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

squinting with concern, dark curls coated with melting snowflakes.  The snow was starting up harder again, the wind battering its way down the street.
                  "Step back," Matthew said.  "Give her some air."
                  The air was frigid.  It was the last thing I wanted.  I put my hands on his forearm as he reached for me.  The shivering had started up, cold wracking through me. 
                  "Can we go in?" I asked.  I nodded at the saloon we were closest to, not wanting to make the circuit of the street, all the way to the Queen.
                  "What happened?  Where were you?  I looked around and you were gone."
                  I waited for him to say something about the hotel or worse, about Violet, but he just watched me, concerned, and led me to a seat at one of the tables where ladies are permitted to sit.  From the bar, raucous laughter as the indomitable drank their way through the storm.
                  "I saw someone," I said.  "When the fire broke out, I ran around back."
                  Matthew frowned.  "Back of the Queen?  Why?"
                  "Because everyone else was going in the front."
                  Matthew looked faintly surprised.
                  "Someone came out the back door," I said.  "I wanted to see if there were sparks, make sure nothing was going to catch before the fire wagons finished up front.  A man came out"— familiar, so familiar, but I didn't get a good look at his face— "I don't know who he was."  I rubbed my head.  The headache hadn't retreated even an inch.  "Could someone get me a glass of water?"
                  One of the older women detached herself from the group, which had followed us inside. 
                  "You recognized him?" Matthew persisted.
                  I squinted, rubbed my face with my shredded gloves.  "Yes.  But I don't know who it was."  I gave him a helpless look.
                  He just looked confused in response.
     
                  "You know.  When you know you've seen someone before but can't place them?"
                  He nodded, as if he didn't really know, but was urging me to continue. 
                  "I followed him when he ran."
                  "You what ?" Matthew's eyes went wide.  Several people in the group ringing us pressed forward.  I heard someone say, "Go get the Sheriff, he's still at the Queen," and someone else muttered something about fires but mostly, they watched, Caroline still sitting quite close to me at the small table in the restaurant part of the saloon.
                  "I followed him.  Matthew, it was daylight, people were on the street, and I saw someone run with a bottle of lamp oil—"
                  "—Is that what I smell?"  He instantly began tugging at my coat, pulling it from me.  I allowed him to take it because it was easier than fighting and because inside the saloon was faintly warmer than outside.
                  "You could have been hurt," Caroline said, mostly for something to say, I thought.
                  I smiled ruefully.  "I was."  The brassy blonde woman came back with a glass of water and I told the rest of my story until the part where I saw the charring on the door of the outbuilding.
                  "Matthew?"
                  But he was already out the door, running, and the men from the group following him.  I stood, too fast, caught myself on Caroline's proffered arm and swayed. 
                  "Sit," several female voices said.
                  "I have to catch him."  He'd been shot once this year already, a thought that curled through my mind as if it meant something more than fear that Matthew was going off half-cocked, then I was