“What made you think they would give Irv over?”
“Based on what Corrine and Irv have told me about that pair, they’re without scruple. I was afraid that if they were pressured to rat out anyone who was there last night in exchange for leniency, they would do it in a heartbeat. I went for Irv’s sake, to plead on his behalf.”
She’d made up the explanation as she’d gone along, but to her it had sounded perfectly plausible. She hoped it would to him. He was watching her in that incisive way of his.
After a moment, he said, “You could have saved yourself the trip. Irv isn’t going to be arrested.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked the sheriff myself.”
“You did?”
“This morning. Directly after leaving here, I went to see him to give back his Colt and the badge.”
“You really aren’t a deputy, then?”
“No.”
She inhaled deeply, but her relief was short-lived.
“But if I was,” he said, “what would it matter?”
“It wouldn’t.”
“It did.”
It had. She groped for a logical reason. “If you had shown me the badge, explained it… But you didn’t, and that seemed underhanded. I like to know where I stand with people.”
“Yeah, I like that, too.”
There was no winning this argument, and she would only sink herself in deeper if she continued trying. She fixed her gaze on the loose knot that secured a bandana around his neck. “I appreciate your intervening for Irv with Sheriff Amos.”
“He said maybe getting shot taught Irv a lesson.” He looked beyond her toward the house. “How’s he doing?”
“He was hurting all day, and that made him grouchy. This evening I let him sip his moonshine until he fell asleep.”
“Sleep is the best thing for him.”
She nodded. “I hope he sleeps through the night.”
“Who does he buy his moonshine from?”
That was the second question he’d asked out of the blue. As before, she was momentarily dumbfounded before mumbling, “I’m not supposed to tell.”
Thatcher just stood there looking at her, silently pressing for a more satisfactory answer.
The one that sprang to her mind was evasive, but actually the God’s truth. “He doesn’t have to buy it. A friend gives it to him in exchange for handiwork.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Well, Irv and his friend need to be careful. Obviously local law is cracking down on offenders.”
“I’ll pass along the warning, but I’m afraid Irv won’t change his ways.”
“I’m afraid of that, too.”
It was a solemn and weighty statement, not a quip. The intensity of his stare held her captive without force, without even a touch. Perhaps Irv’s sixth sense about him had been correct. Perhaps Thatcher Hutton was something other than the loose-limbed cowboy he played, someone who represented a threat, not only to her, but to the people whose welfare depended on her.
But no sooner had that upsetting possibili