She looks like she wants to pursue that line of discussion, but instead she pushes herself an inch back from the table and pulls the book out. "I'm going to get back to reading, if you don't mind."

Chris nods. "No problem."

Maggie's just coming back with his own gla.s.s of water. The faintest shadow of an expression pa.s.ses over her face for an instant when she sees Marie with her nose in a book. Chris dares her with his eyes to say something, and she doesn't.

Ten minutes later, he's digging into one of the best steaks he's eaten in his life, and fifteen minutes after that, he's leaving without having said another solitary word to the pretty new woman in town.

Three.

There are a few more than a dozen kids sitting in the cla.s.sroom. Marie knows, in the back of her mind, that there are more children than that, but there's no way that she knows of to force their parents to send them along.

The children age anywhere from six or seven to fifteen year olds who come in to pa.s.s the time when they're done with their ch.o.r.es. She takes a deep breath and settles down beside one of the desks.

The problem with such a small town is, there's no way to regiment their teaching. The younger ones need to learn the same things every year, but you can't just teach the older kids their letters every year.

Compounding all of that is that Mrs. Whittle was the one teaching them until just a few months ago. Marie wonders idly how many of the older boys have come in just to see what the fuss is all about.

There couldn't have been too many. There weren't that many students regardless-she could only imagine if some of them were only there for idle talk.

She settled into one of the seats with the young ones and checked the work. He had an expression on his face that wasn't totally unfamiliar to her: one of absolute confusion. Marie sympathized, but she couldn't exactly let him stop doing it just because it was hard.

Looking down at the sheet, she couldn't see where the confusion lay. He'd marked the letters exactly like she'd asked.

"What's wrong, Jamie?"

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and chewed a bit.

"Nothin' wrong, Miss Bainbridge, ma'am."

She looked at the sheet again. It wasn't the finest handwriting she'd seen in her life, but she couldn't find fault with it. Not at seven years old.

"You look vexed," she pressed.

"It ain't nothing," he says.

"If you're sure. If you decide you want to talk, then just ask. Practice that again, okay?"

Halfway to pushing herself back up he decides to talk after all.

"You don't think my letters ain't so good?"

She settles back into the seat, glancing around the room to make sure n.o.body looks like they're having an emergency. One of the older girls sits with her head leaned down over another piece of paper, helping one of the younger. Everything seems to be doing alright, for the moment.

"What do you mean, Jamie?"

"Well, I's lookin' at your writing, and-"

Her eyes shut for a moment, and she can't keep a warm smile from crossing her face. "Is that what's got you worried, Jamie Pearson?"

He frowned. "Missus Whittle, she said-"

"You've got a long time to learn to do it properly. I'm not going to abandon you, Mr. Pearson. But you have to start with the basics."

"So it don't have to be perfect?"

"Only the Lord is perfect," Marie recites automatically. "We here down on Earth have to make do with the best we can do. You did good, okay? Don't worry. You'll get better with practice. Trust me."

The crease between his eyebrows lessens, but it doesn't go away. A little air of doubt remains.

"Your parents are up in Oklahoma City, right?"

"Yes ma'am."

"When they get home, you show them this. Trust me, they're going to be real proud of you. Real proud."

His face twists up a little. "You sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure," she says. She gives another smile. "Give that another shot. Take care to get your letters nice and round, alright? Like an oval." She makes a mark to show him. "But it doesn't have to be perfect. Just do your best."

He nods and his face drops to the table. His pencil starts moving and she takes another stock of the room.

Looking around gave her a very good opportunity to notice that someone had, in fact, showed up at the edge of the room. The flash of skin, for a fragment of an instant, almost had her greeting them as a new student.

Then her brain caught up with her eyes, and the words died in her mouth.

"Can I help you?"

Christopher Broadmoor fills the doorway completely, and shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other as she speaks.

"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, ma'am, I can wait until you've got a minute."

His eyes shift from her face to the floor. The way he holds his hat twisted up in his hands is almost sweet. A bigger part of her than she wants to admit wouldn't mind having him look at her a little longer. The rest of her body, sensing the tiny rebellion, mounts a violent defense.

"What is it? It's more of an interruption to have all the children looking over at you."

She's not exaggerating, she sees. Every eye is on him. Most of them eyeing the pistol on his hip curiously. From the houses she's been in, most have a rifle hanging on the wall, but a pistol, hanging like that where it can be drawn at an instant's notice-that's unusual.

"I just had a message, ma'am. From Mr. Maxim."

Marie looks around the room. "Back to work."

Her voice is firm but not angry, hopefully a good balance. A dozen eyes drop back to the desks in front of them, pencils picked back up where they've rolled away. Marie follows the bartender out the door.

"What's the message?"

"I'm real sorry about this," he says. The way he looks at her isn't at all apologetic, though. It sends a shiver down Marie's spine in spite of herself.

"Just tell me what you came here to tell me."

"Zella came to tell me, to tell you, there's a problem with your room. Gonna have to get a room over at the hotel. It's their fault, so they'll put up board until they can get you back up in your own bed."

"And she couldn't have delivered the message herself?"

"I asked her the same thing."

He doesn't say anything more, but she doesn't need him to. He didn't get an answer. She could easily have come herself, but she'd sent Chris instead.

Marie didn't know whether to be upset or to buy the woman a drink. More than likely, it would be both, and in that order.

Four.

Christopher Broadmoor shifted his hips as he waited for the ale to pour into the tall gla.s.s. He couldn't get the thought out of his mind that he ought to have known better than going over there. Have Zella do it her d.a.m.n self; the restaurant wasn't so busy that she couldn't spare a few minutes' walk over.

It wasn't as if she were so sly that he couldn't see what she was doing. What he couldn't see was why. He'd never heard Zella say a negative word toward him, but that was no reason to go trying to play matchmaker between him and a schoolteacher from back east.

Miss Bainbridge didn't need a man with a past like his mucking up her personal affairs, and she sure enough didn't seem like she wanted it in spite of what was good for her.

He shook his head and set the beer on the wide bar. A man with a broad country-boy smile nodded his head. Just someone pa.s.sing through, it seemed-he wasn't familiar, certainly not a regular. He didn't wear a gun, so it was easy to ignore him.

Chris would learn, a little later, the mistake he'd made in writing the young guy off. But in the first moments, he hadn't noticed any of it. The boy walked off, and the big bartender turned to the next patron to come up, with thoughts of a pretty young woman with an eastern accent running heavy through his mind.

There was always more work to be done, of course. Any free moments were quickly filled with getting new gla.s.ses prepared, keeping the bar tidy, and the customers engaged. Chris was a bartender, after all-not a bouncer. It had taken some reminding at first, but five years is a long time to settle into a routine.

Which is why he didn't notice the ruckus about to start. The fine-honed edge of instinct that would have warned him of the changing tone in the room had been dulled by neglect. The first cry that went up, though, turned him around.

The card game had been going on for hours, in spite of changing faces around the table. None of the same people who had been there 'round lunch time were there now, but it was still one continuous game that hadn't let up. This time of night, most folks playing were regulars. Regulars and the country boy, pa.s.sing through.

From the pile of money in front of him, he wasn't just some poor Okie. Maybe that was what he wanted them to think. Probably made him better money.

In the split-second as Chris looked up, the boy let out a yell and Chris took in the scene. It didn't matter to him that Mick Young was a fool, any more than it mattered that he raised chickens. The bartender didn't buy eggs, and he didn't care to fleece a prime candidate like Mickey.

But that didn't stop him from noticing, and it apparently hadn't stopped the Okie from noticing either. Well, it might have taken a while, but Mick seemed to have noticed, too, and from the look on his face, he wasn't taking the news well. His face was all twisted up in a snarl.

The chair behind him was already being thrown back onto the ground. Chris's mind raced. Were either of them armed? The boy, he knew, wasn't. Not with a pistol, anyways. Chris tried to recall when Mick had sat down, and then the big bartender was moving as fast as he could in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat.

The noise and the smoke beat him to the table. Five years ago, he might have reached for his own iron, and even now he could feel an itch to pull it as a measure of safety. He quieted the reflex as best he could and sucked in a breath before diving into the smokey haze.

His hand came down hard on Mickey's pistol, grabbing and twisting and pulling with his left as his right rocked the farmer's chin. For a moment, the bartender allowed himself to relax. If Mick let himself stay on the floor, maybe that would be the end of it.

His vision swept the room to see what the extent of the damage was. The Okie standing there, his hands balled up at his sides, said that he hadn't hit whatever he'd aimed at. There was a hole in the table, and a hole in the floor, and a half-dozen men pushed back with their eyes as wide as could be, but no shock of red blood.

Chris looked back just in time to see Mick get up with anger in his eyes. He took his sweet time responding. It was his second mistake of the night. The Okie wasn't going to let him get a second try. Chris couldn't blame him, but the flash of a knife showing meant he had to step in anyways.

The feeling of a blade biting into his flesh never got easier to bear, no matter how many times it happened. Letting it get to him wasn't an option, though. Not when it could mean someone else getting hurt. His teeth rattled as he gnashed them together, and his hand came across in a heavy clubbing motion.

The boy clattered to the ground. The knife slipped free, and Christopher's heavy boot heel clapped down on top of it. The gash in his side felt wasn't one of the worse wounds he'd had, but his mind screamed at him to fight harder, to get out of the situation. Adrenaline and pain mixed into a heady c.o.c.ktail that made it hard to keep his eyes focused and keep himself calm.

"Stay down," he growled, his hand dropping finally to the b.u.t.t of his pistol in a threat that didn't need to be voiced. "Both of you."

He shot an eyelong glance toward the door. "Somebody go fetch the Sheriff, will you? We'll let the law sort this out."

The boy moved a little, and Chris pulled back the hammer on his pistol without moving to slip it from his belt. The audible 'click' stilled him.

"I got to get out of here, boss."

"You'll get a fair shake. We all saw Mick pull a pistol, didn't we?"

"I'm not going to hang for this," the kid says, trying to make himself sound more certain of himself than looked. "By G.o.d, I ain't gonna hang."

Chris turns to regard Mick, who sat on the floor rubbing at his lip where it had busted open.

"You neither. Don't move."

The Okie tried to protest a third time, but Chris cut him off.

"Soon as the Sheriff gets here, he'll get the whole story straight from me. He'll see what to do about it, and you ain't gonna talk your way out of it. I wouldn't recommend trying to fight your way out, neither."

The boy got a sullen look on his face. There wasn't a whole lot he could do to change the situation, though, and Chris was thankful that he realized it.

He'd had plenty of other stuff to worry about already. This was exactly what he didn't want to deal with today. The sound of footsteps outside told him someone was coming. Hopefully with a Sheriff in tow. Then maybe he'd be able to get back to his d.a.m.ned job.

The kid relaxed back down to the floor, finally getting his head on straight. Chris's hands shook as he pulled his pistol free of the holster to let the hammer back forward gently. In a minute, the adrenaline would pa.s.s, and then he'd see what needed to be done about the new scar he'd have in a week or two.

Five.

There was absolutely no reason for the big bartender to have come back to her little schoolhouse at the edge of town. With no kids, he wasn't going to need to discuss her teaching. He wasn't going to need to see her for anything at all, and up until several days ago, he hadn't done it one time.

That didn't stop Marie from looking up, and somewhere deep down in her gut, wondering if he'd be standing there in her doorway again. It had been distracting. The sound of the rain slapping against the side of the building, though, told her more than adequately not to expect anything.

If he was going to come, he'd wait until it were a little less miserable out. Half the kids had done the same.