The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller

mercantile, hoping to help Maddie down before she went ahead and made the leap herself. He paused and peered into the wagon bed, waiting for a cloud to pass over the skinny moon so he could see more than a shadowy shape huddled in the corner behind the seat.
    Just as the moon was unveiled—the side lanterns had winked out, one and then the other, halfway back to town—Maddie turned from her perch to look down. “Land sakes,” she said, “it’s Ben’s puppy.”
    Sam sighed, resettled his hat, and reached over the side of the wagon to hoist the little critter out. He’d been nestled on a pile of empty burlap bags the whole way, without making a sound until now.
    â€œSure enough,” he agreed, setting the mutt on the ground and watching dubiously as it sniffed the rear wheel and then lifted a hind leg.
    Maddie gathered her skirts and clambered deftly over the board backrest to stand on the floorboards, her hands resting on her hips. “Somebody must have put him in the wagon. He couldn’t have gotten there on his own.”
    â€œBen, I reckon,” Sam said. The dog had finished his business and was now smelling his pant leg. He hoped the lop-eared little creature hadn’t mistaken him for a wagon wheel.
    â€œLooks like you’ve been gifted with a dog,” Maddie said with a degree of satisfaction that was wholly unbecoming.
    Sam rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Now what would I do with a dog?” he countered.
    She sat on the side-rail and swung her legs over with a swish of skirts. Sam caught her around the waist just before she would have made the jump, and stumbled a bit at the unexpected solidity of that deceptively slender frame. The contact between their two torsos roused something inside him that made him set her away from him abruptly.
    Remember Abigail, he told himself. Damned if he could bring her face to mind, though, right at that moment.
    â€œYou’re heavier than I would have guessed,” he said, and then wished he could suck the words back in and swallow them.
    Maddie seemed flustered. She straightened her skirts and patted her hair and took her time looking up into his face. “I can think of a thousand things you could have said,” she told him peevishly, “that would have been better than that. ”
    Sam felt the fool, and that always made him testy. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I didn’t mean—”
    Maddie put up a hand to silence him. In the sparse moonlight, he saw that she was amused, not insulted, and his relief was profound. She stooped, all of a sudden, and swept the little yellow dog up into her arms. Smiled, instead of making a face, when the pup gave her cheek a tentative lap.
    Something shifted inside Sam, watching her. Made him wonder what she’d look like holding a baby. He took an unconscious step backward. “I’d best unhitch this team for you,” he said. He didn’t see a barn, but there was plenty of grass for the horses, and a trough.
    â€œNo need,” she answered, still cuddling the pup. “Terran can do it.”
    With that, she gave a shrill whistle through her teeth.
    Sam grinned, in spite of himself. He’d always admired people who could whistle like that, and he’d never run across the talent in a woman before. There were lots of things about Maddie Chancelor, he suspected, that he’d never come across before.
    Before he could ask how she’d acquired the skill, the back door of the mercantile slammed open and Terran bounded out. Catching sight of the pup in his sister’s arms, he stopped short.
    â€œThat’s Neptune,” he said. “What’s he doing here?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Maddie answered, stroking the dog’s back in a way that made Sam widen his stance slightly. “We just found him in the back of the wagon. Unhitch the team and see that they get a little grain,