The door swung open quickly and a stoop-shouldered man squinted up at him. “Jess Logan? Is that you, boy? It’s me—Rory Garrette.”

“Mr. Garrette?” Jesus, what had happened to the man? He’d gotten so old.

Rory chuckled and leaned heavily on his cane. “Been a long time, boy. What? Fifteen years?”

“Yeah, about that.” Jess shifted his wide shoulders. On the trail these past weeks, every bump and sway—every memory—caused his thirty-two years to weigh more heavily on him. Now, seeing Rory Garrette, the burden lifted a little. “How you been, Mr. Garrette?”

“Tolerable, I reckon.” He nodded toward the muddy roadway and the misting rain. “Things in Walker have changed, though. It’s just not the same, not like when you were here.”

Jess didn’t answer, the past being the last thing he wanted to discuss.

“Yes sirree, them were the days. You boys were something. Fighting, drinking—kept the saloons in business yourselves, you and the Vernon boys. And the girls...land alive, weren’t no girl safe with you boys loose on the streets.” Rory laughed aloud. “And always into mischief, too. I remember the time you boys set fire to old lady Murray’s privy with her inside, she come a-running—”

“That was a long time ago, Mr. Garrette.”

“Yeah, that’s for dang sure.” His smile faded. “Town’s done gone respectable now. Got us a regular preacher over to the church, a full-time sheriff and deputy, too. Got enough ordinances and laws to choke a horse. New schoolmarm just got here, some widow woman from back East. All the ladies in town been wringing their hands since your sister took sick, wondering how we’d get us another teacher way out here. I guess you’ve seen some changes here in Walker already, huh, boy?”

He’d seen his sister’s grave. That was enough.

Alma stepped into the doorway, sending Rory on his way with a disapproving glare. She passed a small carpetbag to Jess. “Here’s their things.”

Beside her stood the children. His sister’s children. He’d never seen them before.

Little Maggie looked up at him with solemn eyes. Eyes older than her eight years. Jess knelt in front of her. The picture of her mother, with big brown eyes and blond curls. A lump of emotion rose in his throat.

“Mrs. Garrette says you’re Mama’s brother.”

“That’s right, Maggie. I’m your Uncle Jess.”

“Mama’s dead.”

His chest tightened. “I know, honey.” He turned to the little brown-haired boy peeking around Alma’s skirt. “Hey there, cowboy.”

“His name is Jimmy,” Maggie told him. “He turned five last week, but we couldn’t have a party or anything ’cause of Mama.”

Jess held out his hand. “Come here, Jimmy. You want to go for a ride with me and your sister?”

Jimmy drew back and hid his face in the folds of Alma’s skirt.

“Jimmy doesn’t talk,” Maggie said.

Alma glared down at Jess. “The child hasn’t spoken since his mother passed on.”

She made it sound as if that were his fault, too.

Jess rose. “I’m obliged to you, Mrs. Garrette, for looking after them until I got here.”

She jerked her chin. “They’ll be back. I don’t doubt it for a minute. There’s plenty of good Christian folks in this town who’d be more than glad to take these young ’uns in—you best remember that.”

Jess drew in a deep breath. “Come on, kids. Let’s go.” Carpetbag in hand, he crossed the porch.

“Aren’t you going to put his hat on for him?” Maggie asked.

“Huh?” He froze and looked back at her confused face.

“Aren’t you going to help Jimmy?”

Jess felt Alma’s glower and cleared his throat. “Yeah, sure.”

He fished the battered hat from the boy’s jacket pocket and pressed it down on his head.

“He can’t button his buttons either,” Maggie told him.

Jess fastened the jacket, his big fingers awkward on the buttons. He turned to Maggie. “Anything else?”

“No.” She pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and took her brother’s hand.

Jess stood. “All right, then, let’s go.”

A hand crept into his. Tiny warm fingers curled against his palm, sending a rush up his arm. He looked down at Maggie clinging to him.

“Where are we going, Uncle Jess?”

He gave her hand a little squeeze. “Home.”

“Uncle Jess doesn’t like people coming around the house, Mrs. Wakefield. He says they’re all a bunch of nosy busybodies and ought to stay home looking after their own children.”

Sarah Wakefield held tight to Maggie’s hand as she picked her way around the mud puddles in the road. “This is different. I’m your teacher.”

The little girl shook her head, her blond curls bouncing. “Uncle Jess isn’t going to like it.”

Despite the dire warnings Maggie had given her since leaving the schoolhouse, Sarah pressed on, holding up the hem of her dark skirt, dodging puddles. Like the gray clouds overhead ready to burst with rain, Sarah had a few things she intended to say to Mr. Jess Logan, and she wouldn’t wait another day.

Maggie stopped and pulled her hand from Sarah’s. “This is where me and Jimmy live with Uncle Jess. We lived with Mama...before.”

Breath left Sarah’s lungs with a sigh of profound envy as she gazed at the cozy little house. White with green shutters and a sturdy roof, a neat picket fence bordered with shrubs and bushes, twin maples in the yard. Gray smoke billowed from the chimney, blending with the gloomy afternoon sky.

Sarah shuddered at the thought of the leaky, drafty cottage a short distance down the road near the school—her house. She told herself for the hundredth time since arriving in Walker that she should be happy with the house the school board provided. It was a place to live. And, it was a very long way from Missouri.

Maggie took her hand once more. “We always go in through the back. Mama said to keep the front clean for company.”

Sarah followed the child through the front gate and around to the rear of the house. A clothesline stretched across one corner of the yard and several weatherfaded outbuildings stood a short distance from the house.

“That’s my Uncle Jess.” Maggie bounced on her toes and pointed.

At the three-sided woodshed a man draped in a poncho slammed his axe into a log, splitting it cleanly in two. He stopped suddenly and spun around, his face shadowed by a black Stetson and a stubble of whiskers. Even from across the yard, Sarah felt the heat of his gaze upon her. She backed up a step.

“Hi, Uncle Jess.” Maggie skipped across the yard to him.

Jess knelt and gave her a one-armed embrace. “Did you do all right at school today?”

She nodded, then pointed back at Sarah. “This is—”

“Go on in the house, Maggie.” Stern, but not angry, he stood and gestured toward the back porch with the axe clenched in his fist. Maggie looked back at Sarah and waved before disappearing into the house.

For an instant, Sarah wanted to call the child back as she stood alone, facing Jess Logan. She’d heard the talk about him. Generally, she disregarded other people’s opinions in favor of making up her own mind. Now, she questioned the wisdom of her decision.

He took a step toward her, the shroud of the poncho widening his big shoulders and increasing his height. Sarah gulped.

“What do you want, lady?”

Sarah straightened her shoulders. “Mr. Logan, I’m—”

“I don’t care what your name is. What do you want?”

Not a shred of tolerance warmed his tone. She expected townspeople here to be different from the folks in Missouri, but she hadn’t expected a Jess Logan so soon after her arrival. “I want to talk to you about Maggie. She—”

“Goddamn it!” Jess slammed the axe into the chopping block. “How many more of you nosy heifers is the church going to send over here?”

Her eyes widened. “Pardon me?”

“Look, lady, don’t stand there pretending you don’t know what I mean. I’ve been here less than a week, and every goddamn time I turn around one of you good-intentioned Christian busybodies is poking your nose in around here. I’m telling you for the last damn time—”