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She made her way down the stairs, then outside toward the path to town Fear knotted her sto what everyone expected Of being the fussy old ood citizens of Landing so meal

Chapter Twelve

J ustin stared out the hotel's front s, then glanced back at the note in his hand Megan had asked hireat stone fireplace She'd said to be here in an hour She was ten minutes late

Sout It was the sa that had caused him to push Sheriff Willia a holdup His fast actions had saved the older man's life He'd almost taken the bullet instead, but his ailadly do it a hundred times over for his friend Williams had been the first and so far only person to believe in him

He rean had believed, but he kneas only while it had been easy to do so If things got hard again, she would disappear as quickly as she had before

So why did she want to meet with him? And why at his hotel? He returned his attention to theand watched the people along the boardwalk Her reasons had so to do hat had happened that afternoon He shook his head, wishing his ht him to respect women Or that Colleen could spend five minutes in ht of her and leave her as broken and bleeding on the outside as she'd left her sister on the inside

He glanced back at the letter, as if the few scraords would give his to her at her store? Had he convinced Megan

that Colleen was lying about all of it? He wished he was one of those educated men with a couple of ten-dollar words to help her see the truth He wished a lot of things

The feeling in his gut got stronger He looked up through the sparkling clean hotelAcross the street a wo daintily out onto the road She had to pick up her skirt to keep it fro, so she was exposing her entire foot and a bit of ankle Another tiht have enjoyed the unexpected view Today, he didn't even notice it He was too busy staring at the woman's face and dress

"Megan?"

Not only had growing up above the saloon hores in the neighboring roonized an expensive gohen he saw one She would have looked at home at a fancy dress ball so roo, Kansas, dressed as she was, she was as foreign as Napoleon brandy