The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Lael Miller

      As she turned away, she was certain she heard him laugh.

      * * *

      BACK IN HIS ROOM behind the schoolhouse, Sam built a fire in the stove, ladled water into the coffeepot that came with the place, along with the last of Tom Singleton’s stash of ground beans, and set the concoction on to boil.

      If Miss Maddie Chancelor hadn’t run him off so quickly, he’d have had time to lay in a few staples. As things stood, he’d need to take his supper at the saloon and bring the leftovers home for breakfast.

      After school let out tomorrow, he’d go back to the mercantile.

      Like as not, Miss Maddie wouldn’t be all that glad to see him.

      Sam smiled at the thought and turned his attention to the parcel. He’d packed the books himself, before starting the trip down from Stone Creek, and taken them to the stagecoach office for shipping. Now, he looked forward to putting up his feet when he got back from taking his meal, and reading until the lamp ran low on kerosene.

      Of course, he’d have to shake Maddie’s image loose from his mind before he’d be able to concentrate worth a damn.

      After what the boy and Singleton had said, he’d expected someone entirely different. An aging, mean-eyed spinster with warts, maybe. Or a rough-edged Calamity Jane sort of woman, brawny enough to do a man’s work.

      The real Maddie had come as quite a surprise, with her slender figure and thick, reddish-brown hair, ready to tumble down over her back and shoulders at the slightest provocation. She couldn’t have been much past twenty-five, and while that probably qualified her as an old maid, it was a pure wonder to him that some lonely bachelor hadn’t tumbled right into those rum-colored eyes and snatched her up a long time ago. Women such as her were few and far between, this far west of the Mississippi, and generally had their choice of men.

      Her temperament was on the cussed side, it was true, but there was fire in her; he’d felt the heat the moment he’d stepped into the mercantile and locked eyes with her.

      He smiled again as he opened the stove door and stuck in another chunk of wood, hoping to get the coffee perking sooner and wondering how long it would be before the lady organized a campaign to send the new schoolmaster down the road.

      Satisfied that the stove was doing the best it could, Sam opened the box to unpack his books. Except for his horse, Dionysus, grazing on sweet hay up in the high country while a lame leg mended, he treasured these worn and oft-read volumes more than anything else he owned. Some were warped by damp weather and creek water, having traveled miles in his saddlebags, while others had been scarred by sparks from forgotten campfires.

      All of them were old friends, and Sam handled them tenderly as he silently welcomed each one to a new home. When he got time, he’d find a plank of wood somewhere and put up a shelf they could stand on. In the meantime, they made good company, sitting right there on the table.

      He’d attended to the gelding earlier, staking it on a long line in the tall grass behind the schoolhouse, where a little stream made its crooked way from hither to yon, and stowed his tack in the woodshed. Now, as twilight thickened around the walls and purpled the windowpanes, he lit a lamp and used his shirttail to wipe out the blue metal mug he carried with him whenever he left the ranch.

      He’d just poured coffee when a light knock sounded at the back door.

      Sam arched an eyebrow and checked to make sure his .45 was within easy reach, there on the rickety table next to the bed. He wasn’t expecting anybody.

      “Mr. O’Ballivan?” a female voice called, thin as a shred of frayed ribbon. “Are you to home?”

      Curious, Sam opened the door.

      The woman stood in a dim wash of moonlight, holding a basket and smiling up at him. Since no proper lady would have come calling on an unmarried man, especially after dark, he wasn’t surprised by her skimpy attire. She was a dance hall girl.

      She laughed at his expression. “I brung you some vittles,” she said, and shoved the basket at him. “Compliments of Miss Oralee Pringle, over to the Rattlesnake Saloon. She said to tell you welcome to Haven, and be sure to pay us a visit first chance you get. I don’t reckon I ought to come in?”

      Sam cleared his throat, accepted the basket. It felt warm in his hands and smelled deliciously of fresh-baked bread and fried chicken. His stomach growled. “I don’t suppose you ought to,” he agreed, at a loss. “But thank you, Miss—?”

      The response was a coy smile. “My name is Bird of Paradise,” she said, “but you can call me Bird.”

      Sam frowned. Behind that mask of powder and kohl was the face of a schoolgirl. “How old are you?”

      “Old enough,” Bird replied lightly, waggling her fingers at him over one bare shoulder as she turned to go.

      Sam opened his mouth, closed it again.

      Bird disappeared into the darkness.

      He stood in the doorway, staring after her for a long time. He’d pay a call on Oralee Pringle first chance he got, he decided, but he had more in mind than returning the basket.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ESTEBAN VIERRA waited until well after nightfall before crossing the river from the Mexican side; he prided himself on his ability to move freely in the darkness, like a cat. Leaving his horse to graze on the bank, he made his way through the cottonwoods and thistly underbrush to the schoolhouse, pausing to admire the Ranger’s mount. The click of a pistol cylinder, somewhere behind him, made him freeze.

      It stung him, this chink in his prowess, and he felt more irritation than fear.

      “Hold your hands out from your sides,” a voice instructed.

      Vierra obeyed calmly. “O’Ballivan?” he asked.

      He heard the revolver slide back into the holster with a deftness that spoke volumes about the man at his back. “Yes.”

      He turned. “That’s a fine horse,” he said cordially. “I hope it’s fast.”

      O’Ballivan’s expression was grim, his craggy features defined by the play of light and shadow. “What are you doing here? My instructions were to meet you tomorrow night, on the other side of the river.”

      Vierra smiled. “I got curious,” he said.

      The Ranger parted with the briefest of grins, his teeth flashing white in the gloom. “You could have got dead,” he replied. “And if you’ve no better sense than to come prowling around another man’s horse in the night, this whole plan might need some review.”

      “Don’t you trust me?” Vierra asked, his aggrieved tone at some variance with his easy smile.

      “I don’t know you from Adam’s Aunt Bessie,” O’Ballivan responded, one hand still resting lightly on the butt of his revolver. “Of course I don’t trust you.”

      “That could be a problem. Maybe we ought to get better acquainted.”

      O’Ballivan looked him over. “Maybe,” he said cautiously. “You’re Mexican. How is it that you don’t have an accent?”

      Vierra shrugged. “I think in Spanish,” he said. “And I do have an accent. I borrowed yours.”

      “What do you know about these outlaws we’re after?” O’Ballivan asked after a long and pensive silence.

      “Ah,” Vierra said, folding his arms. “You just said you don’t trust me. Why should I trust you?”

      “I don’t reckon you do,” O’Ballivan observed dryly.

      Vierra was pleased. Here was a worthy opponent, a rare phenomenon in his experience, one he could spar with. “I have been offered a very large reward, in gold, if I bring these banditos back to certain anxious rancheros