The Man from Stone Creek Read Online Free PDF Page B

exasperated sigh. “Oh, it was sincere, all right. Undine meant every word of it. It’s Mungo I’m worried about.”
    â€œNow why would you worry about Mungo or anything else, Miss Chancelor?”
    Maddie knotted her hands in her apron, so she wouldn’t box Sam O’Ballivan’s ears. “You’re new in Haven, and you obviously have the sensibilities of a hitching post, so I’ll tell you,” she said. “Mr. Donagher is a hard man. He’s vengeful and he’s rich, and when folks get on his bad side, they tend to meet with sudden misfortune.”
    â€œI do appreciate your concern, Miss Chancelor, but I’m not afraid of that old coot. Do you have any storybooks?”
    Maddie blinked. “Storybooks?”
    Sam’s eyes danced. “For kids,” he explained with the sort of patience one usually reserves for an idiot.
    Maddie gestured toward a table in the far corner of the store, followed determinedly when Sam headed in that direction. She was about to pursue the subject of his identity again when she noticed the reverent way he chose and examined a volume of fairy tales. It made her throat tighten.
    â€œMy mother used to read those stories to me,” she said, and then could have bitten off her tongue at the hinge. Mr. O’Ballivan’s gaze came straight to her face, and she felt exposed, as if her memories were no more private than the goods displayed in the window at the front of the store.
    â€œDid she?” he asked quietly.
    Maddie swallowed, nodded. Looked away.
    Sam caught her chin between his thumb and the curve of his forefinger. His flesh was calloused, giving the lie, yet again, to his being a schoolmaster. He turned her head so she had to meet his eyes.
    His touch made her nerves spark under her skin. She wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it. In fact, she couldn’t even speak, so she just stood there, like a fool, astounded by her own weakness.
    â€œHow is it that you’re not married, Maddie Chancelor?” Sam asked gravely, and let his hand fall back to his side.
    Maddie moistened her lips. It was a forward question, one he had no right to ask. She was surprised when she heard herself answer. “I was engaged once,” she said softly. “He was killed.”
    She waited for the pain that always came when she merely thought of Warren, let alone mentioned him out loud, but it didn’t come.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Sam O’Ballivan said solemnly.
    â€œIt’s been five years,” Maddie answered, and was grateful when the bell jingled over the door. She’d been alone with Mr. O’Ballivan, or whoever he was, for much too long.
    Â 
    O NCE HE ’ D SETTLED UP his bill and Maddie had promised to send Terran around in a buckboard with the things he’d bought, Sam left the store. The basket Bird had brought him the night before was on the bench on the sidewalk, where he’d left it.
    He’d return it to Oralee Pringle, with his thanks, and ask her about Bird while he was at it. A good part of his mind stayed behind, though, worrying at Maddie Chancelor like an old dog with a soup bone.
    She’d loved a man, five years ago, enough to say she’d marry him.
    Why did it open a hollow place inside him, knowing that? Maddie was a beautiful woman, and she must have had suitors right along. Had she laid her heart in the casket, with her intended, and closed the lid on it for good? And why should it matter to him, anyway, when he was all but promised to the major’s daughter?
    He crossed the street, weaving his way between horses and wagons, and strode along the wooden sidewalk toward the Rattlesnake. The tinny strains of an out-of-tune piano spilled over the swinging doors and he paused outside, trying to shake off his melancholy mood.
    An old, swaybacked horse stood at the water trough, square in front of the saloon, a little apart from the others,