Anne Avery - The Lawman Takes A Wife

“You were mad about a lot more than me not bringing that plate back pronto.”

“Oh, dear. I should have known. But then I thought—”

She stopped, blushed.

“You thought…?” Witt prompted, fascinated by the mix of emotions that washed across her face.

She bit her lower lip, shook her head. The color in her cheeks was rapidly changing from rose to scarlet.

She had very kissable lips.

He bent closer. He couldn’t help himself. She drew him like a magnet drew iron. “Yes?”

“I thought you thought I was too…forward. That I was…”

Closer still. “Yes?”

“Chasing you.” The words escaped on a gasp.

Witt’s head spun. Molly Calhan? Chasing him? Him?

He liked the thought. A lot.

The Lawman Takes a Wife

Harlequin Historical #573

Praise for award-winning author

Anne Avery’s recent works

The Bartered Bride

“Rich in historical detail and lush in characterization…Anne Avery takes her place with the best.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

Summer Fancy

“…laugh-out-loud funny and sweetly sensual…if you’re looking for a book to lift your spirits, this is definitely the one!”

—Under the Covers Web site

“Summer Fancy is a funny, engaging, sexy love story…a wonderfully told story to read…anytime you want to fall in love.”

—The Old Book Barn Gazette

#571 THE WIDOW’S LITTLE SECRET

Judith Stacy

#572 CELTIC BRIDE

Margo Maguire

#574 LADY POLLY

Nicola Cornick

The Lawman Takes a Wife

Anne Avery

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Lawman Takes a Wife #573

This book is for Dame Agatha and Phinneas T. Dogg,

who have stuck by me from the first.

And in loving memory of Osa, the Wonder Bear,

who tended to shed.

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

“What’d I tell you? That’s him.”

“You sure?” Bonnie Calhan frowned down at her eight-year-old brother. With the superior perspective of her eleven years, she’d learned to be cautious—even making Dickie cross his heart and hope to die wasn’t always a guarantee you could believe him. Now that he’d grabbed hold of this latest wild notion of his, there was just no telling at all.

Dickie wasn’t paying her any mind, anyway. He was standing on tiptoe, face pressed against the tall, narrow front window of Elk City’s sheriff’s office, straining to see inside.

“Are you sure?” she insisted, poking him to make him listen.

He grudgingly backed away from the window and dusted his hands on the seat of his overalls. “Certain sure. Saw him come in on the train last night. He was carryin’ a rifle an’ a saddle an’ askin’ for the mayor. An’ I heard him sayin’ somethin’ about the sheriff’s office. Honest. Couldn’t be nobody else.”

“Anybody else.”

He shrugged, irritated. “See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Bonnie eyed him doubtfully, then cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the rain and dirt-blotched window. The effort was wasted. What with the grime, the natural distortions in the crude glass, and the sharp contrast between sunlit street and shadowed interior, she couldn’t see anything except a dark bulk hunched over a desk at the back of the room.

But it was the sheriff’s office, and they’d been expecting the new sheriff for weeks, now. Much as she hated to admit it, Dickie was probably right.

“All right,” she said, reluctantly giving in as she usually did, sooner or later. “But if you’re wrong…”

“I ain’t. You’ll see.”

“Yes, I will. And don’t say ain’t. You know Mother doesn’t like it.”

She tried to take his hand, but he scowled and dodged out of reach. “Don’t you go bossin’ me, Bonnie Mae Calhan! Just ’cause you’re bigger’n me an’—”

“Oh, come on. If we’re going to do this, there’s no sense dawdling.”

His scowl deepened. “You sound just like Mother.” But when Bonnie moved toward the door, he was a half step ahead of her.

Bonnie halted on the threshold, blinking against the sudden transition from sunlight to shadow. Dust coated the raw plank floor and hung in the air like a gauzy curtain, obscuring details. Not that there was anything worth seeing except the desk and the man behind it.

He looked up at their entrance, but she couldn’t make out much more of his features than she had outside.

“Yes?” His voice was deep, pleasant to the ear.

“Are you—” The words stuck on her tongue like molasses.

All of a sudden, she was even less certain of the wisdom of this visit than she’d been when she’d given in to Dickie’s pleading. What if he laughed at them? Or gave them a tongue lashing for wasting his time like old Mr. Garver was always doing? Or worse, told their mother?

Bonnie blenched at the thought of what her mother would say if she found out.

Dickie had no such reservations. “You the new sheriff?” he demanded, boldly stepping forward.

“I am.”

Dickie threw her a look that clearly said, told you so! and edged a little farther into the room. “You really a gunfighter, like Freddy Christian said you was?”

The man’s mouth abruptly thinned to an intimidating straight line. “No.”

The single word rumbled in the dusty air like distant thunder. He deliberately set aside the papers he’d been reading, then shoved back his chair and came around the desk toward them.

Seated behind the battered old desk, the man had looked impressively large. On his feet and up close, he was downright intimidating—more like a mountain on legs than a man. The floor jumped with every step he took.

Bonnie backed up a foot.

Her brother didn’t budge, but he hunched his shoulders and stuck out his chin so he could swallow. If his eyes opened any wider, his eyeballs would pop out.

The sheriff loomed over them. Bonnie had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. Her throat tightened. There was an awful lot of jaw on that sharply carved face of his.

He stared down at her unblinkingly.

Bonnie backed up another step and clasped her hands behind her, where he wouldn’t see their trembling.

The sheriff turned to Dickie. “Who is Freddy Christian?” His voice seemed to shake the walls around them, despite its mild tone.

“A friend,” said Dickie in a very small voice. He gulped and added, a little louder this time, “He’s a year younger’n me, but he knows ’most everything ’cause his dad, see, he’s the editor of the paper.”

The sheriff considered that a moment, then, “How old are you?”

Dickie rubbed his hands on the sides of his overalls. “Me?”

The sheriff nodded.

“Eight. Nine come October.” Dickie hesitated, then cocked a thumb in Bonnie’s direction. “This here’s my big sister, Bonnie. She’s eleven.”

Those coal-black eyes turned back to her. After a moment’s sober study, the sheriff politely ducked his head by way of acknowledgment. “Miss Bonnie.”

Bonnie flushed. She’d never had a grown-up gentleman call her Miss Bonnie before. And now that she’d had the chance to study him a bit more, the new sheriff didn’t seem nearly as hard as he had a minute earlier.