The Accidental Lawman (9 page)

H
ank walked down Main Street with a spring in his step that belied his inner turmoil. It was good to be outside, away from his desk for a change. He’d been to Amelia Hawthorne’s house twice a week for the past two weeks and had yet to find her at home.

At first he had convinced himself she was hiding from him, that she had isolated herself behind drawn shades and locked doors. Then Harrison mentioned she was most likely doing spring home visits to outlying ranches and his guilt eased a bit.

He owed her an apology for what he’d done, and he meant to deliver it today if she had returned. Maybe then he could stop thinking about the spontaneous kiss. Maybe once he’d apologized, he could stop thinking about her altogether.

When he noticed some blue wildflowers blooming at the edge of the town square, he decided to make her a peace offering. He picked a few stalks and bunched them together, then kept walking.

When he reached her gate and pushed it open, he
noticed that spring had come to Amelia’s yard. It was filling up with flowers in every color of the rainbow.

Hank stared at the scraggly bunch of wildflowers in his hand and when he reached the porch, he set them down near the top step. Amelia had all the flowers she needed. His pitiful bouquet would make a paltry peace offering.

He noticed the shades were up. He glanced inside the front window but didn’t see her in the parlor. He saw his own image and pulled off his hat. Then he finger combed his hair and tugged on his lapels.

He took a deep breath, knocked on the door and waited for a response.

And waited.

He knocked again and was about to leave when the door slowly opened and Amelia peered around it. She looked worn-out. Her eyes were red rimmed and swollen, her skin pale and blotchy.

“Are you all right? You look terrible.” Concern replaced his nerves. The apology was forgotten.

“Why, thank you,” she sniffed.

“Are you ill? After all, you’ve been out gallivanting around the countryside for two weeks. It’s no wonder you look like something the dog dragged in.”

“What?”

He realized he might as well go all the way and jam his other foot into his mouth, too.

“Your hair is sticking out worse than usual and your eyes are all bloodshot and swollen. It looks as if you’ve been—” He stopped abruptly, stared at her a second longer as realization hit him. “It looks as if you’ve been crying.”

She stuck her head out a bit farther and peered down both sides of the street. There wasn’t a soul in sight. She
stepped outside. She gathered her skirt in her hands, clutching it for dear life.

Suddenly he remembered why he was here. “Amelia, I’m so sorry for what happened the other night. I didn’t realize I’d cause you this much distress. I don’t know what came over me. I have no idea why—”

“You have nothing to do with my tears,” she said flatly.

“I don’t?” Relieved, he watched her walk over to the edge of the porch and sit down. She moved like a woman four times her age.

“In fact, I need to talk to you about something,” she said.

“You do?” He decided he sounded like a nitwit.

Not knowing how to deal with her strange mood, he sat on the step beside her. No harm in that. They were out in plain sight. In broad daylight. She was troubled, no doubt about it, and apparently her problem had nothing to do with him.

“My brother Evan…came home a while ago.”

Hank glanced around at the open door behind them, half expecting to see the mysterious Evan Hawthorne standing there. “He’s here? Now?”

She shook her head, propped her arms across her knees and then pressed her face against them.

Hank froze. “Did he hurt you, Amelia?”

She shook her head no again and mumbled something.

“Pardon?”

She raised her head, her eyes brimming with tears. He watched one slip over the edge of her spiked lower lashes and slide down her cheek.

“He hurt me deeply, but not in the way you think. He—” she swallowed a sob “—he stole our father’s gold watch from me.”

“He stole it?”

“Yes. And he…he was involved in…” Her voice went up an octave as she said, “He was involved in the bank robbery.”

“He confessed?”

“He saw the newspaper you left here. He…yes. He finally admitted it. I tried…I tried to talk him into turning himself in. I told him you’d be fair. When he refused, I suggested he see Reverend McCormick. He asked me to get him a clean shirt. I thought for a minute he was willing to get help, to throw himself on the mercy of the townsfolk—”

“And vow not to sin again.”

“Something like that.”

“Then what happened?”

“I heard him walking around and then he left. I discovered he’d stolen the watch.”

“Is that all he took?”

“No.”

“There’s more?”

She wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. “He stole two dollars. That was my whole savings.”

Two dollars was all the savings she had to her name? Hank stared down at the uneven part in her russet hair and squelched an urge to pull her into his arms and comfort her. She looked so small and vulnerable. So alone. So betrayed.

“What will you do now?” She turned huge green eyes his way.

He had no idea what to do with the information. He began to think aloud. “Well, I guess I should put a notice in the paper. Tell folks to be on the lookout for him.”

“Oh, no,” she moaned.

“And I should ride back over to the county seat, talk
to the sheriff there. Rangers might be able to track him down. I really wouldn’t know how to go about tracking him myself.”

She hid her eyes in the crook of her arm again.

“Did he say where he’d been? Where he was going?” Hank asked.

“No.” Her shoulders rose and fell with barely audible sobs.

He reached out to pat her shoulder, then pulled his hand back.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know this must be hard on you.”

She raised her haunted eyes to him again. “You have no idea.”

He didn’t know much, but he knew he couldn’t possibly leave her alone in this condition.

“Let me walk you over to the McCormicks’ house.”

She shook her head so vehemently he offered another suggestion, “How about Laura Foster’s, then?”

Again, a definite no. “I’m used to taking care of myself.”

She didn’t sound as if she were soliciting his sympathy, but rather as if she were simply stating a fact of life. She was alone in the world. She had to fend for herself. He found himself wishing he could change things for her. He was convinced she shouldn’t be alone now.

Life shouldn’t have to be this way, he thought. An endless round of lonely days and lonely nights. He spent his own long empty hours throwing himself into his work. He imagined she did, too. He glanced at the small sign on her front door. Apothecary.

“Come on, Amelia. I’m taking you to the reverend’s house.” Seeing her ravaged expression, her sorrow, he let go all notion that she might have had anything to do with the robbery.

Slowly she got to her feet. “I’m too embarrassed to see anyone right now.”

“Everyone here respects and admires you. There’s no need to worry about them blaming you or talking behind your back. I have a feeling if Evan would have been anyone else, I’d have gotten a lot more information out of folks around here. As it was, I suspect the whole town clammed up to protect you, not your brother.”

She pushed her hair back off her damp temple. “I wish I could say that makes me feel better, but somehow it makes me feel even worse. They trust in me. I should have told you what I suspected after the robbery.”

“You didn’t know for certain that Evan was involved, did you?”

“Not until today.”

“He’s your brother, Amelia. No one will fault you for waiting to find out for sure.”

“When I think about what might have happened to Mary Margaret, or to you, or anyone else who might have happened by—”

She covered her mouth with her hand and for a second he was afraid she was going to vomit, but she recovered and closed her eyes.

“I guess the Hawthornes are single-handedly keeping your paper alive,” she said. “I can just see your next headline—Robber’s Sister Upchucks On Sheriff.”

He was glad she could still attempt humor in a humorless situation. He thought for a second then said, “Or how about, Appalling Apothecary Spills Truth And More On Editor in Chief?”

She gave him the barest hint of a smile, but it was far better than more tears.

“Come on. Get whatever you might need. I’m walking you over to the McCormicks’ house.”

She didn’t argue. This time she let him help her to her feet and went inside with a promise to be right back.

She returned in no time. She had toweled off her face, but hadn’t taken time to change clothes or comb her hair.

As Hank walked Amelia down the street, neither of them mentioned what had happened the last time they were together. Right now, Hank’s kiss was the furthest thing from both their minds.

Thirty minutes later, Amelia was seated on Brand McCormick’s front porch, a cup of tea growing cold in her hands. Charity perched on a nearby rocker pretending not to listen, but she was concerned enough not to leave Amelia’s side. Her incorrigible niece and nephew were in the front yard, trying to hack down an old mulberry tree with butter knives.

Amelia was glad Hank had talked her into coming. She wasn’t able to stop worrying about Evan, but at least she wasn’t sitting at home alone. Hank had just walked out from speaking with Brand in the reverend’s office. Now he appeared to be ready to leave but hesitant to say goodbye.

She set the teacup on a small wicker table beside her chair, stood and stretched.

“I’ll walk with you to the corner,” she told him, ignoring Charity’s curious glance as well as Hank’s obvious surprise.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the house, she turned to Hank. “Promise me that if you find Evan, you’ll come tell me first. Tell me before I have to read about it in the paper.”

She thought it a simple request and wondered why he took so long to answer.

“Of course. That’s an easy promise to make. Far easier to agree to that than make an apology.”

“Apology?”

“For…” He finally met her gaze. “For kissing you.”

In the disaster of the morning she’d forgotten about all of it. Now, remembering brought instant color to her cheeks. She lowered her eyes.

“Apology accepted,” she said softly.

When she looked up again, Hank was still there.

“You’d better be going,” she urged.

“Will you be all right?”

“Of course. Life goes on, doesn’t it? I’ll head home right after luncheon.” Charity had invited her to share a meal. “I have a lot to do, plenty of chores to catch up on now that I’m back. You have…things to do also.”

He was aware that Evan Hawthorne’s trail was growing cold. “You’re right. I’d best go.”

“Take care, Hank.”

He started to walk away, paused. “Amelia, I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I wish you didn’t, either.”

As Amelia dragged up the front steps of the McCormicks’ porch, her feet felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds each.

“Would you like more tea?” Charity held the teacup Amelia had set down. The young woman’s eyes were shadowed with worry. “I don’t know what I’d do in your place, Amelia. This must be simply awful for you.”

Amelia tried smiling but it didn’t work. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, Charity.” The worst thing would be losing Evan. Amelia was confident God was not going to let that happen. She put her trust in Him as always.

“Well, I certainly don’t know how you’re managing to hold up.”

“One does what one has to do.”

That’s what her father had taught her anyway. She’d learned that lesson well as she’d served as his apprentice and nurse. She’d assisted with amputations, dug out bullets, cauterized wounds and stitched them up. She’d heard boys scream for their mothers, watched grown men cry buckets of tears. She’d prayed over the unmarked graves of unnamed soldiers from both sides. She’d grown up during the war years and by the time her father finally agreed they’d had enough she was barely eighteen but convinced she’d already grown old.

“War,” her father said once, “is mankind’s great folly. It serves no purpose but to set the stage for more of the same.” He wasn’t an outwardly religious man, but that day, he had quoted Isaiah. “It says in the Bible, ‘They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.’”

Looking around the rows of dead and dying soldiers on the blood-soaked ground after the Battle of Cold Harbor—where twelve thousand Union soldiers perished in one day—he had added, “Unfortunately, even after this carnage, I’m afraid I won’t see any swords beaten into plowshares in my lifetime.”

Yes, Amelia decided, there were many things worse than worrying about Evan.

She tried to change the subject. Not far from the porch, Sam and Janie were still hacking away at the mulberry trunk. “You’d think those children would realize they’re not going to fell that tree with butter knives.”

“I’m certainly not going to tell them,” Charity decided.
“It’s the quietest they’ve been in hours.” Before Amelia could comment, she asked, “Are you…do you have any designs on Mr. Larson?”

“Designs?”

Charity nodded. “Are you sweet on him? Mary Margaret said—”

“Me? Sweet on Hank?” She thought about Hank Larson, about how kind he’d been to her earlier, given the circumstances. He could have berated her for not being completely open about Evan, could have been angry that she hadn’t voiced her suspicions. She thought about the kiss he’d given her and how, by his own admission, he had no idea why he’d done it.

“Mary Margaret was wrong.”

Charity was watching her closely. She was blushing, obviously embarrassed.

“Why, Charity, are you sweet on Hank Larson?”

“Maybe. I…I’m not certain. I haven’t had many opportunities to meet anyone like him since we moved to Texas. Someone refined. Cultured. Educated.”