter,” he said, gravely polite. “I’ll wait up for Mai Lee and her man and see that the door is locked before I turn in.”

      Mrs. Porter nodded, flustered, mumbled a good-evening to Lark, and departed, pausing once on the stairs to look back, naked curiosity glittering in her eyes. Like as not, she’d wait in the upper hallway for a spell, eavesdropping.

      Rowdy smiled at the idea. Sat down again.

      Lark stared into her plate.

      “I guess I’ll take Pardner out for a walk,” Rowdy said. “Maybe you’d do me the kindness of keeping us company, Miss Morgan?”

      Lark’s gaze flew to his face. She bit her lower lip, then nodded reluctantly and got to her feet. He’d been right to suppose there was something she was itching to find out, but it was clearly a private matter, and she knew as well as he did that Mrs. Porter had an ear bent in their direction.

      Together they cleared the table, setting the dishes and silverware in the cast-iron sink. Rowdy pushed the coffeepot to the back of the stove, so it wouldn’t boil over while they were out, and watched