The Bounty Hunter's Redemption by Janet Dean

And paid a high cost. Saving his life had ruined hers, had limited her choices. Probably the reason she’d married Walt.
    Anna turned back and clapped her hands for the stray waiting in the doorway. “Maizie, aren’t you coming?”
    A wag of her tail and the dog slipped in at Nate’s heels.
    “Do you mean to make her a house dog?” Nate asked. “She’ll shed all over everything.”
    “She’ll mind her manners and stay on the floor. Nothing I can’t sweep up in a jiffy.”
    In the parlor, the afternoon sunshine flooded the room through tall windows on either side of a brick fireplace. The coat of white paint on the walls was in sharp contrast to the floor’s dark wood planks, the cracks wide enough to slip a dime between the boards.
    “Isn’t this nice?” Anna gushed as she surveyed the room. “Why, the floors and tables don’t have a trace of dust. Someone’s cleaned the place. My braided rug, Mother’s Currier and Ives prints and one of Grandma’s quilts draped over the sofa will make this place homey.”
    “You could make a jail cell cozy.”
    Anna cocked her head at him. “Sometimes I wonder if you perceive settling down as a prison sentence.”
    “Of course not.” He shifted on his feet. “You know why catching Stogsdill’s important.”
    “Could you let it go? Leave his capture to lawmen?” She raised a gaze begging him to reconsider. “We’ve lost them all, Nate. Promise me I won’t have to bury you, too.”
    Nate shot her a smile. “Don’t worry, sis. I’m good at what I do.” Still, if Max Richards’s bullet had been accurate, his sister would be alone now, fending for herself. “Once that shop is yours, I’ll have peace knowing that whatever happens, you can make a living.”
    “What about Carly Richards? She’s a widow with a child. How can I live with myself if I take the shop away from her?”
    “I’m not happy about Mrs. Richards’s plight, but you didn’t take the shop. Max Richards lost it to Walt. Walt paid for it with his life, a high price. The shop will be your future.”
    That is, if the circuit judge saw things as Nate did.
    Nate trailed Anna to the kitchen. Simple cupboards, large cookstove, small potbellied stove, a table and four chairs. He walked to the window over the sink with a view to the back and the alleyway beyond.
    Anna clapped her hands. “Oh, look, Nate, an indoor pump!”
    “Good. When I leave, you won’t have to haul water.”
    “I thought you were certain I’d be living behind the shop.”
    “I am, but if I should have to leave before the ownership is settled—”
    “Enough of that talk. Let’s look at the rest of the cabin.”
    They moved on to the bedrooms, both small but adequate, each with a double-paned window, brass double bed, built-in clothespress and chest of drawers. Not fancy, but nicer than Nate had expected.
    “I’ll take the room next to the kitchen, if that’s all right,” she said.
    “Fine by me.”
    He walked to the window and gazed at the back of the seamstress shop, the Richards’s living quarters. The widow’s generous attitude toward Anna had surprised him. But then Anna had a way of bringing the best out of people.
    “I’ll get your things,” he said, “then help you set this place to rights.”
    Within minutes of his hauling trunks, boxes and crates inside, Anna had started building a nest. By the time he’d driven the team to the livery and returned to the cabin, Anna had made up the beds, topping the linens with colorful quilts.
    Then set him to nailing bed sheets at the bedroom windows for privacy.
    In the parlor, she draped another quilt over the sofa. Satisfied with her efforts thus far, she made a list of the supplies they’d need while he hung two Currier and Ives idyllic prints above it.
    They moved on to the kitchen, where they unpacked jars of cherries, applesauce, tomatoes, beans—all canned by Anna—and stowed the Blue Willow dishes from their childhood in a cupboard, as well as all the