Authors: Winter Hearts

Maureen McKade

“LIBBY.”

Despairing eyes peered at Matt, and a single tear tracked down her cheek.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Tell me about it. I’ll help you any way I can.”

A desolate smile claimed Libby’s lips. “Nobody can help me.” She trembled, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “Just hold me.”

She turned into Matt’s comforting arms and laid her cheek against his bare chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. She’d thought she could live with murder on her conscience, but the remorse and guilt wouldn’t remain buried.

Matt believed in right and wrong, black and white. If he learned her secret, she would no longer have his friendship. And she needed his quiet strength more than she had ever needed anything before.

Libby raised her head and found his lips a scant few inches from hers. Thunder pounded in her ears, and at the hungry look in Matt’s eyes, her fingers curled into the dark hair of his virile chest.

Winter Hearts

Maureen McKade

Contents

Montana Territory

November, 1870

S
heriff Matthew Brandon propped his shoulder against a wooden post. Through the misty rain, his vigilant eyes focused on a young boy oblivious to his scrutiny. Ragged overalls hung on the kid’s slight frame, and despite the cold weather, no shoes covered his filthy feet. Dirt streaked his face, but his chin thrust forward like a bulldog’s. Furtively, the youngster glanced about and grabbed an apple from the fruit barrel in front of Pearson’s Mercantile.

Matt’s lips curved downward and he shook his head. Four long strides placed him behind the youngster, and his gloved hand settled on a bony shoulder. “I don’t think that apple belongs to you, Dylan.”

A cocky grin replaced the surprise on the child’s thin face. “What apple, Sheriff?”

Matt was tempted to shake the stuffing out of the urchin. “That apple in your pocket.”

Dylan’s arrogant smile faltered. “Old man Pearson ain’t gonna miss one stupid apple.”

“It don’t matter if it’s one apple or a hundred dollars; stealing is stealing. Put it back.”

Muttering, Dylan did as he was ordered.

“Now let’s go have a chat with your ma.”

The boy’s face paled. “You can’t. Ma’s sleeping and she don’t like to be woke up.”

Matt shrugged. “Maybe you’ll learn you can’t be taking things that don’t belong to you.”

Dylan twisted like a trout on a line, but the sheriff’s grip was unyielding. “Please, don’t tell my ma! She’ll beat the livin’ daylights out of me.”

Matt sighed and considered. “Tell you what. You go on over and sweep the jail out for me, and I won’t tell her. How about it?”

“You promise?”

The desperation on his face roughened Matt’s voice. “This time, but if you ever try a fool stunt like that again, I will.”

“I won’t. I promise, Sheriff.”

Matt nodded and released the boy.

“I’ll head on over to the jail right now and start sweeping.” Dylan loped away under the protection of the eaves slanted over the boardwalk.

Matt shook his head and ducked into the store. A cowbell clanged his entrance. Cinnamon, leather, and other indefinable odors tickled his nostrils. Bags of flour and salt and sugar, as well as bolts of fabric and spools of thread, offered a familiar picture. As his boot heels clicked across the plank floor, he pointedly ignored the temptation to check out the new revolvers.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

Matt’s gaze settled on a jar of candy that sat on the oak counter. “How about a handful of that taffy?”

Pearson’s head bobbed on his scrawny neck. “Anything else I can get you today?”

Matt pointed to a row of leather shoes. “Do you think a pair of them would fit Dylan?”

The shopkeeper’s brow furrowed. “You talking about Sadie’s young’un?”

“Yep.”

Pearson shook his head. “Don’t see why you’re worried about him. His ma is one of the richest people in town, with her owning the only sporting house in the county.”

Matt ground his teeth. “And she don’t spend any more on that kid than she has to. You got a pair of shoes or not?”

Pearson’s lips drew into a thin line and his nostrils flared. Brushing his hands on a white apron, he stalked around the counter. “No need to get your hackles up, Sheriff. I was just wondering, is all.”

The store owner pressed a bony finger to his chin and examined the shoes. He picked out a pair. “These would probably work.”

“Put ’em on my bill.”

“Sure will, Sheriff.” He jabbed his wire spectacles up on his peaked nose. “You hear anything about the new schoolmarm yet?”

“I hear she’s coming in any day now.”

Pearson stuffed the purchases in a sack. “Wonder what she looks like.”

“Why? Your wife ain’t been dead but less than a few months.”

“Gets lonely at night, if you know what I mean.” Pearson elbowed the sheriff.

Matt swallowed his disgust and shrugged. “Get yourself a dog if you want company. It’d be a lot less trouble.”

“I suppose with that scar, women don’t even give you the time of day, huh?”

A smile lifted the corners of Matt’s stiff lips. “Makes for a lot less grief that way. See you later, Pearson.”

The cowbell jangled behind Matt and he paused on the boardwalk. Reflectively, he traced the scar that extended from his hairline down the left side of his
face, stopping an inch shy of his jaw. The mercantile owner was right: women didn’t exactly trip over themselves to get to him.

“Whoa, you ornery, no-good, mealy-mouthed sons of Lucifer!” The stage handler sawed back on the leather reins.

Matt glanced out of the sheltered overhang and grinned. He lowered the brim of his hat and tugged the ankle-length duster tightly about him, then stepped out into the falling rain, and into the mud.

A grizzled man jumped down from the driver’s box.

“Howdy, Hiram,” Matt greeted.

Hiram drew an arm across his face and grimaced at the lawman. “Don’t know how you put up with this dang weather. Seems to me Deer Creek’s always wet ’nuff to drown a duck or cold ’nuff to freeze a mule’s balls.”

Matt chuckled. “Kind of grows on a person, I guess. Besides, this time of year I’m just glad it ain’t snow.”

“Well, iffen you ask me, it ain’t no place to live less’n you’re a fish.” The jehu reached up and opened the coach’s door. “This here is Deer Creek, ma’am.”

A graceful hand encased in a soft kidskin glove accepted Hiram’s assistance. A shapely ankle, followed by a flurry of starched skirts, came into view, and Matt’s eyebrows raised a notch. His gaze traveled upward from the pleasant sight and collided with wary eyes as green and dewy as a mountain valley in the spring.

Her practical black shoes sank deep into the mud, and in two quick steps, the slender woman joined Matt on the boardwalk.

With his thumb and forefinger, Matt lowered the brim of his hat to conceal his scar, and cocked his head. “Welcome to Deer Creek, ma’am.”

Her shuttered gaze flickered over the star on his chest and back to his face. “Thank you, Sheriff. Could you tell me where I may rent a room?”

He scowled at her brusque manner. “I suppose I could.”

Lines of tight control etched her features. “Well?”

“Lenore Potts runs a boardinghouse just down the street.”

“Thank you.” Her glance flitted down the muddy boardwalk.

Matt studied the drab clothing that failed to disguise her shapely figure. “You aiming to stick around?”

She blinked as if surprised he was still there. “Yes, I am. I’m the new schoolteacher.”

“You’re Libby O’Hanlon?”

“What’s so surprising about that?”

“I figured she’d be a slip of a thing with a squeaky voice.”

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you,” she said, not sounding at all contrite. She brushed an errant auburn curl from her forehead.

Matt smiled self-consciously. “Oh, I ain’t disappointed, ma’am. I’m just sorry the kids are going to lose another teacher.”

Elizabeth took a quick step back. “I don’t understand. I’m not going anywhere.”

Her voice was edged with tension, and Matt noticed a haunted expression had crept into her eyes. He frowned. “I just meant that women are scarce in these parts, ma’am. That’s why we ain’t been able to keep a teacher more than a month.”

Her shoulders squared, fire replacing the shadows in her eyes. “I have no intention of ever marrying, Sheriff.”

Matt nodded. “I sure hope so, for them kids’ sake. They need to be learned reading and writing.”

“They need to be
taught
reading and writing,” she corrected.

Matt’s face warmed. “That’s what I said.”

“Now, how do I get to Mrs. Potts’s establishment?”

“Go down the street about a block. Boardinghouse is on your right, surrounded by a white fence. You can’t miss it.”

She smoothed the wrinkled traveling jacket over her hips. “Thank you,” she said with a strained voice, then turned to Hiram. “Could you have someone bring my trunk over to the boardinghouse?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

Matt’s gaze followed her slow progress across the muddy street. When she was safely across, he unconsciously let out the breath caught in his lungs.

“Is she the new schoolteacher?”

Matt shifted his attention to the reed-thin man who had joined him. “Sure is. Miss Libby O’Hanlon.”

Dr. Elias Clapper filled a chipped pipe with tobacco from a worn black pouch and sparked a match against a fingernail. He puffed on the stem until a steady stream of smoke created a blue cloud above them. “I give her a month, tops.”

Matt scratched his three-day whisker growth. “She says she ain’t planning on getting married.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“I got a feeling she means it.”

Pale blue eyes twinkled below bushy iron-gray brows. “Sounds like she made quite an impression on you, Matt.”

“Yeah, like a porcupine makes when you sit on it,” Matt growled.

Eli tamped the tobacco down in the pipe’s bowl. “Seems to me you had the perfect opportunity to be the first in line.”

Matt shook his head. “I told you, Eli, ain’t a woman like her going to look twice at a man like me.”

“You worry too much about that damned scar.”

“It ain’t just that. Hell, she’s a teacher. I can barely write my name, and I can’t read more’n but a few words.”

Eli shrugged. “Ask her to tutor you. That’s a good way to get to know her.”

“Nope. I ain’t a complete fool. I seen how she looked at me.”

“Maybe you only saw what you expected to see.” Eli pointed at the bag in Matt’s hand. “What do you have there?”

“Nothing much,” he replied evasively.

Eli peeked in the sack and his eyes narrowed. “Those shoes look a bit small for you.”

“They ain’t for me.” Matt sighed like a preacher caught in a whorehouse. “They’re for Dylan. He’s running around barefoot and it’s nearly winter. He’s going to catch his death if he don’t start dressing warmer.”

They strolled down the boardwalk.

“That mother of his isn’t worth two bits,” Eli commented. “Sleeping all day and then working all night. It isn’t the right way to be raising a child.”

“She should’ve never kept Dylan,” Matt said. “She should’ve found a family who could raise him proper-like. The way he’s headed, I’m gonna end up throwing him in jail some day.”

“Maybe not. Seems to me you’ve taken a personal interest in his welfare. Your own son would’ve been about Dylan’s age, wouldn’t he?”

Matt ignored the question and paused in front of the jailhouse. “Are you going to eat at Lenore’s tonight?”

Eli opened his mouth as if to pursue the subject of Matt’s son, but shrugged instead. “As long as nothing comes up. Why don’t you come on over, too?”

Despite Miss O’Hanlon’s chilly reserve, her auburn hair and jade eyes tempted him. “We’ll see.”

Matt nodded to Eli and stepped into the brick building. He noted the dusty air and waved a hand in front of his face. “How’re you doing, Dylan?”

The boy sneezed and rubbed his nose. “Don’t you ever clean in here, Sheriff?”

“Don’t see no need to.” Matt tossed his battered hat and the package on the pile of papers and food-encrusted tin plates that covered his desk. The chair creaked beneath his weight. “I know right where everything is.”

“Really?” Skepticism dripped from the single word.

Matt combed his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. “Yep. You see, I figure it doesn’t matter if it’s clean or not, as long as a man can find what he wants. And I ain’t lost nothing yet.”

Dylan leaned against the handle of the broom. “So you found the wanted poster on that man who was at my ma’s place the other night?”

Matt shifted in his chair. “That wasn’t important. I know where the important stuff is.”

The boy grinned insolently. “Then you found the telegram you got last week from the marshal in Helena? You said that was important.”

Matt squirmed a little more. “Well, no, I didn’t find that neither.”

Dylan shoved coal-black bangs out of his eyes. “Then why don’t you clean your office?”

Leave it to a kid to use logic.
“Maybe I like it this way.”

“Don’t seem right that you can use that excuse and I can’t.”

“When you get as old as me, you won’t have to clean your room either.”

Dylan snorted. “I ain’t ever going to get as old as you.”

Matt aimed an index finger at the boy. “You keep getting into trouble, and you ain’t even going to get out of knee pants.”

“I don’t ever wear sissy knee pants,” Dylan shot back indignantly.

The sheriff hid a grin behind his hand and glanced about the room. “Looks like you done a mighty good job sweeping the place out.”

“I worked real hard. You aren’t going to tell my ma about the apple, right?”

“I promised, didn’t I? And because you did such a good job, I got a couple things for you.” Matt fished in the cloth sack and withdrew the shoes.

Dylan stared at the black leather shoes and his mouth fell open. He shook his head. “I can’t take these, Sheriff.”

“Sure you can. You earned them.”

“Ma won’t like it. She don’t like me taking handouts.”

“You tell her that you worked an honest-to-goodness job and earned them, and if she don’t believe you, send her on over to me. Go ahead, try ’em on.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Dylan accepted the shoes from Matt’s outstretched hand. He plopped himself down on the freshly swept floor, tugged them on, and wiggled his toes. “They’re a little big.”

“If your feet was as big as your mouth, they’d fit just fine.” Matt handed Dylan the last item in the bag. “I figured you might like some candy, too.”

Dylan’s bright blue eyes widened. “Taffy! That’s my favorite.”

Matt leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I thought so. It was my favorite, too.”

The boy thrust one at Matt. “Want a piece?”

Matt shook his head but stopped in midmotion. He nodded and winked. “Why not? Nothing says I can’t like taffy anymore just because I’m grown up.”

They chewed with open mouths, grinning at each other like two conspirators.

Dylan swallowed the chunk of candy. “I don’t think you’re so mean.”