LITMIR.BIZ

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on.”

      “Yep, reckon so. Names ain’t never hurt you, huh?”

      Jess sobered instantly. Names had hurt her. When she was young and just starting out to help her papa and Miles on the newspaper, her schoolmates had teased her mercilessly about her ambition to be a journalist. “What d’ya wanna do that for? Too ugly to get a husband? Boys don’t like brainy girls, smarty-pants!”

      And it was names in an editorial her brother had printed that had cost him his life; that had hurt even worse. After Papa died, she and her older brother had moved out West and Miles had taken her under his wing.

      She had been just a young girl, but he had begun teaching her about operating a newspaper, things her father had never let her do such as cleaning the ink off the rollers and setting type. Miles had also let her try her hand at writing stories, and he instructed her in the basics of journalism—being accurate and objective.

      Then Miles had been killed, and now she was struggling to carry on the newspaper he had established in Smoke River.

      Jess didn’t really think Cole Sanders would shoot her for writing an inflammatory editorial. But she would wager he might want to. She bit the inside of her cheek. This morning she couldn’t help wondering what the no-nonsense editor of the Lake County Lark would do about the editorial she’d published.

      She kept one eye on the front windows of the Lark office across the street and set about planning her Saturday issue. She’d write a feature story about the new choir Ellie Johnson would be directing, and another article on the children’s rhythm band the music school director, Winifred Dougherty, was starting, together with the director’s plea for a violin teacher. Maybe she’d add an interview with the sheriff’s wife, Maddie Silver; what it was like being the mother of twin boys while also a Pinkerton agent?

      Across the street the front door of the Lark office banged open and Jess caught her breath. Then just as suddenly it slammed shut. Cole had picked up her newspaper and retreated inside. She waited, her heart pounding.

      Eli held up the flask of “medicinal” whiskey he kept under the counter. “Want a snort?”

      “Certainly not.” She tried not to watch the front door of the Lark office, and then suddenly it flew open again. She gasped and held her hand out to Eli. “Well, maybe just a sip.”

      Cole Sanders started across the street toward her, his head down, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, and a copy of her newspaper stuffed under his arm. Jess uncorked Eli’s whiskey bottle and glugged down a double swallow.

      Cole marched straight for her office, his face stern, his boots pounding the muddy street. Jess bit her lip, stiffened her spine and laid her hand on the doorknob. She would do her best to smile and graciously welcome him inside.

      But she glimpsed his brown sheepskin jacket moving past her front window and on down the boardwalk.

      The air in her lungs whooshed out. What on earth? Didn’t he want to yell at her about her editorial? She’d used the word insidious more than once, and nasty at least twice. And her new favorite word, larcenous; she’d used that one three times. She really relished larcenous. She’d even put it in boldface type.

      Wasn’t Mr. Sanders livid with fury?

      She couldn’t stand the suspense. She grabbed her heavy wool coat and knitted green scarf off the hook by the door.

      “Hey, Jess,” Eli yelled. “Where are ya...?” She blotted out his voice and sped down the frost-slick sidewalk.

      Then her steps slowed. Drat. If Cole stopped at the Golden Partridge she couldn’t follow him. No lady entered a saloon.

      But he strode past the Golden Partridge and entered the restaurant nearby. Thank the Lord. She could unobtrusively steal inside, sit in one corner sipping a cup of tea and watch his face while he read her editorial.

      She tiptoed inside the deserted restaurant, shed her coat and scarf and hung them on the maple coat tree in the corner. “Hot tea, please, Rita,” she whispered.

      Cole sat with his back to her, calmly sipping a mug of steaming coffee. But he wasn’t reading her newspaper. He was gazing out the front window. And humming! She recognized the tune, “The Blue-Tail Fly.”

      Rita brought her a ceramic pot of tea, plunked it down and tipped her gray-bunned head toward the front table. “Kinda odd, you two settin’ in the same room but not havin’ breakfast together.”

      “Oh, Mr. Sanders and I are not together.”

      The waitress blinked. “No? Shoot, I thought—”

      “Sure we’re together,” Cole said without turning around.

      Jess jumped. The man must have ears like a foxhound.

      “You misspelled larcenous,” he called.

      “What? I thought you hadn’t read my editorial yet.”

      He maneuvered his chair around to face her. “Oh, I’ve read it all right. Like I said, you misspelled—”

      “I heard you the first time,” she retorted.

      “Never figured you for a sloppy writer, Miss Lassiter.”

      “I never figured you for a schoolmarm, Mr. Sanders.”

      “Point taken.” He rose and came across the room to her table. “Scrambled eggs?”

      “No, thank you. I am having tea.”

      “Rita, scramble up some eggs for me and the lady. Add some bacon, too.”

      Rita bobbed her head, hid a smile and disappeared into the kitchen.

      “Cold out this morning,” Cole said amiably.

      “Very.” Jess fiddled with her napkin, refolded it into a square, then shook it out and folded it again. “Very well, how do you spell larcenous?”

      “Hell, I don’t know. Got your attention, though, didn’t it?”

      She bit her lip. “It most certainly did. Are you always so underhanded?”

      “Nope. Hardly ever, in fact.”

      “Only with me, is that it?”

      Cole leaned across the table toward her and lowered his voice. “Jessamine, if you don’t stop worrying your teeth into your lips like that, so help me I’m going to kiss you right here in front of everybody.”

      Her eyes rounded into two green moons. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon?”

      “You heard me. Stop biting your lips.”

      She turned the color of strawberry jam. “What business is it of yours what I do with my lips?”

      “None at all. But I’m only human, and I’m male, so stop it.”

      She tossed her napkin onto the table and started up, but he snaked out his hand and closed his fingers around her wrist.

      “Sit.” He gave a little tug and her knees gave way.

      “Now,” he said in a businesslike tone. “We’re gonna have a council of war, Miss Lassiter, so listen up.”

      She opened her mouth, then closed it with a little click, and he proceeded.

      “Some things are fair in journalistic jockeying, and some things are hitting below the belt. What you wrote about Conway Arbuckle is below the belt.”

      “What things?”

      He dragged her newspaper from inside his jacket pocket, spread it flat on the table and tapped his forefinger on her editorial. “That he’s larcenous. And that he’s a cheat. You shouldn’t sling mud around with accusations like that unless you can back them up with facts.”

      “What if I can back them up?”

      “I’m betting that you can’t.”

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