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me. I paid a visit to a couple of the establishments down by the docks yesterday when I got off the riverboat.”
    â€œYou stopped at the Row?” Murtagh’s face was hard but not condescending. “Mayor Thorntree allows those businesses to operate to keep his constituents happy. I’m neither opposed to them nor do I abide them. However, I should warn you, they are frequented by all sorts of dangerous men, murderers and thieves.”
    â€œYes.” He cringed inwardly, his hand falling to rest on his holstered gun. “I’m afraid I’ve already made my first greenhorn mistake. Last night, a thief tried to make off with Uncle’s remains—” he waved a hand at the leather bag in the chair, “—but I stopped him.”
    The judge ran his fingers through his snowy hair, reminding Kit for a split second of Uncle Bart. Then Murtagh grinned and patted Kit on the shoulder. “You’re a Wainwright through and through. That’s good to know.”
    Kit shared his smile, but the tension in his neck refused to relax. Did the man not understand what he was saying? “I shot him in the ankle to keep him from getting away.”
    â€œVery good. If he’s been crippled, he’s probably downstairs waiting in my jail. I’ll have to release his sorry hide for doin’ no more than stealing. But if you’d only aimed a few feet higher, there’d be one less criminal to show up in my court, eh?” He brushed past, trailing the thick stench of tobacco. “Now if you’ll excuse me. My session is about to resume.”
    Kit stared at the door after his exit. So this was frontier justice? He supposed he should feel relieved the judge had dismissed his actions, but instead, he only felt confused. What if he’d shot the wrong man? It had been dark last night and, truth be told, he’d been too drunk to stand. What if he’d missed?
    I never miss.
    Even as hardened as he was, Kit didn’t think he could live with himself if he killed an unarmed man over something as harmless as stealing.
    At least he could relax now. The mayor’s threats wouldn’t hold water against him as far as the judge was concerned, and Uncle Bart would be proud he’d made a respectable ally in his new hometown. Life here would be hard, but he’d spent his youth in idleness, living in excess. Now he could finally grant the old man his greatest wish and put away his gun for good.
    By the time Cora reached the farrier’s, the sky was about to open up. The coming storm made the air thick, and the wisps of hair that had escaped from her braided bun rose up to tickle her cheeks. She batted them away before she slid open the big barn door, setting the iron bell overhead to clanging, alerting Jupiter that a customer had arrived.
    The town’s only blacksmith looked up from the mare he was shoeing and grinned when he saw her. “Cora? What brings you in? I know it’s not a horse.”
    She closed the distance between them, smiling as her friend wiped his hands on a well-used apron. Wrinkling her nose, she replied, “You got that right. Can’t a woman just stop by for a social call, Jupiter?”
    He crossed his arms over his chest, and she noted a few more strands of gray in his brown hair since she’d seen him last, months ago. Newly married, he never crossed the threshold of the Willows, and likely hadn’t been to any of the other houses on the Row, either. He’d always been one of the town’s few decent men, and she liked him immensely. Too bad he was taken. He would’ve made a fine husband for Millie or Bernadette or one of the girls. Not for herself though. Marriage had a way of changing people, so far as she’d seen, and she was glad to have his friendship.
    â€œSure you can. I can’t talk long though. I got a buyer coming to collect Raven.” Jupiter slanted his head at the black mare he’d been