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So this is it, he thought, drawing his hand off Florie’s back. All the years of saying he was married to his badge, all the times he’d told his mother he wasn’t cut out for wedded bliss, had come back to haunt him.
Cord stood then, and left the room, with his mother’s words—be careful what you wish for—echoing in his mind. He certainly hadn’t wished to fall in love with a married woman, yet that’s what he’d got.
He’d set his life on a path of righteousness. Born and bred on honesty, and seeking justice for a living. The guilt gouging his insides was the worst he’d ever imagined. He’d compromised one of man’s greatest vows. Slept with a married woman.
Cord crawled into his own bed, but dreams jerked him awake every time he closed his eyes. They were a juncture of excited fantasies involving him and Florie, and nightmares of her husband, an unknown, faceless man, taking her away. When the sun tossed faint streaks of light into the room, he threw off the covers and dressed.
Florie still slept and, captivated, he stood in the doorway of her room, wondering where her dreams took her.
She stirred, burying her cheek deeper into the pillow. He pushed off the wall and made his way downstairs. After building a fire, he set a pot of coffee on a burner and went out the back door.
The morning air was brisk, and made him think of Florie walking all the way from her place. She’d walked over seventy miles to warn him about outlaws he’d captured three days ago. His nerves quivered beneath his skin at the number of things that could have happened to her along the way.
“Good morning, Cord.”
He turned.
Della Cramer, the woman who ran the boarding house next door was on her back porch, shaking out a rug. She was a good neighbor—the best. He paid her to clean his home and prepare the meals for prisoners as well as the plates left in the icebox or warming in the oven for him and Deputy Monroe.
“Morning, Della,” he responded, turning back toward his house.
Pushing open the door, he shook his head. Florie was married. Of all things. It was still a shocking thought, one that shook him to the core. He’d never, ever, so much as taken a second look at another man’s wife.
And it just didn’t fit. Florie was too pure and innocent to—
His sixth sense kicked in, making him stiffen as he pushed aside the coffeepot that was bubbling over, sizzling and steaming against the cast iron of the stove.
Taking a breath to calm the way his heart jolted inside his chest, he turned. Sunlight from the parlor windows flowed through the doorway, forming a golden haze all around her.
It was a moment before he could speak, and when he did say, “Good morning, Florie,” it was accompanied by a gush of air.
The light clung to her outline as she moved forward. Sleep-tousled and rumpled she looked angelic, and made a whirlwind swirl inside him. Their eyes locked and a tightening happened in his chest, like an invisible lasso had looped over his heart and pulled it across the room.
“Good morning,” she greeted softly.
He wanted to go to her, wrap her in his arms and hold her. Just hold her. And tell her how beautiful she was. How he thought of little else but her.
She blinked and he spun around, forcing the thoughts aside.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked, filling a cup from the steaming pot.
“Fine, thank you.”
Cord turned and held out the cup. “Coffee?”
She eased forward, her skirt swaying around her ankles. Suddenly all color drained from her face and she slapped a hand over her mouth. Eyes wide, she bolted for the door.
Momentarily stunned, Cord could do nothing but stare. Then he threw the cup in the sink and followed in her wake. The privy door slammed shut as he slid to a stop next to it.
He stepped back.
Waited.
Walked around a bit.
Waited.
Had she eaten something that didn’t agree with her? Or had she caught something during her journey? Smallpox had been fierce last winter. Had she contracted it? His heart started to pound. Should he get the doctor? He hurried to the door and knocked on the wood. “Florie?”
A low grown permeated the wood.
He pounded again. “Florie!”
“Cord, you go on, I’ll see to her.”
Cord spun. Della, his neighbor, gave him a gentle push.
He shook his head. “I don’t know if she’s all right or not.”
“Who is she?” Della asked.
“Her name’s Florie.” Cord stared at the outhouse, willing the door to open. “She walked here, all the way from Greenfield. She must have caught something.” It felt as if a thousand crickets hopped around inside him and he didn’t know how to stop them. It was ridiculous, he was a lawman. Always knew how to react. But she’d looked so ill-stricken. He spun back to Della. “Could she have caught pneumonia?”
