Silverton: Claims On The Heart by Karen Cogan Page A

them snapped up by the first wives to come in. The bread she had baked had sold to a single gentleman who worked at the bank. And they had sold cooking pots to a young family newly moved to town. She was glad she had come in to lend a hand.
    Vic was moving sluggishly, no doubt from a late night at a saloon. He usually sobered by mid-morning after a half dozen cups of his strong, bitter coffee. By the time she and Papa returned from lunch Vic was busily sweeping up the store.
    Kathleen paused to examine a burlap bag of cornmeal that looked as if it had been gnawed by mice. “Maybe we need two cats, one for home and one for the store. I’ll ask Collin to double my request.”
    Vic rubbed his chin. “Collin. That the young man that came asking about where you moved to?”
    Kathleen nodded. “That was Collin.”
    “Too bad what happened to him in the street last night.”
    Kathleen’s heart gave a jerk. “What happened to him?”
    “Well, I just happened to go by to see a friend,” he began.
    Kathleen wanted to pull the words from his mouth. She didn’t care why he was there. “What happened to Collin?”
    “While I was there just visiting with my friend, somebody said there was a fight out in the street. We piled out the door to watch and saw two men tussling. The big guy ran off when we came out. Seems he had a grudge against your friend. Left him pretty beat up.”
    Kathleen clutched Vic’s sleeve. “Will he be all right?”
    “Yeah. He weren’t hurt too bad to mend. Take a day or so, though.”
    She was frantic to see Collin, to know he was going to be all right. “Where is he?”
    “Well…” Vic looked embarrassed. “Somebody had to nurse him, so we carried him to the saloon’s back room. One of the girls said she’d look in on him. Seems they was already friends.”
    Kathleen paused in her headlong flight to grab her shawl. Saloon or not, she would rush to his side. But the news of his woman friend brought her up short. In a rush of disappointment she realized that he possessed the same weakness as many other men, a weakness she would not put up with. Did he think he could court her, make her believe he cared for her, while he secretly consorted with other women? She had been a fool to believe that she was the only woman in his life.
    “So it was a drunken brawl over a saloon girl?” she asked through tight lips.
    Vic shook his head. “Nope. I don’t recall ever seein’ Collin in a saloon. Maybe the guy wanted to rob him. Happens here, you know.”
    “Yet he knew the girl?”
    “That’s what she said.”
    Papa came in from making a delivery, and they told him what had happened.
    “Probably a robbery,” Papa agreed.
    “He don’t look too pretty, but he’ll be back at his boarding house by tomorrow,” Vic predicted.
    Assured that he’d be all right, Kathleen forced herself back to work. Yet she had a hard time keeping her mind from wondering about the girl who had been eager to minister to him. It was really no business of hers. It would simply be a letdown if he was not the man she’d hoped. In a day or two, she would take him a pot of chicken soup. Maybe then, she would find out what had really happened.
     
    
     
    Collin opened his eyes again when evening shadows filled the room. From where he lay on a cot, he squinted to see a square, dirty window and a rough packing crate that sat beside him to serve as a table. A tin cup sat on the crate. Collin reached for it and managed to get a few sips of water past his painful lips. Now that he had come fully conscious, every inch of his body was throbbing in pain.
    He began to go over the details of the attack in his mind. He had not gotten a good look at the faces of the men. It had been too dark. Yet he remembered the build of the two who had confronted him on Martin’s behalf. He felt sure Martin was behind this, especially since Martin had just warned him against taking Kathleen on a picnic. He became doubly determined that Martin