He snorted lightly. “You could be the smartest person around and your wits still won’t help you outrun a bear.”
She wasn’t about to let Sheriff Parker know about the gun she had hidden in the rafters at the school. He would commence with all kinds of questions and then what would she say?
“Glad you haven’t had any trouble,” he said, looking more relaxed. “Part of my job is to make sure people in town stay safe.”
“I thought your job was to uphold the law.”
“Figure it’s the same thing.”
His words only served to make her feel guilty. How would he feel if he knew Clear Springs harbored a fugitive from justice? Here he was helping her, yet she wasn’t being honest with him.
She eased her horse up over the crest of a hill and started down into a small valley. The trail split, and she reined back slightly to see which fork the sheriff would choose. When he moved ahead and to the left, she found herself staring at his broad capable back as his horse made the way down a particularly bumpy patch of ground. He held himself square and confident, the ends of his leather jacket brushing his thighs and saddle. He did not appear concerned about the trail...or rattlers...or bears. All of which put her that much more at ease. Had she been alone, she would have been just the opposite—nervous and timid.
She could see now why Molly and Eileen thought highly of him. They both had mentioned more than once, his commanding nature and his handsome face. Eileen in particular had bemoaned the fact that he was engaged.
“I could not have found this trail,” she admitted softly.
He glanced back over his shoulder, his deep blue gaze sliding to hers as he quietly acknowledged her words. Something shifted between them. Something that felt...comfortable.
“Sheriff?”
“Call me Craig.”
She hesitated. That might be a bit too comfortable, especially considering his engaged status. In fact, it surprised her that he would mention it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He was silent for a moment, and then murmured, “Suit yourself.”
“It’s just...in Boston it would be considered much too familiar.”
“This ain’t Boston.”
“Isn’t Boston,” she said, the words rolling off her tongue out of habit.
“This isn’t school,” he said, his voice clipped. “And I’m not in your classroom.”
She was mortified. How could she have corrected him when he had been helping her this morning! It was inexcusable. “I...I beg your pardon, Sheriff. I meant no offense. It was simply...habit.”
His jaw tightened. Then, after a minute he continued. “The town isn’t that big. We will run into each other more often than we would if we were in a city. It’s easier...”
“I agree. But I’m sure your fiancée would prefer—”
“Where did you hear I was engaged?” he asked sharply.
Now she’d put her foot in it. “Mrs. Birdwell mentioned it a few days ago. Is it...true?”
For a moment, he did not answer her. She began to think he wasn’t going to when she heard him continue.
“It was true.”
Was? Past tense? “I’m sorry to hear that. May I ask what happened?”
“No,” he said curtly. He let out a sharp whistle and urged his horse to pick up the pace.
Warmth flushed up her cheeks. Apparently a first-name basis with him didn’t translate to questions about his fiancée. She had overstepped in presuming it did. They weren’t exactly friends...but they weren’t enemies either. She tapped her mount’s flanks lightly with her heels, encouraging the mare to quicken its steps and follow before he moved too far ahead and out of sight.
Twenty minutes later they came to a small, dilapidated spread nestled in the dip of two boulder-strewn hillsides.
* * *
“That must be it,” she murmured as they passed a small outhouse snugged up against the mountainside and surrounded by a few straggly pines. It was the end of the trail. The path they were on dwindled out ahead of them before a slanted wooden structure—a homestead that appeared barely large enough for one room, let alone a place to house four people. The mule that the children rode to school stood forlorn in a small, dusty corral next to the house. On the other side of the building, a frame sat in the sun with what she thought might be four rabbit skins stretched from top to bottom.
The sheriff dismounted and tied his horse to the corral post. He walked over, helped her down and had almost released her when her legs wobbled.
He grasped her again and she gripped his forearms, steadying herself further. His arms were hard as stone, so muscular that her fingers couldn’t span but half the width. Holding on to him was like holding on to a tree trunk—sturdy and immoveable.
The look he gave her carried a hint of uneasiness. “Steady?”
She nodded...but couldn’t bring herself to smile and smooth over the awkwardness of their situation—not after the words they had each spoken. “It would be prudent for me to ride more often.” She stepped back to a more suitable distance.
“You’re not in Bos—”
“Not in Boston anymore. As you reminded me earlier.” She glanced at the dismal scene before her and couldn’t help recalling the cozy restaurants and cobbled, clean streets of the city where she had grown up. There was no comparison. And she would—she must—adapt. She couldn’t go back. “I’m trying to accept that very fact.”
“Then you might want to brace yourself.”
At a noise from the direction of the house, they turned. A small, birdlike woman stepped out on the porch holding a rifle before her at hip level with both hands. “State your business,” she said, her voice sharp and suspicious.
Gemma opened her mouth to answer, but then stopped at the woman’s appearance. Her faded dress hung loose on her body with a dirty apron hanging from around her waist and she was barefoot. Barefoot! And with cold weather already here! She looked to be about forty-five but Gemma wondered if that was accurate. She hadn’t bothered to put her hair up, but simply tied the stringy blond strands back with a faded piece of frayed ribbon at the nape of her neck.
“I recognize you,” she said, training the barrel of her rifle at the sheriff’s chest. “You brought my young’uns home from town over the summer when the weather turned.”
“Glad to see you remember. They were selling their pelts. How’s the trapping been out this way?”
“Good as anywhere, I ’spect.”
“You okay on meat?”
“’Preciate your askin’. Billy checks his trapline daily. Got rabbit, raccoon, squirrel. We’re doin’ all right.” Her gaze flickered to Gemma and drifted down her coat to her shoes before eyeing the sheriff again. “What’s she doin’ here?”
“This is Miss Starling, the new schoolteacher in Clear Springs.”
Gemma took one step closer. She couldn’t very well say that she was upset with Tara’s and Billy’s attendance right off. And in the light of their upbringing, suddenly it seemed insensitive to broach a criticism right at the start of the meeting. “I am visiting all of my students’ families to introduce myself.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Odom lowered the destructive end of the rifle