Rose by Jill Marie Landis

silently staring up at him until the man moved to take the ticket she thrust toward him and opened the cash drawer below the window. He pushed a handful of bills and change across the counter. Rosa scooped them into her hand and quickly shoved them into her skirt pocket, afraid the man might change his mind and want it all back.
    “I will leave the trunk here again, if is all right?”
    He nodded. “Of course, ma’am, for as long as you like, but—”
    “I will come for it when I have place to stay.” She smiled at John Tuttle, hoping to ease some of the concern from his face. Was the man afraid of the marshal? Was that why he had been so hesitant to give her back the money?
    “If you change your mind, ma’am, you hurry back and you can still make the train.”
    She shook her head. “I am certain. I stay here.”
    With that, Rosa stooped to lift her valise off the platform and, for the second time in two days, turned toward the town of Busted Heel. This time her shoulders were set with purpose.
    * * *
    “Looks like you got trouble.”
    Kase looked up at the sound of Zach Elliot’s voice. “What?”
    “I said, looks like—”
    “I heard what you said,” Kase snapped irritably. He was in no mood to be sociable. It had been easier to spend his time brooding before Zach came to town. He wished the old man would find something to do and leave him alone. “What kind of trouble?”
    “Eye-talian. It’s comin’ this way.”
    Kase slammed the palms of his hands on the desk and stood up. He opened the door just as Rose was about to knock, watched her lower her hand and clear her throat. He knew one thing for certain; right now she was definitely a woman with a bee in her oversized bonnet.
    “Why aren’t you on the train?” he demanded.
    “I am not going.”
    “What do you mean, you’re not going?”
    She did not look as if she was going to budge. “I am stay here. I will find work.”
    “Stay where? What work?”
    Zach interrupted the exchange. “Why don’t you two step inside and let me go out so you can settle this?”
    Rose swept past Kase who continued to glare at her. She dropped her valise on the floor where it fell with a thud that echoed loudly in the stillness. Zach sauntered out, and Kase closed the door behind him without a sound. He extracted the gold watch from the depths of his pocket and quickly snapped it open, checked the time, then closed it. As he worked the timepiece back down into his denims, he met Rose’s eyes again.
    “You’re going to miss the train if you aren’t back there in ten minutes.”
    “I think you did not hear me. I am not going. I come here to say to you I will pay the money you give me for the ticket, but I am stay here. This is where Giovanni want me to live.”
    “Going to. It’s going to stay here. But you’re not. Giovanni isn’t here anymore.”
    “But I am here.”
    Kase sighed. He had to make her understand that this was no place for a decent woman to live alone. It was hard, desperately lonely, and potentially dangerous for someone so vulnerable. Someone so young. Someone with eyes like melted honey. Someone so—
    Kase started and shook himself out of the mesmerized stupor he was falling into. With his thumbs looped into his gun belt he said, “You have to leave.”
    “Why? You own the town?” She poked at his badge. What privileges was he entitled to as marshal? Could he make her leave?
    “No.” Irritated, he shook his head. “I don’t own the town. But I do know what’s good for a woman like you, and Busted Heel isn’t it.”
    “You say to me, Marshal, what kind of woman I am?”
    “What?”
    She struggled to find the right words. “ Tell me, what kind of a woman I am?”
    He stepped closer. “Innocent. Alone. In need of protection. In need of a home and a means of support... a job,” he explained further.
    Rosa smiled, triumphant. “Your friend, Signora Flossie, she says I can have a job. I go to her next and say I take