Wolf Creek Father. Penny Richards

head an imperceptible shake and straightened, breaking the strange spell that seemed for a moment to bind them.

      In response, she blinked and squared her shoulders, drawing attention to the rows of ruffles marching down the front of her pale yellow shirtwaist, intended no doubt to disguise her plumpness.

      “Yes, um, your fault,” she reiterated, but she sounded vague, as if she’d lost her train of thought. Then she raised her chin, mustering her indignation once more. “As I have said on more than one occasion, your children are out of control. I have requested time and again that you do something about it, but this time I demand that you take them in hand.”

      The words themselves condemned and challenged, but her voice seemed to have lost some of its sharpness. She had told him more than once that Brady and Cilla were disruptive in school. Now with Ellie’s newest accusations echoing through his mind, he realized it was time he stopped delaying the talk he should have had with them long ago and get to the bottom of things. Just one more thing a woman would be much better at handling.

      Still, it didn’t sit well that she’d gone from asking to demanding that he take charge of his children, but it was plain to see that there was no getting around this latest transgression with one of his glib apologies and a promise to “take care of it.” He sighed and waved a hand toward the chair across from him.

      “Have a seat, Miss Grainger,” he offered, struggling to make his tone professional and conciliatory. “I need to hear your version of what happened before I decide on a course of action.”

      Regarding him with more than a little suspicion, she perched on the chair’s edge, almost as if she were readying herself to jump up and flee should the need arise. Her back was ramrod-straight, and her rounded chin was lifted to an angle just shy of haughty. Her gloved hands clutched the small drawstring purse resting in her lap.

      Colt took his own chair, pressed the tips of his fingers together and, resting his elbows on the wooden arms of the chair, pressed his tented fingers against his lips while he regarded her with an expression of polite inquiry.

      “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Miss Grainger,” he suggested, happy to hear that he sounded more or less like his usual controlled self.

      Looking a bit taken aback by the sudden change in his attitude, Miss Grainger blinked again, cleared her throat and began with a bit of hesitation. “I, uh, went into the general store to pick up the Earl Grey tea Mr. Gentry had specially ordered for me.”

      Tea! What sort of red-blooded American drank tea instead of coffee? Colt wondered. He managed to hold back a disgusted snort—just. Still, he noticed that she, too, sounded more like the concerned schoolteacher he’d dealt with so often the previous school year. He rotated his hand at the wrist, indicating that she should continue.

      “I saw Brady and Priscilla at the counter,” she told him, leaning forward. “They seemed to be trying to decide what kind of candy they wanted. I smiled at them and asked Brady how his summer reading was going and if he thought it was helping him be better prepared when school took up again.”

      Colt felt a jolt of guilt. Brady was falling further and further behind in all his subjects, and Miss Grainger seemed to think it was because his reading wasn’t up to snuff. She’d called Colt to a meeting before school let out, suggesting that he not only encourage his son to read during the summer, but also that Colt spend time each day working on it with him.

      Brady had been furious. So had Colt. When he’d expressed his displeasure to Ellie and suggested that perhaps her sister wasn’t the teacher everyone thought she was and that maybe she was picking on Brady, Ellie had told him in no uncertain terms that her youngest sibling was very qualified and pointed out that the suggestion had nothing to do with “picking” on anyone. Instead, it demonstrated her concern over Brady’s continued lack of progress.

      Put in those terms, Colt had bowed to the teacher’s wisdom. Now, faced with the upstanding Miss Grainger and the look of expectancy on her face, he realized that he’d been more than a little lax carrying out her request. His only excuse was that Brady’s reading was pure torture for them both, not something he wanted to do at the end of a hard day. It was the sort of thing a wife should contend with.

      If he had a wife.

      When he made no comment, she continued. “Brady became very...agitated and told me he hated reading, and that it was summertime and he had no intention of doing schoolwork when he was supposed to be having time off from it. I suggested that it was for his good and explained that reading can be very pleasurable. I told him that when a person reads he can go anywhere, be anyone and do anything within the pages of a book.”

      “And?”

      “He told me that if it was so much fun, for me to do it, and he wished that I would go somewhere and not give him any more grief.”

      Colt dragged a palm down his cheek.

      “Since it was clear that I was getting nowhere with him, I told him that his attitude was very disappointing, said goodbye to him and Priscilla and walked away. As soon as my back was turned, he raced out from behind a row of shirts, screaming something about always disappointing people, and flung himself at me.”

      Colt stifled a groan. Though Brady did have a temper when he was riled, it was hard to imagine him actually attacking someone. Surely Miss Grainger was exaggerating.

      “I wasn’t expecting to be assaulted,” she said, the look in her eyes suggesting that her temper just might be on the rise again. “I lost my balance and fell to the floor. My head just missed a counter, but I fear my hat was not so lucky. It was knocked off in the fall, and the hatpin almost ripped the hair from my head.”

      So that was why the strand of hair was hanging loose!

      “My spectacles fell off, too.”

      Her voice rose as she listed her grievances. She held her palm toward him, showing a tear in her glove. “If I weren’t wearing gloves, I’d have splinters in my hands from trying to catch myself. As it is, one of them is ruined.”

      Colt ignored her ruined glove. His attention was caught by the anger that had returned to her eyes during her recounting of the story. This newest fiasco was worse than he’d imagined, but how could he be sure she wasn’t embellishing the tale for her own benefit?

      “And where was Cilla while all this was happening?”

      “Standing to the side smiling, as if the whole thing were vastly amusing. Then she walked over as if she planned to help me up and deliberately stepped on my glasses and my hat. It was new,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

      Whoa, now! Colt knew his kids could be ornery. They were not the kind of children who were seen and not heard, and they were certainly not the kind adults seemed to find endearing, but these accusations were beyond anything he’d been told before.

      Talking back and playing practical jokes on occasion was one thing. Not good habits, to be sure, but still a far cry from the physical harm of which Miss Grainger was accusing them. Colt clenched his teeth, a muscle in his cheek knotting as his own resentment mounted.

      “Now see here, Miss Grainger,” he said, leaning forward and pinning her with another fierce frown. “Those are pretty severe allegations. How can you be so sure that what Cilla did was deliberate? Did you stop and consider that maybe it was an accident?”

      Miss Grainger looked positively incensed. “Not deliberate?” she cried, leaping to her feet. “When a person looks you in the eye and saunters along as if they haven’t a care in the world, and makes certain that you can see everything they are doing, I would say it is deliberate. So, severe or not, my accusations are true, Sheriff Garrett. What happened was in no way an accident.”

      Colt pushed to his feet. Once again, they glared at each other over the expanse of his desk. “Maybe you just don’t like my children,” he said.

      “And maybe you are so busy making excuses for them and being the big bad sheriff and single man about town