Judith Stacy - The Widow's Little Secret

“I won’t marry you!”

Halfway across the churchyard, Mattie heard Jared calling her name. She didn’t stop until she heard his footsteps behind her. She turned to find him towering over her.

“Listen to me, Mattie. We’re going back into that church and we’re—”

“No!”

“You can’t raise this baby by yourself!”

“Yes, I can!” She looked up into his face and saw that Jared was as angry as she.

“Listen to me—”

“No, you listen to me,” she told him. “I have a home and a business. I have friends to help me. I’m perfectly capable of raising this baby myself. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

Mattie reined in her temper. “This doesn’t concern you. Everyone thinks this baby is my husband’s, and that suits me fine.”

“Well, it doesn’t suit me at all!”

The Widow’s Little Secret

Harlequin Historical #571

Praise for Judith Stacy’s recent works

The Blushing Bride

“…lovable characters that grab your heartstrings…a fun read all the way.”

—Rendezvous

The Dreammaker

“…a delightful story of the triumph of love.”

—Rendezvous

The Heart of a Hero

“Judith Stacy is a fine writer with both polished style and heartwarming sensitivity.”

—Bestselling author Pamela Morsi

#572 CELTIC BRIDE

Margo Maguire

#573 THE LAWMAN TAKES A WIFE

Anne Avery

#574 LADY POLLY

Nicola Cornick

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Available from Harlequin Historicals and

JUDITH STACY

Outlaw Love #360

The Marriage Mishap #382

The Heart of a Hero #444

The Dreammaker #486

Written in the Heart #500

The Blushing Bride #521

One Christmas Wish #531

“Christmas Wishes”

The Last Bride in Texas #541

The Nanny #561

The Widow’s Little Secret #571

To David, Judy and Stacy—the greatest family

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Nevada, 1887

It just wasn’t right, being envious of a dead man. Still, that’s how Jared McQuaid felt sitting on the hotel porch, watching the funeral procession roll by.

He glanced down at the Stanford Gazette on his lap. The headline announced the untimely death of Del Ingram, and the front page article extolled the man’s many virtues.

A knot formed in Jared’s stomach. What were the chances? He’d showed up in this town just today and read the obituary of a man he’d grown up with miles and miles from here. A man he hadn’t thought of in years.

According to the newspaper, Ingram had died from a fall. Jared had figured ol’ Del was more likely to have been killed by a jealous husband, an irate wife or a poker player with an eye for cheaters.

Not so, according to the newspaper. Del had made something of himself here in Stanford. Owner of a restaurant, a solid citizen with a sterling reputation, he’d had a life any man would envy.

Jared touched his hand to the U.S. Marshal’s badge pinned to his vest beneath his coat. Seemed he and his boyhood friend had taken very different roads when they’d parted company some fifteen years ago. This wasn’t the man Jared remembered. But maybe Del had changed.

Jared sure as hell had.

The rocker creaked as Jared leaned back and watched from beneath the brim of his black Stetson as the funeral procession passed by. Matched sorrels pulled the wagon bearing the coffin, their hoofs stirring up little swirls of dust. Two dozen mourners followed, all dressed in black, their somber faces flushed red from the raw March wind.

Jared glanced west. Charcoal clouds hung over the Sierra Nevadas, blocking out what was left of the day’s sunlight. He had nothing to do, no place to go, no one to talk to until morning when he would relieve Stanford’s sheriff of his two prisoners and head to Carson City. Jared may as well pay his respects to Del Ingram, even though he’d never especially liked him.

A few people glanced at Jared as he fell into step behind the mourners. One woman eyed the Colt .45 strapped to his hip and the badge on his chest when the wind whipped open his coat. She chanced a look at his face, then turned away, wondering, he was sure, who he was and why he was here.

Jared found himself on the receiving end of a hundred such looks nearly every time he came to a town like this. Not that he blamed anyone, of course. He’d arrive one day, eat supper alone in some restaurant, sleep in a nameless hotel, then take custody of his prisoners the following morning and disappear.

And those were his good days. Most of the time he was on the trail, sleeping in the saddle, eating jerky and cold beans, hunting down some rabble-rouser who’d broken the law.

He was used to both—the life and the looks he got. Jared had been a marshal for nearly ten years now.

At the cemetery on the edge of town, six men unloaded the coffin from the wagon. Del Ingram’s final resting place was deep; freshly turned earth lay beside it.

Reverend Harris stepped to the foot of the grave, yanked his black, wide-brimmed hat over the tufts of his gray hair and struggled to hold open the fluttering pages of his Bible. The townsfolk gathered in a close knot, straining to hear the reverend’s words. Jared moved off to one side, uncomfortable among the mourners.

As was his custom, Jared’s gaze moved from face to face, sizing up each person assembled there. He was good at it. It had saved his life a time or two.

From all appearances, everyone who was anyone in the town of Stanford was assembled to mourn Del’s passing. They all looked prosperous, in dress and in manner. Jared spotted the mayor and his wife; he’d met the man earlier in the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Hickert wasn’t present, but Jared hadn’t expected him to be. He was nursing a nasty leg wound from the shoot-out that had garnered the two prisoners Jared was transporting tomorrow.

The gathering shifted as Reverend Harris reached for the woman standing in front of him. Jared’s stomach bottomed out.

“Damn…”

The widow. Del’s widow. Jared felt like he’d been sucker-punched in the gut.

He didn’t know how Ingram had acquired a prosperous business, a good home, a sterling reputation—and he sure as hell couldn’t imagine how he’d found himself such a fine-looking wife.

Even in her mourning dress she looked fit and shapely. She’d draped a black lace scarf over her head, but tendrils of her brown hair escaped in the wind and blew across her pale cheeks. She stood stiff and straight, her full lips pressed tightly together as she gazed past the reverend to some point on the distant horizon.