Jared's Runaway Woman
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Kinsey headed into the general store, knowing she’d find Sam sitting on the counter, Ida Burk presenting him with a peppermint stick from one of the glass display jars. But at the doorway she turned back and cast another look at the stage depot. At the man.
In that instant he turned her way, and for a second their gazes met and held. Kinsey’s breath caught. Her heart started up its thumping again and her stomach gave a quick lurch. He stared right back at her, frozen, as she was, for a few seconds.
Kinsey came to her senses with a little gasp and dashed into the general store, leaving the stranger staring after her.
What the hell was he doing.
Jared Mason gave himself a mental shake, silently admonishing himself for blatantly ogling the woman across the street. True, she was pretty; he could tell that even from a distance. And true, he’d been cooped up on the stage for days—and before that, weeks on the train—and this was the first woman who’d caught his eye, so he guessed he owed it to himself to enjoy the view.
Yet that wasn’t what he was here for.
Jared adjusted his grip on his valise and satchel, and headed down the street toward the hotel the shotgun rider had told him about.
Walking, stretching his legs felt good. Jared kept his pace steady, more interested in looking over the town than getting to the hotel.
Crystal Springs, Colorado, seemed like a prosperous place. Jared spied stores, restaurants, a bank, a hotel and several other businesses. Men in suits roamed the street alongside cowboys carrying guns on their hips, miners with long beards, women in gingham dresses. The town looked clean, and from the talk he’d heard on the stagecoach, the place was growing.
Another new face among the townsfolk wouldn’t draw much attention, Jared decided, and that suited his purpose well. He needed to blend in, to look like he belonged. The element of surprise was essential. He’d known that since he set out on this trip, several weeks and thousands of miles ago.
After crossing the Mississippi, Jared had abandoned the private railroad car and sent it back to New York, continuing the journey in the cars with the other passengers. Over the next weeks at some of the train stops, he’d slowly changed his appearance.
Suit, silk shirt and cravat exchanged for Levi’s trousers, vests and cotton shirts. Italian leather shoes gone, replaced by boots. A wide-brimmed black Stetson hat. He’d bought a pistol and shoved it into the holster on his hip; he had yet to fire it but he did know how to load it.
The transformation of his appearance had been completed somewhere in Kansas. Jared didn’t recall exactly where now. The train depots, the small towns, the scenery had blurred a long time ago.
In the town of Cold Creek, about fifty miles to the east, Jared had abandoned the train. He couldn’t take another day of cinders and smoke blowing in through the open windows, the clacking of the rails, the relentless swaying, the screaming whistle. He boarded the stagecoach bound for Crystal Springs.
Jared glanced down at the satchel he carried and the technical journals tucked inside. They’d saved his sanity, along with the newspapers he’d bought along the way.
All he’d been able to do for the duration of the crosscountry trip was read. And think. Think about what he’d lost. And what he’d come here to get back.
At the corner he stopped and eyed the Crystal Springs Hotel across the street, suddenly anxious to get inside, book a room, get cleaned up and grab a few hours of sleep. But his gaze swung to the general store down the block and the spot where he’d seen the pretty woman standing in the doorway. She was gone now, but her image lingered in his mind.
She’d had a market basket on her arm so she was probably shopping. For supper, maybe? For her family?
A raw surge of emotion ripped through Jared. A cozy home. A warm kitchen. A good meal on the table. Someone special waiting.
“Damn…”
Jared bit off a worse curse as the painful reminder of why he’d come here twisted inside him. He trudged on toward the hotel, as anxious as ever to get this job done. Once more he silently vowed he wouldn’t go home empty-handed. And after this long, arduous journey, he wasn’t particular about how he accomplished his task.
But he wouldn’t fail. He’d head back east quickly.
As soon as he got what he’d come here for.
Chapter Two
“That’s not what I heard,” Lily Vaughn said, raising her eyebrows.
Kinsey glanced up from the two pans of frying chicken on the cookstove and looked at her friend at the worktable beside her. Lily was only a few years younger, pretty, with a head full of wild golden curls she struggled to keep contained in a bun at her nape.
“What did you hear?” Kinsey asked.
Lily looked around the kitchen, causing Kinsey to do the same. The big room held enough cupboards, cabinets and workspaces to provide the two meals a day necessary to keep the boardinghouse residents happy. Kinsey had come to work there, cooking and cleaning, shortly after arriving in Crystal Springs.
“Well, I heard that after church last Sunday, the two of them went for a walk down by the creek and—” Lily leaned in and whispered in Kinsey’s ear.
She gasped and pulled away. “My goodness, she—”
“Are you two girls gossiping again?”
Nell Taylor came through the swinging door from the adjoining dining room, giving them a stern look.
“Because if you are,” Nell said with a sly smile, “you’d better wait until I get in here so I can hear it, too.”
Kinsey giggled, at ease in the Taylor home. Not only had Nell given her a job but she also allowed her to live in a room off the kitchen at the rear of the house. It was small, but plenty big enough for Kinsey and Sam. Nell had given Lily a room up on the third floor of the big house next to her own when the young woman had come to work for her a few weeks ago.