Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story) Read Free Page A

someone back with me, Matthew, if he'd listen, a Sheriff's deputy, and show them the broken lamp oil bottle, the outbuilding where there'd be something left behind to show I'd been there, if the reek of lamp oil on my collar and the broken glass in my hair and on the ground weren't enough.
                  Already moving toward the cross street, I stopped again—and stared. 
                  The door still swung open, moving slightly with nothing to stop it.  When it swung closed, I saw the char marks on the door.
                  "They're not fresh," I said aloud into the quiet afternoon.
                  But they were.  I'd been smelling the scorch from the fire ever since I'd awakened.  Whether it was the snow, the wind, or luck, the fire hadn't caught but whoever had locked me in the outbuilding had tried to set it on fire.
     
     
                  Carson Street, one block short of C Street, was deserted.  My heart pounded in time to my quick steps as my boots slithered in the snow.  I moved as fast as I dared, not wanting to fall, desperately not wanting to give whoever had hit me another chance.  There was no way to know for sure whoever he was had gone.
                  Except that he'd seemed unafraid of getting caught before and, because there was no one in the alley, had he seen me emerge and decided to stop me, he'd have had ample opportunity to do so already.  I was still moving slower than I wanted, disoriented and in pain.
                  Turning on to C Street, finally, there were lights and people.  Oil lamps lit the street and groups of people moved through the January night.  I passed the first of them without anyone saying anything, but slipped and caught myself against a horse tether before I'd gone very far.
                  "Are you alright?"  A hand caught my elbow, keeping me from falling. 
                  I recognized the voice and shied wildly before I stopped myself.  Caroline Brown, a friend from Gold Hill. 
                  "Chloe?"
                  I nodded, found my voice.  "Caroline.  I'm sorry.  I—" Stumbling over my words, I stopped, uncertain if I should tell anyone what had happened to me.  Gossip is one of the chief trades in places like Gold Hill and Virginia City. 
                  It would spread soon enough.  The Sheriff wasn't tight lipped, no more than anyone else.
                  "Chloe?" Caroline asked again. 
                  I used the horse tether and her arm to fully right myself, feet seeking less slick purchase on the snow covered wooden sidewalk.  I put up one hand to ask her to wait and saw my leather gloves were torn in places.
                  The cold caught me again at that.  Wind surged down the main street, swirling dried powdery snow into drifts.
                  "Someone hit me," I said.
                  Caroline's shocked hiss drew a couple of middle aged women passing. 
                  "Did you fall?" one of them asked.  She was brassy blonde, tall and of the type of weight that moves regally and ponderously, but her face looked kind.
                  Her friend, darker and elegantly dressed, wrinkled her nose.  "She smells of—"
                  "—Lamp oil," I said.  "Someone hit me with a bottle of it."
                  Caroline and the two women began talking at once, voices raised so that more women flocked to us, some of them bringing husbands and suitors until the men began joining the crowd.  My story started and stopped and was repeated over shoulders to those joining the crowd until I could hear the changes being made to it from where I stood.  I wanted to stop talking, just wanted—
                  "Matthew."
                  He pushed through the crowd, blue eyes