Excerpt from Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

One

He sat hunched over in the saddle as he rode up to the schoolhouse on the spotted devil horse he called Huckleberry, the reins held loosely in his gloved right hand. He was dressed in a broad-brimmed white Stetson hat, a leather vest over a boiled white shirt with pockets, and fifteen-dollar fancy striped pants that were tucked into high-heeled boots. Spurs with little chains dangled from his boot heels. A big revolver hung from a wide leather belt strapped around his hips. He touched the brim of his hat with his left hand.

He was just a plain puncher—wiry, because ranchers preferred small, tough men; big men were hard on horses.

She had read The Virginian and all of the Zane Grey books, and he looked to her like a hero straight out of one of those novels. She felt a shiver of excitement go down her spine.

"Ma'am," he said. He could be a talker and had practiced in his mind how he would greet her, but he was so tongue-tied he could barely get out the single word.

"Yes," she replied. There was a quiver in her voice, and she cleared her throat.

He drawled, "I work for the I. P. Gurley. I've come to fetch Pike."

"Pike?" was all she could say.

"Yes'm."

"Oh yes. Pike. Is everything all right?"

He nodded, not sure he could get out another sentence. She waited, and it was clear to him that she wanted an explanation. She couldn't know that cowpunchers were afraid of proper women, so damn scared of saying something wrong. He took a deep breath. "I came to town to deliver some papers to the lawyer. Mr. Gurley said I ought to ride home with Pike."

"I see. School is almost over. The children are writing down their spelling words. Pike will be done in a few minutes." She smiled at him. "It's such a lovely day that I came outside to stand in the sun for a minute."

He nodded.

"I'm the new schoolteacher," she said.

"Oh." Of course he knew that. Everybody did. The Wallace school board, such as it was, had advertised in Iowa for a teacher, had asked anyone interested to send a letter listing qualifications and references, along with a photograph. The pictures were pinned to the wall in the general store, above the applications, and everyone who came in was asked to mark which teacher they preferred. The names were blocked out to make the selection appear anonymous. Only the mothers of the future students read the applications and noted that the new teacher was less qualified than the others. The men studied the pictures.

He had taken one look at the photographs and put an X under her name—Ellen Webster. Then he'd paid the other Gurley punchers a nickel each to do the same. Of course, it wasn't much of a contest, because the other applicants looked like old maids. With one exception, the school board was made up of men, and they offered the job to Ellen.

He'd been taken with that picture and had a regular mash on her. And now he'd come to see if she was as pretty as the photograph. He was right pleased. She had blond hair and eyes the color of a piece of turquoise. He hadn't known from the photograph that she was tiny, barely five feet. She looked like one of those china statues he'd seen on a parlor center table. "You like Wallace right well?" he asked at last. Except for Mrs. Gurley, he wasn't used to making conversation with women. Most of the women he encountered worked at the saloons or bawdy houses.

"I like it right well," she replied, then smiled to take the sting out of her teasing.

He didn't know she'd teased. They both felt the awkward silence that followed and wished the other would say something more. "That's good," he said at last.

He dismounted as she came down the steps of the schoolhouse and held out her hand. "I'm Ellen Webster." She hadn't been able to see his face under the big hat, but now she observed that it was tanned, that the nose was straight, and that he had eyes the blue of the Wyoming sky. She figured him to be in his late twenties. In fact, he was thirty-three, ten years older than she was.

Excerpted from Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas. Copyright © 2023 by Sandra Dallas. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.