His father had promised he’d send him, and Jason had promised he’d go, but Jason had since learned that a promise was just as fleeting as the air it was breathed into.
He pinched the brim of his nose to help keep himself awake. The kitten. He had to remember to tell Jenny. He’d forgotten all about it until just now.
Well, pinching his nose a few times didn’t seem to do the trick, because the next thing he knew, he was stretched out on the bed and Jenny was back in the doorway.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked, her toe tapping.
“Oh.” Supper, that was right, wasn’t it? “Be right there.”
She sniffed. “I swan, Jason Fury, I don’t know what you’d do if left to your own devices. Sleep straight through until you were sixty, probably.”
He raised his arm to make a point, but she had already gone. Oh, she could be a saucy little wench, his sister, he thought with a smile. He sniffed the air. Chicken and gravy? His mouth began to water, and suddenly he was standing up and on his way down the hall. Jenny’s gravy pulled at him like a magnet.
Things had surely changed since they left Kansas City, he mused. When they left, Jenny was more apt to blow up a kitchen than cook anything vaguely edible in it. But lately, she’d turned into one hell of a cook. Either that, or she’d just plain worn down his taste buds. . . .
He smiled as he sat down at the table. “Jenny, you’ve done it again. Smells great!” He snapped open his napkin and tucked it into his collar.
She carried a platter over to the table and slid it down beside him. Fried chicken, all right!
She muttered, “I can remember a time when you were afraid I was gonna blow up the kitchen every time I cooked.”
Megan looked up from her plate at that, and Jason gave her a wink. “Well, Jenny, all I had to go on was past experience.”
“One time! One time that happened, and that was clear back in Kansas City, Jason!”
He grabbed her around the waist, grinning, and said, “Now, sister, I admit it. You’ve improved tremendously! I actually look forward to coming home to your cookin’, and that’s the truth of it.”
She relaxed, but said, “Don’t go throwin’ those college words around, you ol’ show-off. ‘Tremendously. ’ Honest to gosh!”
Jason tried to look innocent, but failed miserably. He loosened his grip on Jenny, and she slipped away and into her chair. As she sat down and shook out her napkin, she said, “We almost had a guest for dinner. Besides Meg, I mean.”
He helped himself to the chicken, then reached for the mashed potatoes. “How so? And Meg isn’t a guest. She knows she’s welcome here any old time, right, Megan?”
Megan didn’t have time to do more than open her mouth before Jenny said, “It was the nicest man, Jason. We met him this morning, and he was just so . . . nice!”
“But we left before Jenny thought to ask him,” said Megan.
“And when we went back, he was gone,” Jenny said.
The girls were doing it again. They had him holding one conversation with two girls who seemed to be reading each other’s minds. He didn’t believe they even realized they were doing it!
“Who was he?” Jason asked as Meg handed him the gravy.
“Oh, he had the most beautiful name, too!” Jenny fairly squealed. “It was Rafe.”
“Rafe Lynch,” added Megan. “The first name’s prettier than the last.”
Jason froze, mid-pour. After the moment it took him to let this news sink in, he said, “You were at Abigail’s when you met him.” If he’d had access to a buggy whip, he would have taken it to Jenny right then and there.
Jenny, who seemed to be able to sense what he was thinking, said, “Now, Jason, don’t be cross. We just ducked in to get out of the rain, and when we went inside, Abigail was the only one there!”
“Still, you know you’re not supposed to be in there. Especially hangin’ around with the likes of Rafe Lynch! He’s a dangerous man, Jenny. And you pay attention, too, Meg. He’s wanted for eight murders in California. Eight! He’s a cold-blooded killer, and you’re not to go anywhere near him again!”
Jenny started, “But, Jason . . .”
“No!” he shouted, cutting her off more firmly than he wished, but less vehemently than he felt. Damn that Lynch! Why did he have to choose Fury in which to stop over?
He remembered the gravy then, and finished pouring out his share. And when he looked up again, Jenny was close to tears. He reached to put his hand on her arm, but she snatched it away and said, “Don’t!”
He switched his attention to Megan. “What?”
“You’re terrible, Jason!” she said, shoving away from the table. “He was just lovely, really nice. There must be two Rafe Lynches, that’s what it is, and Jenny and I met the good one! He couldn’t possibly be a . . . a k-killer! He’s well-spoken and he told us about beating the storm into town, and—”
“And he has little crinkles at the corners of his eyes!” Jenny added, as if this was a sure and certain sign of sainthood. Now, Jason knew full well that if there was more than one Rafe Lynch, this wasn’t him. They had the real, honest-to-God Rafe Lynch setting up shop—now down the street, at the saloon—and he was a very bad man.
But in order to calm the girls, and also to avoid ruining a perfectly good meal, he decided to take the middle road. “All right. Maybe there is more than one Rafe Lynch. I’ll check it out first thing tomorrow morning. Everybody happy again?”
Megan scraped her chair back toward the table, and Jenny took the gravy boat from Jason’s hand. The situation was calmed, at least for the present.
However, it seemed that Jason was doomed to have a troubled suppertime. At just about the time that Jenny began to cut the apple pie into slices and serve it, the sound of arguing voices came to Jason’s ears, followed directly by a fist banging on the door. “Who in the hell . . . ?” he muttered as he rose and walked to the front door, after cautioning the girls to stay put.
The banging, which had kept up since it started, suddenly stopped as Jason opened the door to find Deputy Ward Wanamaker, fist cocked back and aimed directly at Matt MacDonald, whom he held by the collar. And who was also the last person Jason expected to find in Fury that day. Ward was a tall, string bean of a man and had about four inches on Matt, and Matt looked, well, afraid.
Without taking his fist down, Ward said, “I already told him about twenty times that we ain’t got no jurisdiction out at his place, but he kept shoutin’ as how he wanted to talk to somebody in authority, not no stupid deputy. And so I brung him here. This here’s the highest authority in Fury, Matthew,” he added, punctuating the statement with a shake of Matt’s collar that rattled the man’s teeth.
Once again, Jason pulled on the cloak of peacemaker. “Let go of him, Ward.”
Ward gradually loosened his grip and lowered his punching arm, and for just a second, Jason thought that Matt was going to rabbit. But he didn’t. With a glare of unadulterated rage painting his features, he snarled, “I imagine you’re gonna be as useless as usual?”
“If you got problems out at your place, you’re right,” Jason said. “What is it this time?”
“My cattle, godammit! Somebody stole two of my cattle!”
“Sorry to hear that, Matt.”
“You’re not sorry at all! You’ve got it in for anything or anybody attached to me, and I swear, I—”
“You swear what, Matthew?” asked Megan, who had just appeared at Jason’s side, her napkin in her hand.