Sherri Shackelford - The Marshal's Ready-Made Family

Garrett scratched his head. “I never even thought of that.”

“You’re new to all this. You’ll learn.” Jo pressed her thumb against the tines of her fork. “Do you have any other family? Someone who could help out for a bit?”

“Just a cousin and his wife.” Garrett glanced away. “They won’t be much help.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any family.”

“None that claim me.” He ducked his head. “I guess that’s different than no kin at all.”

There was no love lost between him and Edward. For a time after his parents’ deaths, Garrett had stayed with Edward’s family. They’d been mortified by the scandal, and resentful of the added burden of two extra children. Especially Garrett, who bore a striking resemblance to his father.

He shook his head. “It must seem strange to you.”

“I’ve never wanted for brothers, that’s for certain.” Jo drummed her fingers on the table. “Is your cousin a lawman, too?”

“Nope. He owns a sawmill back East. My father was a doctor. I’m the only one who went West.”

“I guess that explains your parents’ deaths.”

His heart stuttered and stalled. “Explains what?”

“You know, the smallpox. Doctors get exposed to all that kind of stuff all the time.”

His blood gradually resumed pumping again, moving sluggishly through his frozen veins.

“Of course,” he replied.

These people respected him, gave him their trust. What would they do if they knew of his past? A lawman, the son of a murderer. They’d run him out of town on a rail. If he and Cora settled here, he’d have to guard the secret with even greater care. He wasn’t alone anymore.

Garrett braced his left palm on the table and his right one against his chest.

Jo leaned forward, a crease between her delicately arched brows. “Are you all right? You don’t look so good.”

“Fine.”

Avoiding her penetrating gaze, he glanced instead at her fingers. They were long and tapered, the nails blunt and neatly rounded. A smudge of ink darkened the tip of her index finger.

He turned from the distraction. Cora scribbled away, her head bent in concentration. Noting his interest, she lifted her paper and proudly displayed her picture. Even with her rudimentary skills, Garrett recognized his sister and her husband on either side of Cora, their hands linked together.

Cora’s lower lip trembled. “Look. I made my family.”

His throat tight, Garrett knelt before her and pulled her into his embrace. She wrapped her arms around his neck and a single sob shook her delicate body.

“Oh, dear,” the woman in burgundy exclaimed, half rising.

Jo gently waved the concerned woman aside. “She’ll be all right. She’s right where she needs to be.”

Grateful for Jo’s assistance, Garrett closed his eyes.

After Cora had calmed, he took his seat once more. Jo resumed the conversation as if there’d been no break, and her light chatter was a grateful distraction. As he watched her and Cora laugh, he let his mind wander. What would it be like, courting Jo? Actually courting her like a proper gentleman?

Garrett spread his work-roughened fingers over the stark white tablecloth. No use thinking the impossible. She deserved better. What if the evil that had snapped his father’s soul lived within Garrett? He couldn’t take the risk.

Jo rested her hand over his. “You don’t have to be alone in this. I hope we can be friends.”

“I’d like that.”

Sour guilt swelled in his throat for even thinking about Jo romantically. She deserved someone who could love her with his whole heart, without reservations. Garrett wasn’t that man.

* * *

That evening, Jo returned to her solitary room at the boardinghouse. She lit a single candle and perched on the edge of the bed. Without Cora for company, the room seemed unnaturally quiet.

Lately she’d begun to realize what a lonely place she’d carved out for herself. Rising at dawn each day, spending her shift at the telegraph office, home each evening. Every other weekend she helped her family on the farm. She kept herself busy, sure, but even that felt false.

Like at the mercantile, when Mr. Stuart ran low on supplies and spread out the remaining stock to make it look as if there were more goods available. That’s how Jo felt lately, like she was spreading herself thin to make it appear there was more to her life. Covering up the empty places in her heart with bits of nonsense. Except she wasn’t hiding them from other people, she was hiding from herself.

Always before, she’d known what she’d wanted, and she’d sought her goal with single-minded determination. Except she didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

Jo stood and crossed the room, then pressed her forehead against the cool windowpane. She did know one thing—being with Cora and Garrett felt right.

Blowing out a warm breath, Jo fogged a circle on the glass. Garrett had accepted her offer of friendship. Together they’d look after Cora, ease her through the transition of losing her parents.

Simple as that.

The fog on the glass quickly dissipated. He hadn’t shown signs of interest toward any of the single ladies in town earlier, now that he had Cora to look after... Her stomach pitched. A single man around these parts who needed a wife didn’t stay single for long. There’d be no setting her cap for Marshal Cain. She’d never set herself up for that kind of demoralizing rejection again.

Jo glanced at the tips of her battered work boots. She knew what she wanted, all right: she wanted something that could never be.

Chapter Three

A week after the marshal’s return, Jo shaded her eyes with one hand and searched the horizon. A kick of dust indicated his timely arrival. Her ma had finally invited the marshal and Cora for dinner. By coincidence, this was Jo’s weekend home.

A soft object thumped against the back of her head. She bent and retrieved a faded leather glove from the ground.

“Hey!” Frowning at her brother, Abraham, she waved the glove. “Did you throw this at me?”

“You weren’t paying any attention.” He tugged off his second glove. “Why all the daydreaming?”

“I wasn’t daydreaming.”

No matter what happened during the week, when Jo rounded the bend and caught sight of her childhood home on the horizon, her mood lightened. Lately, she needed the comforting sight more than ever. That strange yearning hadn’t abated, and a restless need for something more in her life itched beneath her collar.

Abraham lifted an eyebrow. “It’s like working with Caleb. Are you in love with Mary Louise Stuart, too?”

Jo winged the glove in Abraham’s direction. He ducked and easily avoided her revenge. At seventeen, he wasn’t interested in courting just yet.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about Mary Louise,” Jo grumbled. “What does anybody know about her other than she’s pretty?”

“What else do you have to know?” Abraham shrugged.

“Be serious.” Jo knelt before a hay bale and clipped the wire. “God gave her those looks. It’s not like she had to work for anything.”

“How do you think Mary Louise feels? She can’t hardly step from behind the counter without causing a stampede.”

“It’s strange, you know, when you really think about it. Some people are rewarded for how they look, not who they are.” Jo sat back on her heels. “While other people are paying the price for how they look, when none of it is their fault. And nobody’s happy about it.”

“You know what your problem is, Jo? You think too much.” Abraham kicked the loose hay over the uneven ground of the muddy corral. “Looks like the marshal and his niece are here.”

Her brother had a point. She had been thinking too much lately. Only the day before she’d offered to hold Mrs. Patterson’s baby while the new mother shopped in the mercantile. When Jo had caught herself wondering how the marshal’s coffee-colored eyes would look on a chubby little toddler, she’d promptly returned the baby and fled the store. That sort of behavior had to stop.