Linda Miller - The Rustler

Then, affably apologetic for disrupting the proceedings, he sat down next to Marshal Yarbro, who was grinning, and the two of them bumped shoulders.

Brother Hickey lifted his hands heavenward, closed his eyes in earnest and silent prayer, and then slammed a fist down onto the pulpit. Everybody jumped, Sarah noticed, except for the marshal and the stranger sitting beside him.

“Now is the day of Salvation!” Brother Hickey thundered, his copious white whiskers quavering. “Sinners, come forward and be bathed in the Blood of the Lamb!”

Several people rose and approached the makeshift altar, though most of the repenting had been done at previous services. There was dear old Mrs. Elsdon, who’d probably never committed an actual sin, two or three ladies of ill repute from Jolene Bell’s saloon, brothel and bathhouse, though Miss Bell herself was noticeably absent, a handful of cowpunchers from Sam O’Ballivan’s ranch, mostly likely hoping to speed things along so the picnic could get underway.

If Sarah hadn’t been staring at the stranger, she’d have been amused. The revival was in its third and final day, and by now, even the most pious were ready to socialize over fried chicken and apple pie. The children were restless, longing to chase each other under the shady oak trees, wade in the creek, and make noise.

The praying and the saving went on for a long time, but at last Brother Hickey was through gathering in the lost sheep. He signaled Sarah, and she arranged her fingers on the keyboard, tried to put the dark-haired visitor out of her mind, and played a thunderous rendition of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

As soon as she struck the final chord, the benches emptied and the stampede began.

Sarah sat still on the hard stool in front of the organ, almost faint with relief, her eyes closed. It was over for another year. As soon as everyone had left the tent, she would climb down from the bed of the wagon, slip out the back way, and make her way home. She kept a jar of tea cooling in the springhouse, and when she’d drunk her fill, she’d strip, stuff her corset into the stove, and take a sponge bath.

“Miss? It is ‘Miss,’ isn’t it?”

Sarah opened her eyes, saw the stranger standing right beside the buckboard, looking up at her. Again, she felt it, a peculiar jolting sensation that brought a blush to her cheeks, as though he’d read her thoughts and even imagined her shut away in her bedroom, naked, sluicing her flesh with water from a basin. She resisted a humiliating urge to smooth her hair, sit up straighter. “Yes,” she said stiffly.

“Wyatt Yarbro,” the man said, putting out a hand.

Sarah hesitated, then took it, though tentatively. His fingers were strong, calloused, and cool as the breeze he’d blown in on. “Sarah Tamlin,” she allowed, feeling foolish and much younger than her twenty-seven years.

“Would you like some help getting down from there?”

Short of lifting her skirts and leaping to the sawdust floor, as she would normally have done, Sarah had no graceful options. “All right,” she replied shyly. Then she climbed into the buckboard seat, careful not to let her ankles show, and Wyatt Yarbro put his hands on her waist and lifted her down. She stood looking up at him, stunned by the effect of his touch. Light-headed, she swayed slightly, and he steadied her.

His eyes were a deep brown, and they glinted with mischief and something else, too—some private, deep-seated sorrow. “I reckon it would be a sight cooler outside, under those oak trees alongside the creek,” he said.

Sarah merely nodded. Let herself be escorted out of the revival tent on Mr. Yarbro’s arm, in front of God and everybody.

Rowdy approached as Wyatt reclaimed his pistol from the table set aside for the purpose, his old yellow dog, Pardner, at his heels, and tipped his hat to Sarah.

“I didn’t see Mrs. Yarbro in the congregation,” Sarah said. She liked Lark, a former schoolteacher who’d stirred up quite a scandal when she took up with the marshal.

“The baby’s getting teeth, and it makes him fractious,” Rowdy replied. “They’ll be along later, when the heat lets up.” He turned slightly, gave Wyatt an affectionate slap on the shoulder. “I’d introduce my brother properly,” he added, “but it seems you’ve already made his acquaintance.”

“I’m the good-looking one,” Wyatt said.

Just then, Fiona Harvey showed up, holding a plate piled high with fried chicken, potato salad and apple crumble. Fiona, who was thirty if she was a day, wanted a husband. Everybody knew that.

When and if Fiona managed to get married, Sarah would become the town spinster.

“You look hungry,” Fiona told Wyatt, batting her sparse eyelashes.

Sarah, who considered Fiona a friend, simmered behind a cordial smile.

Wyatt tipped his head and flashed a grin at Fiona. “Why, thank you, ma’am,” he said, accepting the plate.

Rowdy rolled his eyes, caught the expression on Sarah’s face, and winked at her.

“You’re welcome to come and sit with us,” Fiona simpered, indicating a cluster of women sitting on a blanket under a nearby tree.

The marshal took the plate from Wyatt’s hands and gave it back to Fiona. “My brother’s much obliged,” he said smoothly, “but we’ve been expecting him, so Lark’s got a big spread on the table at home.”

“Thanks just the same, though,” Wyatt said.

Fiona took the rebuff gracefully, said she hoped Mr. Yarbro would come back for the fireworks and the dance that would take up after sunset, and he replied that he might well do that. With a sidelong glance at Sarah, he allowed as how he enjoyed fireworks.

She blushed again, oddly flustered.

And Fiona pressed the plate into her hands. “Take this to your papa,” she told Sarah. “Heaven knows, he’ll appreciate a decent supper, the way you cook.”

“Why, thank you, Fiona,” Sarah said.

Wyatt and Rowdy exchanged glances, and one of them chuckled.

Fiona smiled and walked away.

“Give my regards to your father,” Rowdy said, as Sarah turned to go, once again at a loss for words. The next time she saw Fiona, she’d have plenty to say, though.

“I’d better see Miss Tamlin home,” Wyatt said, and before Rowdy could protest that Lark had dinner waiting, he’d taken Sarah’s arm and escorted her halfway to the road.

Since it would be rude to tell him she could get home just fine on her own, Sarah bit her lip and marched along, resigned, carrying the plate like a crown on a velvet cushion.

An old spotted horse with a long cut on its side ambled along behind them, bridle jingling, reins wrapped loosely around the saddle horn.

Sarah looked back.

“That’s just Reb,” Wyatt said.

“What happened to his side?”

“He had a run-in with a steer a while back. He’s healing up fine, though.”

Sarah wanted to ask a thousand other questions, but all of them jammed up in the back of her throat. She was sweating, her hair felt as though it would escape its pins at any moment, and she could almost feel the flames of Brother Hickey’s beloved hellfire licking at her hem.

Mr. Yarbro donned his dusty hat, which made him look like a highwayman out of some dime novel. Sarah was painfully conscious of his hand, cupping her elbow, and the way he moved, with a sort of easy prowl.

“Are you really a bad cook?” he asked, visibly restraining a grin.

“Yes,” Sarah admitted, with a heavy sigh.

He chuckled. “Guess that’s why you’re not taken,” he said. “No other explanation for it, with looks like yours.”

Sarah was scandalously pleased, and determined to hide the fact. She didn’t think about her appearance much, given the busy life she led and her naturally practical turn of mind, but she knew she was...passable. Her hair was dark, and she kept it shiny with rainwater shampoos, vinegar rinses and a hundred brushstrokes every night. She had good skin, strong teeth, exceedingly blue eyes and a slender but womanly figure.