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wash his mind clear of what he’d seen in her eyes. Her look made him believe there was something uglier than death in this world and she’d already experienced it in full measure.
    He stepped out into the cool night and took a deep breath. “Lord,” he whispered, “if that child wants to claim a knife wound is a bullet hole, I’ll not add to her pain by arguing.”
    Moving into the shadows of the train station, he leaned against the cold brick and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and tried to relax muscles that had been knotted since he’d heard the first shot fired during the robbery.
    He stared at the lights flickering from town and had the feeling he was alone on earth. Stepping farther into the darkness, he tried remembering when the years of loneliness had first started. He’d ridden the same road long enough to know that he’d never share life with another, but he was still young enough to remember how it felt to dream. Sometimes, he longed to have another person to talk things out with, to sleep beside, to believe in forever with. But each year on the trail hardened him, driving him further from his dream.
    His life had always balanced on a plane of right and wrong. But somewhere during the long fight, he’d turned and lost his footing. He was still fighting for the same thing, but some days he wondered if it mattered to anyone but himself which side won the battle. He was a warrior who fought alone against an army. A warrior without anything or anyone to return to when the battle was fought.
    His solitude was both his protection and his private jail. He’d built it brick by brick. A defense against the pain from his job. In his line of work a man couldn’t afford to care. The isolation protected him against all feelings.
    When had he stopped being a man and become only a marshal? Even on the train Jennie Munday had only been talking to a silver star and not a man.
    A smile widened his lips slightly as he thought how he’d like her to see him as a man. She might not be the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, but she had a fire in those green eyes that would be worth a dance or two. “It’ll never happen, McCormick,” he said to himself. “Not in this lifetime.”
    “What won’t happen?” Jennie’s voice startled him into a year’s aging.
    He opened his eyes and saw his thoughts take shape. She stood three feet from him, her hands on her hips and the same fire in her eyes. Her frame was still as straight and unyielding as ever, her hair as black as midnight and her voice cold as stone. Austin couldn’t stop his fists from clenching. The hunger to touch her twisted like a dull pain in his gut. It wasn’t a need to cherish or dominate, but a longing to prove to himself that such a woman lived and breathed, a desire to know how a woman like her would feel pressed against his heart. A need to end his solitude, if only for the length of one dream.
    Jennie seemed unaware of his struggle as she moved a step nearer. “Shouldn’t you be in the station helping that poor girl who was shot instead of lurking in the shadows talking to yourself?”
    Her words were like a cold blast over his senses. Like water turning to ice, he hardened from the outside in. He wondered, if he shot her right now, whether he could convince everyone that he thought her a robber in the darkness? He knew he could never do such a thing, but the idea was more than appealing. He admired her strength as much as he hated her manner. “I was just waiting for the doctor.”
    Jennie’s slender body swayed with impatience. “Well, Marshal, don’t you think you could do that more effectively waiting on the side of the building that faces town? I’ve never been good at direction, but it doesn’t take a genius to see the lights of Florence. I doubt the doctor is going to materialize out of these boxes of supplies.”
    This woman was starting to get on his nerves. It wasn’t because of her orders as much as her bothersome habit