Winning the Widow's Heart. Sherri Shackelford

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СКАЧАТЬ He flashed a lopsided grin. Not the charming smirk he’d plastered on his face that first night to put her at ease, but a genuine smile. “Just enough.”

       She was struck by how young he looked without his usual scowl. His abashed expression softened the lines of his face, smoothing the customary crease of worry between his eyebrows. His hair wasn’t black, as she’d supposed that first night, but more of a deep chocolate. His hazel eyes sparkled with flecks of gold around the irises, lightening the somber effect of his austere demeanor.

       She was unaccustomed to such relaxed behavior in a man. Though he’d been delayed on his journey, he didn’t prowl around the house like a caged animal, or burst into action with unleashed energy. He held himself straight and tall. Even when he feigned casual indifference, she sensed a stiffness in his spine, a certain resolve in his stance.

       A sudden need to capture this moment overwhelmed her. She wanted to remember the way he circled the brim of his hat in his hands, the way he kept peeking at Rachel when he thought she wasn’t looking.

       There had been so few moments in her life she had tucked away, saving like priceless treasurers. Why this one? She glanced at Rachel Rose, swaddled in peaceful slumber. This unfamiliar emotion bubbling to the surface, this sensation of warmth and safety wrapping around her like a velvet cloak must be attached to the infant.

       Elizabeth floundered for something to say, anxious to avoid the troublesome feelings Mr. Elder aroused. It was best he left now, before she was disillusioned, before time and familiarity revealed the cracks in his facade.

       He stuck his hat on his head, lowering the brim to shield his eyes. “I should be going.”

       Elizabeth busied herself with separating the dough. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. Someday I’ll tell Rachel the story of her birth. How you thought I was a bank robber.”

       They both chuckled, her own forced laugh hollow and strained.

       When the awkward silence fell once more, he peered at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “When I tell the boys this story, I’ll be painting a more heroic picture of myself.”

       “You did just fine, Mr. Elder.”

       “After all we’ve been through, I think you can call me Jack.”

       Suddenly shy, she met his sheepish gaze. The name suited him. It was strong and solid. Elizabeth let her gaze skitter away from those compassionate, hazel eyes. “Goodbye, Jack.”

       “Goodbye,” he replied. “I’ll just be going.”

       Neither of them moved.

       A sharp sorrow robbed her of breath. She attacked her kneading with renewed vigor.

       “Jack,” she spoke, prolonging the moment, “can you check on Jo? I don’t know what’s taking her so long with chores.”

       “I saw her in the barn earlier.” His boots scuffed the floor.

       Elizabeth suppressed a grin. He probably didn’t even notice his own nervous fidget, the boot scuffing that reminded her of a young boy, but she found the gesture charming.

       Her somber mood lightened like a leavened pastry. “Tell Jo I’m making bread.”

       She squelched the urge to slap her forehead. Of course she was making bread. Why had she said such a silly thing? What was wrong with her? She was behaving like a giddy schoolgirl.

       Jack cleared his throat. “I will.”

       “Where will you go after this?”

       She didn’t even know why she’d asked, except that talking meant he wasn’t leaving just yet, and she missed the company of another adult.

       “I’ve got to see the sheriff.”

       Her effervescent mood plummeted. Clearing her throat, she stood up straighter. “Tell him we’re doing fine. Just fine.”

       He nodded.

       Another moment laden with unspoken words passed between them. She grasped for an elusive farewell, a way to thank him that encompassed her diverse emotions, but no words came. Jack pinched the brim of his hat between two fingers, tipping his head in a parting gesture before the door closed quietly behind him.

       She pressed the back of her hand to her brow. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Those pesky, annoying, infuriating tears were clogging her throat once more. What on earth was wrong with her?

       A lank strand of hair had fallen across her forehead, and she shook it away with a sigh. She was tired, that was all. Rachel had awakened three times last evening to be fed and changed. All this weeping must be due to her exhaustion.

       The growing fatigue pulled her to slump on the stool before the worktable. She didn’t need a man around the house.

       Rachel’s face pinched up a like a dried apple, her lips trembling in distress. The infant’s faint mewling reverberated in Elizabeth’s chest.

       Better that Jack left now. Keeping this home meant keeping her family together, and a wandering lawman asking questions about her past didn’t bode well. She was glad he was gone. For good. She was doing just fine on her own.

      Just fine.

       If she repeated the mantra often enough, maybe she’d even believe her own lies.

      Chapter Five

      If Jack hadn’t been so furious, he might have seen the humor in his current situation. First off, he’d never seen a man so partial to drab brown—the exact color of the hindquarters of a bay mare. Dressed head to toe in the unflattering hue, Cimarron Spring’s sheriff resembled a great mound of lumpy, oozing mud.

       The older man’s dirty-blond hair was saturated with gray, and his eyes mirrored the washed-out beige of his stained and wrinkled shirt. An extra-long pair of suspenders stretched over his shoulders. A leather belt hooked on a freshly notched hole, perilously near the ragged tip, strained to cinch his spreading waist. Ferretlike eyes took Jack’s measure.

       The sheriff smacked his flabby lips together. “You shoulda told me you was lookin’ for a live horse,” he cackled, his enormous belly undulating with laughter. “Now, that’s a different story.”

       Clenching his teeth, Jack let his molten anger cool into hardened steel. He failed to see the humor in sending a fellow lawman on a wild-goose chase. “I’m looking for a live horse and a live man. A man who murdered a woman during a bank robbery.”

       Jack had been in Cimarron Springs for several days, waiting for a meeting. Both the sheriff and the town doc had been unavailable. While Jack understood the doc’s busy schedule causing a delay, he’d yet to discern the cause of the sheriff’s stalling. As far as Jack could tell, the only pressing item on that man’s schedule was his next meal.

       Under Jack’s unyielding scowl, the jovial smile on the sheriff’s face gradually dissolved into a blank stare. “Don’t get all uppity on me, Ranger,” the man spoke, his tone defensive. “I’ve got a lot going on here. There’s a flu epidemic crippling the town. We’ve had six deaths already. The undertaker had to pile СКАЧАТЬ