First Excerpt--The Man in Black

Background: Melissa and her friend Jo have attend the July 4th festivities at Graveyard Gulch, a restored mining camp. Jo has joined a group that does reenactments of gunfights and other events. Melissa has had her eye on a man in the group, but one the others all say is a loner. His name is Lawton Kane. The group, called “The Gulch Gang”, has just finished lunch and is going out to assemble for a street show.

When they left, Melissa carefully worked her way around until she reached Lawton's side.
"Hi, L...uh...Lawton. Isn't this a great day?"
He did glance at her now, but only the swiftest brush of a gaze. "Hello...er...Melinda, isn't it?"
"Melissa," she corrected gently. "But that's all right. It's hardly a memorable name."
He shook his head as if banishing some errant thought and glanced down at her again.
"No, it's a very pretty name. Has a nice sound to it. I apologize. I won't forget again. You were saying?"
"Oh, nothing important. I love the Fourth of July, though. Celebrating our country's birthday, you know, and in Philadelphia, of course it was always a big event at Liberty Hall, speeches and...well, you know about that, I'm sure. Yesterday Jo and I went to the events up on the Fort. It was so impressive, watching the soldiers. I can't imagine how a person could learn all those steps and turns. It's worse than dancing!"
Drat, I'm babbling again, sounding like a total airhead. He's going to think I don't have one speck of a brain.
He actually smiled, just a little. "Not all that hard," he said. "Generations of farm boys have learned how. City kids too. Most of them with two left feet, just like me."
As the afternoon went on, Melissa made sure she didn't get too far from Lawton. Off and on they even talked in a desultory fashion. When she stubbornly stayed near him, Lawton gave her several quizzical glances. Finally, she confessed she was trying to use him as a barrier to keep Stan a safe distance away. Lawton responded with a short bark of laughter.
"Not being female, I wouldn't know why, but most of the ladies don't seem too impressed with him. Stan's awfully full of himself. Is that the problem?"
Melissa glared at the subject of their conversation. The man was crude, pushy, and chauvinistic. He disgusted her! She nodded.
"Yes. For one thing, he won't take no for an answer! He acts like he's God's gift to us all. I hate having to be rude, but I guess that's what it takes."
She looked up at him again, caught the swift glance he slanted down at her. For the merest instant, she could have sworn he grinned.
He twitched one shoulder in a quick shrug. "Some people are impervious to subtlety, you know. Okay, I'll be your watchdog for the rest of the day."
She wondered briefly at his choice of words. An odd vocabulary for a cowboy. Though not exactly the response she'd dreamed of, it was better than nothing. She had his tacit permission to stay near him, anyway.
After they presented the last street show at four o'clock, the group drifted down the street toward the clubhouse. As they walked, Melissa dared to ask Lawton a question that had been nagging at her.
"Do you think they really had fast drawing gunfighters in the old days? It always seemed to me like something they made up in Hollywood, or maybe even before that, in the dime dreadfuls."
"You're at least partly right," he replied. "There were definitely gunfighters, and probably some of them were pretty quick, but they didn't have weapons with the capabilities of ours. I'd say most of the desperados were likelier to ambush or shoot in the back than challenge anybody to a shoot-out at high noon, while the lawmen were more inclined to rely on accuracy than speed. But there were gunfights between people who had grudges, maybe over disputed ownership of a cow or horse, a rich claim, or the favors of a woman."

…He then shows her how to hold and dry-fire his revolver and she is as impressed with the man himself as with the weapon. She is surprised how easily they talk about this and how relaxed he seems with a familiar subject.

Melissa looked up and smiled back as she returned the revolver to him. Their hands brushed at the instant their gazes met and locked. Suddenly every spot he had touched as he showed her how to hold and aim the revolver seemed to catch fire. Her skin tingled and a fluttering heat flashed through her body.
For just a moment, his pale eyes came alive with emotion. Unable to define or explain it, she could only look, lost in their silvery flames. Finally he tore his gaze away, shaking his head as his face hardened into its usual distant chill. He rammed the revolver back into his holster.
"We'd better get inside," he growled.
The moment of easy camaraderie ended abruptly, leaving Melissa too shaken to react. After Lawton strode away, she made no attempt to approach him again. She crept inside and sat down with the Joneses to eat a quick supper of cold cuts and salads. More than once, she felt someone's gaze on her and turned to catch Lawton watching her, but each time he looked away immediately, as if to deny it.
She sighed, hurt and puzzled by his peculiar behavior. I'll never understand that man. He may know his own mind, but it's a mystery to me. Why do I even bother?

At dusk, they all piled into several pick-up trucks and drove to the edge of town, parking under a man-made hill where overburden or ore-less rock had been dumped during the mining days. Since the barren area reduced the danger of a fire, it was an ideal site for the traditional fireworks display.
Quite by accident, Melissa ended up on the same truck as Lawton, but Stan was also on it. As they watched the fireworks explode into blossoms of color overhead, someone pressed close behind her. She didn't have to look to know it was Stan rather than Lawton, simply because she felt none of the tingle of excitement stirred by Lawton's slightest touch. Disappointment shadowed her pleasure in the beautiful spectacle.