Linda Castle by Heart of the Lawman Page A

ride in the stagecoach passed pleasantly enough for Marydyth. At sundown they pulled into Hollenbeck Corners. Again she was relieved to find the depot almost deserted. The people that were there had business of their own and never even blinked an eye at her.
    She stood nervously looking around the town, trying to reconcile memory with reality while Flynn retrieved her carpetbag and got a buggy.
    “I thought I would take the luggage to the house.” Flynn’s voice jarred her. She turned with a start to see him sitting in a buggy. He studied her from under the concealing shadow of his pale-colored Stetson hat.
    “Of course,” she said. He started to get down and help her into the seat but she scrambled up, not wishing to give him any excuse to touch her. He must have realized her motive because he stood with one boot on the ground and one in the buggy and watched her with an amused grin tickling his lips.
    “If you don’t want to do this, Marydyth, all you have to do is say so. I’d be happy to get you a room at the hotel.”
    “Not on your life,” she grumbled, and pulled her skirt in so it would not snag on the buggy wheel.
    “Suit yourself.” He flicked the reins, and she lurched backward and bumped her head on the bar around the seat. It had been so long since she rode in a buggy it all felt strange and awkward. The horse seemed to be going incredibly fast and Flynn seemed to be taking cornerswith reckless abandon, but she clung to the seat and bit her tongue, determined not to say anything to him.
    Marydyth tightly gripped the side of the buggy seat. She wanted to look at every inch of Hollenbeck Corners, but she didn’t want Flynn to see her excitement, so she sat there, still as a statue while her eyes roamed over the town.
    It was bigger. A new dressmaker had opened near the Grand Hotel. And a butcher shop was on the corner near Mullin’s Hardware. There was a new livery and several saloons, one named the Flying Nymph. But overall the town had a shop-worn appearance. None of the buildings was wearing fresh paint and it all looked a little sad and run-down. Bigger, but not brighter. Flynn clicked his tongue and urged more speed from the horse.
    Was he anxious to get home or was he simply trying to frighten her? She opened her mouth to ask the brute that very question, but then the house J.C. had built for her came into view. It loomed up on the hill, as if by magic, and she was stunned to speechlessness.
    Her throat tightened so much she thought she might gag. Marydyth had a terrifying moment when she actually thought she could not live with so much happiness.
    But while her eyes were taking in every inch of the house, she managed to compose herself at least a little.
    It was just as she remembered. The ground floor was solid and square, built of adobe, with only a narrow porch and balcony above to soften the line. But the top…that was where J.C. had allowed Marydyth’s imagination to run free.
    He had denied her nothing when it came to the house. No request was too outlandish, he had said. Her misty eyes followed the line of the steep pitched roof upward to the point where it was trimmed with fanciful woodworkand a turret room like the one that sat atop the Tombstone Courthouse.
    Marydyth’s eyes filled with hot tears. The tall windows winked at her like long, half-open eyes. J.C. had paid extra to have the window glass shipped in and a hand pump put in the kitchen along with the most modern cookstove he could find. All for her—because he had loved her.
    It was a great house—a house built to last.
    Her home.
    J.C. had understood her need from the first. He had seemed to instinctively understand her craving for a home that was solid and lasting. She had yearned for a place to put down roots so she could finally take root herself. Marydyth had grown up like a stunted vine, unable to grow and mature because she had no roots to grip the soil and keep her anchored.
    J.C. had done his best to remedy that