A Wanted Man by Linda Lael Miller Page B

find it such. In the same moment, he drew.
    The old-timer whistled.
    The piano player spun around on his seat and pounded out the first bars of a funeral march.
    Rowdy shoved his .44 back in the holster.
    “Come, dog,” he told Pardner, and they went back out, into the bright, silvery cold of the morning.
    From there, Rowdy and Pardner proceeded to the Stone Creek schoolhouse. He didn’t have any official business there, but he thought he ought to familiarize himself with the place, just the same.
    And he wouldn’t be averse to a glimpse of Lark, either.
    The kids were out for recess, running in every direction and screaming their heads off in a frenzy of brief freedom, while Lark watched from the step, wrapped tightly in her cloak, her cheeks and the end of her nose red in the bitter weather.
    She didn’t see Rowdy right away, so he took his time sizing things up.
    The building itself was painted bright red, and it had a belfry with a heavy bronze bell inside, sending out the occasional faint metallic vibration as it contracted in the cold. There was a well near the front door, and an outhouse off to one side. A few horses and mules foraged at what was left of last summer’s grass—come the end of the school day, they’d be carrying Lark’s students back home to farms and ranches scattered hither and yon.
    Pardner lifted himself onto his hind legs and put his forepaws against the whitewashed fence, probably wishing he could join in a running game or two.
    “Sit,” Rowdy told him quietly.
    He sat.
    The dog’s movement must have caught Lark’s attention, because she spotted them then. Made an awning of one hand to shade her eyes from the bright, cool sun.
    Rowdy grinned, waited there, on the outside of the fence, while she hesitated, made up her mind and swept toward him, her heavy black skirts trailing over the winter-bitten grass.
    “Good morning, Marshal Rhodes,” she said formally.
    Marshal Rhodes? The woman had sat in his lap the night before, wrapped in a blanket and not much else, and settled herself against him with a little sigh of resigned surrender that still echoed in his bloodstream.
    Rowdy remembered their present whereabouts—a schoolyard, in the bright light of day—and touched the brim of his hat respectfully. “Miss Morgan,” he said. He let the look in his eyes say the rest.
    Lark blushed, so he figured she’d understood.
    “Surely you don’t have business here,” she said, taking in the shiny star-shaped badge pinned to his coat.
    “No, ma’am,” he replied. “Pardner and I, we were just making our rounds. Keeping the peace, you might say.”
    Lark tried mightily to smile, but she didn’t quite succeed.
    He realized, with a start, that she’d expected him to deliver some kind of dire news or maybe even arrest her.
    Damnation. He’d figured she was running from a man, but now it struck him that he might have been wrong. Could be she was wanted by the law.
    The thought of that gave Rowdy serious pause.
    He recalled the way she’d glanced at his badge, and he searched the recollection, as well as her face, for any sign of anxiety.
    Meanwhile, a little girl with blond pigtails approached the fence, stuck a hand through to stroke Pardner’s head.
    “Lydia,” Lark said immediately, “you should not touch strange dogs.” Her gaze moved briefly to Rowdy’s face. “Some of them bite.”
    Reluctantly Lydia withdrew her hand.
    “Does he?” the child asked, looking solemnly up at Rowdy. “Bite, I mean?”
    Pardner tried to force his head between the fence pickets, looking for another pat.
    “Sit,” Rowdy told him.
    Pardner sat, but he looked as forlorn as a martyr in a piece of bad religious art.
    “No,” Rowdy said to Lydia. “Pardner doesn’t bite. He’s a good dog.”
    “I wish I had a dog,” Lydia said. “If I did, he could walk me home, and Beaver Franks wouldn’t chase after me and pull my hair.”
    Rowdy crouched, well aware that Lark was watching him, and