Somewhat reluctantly, he nodded. “You sure you don’t want me to stick around for a while?” he muttered.
But she practically shoved him back outside. “You take care, now, you hear?” she called sweetly, and then she was gone, and Jason had nothing to look at but her outside wall.
Well, whatever it was—if it was anything at all—Ward could take care of it. He’d been wanting to make an arrest, single-handed, for ages now. And there wasn’t anybody in there that Ward couldn’t handle with one hand tied behind his back.
Jason shrugged and headed back up the street, toward home.
At home, the kitchen was buzzing with girl talk, giggles, and the clatter of pots and pans when Jason walked in. In fact, they didn’t seem to notice his passage into the house and back to his room.
He was glad that Meg was staying for dinner. And he was even gladder to find that the filthy pile of clothes he’d left on the floor had been picked up and laundered, and presently lay neatly folded in his bureau.
But he hadn’t escaped unseen.
Jenny appeared in his doorway, arms folded, and asked, “Well? Did you drag half the territory home in your clothes again?”
Jason played along. He doffed his hat and solemnly said, “No, ma’am, I decided to let Ward take a turn tonight.”
“Good. It’s only fair.” She turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall, calling over her shoulder, “Supper in ten minutes!”
Grinning, Jason hung his hat on the bedpost, and then slumped down into a sit. Jenny acted more like his mother than his little sister. But then, he supposed that came from a combination of her mother-hen instincts and his boyish looks and manner. He had never asked to be marshal. He’d never wanted to stay on, once everybody was settled in. His heart wasn’t in Fury: It was back east at Harvard or Yale, back where fellows carried books, not guns, and the closest thing to an Apache attack was a stray spitball in the hallway.
His father had promised he’d send him, and Jason had promised he’d go, but Jason had since learned that a promise was just as fleeting as the air it was breathed into.
He pinched the brim of his nose to help keep himself awake. The kitten. He had to remember to tell Jenny. He’d forgotten all about it until just now.
Well, pinching his nose a few times didn’t seem to do the trick, because the next thing he knew, he was stretched out on the bed and Jenny was back in the doorway.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked, her toe tapping.
“Oh.” Supper, that was right, wasn’t it? “Be right there.”
She sniffed. “I swan, Jason Fury, I don’t know what you’d do if left to your own devices. Sleep straight through until you were sixty, probably.”
He raised his arm to make a point, but she had already gone. Oh, she could be a saucy little wench, his sister, he thought with a smile. He sniffed the air. Chicken and gravy? His mouth began to water, and suddenly he was standing up and on his way down the hall. Jenny’s gravy pulled at him like a magnet.
Things had surely changed since they left Kansas City, he mused. When they left, Jenny was more apt to blow up a kitchen than cook anything vaguely edible in it. But lately, she’d turned into one hell of a cook. Either that, or she’d just plain worn down his taste buds. . . .
He smiled as he sat down at the table. “Jenny, you’ve done it again. Smells great!” He snapped open his napkin and tucked it into his collar.
She carried a platter over to the table and slid it down beside him. Fried chicken, all right!
She muttered, “I can remember a time when you were afraid I was gonna blow up the kitchen every time I cooked.”
Megan looked up from her plate at that, and Jason gave her a wink. “Well, Jenny, all I had to go on was past experience.”
“One time! One time that happened, and that was clear back in Kansas City, Jason!”
He grabbed her around the waist, grinning, and said, “Now, sister, I admit it. You’ve improved tremendously! I actually look forward to coming home to your cookin’, and that’s the truth of it.”
She relaxed, but said, “Don’t go throwin’ those college words around, you ol’ show-off. ‘Tremendously. ’ Honest to gosh!”
Jason tried to look innocent, but failed miserably. He loosened his grip on Jenny, and she slipped away and into her chair. As she sat down and shook out her napkin, she said, “We almost had a guest for dinner. Besides Meg, I mean.”
He helped himself to the chicken, then reached for the mashed potatoes. “How so? And Meg isn’t a guest. She knows she’s welcome here any old time, right, Megan?”
Megan didn’t have time to do more than open her mouth before Jenny said, “It was the nicest man, Jason. We met him this morning, and he was just so . . . nice!”
“But we left before Jenny thought to ask him,” said Megan.
“And when we went back, he was gone,” Jenny said.
The girls were doing it again. They had him holding one conversation with two girls who seemed to be reading each other’s minds. He didn’t believe they even realized they were doing it!
“Who was he?” Jason asked as Meg handed him the gravy.
“Oh, he had the most beautiful name, too!” Jenny fairly squealed. “It was Rafe.”
“Rafe Lynch,” added Megan. “The first name’s prettier than the last.”
Jason froze, mid-pour. After the moment it took him to let this news sink in, he said, “You were at Abigail’s
