Lynna Banning Read Online Free PDF Page A

the second floor. Her brain whirled with ideas. She’d spend her days at the newspaper office, running down stories and doing interviews. At night she’d sit at her father’s battered oak desk and write her features and weekly editorials. And when she finished she’d come back here, to the home her father had bought for her.
    Papa would be pleased. Somehow she knew this was what he would have wanted. It was what she had longed for all her young years—sharing her life with him. It hurt that he was gone. But if it was the last thing she did, she’d make him proud of her.
    A shiver raced up her spine. Her first story, she decided, would be a feature on Sheriff Ben Kearney and his investigation of her father’s death.
    “Miss Jessamyn?” Cora’s voice rang from somewhere ahead of her. “This here’s what I call the Yellow Room.”
    The housekeeper’s muffled summons jerked her to attention. “Coming, Cora,” she called out.
    Smoothing her skirt, Jessamyn moved toward the open bedroom door at the end of the hallway, her mind already composing her first headline.

Chapter Three
    T he door of Frieder’s Mercantile swung open with a jingle. The bell mounted on the timber frame above Jessamyn’s head hiccuped a second welcome as she closed the wood portal. She paused on the threshold to gaze at the welter of supplies—yard goods, laces, curry combs and bristle brushes, boxed cigars, tobacco canisters, denim shirts and trousers, axes, shovels, even a crosscut saw. The shelves of merchandise reached all the way to the ceiling. Surely they stocked kerosene?
    She inhaled a lungful of the heady air. Sacks of flour and sugar and dried beans lined the walls. A pickle barrel sat next to two wooden chairs flanking the black iron stove. Behind it she glimpsed a glass case with brightly colored penny candies displayed in oversize jars. The store smelled of coffee and sassafras and tobacco.
    A pinafore-clad child of five or six with worn, dusty shoes that looked two sizes too big stretched one hand toward the glass case. “Want a candy,” she wailed as her mother tugged her toward the door.
    “Hush, Alice. Not today. You had too many last week.” The woman nodded at Jessamyn as she swept past.
    “How do you do,” Jessamyn called. “I’m Jessamyn Whittaker, the new editor of the Wildwood Times.”
    The woman turned. A sharp-nosed, tanned face lookedout from under a green checked sunbonnet. Jessamyn sent her warmest smile and waited.
    “Hello, Miss Whittaker.” The woman extended a thin, work-worn hand. “Ella Kearney’s my name. This is my daughter, Alice. Come away from that case, Alice, and say hello to the lady.”
    “’Lo,” the child whispered, still eyeing the fat glass jars in the candy display. “D’you like ginger drops?”
    “Why, yes, I suppose I do.”
    “Mr. Frieder has lots and lots of—”
    “Come along, Alice. I’ve got bread rising.”
    “Mrs. Kearney, wait! I don’t mean to pry, but is your husband Ben Kearney, the sheriff?”
    “No. Ben’s a fine man, but I’m married to his brother, Carl. We live on the Double K, the Kearney brothers’ spread, about four miles north of town. Cattle ranch. Some horses, but mostly beeves. Ben lives in town.”
    “I see.” An irrepressible bubble of curiosity rose in Jessamyn’s chest. Ben Kearney evidently preferred life as a lawman rather than a rancher. She wondered why. And, she wondered with an odd flicker of interest, was he not married? Her experience as a newspaper reporter told her to file this question away for later reference.
    Ella Kearney yanked her daughter toward the door. “Good morning to you, Miss Whittaker.”
    The bell jangled as the pair stepped out onto the board sidewalk. Alice cast a wistful backward glance at the candy case just as the door swung shut.
    A broad, smiling man appeared behind the counter, good will beaming from his shiny face. “What can I do for you, ma’am? Maybe like some ginger drops? Young Miss Alice is