The Man from Stone Creek Read Free Page A

All I did was demonstrate that hanging headfirst down a well, while memorable, is not a desirable experience.”
    Maddie swallowed so hard it hurt. “What if you’d dropped him?”
    â€œI wouldn’t have,” he responded, damnably self-assured.
    She slipped behind the counter again, in case she needed the shotgun. “I will not tolerate that kind of rough treatment,” she insisted, making an effort to keep her voice from rising. “Terran is a child, Mr. O’Ballivan.”
    He drew near enough to rest his hands between the pickle crock and a pyramid of bright red tobacco cans. “Terran,” he said, “is a spoiled, bullying brat. And I, Miss Chancelor, will not tolerate the sort of behavior I witnessed today. I was hired to restore order in that school, and I will do it—however many times I have to hold your brother over a well by his feet. Do we understand each other?”
    Maddie felt heat surge up her neck to pulse along her cheekbones, and her ears burned. “If you lay a hand on him again,” she said, “I will have you dismissed.”
    He smiled slightly. “Then I guess we do understand each other. You’re welcome to try to get rid of me, Miss Chancelor, but if what I saw in that schoolyard a little while ago is typical, I’d say I’m just the kind of teacher this town needs.”
    â€œYou don’t look like a schoolmaster,” Maddie said.
    â€œAnd you don’t look like a storekeeper,” Mr. O’Ballivan retorted. “I guess appearances can be deceiving.”
    Maddie resisted an impulse to pat her hair, which tended to be unruly and was forever coming down from its pins. “What does a storekeeper look like?” she retorted.
    â€œWhat does a schoolmaster look like?” he countered.
    Maddie sighed and glanced hopefully toward the door, wishing the man would leave and stop taking up all the room in her store. “If you have no further business here, Mr. O’Ballivan—”
    â€œIt happens that I do,” he said, and she knew by the light in his eyes that he enjoyed baiting her. “I’d like to collect my mail. You are the postmistress, aren’t you?”
    Letters and packages came into Haven once a week, on the stagecoach, which had been and gone by four o’clock that afternoon. Busy with Mrs. Burke’s order, which she had promised to deliver personally after closing, she’d told the driver to put the mail in the back room and promptly forgotten all about it.
    â€œYes,” Maddie said. “I am the postmistress. But I haven’t had a chance to do any sorting.”
    â€œThere should be a parcel addressed to me,” O’Ballivan told her, and showed no sign of moving away from the counter, let alone leaving the premises.
    Maddie glanced at the large, loud-ticking clock on the far wall, above the display window. “I’m about to close for the day.”
    Again, that slow, thoughtful smile. “Well, then,” Sam O’Ballivan said, “if you’ll just point me to that parcel, I’ll be on my way.”
    Maddie sighed. “I’ll get it for you,” she conceded, and turned away.
    â€œIt’s bound to be too heavy,” he argued, and came right around the end of the counter without so much as a by-your-leave. “Just show me where it is.”
    Impatient, Maddie tossed aside the curtain covering the entrance to the back of the store and gestured toward the corner where the mail had been stowed. Sure enough, there was a very large box wrapped in brown paper and tied with heavy string.
    Mr. O’Ballivan lifted it with one hand, tilted it slightly so she could see the large, slanted letters on the face of the package: S. O’Ballivan, c/o General Delivery, Haven, Arizona Territory.
    He’d saved her the awkwardness of asking for proof that the parcel belonged to him before releasing it, but Maddie wasn’t