The Widow's Little Secret. Judith Stacy

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      Chapter One

      Nevada, 1887

      It just wasn’t right, being envious of a dead man. Still, that’s how Jared McQuaid felt sitting on the hotel porch, watching the funeral procession roll by.

      He glanced down at the Stanford Gazette on his lap. The headline announced the untimely death of Del Ingram, and the front page article extolled the man’s many virtues.

      A knot formed in Jared’s stomach. What were the chances? He’d showed up in this town just today and read the obituary of a man he’d grown up with miles and miles from here. A man he hadn’t thought of in years.

      According to the newspaper, Ingram had died from a fall. Jared had figured ol’ Del was more likely to have been killed by a jealous husband, an irate wife or a poker player with an eye for cheaters.

      Not so, according to the newspaper. Del had made something of himself here in Stanford. Owner of a restaurant, a solid citizen with a sterling reputation, he’d had a life any man would envy.

      Jared touched his hand to the U.S. Marshal’s badge pinned to his vest beneath his coat. Seemed he and his boyhood friend had taken very different roads when they’d parted company some fifteen years ago. This wasn’t the man Jared remembered. But maybe Del had changed.

      Jared sure as hell had.

      The rocker creaked as Jared leaned back and watched from beneath the brim of his black Stetson as the funeral procession passed by. Matched sorrels pulled the wagon bearing the coffin, their hoofs stirring up little swirls of dust. Two dozen mourners followed, all dressed in black, their somber faces flushed red from the raw March wind.

      Jared glanced west. Charcoal clouds hung over the Sierra Nevadas, blocking out what was left of the day’s sunlight. He had nothing to do, no place to go, no one to talk to until morning when he would relieve Stanford’s sheriff of his two prisoners and head to Carson City. Jared may as well pay his respects to Del Ingram, even though he’d never especially liked him.

      A few people glanced at Jared as he fell into step behind the mourners. One woman eyed the Colt .45 strapped to his hip and the badge on his chest when the wind whipped open his coat. She chanced a look at his face, then turned away, wondering, he was sure, who he was and why he was here.

      Jared found himself on the receiving end of a hundred such looks nearly every time he came to a town like this. Not that he blamed anyone, of course. He’d arrive one day, eat supper alone in some restaurant, sleep in a nameless hotel, then take custody of his prisoners the following morning and disappear.

      And those were his good days. Most of the time he was on the trail, sleeping in the saddle, eating jerky and cold beans, hunting down some rabble-rouser who’d broken the law.

      He was used to both—the life and the looks he got. Jared had been a marshal for nearly ten years now.

      At the cemetery on the edge of town, six men unloaded the coffin from the wagon. Del Ingram’s final resting place was deep; freshly turned earth lay beside it.

      Reverend Harris stepped to the foot of the grave, yanked his black, wide-brimmed hat over the tufts of his gray hair and struggled to hold open the fluttering pages of his Bible. The townsfolk gathered in a close knot, straining to hear the reverend’s words. Jared moved off to one side, uncomfortable among the mourners.

      As was his custom, Jared’s gaze moved from face to face, sizing up each person assembled there. He was good at it. It had saved his life a time or two.

      From all appearances, everyone who was anyone in the town of Stanford was assembled to mourn Del’s passing. They all looked prosperous, in dress and in manner. Jared spotted the mayor and his wife; he’d met the man earlier in the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Hickert wasn’t present, but Jared hadn’t expected him to be. He was nursing a nasty leg wound from the shoot-out that had garnered the two prisoners Jared was transporting tomorrow.

      The gathering shifted as Reverend Harris reached for the woman standing in front of him. Jared’s stomach bottomed out.

      “Damn…”

      The widow. Del’s widow. Jared felt like he’d been sucker-punched in the gut.

      He didn’t know how Ingram had acquired a prosperous business, a good home, a sterling reputation—and he sure as hell couldn’t imagine how he’d found himself such a fine-looking wife.

      Even in her mourning dress she looked fit and shapely. She’d draped a black lace scarf over her head, but tendrils of her brown hair escaped in the wind and blew across her pale cheeks. She stood stiff and straight, her full lips pressed tightly together as she gazed past the reverend to some point on the distant horizon.

      Jared thought she looked brave, determined not to break down. He wondered if she’d fully accepted the sudden loss of her husband, dead not quite two days now. He’d seen that happen before, where a long time passed before reality set in—and only then did loved ones fall to pieces.

      Who would be there to hold Mrs. Del Ingram when that happened? Jared wondered. He wondered, too, why the thought bothered him so much.

      He recalled the newspaper article he’d read, and remembered no mention of Ingram having any children. Indeed, no little ones hung on Mrs. Ingram’s skirt, sniffling, reaching up to her. Jared found that troubling. The widow was truly alone now, it seemed, without even a child to comfort her.

      “Let us pray,” Reverend Harris called.

      As heads bowed, Jared pulled out the newspaper, which he’d crammed into his pocket, and searched for the widow’s name. Matilda. “Mattie,” the mayor’s wife had called her in a quote.

      He turned to her again. His breath caught. Mattie Ingram hadn’t bowed her head for the prayer. She was looking straight at him.

      Their gazes met and held. She didn’t blink, didn’t falter, didn’t hesitate, just looked at him long and hard, with the biggest, brownest eyes he’d ever seen.

      Heat flared in Jared’s belly, spreading outward, weakening his knees and making his heart thump harder in his chest.

      “Amen,” the reverend intoned.

      “Amen,” the gathering echoed.

      Only then did Mattie turn away. Flushed, Jared pushed back his coat to welcome the chilly wind.