The Marriage Knot. Mary McBride
send a boy around tomorrow with all these flowers,” Moran said, gesturing toward the many vases that decorated the room. “Just let me lock up and I’ll see you home.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Moran. It’s only a little way. I’ll be safe enough.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m very sure. After such a throng of people, I think I’d prefer being alone for a while. Will you be picking me up tomorrow for the ride to the cemetery?”
“Yes, ma‘am. Nine o’clock, if that suits you.”
“Nine will be fine. Thank you, Mr. Moran. Thank you for everything. I’ll see you then.”
Hannah took a last look at the closed casket and felt her tears welling up again. Ezra was dead. The notion kept surprising her somehow. The hurt kept feeling fresh. Raw. She wondered how long it would be before she truly accepted the fact that Ezra was gone, that she was alone.
A soft breeze riffled her black satin skirt and bonnet when she stepped outside onto the planked sidewalk. The night was warm. She breathed deeply, cleansing herself of the smell of funeral bouquets and the lingering camphor and cedar that scented the mourners’ best clothes.
Beyond the brass carriage lights that flanked the Moran Brothers’ doorway, Newton was bathed in silver moonlight. Even the dirt of Main Street glistened here and there where moonbeams pooled. Down the street, Hannah could see the elm-shadowed facade of her own house. There was a lamp burning in the vestibule, turning the stained-glass fanlight over the door to glittering jewels.
For a moment everything was beautiful, almost magical. Then Hannah remembered Ezra was dead, and the beauty of the night seemed to mock her. Everything silver suddenly seemed to tarnish. A feeling of such loneliness engulfed her that she had to reach out to the hitching rail to steady her liquid knees.
“Kinda late for a lady to be walking home alone.”
Delaney’s voice—its deep, rough music—came out of the darkness. Hannah would have known it anywhere. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of moonlight on the badge pinned to his black vest and the dull sheen of his ever-present shotgun.
“I’m sorry about Ezra, Mrs. Dancer.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.” Hannah stepped off the sidewalk, into the street. Without asking permission, Delaney fell into step beside her, so close at first that their sleeves brushed, causing both of them to veer slightly—Delaney to his right, Hannah to her left—leaving a foot or so of moonlit road between them.
“I understand you were the one who kept me from pitching down the stairs the other day. I’m very grateful, Sheriff.”
“It was nothing,” he said, his gaze directed straight ahead. “Glad I was there to help.”
They walked in silence then. Well, not total silence. There was the clash of piano music coming from several saloons behind them, a bright peal of laughter drifting out a window somewhere, and a chorus of crickets on the edge of town. Hannah’s satin skirts rustled softly while Delaney’s spurs kept up a gentle, metallic beat.
When they passed the jailhouse, Hannah caught sight of the chair where this man usually sat, shotgun at hand, casually keeping watch over the town. It seemed odd to stare so boldly at that chair now. Ordinarily, when she walked into town, she riveted her gaze on the opposite side of the street. The sight of him forever flustered her.
They were halfway up the flagstone sidewalk to her house when Delaney halted.
“I’ll wait till you’re safe inside.”
For a moment Hannah wanted to stop, too, rather than continue, alone, toward the huge house. It was happening again—that magnetic pull she always felt whenever she was near this man. She’d been intensely aware of it from their very first meeting last winter. At the first, surprising sound of his well-deep voice and the sight of his serious face with those frank hazel eyes, Hannah’s heart had quickened inside her.
Then, after the lemonade social to welcome the new sheriff to Newton, there had been the Valentine’s Day dance and a similar tug at her heartstrings seeing Delaney across a crowded room. It had confused her in the past, even irritated her, but now it shamed her—feeling that same pull—with Ezra just a few days dead.
“Good night, Delaney.” She said it almost stiffly as she forced herself to walk the final yards to the front steps, and then up to the door. With her hand on the knob, Hannah was tempted to turn and take one last look at the tall man in his black vest, black trousers, and boots. She feared, though, that if she did, she might turn to a pillar of salt.
So she went inside and softly closed the door behind her.
Delaney didn’t go back to his room at the National Hotel. Instead he pushed through the doors of the Longhorn Saloon and settled himself at a table in the back. In a matter of minutes, Ria Flowers had brought him a tall, wet glass of beer and had planted her bountiful self in the chair next to his.
“I haven’t seen you for over a week, Delaney, darlin’. Don’t tell me you’re loving up some other girl.” She leaned forward, a seductive smile on her redglossed lips and a significant amount of cleavage shimmering above her crimson laced corset.
Delaney found himself oddly and uncharacteristically immune. Ria was a beautiful young woman still on the spring side of twenty, blond and blue-eyed and finely constructed even without the unnatural allure of her tight-laced corset. Of all the women who made their livings in the saloons of Newton, she still had a softness about her, not the sulky demeanor of most whores.
It had become Delaney’s habit over the last several years, as he went from one wild town to another in Kansas, to take his pleasures in each place with just one woman. So, there’d been Joy in Abilene, Josette in Wichita, Fanny McKay in Dodge, and now pretty young Ria Flowers in Newton. It was a sort of monogamy, he thought, unsanctified as it was, unholy perhaps, but ultimately a necessity Delaney could not deny or do without.
Besides, since he never intended to get married again, it wouldn’t have done to get cozy with a proper single lady who had... well... expectations. Not that it was always easy walking away from a whore he’d had an affection for, but it was legal. Unlike Wyatt and Doc, he’d never lived as man and wife with such a woman.
In Delaney’s view, his two friends might just as well have been married to their paramours for all the grief they cost one another. He’d seen Mattie crying more than once over Wyatt. And if Doc’s Kate never shed a tear, still he thought he could read chapter and verse of sadness in her eyes.
“You tired of me?” Ria asked him now, her pink tongue glossing over her lips and her fingers smoothing up and down his arm.
“Just tired, honey.” Delaney took a long draft of the warm beer in front of him, then set it down again. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
It had to do, he thought, with a red-haired widow whose face and form seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his mind these last few days. The smart thing to do now, he knew, would be to take Ria upstairs to bed, to lose himself if only for a night in her arms and her giving flesh. That was, after all, why he’d come to the Longhorn instead of returning to his room.
But he didn’t feel particularly smart at the moment, and somehow being with Ria Flowers didn’t seem like such a good way to rid his mind of Hannah Dancer. It struck him as dishonest. Damned if he’d ever coupled honesty and lovemaking in the same breath. And damned if he’d ever turned his back on a warm and willing female.
He drained his glass and set it on the table with a thump. “I think I’ll just turn in for the night,” he told her.
“Well, if that’s what you want.” Ria’s lower lip slid out. Worry flickered in her eyes. “I could come with you to the hotel, Delaney. Harry wouldn’t mind.” She angled her head toward the bartender. “Here. There. It’s all the same to him as long as he gets his cut.”
He