Read Online Heart of Gold by Robin Lee Hatcher - Free Book Online Page A

drawing checks, receiving packages and preparing others to be sent out, serving as the telegraph operator, transferring bank funds. There were three of them in the office— Matthew, William, and Ray—and even so they could barely keep up with the demand for the company’s services. But he refused to complain. At least he could provide a home for his sister and her boy. He was thankful for that, despite wishing he was back on the driver’s seat of a stage.
    Such were his thoughts when he arrived home that evening.
    Opening the front door, he was met with delicious odors drifting toward him from the back of the house. Fried chicken, if he wasn’t mistaken. His stomach growled in anticipation.
    He moved toward the kitchen.
    Shannon stood at the stove with her back to him, an apron tied around her waist, taking pieces of chicken from the skillet and placing them on a platter. Todd sat at the table in the center of the room, the puppy on his lap.
    “Uncle Matt!” the boy cried when he saw him. He slid from the chair and set Nugget on the floor. “I helped Miss Shannon make biscuits.”
    “You did, huh?”
    “Yup.”
    Shannon turned to face him. There was a sheen of perspiration on her forehead and her face was flushed from the heat of the stove.
    Oddly enough, it seemed to make her even prettier than he’d thought her before. Not that he wanted to notice that about her.
    “Miss Adair, I never expected you to cook for us.” Although he was glad of it. His experience didn’t extend much further than warming a can of beans. His stomach growled again.
    “I enjoy cooking on occasion,” Shannon said. “My father says my fried chicken is superb.”
    “I’m sure it is.”
    She carried the platter of chicken to the table and set it next to a plate stacked with biscuits. “I hope your sister will be enticed to eat a bit more than she did for lunch. She told me fried chicken is one of her favorites.”
    Matthew wouldn’t have known that about Alice, of course. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask.
    Shannon untied the apron and draped it over the back of a chair. “Mrs. Jackson slept a great deal of the day, but I think she might be a little stronger than she was yesterday. Her pain seems to have lessened and her breathing seems less labored.”
    “That’s good to know.”
    “Please see that she eats as much as she can. She needs to rebuild her strength, and she can’t do that if she only picks at her food.”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Shannon nodded. “Then I shall go home. I’ll be here first thing in the morning.” She moved toward the front door.
    Matthew turned and followed her. “Thank you, Miss Adair, for your help. Don’t know how I’d manage otherwise. I know a little about dressing wounds from gunshot and arrows and a thing or two about trying to save a man’s frostbitten fingers. But what’s wrong with Alice . . .” He shook his head, embarrassed by the helpless feeling that washed over him.
    A look of sympathy flickered in her eyes, then was gone.
    Just as well. He didn’t need her feeling sorry for him any more than he needed to be thinking she was attractive. All he needed was for her to use her nursing skills to care for his sister.

    Night blanketed the town of Grand Coeur. Even the saloons had grown silent in this wee hour.
    Alice leaned her shoulder against the wall and stared out the window into the inky darkness, her thoughts troubled. Her brother still wasn’t ready to talk about what he would do with his nephew once cancer sent Alice to heaven. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for that. It had taken many weeks for her to come to grips with the truth.
    She was dying. Someone else would have to raise her son to manhood.
    Despite the years they’d spent apart, she loved her brother and she understood him. She knew he yearned to be back driving a stagecoach, although he was careful not to say so. She knew he was already restless from a more sedentary way of life. How long could he