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you?”
    She hesitated. She and her parents had regularly attended church in Galveston. It was the one place she had been able to find a small amount of peace after the murders. But she had come here to kill a man. “Church?”
    â€œIt’s at the end of Main Street. You can’t miss it.”
    â€œOh, yes.” She recalled the white frame building with the steeple, and a part of her wanted to be there tomorrow.
    â€œI’ll see you here on Monday then. Make it about six-thirty or seven in the evening. I’ll have to get my other deputy, Jake, to guard the prisoner.”
    â€œAll right. Monday.” Tarnation!
    She would be spending far more time with the sheriff than she wanted. Despite the opportunity she now had to wheedle information about McDougal out of the lawman, she had the uneasy sense that Holt had agreed to teach her to shoot for the very same reason she had asked—so he could keep an eye on her. She didn’t like that at all.

Chapter Three
    W hy in the Sam Hill had Josie Webster been in his jail? Davis Lee was still chewing on that question the next morning during church. He knew exactly how she had managed to wind up in his office the minute he left it. And it was mighty suspicious that Jake’s horse just happened to spook at the same time.
    Davis Lee didn’t know what to make of the woman. When she had pulled that scalpel out of her bodice, he’d nearly swallowed his teeth. The last thing he needed was to replay the image of her hand slipping between her breasts. He couldn’t seem to stop it though he tried hard to focus instead on the doubts she raised in him.
    Maybe he was suspicious because the first time he had seen Josie, desire had hit him hard and fast. He didn’t trust such raw instant want. It had gotten him in a passel of trouble before and he wasn’t giving in to it again. Still, he spent more time thinking about the intriguing brunette than Reverend Scoggins’s sermon.
    Catching her in his jail reinforced Davis Lee’s certainty that she was up to something. Which was why he had gone straight to Ef and gotten a big padlock for McDougal’s cell. One reason—the only reason—he had agreed to teach herto shoot was to see if she was comfortable with guns and knew how to handle them. The woman knew how to use a scalpel, for crying out loud. It was possible she knew how to use a gun, as well.
    He had no proof, but he couldn’t shake the feeling she had some connection to McDougal. Her request for shooting lessons had seemed too ready. Prepared almost.
    After church he turned around and saw her rising from the back pew. The burn of desire he felt didn’t surprise him, but the relief that she was here and not slipping inside his jail again did.
    She stepped outside and started down the stairs, but the reverend stopped her. Keeping an eye on her, Davis Lee moved into the aisle as his brother, Riley, and his wife, Susannah, gathered up their baby. He greeted Cora Wilkes and her brother, Loren Barnes, who had come to Whirlwind about two months ago to help his widowed sister.
    From the corner of his eye, Davis Lee saw Josie move down the steps then stop to speak to Pearl Anderson. This time he walked out on the landing and she glanced up. When their gazes locked, he nodded and met her at the bottom.
    He greeted Pearl as she walked past him to speak to someone else, but his attention stayed on Josie.
    â€œSheriff,” she said.
    â€œDavis Lee.” He smiled. The peach dress she wore accentuated her breasts and small waist. The color became her, warming her golden skin and deepening the green of her eyes. He couldn’t help wondering if the deep-cut bodice filled with white pleating hid her scalpel. “Nice to see you, Miz Webster. Did you enjoy the service?”
    â€œYes, I did. Did you?”
    She was about the same height as Susannah, and she was small. A small brown hat circled by a ribbon matching her