Joe quit objecting as he spotted the firm set of Mason’s shoulders and the tense angle of his jaw. He knew why Mason felt the way he did, even if Mason didn’t want to outright admit it. When Mason’s younger sister had refused a wealthy, spoiled suitor used to getting whatever he wanted, the man had gotten drunk and come back the next night with a pistol and shot her before shooting himself. The scandal rocked Tampa when it happened six years earlier, and was the reason Mason left for Brooksville. With Mason’s parents dead and his only sibling murdered, Joe had asked Mason to come live with him.
They’d grown up together, their mothers being sisters, and had been close until Joe’s parents moved to Brooksville to start the sawmill. He’d bought the cattle ranch, taking the sawmill over after his father’s death. His own mother had died a short time later, leaving him alone, too.
It’d only made sense for the cousins to share a place. Since Joe was friends with Brooksville’s sheriff, it wasn’t hard for him to get Mason a job he excelled at. The townspeople liked him, the sheriff liked him, and most importantly, the business owners liked him. Rumor had it when Sheriff Birch retired in a few years that Mason was already the favored replacement.
After he bid Mason good night, Joe retired to his own room where he stripped, lay in bed, and stared at the ceiling. Damn bed felt far too large for a single man. In all honesty, he didn’t want a woman around. A woman would remind him too much of Laura, and what he lost when she died a week before they were to be married. No other woman had ever caught his eye or his heart in the eight lonely years since he’d lost her.
Joe stared at his ceiling. Once again he thought about Mason’s proposal. He didn’t seriously expect the widow to want to come to work for him, but no, it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Maybe she would be good for Mason. He damn sure needed a woman in his life.
Katie spent a restless night starting awake at every sound, familiar or not. She slept with the shotgun next to her in the narrow bed, and extra shells in the pocket of her nightshirt. She held no illusions—Dorchester wouldn’t give up.
Saying yes to Mason’s invitation to the church dinner might gain her an edge that way as well. If Dorchester thought she was close to a deputy, it might give him pause, make him think twice before he bothered her again. As a widow, it wasn’t like she was too concerned with her reputation anyway.
She was more concerned about staying safe.
Moonlight streaming through her back window illuminated her small mantle clock sitting on the shelf. It had been Paul’s, and she faithfully wound it every day, just as he had. It read three twenty.
That’s what she was staring at when a shadow passed across it. At first she didn’t realize what she’d just seen until she heard an unfamiliar scratching noise at her back porch door.
The screened porch had shutters, but she only closed those in bad weather. The screen door had a hook and eye latch, but anyone could cut the screen and open it.
Softly getting out of bed in her bare feet, she grabbed the shotgun and quietly unlocked her back door, letting it silently swing open. Even though only six feet away, the inner door was shrouded in deep shadows, whereas she could clearly see the intruder in the bright moonlight. There, squatting outside her back door, stooped a dark figure. She spotted a flash of silver and realized he was trying to cut her screen.
She brought the shotgun up. “Who the blazes are you?”
The man straightened with an oath and started fumbling for something.
She fired one barrel, the blast of rock salt punching a hole in the screen and catching him squarely in the chest as the loud explosion shattered the silence. He let out a howl of pain and stumbled away from her porch door. Nearby dogs started barking.
“I asked you who you are!” she screamed in a trembling voice.
He still tried to pull something from his side, and that’s when she spotted the gun belt around his waist. She fired again. While he fell to the ground screaming and clutching his chest, she immediately broke the gun open, loaded two more shells—of buckshot—and aimed. “Drop the gun or I’ll blow your head off with real shot this time!”
Apparently not so badly injured he couldn’t run, he dragged himself to his feet and took off. She raced to the door, fumbling with the latch in the darkness, and stumbled down the steps. As he disappeared into the shadows of a stand of oaks, she unloaded both barrels at him.
Too terrified to return inside, she pulled two more shells from the pocket of her nightshirt and loaded them with trembling fingers. That’s when Ben Ainsley, one of the volunteer firefighters, ran up with only his trousers on, a rifle in his hands.
“Katherine! Are you all right? What in blue blazes is going on?” More local men joined him, until a small crowd of ten men, all half dressed and well armed, surrounded her.
She tearfully repeated her story. One of the men examined her back door and held up a knife. “Here’s what he was using, the filthy bastard. He must have dropped it when you shot him.” He realized who he was talking to. “Pardon my language, Miz Dorchester.”
She nodded, not the least concerned about his swearing. Despite the warm evening she felt herself tremble as she stood there barefooted in the cool, dewy grass. She heard one of the men say, “She don’t look good. Somebody catch—”
She fainted.
Chapter Four
Mason awoke to someone loudly banging on the front door and screaming his name. By the time he reached the front door to find out what was going on, he had his trousers and suspenders on and his revolver ready. He found Jim Smith, one of the men who worked for Joe but lived in town, standing on his front porch.
Joe, also armed, rushed up behind Mason as Jim spilled the story. “Come quick, Mason! Someone tried to break into Miz Dorchester’s place!”
Mason’s heart nearly seized in his chest. “Is she all right?”
“Yeah, but considering she put two loads of rock salt into his front side at a close distance, and fired off two loads of buckshot behind him, I don’t imagine he’ll be too hard to track down.”
“Wait here. I’ll get dressed.”
He nearly tripped over Joe as he turned. “I’ll saddle a horse for you,” Joe offered. “You go get ready.”
Mason slapped him on the shoulder in thanks as he ran for his bedroom, heart racing. Damn it, I should have anticipated this!
Ten minutes later, he was on his horse and galloping alongside Jim, heading toward town. At that speed the ride took less than fifteen minutes, which still felt too long. One of the other deputies, Carl Daily, was already there and organizing a posse.
He raced inside her shop to find Katie sitting up in bed and talking to Shelby Ainsley, Ben’s wife. She looked pale and frightened.
He also didn’t miss she had the shotgun in bed with her.
Pulling his hat off, he stepped close. “Are you all right, Katie?”
She nodded, but looked close to tears. Shelby Ainsley stood and moved out of his way so he could sit down. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She softly recounted her ordeal in a trembling voice that didn’t sound like the determined woman he’d met the morning before. If Shelby Ainsley wasn’t hovering by the door, he’d have pulled Katie into his arms and hugged her until he could make her feel safe again.
“Do you think the posse will find him?” she asked.
“Maybe, maybe not.” He smiled. “But anyone who sees him will probably turn him in. Especially if he goes to see Doc Tyler. Can’t explain away a face full of rock salt very easily.”