Free Jodi Thomas by The Texans Wager Page B

offer the very thing she needed most in this world. A quiet place to rest for a while and heal.
    She walked back into the house and laughed aloud as she noticed that the slip of paper she’d scribbled a grocery list on was now missing.
    A few minutes later she heard the wagon pass the house and head up the road toward town.

SEVEN
    T HE SUN MANAGED TO DRY A THIN LAYER OF HARD dirt over the muddy street by the time Carter pulled into town. He gave Bailee’s list to one of the girls at Willard’s general store and walked over to the livery. He felt people watching him, staring even more intensely than usual. A few smiled at him, and to his surprise, a saloon girl passed him glaring as though looking right through him. It appeared that by marrying he’d become acceptable to some and off-limits to others.
    “Morning!” Angus Mosely, the livery owner, shouted to Carter as though he spoke to him every day. “How’s the little wife?” he asked in a voice people could hear all the way to the saloon.
    Carter nodded once and stopped while still several feet upwind of Mosely. He had no idea how he should answer such a greeting, or why the man suddenly seemed concerned about his wife. He’d had to deal with the livery owner a few times over the years, but Mosely was usually too drunk to say much.
    Though only a few years older than Carter, Mosely moved like a man twice his age. Old age had settled into his bones early. He had a lazy eye, or more accurately he had one good eye in a body otherwise consumed with little or no activity. The one alert eye took in everything around him while it dragged the rest of his dirty face and smelly body along behind.
    Mosely’s only friend in town seemed to be Wheeler, Sheriff Riley’s deputy, who could match both Mosely’s work habits most days and his drinking habits most nights. Willard had often told Carter stories of finding the pair passed out in front of his store at dawn.
    “She must be fine and dandy.” Mosely tried again to make conversation, interrupting Carter’s thoughts. “I’ll bet she sent you into town after her things or you wouldn’t be here pestering me.” He laughed in short little sounds that lifted one side of his mouth only briefly. “Better face it, mister, from now on you can stop thinking and just wait for orders. Your carefree days are over.”
    Carter didn’t answer as he followed Mosely into the barn. Willard told Carter once that the whole town couldn’t decide if Mosely smelled like the barn, or if the barn smelled of Mosely. Either way most men breathed shallow once they stepped inside the livery.
    Mosely’s rambling about carefree days made no sense. Carter hadn’t had a day free of worry in his life. Why should having a wife make it any different?
    Mosely talked on, greeting the horses in the same tone he greeted most people. He needed no return fire of conversation from Carter or the animals.
    He finally led Carter to Bailee’s wagon behind the stables. If the schooner were in any worse shape, Carter would have suggested using it as firewood. The hand brake had fallen completely off and lay in the mud. There were holes in even the patches of the canvas, and one of the corral horses had gnawed a crescent shape into the wood of the bench seat.
    Carter looked inside. Several boxes, layered in mud and dirt, were lodged against one end. A small bed was wedged into the other. Empty boxes and barrels that must have once held supplies cluttered the middle of the wagon. Everything was soaked from days of rain.
    “You owe me three dollars for storage and feed for the animals.” Mosely scratched his beard. “I’d take a pair of the oxen in trade, but I’ve no use for the wagon.”
    Carter shook his head and handed the man a gold coin.
    Mosely shadowed him as Carter walked around the wagon. “For another four bits I’d drive it out to your place.”
    Carter agreed without bartering and walked away. He went back to the general store and was relieved