LITMIR.BIZ

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meal.

      “Oh, is the dog yours, Mr. Mood?” Anna said, running a gentle hand along the dog’s ruff.

      The stray leaned into her. If Nate didn’t know better, he’d say the dog was smiling.

      “Well, she’s been hanging out at the livery, but from the looks of it, she’d like to be yours.”

      Nate frowned. “A dog underfoot could trip you, Anna.”

      Ignoring the warning, Anna lowered herself to the step and gazed into the dog’s eyes. “Do you want to live with Nate and me, girl?” The wagging tail and short yip put a wide grin on Anna’s face. “Do you know her name, Mr. Mood?”

      “Nope. Been calling her ‘dog.’”

      “She needs a proper name.” Anna ran her fingers through the dog’s thick fur. “Her coat’s the color of corn, of maize. I’ll call her Maizie.”

      “Well, now, that’s a purty name. I’ll leave you and Maizie to get settled,” Mr. Mood said, grinning from ear to ear. “The Good Lord is working it all out, like only He can do.”

      Mood had also seen Nate’s construction skill as God-sent. Now he was suggesting God had brought this pooch to their door. As if every little thing fit into a master plan.

      Nate’s hands fisted. If the liveryman believed God was sovereign over every aspect of their lives, how would Mood explain Anna’s handicap and Rachel’s murder? Two women who’d never done a cruel thing in their lives.

      Nothing in his life made sense except finding Stogsdill.

      As soon as he got Anna settled in, Nate would make some inquiries. See what he could learn about Stogsdill’s rumored girlfriend. With the hope she’d lead him to the outlaw.

      As Anna preceded Nate into the house, he averted his eyes from the rise and fall of her gait, a constant reminder of what his carelessness had cost his sister.

      He owed Anna his life. She’d saved him, a careless ten-year-old boy, from the stomping hooves of runaway horses. And paid a high cost. Saving his life had ruined hers, had limited her choices. Probably the reason she’d married Walt.

      Anna turned back and clapped her hands for the stray waiting in the doorway. “Maizie, aren’t you coming?”

      A wag of her tail and the dog slipped in at Nate’s heels.

      “Do you mean to make her a house dog?” Nate asked. “She’ll shed all over everything.”

      “She’ll mind her manners and stay on the floor. Nothing I can’t sweep up in a jiffy.”

      In the parlor, the afternoon sunshine flooded the room through tall windows on either side of a brick fireplace. The coat of white paint on the walls was in sharp contrast to the floor’s dark wood planks, the cracks wide enough to slip a dime between the boards.

      “Isn’t this nice?” Anna gushed as she surveyed the room. “Why, the floors and tables don’t have a trace of dust. Someone’s cleaned the place. My braided rug, Mother’s Currier and Ives prints and one of Grandma’s quilts draped over the sofa will make this place homey.”

      “You could make a jail cell cozy.”

      Anna cocked her head at him. “Sometimes I wonder if you perceive settling down as a prison sentence.”

      “Of course not.” He shifted on his feet. “You know why catching Stogsdill’s important.”

      “Could you let it go? Leave his capture to lawmen?” She raised a gaze begging him to reconsider. “We’ve lost them all, Nate. Promise me I won’t have to bury you, too.”

      Nate shot her a smile. “Don’t worry, sis. I’m good at what I do.” Still, if Max Richards’s bullet had been accurate, his sister would be alone now, fending for herself. “Once that shop is yours, I’ll have peace knowing that whatever happens, you can make a living.”

      “What about Carly Richards? She’s a widow with a child. How can I live with myself if I take the shop away from her?”

      “I’m not happy about Mrs. Richards’s plight, but you didn’t take the shop. Max Richards lost it to Walt. Walt paid for it with his life, a high price. The shop will be your future.”

      That is, if the circuit judge saw things as Nate did.

      Nate trailed Anna to the kitchen. Simple cupboards, large cookstove, small potbellied stove, a table and four chairs. He walked to the window over the sink with a view to the back and the alleyway beyond.

      Anna clapped her hands. “Oh, look, Nate, an indoor pump!”

      “Good. When I leave, you won’t have to haul water.”

      “I thought you were certain I’d be living behind the shop.”

      “I am, but if I should have to leave before the ownership is settled—”

      “Enough of that talk. Let’s look at the rest of the cabin.”

      They moved on to the bedrooms, both small but adequate, each with a double-paned window, brass double bed, built-in clothespress and chest of drawers. Not fancy, but nicer than Nate had expected.

      “I’ll take the room next to the kitchen, if that’s all right,” she said.

      “Fine by me.”

      He walked to the window and gazed at the back of the seamstress shop, the Richards’s living quarters. The widow’s generous attitude toward Anna had surprised him. But then Anna had a way of bringing the best out of people.

      “I’ll get your things,” he said, “then help you set this place to rights.”

      Within minutes of his hauling trunks, boxes and crates inside, Anna had started building a nest. By the time he’d driven the team to the livery and returned to the cabin, Anna had made up the beds, topping the linens with colorful quilts.

      Then set him to nailing bed sheets at the bedroom windows for privacy.

      In the parlor, she draped another quilt over the sofa. Satisfied with her efforts thus far, she made a list of the supplies they’d need while he hung two Currier and Ives idyllic prints above it.

      They moved on to the kitchen, where they unpacked jars of cherries, applesauce, tomatoes, beans—all canned by Anna—and stowed the Blue Willow dishes from their childhood in a cupboard, as well as all the paraphernalia needed to cook and serve a meal.

      Anna shook out a tablecloth and let it float onto the scarred table. “If you can find two rods at the mercantile, I’ll make proper curtains tonight from my stash of fabric,” she said, setting a blue-striped crock in the center.

      The errand would give Nate the perfect opening to ask questions. “I’ll head over there now.”

      With a soft groan, Anna dropped into a ladder-back chair. The stray dog nudged Anna’s hand and got a perfunctory pat, then curled at Anna’s feet, head propped on her paws.

      “You’ve overdone it. Now your hip’s bothering you.”

      “I’ll rest a minute and be fine.” She glanced around her. “Once the curtains are made and up, this will look like home.”

      He suspected Anna was making a home not only for herself but for him. “Don’t get too attached to the place. You’ll soon be moving behind the seamstress shop.”

      “If the judge should rule the shop is mine, I won’t displace Carly and her son. The boy just lost his father. I won’t let him lose the only home he’s probably known.”

      “Anna,” he said, trying to make her see reason, “this cabin will sell with the livery. Where will you live then?”

      As if he hadn’t spoken, Anna handed him a list, then flapped her hands, shooing him out like a pesky fly. “Please. Get those rods and the items I need.”

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