Free The Rustler by Linda Lael Miller Page B

record it in her book of lies.
    â€œThat’s good,” Wyatt said. His dark eyes were almost liquid, there in the dim light of the entryway. “Because if I stay on in Stone Creek, I mean to set about courting you in earnest.”
    â€œ If you stay?” She’d known he was a drifter, an outlaw, that he’d be moving on at some point. So why did she feel as though a deep, dark precipice had just opened at her feet?
    â€œReckon I’ll be deciding on that further along,” he said. “Good night, Sarah.”
    For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, just as Charles had—his face was so very close to hers—but he didn’t. And she was stunned by the depths of her disappointment.
    She watched until he passed through the front gate, turned toward the main part of town, moving in and out of the lamplight. Then she closed the door quietly and went back to the dining room.
    Doc and Owen were busy clearing the table.
    â€œIs Papa leaving me here?” Owen asked hopefully.
    â€œYes,” Sarah said, taken aback, exchanging quick glances with Doc, who’d paused in his plate-gathering like a man listening for some sound in the distance. “But only for a few days. I thought you’d be—well—surprised—”
    â€œPapa’s always leaving me places,” Owen said. His manner was nonchalant, though there was a slight stoop to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.
    Doc shook his head, though the boy didn’t see.
    Sarah contrived to smile and moved to help with the work. “What sort of places?” she asked, in a tone meant to sound cheerful, as though abandoning a child with people who were virtual strangers to him was a common occurrence, and wholly acceptable.
    â€œOnce, I lived at a hotel all by myself for a whole week,” Owen told her. “It was scary at night, but I got to have whatever I wanted to eat, and Papa gave me lots of spending money.”
    Sarah could not look at him. He might see what she was thinking. “Why did he do that?” she asked lightly, when she could trust herself to speak. Again, her gaze met Doc’s, but this time, the look held.
    â€œHe had meetings with a lady. She wore a big hat with pink feathers on it and rode in a carriage with six white horses pulling it.”
    Sarah drew back a chair and sank into it, breathless.
    â€œAre you sick, Aunt Sarah?” Owen asked, clearly frightened.
    â€œI’m f-fine,” Sarah muttered. She wouldn’t have to write that lie in the book to remember it.
    â€œLet’s wash up these dishes,” Doc told the boy, his voice a little too hearty. “Since your aunt Sarah went to all the trouble to cook it and all.”
    Owen nodded, but his eyes were still on Sarah. “I’ll be quiet,” he said. “If you have a headache—”
    Sarah longed to gather the child in her arms, but she didn’t dare. She’d weep if she did, and never let go of him again. “You don’t have to be quiet,” she told him softly.
    Doc put a hand on Owen’s shoulder and steered him in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll wash and you dry,” he said.

CHAPTER FIVE
    W HILE O WEN AND D OC WERE washing dishes, Sarah went upstairs, looked in on her father, who was sleeping soundly, then opened the door to the room across from her own. It contained a brass bed, a washstand and a bureau, and soft moonlight flowed in through the lace curtains.
    The mattress was bare, since no one had used the room in months, with a faded quilt folded at its foot. Briskly, Sarah fetched sheets from the top drawer of the bureau and made up a bed for Owen.
    The process was bittersweet. Tonight, her son would sleep in this room, dreaming, she hoped, little-boy dreams. But there was a disturbing truth in Wyatt and Doc’s teasing—young as he was, Owen was more man than child. He’d lived in hotel rooms by himself, and