This morning she’d gotten Sam off to school and taken care of her share of the kitchen chores at the boardinghouse before heading into town. Because around dawn, it had occurred to her that before she worried herself silly and ran away from a town she truly liked, she ought to do a little checking of her own.

At the back entrance to the White Dove, she went inside and found Mrs. Townsend, the woman who owned the place and let Kinsey work there two nights a week washing dishes, at the cookstove. The kitchen smelled wonderful, delicious aromas of ham, eggs, biscuits filling the room.

“How’s business this morning?” Kinsey asked, pushing open the swinging door to the dining room just wide enough to sneak a quick peek inside.

The restaurant was half full. No sign of Jared yet. But she knew he’d be back. The White Dove was by far the best restaurant in town. No Mason, Kinsey knew, would settle for less. Certainly not Jared, after he’d bragged yesterday about the powerful Mason family, with their political connections, social position and their important friends in high places.

“Slow, thankfully.” Mrs. Townsend shook her head. “I’m shorthanded—again.”

A quick glance around the kitchen told Kinsey that once more, Dixie hadn’t reported for work on time. The young woman had gained an unsavory reputation in Crystal Springs and was frequently the topic of gossip. She was family, though, and Mrs. Townsend didn’t have much choice about keeping her on.

“Do you need me to help out?” Kinsey asked, cracking the door again to glance inside the dining room.

“Roy’s helping,” the woman said, nodding toward the window where her husband was loading up more logs from the woodpile. “We’ll be fine. Dixie will be along shortly. I saw you leave church yesterday. Missed you at the service.”

“Neither Sam nor I were feeling well. I should have kept us both at home,” Kinsey said, surprised at how easily the lie rolled off her tongue. She glanced into the dining room again. “Anything new from Miss Patterson?”

“I heard Reverend Battenfield was planning to pay a call on her yesterday afternoon,” Mrs. Townsend said, flipping eggs onto a platter and shaking her head. “He was taking the mayor with him along with Herb Foster.”

“From the feed and grain store?” Kinsey asked, frowning.

“Herb is just sure he’s come up with a plan for the new church that Miss Patterson will love.”

Herb wore checkered trousers and striped shirts thinking himself an Eastern dandy, so Kinsey had her doubts about whether he could impress the persnickety Bess Patterson with his ideas for the new church.

“If we don’t get that new church built before the hard winter sets in, we’ll have to wait clear until spring,” Mrs. Townsend said.

Kinsey wasn’t hopeful. Already Miss Patterson had turned up her nose at three other plans for the church and had so infuriated several men in town that they wouldn’t even talk about the situation anymore.

“Looks like some folks need a refill,” Kinsey said, taking the coffee pot from the back of the cookstove. Mrs. Townsend smiled her thanks as Kinsey pushed into the dining room.

She made the rounds, topping off coffee cups, chatting with most all the diners and casually casting glances out the front window. Just as she’d answered the familiar how’s-that-boy-of-yours question yet another time, she caught sight of Jared coming out of the hotel down the street. Her hand quivered, sending hot coffee into the saucer. She apologized quickly wondering why her first thought of the man had been that he looked handsome this morning, rather than that he was trying to ruin her life.

Back in the kitchen, she said goodbye to Mrs. Townsend and rushed outside. From the back corner of the building she saw Jared walk by, waited another few seconds, then headed for the hotel.

Cecil Nelson was behind the desk, helping out his folks, who ran the place. The young man seemed to grow taller each time Kinsey saw him.

“Morning, Miss Kinsey,” he said, swiping his bangs out of his eyes.

She had no time for small talk. Glancing around quickly she leaned toward him. “Give me the key to Mr. Mason’s room.”

Cecil drew back a little. “Well, Miss Kinsey, you know I can’t do that.”

She pulled herself up a little. “Would you like me to tell Becky Cochran’s pa what I sawthe two of you doing out behind the White Dove last Wednesday night?”

His face flamed and his jaw dropped. “Well—well, shoot, we weren’t doing nothing but—”

“I saw what you were doing. And unless you’d like Becky’s papa to know also—”

“No, no you can’t do that.” He shook his head frantically. “He’d fly into me something awful—not to mention what Ma would do when she found out.”

“The key.” Kinsey held out her hand.

Cecil fidgeted for a moment then gave her the pass key for room number four. She headed up the stairs.

“I love Becky. I swear I do,” Cecil called. “You aren’t going to tell, are you, Miss Kinsey?”

She stopped and looked back. “If you really love her you ought to have more respect than to put her in that sort of position. And if I see the two of you together like that one more time, I’ll tell.”

Kinsey hurried up the stairs, Cecil’s thanks fading behind her, a little uneasy at passing moral judgement on the two young people she’d caught kissing, given what she was about to do.

The upstairs hallway was empty as she made her way to the front of the hotel and room number four. The best room in the place. Figured Jared would request it.

With a final quick glance around, Kinsey unlocked the door, slipped inside and closed it behind her. She dropped the key into her skirt pocket and fell back against the door, her heart suddenly thumping in her chest.

Good gracious, she was in a hotel room. A man’s hotel room. What had become of her?

She reconciled herself with a quick look around. Bed, bureau, writing desk, washstand, rocking chair, dressing screen in the corner. Just a hotel room.

Then her breathing quickened and a whispering sensation rippled through her.

Jared’s room.

He came full force into her mind as she stood surrounded by his personal belongings. The rumpled bed linens spilling into the floor, the pillows molded to the shape of his head, his clothing hanging on the pegs beside the door, his satchel and valise in the corner. The room smelled of him, rousing a memory she’d rather forget.

The alley. Her nose buried against his throat. His body pressed close. His hot breath. His lips covering hers, drawing her in until she rose up and—

“Good gracious…” Kinsey muttered in the silent room, once more admonishing herself for her behavior. Jared had the good grace to apologize for his actions that night. Maybe she should do the same.

Except she wasn’t sorry.

Kinsey gasped aloud. How could she have even thought such a thing?

She certainly didn’t have time to figure that out now. Jared was at the White Dove having breakfast, and she intended to be finished with her task here long before he scraped his plate clean.

Yet she couldn’t help but touch his shirt hanging from one of the pegs. Pale blue. Cotton. Big. Clark had been a big man, too. Kinsey smiled faintly at the memory.

At the end of the peg row, she saw Jared’s gun belt. Odd that he hadn’t taken it with him. Nearly every man in Crystal Springs—in Colorado—carried a gun.

Yet it didn’t really surprise her. She suspected that like Clark, Jared was more comfortable with a pencil or ink pen in his hand. All the Mason brothers, like their father, spent their days and nights designing and overseeing construction projects—factories, office buildings, warehouses. The bigger, the better, Clark had said with reasonable pride.

Kinsey touched the holster. The leather was stiff, new. She pulled the pistol out. It was a Colt.44 caliber revolver. The Peacemaker. Well-oiled and immaculate. She sniffed the barrel. Not fired recently, if ever.