Debra Cowan - Whirlwind Groom

If she had known how to use a gun two years ago, her family might still be alive. “Are you saying you won’t help me find a teacher?”

“Are you saying you’ve decided to make a home in Whirlwind?”

“Uh, yes.” From the excruciatingly slow way her plan was progressing, she would have to. At this rate, she’d be a year older before she ever got to McDougal. “But Whirlwind seems less…civilized than Galveston. I would just feel safer if I knew how to use a gun.”

“And you’re going to open a dressmaker shop?”

She laughed lightly. “That’s the only skill I have.”

Holt stared at her for a long minute, his eyes hooded beneath his hat. “I’ll teach you to shoot.”

“You? But I thought—”

“Change your mind?”

“No.” But maybe she should.

“Then I’ll teach you. I’m good with guns and I can show you the proper way to handle them.”

“Could you give me a lesson every day?” She needed to check on McDougal as often as possible.

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Oh, good. Thank you, Sheriff Holt.” Why was he so willing to help her? Her smile felt overly bright as she realized exactly what their deal meant.

He finally stepped back a few inches. “If we’re going to see each other every day, you should call me Davis Lee.”

“All right.” She wouldn’t. “I’ll see you in the morning then, bright and early.”

“Tomorrow is Sunday. I’ll be in church. Won’t you?”

She hesitated. She and her parents had regularly attended church in Galveston. It was the one place she had been able to find a small amount of peace after the murders. But she had come here to kill a man. “Church?”

“It’s at the end of Main Street. You can’t miss it.”

“Oh, yes.” She recalled the white frame building with the steeple, and a part of her wanted to be there tomorrow.

“I’ll see you here on Monday then. Make it about six-thirty or seven in the evening. I’ll have to get my other deputy, Jake, to guard the prisoner.”

“All right. Monday.” Tarnation!

She would be spending far more time with the sheriff than she wanted. Despite the opportunity she now had to wheedle information about McDougal out of the lawman, she had the uneasy sense that Holt had agreed to teach her to shoot for the very same reason she had asked—so he could keep an eye on her. She didn’t like that at all.

W hy in the Sam Hill had Josie Webster been in his jail? Davis Lee was still chewing on that question the next morning during church. He knew exactly how she had managed to wind up in his office the minute he left it. And it was mighty suspicious that Jake’s horse just happened to spook at the same time.

Davis Lee didn’t know what to make of the woman. When she had pulled that scalpel out of her bodice, he’d nearly swallowed his teeth. The last thing he needed was to replay the image of her hand slipping between her breasts. He couldn’t seem to stop it though he tried hard to focus instead on the doubts she raised in him.

Maybe he was suspicious because the first time he had seen Josie, desire had hit him hard and fast. He didn’t trust such raw instant want. It had gotten him in a passel of trouble before and he wasn’t giving in to it again. Still, he spent more time thinking about the intriguing brunette than Reverend Scoggins’s sermon.

Catching her in his jail reinforced Davis Lee’s certainty that she was up to something. Which was why he had gone straight to Ef and gotten a big padlock for McDougal’s cell. One reason—the only reason—he had agreed to teach her to shoot was to see if she was comfortable with guns and knew how to handle them. The woman knew how to use a scalpel, for crying out loud. It was possible she knew how to use a gun, as well.

He had no proof, but he couldn’t shake the feeling she had some connection to McDougal. Her request for shooting lessons had seemed too ready. Prepared almost.

After church he turned around and saw her rising from the back pew. The burn of desire he felt didn’t surprise him, but the relief that she was here and not slipping inside his jail again did.

She stepped outside and started down the stairs, but the reverend stopped her. Keeping an eye on her, Davis Lee moved into the aisle as his brother, Riley, and his wife, Susannah, gathered up their baby. He greeted Cora Wilkes and her brother, Loren Barnes, who had come to Whirlwind about two months ago to help his widowed sister.

From the corner of his eye, Davis Lee saw Josie move down the steps then stop to speak to Pearl Anderson. This time he walked out on the landing and she glanced up. When their gazes locked, he nodded and met her at the bottom.

He greeted Pearl as she walked past him to speak to someone else, but his attention stayed on Josie.

“Sheriff,” she said.

“Davis Lee.” He smiled. The peach dress she wore accentuated her breasts and small waist. The color became her, warming her golden skin and deepening the green of her eyes. He couldn’t help wondering if the deep-cut bodice filled with white pleating hid her scalpel. “Nice to see you, Miz Webster. Did you enjoy the service?”

“Yes, I did. Did you?”

She was about the same height as Susannah, and she was small. A small brown hat circled by a ribbon matching her dress sat jauntily on her head, crowning the mass of hair she’d worn up today. A tiny mole on her collarbone peeked out at him. “Reverend Scoggins always has something good to say.”

A smile curved her lips. “That’s the least committed answer I’ve ever heard, Sheriff.”

He grinned, moving his gaze to her face. “I have to say I’m glad to see you here and not in my jail. Did you come to repent?”

She tilted her head, looking more serious than he’d seen before. “You’re teasing me.”

“Maybe. Are you still interested in your shooting lessons?”

“Oh, yes. I think it’s something I should do.”

“All right, then.”

“You’ll still teach me?”

“Yes.” Having been hornswoggled before, Davis Lee knew he should keep a distance from her, but he needed to find out whatever he could about this woman.

Judging from his experience with her so far, he wouldn’t get far by asking her questions, but he could learn plenty by observing her up close.

“Davis Lee, we’re expecting you for lunch.”

He turned at the sound of his sister-in-law’s voice. “I’m looking forward to it, Susannah. We’re not having biscuits, are we?”

Riley laughed as he walked up with his blond-haired daughter resting happily on his shoulder. Lorelai wasn’t Riley’s blood, but no one could tell him that. Davis Lee had never seen his brother love anyone as much as he loved that little girl and her mother.

“If you two don’t behave, I will cook biscuits,” Susannah said. “And I’ll purposely make them hard as rocks.”

Davis Lee chuckled. He liked his sister-in-law more every time he was around her. She and Riley had been married only about five months. For a while Davis Lee had wondered if the two hardheaded idiots would ever realize their feelings for one another.

Thanks to her brother, a pregnant Susannah had come to Whirlwind under the impression that Riley wanted to marry her, but he hadn’t been the least bit interested. At first.

Davis Lee felt Josie step away and he turned to her. “Y’all need to meet one of our newest citizens. This is Josie Webster. Miz Webster, this is my brother Riley and his wife, Susannah.”

“And our daughter, Lorelai.” Susannah touched the baby’s back with one hand as she shook Josie’s hand warmly with the other. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hello.” Josie gave a soft smile.