"Y'know something, J.D.? I purely do love Tuesdays."

Buck Wilmington had some mighty peculiar ways of thinking, but even for Buck, that statement seemed a bit bizarre. Without bestirring himself from his comfortable slouch in a rickety old chair on the boardwalk, J.D. Dunne cracked open one hazel eye to check out what the heck Buck was going on about. A moment later, the young man emitted a small, almost silent snort of disgust and wondered why he'd even bothered. There was only one thing in the world which could wring that particular tone of dreamy ecstasy out of Buck, and that was a woman.

The Tuesday afternoon stage was pulled up in front of the Butterfield Co. depot down the street, and three disembarking passengers stood beside it, waiting for the driver to unload their luggage. One of them was a young woman with chestnut-brown hair, clad in a lilac travelling dress which was subdued by city standards but eye-catchingly fancy in her present surroundings. When she turned in a slow circle to survey the town, J.D. saw she was pretty in an unassuming way. Not that Buck seemed to care all that much about a woman's looks. He liked them all--and the feeling was quite universally mutual. Five minutes from now, this lady, whoever she was, would be as besotted with him as every other eligible female in town and most of the ineligible ones. It was enough to drive a man to drink.

Muttering, "She looks like she could use a little help," Buck wandered off to introduce himself to his latest romantic conquest. J.D. just closed his eyes and went back to dozing. There wasn't a whole heck of a lot else to do around the small town of Four Corners on a typical afternoon. When he'd signed on as sheriff, J.D. had foreseen a life of continuous excitement, and there were plenty of exciting times to be had when trouble flared up, but the truth of the matter was that four days out of five drifted by in a lazy, monotonous routine. Right now, the jail was empty and, except for Buck, all of his friends were out of town on various odds and ends of official or personal business. Now that Buck had found a way to occupy himself, J.D. could look forward to spending the hours until sunset where he was, in his chair on the boardwalk, staring at the world while it went very, very slowly about its business. At least when he'd been a stableboy, there had always been something that needed doing.

J.D. snorted at the thought and decided he must've gotten out of bed on the wrong side this morning. He didn't regret for one minute the decision that had brought him here, but he was energetic by nature and most of his young life had been filled with long hours of strenuous labor. Now that he was over the first, wonderful thrill of being here, out West, at the end of the rainbow he'd chased all the way from New York, he could have used more to occupy his spare time than drinking and card playing and long, aimless rides through the countryside. Give him four or five trouble-free days in a row, and he sometimes caught himself casting longing glances at the bank in the forlorn hope that a half-dozen armed, dangerous men would burst out of it, six-guns blazing. Heck, if they'd done it right now, he would've had to handle the situation practically all by himself, and maybe then the others would finally stop treating him like a kid.

Oh, that's real grown up, wishing for a bank robbery, he thought, laughing at himself with an ease that would have been impossible not so very long ago. Being everybody's kid brother, the greenhorn who needed extra watching, had grated on his pride, but where it had once been a thing of huge importance, time and experience had reduced it to a minor, sometimes even amusing irritation. By now, Chris and the others trusted him to finish the tasks he was given and--most of the time, anyway--to be able to keep himself out of trouble. Since he no longer felt a continuous need to prove himself to everyone within reach--including himself--J.D. was learning to relax.

Heck, he was so relaxed right now that he was damned near asleep.

Raised voices impinged on his randomly wandering thoughts, and J.D. peeled his eyes open again, his curiosity piqued. The current flower of Buck's dreams had collected a moderately sized carpet bag from the stagecoach driver, but she seemed unexpectedly reluctant to hand it over to Buck, even though he was smiling his most charming smile as he offered to carry it for her.

"I cannot stand by and see a lovely young lady such as yourself burdened by such a heavy load, ma'am." The tall drifter pressed a hand over his heart as he continued with deepest sincerity, "It would be just intolerable, ma'am."

"Please..." The lady in lilac cast a strained, rather desperate glance along the street, as though she feared they might be observed. "I'm quite capable of carrying it myself." With the carpetbag firmly in hand, she attempted to step around Buck, but he, too, had the carpetbag firmly in hand, and he was considerably stronger than its owner. After one step, the young woman was pulled to a halt. Stymied, she gazed up at her would-be helper with blue eyes that were brightened by the first hints of anger.

Now, Buck Wilmington really, genuinely liked women. Even when there wasn't a hope in hell of a situation getting him anything more than a mild, public flirtation, he enjoyed talking with them and spending time around them. The trouble was that he was so accustomed to women liking him back--immediately--that he was oblivious to the warning signs that were standing right there in front of him, so obvious that J.D. could see them from several doors down the street. One hand still attached to the carpetbag, Buck continued to blather on, confident of overcoming the lady's inexplicable failure to realize he had been placed upon this Earth for the sole purpose of obliging her.

Unlike his best friend, J.D. could claim no expertise with the ladies--unfortunately--but he was observant by nature and hanging around Vin Tanner was giving him an opportunity to hone that skill. He was only mildly surprised when the lady dragged her bag free of Buck's helping hand with a wild jerk, said, "Please, just leave me alone!" in a low-pitched, urgent voice and darted around the big drifter to the steps that led up to the boardwalk.

With her eyes fixed straight ahead and her back so stiff you'd have thought she was expecting Buck to put a bullet in it, she strode off down the street toward the hotel. She didn't exactly look angry. She looked... Well, J.D. couldn't name half the emotions that seemed to boil just beneath the surface of her tight features, but he could tell that none of them were happy. He got the impression she would have liked nothing more than to climb right back aboard the stage and ride it straight on out of town.

Buck was still standing where he'd been abandoned, staring after the departing woman with an expression of pure bewilderment.

"Looks like there's one more female around who can't smell that animal maggotism of yours, Buck," J.D. drawled, aiming an affectionate dagger at his friend's confusion. As Buck wandered back to his chair, J.D. tilted his head back, grinning up at him from beneath the brim of his derby hat. "Musta used too much soap last time you took a bath."

Buck had never been one to maintain a low mood for long. He glowered at J.D. for the jibe, then broke out laughing, a deep, sudden bellow of sound that startled the middle-aged farm wife who was walking past them at the time. Buck smiled an apology and she smiled back, the bright, warm expression looking out of place on her stern and careworn features.

"Know better than to do that next time, won't I?" Buck stayed where he was for just a moment, then surged to his feet again. "I need a drink. You coming?"

"Yeah, sure," J.D. agreed. "Nothing else to do."

He fell into step beside Buck just as the lady in lilac reached the hotel. She didn't go inside immediately, but paused and set her carpet-bag down by the door. Stepping over to the edge of the boardwalk, she gave Main Street a long, slow perusal from one end to the other. She was too far away for J.D. to see her expression, but he could see the tight way she had her arms crossed across her chest, as though she was trying to comfort or protect herself. He remembered his mother standing like that, all closed in on herself, when she was deeply troubled. More recently, there'd been times when he'd noticed Mrs. Travis doing the same thing.

It was probably nothing more than the curiosity grown out of boredom--though he told himself it was because he was trying to learn to be a good sheriff--but J.D. decided he ought to keep an eye open, to see if he couldn't figure out exactly what it was that was troubling her.

#######

Too many beers and a poker game that lasted from sundown to dawn--and actually left him a few dollars richer than when he'd started--put the lady-in-lilac right out of J.D.'s head.

Most mornings, he was the second of Chris's men to be up and around because he just couldn't seem to learn the habit of sleeping in. It was a luxury he'd never been allowed when he was a stableboy. Now that there was mostly no one to set his hours for him, he still found himself awake as soon as the early morning light crept through his window.

But even at the energetic age of almost-twenty, a body did need some sleep. When the sun reached an angle where its bright, white-gold rays tapped lightly on his eyelids, J.D. just rolled over on his stomach and crammed a pillow over his head. The movement immediately set off a nasty throbbing in his head. Groaning with heartfelt misery, he lay very still, trying in vain to crawl back into the comforting arms of oblivion. Eventually, he accepted that it just wasn't going to happen, so he shoved the quilt aside and dragged himself carefully out of bed.

By the time he left the boarding house, the natural resilience of his youth was starting to win out over his hangover. Several deep lungfuls of fresh air helped clear his head. He still had a headache, but as he started off down the street towards the hotel in search of breakfast, he didn't feel too awful bad. He grinned to himself, picturing what kind of mood Buck was going to be in whenever he finally dragged his sorry person out into the light of day. It was not going to be a pretty sight at all.

Four Corners was going quietly about its early morning chores. Shopkeepers were airing out their premises through wide-open doors while they swept the wind-blown accumulation of dust from their stoops. Most of them had a smile and a nod for him as he walked past, acknowledgment of the place Chris's team had earned for themselves. They were still outsiders, and probably always would be because of who and what they were, but nowadays most folks accepted them with wary respect or even gratitude. "Good morning, Sheriff," Mrs. Potter called cheerily, as he passed the door of her dry goods store.

"Morning, ma'am," J.D. returned, pulling himself up a little straighter and hoping she didn't take too close a look at him this morning. Most of the townsfolk dismissed him as a figurehead sheriff, wearing the badge because Chris didn't want it, but he'd earned Mrs. Potter's respect right back at the beginning when he refused to release her husband's killer to the mob trying to set him free. That respect was his on his own merit, and it meant a considerable amount to J.D. never to tarnish it.

While he'd lingered in bed, trying to get back to sleep, he'd almost missed the breakfast hour. The hotel restaurant was nearly empty when he arrived. Truth be told, the thought of food didn't have its customary appeal right now, but putting something light into his stomach always helped get him back in stride when he'd had too much to drink. Ignoring the greasy smells of bacon and eggs that were wafting out of the kitchen, he picked out an empty table and settled down at it.

J.D. hated to eat alone. Whenever he could manage it, he had breakfast with Vin, who was always up and around before any of the others--probably before the sun itself half the time. At first, those shared meals had been J.D.'s idea, and they had passed with him babbling away while the bounty hunter ate in silence and occasionally flashed him a whimsical smile. Gradually, J.D. had forced himself to let the silences stretch until the quiet man across from him broke them with the odd question or comment or reminiscence. It was a little like coaxing a wild animal out of hiding, and he really wasn't very good at it. He was too curious and voluble by nature. But nowadays, a good morning would find Vin spinning him tales about the wilderness or the Indian wars that rivaled the pages of a novel--so long as J.D. let the words flow out without interruption, and especially without trying to discover if Vin had experienced the events he was recounting first hand.

Today, though, he was on his own. The bounty hunter was somewhere up on Apache lands, "taking a breather from civilization" as he'd put it before he left. J.D. always heard the underlying sarcasm when Vin used the word "civilization."

Sometimes he acted like he was part Indian himself, looking all trapped and twitchy from having too many people around him before he ran off to lose himself in the hills for a while.

The waiter dropped a menu in front of him, poured him a cup of coffee and left the pot on the table. After he'd made the bitter brew drinkable with a dollop of fresh cream and a couple of heaping teaspoons of sugar, J.D. sipped at it while he scanned the room in hopes of spotting someone who would be amiable company. There were only a few other late diners left, though, and all of them were strangers or people he barely knew by name. A couple of men sat at the table in the corner, talking and gesticulating as they ate. Businessmen of some sort, J.D. decided--part of the growing influx of new faces that Mrs. Travis was luring into town. Their tidy, well-made clothes set them a world apart from the two grubby range hands who were seated a few tables away, nursing the last of their coffee for as long as they could before heading out.

Three wives of local merchants were grouped around a circular table, their heads close together as they gossiped. Every few words, one or the other of them would dart a quick, birdlike glance toward the window, then rejoin the huddle. Disapproval was etched into every line of their stiff postures, and written on their weathered faces, so when J.D.'s eyes traveled onward to check out the focus of their attention, he expected to see one of the girls from the saloon. Officially, none of them were whores, but it was an open secret that most of them weren't adverse to peddling their personal favors in the rooms above the taproom. Even if they had done nothing worse than urge customers to buy more liquor, their scandalous manner of dress and easy ways would have made them outcasts to the proper ladies of town. The woman seated alone at the table beneath the window wasn't one of the saloon girls. Like her lilac travelling dress from yesterday, the simply cut gray gown the lady from the stage wore this morning was reminiscent of half-mourning, so J.D. supposed her to be a widow. He could see nothing at all about her which should have earned her the censure of the townswomen. Even the fact that she was travelling on her own was far more acceptable out here than it would have been in the more rigidly structured East.

Intrigued, J.D. kept a surreptitious eye on the tableau while he appeased his queasy stomach with some toasted bread, a little buttered porridge and a second cup of well-sweetened coffee. He could tell from the way she held herself, the way she carefully looked nowhere beyond the table in front of her, that the lady-in-lilac--he liked the sound of that, even if it didn't match her present wardrobe--was painfully aware of the townswomen's scrutiny. She didn't seem surprised by it, but she was pretending to ignore it.

The meal gave his always overactive imagination plenty of time to run rampant. He decided he'd done the lady a disservice yesterday, paying so little attention to her. She wasn't as knock-a-man-over beautiful as, say, Mrs. Travis, but the light streaming through the window behind her lit her hair with golden highlights, and there was a fetching grace to all her movements. Not to mention that the figure displayed to him in profile was more than enough to start him thinking along lines that weren't at all proper. Buck might claim there wasn't that much difference between a lady and a whore, and you owed them the same amount of respect, but... Well, it was just didn't seem right to wonder how much her slender curves owed to Mother Nature and how much to whalebone, but he couldn't help doing it anyway and being glad that he had a table and draping tablecloth to hide behind when the thought made him all hot and uncomfortable for a bit.

By the time he pushed the remains of his cooling porridge aside, J.D. was envisioning the lady-in-lilac in any of a half-dozen roles drawn from the wilder annals of adventure stories. Admittedly, her mild, pleasant features didn't really give her the look of a wicked adventuress or notorious madame or voluptuous entertainer. Nor did she dress like some scandalous female bank robber or sharpshooter. But she had to be widely famous in some way. How else would the townswomen recognize her when she hadn't even been in Four Corners for a full twenty-four hours?

Even more exciting was the fact that she had the good taste not to be fascinated by Buck Wilmington. She must have been at least twenty-five or twenty-six, and he suspected she was two or three inches taller than he was, but his lack of height didn't bother him, and he'd never known Buck to let the matter of a few years of age difference--or a half-dozen for that matter--deter him from catching a lady's eye. The situation had possibilities, J.D. was sure of it. He just had to figure out exactly what they were, and what he should do about them.

J.D. had more or less convinced himself that the best place to start was to walk on over and introduce himself to the lady in his capacity as sheriff when a portly, well-dressed man swept into the room like a thunderhead. While J.D. was busy wondering why Mr. Horace Duggan, a local merchant, was in such an all-fired hurry this morning, the big man strode across the room and halted by the window table.

"How dare you come back here?" Duggan demanded, in a resounding bass voice that would have captured the attention of everyone in the room if his entrance had not already done so. "When Dan Evans told me he'd seen you, I came near to calling him a bald-faced liar."

J.D. had missed seeing the lady-in-lilac's reaction to Duggan's entrance. Now, she was sitting stiff-backed and still, with her hands folded on the edge of the table in front of her. Her gaze remained fixed on the china teapot at the center of the table, and even when she spoke, she did not look up at the large man who loomed over her.

"I wonder that you had such restraint," she murmured evenly, then picked up the teapot and poured from it with hands that trembled visibly. "Time, I see, has mellowed you."

"Why are you here?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Oh, I can guess all right. Showing up here like a damned vulture to pick at Sam's bones before he's cold in the grave." "Mr. Gainer contacted me," the woman retorted, a hint of anger creeping past the even, disinterested restraint of her voice. "He asked me to come. If you believe for a moment that I--"

"Gainer is a fool. If you think you're entitled to one penny, after what you did--" Duggan slammed a meaty fist down on the table, sending the crockery into a jittery dance. "This isn't worth discussing. I'll only say this once, you worthless trollop: Go back to wherever you came from or, by God, you'll wish you had!"

J.D. shot to his feet, crossed to Duggan's side, and caught the man's arm as he swung it around to point imperiously at the door. Without even looking at him, Duggan tried to shrug off the touch, but J.D. hung on stubbornly until the bigger man whirled on him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? This is none of your business."

"You talk to a woman that way, it sure is my business. You're the one who'll be leaving, Mr. Duggan, and right now." "Don't waste my time, boy."

Knowing full well that both his lack of years and his lack of inches were working against him, J.D. fixed Duggan with a gaze which was the best imitation of Chris's flat, hard glare that hours of practicing in front of the mirror could make it.

"You'll be leaving now, Mr. Duggan," he repeated. It occurred to him that he should demand an apology on the lady's behalf--that was what Buck or Chris would have done--but common sense prevailed before the words slipped out of his mouth. If he couldn't back up the demand, he would have only ended up looking like a fool.

For one long, tense minute, he thought Duggan was going to call his bluff. Not that it was exactly a bluff, because he was completely determined he was in the right, but he couldn't quite figure out what to do next if the man didn't leave. Judge Travis would have a lot to say about the legality of shooting a man down under these present circumstances, and Mrs. Turnbull, who ran the hotel, would have his hide for a throw rug if J.D. got blood all over her clean floor. Buck and Chris never had that kind of problem, because nobody ever called them on a threat, at least not that J.D. had seen.

Fortunately, Duggan broke eye contact first. J.D. was too relieved to care if his glare had worked on its own merits or only because it reminded Duggan that he had some damned big guns backing him up. Making an angry, contemptuous hrrmph in the back of his throat, the large man snapped his eyes from J.D. to the lady-in-lilac.

"Remember what I said, Amelia," he growled. "Have that much decency, at least."

"I remember every single word you've said to me on the subject of my decency," the lady returned in a quiet voice. "I always have, Father."

While J.D. was busy absorbing the import of that final word, Duggan turned on his heel and left in the same cloud of palpable anger in which he'd arrived. The front door of the hotel slammed behind him with such force that it rattled the decorative glass panels inset in its wood. The sound brought J.D. out of his confusion with a startled flinch, leaving him painfully aware that his mouth was hanging open in surprise, and everyone in the room was staring at him. Drawing himself up to his full, unimposing height, J.D. stared back until they all pretended to go back to their own business.

"Thank you for your concern, Mr...?"

The gentle half-question brought his gaze down to the lady beside him. A flush spread across J.D.'s skin as he realized his instinctive move to interpose himself between her and Duggan had put him so close to her that his hip was all but brushing her shoulder. Hastily, he took a step back, removing himself to a proper distance.

"J.D.," he blurted out in response to her question, then blushed even more and hastily corrected himself, "That is, I'm Sheriff J.D. Dunne, ma'am." He didn't want to see the doubt which was sure to form in response to the claim, so he flipped aside the lapel of his suit coat, letting her see the battered but well-polished silver star which had taken up residence there. "Thank you for your concern, Sheriff Dunne." She dropped some money onto the table by her plate and pulled on her gloves. "I won't take up any more of your time."

Time was one thing he had plenty of to spare, not to mention curiosity, but to J.D.'s credit, there was more than boredom and attraction behind the realization that he couldn't allow her to just leave on her own. He knew Horace Duggan for a blowhard and a bully. He wouldn't for one minute put it past the man to be waiting outside, ready to cause more pain and trouble for his... daughter.

I didn't even know he was married, J.D. thought in bemusement, while the lady picked up her fancy little handbag and rose to her feet. As she slipped past him, his nostrils filled with a light, sweet whiff of apple blossoms.

He caught up with her as she was reaching for the handle of the hotel's front door. Feeling the brush of her gloved fingers before she withdrew them in haste, he managed to open the door for her without tripping too badly over his own annoyingly awkward feet. When he followed her out into the street, the lady-in-lilac--an ordinary name like Amelia just didn't have the same wonderfully mysterious ring to it--turned to face him.

Her face had taken on the same guarded, unhappy expression with which she had fended off Buck's help yesterday, so J.D. was prepared when she said, "Look, Sheriff... I am grateful for your help, but--"

"But it's my job to see there ain't no trouble in town, and Mr. Duggan, well, he can be a mite hasty at times..." Belatedly, J.D. realized that was a damned impolitic thing to say to the man's daughter, even if the pair of them weren't exactly on friendly terms. "That is, I mean to say--"

"I know exactly what you mean to say," Amelia assured him, with a sad, fleeting smile. "But I'm afraid you'll do yourself no good in this town, being seen with me."

J.D. tried to make it a point to pay attention to what Buck said to women, just like he paid attention to Vin when he was tracking or Chris when he was facing a man down so that he started shaking in his boots. Buck would have given the lady his more ingratiating smile and assured her that being seen with someone of her beauty and charm could do a man nothing but good. Trouble was, J.D. knew with absolute certainty that was the wrong thing to say to this woman. Taking a deep breath, he decided to go with his own instincts.

"Wouldn't be the first time I've gotten on the wrong side of the town for doing what I know to be right," he told her honestly. "So, if you'll do me the honor, Miss Duggan, I'd be pleased to escort you wherever it is you're headed."

Amelia studied him gravely, then smiled at him again. This time the expression was warm and sincere, and it sent a lightning shock all the way to J.D.'s toes, leaving him to wonder how he'd ever been so blind as to think she was no more than passingly pretty. His body threatened to respond in other ways, too, but the idea was just so mortifying right at the moment that as soon as he noticed the problem, it slipped away.

"Actually, it's Mrs. Johnson, Sheriff. Mrs. Amelia Johnson," she clarified, confirming his supposition that she was a widow. "And I would be most grateful if you'd walk me as far as the bank. I have an appointment with Mr. Gainer, and I'm already a little late."

"My pleasure, ma'am." As he fell into step beside her, heading down the boardwalk in the direction of the bank, J.D. couldn't help regretting that Buck was sure to still be in bed and sound asleep. There was no possibility at all that he might be watching.

They walked the length of the street in silence, Amelia lost in her own thoughts, and J.D. finding that, for once in his life, he just wasn't sure what to say. He didn't want to be nosy--well, yes, actually, he did want to be nosy, but he was determined he wasn't going to be--and that resolution put him at a loss for conversation. Besides, when he was in close proximity to a lady, he had a way of talking non-stop about things which, when viewed with the clarity of later hindsight, turned out to be entirely stupid. So far, he didn't think he'd done that this morning, and he really wanted to keep it that way.

He spent the brief walk enjoying the occasional waft of perfume that was blown to him on the hot wind, and keeping a wary eye on the surrounding street for Mr. Duggan. When they arrived the bank, J.D. pushed open the door, then peered inside to be sure the store owner wasn't lying in wait within. He laughed at himself for the thought, but he double-checked anyway before he stepped aside to let Amelia pass.

She stopped in the doorway, and gave him another of the brief, warm smiles which transformed her face from mere prettiness to true beauty.

"Thank you again."

"I could wait for you, if you like," he suggested immediately.

"Mr. Gainer will see me back to the hotel, I'm sure." Amelia's lips twitched as she looked beyond him at the half-asleep town. "I'm sure you have all sorts of important duties to attend to."

An automatic agreement was halfway to his lips before he saw the twinkle in her eyes, as though a more-honest personality were peeking at him from behind her aloof facade. She didn't look to be making fun of him, so he just shrugged and answered her honestly.

"Tell you the truth, Mrs. Johnson, being sheriff around here ain't exactly a full-time job."

"Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Suppose so," J.D. agreed, laughing. "Leastwise, that's what I keep telling myself."

"Thank you again, but really, I'm fine. I plan to attend to my business as quickly as I can and be gone. Four Corners is not a... comfortable place for me." The laughter vanished from her eyes as she cast a quick glance down the street toward Duggan's store.

"Sure, but..." He couldn't think of a single, rational argument for why he should stay, so he ended weakly, "if you need anything more, you be sure and let me know."

"I shall. Good day, Sheriff." She turned and went inside. When he closed the door behind her, J.D. wandered over to the edge of the boardwalk and stood there, at a loss for what to do next. The possibilities ranged from heading off to give Duggan a piece of his mind to dragging Buck out of bed and demanding some advice on how to proceed with this situation, but neither seemed like a good idea. Josiah was due back from Jericho later today. Maybe J.D. could ask him for advice, because it was liable to come with a lot less teasing than anything he'd get out of Buck.

Then again, J.D. amended silently, pondering how Josiah tended to behave when some woman or other caught his fancy, maybe that ain't a really great idea either.

Muttering a frustrated curse under his breath, J.D. took one last look at the front of the bank, kicked a pebble from the edge of the boardwalk into the street, then wandered off towards the jail. There was a pile of wanted posters cluttering up his desk that needed to be sorted through and tucked away so he could find them again if he ever needed them. He'd been putting off doing it for a week, but if he left it too long, someone was liable to toss them aside so they could use his desk for cardplaying, and he'd never find them again, period.

As he passed in front of the dry goods store, he glanced inside and saw Mrs. Potter balanced precariously atop a chair, trying to reach a box resting on a high shelf. Detouring through the open door, he called, "Need some help?" then added a hasty apology when the unexpected voice nearly caused the stout woman to lose her balance.

"I swear, these shelves didn't used to seem as high as they did now," Mrs. Potter admitted, letting J.D. take her hands and steady her as she stepped down to the floor without her box. "Let me try."

The storekeeper gave him a doubtful look, but was far too polite to point out that he wasn't much taller than she was. Undeterred, J.D. jumped up on the chair and from there to the top of the sales counter. Grabbing hold of a support beam to balance himself, he leaned out as far as he could reach, got his free hand under the box, and rocked it off the shelf. It turned out to be heavier than expected. When it started to fall, he made a kind of awkward, one-handed grab to steady it and promptly lost his grip on the beam. His good deed very nearly ended with a heap on the floor made up of broken box, broken chair and broken sheriff, but for once his coordination managed not to fail him. He went with the momentum of the fall, jumping from the counter to the chair, and then to the floor. Staggering a couple of steps, he even managed to catch the box in both hands to steady it, swung around and landed it triumphantly on the counter.

Mrs. Potter had both hands over her mouth and her shoulders hunched in anticipation of disaster. With a heartfelt sigh, she relaxed and shook her head at him.

"I believe I shall talk to Tom Logan about having those shelves moved a trifle closer to the floor," she decided, graciously restraining the urge to ask if he was all right.

"Need anything else brought down while I'm at it?" J.D. inquired, grinning as he brushed his suit coat back into alignment and resettled his hat.

He helped her move a few barrels and generally made himself handy for a while, both as an excuse to avoid the waiting paperwork and because he knew she could use the help. She didn't have the money to hire anyone on regular and her only surviving son, Timothy, was a reed-thin child of barely nine, unfitted for this sort of work by either size or temperament. Timothy was only truly happy when he was off somewhere under a tree with his nose stuck in a book. Having gotten plenty of canings for losing himself in tales of high adventure when he was supposed to be mucking out stalls, J.D. could understand the urge, and he didn't mind helping out. He liked Mrs. Potter, and though he never would have admitted it to anyone, he enjoyed the offhanded motherliness with which she treated him. It made him feel warm, and sometimes a little sad for the good parts of his past which was gone forever right along with the bad.

When she'd run out of chores for him, the storekeeper rewarded him with a handful of fragrant jujubes from a newly opened tin and a bottle of root beer. Curling up on top of an unopened cracker barrel, J.D. chewed through the sticky confections, washing them down with mouthfuls of the dark, sweet brew.

"Mrs. Potter?" he inquired, after a couple of minutes of silence wherein he found himself watching the street through the front windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of gray skirts and chestnut hair.

"Mm?" she inquired, without looking up from the task of restocking her shelves.

"Do you know anybody named Johnson living around here?"

"Johnson? You don't mean Sam Johnson, do you?"

Duggan had mentioned that name, so he nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"He was a horse rancher. Had a spread up in the foothills. He died a few weeks ago. Got thrown from a horse and broke his neck. Terrible accident." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "I believe it must have happened when you gentlemen went out looking for Mr. Larabee, after he got himself in that spot of trouble." J.D. supposed that was one way of describing Chris spending a month locked up in prison for something he hadn't done.

"Yes, that must have been it," Mrs. Potter went on, nodding to herself. "I remember Ben Creedy went out to look after his stock while Mr. Gainer arranged for them to be sold. Sam didn't come into town much, so I don't suppose you ever met him."

"He lived by himself?"

"Oh, yes. He always was a solitary man, especially since..." She shook her head again. "Well, that's all water under the bridge, as they say."

"What is?"

Mrs. Potter straightened up from what she was doing. "Why all the curiosity, J.D.?" She only called him J.D. when they were alone; the rest of the time, he was "Sheriff Dunne."

"Oh, I figure I should know what's going on around town, that's all." To avoid her eyes, he finished the root beer in a long swallow. As he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he caught a faint whiff of apple blossom perfume clinging to his coat sleeve.

Mrs. Potter's scrutiny remained fixed on him, and it was entirely too much like his mama's to be borne with comfort. After a moment, he raised one shoulder in a lopsided shrug and admitted, "I ran into Mrs. Johnson over at the restaurant this morning."

"Amelia is in town?" the motherly woman demanded, her eyes widening in surprise. "I can't believe it!"

"I escorted her over to the bank just before I came in here."

"Why on earth would...? Oh, my, the poor thing. I hope Horace Duggan doesn't find out."

"He already knows," J.D. returned, his voice coming out sharper than he intended. "Didn't seem too happy about it."

"No, I'm sure he isn't."

"What's all this about?"

"Nothing that needs to be of concern to the sheriff." It was an admonishment, even if a gentle one.

"I know, but..." He picked up the last jujube and squashed it between his fingers until it was reduced to a gooey lump. "A man shouldn't say the kind of things he said about any woman, especially not his own daughter. And especially when it's obvious to anyone that they ain't true."

"Ah," Mrs. Potter said quietly, managing to pack a whole wealth of hidden meaning into that single syllable. J.D. waited for her to expand upon them, but she just went on bustling about, stacking a row of tinned peaches neatly on one of the shelves. He was thinking that maybe he ought to get himself out of this situation by moseying along, but before he could move, Mrs. Potter started talking again, almost to herself.

"Amelia was such a taking little girl. A real dreamer. She got that from her mother, poor woman. Her father never managed to rid her of it, though it wasn't for wont of trying. Ammie had barely turned sixteen when he married her off to Sam Johnson. She lived with Sam for two years, maybe three. Then one day, she just up and vanished. There was talk at the time that she'd run off with a young travelling representative who was passing through town, but that may have been nothing more than talk. If Mr. Duggan knows the truth of it, I certainly don't. That was, what? Heavens, it must have been seven, eight years ago now. I never expected to see her back here again."

Mrs. Potter sighed.

"There's many a righteous body--and some of them no better than they should be, either--who will tell you what Ammie did, running away from her legal husband like that, was the worst sort of wickedness. I'm not saying it was right, mind you, but I can't bring myself to condemn her for it. Sam Johnson was a cold man. He didn't much beat her, as far as I know, but I think that's the only kindness he ever gave her." She paused briefly before adding, "I only saw her a few times after she married, but each time, it seemed like another piece of her had just up and died." She shook her head, her perpetually smiling features turned bleak. "Life can be very hard for a woman, J.D."

"I know," he agreed solemnly, keeping his eyes trained on his knees. Feeling Mrs. Potter's thoughtful gaze turn back to him again, he shrugged. "Mama raised me on her own from the day I was born. She worked hard every day. Always tried to do the right thing by me and everybody else. But there were plenty of people--even her own kin--who looked down on her through her whole life. It just wasn't right."

He darted a sideways glance at her, afraid that the sideways admission of his bastardy would have lessened him in her eyes. Instead, Mrs. Potter gave him an odd, approving little smile, as though he'd said something profound.

"If you see Ammie again, J.D., you give her my best wishes. Tell her to come and see me before she leaves town."

"I'll be sure to do that, ma'am," he assured her, as he slipped to his feet and headed for the door.

CONTINUE...

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