The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Lael Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ retorted. “I guess appearances can be deceiving.”

      Maddie resisted an impulse to pat her hair, which tended to be unruly and was forever coming down from its pins. “What does a storekeeper look like?” she retorted.

      “What does a schoolmaster look like?” he countered.

      Maddie sighed and glanced hopefully toward the door, wishing the man would leave and stop taking up all the room in her store. “If you have no further business here, Mr. O’Ballivan—”

      “It happens that I do,” he said, and she knew by the light in his eyes that he enjoyed baiting her. “I’d like to collect my mail. You are the postmistress, aren’t you?”

      Letters and packages came into Haven once a week, on the stagecoach, which had been and gone by four o’clock that afternoon. Busy with Mrs. Burke’s order, which she had promised to deliver personally after closing, she’d told the driver to put the mail in the back room and promptly forgotten all about it.

      “Yes,” Maddie said. “I am the postmistress. But I haven’t had a chance to do any sorting.”

      “There should be a parcel addressed to me,” O’Ballivan told her, and showed no sign of moving away from the counter, let alone leaving the premises.

      Maddie glanced at the large, loud-ticking clock on the far wall, above the display window. “I’m about to close for the day.”

      Again, that slow, thoughtful smile. “Well, then,” Sam O’Ballivan said, “if you’ll just point me to that parcel, I’ll be on my way.”

      Maddie sighed. “I’ll get it for you,” she conceded, and turned away.

      “It’s bound to be too heavy,” he argued, and came right around the end of the counter without so much as a by-your-leave. “Just show me where it is.”

      Impatient, Maddie tossed aside the curtain covering the entrance to the back of the store and gestured toward the corner where the mail had been stowed. Sure enough, there was a very large box wrapped in brown paper and tied with heavy string.

      Mr. O’Ballivan lifted it with one hand, tilted it slightly so she could see the large, slanted letters on the face of the package: S. O’Ballivan, c/o General Delivery, Haven, Arizona Territory.

      He’d saved her the awkwardness of asking for proof that the parcel belonged to him before releasing it, but Maddie wasn’t grateful. She just wanted him gone, so she could close the store, tally the books and deliver Mrs. Burke’s groceries. She wanted the place to expand to its normal size, so she could breathe.

      “Obliged,” he said, pausing in the front doorway to don his hat again. He tugged lightly at the brim.

      “Goodbye, Mr. O’Ballivan,” Maddie said pointedly, right on his heels. She put one hand on the door lock, eager to latch it behind him.

      He shifted the parcel from one hand to the other, as easily as if it were a basket of eggs. “Until next time,” he said, and touched his hat brim again.

      Maddie, already moving to shut the door, frowned. “Do you receive a lot of mail?”

      “No,” Mr. O’Ballivan replied, “but I expect we’ll have a few more rounds over your brother.”

      Maddie gave the door a shove and latched it.

      Mr. O’Ballivan smiled at her through the glass.

      She wrenched down the shade.

      As she turned away, she was certain she heard him laugh.

      * * *

      BACK IN HIS ROOM behind the schoolhouse, Sam built a fire in the stove, ladled water into the coffeepot that came with the place, along with the last of Tom Singleton’s stash of ground beans, and set the concoction on to boil.

      If Miss Maddie Chancelor hadn’t run him off so quickly, he’d have had time to lay in a few staples. As things stood, he’d need to take his supper at the saloon and bring the leftovers home for breakfast.

      After school let out tomorrow, he’d go back to the mercantile.

      Like as not, Miss Maddie wouldn’t be all that glad to see him.

      Sam smiled at the thought and turned his attention to the parcel. He’d packed the books himself, before starting the trip down from Stone Creek, and taken them to the stagecoach office for shipping. Now, he looked forward to putting up his feet when he got back from taking his meal, and reading until the lamp ran low on kerosene.

      Of course, he’d have to shake Maddie’s image loose from his mind before he’d be able to concentrate worth a damn.

      After what the boy and Singleton had said, he’d expected someone entirely different. An aging, mean-eyed spinster with warts, maybe. Or a rough-edged Calamity Jane sort of woman, brawny enough to do a man’s work.

      The real Maddie had come as quite a surprise, with her slender figure and thick, reddish-brown hair, ready to tumble down over her back and shoulders at the slightest provocation. She couldn’t have been much past twenty-five, and while that probably qualified her as an old maid, it was a pure wonder to him that some lonely bachelor hadn’t tumbled right into those rum-colored eyes and snatched her up a long time ago. Women such as her were few and far between, this far west of the Mississippi, and generally had their choice of men.

      Her temperament was on the cussed side, it was true, but there was fire in her; he’d felt the heat the moment he’d stepped into the mercantile and locked eyes with her.

      He smiled again as he opened the stove door and stuck in another chunk of wood, hoping to get the coffee perking sooner and wondering how long it would be before the lady organized a campaign to send the new schoolmaster down the road.

      Satisfied that the stove was doing the best it could, Sam opened the box to unpack his books. Except for his horse, Dionysus, grazing on sweet hay up in the high country while a lame leg mended, he treasured these worn and oft-read volumes more than anything else he owned. Some were warped by damp weather and creek water, having traveled miles in his saddlebags, while others had been scarred by sparks from forgotten campfires.

      All of them were old friends, and Sam handled them tenderly as he silently welcomed each one to a new home. When he got time, he’d find a plank of wood somewhere and put up a shelf they could stand on. In the meantime, they made good company, sitting right there on the table.

      He’d attended to the gelding earlier, staking it on a long line in the tall grass behind the schoolhouse, where a little stream made its crooked way from hither to yon, and stowed his tack in the woodshed. Now, as twilight thickened around the walls and purpled the windowpanes, he lit a lamp and used his shirttail to wipe out the blue metal mug he carried with him whenever he left the ranch.

      He’d just poured coffee when a light knock sounded at the back door.

      Sam arched an eyebrow and checked to make sure his .45 was within easy reach, there on the rickety table next to the bed. He wasn’t expecting anybody.

      “Mr. O’Ballivan?” a female voice called, thin as a shred of frayed ribbon. “Are you to home?”

      Curious, СКАЧАТЬ