Nora Roberts: Lawless

“Says she’s come to stay.”

Jake gave a quick, mirthless laugh. “Won’t last a week. Women like that don’t.”

“She’s planning on it.” With a jerk of his thumb, the driver indicated the trunks strapped to the coach. “Most of that’s hers.”

With a snort, Jake adjusted his hat. “Figures.”

Sarah caught her first glimpse of Lone Bluff from the stagecoach window. It spread like a jumble of rock at the base of the mountains. Hard, cold-looking mountains, she thought with a shudder, fooled-as the inexperienced always were-into thinking they were much closer than they actually were.

She’d forgotten herself enough to crane her head out. But she couldn’t get another look at Jake Redman unless she pushed half her body through the opening. She really wasn’t interested anyway, she assured herself.

Unless it was purely for entertainment purposes. When she wrote back to Lucilla and the sisters, she wanted to be able to describe all the local oddities. The man was certainly odd. He’d ridden like a warrior one moment, undoubtedly risking his life for a coachful of strangers. Then, the next minute, he’d dismissed his Christian duty and left a poor soul beside a lonely desert road. And he’d called her stupid. Never in her life had anyone ever accused Sarah Conway of being stupid. In fact, both her intelligence and her breeding were widely admired. She was well-read, fluent in French and more than passably accomplished on the pianoforte.

Taking the time to retie her bonnet, Sarah reminded herself that she hardly needed approval from a man like Jake Redman. After she was reunited with her father and took her place in the local society, it was doubtful she’d ever see him again.

She’d thank him properly, of course. ‘Sarah drew a fresh handkerchief from her reticule and blotted her temples. Just because he had no manners was no excuse to forget her own. She supposed she might even ask her father to offer him some monetary reward. Pleased with the idea, Sarah looked out the window again. And blinked. Surely this wasn’t Lone Bluff. Her father would never have settled in this grimy excuse for a town. It was no more than a huddle of buildings and a wide patch of dust that served as a road. They passed two saloons side by side, a dry goods store and what appeared to be a rooming house. Slack-legged horses were hitched to posts, their tails switching lazily at huge black flies. A handful of young boys with dirty faces began to race alongside the coach, shouting and firing wooden pistols. Sarah saw two women in faded gingham walking arm in arm on some wooden planks that served as a sidewalk.

When the coach stopped, she heard Jake call out for a doctor. Passengers were already streaming out through the doors on both sides. Resigned, Sarah stepped out and shook out her skirts.

“Mr. Redman.” The brim of her bonnet provided inadequate shade. She was forced to lift her hand over her eyes. “Why have we stopped here?”

“End of the line, ma’am.” A couple of men were already lifting the driver down, so he swung himself around to unstrap the cases on top of the coach. “End of the line? But where are we?”

He paused long enough to glance down at her. She saw then that his eyes were darker than she’d imagined. A smoky slate gray. “Welcome to Lone Bluff.”

Letting out a long, slow breath, she turned. Sunlight treated the town cruelly. It showed all the dirt, all the wear, and it heightened the pungent smell of horses.

Dear God, so this was it. The end of the line. The end of her line. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She wouldn’t be living in town. And surely before long the gold in her father’s mine would bring more people and progress. No, it didn’t matter at all. Sarah squared her shoulders. The only thing that mattered was seeing her father again.

She turned around in time to see Jake toss one of her trunks down to Lucius.

“Mr. Redman, please take care of my belongings.” Jake hefted the next case and tossed it to a grinning Lucius. “Yes, ma’am.”

Biting down on her temper, she waited until he jumped down beside her. “Notwithstanding my earlier sentiments, I’m very grateful to you, Mr. Redman, for coming to our aid. You proved yourself to be quite valiant. I’m sure my father will want to repay you for seeing that I arrived safely.”

Jake didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone talk quite so fine since he’d spent a week in St. Louis. Tipping back his hat, he looked at her, long enough to make Sarah flush. “Forget it.”

Forget it? Sarah thought as he turned his back and walked away. If that was the way the man accepted gratitude, she certainly would. With a sweep of her skirts she moved to the side of the road to wait for her father.

Jake strode into the rooming house with his saddlebag slung over his shoulder. It was never particularly clean, and it always smelled of onions and strong coffee. There were a couple of bullet holes in the wall. He’d put one of them there personally. Since the door was propped open, flies buzzed merrily in and out of the cramped entrance.

“Maggie.” Jake tipped his hat to the woman who stood at the base of the stairs. “Got a room?” Maggie O’Rourke was as tough as one of her fried steaks. She had iron-gray hair pinned back from a face that should have been too skinny for wrinkles. But wrinkles there were, a maze of them. Her tiny blue eyes seemed to peek out of the folds of a worn blanket. She ran her business with an iron fist, a Winchester repeater and an eye for a dollar.

She took one look at Jake and successfully hid her pleasure at seeing him. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said, the musical brogue of her native country still evident in her thin voice. “Got the law on your tail, Jake, or a woman?”

“Neither.” He kicked the door shut with his boot, wondering why he always came back here. The old woman never gave him a moment’s peace, and her cooking could kill a man. “You got a room, Maggie? And some hot water?”

“You got a dollar?” She held out her thin hand.

When Jake dropped a coin into it, she tested it with the few good teeth she had left. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Jake. She did. She just didn’t trust the United States government. “Might as well take the one you had before. No one’s in it.”

“Fine.” He started up the steps.

“Ain’t had too much excitement since you left.

Couple drifters shot each other over at the Bird Cage. Worthless pair, the both of them. Only one dead, though. Sheriff sent the other on his way after the doc patched him up. Young Mary Sue Brody got herself in trouble with that Mitchell boy. Always said she was a fast thing, that Mary Sue. Had a right proper wedding, though. Just last month.”

Jake kept walking, but that didn’t stop Maggie. One of the privileges in running a rooming house was giving and receiving gossip.

“What a shame about old Matt Conway.”

That stopped him. He turned. Maggie was still at the base of the steps, using the edge of her apron to swipe halfheartedly at the dust on the banister. “What about Matt Conway?”

“Got himself killed in that worthless mine of his.

A cave-in. Buried him the day before yesterday.”

The heat was murderous. A plume of thin yellow dust rose each time a rider passed, then hung there to clog the still air. Sarah longed for a long, cool drink and a seat in the shade. From the looks of things, there wasn’t a place in town where a lady could go to find such amenities. Even if there were, she was afraid to leave her trunks on the side of the road and risk missing her father.

She’d been so sure he would be waiting for her. But then, a man in his position could have been held up by a million things. Work at the mine, a problem with an employee, perhaps last-minute preparations for her arrival.