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Hope. It was what had brought her here in the first place. A new start for Mandy, a home of her own. She worried about what kind of man Mr. Cooper Braddock would be—kind or strict, stern or forgiving. But now her big plans felt false and foolish with her daughter so injured.
Anna stood and somehow made it to the table. Her own body ached, especially her arm, but she hadn’t said anything. Would not detract the doctor’s attention from Mandy, even for herself.
Steam rose from the fragrant stew. Her stomach turned, but she knew she had to eat. At least had to try. She sat on the rickety chair, one leg shorter than the other three. It bumped against the floor when she shifted her weight. The warm scent of gravy, the hearty scent of beef tickled her nose. She lifted the spoon and filled it. But how was she going to get any food to stay in her twisted-up-with-worry stomach?
“Mrs. Bauer?” A low rumbling voice called to her. She turned around to see the sheriff, his broad-shouldered form filling the threshold, his dark hat shading his eyes. “How’s your little girl?”
Just looking at him made her feel better, the same way she’d felt when he climbed hand over hand down that rope to rescue Mandy. “She’s doing better. Thanks to you. You got her to the doctor in good time.”
“I was Just doing my job. Serve and protect.” He swept off his gray hat, looking uncomfortable with her praise. “Daughters are priceless.”
“Yes, they are.” She couldn’t picture this enormous and powerful man as a father to little girls. Yet his presence comforted her, Just as she imagined it would a small child. Goodness shone in his eyes, the strength that came from tenderness. He was not the kind of man who harmed others. Not like the cowards who’d caused this injury to her daughter and the passenger on the stage. “How is the wounded man?”
“He took a shot to his chest, but he will live.” The sheriff stepped back into the hallway, his hat clutched in his big capable hands. The silver badge pinned to his wide chest glinted in the lamplight. “The driver’s not as lucky. He may never walk again.”
“Those horrible outlaws.” Anna shivered, wrapping her arms around her middle. “If you hadn’t come along, we might all be dead by now.”
His smile broadened, etching dimples into his cheeks and softening the hard, tough lawman look of him. “We’ve been having trouble at that pass. There are few towns and fewer lawmen to keep the peace, and too damn many renegades who think they can take whatever they want from innocent people. It’s my job to teach them differently.”
“So, you were waiting to protect the stage at the pass. That’s how you were there to save us?”
“Yes.” His face shadowed. He studied her for a moment. “It’s getting late. I can recommend the hotel just down the street. Janet, the innkeeper, will look after you. I’ll ask her to warm up a room for you.”
“I can’t leave Mandy.” Especially not now that she’d almost lost her.
“I understand.” His half smile dazzled. If she were in another place in her life, another time without worries and secrets and promises to marry, she would have found him attractive. Yes, very attractive.
“Is there anything I can do?” He was a good man, just wanting to help.
“Did your men find a child’s book amid the wreckage? Mandy likes to be read to. She’s still—” In danger . Anna couldn’t say the words. It hurt even to think them. “I have to believe she’ll be all right.”
“I believe it.” The sheriff towered over her, radiating strength and kindness mixed with a hard male toughness. A dizzying combination. “You take care of your daughter. I’ll check on that book for you.”
“I know it’s getting late, Sheriff.”
“I don’t mind.” Twin dimples edged that calming grin. “And stop calling me sheriff. The name’s Cooper.”
“Cooper?” The word froze on her lips. Anna watched in amazement as he strolled from sight down the hallway, those shoulders wide, that gait confident.
The man she’d come to marry was named Cooper. Surely he couldn’t be—
No. A man like that didn’t need to write away for a bride. He just had to smile and every woman within a half-mile radius probably fell at his feet.
“Mrs. Bauer?” The doctor gestured her back into the room. “Your daughter is doing better, but her condition is still very serious. I can make no guarantees. The only thing we can do is keep a close watch on her and see what the night brings.”
Cold fear curled around her insides. Anna forced back tears, more afraid and angry than she’d been in her life, and she’d been plenty of both before this.
Damn those men who’d done this to her defenseless, tiny daughter.
Anna settled down in the wooden chair at Mandy’s bedside. The little one slept still, as if death already claimed her. Even her hand felt cold to the touch.
All her troubles faded. Why she’d come to Flint Creek and what she’d left behind no longer mattered. Not now. Only Mandy mattered.
Please, she prayed. Don’t take my daughter.
“Did you get a good look at that lovely widow?” Tucker asked as he poured a fresh cup of coffee.
“I saw.” Cooper hung his hat on a wall peg and gave the door a good slam against the cool night wind. “No ideas, brother. I’m not interested in the woman.”
“Well, that’s just not natural, big brother. Not natural at all.” Tucker shook his head, feigning deep concern. “After saving her daughter the way you did, she’s not going to look twice at the rest of us poor saps. Oh no, she’ll only have eyes for you.”
“So you say. Let’s face it, Tucker, every single woman who has come to town has been charmed by your dimples, not mine.”
“True.” He took a sip of coffee. “What are you doing? I thought you were going to head home.”
“I’m on my way. Did you find a child’s storybook in the wreckage?”
“Nope.” Grim lines frowned across Tucker’s face. “Most things fell to the bottom of the cliff. How’s that injured girl?”
“Not good.” Cooper rubbed his brow. “How many outlaws did we bring in?”
“Just one. I shot him myself. He broke his jaw when he fell off his horse. The doc said he’s pretty hurt, but I’m not letting him in the clinic with innocent women and children. I locked him up. Wanna see?”
“I’ll wait until morning.” Cooper regretted they hadn’t caught more of the gang, as he’d planned. But circumstances had intervened. Rescuing Mrs. Bauer and her child was more important than nabbing a few outlaws.
“It’s a damn lucky thing you’re good with a rope.” Tucker’s gaze fastened on his, serious as a hanging judge. “Or the child would be dead. There’s no way she could have survived that fall.”
“I know.” Cooper grabbed his hat.
“Where you goin’?”
“To find a storybook.” He gestured toward the messy desk in the corner, hiding a grin. “And you straighten up around here. Some innocent taxpayer is going to walk into this office and regret how much they pay slobs like you to protect their town.”
“Hey, watch who you’re calling a slob!”
Tucker’s laughing protest followed Cooper out the door and into the crisp spring night. Cold sliced through his coat. Mountain snow still clung to the ground in places, even though it was spring. He saw the light in the window and once again thought of the woman and her child. Took comfort that some mothers stayed. Some mothers loved their children more than themselves.
His house was dark except for the twin lamps lit in the parlor and the merry glow of the fire. Laura looked up from her embroidery. “I heard about the excitement.”
“Yeah, it’s been a tough day.” He felt tired. He felt drained. “How are my girls?”
“In bed asleep. I think.” Laura’s gnn was mischievous. “I’m only an aunt, not a miracle worker.”
Cooper didn’t bother to shrug off his coat. “Would you mind staying longer? I’ve got an errand to do.”
“Sure. I have nowhere to go.” Laura poked her threaded needle through the stretched-tight fabric. “But we need to discuss the situation with the housekeeper.”
“Again?” There was a conversation he wanted to avoid.
“Mrs. Potts found a salamander in the empty soup kettle.”
“Just a salamander this time?” If only his oldest girl could be as sweet and obedient as the youngest he wouldn’t have to worry about the housekeeper quitting every day of the week.
“We can be happy it wasn’t a skunk.”
“Don’t give the child any ideas.” As he climbed the stairs to the dark second story, Cooper thought of little Mandy Bauer and how he’d cradled her close on the long hard ride down the mountainside. She was frail and tiny like his own littlest girl.
He nudged open the door to the girls’ room. The moon played through the window, casting enough of a silvered glow to see their sweet faces, relaxed and content in sleep, each in her own twin bed.
Careful not to wake them, Cooper found a book by feel on the bookshelf, the nursery rhymes his Maisie treasured.
“Papa?”
So one of them wasn’t asleep. “What is it, Katie?”
“Laura said there was a lady come today on the wrecked stage.”
“There was.” He knelt down beside his oldest daughter’s bedside. “Tucker’s already told me how nice and pretty she is. I hope you aren’t going to try to match me up with this poor woman.”
“Oh Papa, Laura says cuz you’re a man, you don’t know what’s best for you.”
“She does?” He laughed at that. “No more talk. You lie back down and go to sleep. You’re going to need your rest if you want to have enough strength to try to marry me off tomorrow.”
“Go ahead and joke.” Katie shook her head, scattering dark curls against her thin shoulders. “I don’t think it’s one bit funny.”
“I know.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Katie had been trying to marry him to every available woman she came across for years now. She didn’t understand. As a child she never could. How did he explain to her that a stepmother was not a mother? A woman could love her own children, but love for a stepchild could only run so deep.
He’d learned that painful lesson as a young boy, and it was one he vowed to protect his daughters from. He would protect them from any harm, any hurt, any heartache. If he could.
Besides, he loved his girls. And one loving parent was more than a lot of children had. He’d seen that in his work, too.
Katie laid down with a rustle of flannel sheets and down comforter. He stood in the threshold, watching them both, grateful for their health and their presence in his life. Maisie with her gold curls tangling on the pillow and her stuffed bunny clutched in reed-thin arms. And Katie too old and tough, or so she said, for such things.
What would he do if harm came their way? Cooper thought of Mrs. Bauer sitting vigil beside her tiny daughter’s bedside. He knew how he would feel if one of his girls were in that bed, clinging to life.
He strode out the back door, headfirst into the cold night wind. ,
Anna fought the dream and swam to the surface of consciousness. Night spun around her. The sepia glow of the kerosene lamp turned low brushed the bed, shadowing the defenseless child so still beneath the blankets.
She had to stay awake. Mandy might need her. Anna sat up straight in the hard-backed chair, willing her gaze not to leave her daughter’s face.
Her own chin bobbed. Exhaustion curled around her like a blinding fog, but she fought it. She stood, ambled to the window. A late quarter moon lit the night sky, brushing the white curtains and the world outside with a soft veil of silver. The town looked peaceful, windows dark, tucked in for the night. She hadn’t even taken a look around the town when she’d arrived, she’d been so afraid for Mandy.
Now, she could see the striped awning of a bakery, the big false front of a general store. She had come to Flint Creek to make a home, a marriage and a family. A new life for her and Mandy. But shadows moved along the dark street, kicking up the beat of her heart. She thought of Dalton, remembered how his gaze had met hers across the length of the bank.
He knew she’d recognized him. She knew in that way of friends well acquainted with each other. She’d grown up in Ruby Bluff, went to school with Dalton. They had been in the same class all the way through graduation. And when he’d started courting her last year, she’d been flattered, but nothing more.
For Mandy’s sake, she’d thought that maybe she could make it work. But no real affection other than friendship had grown in her heart. And she began to see traits and tempers in Dalton that gave her pause. He didn’t like children, had no patience for them. She turned down his proposal, and she knew it had hurt him. But they could never be happy together.
That’s why she had chosen Mr. Braddock’s letter, agreed to his proposal. He seemed to truly care for his daughters. In fact, his letters had been full of written details about the girls and little else. She could overlook a lot of faults as long as he was kind to children, both those that were his and those not his own.
Anna had told her sister about her decision the evening of the robbery, when she’d hurried home, shaking. If the stage left that day, she would have been on it. But Ruby Bluff was a small town with stage service just once a week. Meg had agreed with her. She should leave town, just as planned.
Remembering, she could hear her sister’s voice. How she missed Meg. She needed her hug, would have liked to have her here to share her fears with. But that night, Meg had made tea, listened, and counted out all of her butter and egg money. Fifty dollars.
“Take it,” Meg had said. “If Dalton is the robber that’s been troubling this area, then he’s dangerous. He’s killed innocent people.”
“I know.” But Anna could not take her sister’s hard-earned money. “I have enough.”
“Not enough if you leave tonight.”
“There is no stage tonight.” Anna rubbed her brow. Her head ached from worry and fear. She wished she’d never looked down at the robber’s shoes.
“You take my horse and wagon.”
“No. You need them for the farm work.”
Meg’s smile was soft like her voice, warm with a lifelong love some lucky sisters shared. “Listen to me. Take the morning stage from Rubydale. Ben will drive you there tonight.”
Would Dalton come after her? Even with that fear, it was hard to leave. When she’d shown up pregnant without a husband, Meg had welcomed her in. She loved her sister. She would miss her.
Meg’s Ben had reported that Sheriff Dalton Jennings was taking a late supper at Mary’s Diner. Anna could leave while he and his men were eating. Rubydale was only a few hours away. She and Ben could make the trip safely.
With promises to write and Mandy wrapped well against the coolish spring night, Anna had stepped out of her sister’s farmhouse and into the darkness.
“Take me to the moon, Mama.” Mandy pointed up at the canopy of broadleaf maples hiding the sky.
Anna’s heart twisted. “All right. But we have to be very, very quiet.”
“I’m very quiet.”
Anna followed Ben out into the driveway.
“Silly Betsy,” Mandy giggled as the mare grabbed the little girl’s hem with her wide long tongue.
“Betsy, are you going to let us by?” Anna patted the animal warmly. The sweet horse rubbed against her hand, then waited patiently as they passed by.
Ben helped her up into the wagon seat, and she thanked him. Anna cradled Mandy on her lap and drew Meg’s best fur around them. “Look up. Can you see the man in the moon?”
Mandy nodded. “He’s watchin’ over us.”
“And he chases all those night monsters away and keeps us all safe.” Anna pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, wishing on the moon. Ben released the brake and the wagon moved away in the darkness, leaving the warm, lit windows of Meg’s house behind until there was only black forest and night.
“So far, so good,” Ben whispered.
But then a horrible noise shattered the peace of the night, the stillness of the mountain valley. The sound of horses galloping down the road behind them, voices low and loud. Five, maybe six, riders.
