He hit the head of the nail he’d been hammering one final time, then, taking the sack of nails, hammer, and handbills with him, he crossed the street. “Need a hand?”
She let go of the strap and whipped around. As before, her features were taut, her expression guarded. They relaxed only slightly when she recognized him. “Oh. Mr. Hutton.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Seems you’re always wrestling with something.” He gestured toward the strap. He saw now that she’d been trying to get the ends to meet so she could buckle it.
She looked him up and down, taking in his cowboy hat, faded shirt, and dusty boots, then turned away and resumed pulling on the strap. “My father-in-law told me they had released you from jail.”
“They had no reason to hold me in the first place.”
“Mrs. Driscoll is still missing.”
She yanked hard on the strap as she glanced over her shoulder at him. If she had meant that as an implied accusation, he wasn’t going to honor it with a denial. “I heard you moved into town.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you like your new house?”
“It’s a far cry from new, but it’s better than where we were. How’s your hand?”
He held it up, palm out. “Healed. How’s your little girl?”
She gave the strap another yank. “She died.”
The ground seemed to give way underneath him. Her blunt statement had left him dumbfounded, and she must have sensed it. She stopped grappling with the strap and faced him.
“Please don’t feel like you have to say anything, Mr. Hutton. Actually, I would rather you didn’t.”
“All right.”
“It’s just that it’s difficult for me to talk about.”
He nodded. “I can see where it would be.”
She wet her lips, then pulled the lower one through her teeth.
He squinted up at the sun and readjusted the brim of his hat to shade his eyes.
After several awkward moments, he set the sack of nails, hammer, and handful of flyers on the hood of the car, then stepped around her and easily buckled the strap over several bundles of what looked like household goods. He gave it a test tug. “That ought to hold.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked down at her. The straw brim of her hat cast a patterned shadow over her face that intrigued him. Or, he just liked looking at her. Her eyes were green. And skittish. They looked everywhere except back at him.
A strand of hair had escaped both the braid and her hat. She pushed at it with the back of her wrist, the small knob of which barely cleared the curled edge of her worn leather glove. He didn’t remember ever seeing a wrist that delicate or a gesture that feminine.
But if he weren’t mistaken, the collarless shirt she wore was a man’s garment. It was way too large for her. The sleeves were rolled back, forming bulky cuffs against her thin forearms. The top button had been left open, exposing the triangular hollow at the base of her throat and making it about the most tempting patch of skin on the planet.
Her darting eyes eventually landed on the handbills. She tilted her head in order to read the bold printing upside down. “You break and train horses for a living?”
“Trying to.”
“That explains the cowboy clothes.” She glanced down at the ground. “The boots make you taller.”