Lawman in Disguise Read Free Page A

reaction. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to wait to move till nightfall, though...”
    She’d hoped he wouldn’t guess her family’s situation, but he was too clever. “I... I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she said, avoiding his eyes, “but I won’t lie. I’m a widow...have been for a couple of years now,” she added, when his gaze dropped to her clothes, which were shabby and threadbare, but definitely not the black of recent mourning. “Billy Joe is my only child, and there’s no one living here but the two of us. I don’t even have any kin still living. So there’s no one else to object to your presence. And that’s why I said Billy Joe had been through a lot lately...”
    I should have said, “ We’ve been through a lot lately,” she realized as soon as she had spoken. It sounded as if she didn’t miss her husband much, which was a horrible thing to admit to a stranger, even though it was true.
    â€œI’m sorry for your loss,” the wounded man said automatically. “And for how it’s affected your son. I’d guess that without a father around to set him straight, you’re not happy to hear your boy talking like an outlaw was someone to look up to,” he concluded for her.
    â€œNo, I’m not,” she agreed, and thought he saw too much with those dark, knowing eyes. She met his gaze with her chin upturned, daring him to criticize her parenting. He certainly wouldn’t be the first to think she couldn’t raise her son properly as a single mother. There were plenty of good people in Simpson Creek, as she knew firsthand. But there were plenty of mean-spirited gossips, too.
    â€œAnd I can understand that,” he told her, looking as if he wanted to say more about why he understood. “Mrs. Henderson, I can’t tell you the whole truth about my situation—for the sake of yours and the boy’s safety and my own—but I can tell you I’m not an outlaw, and that I have an honest and honorable reason for riding with the gang. And I promise, you and your son have absolutely nothing to fear from me. If you’d be willing to let me hide here, I’ll leave as soon as I can after that, and you can forget you ever laid eyes on me.”
    Should she take him at his word or not? Why should she take a chance that he was telling her the truth?
    There was sincerity shining in his dark eyes, but she’d learned from bitter experience that sincerity could be faked. William Henderson, Billy Joe’s father, had been a sweet-talking man with a sincere expression on his face when they’d courted, but shortly after they’d wed, he had turned her life into a nightmare that had lasted until he’d been taken away to prison.
    â€œAgain,” Thorn continued, “I know you have no reason to believe what I’m about to tell you, but I’ll say it, anyway—I’m a Christian, law-abiding man, Mrs. Henderson. The Bible is my guide.”
    William had said he was a Christian man, too, but he’d twisted the Scriptures to excuse his cruelty to her till she’d almost stopped believing there was a God who cared what happened to her and her little boy. It wasn’t until her husband was killed in a prison riot that she felt able to take an easy breath and start to believe in God’s care for her again.
    â€œThen why are you—” she began, then caught herself. “Never mind—you said you couldn’t say, so I won’t press you to give me an answer you can’t give. I’ll just say that I’m a Christian woman, too.”
    At least she tried to be, even though it was hard. Was it truly Christian of her to distrust Thorn—to distrust nearly every man she encountered—because of her abusive late husband? Forgiveness was something she struggled with. She knew it was her duty as a Christian, but it was so very