back on the desk. “Quite a ruckus all right,” he said. “A young fella took it in his head to ride his horse into the Silver Baron.”
“What happened to him?”
She would find out soon enough, whether he told her or not, so he said, “I had to kill him.”
Her blue eyes widened. “For riding a horse into a saloon?”
“For trying to kill me and anybody else unlucky enough to get in the way of all the bullets he was throwing around.”
“Oh.” Diana nodded. “Well, that’s different, I suppose. Are you all right?”
“Fine. Not a scratch.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“Not that I know of,” Frank said. “Well, the horse got grazed by a bullet and jumped through one of those plateglass windows your pa’s so proud of. I don’t know how badly it was hurt. A couple of fellas went after it, but they didn’t come back while I was around.”
“Poor horse,” Diana said. “And I suppose I should feel sympathetic toward its rider too.”
Frank grunted. “I wouldn’t waste too much time worrying about him. He was an owlhoot, and before that he was trying to goad Professor Burton into a gunfight. I’m pretty sure he would have killed the professor.”
“That’s terrible! Professor Burton is such a kind, gentle man…. Anyway, Frank, I’m just glad that you’re all right.” She moved a step closer to him. “I…I’d be very upset if anything bad happened to you.” She reached out and laid a hand on his arm.
Frank had always liked it when women touched him like that, and with Diana it was no exception. She had somehow gotten even closer to him, so that she was standing no more than a foot away from him. Her head was tilted back a little so she could look up into his face, and it would have been easy as pie just to lean down and press his lips to hers in a kiss.
Instead, he turned away and said, “I’d offer you some coffee, but what’s left in the pot is so stout, I’m afraid it’d jump out of the cup and run off under its own power if I tried to pour it.”
She laughed, but he thought she sounded a little disappointed. “No, that’s all right. Thank you anyway. It’s late, so I suppose I should get home.”
Frank reached for his gunbelt. “I’ll walk you—”
“Nonsense. I’ll be perfectly fine. I walked over here by myself, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and that probably wasn’t a very good idea.” Frank buckled on the belt and then took his hat from the nail. “Buckskin is a boomtown now. You’ve never seen it like this before. I’ve seen plenty of places like it, though, and there’s always trouble just waiting to happen in a boomtown.”
“All right, if you insist.”
Frank took a Winchester from the rack on the wall and tucked it under his arm; then they left the office and stepped out into the street. Despite the late hour, a lot of lights still burned in Buckskin. During the past month, three saloons had opened to give the Silver Baron some competition, and a couple of the stores were still open, including Benjamin’s Emporium. A wagon rolled along the street, and a few men on horseback were leaving the settlement. Music and laughter came from the saloons, the sounds drifting on the warm night air. Several pedestrians walked along the street, all of them male. There were only a handful of women in Buckskin—Diana, Leo’s wife Trudy, and Lauren Stillman, Ginnie Carlson, and Becky Humphries, the three retired soiled doves who now ran what had been the settlement’s only café. Their eatery had some competition now too, as a Chinaman had shown up and opened a hash house, and the newly reopened hotel also served meals in its dining room.
There were a few things Buckskin didn’t have yet: a school, a church, and a whorehouse. A silver mining boomtown could probably get along all right without the first two, but Frank knew it was only a matter of time before some madam showed up with a wagonload of girls and set up in business. Lauren, Ginnie, and Becky could have already gone back to their old profession—they’d had plenty of offers from prospectors lonely for female companionship—but so far they were being stubborn about maintaining their retired status.
“The town’s really growing fast, isn’t it?” Diana said as they walked along the street toward the house she shared with her father. They passed the offices of the Lucky Lizard Mining Company, where Tip handled his business affairs.
“Too fast,” Frank said as he nodded in agreement. “Boomtowns have a habit of getting too big for their britches.”
“Progress is good, though, isn’t it?”
“To somebody who grew up in civilization like you did, I reckon it is. I grew up in Texas when the place still had all the bark on it, and since leaving there I’ve traveled around to some other mighty wild places. Progress is a good thing for most folks, but there are some of us who miss the old days and hate to see them go away.”
She slipped her arm through his. He didn’t want to offend her by pulling away, and he enjoyed the warmth and the closeness too, even if he didn’t want to admit it even to himself.
“You talk like you’re a hundred years old,” she said with a laugh. “You’re not ancient, Frank. You’re not even that much older than me.”
“Old enough to be your pa,” he said with a stern note in his voice.
“But you’re not my father,” she pointed out, and he certainly couldn’t argue with that.
When they reached the Woodford house, Frank felt a sense of relief when he noticed Tip approaching the place from a different direction. The mayor’s presence would help him avoid an awkward situation. Frank had been afraid that Diana might want a good-night kiss—and he had also been afraid that he would want to give her one.
“Blast it, Diana,” Tip said as they all came together at the gate in the recently painted picket fence in front of the house. “What are you doin’ out and about at this hour?”
“I heard that there was trouble and went to make sure Marshal Morgan was all right,” she replied with a note of defiance in her voice.
“The marshal can take care o’ himself just fine. Been doin’ it for a lot of years, haven’t you, Frank?”
“That’s true,” Frank said. “I just thought it would be a good idea to walk Diana home. You never know who or what you’ll run into when it’s late like this.”
“I appreciate it.” Tip gestured toward the house. “Go on in, darlin’. I’ll be there in a minute. Got something I need to talk to Frank about first.”
Diana seemed reluctant to leave, but she nodded and said, “Good night, Marshal.”
Frank returned the nod and tugged on the brim of his hat. “Miss Woodford.”
Tip waited until Diana was in the house before he said, “That gal’s turnin’ into a reg’lar pest. Don’t worry about hurtin’ her feelin’s if she starts to bother you, Frank. Just send her packin’.”
“I doubt if it’ll ever come to that,” Frank said. “Did you really want
