Linda Miller - A Wanted Man - A Stone Creek Novel

“You’re sure of a lot of things, I reckon,” Rowdy countered. “Miss Morgan.”

“Very well,” she retorted. “I’ll address you as Rowdy. It probably suits you. You’ve fooled Mrs. Porter with your fine manners and your flattery, that’s obvious, but you do not fool me.”

“You don’t fool me, either—Lark.” He waited for her to protest his use of her given name—it was a bold familiarity, according to convention—but she didn’t.

She came to walk at his side, between him and Mrs. Porter’s next-door neighbor’s picket fence. The glow of the streetlamps fell softly over her, catching in her hair, resting in the graceful folds of her cloak, fading as they passed into the pools of darkness in between light posts.

“Did your mother call you Rowdy?” she asked casually, while Pardner sniffed at a spot on the sidewalk.

“Yes,” Rowdy said, remembering. Miranda Yarbro had always used his nickname—except when she was angry. On those rare occasions, her lips would tighten, and she’d address him as Robert. When she was proud of him, she’d call him Rob.

“Bless my boy Rob,” she’d prayed, beside his bed, every night until he left home with his pa, at fourteen. “Make a godly man of him.”

Guilt ambushed him. He reckoned the good Lord had attempted to answer that gentle woman’s prayer, but he, Rowdy, hadn’t cooperated.

“Where do you hail from, Mr.—Rowdy?”

Grateful for the reprieve from his regrets, Rowdy smiled. “A farm in Iowa,” he said. “Where do you hail from, Lark?”

She didn’t reply right away.

“Fair is fair,” Rowdy prompted. “You asked me a question and I gave you an answer.”

“St. Louis,” she said. “I grew up in St. Louis.”

And you’ve been a lot of places since, Rowdy thought, but he kept the observation to himself. After all, he’d covered considerable territory himself, in the years between here and that faraway farm.

Pardner trotted back to them. Nuzzled Rowdy’s hand, then Lark’s.

To his surprise she gave a soft laugh.

“You are a dear,” she said fondly.

Rowdy was both amused and disturbed to realize he wished she’d been talking to him instead of the dog.

* * *

LARK WATCHED FROM the steps of the schoolhouse that Monday morning as Maddie O’Ballivan, carrying her infant son in one arm and steering his reluctant older brother, Terran, forward with the other, marched through the gate. Ben Blackstone, the major’s adopted child, followed glumly, his blond hair shining in the morning sunlight.

Behind the little procession sat a wagon with two familiar horses tied behind. It had been the sound of its approach that had caused Lark to interrupt the second-grade reading lesson and come out to investigate.

Class had begun an hour earlier, promptly at eight o’clock.

Lark had missed Ben and Terran right away, when she’d taken the daily attendance, and hoped they were merely late. It was a long ride in from the large cattle ranch Sam and Major Blackstone ran in partnership, and for all that those worthy men must have deemed the journey safe, there were perils that could befall a pair of youths along the way.

Wolves, driven down out of the hills by hunger, for one.

Outlaws and drifters for another.

“Go inside, both of you,” Maddie told the boys when she reached the base of the steps. Samuel, the baby, had begun to fuss inside his thick blanket, and Maddie bounced him a little, smiling up at Lark when Terran and Ben had slipped past her, on either side, to take their seats in the schoolroom.

“Rascals,” Maddie said, shaking her head and smiling a little. “They were planning to spend the day riding in the hills—I guess they didn’t figure on Sam and the major heading into town for a meeting half an hour after they left, and me following behind in the buckboard, meaning to lay in supplies at the mercantile.”

Maddie was a pretty woman, probably near to Lark’s own age, with thick chestnut hair tending to unruliness and eyes almost exactly the same color as fine brandy. Until the winter before, according to Mrs. Porter, Maddie had run a general store and post office in a wild place down south called Haven. She’d married Sam O’Ballivan after the whole town burned to the ground, and borne him a son last summer. Lark’s landlady claimed the ranger’s bride could render notes from a spinet that would make an angel weep, but she’d politely refused to play on Sunday mornings at Stone Creek Congregational. Said it was too far to travel, and she had her own ways of honoring the Lord’s Day.

Lark liked Maddie O’Ballivan, though they were little more than acquaintances, but she also envied her—envied her home, her obviously happy marriage and her children. Once, she’d fully expected to have all those things, too.

What a naive little twit she’d been, with a head full of silly dreams and foolish hopes.

“No harm done,” Lark said quietly, smiling back at Maddie. “I’ll give them each an essay to write.”

Maddie laughed, a rich, quiet sound born of some profound and private joy, patting the baby with a gloved hand as she looked up at Lark, her eyes kind but thoughtful. “You’re cold, standing out here. I’ll just untie Ben and Terran’s horses, so they’ll have a way home after school, and be on about my business.”

“I’ll send the boys out to do that,” Lark said, hugging herself against the chill. She hated to see Maddie go—she’d been lonely with only Mrs. Porter and Mai Lee for friends—but she had work to do, and she was shivering.

“Miss Morgan?” Maddie said, when Lark turned to summon Terran and Ben to see to their horses.

“Please,” Lark replied shyly, turning back. “Call me Lark.”

“I will,” Maddie said, pleased. “And of course you’ll call me Maddie. I was wondering if you might like to join Sam and me for supper on Friday evening. You could ride out to the ranch with the boys, after school’s out, or Sam could come and get you in the wagon.”

Lark flushed with pleasure; in Denver, as the wife of a powerful and wealthy man, she’d enjoyed an active social life. In Stone Creek, she was a spinster schoolmarm, and she probably roused plenty of speculation behind closed doors. Since she was a stranger and had all the wrong clothes for her station in life, folks seemed reticent around her. No one invited her anywhere, and she hadn’t thought it proper to attend community dances; she didn’t want the parents of her students thinking she was forward or looking for a husband.

“I’d like that,” she said. “But I don’t ride.”

Maddie smiled. “I’ll send Sam, then. Go inside now, before you freeze.”

Lark nodded and went back into the schoolhouse. She told Terran and Ben to go out and unhitch their horses, and they scrambled to obey.

“Miss Morgan?” A small hand tugged at the side of her skirt, and she looked down to see Lydia Fairmont holding up a page torn from her writing tablet. “I copied the words off the blackboard. Will you tell me if all my letters are headed whence they ought to go, please?”

* * *

AS AGREED, ROWDY met Sam and the major in the lobby of the small, rustic Territorial Hotel, the only such establishment in Stone Creek, just before nine o’clock that morning. He’d walked over with Pardner from Mrs. Porter’s, having left his horse at the livery stable the night before after returning from Flagstaff.

Both men stood when he entered, Sam looking fit and a little grim, though he had the peaceful eyes of a happily married man. Rowdy had never met the major, only seen him briefly when he’d come to Haven on sad business over a year before.

“Thanks for making the ride up here,” Sam said, sparing a slight smile for Pardner as he and Rowdy shook hands. “Good to know your sidekick is still with you.”