The Man from Stone Creek

#1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller presents the Stone Creek story that started it all…

When trouble strikes in Haven, Arizona, Ranger Sam O’Ballivan is determined to sort it out. Badge and gun hidden, he arrives posing as the new schoolteacher, and discovers his first task: bringing the ranchers’ children under control. So he starts with a call on Maddie Chancelor, the local postmistress and older sister of a boy in need of discipline.

But far from the spinster Sam expects, Maddie turns out to be a graceful woman whose prim and proper demeanor is belied by the fire in her eyes. Working undercover to capture rustlers and train robbers has always kept Sam isolated and his heart firmly in check—until now. But something about the spirited postmistress tempts him to start down a path he swore he’d never travel….

Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

“Miller is one of the finest American writers in the genre.”

—RT Book Reviews

“This is a delightful addition to Miller’s Big Sky series.This author has a way with a phrase that is nigh-on poetic, and all of the snappy little interactions between the main and secondary characters make this story especially entertaining.”

—RT Book Reviews on Big Sky Mountain

“Miller’s down-home, easy-to-read style keeps the plot moving, and she includes…likable characters, picturesque descriptions and some very sweet pets.”

—Publishers Weekly on Big Sky Country

“After reading this book your heart will be so full of Christmas cheer you’ll want to stuff a copy in the stocking of every romance fan you know!”

—USATODAY.com Happy Ever After on A Lawman’s Christmas

“A fine conclusion to Miller’s latest trilogy…Animal lovers will enjoy the creatures that make up a delightfully integral part of the story.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Creed Legacy

“Miller once again tells a memorable tale.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Creed in Stone Creek

“A passionate love too long denied drives the action in this multifaceted, emotionally rich reunion story that overflows with breathtaking sexual chemistry.”

—Library Journal on McKettricks of Texas: Tate

“Strong characterization and a vivid Western setting make for a fine historical romance.”

—Publishers Weekly on McKettrick’s Choice

The Man from Stone Creek

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

It is with pleasure and pride that I take you back to Stone Creek and to Sam O’Ballivan’s world. Sam is one of my all-time favorite heroes, a man of strength, integrity, humor and honor. His lady, Maddie, is his perfect match—a partner as well as a lover, his equal in every way.

I would also like to tell you about the scholarship program that I finance—Linda Lael Miller Scholarships for Women, awarded to those seeking to improve their lot in life through education. You can find more information on my website, www.lindalaelmiller.com.

I also hope that you’ll be on the lookout for A Wanted Man, where we’ll revisit Stone Creek to check in on schoolteacher Lark Morgan and town marshal Rowdy Rhodes. With train robberies, gangsters and romantic sparks flying amongst it all, you won’t want to miss it! Be sure to also watch for a new trilogy in another familiar setting, Parable, Montana, beginning in June with Big Sky Summer.

Happy reading!

For Kathy and Betty,

the Bannon girls,

with love

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

Haven, Arizona Territory

Fall, 1903

THE PINT-SIZE CULPRITS, heretofore gathered around the well, scattered for the brush as soon as Sam O’Ballivan rode into the schoolyard on his nameless horse, but he’d seen enough to know they were up to no good. He caught glimpses of bowl-cut hair, denim trousers and chambray shirts as they fled. Pigtails, too, and a flash of red calico, bright as a cardinal rousted from the low branches of a white oak tree in winter. With a disgusted shake of his head, Sam reined in and dismounted, leaving the gelding to stand untethered while he strode toward the scene of recent mischief. A part of his mind stayed behind, with the animal—it was newly acquired, that horse, and the two of them had yet to form a proper acquaintance. All during the long ride south from his ranch just outside Flagstaff, he’d been too busy cogitating on the complexities of this new assignment to consider much of anything else, going over Major John Blackstone’s orders again and again in his head, sorting and sifting, weighing and measuring.

“Hold on,” he called. The bucket rope was taut and quivering, and he recalled this particular trick from his own youth.

A male voice echoed from the depths of the water hole, a shambling train of plaintive syllables rattling along a track of hopeful goodwill. Sam recognized the keynote as relief.

“I find myself in—obvious difficulties—and will—be profoundly grateful for any assistance—”

“Hold on,” Sam repeated, the words underlaid with a sigh. He was powerfully built—like a brick shithouse, the boys in the bunkhouse liked to say—and seldom moved quickly, except in a fight or when called upon to draw his .45. He secured the rope with his left hand and reached for the crank with the other, peering downward.

All he could make out, even squinting, were the soles of two small, booted feet, bound at the ankles with what looked like baling twine. Here was a dainty fellow, for sure and certain—and most likely the incompetent schoolmaster Sam had come to relieve of his duties.

“I’m all right!” the teacher called cheerfully from the pit. “Thomas P. Singleton, here!”

Sam felt chagrined that given the circumstances, he hadn’t thought to inquire after the man’s well-being right off, but kept cranking. He was a practical man, given to engaging the crisis at hand and dealing with the conversational aspects of the situation later.

“That’s good, Mr. Singleton,” he said belatedly, and when the ankles came within reach, he let go of the handle and grabbed for them with both hands. Poor Tom resembled a trussed gander, plucked and ready for the stew pot, and he didn’t weigh much more than one, either.

Sam hauled him out of the well and let him plop to the tinder-dry grass like a fresh-caught trout. He wasn’t wet, so the water must be low.

Crouching, Sam pulled out his pocketknife and commenced to cutting the twine. The teacher’s thin red hair stood straight up on his head, wild and crackling with static, as though it didn’t subscribe to the law of gravity. The face beneath it was narrow, with pointy features and blue, watery eyes. The girlish lips curled into a self-deprecating smile.

“My replacement, I presume?” he asked, feeling for what turned out to be his pocket watch, still safe at the end of its tarnished chain, and tucking it away again with a relieved pat. Singleton was certainly a resilient sort; the way he acted, anybody would have thought the pair of them had just sat themselves down to a grand and sociable supper in some fancy Eastern restaurant instead of meeting the way they had. “I must say, your arrival was timely indeed.”

Still resting on his haunches, Sam nodded in acknowledgment. “Sam O’Ballivan,” he said, though he doubted an introduction was necessary. Up at Flagstaff, he’d heard all about the schoolmaster, and he figured the reverse was probably true. With a few pertinent details excepted, of course.

Singleton rubbed his rope-chafed wrists to restore the circulation, but he showed no inclination to stand up just yet. Poor little fella must have had noodles for legs, Sam reflected, after hanging upside down in the well like that. “Call me Tom,” he said affably. “I am much obliged for your quick action on my behalf.”

Sam let one corner of his mouth quirk upward. He was sparing with a smile; like names for horses, they meant something to him, and he gave them out only when he was good and ready. He made a stalwart friend, when he had a high opinion of somebody, but he took his time deciding such matters. He knew a little about Tom Singleton, much of it hearsay, but as to whether he liked the man or not...well, the vote was still untallied.

Small feet rustled the bushes nearby and a giggle or two rode the warm afternoon breeze. Valiantly, Singleton pretended not to hear, but there was a flush pulsing on his cheekbones. It had to be hard on a small man’s dignity, being cranked up out of a schoolyard well by a big one, hired to take over his job. Sam wanted to tread lightly around what was left of Singleton’s pride.

“You hurting anywhere?” Sam asked, rising to his feet and scanning the schoolyard. Just you wait, he told the hidden miscreants silently.

“Fit as a fiddle!” Singleton insisted. He tried to get up then, but Sam saw that he was fixing to crumple and withheld his hand out of regard for the fellow’s self-respect. Sure enough, he went down.

“Best sit a spell,” Sam said.

Another bush shivered, off to his left— No time like the present, he thought, and waded in, snatching up one of the offenders by his shirt collar and dragging him out into the open. The giggles turned to gasps and there was some powerful shrub-shaking as the rest of the gang lit out for safer ground. “And your name would be?”

The lad looked to be around twelve or thirteen, with a cap of chestnut-brown hair and strange, whiskey-colored eyes peering, at once scared and defiant, out of a freckled face. His clothes were plain, but of good sturdy quality, and he wore shoes, which marked him as somebody’s pride and joy.

“Terran Chancelor,” he answered, clearly begrudging the information. His gaze darted briefly to Singleton, who was just summoning up the gumption for another attempt at gaining his feet, and the sly pleasure in the kid’s face made Sam want to shake him.

Forbearing, Sam held him suspended, so the toes of his fine mail-order shoes just barely brushed the grass. “You the leader of this bunch of outlaws?” he asked.

“No,” Chancelor snapped. “Put me down!”

Sam hoisted him an inch or two higher. “Maybe you’d like to hang upside down in the well for a while,” he mused. It was a bluff, but the kid didn’t need to know that. His eyes widened and he went a shade paler behind that constellation of freckles.

“I hope you’re not the new schoolmaster,” Terran Chancelor said with brave disdain. Sam wasn’t sure how smart the kid was, but he had to credit him with grit.

He allowed himself a slow, wicked grin. “‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,’” he quoted.

Chancelor frowned, gnawed at his lower lip. “What does that mean?” he asked, peevish. “Sounds like something out of some high-falutin’ book.”

Sam released his hold on the boy’s shirt, watched as he dropped, swayed and found his balance. “It means, young Mr. Chancelor, that when you sit down at your desk bright and early tomorrow morning, here in the hallowed halls of learning, I’ll be standing in front of the blackboard.”

“Well, hell,” the kid complained.

Sam suppressed a grin. “Peculiar that you should mention Hades,” he said evenly. “That quote you just asked about is carved over the gate.”

The boy’s eyes widened again, but his color was high with fresh temper. He darted another glance at Singleton. “We were just having a little fun after school let out for the day, that’s all. No harm done.”

“I guess that depends on your viewpoint,” Sam said mildly. “Whether or not there was any harm done, I mean. You tell your friends that I’ll be happy to give any or all of them the same perspective Mr. Singleton here just enjoyed, if they’re curious about how it feels.”

Chancelor narrowed his eyes, looked as if he might be deciding whether he ought to spit in Sam’s face. Fortunately for him, he didn’t pursue that inclination. Unfortunately for him, he chose to run off at the mouth instead.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

Quick as if he’d been wrestling a calf to the ground for branding, Sam hooked an arm around the boy’s middle, tipped him over the rim of the well and caught a firm hold on his ankles. “There’s where you’re wrong, young Mr. Chancelor,” he replied.

“My sister will have your hide for this!” the boy yelled, but his voice quavered as it bounced off the cold stone walls.

Sam chuckled. Singleton stared at him in horrified admiration.

“He’s right, you know,” Tom whispered earnestly. “Maddie Chancelor’s got a tongue on her. She’ll flay you to the bone.”

“That right?” Sam asked. Bracing his elbows against the edge of the well, he let the kid dangle.

“The blood is probably rushing to his head,” Singleton advised fretfully.

“Good for his brain,” Sam said companionably.

“Get me out of here!” Terran sputtered, squirming. “Right now!”

“I wouldn’t flail around like that, if I were you,” Sam counseled. “Hell of a thing if you came out of those splendid boots of yours and took a spill. Fall like that, you’d probably break your fool neck.”

The boy heeded Sam’s advice and went still. “What do you want?” he asked, sounding just shy of reasonable.

“For a start,” Sam answered, “a sincere apology.”

“What do I have to say ‘sorry’ to you for?”

Sam wondered idly about Maddie Chancelor and what kind of influence she might have in this little cowpattie of a town, plopped right along the border between Mexico and the Arizona Territory like an egg on a griddle. If she was anything like her brother, she must be a caution, as well as a shrew.

“Not a thing,” he replied at his leisure. “But a kindly word to Mr. Singleton here wouldn’t go amiss.”

Sam felt a quiver of rage rise right up the length of that boy, then along the rope, like grounded lightning coursing back through a metal rod.

“All right!” Chancelor bellowed. “I’m sorry!”

“‘I’m sorry, Mr. Singleton,’” Sam prompted.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Singleton,” the boy repeated. His tone was neither as dutiful nor as earnest as it might have been, but Sam yanked him up anyhow and set him hard on his feet. The fury in the kid’s eyes could have singed the bristles off a full-grown boar, but he held his tongue.

There might be hope for this one yet, Sam concluded silently, folding his arms as he regarded the furious youth.

“Go home and tell your sister,” Sam said, “that the new schoolmaster will be stopping by shortly to discuss the calamitous state of your character.”

The boy glowered at him in barely contained outrage, fists clenched, eyes fierce. “She’ll be expecting you.” He spat the words, simultaneously leaping backward, out of reach, ready to run. “Don’t bother to unpack your gear. You won’t be around here long.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, took a step toward the kid.

He turned and fled down the road Sam had just traveled, arms pumping at his sides, feet raising little puffs of dust.

By then, Singleton had recovered his composure. “You’re in for some trouble,” he said with friendly regret, consulting his pocket watch and starting for the schoolhouse. “Might as well show you around, though. I have an hour before the stage leaves for Tucson.”

Leaving his horse to graze on the sweet grass, Sam followed. “Where will I find the formidable Maddie Chancelor?” he asked.

Singleton mounted three plank steps and pushed open the schoolhouse door, which creaked ominously on its hinges. “She’s the postmistress, and she runs the mercantile, too,” he answered with a note of bleak resignation. “When she hears how you hung young Terran headfirst down the well, she’s not going to like it. They’re alone in the world, the pair of them, and she protects that little scoundrel like a she-bear guarding a cub.”

Sam digested the information as he crossed the threshold into a small, square room. There were long tables, rough-hewn, with benches, facing a blackboard on the east wall. A potbellied stove stood in one corner, with wood neatly stacked alongside. A few reading and ciphering primers lined a shelf next to the teacher’s desk, and the place smelled of chalk. Dust motes danced in the light coming in through the high, narrow windows.

Singleton looked around wistfully, sighed.

Sam felt a twinge of sympathy, wondering if a lone incident had spurred those little hellions to act, or if anarchy was the order of the day around here. He wasn’t about to ask, figuring the man had been through enough mortification as it was, but he’d have put his money on the latter.

“Your private quarters are back here,” Singleton said after a long and melancholy pause, making for an inside door. “It isn’t much, but the roof keeps out the rain, and there’s a decent bed and a cookstove.”

Sam was used to sleeping on the ground, wrapped up in a bedroll. The accommodations sounded downright luxurious to him.

“Not that you’ll want to stay long, even if Miss Chancelor doesn’t get you fired,” Singleton added. Two carpetbags waited at the foot of the bed and he stooped to fetch them up while Sam surveyed his new home.

“Looks like it’ll do,” he decided. The more he heard about Maddie Chancelor, the more he wanted to meet her.

Singleton stooped to pick up the satchels. Smiled gamely. “Good luck, Mr. O’Ballivan,” he said. “And thank you again for your help.”

“Good luck to you,” Sam replied, a little embarrassed by the other man’s gratitude. Anybody worth his bacon would have stepped in, in a circumstance like that.

Singleton set down one of the bags long enough to shake Sam’s hand. “May God be with you,” he added in parting. Then he crossed the room, opened the rear door and left, without looking back.

* * *

MADDIE CHANCELOR was measuring flour into a tin canister to fill Mrs. Ezra T. Burke’s weekly grocery order, when Terran burst into the store, shirttail out, hair rumpled, face aflame.

“The new teacher’s here,” he blurted before she could ask if he’d been fighting again, “and he just tried his best to kill me!”

Instant alarm swelled within Maddie’s breast, fair cutting off her wind, and her hands trembled as she set the scoop aside on the counter. “Kill you? What on earth...?”

“He would have drowned me in the well if I hadn’t got the best of him,” Terran insisted.

“Drowned you in the—”

“Well,” Terran finished in furious triumph.

Maddie untied her apron laces as she rounded the counter to examine her younger brother for injuries. He looked sound, and for someone who had nearly been murdered by drowning, he was remarkably dry, too.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, grateful, for once, that the mercantile was empty.

Terran gulped visibly. “He got me by the feet and tried to drop me down the schoolyard well,” he burst out. “I hid out in the brush, after I got away, or he’d have finished me for sure!”

Maddie’s heart seized at the image of her brother, her only living relation, suspended from such a height. Haven was a wild town, a crossroads for rogues, scalawags and scoundrels from both sides of the border, but she hadn’t expected the new schoolmaster to number among them. Anxiously she looked Terran over again. “You’re certain you haven’t been hurt?”

Terran nodded. “He said he’d be by here, real soon, to talk to you. He’s going to tell you a whole passel of lies, Maddie. He’ll say—”

Just then, the little brass bell over the door jingled and a man entered, removing his hat as he traversed the threshold.

Terran took one look at him and bolted for the stairs at the back of the store to take refuge in their rooms.

Maddie’s face flamed. “You must be the new schoolmaster,” she said.

He smiled, nodded. “Sam O’Ballivan,” he replied. “And you must be Miss Chancelor.”

Maddie gave a curt nod. Sam O’Ballivan was clean-shaven and muscular, probably six feet in height, with brown hair and shrewd blue eyes. He looked more like an outlaw than a schoolmaster, and she was sure the distinctive bulge under his long suit coat was the butt of a pistol. What had Mr. Callaway and the other members of the school board been thinking, to hire such a man?

“How dare you assault my brother?” she asked evenly, when she could trust herself to speak at all.

Mr. O’Ballivan’s mouth tilted upward at one corner. He kept his distance, though, which meant Maddie didn’t have to go for the shotgun she kept under the counter in case of trouble. “Is that what he told you? Guess he’s got a devious side, to go along with that mean streak of his.”

Maddie felt like a kettle coming to a boil. “Terran is not a liar, nor does he have a ‘mean streak,’” she managed to say. “And it’s a fine how-do-you-do, your saying that, when you tried to drown him!”

O’Ballivan chuckled, and what looked like mischievous derision glinted briefly in his eyes. His blatant masculinity seemed to take over the whole store, like some ominous, unseen force. Maddie would have described him as rugged, rather than handsome, if she’d been thinking along such lines.

Which she most definitely wasn’t.

“The truth, Miss Chancelor, is somewhat at variance with your brother’s account of the incident in question,” O’Ballivan said. “When I rode up, he and the rest of that pack of rascals had Tom Singleton hog-tied and hanging headfirst down the well. God knows how long he’d have dangled if I hadn’t come along when I did.”

Maddie blinked. It wasn’t true, she told herself firmly. Terran would never be involved in anything like that.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“You don’t choose to believe me,” he remarked idly, examining a display of dime novels Maddie had spent much of the morning arranging. She disapproved heartily of yellow journalism, but the plain fact was, folks were willing to spend money on those little books, and she couldn’t afford not to carry the merchandise.

At long last O’Ballivan’s gaze swung back, colliding with hers. Maddie felt a peculiar niggling in the pit of her stomach.

“You’re not doing your brother any favors, you know, by taking his part when you know he’s in the wrong,” he said.

“Did you or did you not try to drown him?”

“If I’d tried to drown him,” O’Ballivan said reasonably, “I would have succeeded. 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?”

“I 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?”