The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller Page B

O’Ballivan beside her, she actually enjoyed the prospect. She even hoped she would come face-to-face with Rex Donagher; she’d find a way to let him know what she thought of him and those cur brothers of his, even though she dared not insult their father. Without her job at the mercantile, she and Terran would be worse off than Violet Perkins and her mother, Hittie.
    Mungo himself was waiting to greet them when they pulled up in the dooryard. The ground was unadorned by flowers and there were no curtains at the windows. Had Maddie lived in such a house, she would have planted peonies and climbing roses first thing, even if she had to carry water from the river to make them thrive. Her own plants were spindly and pitiful, and wherever she moved them, shadows followed, robbing them of light.
    Mungo’s stance was stern and his countenance unwelcoming. Maddie knew it was Sam he mistrusted, not herself, but she felt a quiver of unease in the pit of her stomach just the same. She’d warned Sam, though, and that was all she could do.
    He climbed down from the wagon box, extinguished the lamps to save kerosene for the ride back to town, and then extended a hand to Maddie. All that time, Mungo neither moved nor spoke. She felt his displeasure, invisible but real, roiling in the space between them.
    â€œEvening, Mr. Donagher,” Sam said as cheerfully as if Mungo had been watching the road in eager anticipation of their arrival. “Mind if I unhitch these horses and let them graze on some of this grass?”
    Before Mungo could form a reply, Undine slipped through the open doorway behind him, holding up a lantern that glowed almost as brightly as her smile.
    â€œSupper’s ready to be served,” she called. “I cooked it myself, too.”
    In the spill of light from Undine’s lantern, Mungo’s face looked hard.
    Maddie shivered inwardly and wished it wouldn’t be baldly impolite to fetch her shotgun from underneath the wagon seat and bring it right inside with her. “I’m half starved,” she answered, because Sam didn’t say a word—he was busy unhitching the team—and neither did Mungo.
    Undine blinked, as though she hadn’t taken notice of Maddie until that moment. “That’s fine,” she said without conviction. “You come on inside now, Maddie. Let the men tend to those horses.” She nudged Mungo with one elbow and he finally moved.
    Maddie glanced in Sam’s direction, and was strangely stricken to see that he’d paused in his work to gaze thoughtfully in Undine’s direction. In that moment, she would have given her meager savings, stashed in a coffee tin under a loose floorboard in her bedroom, to know what was going through his mind.
    It irritated her that she was even curious—Sam O’Ballivan was nothing to her, after all—and she swished her skirts a little as she swept up the walk toward Undine.
    â€œDid you send off for those spring dresses I wanted?” Undine asked, addressing Maddie in an overbright, over-earnest tone, eyes sneaking past her to devour Sam. “If I can’t get Mungo to take me to San Francisco for the worst of it, they’ll be the only gaiety in the whole winter.”
    Winters in that part of the Arizona Territory were mild; snow was rare and the temperatures seldom called for cloak or coat. Maddie didn’t bother to point that out, since Undine knew it well enough. “I wired the order to Chicago this afternoon,” she said, accidentally brushing against Mungo as the two of them passed on the porch steps. She paused to watch as her recalcitrant host strode toward Sam and the horses.
    â€œThat’s fine,” Undine replied, but she sounded distracted, and when Maddie looked at her, she saw that she was still fastened on Sam. Mungo might as well have been invisible.
    â€œAre the boys home?” Maddie asked, referring to Garrett, Landry and Rex. Ben was