Come the Spring by Julie Garwood Page B

she was inside, Cole muttered an imprecation. “I don’t like being a marshal. It’s depressing.”
    â€œYou know what’s really bothering you? You feel sorry for all three of the women, don’t you?”
    â€œYeah, I do. Thanks to Sloan’s incompetence, those ladies have been thrown into the middle of a boiling pot. They shouldn’t have to be afraid. Besides, it’s pretty certain none of them was in the bank during the robbery, but now everyone in town thinks one of them was. Folks around here don’t think thingsthrough, do they? I guess I hated seeing Rebecca so scared.”
    â€œI can’t blame her for being afraid,” Ryan said. “She knows what the Blackwater gang can do.”
    â€œDo you think any of them will come back to Rockford Falls? Would they go to such an extreme because of a rumor?”
    â€œPeople believe what they read in the paper. It would be a lucky break for us if they did come back. Stop glaring at me, Cole. I’m only being honest. It
would
be a break, and God knows we’re due for one. We can protect the women. Come on, let’s go talk to Jessica Summers and Grace Winthrop.”
    â€œIt seems kind of pointless,” Cole said. “They didn’t see anything.”
    â€œWe have to go through the motions,” Ryan stubbornly insisted. “And by the way, you’re supposed to take notes during the interviews.”
    â€œYou take them. I hate paperwork. Besides, I can remember what everyone said.”
    â€œMaybe now you can, but later, after one or two more robberies, all the names and dates start blending together.”
    â€œThen I guess we better catch the bastards before they rob again.” Hungry and weary, he grudgingly followed Ryan down the steps. “Rebecca told us that Jessica and Grace were exhausted. Remember? Maybe we ought to wait until tomorrow to talk to them.”
    â€œNo, I want to talk to them now.”
    Cole gave up trying to argue with him. He found the job of marshal incredibly frustrating thus far. He wanted to act. Sorting through the mire of paperwork and talking to potential witnesses was like putting an intricate puzzle together. One had to be patient, and Cole hadn’t quite learned how to accomplish that feat.

Part Two

 
    The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;

Thirteen

 
    Tilly MacGuire’s boardinghouse was at the end of Elm Street, a winding road lined with hundred-year-old trees. The front door of the hotel where Rebecca was staying actually faced the front door of the house, but because of the meandering road and the trees, it wasn’t possible to see one building from the other.
    The old homestead had just been treated to a fresh coat of white paint. The trim of the window shutters and the doors was a dark burgundy red. The color matched the lounging chairs scattered about the porch. The pristine house sat back from the white picket fence that surrounded the property, and while that too had recently been painted, tenacious spurs of ivy were already working their way back up the slats.
    Both the house and the rambling lawn in front were shaded by a cluster of ancient walnut trees on either side of the porch. The leafy giant sentinels stood guard over the occupants inside. A faint breeze moved unnoticed through the massive limbs that arched out to one another over the gabled roof.
    Tilly MacGuire’s home was a charming, idyllic place to raise a brood of children, and she had done just that. The spry sixty-five-year-old woman had married at age fourteen, produced eight offspring—all girls—but after her youngest had married and moved away and her third husband had passed on, she converted her six-bedroom home to a boarding facility.
    She didn’t need the money; she needed the companionship. She was a discriminating landlord and chose as boarders only those ladies for whom she felt a kinship. She