Lynna Banning - Western Spring Weddings

“Not unless you can count, Squirt.”

“Well, I can count! Mama taught me.”

“Okay, you can play on my side. See this card? That’s a jack. There’s three more like it somewhere in the deck, and I’ll pay you my winnings to keep track of them.”

Suddenly Clarissa emerged from her reverie and focused on what was happening right in front of her. “Surely you are not teaching my daughter to play cards?”

“Yeah, I am,” Gray said with a sly smile. “How else is she gonna learn?”

“Gray, I am not at all sure I want Emily to learn such a game. Playing cards is not something a proper young girl should do.”

“It’s proper out here in Oregon, Clarissa. Things are different in the West.”

“I do not intend to stay in the West,” she said, her voice cool.

Gray shrugged. “Deal me two cards, Shorty.”

“Mama,” Emily said suddenly. “Who is that man? He keeps staring at us.”

“What man? Where?”

“Over there, in those trees. See him?”

No, she didn’t see him. All she saw was a tangle of brush and maple trees at the far edge of the park. And then a shadow moved and she went cold all over. Caleb Arness.

Gray sent her a sharp look. “Somethin’ wrong?”

She leaned close to him and intoned, “I thought I saw Caleb Arness over behind those trees.”

“I don’t think so, Clarissa. Like I said, he’s in jail.”

“Oh.” But she couldn’t stop staring at the trees. Gray’s eyes followed her gaze.

“Do you think he could recognize me?” she whispered.

“No. He was drunk when he saw you at the saloon that one time, remember?”

“Yes, very drunk. Disgustingly drunk.”

Clarissa tipped her head down to hide her face. Surely Caleb wouldn’t remember her; he hadn’t known who she was that night she sang at the saloon. He had known that she would be arriving in Smoke River, but maybe he had been too drunk even to remember that.

After a long minute Gray brought his head close to hers. “It’s not Arness, Clarissa, but if you’re uncomfortable I’ll take you home. Maria and Ramon can watch over Emily.”

She nodded, and without another word he spoke to Ramon and went to fetch the wagon. “I’m takin’ Clarissa back to the ranch,” he announced when he returned. “Too much potato salad.”

The ranch hands grinned but didn’t stop their card game. Ramon took over Gray’s hand, and Emily was so engrossed she scarcely looked up.

Gray walked Clarissa across the grass to the wagon and lifted her up onto the bench. “You’re shaking.”

“I know. I’m frightened.”

“Some reason, other than Arness?”

“N-no. I just feel safer at the ranch house.”

He said nothing as he climbed up beside her and lifted the reins. All the way out to the Bar H, she didn’t say a word, and when a roadrunner blundered into the wagon wheel, she didn’t even look up.

It bothered him that she was frightened. All of a sudden he wanted to protect her, keep her safe. Aw, hell, he wanted to make her smile at him, like she had an hour ago when he taught her to flip a jackknife into the ground and she beat him at mumblety-peg. The look she’d sent him still made his stomach flip over like a drunken kite.

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