by Merry Farmer
Finally, neither of them could hold the position any longer. Mason let out a breath and flopped to the side. Libby sank down next to him, body hot and damp and loose with elation. In spite of the almost blinding heat, she pressed herself against Mason’s side, curling an arm and leg over him. She had wanted every moment of what they’d done, and she’d enjoyed it. For her wounded heart, that was a victory beyond measure.
“That’s just what we needed to start this marriage off right.” Mason could breathe heavily.
“Yes.” It was all Libby could manage. Her guilt was still there, but it’d been superseded by pleasure and satiety, and the promise that there was so much more to come.
A few minutes later, their breathing had steadied, and Mason reached down to pull the covers over them. He closed his eyes, and so did she.
Libby was convinced Mason had fallen asleep, right up until he said, “We’ll find a way to get rid of Hector, once and for all. Immediately.”
Chapter Seven
It didn’t take a spectacular afternoon and magical night of making love to his new wife—a woman he’d loved for years and now felt comfortable admitting it—to underscore Mason’s decision to do something about Hector. Whoever that man thought he was, he’d hurt Libby. Mason didn’t believe for a moment that the situation his wife had found herself in after Teddy’s death had been as cut-and-dry as she claimed it was. No man worth his salt would make those kinds of advances on a new widow—or any sort of good woman—without marrying her. Libby had turned down Hector’s marriage proposal, so there was no excuse for any part of his behavior.
Which was why the man needed to be dealt with.
Mason stepped up to Haskell’s jail, knocked on the door, then let himself in. “Morning, Trey.” He took off his hat and nodded to the sheriff.
Trey Knighton had been Haskell’s sheriff for the past two years. He was young, muscular, and had a scar that ran from his forehead across his eyebrow, then down over his cheek. Whenever anyone asked about it, Trey just shrugged and said he was lucky he hadn’t lost his eye. No mention of the circumstances that had led to that almost loss. Mason had the feeling Haskell’s sheriff might have been on the other side of the law at one point, which was why Mason was at the jail now.
“Mason.” Trey pushed his chair back from the jail desk where he’d been doing paperwork. He smiled as he stood, and stepped around to shake Mason’s hand. “What brings you out here today? I usually only see you when you’re bailing Cody out after a night at The Silver Dollar.”
Mason snorted and shook his head, grinning. “Yeah, and Travis has bailed us both out plenty of other times.”
Trey laughed, then stepped back and crossed his arms, sitting on the edge of the desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The corner of Mason’s mouth twitched. “How far could I go to put the fear of God in a man, as it were, before crossing the line into illegal assault?”
Trey’s grin dropped. “What’s going on?”
That was the other reason Mason headed straight to the sheriff the morning after his wedding night. If anyone in town would back him up in his efforts to get rid of a man who had hurt a woman, it was Trey.
Mason shifted, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “You know I married Libby Sims yesterday, right?”
“I’d heard.” Trey nodded. “Also heard she’s newly widowed. I can’t lie, Mason, it seems a little sudden. A couple other folks think so too.”
“Yeah, well, you’d understand why it had to be sudden if you knew what Libby has been through.”
He fixed Trey with a stare meant to communicate how bad things were without words. Trey narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly, understanding at least a little.
“There’s a man in town,” Mason went on. “Showed up on the train yesterday. Name’s Hector Sterling. Former logger, but he wears nice clothes. His family has money.”
Trey’s gaze lost focus for a moment as he thought. “I might have seen him over at the hotel. Said he was looking for gainful employment.”
Mason hoped that much wasn’t true. If Hector had it in his head to get a job in Haskell, then he was serious about pestering Libby.
“I don’t know all the details,” Mason went on, voice low, “but the bastard hurt Libby.”
Trey jolted to his feet, jaw hard.
“He showed up right after the wedding claiming Libby was his fiancée. When he saw that Libby’d just married me, he called her names, made threats.”
“And now he’s trying to get a foothold in this town.” Trey hissed, shaking his head.
“I won’t have it,” Mason said. “I need to know how far I can go without breaking any laws.”
Trey studied him, then began to pace. He rubbed his jaw, the wheels of thought turning so hard in his head that Mason could practically see them. Not for the first time, he thanked God that Haskell had a clever man for a sheriff.
“The trouble is,” Trey said as he reached the far end of the room and turned, “any kind of assault is illegal, even if the bastard deserves it. A fair fight is another story, but I still don’t know if I can look the other way for that.”
“I’ve got to do something,” Mason insisted. “Libby is in a bad spot with this whole thing. She thinks she’s at fault for some reason.”
Trey rolled his shoulders, eyes still fixed on the floor, as he headed back to Mason. “Any chance what this Hector fellow did to Libby was itself illegal?”
A sick, shivery feeling passed down Mason’s spine. An ugly word came to his mind—a crime and an abomination. He hated to think that that crime had been committed against his sweet Libby, and at a time in her life that was already traumatic, but he answered, “Yes.”
Trey’s expression pinched to regret. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “That’s something no woman should ever have to go through, and something that warrants ripping the bastard’s balls off.” He sighed and shook his head. “But without proof or a trial or, I don’t know, a confession, there’s no way to bring him to justice.”
“A confession?” Mason blinked and frowned. He thought back to the ease with which Hector had blurted out everything that had happened between him and Libby at the church. Under the right circumstances, would he blurt out more?
Trey sat on the edge of his desk again with a shrug. “No man who’s done what that bastard has will walk into a jail and confess to his crime.”
The gears were already turning in Mason’s mind. “But what if he confessed it somewhere else, to someone else?”
Trey winced as he thought about it. “If they were reliable witnesses and he confessed under, let’s just say, sober circumstances, then you might be able to build a case against him for the next time Judge Pilfrey comes through town.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.” Mason slapped his hat back on his head. “I’ll catch Hector unawares and get him to confess where people can hear it.”
“Hold on there.” Trey raised his hand. “There’s a little something called ‘entrapment’ that you have to watch out for.”
“Entrapment?”
“Any confession the bastard makes might not hold up in a court of law if he can prove that he was strong-armed into confessing. If you’re going to do this, it needs to be of his own free will and without anyone holding a gun to his head, literally or figuratively.”
Mason could have punched his way through the wall. “Why does the law make it so damn difficult to catch criminals?”
Trey let out a breath and shook his head. “If you’d ever been falsely accused of a horrible crime, you’d know.” He got up from his desk and came over to slap Mason’s back. “Let me know if you need any help nailing the bastard.”
Mason nodded in thanks and turned to march back out onto the streets of Haskell. He was fuming now. As much as he’d wanted it to be simple to take out Hector, the truth was that he would have to step carefully. There didn’t seem to be much justice in him having to be careful about how he dealt with a man who�
�d hurt his wife. A well-placed bullet would have been the best solution, but even that would carry consequences he wasn’t ready to face.
By the time he looped around Station Street and started up Prairie Avenue to Josephine and Pete’s house, he’d forced himself to calm down a little. Libby had driven back into town first thing that morning to help Josephine out around the house and to spend time with her boys. Until their house in The Village was finished, she would continue to do the same every day. Mason couldn’t blame her at all. Family was important, and as much as he loved her, he was a new addition.
“Hey, Mason,” little Petey called out from Josephine’s porch as Mason approached. “Wanna play catch?”
Something about the youthful enthusiasm in Libby’s boy’s face and the fact that he’d asked Mason to play struck a chord deep in Mason’s heart. It soothed his anger by a hair.
“Sure, son.” He smiled and strode up to the porch. Matthew was there too, and together the two boys scrambled down to the yard to meet Mason. “Uh, do you mind if I call you son like that?” he asked with a burst of awkwardness.
Petey scrunched his face and tilted his head to the side. “Well, sir, I’m Theodore Sims’s son. But you’re married to my mama now. So I don’t know what you should call me.”
The innocent wisdom of the boy’s logic squeezed Mason’s heard harder. He ruffled his hand over Petey’s already boyishly mussed hair. “I tell you what. How about whenever I call you ‘son,’ we think of it with a lower-case S, but whenever we talk about you being Teddy Sims’s son, we think of it with an upper-case S?”
Petey grinned. “Okay. I like that. Wanna throw the ball?”
“Me too,” Matthew piped in. “I want to throw the ball too.”
“You’re too little,” Petey told him. “You can’t catch it most of the time.”
Matthew lowered his head in a pout.
“Well, that’s why we need to teach him the right way to do it,” Mason said. “Us being bigger and all.”
Again, Petey tilted his head to the side in thought. “I guess you’re right.”
When he glanced up to Mason with a smile, a burst of pride unlike anything Mason had ever experienced filled him. Was this what it was like to be a father? If it was, he wanted more of it.
“Right. You go stand at that end of the yard, and Matthew and I will stand at this end.” He took Matthew’s hand and jogged to the row of Josephine’s rose bushes, while Petey dashed to the far side with the boxwood hedge.
In no time, the baseball was sailing across the front yard. Mason was able to give Petey a few pointers about his throw while showing Matthew the best way to hold his hands to make catching easier. Ever the baseball player that he was, he caught himself thinking that Petey would make a first-rate pitcher for one of Haskell’s teams someday, and if they worked at it, Matthew would be a great player too. Spending time with the boys pushed his anger at Hector to the back of his mind, which was where it needed to be if he was going to get on with things.
“You look like you’re having fun.”
Mason wasn’t sure how long they’d been playing in the front yard before Libby stepped out onto the porch. It had only been a day, but to Mason’s eyes, Libby had changed in so many ways. She wore the same, simple blue dress she’d worn the day before the wedding instead of the black she’d arrived in Haskell wearing. Her thick brown hair was caught up in an unassuming bun. But the smile she wore when her eyes met his was as different as summer was from winter. So was the hot, pink flush that came to her cheeks. If it wasn’t for the boys, Mason would have rushed to her, pinned her against Josephine’s porch railing, and kissed her senseless.
“Mason is teaching us how to catch and throw the right way,” Petey reported. He left his spot at the end of the yard and went to give his mother a hug. “I said he could call me ‘son’ with a lower-case S.”
Libby’s face pinched with emotion, and her eyes went bright. “How lovely,” she whispered, rewarding Mason with a smile.
“Me too,” Matthew declared, running across the yard to hug Libby the way Petey had.
The picture they painted—so innocent and happy—etched itself in Mason’s soul. He would stop at nothing, no matter how clever or drastic he had to be, to get rid of Hector Sterling once and for all.
“Mr. Gunn is expecting you two over at the hotel,” Libby went on in a more motherly tone of voice.
“Mr. Gunn?” A grin twitched at the corner of Mason’s lips. “How’d you two get an appointment with someone so important?”
“We’re going to learn painting,” Matthew declared. He jumped from the second porch step, arms spread wide, to show his enthusiasm.
Libby laughed. “Mr. Gunn kindly offered to host an art lesson for some of Haskell’s children in one of the hotel ballrooms. Mrs. Corva Haskell is coming to teach it.” She shepherded her boys onward, down the front path and out to the street. “Mr. Gunn says children can get restless when the weather is colder, so he’ll be hosting these Saturday lessons until spring.”
Mason grinned, taking Libby’s hand. “Theophilus Gunn is a man among men.”
They walked on together, Mason feeling like the king of the world escorting his queen. If he had his way, he would give Libby every good thing in the world. And the boys. They deserved every good thing too. The two of them darted ahead, investigating some plant or odd rock or another every couple of yards, then rushing back to report their findings. As Mason and Libby reached Elizabeth Street and turned to head on to the hotel, the two of them ventured further away.
Elizabeth Street was far more crowded than Prairie Avenue. It was where Mason began to notice the looks. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but when Mrs. Plover went so far as to turn her nose up and deliberately look away from Libby as they crossed the street, his back began to itch. When Mrs. Kline snorted as they passed and turned to whisper to the old biddy walking with her, Mason knew something was terribly wrong.
“They know.” Libby winced and tried to let go of Mason’s hand. “Hector got to them. He must have told them.”
Mason refused to let her extract her fingers from his, like he might be embarrassed to be seen with her. “Maybe they weren’t talking about you,” he said, though he knew it wasn’t true.
Libby sent him a look that was both stern and mournful to show she knew he was being too optimistic. “He said I’d regret it. He said I would know that I belonged to him.”
“Well, you don’t,” Mason snapped, glancing around to see if anyone else dared to even try to disparage her. “Don’t worry, Libby. I’ve got a plan to—”
He was cut off by a sudden female shout.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m sorry.” Petey launched into a desperate apology.
Ahead of them, the boys had apparently run headlong into Bonnie Horner as she came down the hotel steps. From the looks of things, they’d nearly knocked her off her feet. She still clung to Matthew, as if he was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry.” Libby jogged ahead to try to make things right. “Boys, watch where you’re going.”
“It’s all right.” Bonnie laughed.
That reaction alone shot Mason’s eyebrows straight up as he strode to join them. He couldn’t ever remember seeing Bonnie laugh. Or smile. But there she was now, beaming down at Matthew and Petey.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Bonnie said, extending a hand to Libby. “Bonnie Horner.”
“Libby Si—Libby Montrose.”
They shook hands, and Bonnie added. “I own the whorehouse across the way there.”
Libby’s eyes popped wide at the ease with which Bonnie admitted to her business. She glanced through the stretch of backyards that separated the houses on Prairie Avenue from the ones on Main Street to the pink-painted building about halfway down Main.
“Oh? Well… I…” Libby stumbled.
“I know what people think.” Bonnie leaned toward her with a conspiratorial twi
nkle in her eyes, and lowered her voice. “But there’s no sense pretending to be something we’re not.”
Libby blanched at the comment and looked away. Bonnie’s eyes widened. Her expression dropped to concern.
“I’m sorry, I meant that to be a lighthearted, self-effacing comment,” she said. Her expression changed again to something that Mason couldn’t recognize. He suspected it was the kind of look that women saved for other women. In fact, he was certain of it when Bonnie shifted to stand by Libby’s side, close enough to rest an arm around her back in that comforting way women had. “Is everything all right, Mrs. Montrose?” she asked.
Libby took a breath, blinking until her smile returned and her shoulders eased. “Yes, yes, of course. Everything is lovely.”
Mason didn’t have to be a woman to see that Bonnie didn’t believe her. Maybe it was good luck that the boys had run into Bonnie after all. He wanted to give Libby the world and right every wrong that’d ever been done to her, but some things were beyond his capabilities. Sometimes you needed help, and in spite of the establishment she owned, Bonnie was highly respected in Haskell.
Libby cleared her throat. “We need to hurry along. Mr. Gunn has prepared an exciting activity for the boys today.”
“Yes, so I saw.” Bonnie stepped back, breaking the momentary connection she and Libby had had. “I was just in the hotel restaurant, having brunch with Rex and his daughters and some man who’s applying for the job of foreman at the Bonneville ranch.”
“Some man?” Libby went even paler.
“Bonneville.” Mason rubbed a hand over his face. And here he’d thought things couldn’t get worse.
Bonnie hummed. “I don’t think the man is qualified,” she said. Her glance flickered to Libby. “He had a few things to say about you, Mrs. Montrose, but it all sounded like so much rubbish to me.”
“Oh no.” Libby clasped a hand over her stomach.
