LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Get outta my way, mister, before you regret it.”

      “Can’t do that. Maddie’s my employee, and I take care of my people.”

      Baslow lunged toward Jonas. Jonas dodged his first attempt to reach him, spinning with hands locked together to land a blow on the back of the man’s neck.

      Caught off guard, Baslow fell to his hands and knees in the dirt, losing his hat. Slowly, he shook his head, and then scrambled to his feet to come after Jonas. The fight was on.

      The growing crowd pushed forward for a better look.

      Energized now, Jonas raised both fists and bent his knees in readiness. Baslow faced him and they squared off, circling in avid concentration. The man’s eyes bored into Jonas’s with contempt. Jonas studied his stance, his movements, waited to see how he hit. Faster than Jonas anticipated, Baslow landed a blow to Jonas’s shoulder that forced him to catch his balance and got him mad. He retaliated with a quick right that landed on the man’s jaw with a crack and drew a grunt from his opponent and a murmur from the crowd.

      Jonas didn’t feel the hits that came next, though he knew one landed against his ribs and another at his temple. Adrenaline lent him strength and numbed the pain. In the minutes that followed he used the reprieve to his advantage, skillfully finding opportunities to put down punches.

      Half-a-dozen solid hits later Baslow’s lip was bleeding. He had a cut over his left eye, and he was breathing hard. Jonas watched for and found an opportunity, hit his eye again, then positioned all his muscle into landing a blow to his gut.

      The man moaned and doubled over, dropping to his knees in the dirt. He glared up at Jonas, one eye red from streaming blood. “You got no right to keep Madeline.”

      “You’re finally right,” Jonas answered. “Nobody’s got a right to hold her. She’s free to leave, she’s free to stay.” He turned to Maddie, who’d been watching with both hands clasped under her chin. “You want to go?”

      She shook her head and released a pent-up breath. “No.”

      “You sure? ’Cause we don’t want any misunderstandin’s. You’re free to leave any time you want.”

      “I want to stay.”

      “There you have it.” Jonas’s knuckles were stinging now. “Need any more convincing?”

      Marshal Haglar parted the crowd and made his way to stand on the brick street a few feet away. He took in both men’s appearances. “What in blazes is goin’ on here?”

      Maddie immediately ran forward to explain what had taken place. When she’d finished, the marshal turned to the spectators. “That how it happened? Anyone see the whole thing?”

      Jonas couldn’t remember if anyone had been there during the initial exchange of words. He scanned the faces nearby. People had an aversion to getting involved, especially when a dangerous-looking fellow like Baslow glared at them as though daring someone to speak against him.

      The marshal eyed the crowd, and one after another, the bystanders glanced at the person beside them and then away. Jonas figured his reputation and position on the town council would have enough sway. He wasn’t a troublemaker, but he never ran from a fight, either. He didn’t want to put Warren Haglar in a bad position, and the indifference of the locals irritated him.

      Townspeople turned as movement caught their attention, and Jonas looked, too. From the opposite boardwalk, a slender woman in a blue-and-white gingham dress and a straw hat held the hem of her skirts above her shoes and stepped down onto the paving bricks. She walked to within four feet of the law officer. An unexpected tremor stabbed at Jonas’s belly.

      “I saw the entire incident, Marshal,” she said. “I saw that man ride up and shout for Mrs. Holmes.”

      Of course. Jonas’s three o’clock obsession. She’d been on the boardwalk the whole time. Eliza Jane Sutherland was rather tall for a woman, and on the rare occasion that she’d been without a hat, he’d seen that her hair was black and glossy in the sunlight. Jonas had never heard her speak more than a one- or two-word greeting, so now her magnificent silky voice, more than the words she spoke, caught and held his attention.

      “Mr. Black came out of his establishment and suggested that he—” she pointed to the scowling stranger “—leave.” Her bright amber gaze moved to Jonas.

      Something in his chest throbbed at the direct look, something ragged and weighty, something more alarming than facing a dozen angry men in the street.

      The marshal asked her several questions and she replied directly. Jonas couldn’t take his eyes from her.

      Every afternoon, rain or shine, Eliza Jane walked to the small tea shop that was a red brick storefront nestled on the corner beside Earl Mobley’s tailor shop on the opposite side of the street. Once inside, she seated herself at a table before the front window, where Bonnie Jacobson brought her a china cup and a pot of tea. Most days Jonas observed her ritual from just inside the door of the saloon where she couldn’t see him, but occasionally he found a reason to run an errand to the hardware store across the street in time for her arrival.

      Once or twice he’d paused on the boardwalk as she passed and tipped his hat. As soon as she’d raised those amber eyes, his heart thudded in his chest and he’d chastised himself. Nothing and no one intimidated Jonas Black.

      Apparently the marshal had no problem accepting the true story now that Eliza Jane had verified it, because he turned to Baslow. “Time you moved on.”

      Baslow shot Maddie a look of seething rage. “You ain’t seen the last of me, woman. Don’t think your friends can protect you forever.”

      “Anything happens to Miss Holmes, and we’ll know who to look for,” the marshal told him. “I’ll be wiring the county seat to let ’em know about this disturbance.”

      Baslow located his hat where it lay in the street. He snatched it up, whacked it against his thigh and settled it on his head before walking toward his horse and untying it. From the clumsy way he mounted, Jonas suspected he was masking a couple of cracked ribs.

      Marshal Haglar watched as the man turned his mount away and galloped out of town. “Stay out of sight, but follow him a ways to make sure he’s headed home,” he told one of the young men who had a horse tethered across the street.

      Once Baslow was out of sight and the man he’d sent was tailing him, the marshal approached Maddie.

      “Thank you, Marshal,” she said.

      “I had the easy part,” he replied. “Looks like Jonas got the worst of it.”

      Maddie looked Jonas over, but after noting the onlookers, a tinge of embarrassment stained her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said low enough that only Jonas and the marshal could hear.

      “You handled it perfectly,” Jonas told her. “You had a crowd of witnesses while Frank was bullyin’ you, and when you stood up for yourself, you gained the respect of each one. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

      He could tell the moment when it no longer mattered that she’d been humiliated on a public street. Maddie had just gained respect for herself. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, but couldn’t hold back a smile. She brought her palms to her blazing cheeks. “I shouldn’t be so pleased when you’re standing there bleeding.”

      He looked down at his knuckles, which had taken to throbbing like the very dickens.

      The marshal tipped his hat. “Afternoon, Miss Holmes,” he said as though they’d just encountered each other on the boardwalk.

      “Marshal.”

      Jonas searched the crowd and noted that Eliza Jane had returned to the other side of the street. She was just entering the tea shop. Well, hell. He’d had the perfect reason to speak to her and had let it slip by. Now he was going to have to go after her. His stomach lurched. Confused the tar

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