Your mom and I lost our parents when I was fifteen and your mother was eighteen.”
Though his expression remained neutral, Jo sensed a wagonload of sorrow behind the simple words.
Cora clasped her hands at her waist. “Did they die in a fire like my mama and papa?”
Stark anguish exploded in the marshal’s gaze, and Jo took an involuntary step backward. His reaction felt too bleak, too powerful for an event that must be almost twenty years past.
Covering his revealing lapse, he absently rubbed his cheek. “Smallpox.”
“What’s that?” Cora asked.
“It’s a sickness.” The marshal angled his face toward the light. “It leaves scars.”
Jo and Cora leaned closer, both squinting. Sure enough, the rough stubble on his chin covered a scattering of shallow pockmarks. Jo had never been this close to the marshal before and she caught the barest hint of his scent—masculine and clean. Her stomach fluttered. Once again she couldn’t help but wonder how all his imperfection added up to down-right handsome.
Cora shrugged. “Your face doesn’t look bad.”
Jo glanced down at her own rough, homespun skirts and serviceable shirtwaist. Men’s flaws made them look tough. But a woman who dressed and acted like a tomboy, well, that was another story. A woman without corkscrew curls and lace collars wasn’t worth the time of day. She’d learned that lesson well enough when Tom Walby, the only boy she’d ever had a crush on, had mocked her for being a hoyden before the entire eighth-grade class.
Turned out men fell in love with their eyes first and their hearts second. Which was too bad, really. Nettles were far more useful in life than roses.
“Did you ride a train after your parents died?” Cora asked.
“I don’t remember,” the marshal replied. “That was a long time ago for me.”
Cora nodded her agreement, her flaxen curls bobbing. “You’re old, so that musta been a really, really long time ago.”
Ducking her head, Jo muffled a laugh. Marshal Cain blinked as though her presence had only now fully registered through the haze of his grief. He hastily stood, knocking his hat to the floor. They both reached for it at the same time, nearly butting heads. Jo touched the brim first. As he accepted his hat, the marshal’s rough, callused fingers brushed over hers, sending a scattering of gooseflesh dancing up her arm.
Jo met his dark eyes, astonished by the intensity of his gaze.
“My apologies for not greeting you,” he said, sounding more formal than she’d ever heard him. “We met in church once, didn’t we?”
“Don’t be sorry, Mr. Cain.” For some reason, she seemed to have a difficult time catching her breath when he was near. “You’ve been busier than a termite in a sawmill. I’m JoBeth McCoy.”
The admission earned her a dry chuckle. “Seems like you can’t turn a corner in this town without running into a McCoy.”
Jo grinned. She had five younger brothers, and they never expected her to be anyone but herself. In fact, they’d probably clobber her if she started acting like a regular girl. “They’re a handful, yes, sir.”
“Reverend Miller says you and Cora have been inseparable.”
Jo had taken a proprietary interest in Cora’s plight from the beginning. The messages concerning her care had been clipped and chillingly professional. A child thrust into such turmoil needed more than a hired guardian like Mrs. Smith. She needed love and understanding.
Jo squeezed Cora’s hand. “I work in the telegraph office. Part of my job is keeping track of unclaimed packages after the trains depart.” She winked at Cora. “’Course this was a special case. Everyone needs a friend sometimes, right, Cora?”
The little girl returned the comforting pressure. “JoBeth sent twenty-six different messages trying to find you. I counted. JoBeth has five brothers. I counted them, too. I don’t have any brothers. Do you have any brothers?”
“Nope.”
The marshal and the little girl sized each other up like a couple of nervous spring foals. They were wary, yet curious, too. Suddenly, Jo realized how terribly unnecessary her presence had become. Cora didn’t need her anymore—she had Marshal Cain.
Though he’d only been in town a few months, Jo sensed his unwavering resolve. He’d spent his time quietly and methodically cleaning up Cimarron Springs, a Herculean task. Their previous sheriff had been lazy and corrupt, and every outlaw west of the Mississippi had exploited his lax law enforcement. The marshal still had loads of work ahead of him, but he didn’t show any signs of slowing.
And now that he and little Cora had each other, they didn’t need her.
A band of emotion tightened around Jo’s chest. Though she and Cora had known each other a short time, she felt a kinship.
A small hand tugged on her skirts. “How come you don’t know Marshal Cain? You said you know everyone in town.”
Jo glanced at the marshal and found him studying Reverend Miller’s book collection as though it was the most fascinating thing on earth. She wondered if he was thinking about the deluge of invitations he’d received during his first few months in Cimarron Springs. Introducing a new man in town was like tossing raw meat into a pack of wolves. A pack of female wolves.
Warmth crept up Jo’s neck. Of course, no one had considered her as a possible love interest. Not even her own parents had invited the marshal for dinner. Not that she cared, since she never planned on marrying. She’d pinched her cheeks and fluttered her eyelashes for Tom Walby and look what that had gotten her. He’d told her he’d rather court his grandfather’s mule.
She wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.
Covering her unease, she fanned the tip of her thick, dark braid. “Marshal Cain has only been in town a few months. I guess he’s never had call to arrest me. If I was a cattle rustler, we’d be on a first-name basis by now, I’m sure.”
Cora giggled. The marshal sputtered, then coughed, and Jo immediately regretted her joke. A little ribbing always worked on her brothers when they were tense, but the marshal seemed embarrassed by her teasing. As the silence stretched out, the walls of Reverend Miller’s office closed in around her, and the air grew thick.
Oblivious to the tension gripping the adults, Cora plucked a lemon drop from her paper funnel and popped it into her mouth. “Can I have a puppy?” she spoke, her voice muffled around her candy. “Mama said we couldn’t have a puppy in the city. But you live in the country, don’t you, Mr. Cain?”
Jo caught the marshal’s helpless expression before he quickly masked his thoughts. He’d lost his sister and brother-in-law and discovered he was guardian of his five-year-old niece in the course of a few tragic moments.
He didn’t live in the country. He lived in a set of rooms above the jail.
Cora spit the candy into her cupped palm. “The bears won’t eat my puppy, will they? Mrs. Smith said Kansas was full of giant man-eating bears.”
