Explaining Herself Read Online Free Page A

smile weakened. "We've got everything from '86 on. Why do you ask?"
    "Can ... ?" Laramie looked down at the plank floor, scowling. Victoria noticed that his left hand was working nervously. At least it wasn't his gun hand —was it? Although his head was down, his eyes slid back up. "Anyone read 'em?"
    "Yes, indeed! Miss Garrison?"
    Laramie's head swung toward her.
    "Yes?" Victoria quickly went to them, rolling more questions through her mind. Why would he want old papers? How old? What about?
    "Would you please assist this gentleman ..." Mr. Day hesitated. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't catch your name."
    "Laramie," said Vic's father's new hand, his eyes narrow.
    Mr. Day raised his eyebrows. "Miss Garrison, perhaps I should assist in Mr. Laramie's search myself."
    Him ? The first time she truly wanted to do assistant duties, and Mr. Day meant to take over? "Don't be silly, sir," she insisted, catching a startled Mr. Laramie by the hand. It was slim and hard and warm. "I'd be delighted to help him. He works for my father, you know."
    "He ... ?" Mr. Day looked from her to Laramie and back.
    "We're friends," insisted Vic, hoping it was true, and tugged gently on the stranger's hand. Her friend's hand, she corrected silently. "And you have that editorial to finish writing."
    She noticed peripherally how startled Evangeline looked. Mr. Laramie hi d it better, but he seemed star t l ed too. Still, he followed her toward the cabinets. She couldn't wait to see what he wanted to read.
    She was holding his hand.
    Until Victoria Garrison's small, warm, ink-smudged fingers captured his own, Laramie had mainly been thinking that he should have known better than to visit a newspaper office. Now he wasn't thinking at all.
    Why was a lady like her holding his hand? Why had she called him her friend?
    It took him a moment to see past her brown curls, pretty face, and clear gray eyes, to think past her touch and the smell of soap and cinnamon and ink, for him to understand. She was lying to get her way.
    He relaxed some. Suddenly Miss Garrison did not seem quite so removed. Laramie felt a strange tightness in his cheek and realized that he'd almost smiled.
    He also let her draw him toward the back of the room, nowhere near as reluctantly as he should. Then she asked, "What date are you looking for?"
    And he remembered that he should have known better.
    In trying to decide how to pursue his old vengeance, Laramie had thought, with something close to surprise, to attempt everyday routes of investigation first. Hearing another cowboy read from a newspaper the other night had suggested to him one route. Back when the crimes first took place, he had not exactly been reading about the murders.
    He'd been sitting in jail for committing one of them.
    Still, if he'd known he would find Miss Garrison at the Sheridan Herald, he would never have taken the chance. She looked sweet in her oversized leather apron, a smudge of ink across her otherwise clean cheek. The strings that tied her heavy, stained smock played in the folds of today's pressed blue calico dress, just as he remembered. Over only a few days, he'd remembered that sight often.
    He'd forgotten to remember his questions.
    What date was he looking for? November 1888. But he wasn't about to say that, and in a flash of cleverness, he realized how he could keep his secret. "What year did the train come through?"
    Of all the growth that Sheridan had seen since his childhood, the train seemed the biggest.
    Miss Garrison paused, clearly disappointed. "The train?"
    He looked patiently down at her —if jail taught a man anything, it was patience—and found that he very much wanted to wipe away the smudge on her cheek. With his bare finger. He clenched his fist, the one not in her hand, instead.
    The other girl, tall and pale, cleared her throat. Laramie noticed her attention move meaningfully from their still-clasped hands back to Miss Victoria herself. He let go, too reluctantly. "I like trains," he