The Innocent (2 page)

Asher raised his hackles and growled. Curt stopped in his tracks.

“Make her call off her dog.” Curt eased back.

Sometimes Carlyn thought he was more afraid of the dog than her gun, and he was probably right to feel that way. She didn’t say anything, just held her ground the same as Asher. Her growl wasn’t audible, but it was sounding inside her.

“Ma’am, you need to put down the gun and keep a hold on your dog,” the sheriff said.

Carlyn found her voice. “The gun’s pointed at the floor and the dog won’t bother anybody who doesn’t bother me.” She flicked her eyes to Curt and back to the sheriff’s face. “Mr. Whitlow knows that.”

“I’d still feel more comfortable if you’d set the gun down. You wouldn’t want Mr. Whitlow to suffer a heart attack here on your porch.”

She could have told him that it wouldn’t bother her one whit if Curt Whitlow fell down dead on her porch, but that might not be the best thing to tell a lawman. Might make her suspect if something untoward were to happen to Curt in the days ahead. She looked straight into the man’s dark brown eyes. Without blinking, he met her gaze straight on. After a few seconds, she propped the gun against the door facing.

“And the dog,” he said.

She touched Asher’s head and made him sit. With an unhappy whine, he obeyed, but he stayed tense, ready to spring if the occasion called for it.

“Thank you, ma’am. That makes talking easier.” He took off his felt hat, revealing wavy brown hair in need of scissors. “I’m Sheriff Brodie. Sorry to bother you today, but Mr. Whitlow claims you haven’t paid what you owe on the house here.”

He glanced around at the peeling paint and sagging porch as if he were assessing the house’s value and finding it wanting. It wasn’t a great house, but it was a house. A person learned to deal with leaky roofs and loose floorboards. Ambrose planned to fix it up when he got home from the war. They’d been so happy when he carried her over the threshold. Neither one of them had any money, so it had seemed a stroke of good fortune when Curt Whitlow offered to let them have the house and make a payment each year till they paid it off.

She scraped up enough money to pay him more than the old house was worth the first two years, but after Ambrose went missing, his army pay stopped. Now she couldn’t scrape up anything except mud off her shoes. All she had were squatter’s rights and that wouldn’t hold up in front of a judge. Or a sheriff. Out west maybe, but not here where all the land had owners.

“My husband’s been away fighting for the Union.” Carlyn kept her voice steady, but then wondered if she should break down in tears. That had long ago lost any effect on Curt, but the sheriff might be moved by a woman’s tears. Maybe moved enough to give her more time before he upheld the law and set her out of her house.

“The war is over, Carlyn.” Curt practically shouted at her. “All the men have come home. Those that could. Ambrose Kearney is never coming home. He’s dead. Can’t you get that through your head? He’s dead!”

She staggered back under the force of his words, and her eyes filled with tears. Not ones she had to pretend, but the true sorrowful tears that came to her nearly every night. While she couldn’t be sure Ambrose was never coming home, it was true that he hadn’t. His homecoming was way overdue.

2

The woman was not at all what Mitchell Brodie had expected. When Curt Whitlow had come in the office and demanded Mitchell make the Widow Kearney vacate his house, he’d ranted on and on about her recalcitrant ways. His complaints had made Mitchell think Carlyn Kearney would be older. Someone perhaps, if not soured on the world, at least hardened by it.

So the woman who opened the door surprised him. The dark brown curls escaping her tied-back hair made her look even younger than she surely was. Color burned in her cheeks, and with her mouth set in a grim line, she narrowed her eyes and stared out at them without a word. Those stormy blue eyes revealed plenty. Mitchell had learned to gauge the anger or fear of the people he confronted. In his job, if a man wasn’t ready, he could be dead. The sheen of sweat on her brow and the throbbing pulse in her temple belied her calm exterior.

Plus there was the gun that maybe told more about
Whitlow than the woman holding it. He’d obviously been at the wrong end of her gun before and probably for cause. Mitchell didn’t know Whitlow well, but he’d heard the gossip. The man beside him had a wandering eye and the means to make some women look past his unappealing looks and forget his marital status. Not this woman however. Else there’d be no gun and no need for him as sheriff to be standing at her door.

Carlyn Kearney was sad, scared, and angry all at the same time. He had to insist she put the gun down, but he took no pleasure in seeing her shoulders droop when she complied. She looked defeated. With reason. The law was on Whitlow’s side. As much as Mitchell hated that being true, it was. He would have to carry out the distasteful task of putting her out of her home. He fervently hoped she had family to give her a spot under their roof. Her and her dog.

Mitchell looked down at the dog, its lips snarled back to reveal teeth. Whitlow had told him about her vicious beast. Claimed it was more wolf than dog. Now with the drone of Whitlow’s demanding words playing back through his head, Mitchell almost wished the woman would set her dog on the man. It might be entertaining to watch the dog chase Whitlow out to his horse as he’d probably done on more than one occasion.

Mitchell was about to suggest Whitlow step off the porch so he could talk to the woman without interference when the man shouted out that the woman’s husband was dead. True or not, Whitlow had no reason to throw the words at her like stones. Stones that found their mark.

The blood drained from the woman’s face and she staggered back a step. Mitchell was so sure she was going to
faint that he risked the dog’s raised hackles and stepped across the threshold. The growl did make him think twice about touching the woman. Instead he grabbed a chair to push under her. She sank into it and dropped her head into her hands.

The dog’s growls grew fiercer and Mitchell turned, prepared to grab it by the throat if it lunged at him. But the dog was paying him no mind. It was crouched, ready to spring at Whitlow. The woman, lost in her sorrow, didn’t note the danger to her dog as Whitlow fumbled in his coat pocket for the pistol Mitchell guessed was there.

“Down, boy.” Mitchell put force into his words. As sheriff, a voice of authority often worked with drunks and rabble-rousers, but he was more than a little surprised when it worked with the dog. The animal turned his head toward Mitchell and eased back to a sitting position.

When Whitlow started through the door into the house, Mitchell stepped between the man and the dog. “No need to pull that gun out of your pocket, Whitlow. Nobody’s going to shoot anybody or anything.”

“That dog needs shooting.”

Behind him, the woman gasped. Without turning toward her, Mitchell addressed her worry. “That’s not for you to decide. Now you need to wait out in the yard, sir.” Mitchell used the word “sir” loosely. He had little use for men like Whitlow who thought they could order the world just because they’d managed to accumulate some land or money.

Whitlow didn’t step back from the door. “I’m not the lawbreaker here, Sheriff. She is.” He pointed around Mitchell and set the dog to growling again.

Mitchell locked eyes with the man. “I told you to wait in
the yard, Whitlow. Your presence here is upsetting the lady.” He paused for a heartbeat. “And her dog.”

Whitlow narrowed his eyes on Mitchell. “You can’t let a pretty face keep you from doing your duty.”

“My duty is to protect the people of this county from harm. That includes this lady and it includes you. So do as I say and step off the porch. You can rest assured I’ll inform Mrs. Kearney of the law.”

Whitlow glared at him for another second, but when Mitchell shifted his jacket back behind the holster he wore, he backed across the porch to the steps.

“You tell her whatever you like as long as you get her out of my house.” His voice got louder as he stumbled down the steps and almost fell out into the yard. He caught his balance and straightened his jacket. “I’ve exercised saintly patience. Nobody can say any different. But patience runs out after a while.”

Mitchell understood the truth of that. His own patience had run out with Whitlow without a doubt. He stared the man back from the porch before he turned to the woman. He didn’t close the door. He wanted to in order to shut Whitlow away from them, but the woman might feel just as threatened by Mitchell. After all, he was a stranger to her.

That the woman in front of him might fear him bothered Mitchell. He wondered how she would look if she were to smile. Really smile. He shied away from that thought. Carlyn Kearney was still clinging to her marriage bonds. Besides, whether the woman was a widow or not, Mitchell had no desire to be charmed by her or any woman. He’d let that happen once with no good coming from it. He had enough sense to steer clear of that kind of hurt again. Better to stick
to the business at hand and not think about how her blue eyes might look with the warmth of a smile lighting them up.

That didn’t keep him from feeling sympathy for her situation. If he could, he’d let her stay in the house and tell Whitlow to leave her alone, but he’d sworn to uphold the law. Charity wasn’t part of the letter of the law.

With her hands gripped so tightly together her knuckles were white, she looked up at him. “Say whatever it is Curt Whitlow has told you to say and get it over with.”

A little fire had returned to her eyes, but a cold fire without the warmth he’d wished for a moment ago. “I think you’re misunderstanding the situation, Mrs. Kearney. I don’t take orders from Whitlow.” He met her stare straight on. “I enforce the law.”

At the sound of their voices, the dog was up again, the low growl back in its throat. Mitchell kept his eyes on the woman. He wasn’t afraid of the dog. He’d faced lots worse than that during the war.

She looked away first and called off her dog. “Asher.” The dog gave Mitchell a look that seemed almost apologetic as it moved over to lay its head in the woman’s lap. An apology the woman voiced as she stroked the dog’s head. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. That was ill spoken of me.”

“But understandable under the circumstances.” He kept his voice emotionless. He needed to get the job done and be out of this woman’s house. It wasn’t his fault her husband had gone off to war and gotten himself killed. If indeed he had. Perhaps he’d just chosen not to come home, but Mitchell couldn’t imagine that. Not with a wife like Carlyn Kearney waiting faithfully for him.

Not all women were so faithful. He turned from that
thought. No need making any comparisons between this woman and Hilda. The familiar stab of Hilda’s desertion made him inwardly wince.

The woman raised her eyes back to his face and waited. She looked nothing like Hilda. Her hair was as dark as Hilda’s had been light. Sunlight captured in hair, Mitchell had told Hilda once. She had laughed, surprised by his attempt at fancy words. She always said he lacked any claim to a silver tongue. A man ready to simply get the task done, whether that was unloading a wagon at her father’s store or courting a woman.

She was right. He spoke truth straight out without dressing it up in pretty words. He’d thought she didn’t mind that, but then a Boston dandy had sweet-talked her into running away with him while Mitchell was in Georgia fighting the Rebels. Her parents were still grieving over their only daughter marrying a man they considered wrong for her. They thought he was still grieving too. Maybe he was. It was just that some days he wasn’t sure who or what he was grieving.

“Very well, Sheriff. What do you have to say to me?” The woman’s question was direct and to the point. She’d obviously recovered from her earlier vapors.

He needed to be as direct. “Your husband bought this house from Mr. Whitlow. Is that right?”

“Yes. Before the war.” Her words were clipped, as though she didn’t want to say one syllable more than necessary to someone allied with Whitlow.

“Are you aware of the agreement your husband made with Curt Whitlow to pay a certain amount each year for the house?”

“I am aware of that. Very aware. Mr. Whitlow has made
sure of that.” Her words left much unspoken as she slid her gaze past him toward the open door. Mitchell didn’t look around to see if Whitlow was in sight.

She lifted her chin and seemed to brace for his next words, but it had to be said. “So have you paid the amount due? Mr. Whitlow claims you are in arrears.”

“I paid some of what was owed in August last year, but had no money for any payment this year.” She hurried out her next words. “But I have assured Mr. Whitlow that my husband will pay off the loan when he arrives home.”

She stared at him as if daring him to doubt her words, but he noted a quaver in her voice when she spoke the word “home.” “When do you expect that to happen, Mrs. Kearney?”

“That’s hard to say. In times of war, much is uncertain.” She lowered her eyes and stroked the dog’s head in her lap. Her fingers were trembling.