The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller

for the idea of her drawing the Donaghers’ attention, taunting them with her suspicions. It was akin to stirring a hornet’s nest with a chunk of firewood.
    â€œYou probably ought to stay in town tonight. I’d be obliged, though, for the loan of your wagon.”
    To his surprise, and cautious delight, she favored him with a soft smile and a shake of her head. The subtle scent of her lush hair teased his senses. “I guess the team and buckboard would be safe in your keeping,” she said, “and I do appreciate your kind concern. But I’ve looked after myself for a long time, and anyway, the Donaghers wouldn’t dare bother me in Mungo’s presence.” Humor flickered in her brown eyes. “Besides, there is the question of your safety, Mr. O’Ballivan.”
    He straightened his spine. “I’m not afraid of any of the Donaghers, or all of them put together,” he said.
    â€œI know that,” Maddie replied. “But there’s one Donagher you’d be wise to look out for, and that’s Undine.”
    They were passing out of town, and Sam gave up on the hope that Maddie would change her mind and go back to her quarters above the mercantile, instead of venturing into the snakes’ den, with him. “Undine,” he repeated, confused. Unless the lady had a derringer tucked up the sleeve of her dress, he couldn’t imagine how she’d do him any harm.
    â€œShe’s set her sights on you,” Maddie said. “Mungo won’t take kindly to that. He’s mean jealous, and he’d as soon kill any man she takes a fancy to as look at him.”
    Sam pondered that bit of information, then took a risk. “Did she ‘take a fancy’ to Warren Debney?” he asked. “Or maybe John Perkins?”
    â€œWarren was dead and buried long before Mungo brought Undine to Haven as his bride,” Maddie said, and her eyes took on a haunted expression. “As for Mr. Perkins, she wouldn’t have given him a second look. But she has taken a liking to you. If you ignore that, it will be at your peril.”
    Sam rubbed his chin with one hand, as he often did when he was thinking. He’d shaved for the occasion, and his skin still felt raw from the stroke of the new razor. His new white shirt itched, too, so he shrugged inside it, in a vain attempt to find relief. “You sound mighty certain,” he said at some length, “about Undine’s flirtations being potentially fatal for the object of her attentions, that is. Something must have happened to convince you.”
    â€œIt’s just a feeling,” Maddie said, narrowing her wondrous eyes a little upon the darkening road. “Woman’s intuition.”
    â€œI think there’s more to it than that,” Sam persisted.
    She met his eyes. “Haven is small. There are plenty of stories going around, and I hear most of them because just about everybody in this part of the territory makes their way to the mercantile on a regular basis. Mungo’s temper is legendary—they say he once beat Landry, the middle son by his first wife, nearly to death for leaving a gate open. Ben—the little one—is a friend of Terran’s, and sometimes passes the night with us if the weather is bad enough that he can’t get home. That boy is terrified of his father—and his brothers, too. I always get the feeling, whenever I’m around him, that there are things he wants to tell me—tell anybody—but he’s afraid to speak up.”
    â€œHe was in on dangling Singleton down the well,” Sam said. For the sake of the peace, he didn’t add along with your brother. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Ben, trying to size him up. He’s smart as hell, but he’s skittish, too. Yesterday in class somebody dropped the dictionary and he about jumped out of his hide.”
    Maddie bit her lower lip. “I worry about Ben, out there