Kid Cole grumbled. Colorado Springs looked like an idyllic, little town with a white steeple church and a bridge, relatively friendly people, and surrounding mountain scenery that could take a man's breath away in the good kind of way. It was perfect town to find the rest and quiet that his doctor had recommended.

However, looks could be deceiving. The "friendly" townspeople wanted to hang a boy for being hungry. It was amazing how quickly good people could become an angry lynch mob.

The town crusader, for there were no other words to describe Michaela Quinn, had asked him to become their sheriff. He had turned her down, but he watched the sorry applicants try to hit the row of cans and bottles and fail. He doubted they could have hit the broadside of a barn and nary a one of them was fit for the office in brains or experience.

He couldn't stand watching the spectacle for a moment longer. He marched up, shot the tin can into the air, and put another bullet through it once more while it was still suspended, announcing his intention to take the job.

Apparently, the only way to have peace was to create it.

June 1849

"Remind me again why I took this job?" Kid Cole asked of his wife, while looking down at the six-pronged silver star pinned to his chest. It had the word "sheriff " engraved on it along with the slightest, rather unnecessary embellishments intended to draw the eye to it.

Sister Ruth smiled patiently as she set down the lunch she'd brought him. "Because the doctor ordered you to rest, to take a break from the constant travel for at least a year."

He snorted. "This is not rest."

The town he'd found a job in was ironically enough called Buzzard's Dune. The way the crime rate was here, mostly petty crimes, he had half a mind to leave it for the buzzards.

They watched through the window as a man in his thirties stumbled down the street, the way only a drunk man could, caterwauling and making a general nuisance of himself. Oliver was a repeat offender. He was never able to pay the fine, so he spent ten days in jail instead every time. Sometimes that felt more like a punishment for him rather than the offender.

"That man needs the Lord," she said.

"What he needs is coffee and a dunking in the river and maybe a good, swift kick in the rear. Was I ever that annoying when I was a drunk?"

It was her turn to snort. "No, honey. You were much worse."

He didn't know whether she was serious or joking, but she chuckled and went up on tippy-toes to kiss his cheek and soothe his ruffled feathers. "The kids and I will be waiting for you at home."

The bright spot in his day when he could spend time with his real children and not these adult children. "See you, baby."

He withdrew his gun after she left, not because Oliver was violent, he wasn't sober or drunk, but because when he saw Kid with a gun out, he knew it was time to go into the jail cell. On some lucky days, Oliver came and turned himself in without the need for even that much.

No doubt about it, Kid couldn't wait for the day he was well enough to start traveling again.