“Well, I think it’s just perfect,” Miss Groves said.
“If you find you want for anything, please feel free to place an order on my account at the mercantile.” He set a hand on the top of one of the kitchen chairs as he tried to ignore the awkwardness of all of this. Would it get easier? It had to . . . he hoped. Once they grew to know each other better. Once they were married.
And that was another awkward subject to broach.
“Miss Groves, I . . .” Hawk cleared his throat. He forced himself to look her in the eyes, despite the raging desire he had to lookanywhereelse. “There is a minister newly arrived in town, hoping to set up a congregation here. I took the liberty of speaking with him soon after he arrived, and he agreed to . . . well, to marry us. As soon as you’re ready, of course,” he added quickly, lest her eyes go any wider and she scamper off like a rabbit at a gunshot.
She swallowed visibly. “That sounds . . . I am glad to hear there is a minister.”
It was a noncommittal response, and Hawk swallowed his disappointment. But what did he expect? For her to jump immediately into marriage with a man she’d only just met? They’d only exchanged a couple of letters each, after all. All he knew about her were the basic facts of her life in Kansas, and she knew only the same of him.
“I will, of course, let you stay in the house. I’ll sleep in my office,” he said again, pushing the disappointment away.
“But where will you sleep in there?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I suppose if I get desperate, I can join Mr. Turley in a cell.” He said it half-joking, but Miss Groves looked utterly appalled.
“There is a perfectly good settee in the parlor,” she said. “I don’t see why you couldn’t stay there.”
He was about to say something about propriety and her reputation, but to be honest, the thought of spending nights on the settee instead of the floor in his office sounded much more comfortable. “If that would suit you, Miss Groves,” he said.
“It would, please. I couldn’t bear to think of you living in the jail. And please, call me Lina. If I’m to be your wife, what should I call you?”
Ly-nuh, he repeated in his head. When she’d signed her letters with the nickname, he’d thought it pronounced differently. “Most call me Hawk,” he said. Not a soul aside from his own mother had ever called him Henry.
“Very well, then, Hawk. One day, you’ll have to tell me how you came by that name.” She gazed at him expectantly.
“It isn’t much of a story, I promise,” he said, more pleased at the fact that she spoke of the future than anything else. “I’ll leave you to rest up from the road. I have some work to finish before I call it an evening.”
And with a tilt of his hat, he left her in the kitchen, feeling more optimistic about life than he had in a very long time.
For all of his professional accomplishments, nothing made him feel lighter in step than Miss Groves’—Lina’s—smile and wide blue eyes, looking only at him with all the hope in the world.
Chapter Five
LINA HAD PREPARED Asimple meal of salted ham, sliced tomatoes, and cheese, all of which she’d found tucked away in the sheriff’s pantry. When he didn’t return by seven o’clock, she wrapped up his supper and carried it over to the office, where he met her with a surprised grin and a plethora of thanks.
