by Barbara Goss
Jesse
By Barbara Goss
Copyright © 2020 Barbara Goss
All rights reserved.
Cover by V. McKevitt
Editor: Elise Sherman Abram
All Scripture is quoted from the King James version of the Holy Bible.
All the characters described in this story are fictional. They are not based on any real persons, past or present. Any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and unintended.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
The next book in the series is book #3.... Morgan:
Chapter One
Jesse Morgan studied himself in the mirror. Why did all the women in town shy away from him? Some would rather walk across the street than pass him on the wooden walkway.
Was it his looks? Or was it because word had gotten around that he was a bounty hunter?
He ran his fingers through his hair. He thought perhaps a close shave and a haircut might help, but how could he erase the lines of anger and stress from his face? He’d been a bounty hunter for ten years, tracking down criminals and sometimes having to kill them to bring them in for the bounty.
He couldn’t erase the hard lines on his face. Was he a damaged man with an unredeemable soul?
He’d once been the most handsome man in Hays City, Kansas. The few eligible women there had followed him around like puppy dogs. Now, just ten years later, he looked much older than his thirty years. His hair was still blond, but his face was now hard. No wonder the women in Sunset Creek, Wyoming shied away from him.
Jesse locked his new home, mounted his horse, Pal, and trotted in the direction of town which was just a mile away. He loved his new home, but he often felt lonely. Once a month, he met his new friends at the saloon. Though he didn’t drink, he did enjoy a cool sarsaparilla and friendly conversation.
Jesse’s friends waved him over to their table as soon as he walked into the Rusty Spur Saloon, and Sean McMullen, Mac Kingsley, and Roy Barkley greeted him. Mac ordered him a soft drink.
They usually told stories about things that happened in their lives, and Sean was telling them about how a bear had nearly attacked him while he camped in the woods. Everyone laughed. Sean was a born storyteller.
Sean turned to Jesse. “What about you? You’re always so quiet, and you seldom tell us any stories. Having been a bounty hunter, you must have grand stories to tell.”
“Yeah,” Roy said, “tell us a few.”
Jesse shook his head slowly. “No, I’m done with bounty hunting, and I'd prefer to forget my adventures.”
The men exchanged looks, causing a pause in the conversation. Finally, Mac said, “Fair enough.”
“Then tell us how you came to settle on four thousand acres in Sunset Creek? I didn’t think bounty hunting paid quite that much,” Roy said.
“It pays pretty well,” Jesse told them, “but not enough to buy that land.”
“How’d you get it then?” Roy asked. “If you don’t mind me askin’.”
“An old gambler friend in Cheyenne left it to me and my five friends in his will.”
“What?” all three men said in unison.
“Five of us bounty hunters were hunting the same man who had killed a judge, and we met this gambler, Rex Larson, playing cards in a saloon. We thought he could help us locate our prey. We never caught the hunted man, but we made fast friends with each other and the gambler.”
“And?” Mac asked.
“Rex was dying, and he knew they would auction off his land. He had an enemy who he knew would grab it up, so he left it in his will to the six of us to share.
“We have our own land acres apart from each other. We live our separate lives, but we meet up now and then.”
“Did all six of you come from Kansas?” Roy asked.
“No, we come from different places. It was a surreal occurrence.”
Roy asked, “Did the gambler leave you guys money, too?”
Fortunately, Jesse didn’t have to tell Roy that it was too personal a question because Mac interrupted them.
“Will you look at that?” Mac nodded toward the bar.
The men turned in that direction.
“Who is she?” Sean asked. “Wow.”
Jesse couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. She was petite with curly auburn hair and the biggest green eyes he had ever seen. She appeared to be flirting with an older man at the bar.
“She must be the new saloon woman,” Roy said. “Horace mentioned he was hiring a new woman.”
“Is this her first night?” Jesse asked no one in particular, his eyes still on the saloon woman.
“Yes,” Roy said. “I was here last night to pay my rent, and she wasn’t here.”
“Isn’t it noisy living in a flat behind the saloon?” Jesse asked.
“You get used to it.” Roy winked. “It’s cheap, too. A dollar a month isn’t bad.”
“I think we should initiate the new saloon woman,” Sean said with a chuckle.
The men pushed their empty beer glasses in front of Jesse, and Roy waved the new saloon woman over to their table.
She walked over and gave them a smile. “What can I get you, fellas?”
“Three glasses of milk, please,” Sean said without smiling.
The saloon women stood there, speechless. “M-milk?”
Jesse felt sorry for her. On her first night, his friends had ordered something the saloon probably didn’t even have. He pushed the beer glasses back in front of each friend and said, “They’re joking, but I’ll have another sarsaparilla.”
“Beer for me,” Roy said.
Sean winked at the woman. “Same for me.”
Mac stood. “Nothing for me. I promised my wife I’d be home early.”
The men wished Mac a goodnight, and he left.
When the saloon woman went to get their drinks, Roy said, “I should get home after this beer. Gwen will nag me if I come home tipsy.”
Sean laughed. “So sorry you married men have to tow the mark. Jesse and I could stay out all night if we wanted to. Being single has its perks.”
Roy said, “Enjoy it while you can, Sean, before your mail-order bride arrives.”
Jesse’s eyes widened, and he stared at Sean. “You have a mail-order bride coming?”
“Yep,” Sean murmured. “I decided to join the old man’s club, so I’m enjoying my freedom while I can.”
Jesse was more than a little surprised. “You plan to marry a stranger?”
Sean shrugged. “We’ve been corresponding, and she seems nice enough. Hey, I’m getting lonely on my ranch all alone.”
Jesse wondered if he should do the same. He hated to admit it to his friends, but he was lonely, too. Still, the thought of marrying someone he’d never met scared him.
The pretty saloon woman brought the drinks over. Roy boldly asked her, “You’re new here—what’s your name?”
“Cordelia, but everyone calls me Delia,” she said.
Jesse thought she had the sweetest voice to go along with her beautiful name.
Each man paid her and thanked her. Jesse watched her walk away. He liked everything he saw. Some saloon women took men upstairs and some didn’t. He
didn’t like what might become of Cordelia. She was much too good to throw her life away on a bunch of drunken cowboys, yet there was no way he could stop her.
When the men’s glasses were empty, Roy and Sean bid Jesse goodnight and left Jesse to sit there, fondling his empty glass. Soon, Delia walked over and smiled at him, and his heart skipped a beat.
“Another sarsaparilla, please.” He wasn’t thirsty, and he'd had his fill of the beverage, but he couldn’t leave until he'd spoken to the woman again.
She was wearing a purple ruffled skirt that came to just below her knees and a white off-the-shoulder blouse. Colored combs kept her dark auburn hair on top of her head. She set his drink in front of him and said, “Do you need some company?”
Jesse’s heart skipped two beats this time. “Yes, please.” He pulled out the chair next to his. “My name’s Jesse Morgan.”
Delia slid into the chair beside him. “Hello, Jesse. I was told to flirt with the men and get them to buy me drinks, but I couldn’t drink another glass of tea or I might float away,” she laughed.
“Tea?”
“Shh. I’m not supposed to reveal that, but I knew I could trust you with the secret.” She smiled at him again. “We’re supposed to pretend its whiskey the men are buying us.”
Sean’s eyes widened in surprise.
She quickly added, “I know Horace cheats the men, but it’s our secret—right?”
Jesse nodded, but he wondered why she’d confided something to him that could cause her to lose her job. “What makes you so sure you can trust me?” he asked.
Delia shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’re drinking soda, and you have trusting eyes.”
Jesse was afraid to tell her what he’d done for a living, but she'd eventually hear it from someone else. He took a deep breath. “I was a bounty hunter for years and learned early on that to survive you need to always have sharp thinking and quick reflexes. Drinking alcohol dulls the senses. Even now that I’ve given up bounty hunting, I still need my wits about me. You never know when some drunken cowboy will pick a fight.” He chuckled. He noticed she hadn't blinked an eye when he mentioned he was a bounty hunter, and once again, she was smiling at him.
“Smart man.” She looked over at the bar. “I’d love to chat more, but Horace is motioning for me to flirt with some men at the bar.”
Jesse impulsively grabbed her hand as she stood. “How about meeting me tomorrow for a picnic lunch at noon?” He wondered from where the nerve to ask had come, and thought it must have been desperation. Once she'd left, he might never get to talk to her again.
She surprised Jesse and made his heart flutter when she answered, “That sounds delightful, but I don’t want Horace to know, so could we meet somewhere?”
“I’ll be inside the general store,” Jesse blurted.
Delia gave him a parting smile, pulled her hand free, and walked to the bar.
Jesse left his drink and went home in a pleasurable daze.
He had always steered clear of saloon women. They had never been his idea of a moral wife. He dreamed of meeting someone pure and innocent, but he found himself attracted to the saloon woman. Should he pursue her or do as Sean had done and sent for a mail-order bride?
Delia answered the knock on the door of her room over the saloon.
“Come on in.” She allowed her sister’s husband into the room.
“How did you make out with Jesse Morgan?” he practically demanded.
“Good. We’re going on a picnic tomorrow.”
“A picnic?” Delia’s brother-in-law said. “Well, I guess it’s a start.”
“He seems nice...” Delia looked up at him. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
He grabbed her by her upper arms. “You’ll do it, or I’ll be paying a visit to Sheriff Barringer.”
Delia bit her bottom lip. “What if the man doesn’t fall in love with me, then what?”
“You make sure he does. Do whatever it takes. Your sister had no trouble pulling me to the altar. Use your feminine charms.”
“Does my sister know what we’re planning to do?”
“Yes. Once she’d told me you’d killed a man, it didn’t take me long to form a plan.”
Delia sighed loudly.
He walked to the door. “Just do it. We’ll all be rich after your new husband has an accident and dies. You can keep his house and land, and we’ll take his bank account.”
“How will I live?” Delia asked.
Her brother-in-law laughed. “You have all the right equipment to make a fortune. What you have, men will pay good money for.” He closed the door, leaving Delia alone in the dingy room above the saloon.
Chapter Two
Cordelia paced the floor.
How could she be a part of something so horrible? Jesse was rough-looking, but there was a handsome face beneath the whisker stubble. Otherwise, he looked hard and unapproachable. His appearance had scared her at first until he'd smiled.
It wasn’t like Delia to hurt anyone intentionally. The killing in Missouri had been an accident. The man had made intimate advances, so she'd given him a shove, and he'd tumbled down a flight of stairs. He’d fallen hard, landed with his head against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and lain so still, she knew he was dead. She and her sister had fled immediately, knowing that Delia would be blamed, and rightfully so.
What had made her push him away so hard? She could have screamed or tried harder to get away from him, but he’d scared the wits out of her, harassing her for weeks. Now, instead of starting a new life in Sunset Creek, she was being blackmailed because her sister had told her husband what happened. If only she hadn’t told him—her sister had changed since she’d married him.
Delia looked at the clock. It was nearly noon. Her hands trembled as she put on her gloves. When she was growing up in Missouri, her family never went to church—they weren’t a praying family—yet she still felt guilty about having killed a man, even if he was evil.
When her mother had died giving birth to a baby at a later than normal age, and the baby had died along with her, Delia's father had drank himself into the same graveyard as her mother. Having lost their home, she and her sister had rented a room from a man named Glenn Hackett, the same man who thought he could take liberties with her just because he was the landlord.
Delia had to school herself on what she had to do with Jesse without getting emotional or worse, falling in love with him. She detested that her brother-in-law planned to kill Jesse, but she could, at least, play her part without guilt—whatever her brother-in-law did with Jesse wasn’t on her... or was it? Because she'd assisted, she’d have two men’s deaths on her conscience.
She met Jesse in the general store, and he helped her into a rig he’d rented from the livery.
It shocked Delia to see that Jesse had gotten a haircut and a shave, and what a difference it had made. He was a very handsome man, but like her sister always said, it’s what’s inside that counts. Too bad her sister hadn’t taken that advice when she'd married her husband.
All the way down the bumpy dirt road, Delia told herself over and over not to fall for the man, even if he was handsome and charming.
“Where will the picnic be?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” Jesse said with a wink.
They barreled down the road for about a mile before cutting off and onto a rutted path to a newly-built home. She could tell it was new because the unpainted wood smelled delightfully fragrant.
Jesse stopped the rig beside a shed.
Delia felt nervous. Was he planning to take her inside the house? She smiled. That would give her the best opportunity to entice him.
“Wait here,” he said as he jumped from the wagon and entered the house.
She examined the house and the area around it in his absence. It was a pretty house with trees all around it. She could picture a white picket fence around the yard and flowers in a garden.
When Jesse reappeared, he was carryin
g a picnic basket and a large tablecloth. He helped her down from the rig and walked her behind the house to an enormous tree where he spread the cloth beneath it and waved his hand at the cloth.
“Your table is ready, Miss,” he said.
Delia smiled and took a seat on the tablecloth while Jesse took out the food.
Jesse sat beside Delia and handed her a sandwich wrapped neatly in a cloth napkin.
Delia gave him a curious look.
“Who made the sandwiches?”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
“The neat wrapping.”
“And you don’t think me capable of wrapping a sandwich?” he said with a chuckle.
“This is a woman’s wrapping. It’s folded so well I don’t know where to begin to unwrap it.”
Jesse chuckled again. “My friend’s wife, Molly, made them.”
He watched Delia find an exposed napkin end to open her sandwich. “This looks divine.”
Jesse had already eaten half of his. “It’s delicious.”
“So, is Molly married to one of your friends I met last night?”
“No. Her husband is another friend, Judd Barrick, who’s also a neighbor. He was one of the men I met while hunting down a bounty.”
Delia scanned the area. “I don’t see any other houses… Oh, wait—I think I see one across that field. It’s barely visible.”
“That would be Judd’s, and I think it’s his large stables you’re seeing. The house is not far, but the trees are blocking it.”
Delia had eaten her sandwich and was trying to fold the napkin the way Molly had. “You have a good many friends—that speaks well for you.”
Jesse handed her a neatly wrapped stack of cookies. “It surprises me, too, because I’ve never been much of a social person.”
“I think you’re extremely friendly.” She opened the cookies. “These look delicious.”
Jesse studied her as they ate the oatmeal cookies. She hadn’t worn as much makeup as she had the night before at the saloon, and to him, it made her even more alluring. She had lovely skin, like peaches and cream.