herself from laughing.
"You shouldn't be talking like this."
"Like what? I simply answered your question. Your hair isn't brown,
by the way. It's cinnamon." She didn't like being the focus of his
attention. It was wrong of him to try to fill her head with sugared
remarks that weren't true. She wasn't a fine-looking woman, as he'd
declared. She was a plain, sensible one.
"Why haven't you married? " she asked.
"I never wanted to, " he replied. "Besides, in my line of work,
marriage is out of the question."
"But why haven't you wanted to? " she prodded.
"I don't like the idea of being tied down. I don't want any strings.
" She nodded agreement. "I understand. I don't want any either. "
"You're too young to be set in your ways."
"Are you trying to tell me I'm cynical? I am, you know."
"The right man will change your mind.
" "The right woman might change yours, " she countered.
He stared at her for several seconds, then turned his gaze to the
fire.
There was a brooding expression on his face that puzzled her, and she
wondered what he was thinking about now.
She got up and put her brush away, dug through her valise for one of
her ribbons, and then went to sit on the blanket next to Caleb.
"I've decided I'm going to tie my son's wrist to mine. If he tries to
get up, he'll wake me."
"Jessie, that isn't necessary. I'll hear him." She wasn't willing to
take the chance. She looped the yellow ribbon around Caleb's left
wrist and secured it to hers. Then she lay down and closed her eyes.
"I won't sleep a wink worrying about him." She was sound asleep less
than a minute later. Cole added some twigs to the fire, then reached
over and untied the ribbon from Caleb's wrist.
Jessica had left a long strip of ribbon between them so that Caleb
could move, but Cole was concerned that in his sleep the baby would get
the ribbon around his neck. He wasn't about to take the chance.
Besides, he would hear the baby if he stirred. When Cole was away from
home, he never slept straight through the night, and he always heard
every little sound.
Jessica sighed in her sleep and rolled on her side, facing him. He
stared at her lovely face, knowing in his heart that if ever there was
a right woman for him, Jessie was the one, and that realization made
him angry.
It could get complicated, and he hated complications.
He stretched out on his back again, closed his eyes, and let the cool
night air soothe the fire inside him while he reminded himself of his
basic philosophy of life.
No strings.
t_) heriff Tom Norton and his wife, Josey, lived in a two-story gray
clapboard house on Grant Lane, just two blocks east of Middleton's town
square, where Tom's jail was located. Three stone steps led up to the