A Sheriff's Fugitive Bride

by Blythe Carver

  The girl showed no reaction to this, or to much of anything that was happening to her as he walked her the short distance to the jailhouse. No more than half a block. Was she in shock? Perhaps. He was beginning to wonder if it went deeper than that, however. Was she deaf? The deaf could sometimes read lips—it would explain why she’d seemed to understand what Jake called her. But she might not be able to speak at all. Maybe she could write out her defense.

  Then again, judging by the cold glare she shot him once they were inside the jailhouse, maybe not.

  “I don’t like this any more than you do, girl,” he muttered. “Remember, this is all your doing. You’ll think better of me and the justice I try to keep in this town after you spend a little time in a jail cell.”

  The jail cells! He had forgotten that there were already two cells occupied, and by men who made Jake Nielsen look like a saint. They had started a brawl outside not twenty minutes before the incident with this girl and he’d only just locked them up to sleep it off.

  They would like her. Quite a bit.

  Then again, they might inspire her to be a bit more forthcoming. This might work in his favor, after all. It was with this in mind that a wry smile played over his mouth as he led the girl through the office he shared with the deputies, which sat just outside the row of cells.

  He watched her from the corner of his eye as he walked her down the hall, past the first of the two cells currently in use. He’d put the men on opposite ends of the hall so as to avoid them starting their nonsense again, and he would place her between them. This way, she would be able to see them both, and even if she couldn’t hear them, she’d be able to see what they had in mind if she watched their mouths move.

  It was nearly enough to make him feel sorry for her before he remembered her part in all of this.

  “In you go,” he said, opening the iron door. The cell was a small one, wider than it was deep, with a cot along the back wall. That was it. None of the conveniences or luxuries a young lady was accustomed to. She would break easily.

  “Hey there, Sheriff! What’d ya bring her in for?” The fiery Curtis Manville sat hunched over the edge of his cot. “Was she fightin’ in the streets, too?”

  “Or did you have to bring ‘er in because she was makin’ men fight over her?” Vernon Wilkes eyed her up from his cell at the other end of the hall. “I know I would. I’d lay a man out flat if it meant havin’ that one to myself.”

  The two men laughed, which Rance found amusing in a strange sort of way. They’d found something they could agree on.

  It just happened to be this woman, sitting with her hands clasped in her lap, gazing straight ahead. There wasn’t so much as a muscle twitch to show she heard what they said about her. She managed to somehow look like she was above all of this. Better than them. A queen on a throne, even if that throne happened to be a metal cot with a thin, pitiful excuse for a straw tick mattress lying atop it.

  He should’ve felt sorry for her.

  Instead, she infuriated him. For now, he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with her. “You two be nice,” he warned the men, fixing them with a look he knew tended to shut a man’s mouth with ease. It had done the trick with Jake Nielsen earlier, and he was just about the hardest man in the world to shut up.

  They wore the penitent expressions of choir boys, so he decided to leave them be for a while. He needed a minute to himself, just to think this through.

  His office was dark, as he’d planned to head home, so he turned on the oil lamp which sat at one corner of his desk before sitting down to brood. It could be described in no other way, what he was about to do. He was brooding, plain and simple, for there did not seem to be a simple way out of this.

  There was no letting her go. She’d been found in possession of stolen property, whether or not she’d been the one to steal it. Maybe she was in on the theft. Just because she wasn’t the one to lift the wallet didn’t mean she had nothing to do with the scheme.

  But that did seem like an awful lot of trouble to go through, just to take the wallet of a man who would’ve more than likely been passed-out over the bar by midnight. Anybody could’ve lifted his wallet then. He was no stranger to the saloon, either, so everybody knew what an easy target the man made himself out to be.

  It was a miracle nobody had robbed him blind before.

  Even if Rance wanted to let her go, Jake wouldn’t hear of it. And like it or not, the man held sway in the town. His daddy had been a shrewd man, investing in the town’s growth when it was little more than a village, and his son was the result of a life of ease and luxury. But money talked, that much was true, and a man with a fat wallet and even fatter bank account tended to be heard when others might not be. Unfair, but true.

  The stink he raised would be impossible to ignore. Rance grimaced at the thought, grinding his teeth together though he knew he shouldn’t. An old habit that liked to come back when he was feeling good and ornery. And he certainly felt ornery at that moment, sitting alone at his desk when he could’ve been home where it was peaceful, and there was food and rest after a long day.

  He considered sending for a deputy to take over for him, but both of them were family men, and he didn’t want to pull them away from that. If he had anyone waiting for him at home but his sister, he’d certain resent having to come back in just to go half-mad with frustration at a woman who couldn’t be bothered to answer questions.

  Rance could handle resentment.

  Couldn’t he?

  “Why don’t she talk?” Curtis asked, looking out through the iron bars of his cell to where Rance sat.

  He could just make out half of the girl’s face—still stony, nearly unblinking. She didn’t flinch or give any indication of knowing the man was speaking of her.

  Deaf. The only explanation.

  “It’s none of your concern,” Rance warned. “Do yourself and the rest of us a favor and sleep it off. Let me do my job.”

  Except he had no idea how he’d do his job if she refused to cooperate. He’d never seen her before—he would’ve remembered her, certainly, with her lustrous hair and skin that reminded him of cream. Wide, shining eyes. Delicate features. And a certain tilt to her chin which caused him no end of curiosity as to her nature.

  He shook himself, prying his attention away from her physical form in favor of debating a way out of this mess. It didn’t matter how pretty a woman was if she was nothing but trouble.

  3

  This was most certainly a dreadful nightmare.

  Phoebe sat as still as a statue. Her chin lifted, her eyes straight ahead. As though she’d just taken a seat in order to refresh herself between waltzes. Yes, she might have been sitting in a ballroom, dance card attached to her wrist, a fan clasped in one hand and resting in her lap. Let these drunken fools see what a true lady looked like, how she conducted herself.

  Inside? Inside, she quaked like a frightened child and wished her mother was there to protect her against these men. These horrible men who leered at her, made jokes about her, whispered suggestive questions that brought the stinging threat of tears to her eyes.

  They would not break her down. She wouldn’t grant them the satisfaction of making her cry.

  And the sheriff! He was worst of all. She’d judged him entirely wrong, thinking he was a decent man. Decent men did not cower before others, especially others like the man whose wallet had been stolen. A bully, nothing more, but this so-called sheriff jumped to do his bidding. Coward.

  The problem was, he’d wanted to help her. She believed this much. While he might not have believed this was nothing more than a mistake, that she was just as much a victim as the man who’d been robbed, he’d given her ample chance to explain herself.

  And she wanted to. Very, very much. It would be so easy to lay the blame at the feet of a young woman who’d disappeared. No harm done, really, as the wallet was now with its rightful owner.

  Why couldn’t she bring herself to do it, then? If it was so si
mple?

  The memory of that girl’s eyes. So fearful. The more Phoebe thought about her, the harder she worked to recall her face and voice, the clearer it became that the girl was young. Very young. Younger than Cate, probably. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen.

  Considering the cheap, flashy sort of clothing she’d worn—deep violet with black stripes, an abundance of ruffles and jets of black lace and the heavy smell of perfume hanging over all of it—she was likely one of the girls who worked in the saloon. At such a young age, too.

  Phoebe could not pretend to know much about that sort of life. It was one thing to know the perils of the world existed, but another to have first-hand knowledge of them. She’d never so much as stepped foot over the threshold of such a place. She had no understanding of what went on inside.

  This didn’t stop her from imagining as she sat, hands still clasped, pressed tight together to keep them from visibly shaking. She could imagine quite a lot without anything else to focus her mind on. She imagined the way a girl would have to degrade herself to earn a living in such an establishment.

  The men would be intoxicated, as the men to either side of her were. How unpleasant—perhaps downright dangerous. There was no telling what a man was capable of when he was in his cups. She’d heard stories of men beating their wives, their children, after coming home in a drunken state. They would start fights with each other, too. Molly would sometimes tell stories around the supper table of what she’d heard while working in the newspaper office.

  The girl had thought better of the theft immediately, that was clear. She hadn’t thought about it before she went through with it. She’d seen an opportunity and took it, only she’d chosen the wrong wallet. The wrong man.

  If Phoebe described her to the sheriff, word would get around. The girl would lose her position in the saloon if she didn’t go to jail—and even a terrible position was better than starvation.

  It seemed there was no end to the questions and possibilities in her mind, but she had little else to do but think. The brick wall on the other side of the cell doors was hardly enough to capture her interest.

  A cell. A cell! She was in a cell, like a common criminal. Now none of them would ever let her live this down. Not a single one of them. She’d be a laughing stock just as soon as the initial shock wore off and the embarrassment faded.

  The thought of one of the Reed girls in jail! Oh, how Mama would’ve railed against this once she woke from the fainting spell it would surely have sent her into. God rest her soul. How she would’ve ranted and raved. Not one of her girls! She’d raised them to be ladies. Refined, cultured.

  Light glowed in the office beyond the cells, which the sheriff had walked her through along the way. She’d never seen the inside of a jailhouse. This was a day of many firsts. Her first encounter with a saloon girl, the first time she’d been accused of theft, her first trip to jail.

  The sudden urge to laugh nearly overwhelmed her. It was all so unreal!

  The sheriff fidgeted in his office. The sound of fingers tapping on the desk carried back to where she sat. She knew he was angry with her for not being more forthcoming.

  She couldn’t do it. Not to that girl, whoever she was. She’d been through enough, and if there was punishment meted out, her life would only get worse. And the guilt would eat at Phoebe.

  No true harm had been done. Why punish the poor thing?

  Yet that was the way of it for poor girls with no money and no family. Only a girl in such a situation would fall as far as the blonde-haired thief had. She’d likely turned to work in the saloon as a last resort. What other reason would there be for anyone to debase themselves so? There would be nowhere for her to go, for she likely had no family to help her. No one to help her once she’d gone to jail.

  The scraping of a chair against a wooden floor signaled the sheriff rising from the desk. Short, sharp footsteps foretold of his approach.

  “You’re gonna get it now, girlie,” one of the drunks whispered, while the other giggled.

  She wanted to claw their eyes out. Digging her nails into her palms would have to suffice, and she did so until it hurt.

  Here he came, striding in with a nasty look on his face which she caught from the corner of her eye. He had it in for her, with his already strong jaw set tighter than ever and his broad shoulders nearly up around his ears. He was very angry.

  It wasn’t easy to recall the way his coffee-colored eyes had looked into hers with such warmth when they were on the street. When she’d thought he was a nice man. She could hardly recall this now as he gazed upon her with anything but that same warmth.

  “I need you to tell me what you were doing with that wallet,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “I’ve tried every way I know how to get through to you. To treat you with kindness. I can promise you, the same wouldn’t be so if you’d met up with just about any other lawman in this part of the country.”

  “He means it,” one of the drunkards piped up.

  “Quiet, you.” The sheriff turned his attention back to her. The fact that she hadn’t reacted to anything he’d said seemed to anger him even more. “I mean it, young woman. I want to know where you got that wallet, and I want to know now.”

  She gave no sign of having heard him. What other choice did she have? It was either describe the girl, who would, of course, match the description of one of the girls at the saloon, or take the blame on herself.

  Neither option was any better than the other.

  Therefore, silence was her only safe choice. Let him think she was deaf or mute. Or both. It didn’t matter.

  After enough silence, the sounds of snickering came from the other two cells. The men were enjoying watching their sheriff as a woman took him down a peg or two. His nostrils flared, the muscles twitched in his jaw. He wanted to explode on them but clearly fought to avoid doing so.

  Then, it was obvious something else occurred to him. Phoebe noted the way his eyes moved from side to side. He was thinking.

  A smile spread slowly. “You’ll have to sleep on it, I reckon.”

  Sleep on it? Her blood ran cold. No wonder the man looked so smug. Wicked, wicked man. He knew the notion would be abhorrent to her, sleeping out in the open with these strange men, thinking their filthy thoughts. How could one even sleep on this thin, pitiful excuse for a bed? How could she sleep in her clothing? She would certainly not remove any of it.

  Still. Still, she did not move. She showed no awareness. She might have been a life-sized doll.

  And his anger only grew, until she thought he might burst into flames on the spot. “I’ll find a way to get through to you yet,” he vowed, and there was no doubt in her mind that he meant it.

  A door slammed shut outside the cells, and a woman’s voice echoed through the place. “Rance Connelly, just what do you think you’re doing here at this time of night?”

  Judging by the fleeting look of dismay which crossed the sheriff’s cursedly handsome face, Phoebe guessed there was at least one person he answered to.

  4

  Rance darted out into the office at the sound of Martha’s voice. There she stood, fists on hips, glaring at him. When she stood that way, with her eyes flashing and the color high on her cheeks, she reminded him of their mother. Especially when she flicked back a piece of black hair when it brushed against her forehead—a gesture of their mother’s, one they’d seen hundreds of times.

  She sounded like her, too, when she berated him as she was about to do. “I’ve kept supper warm for you all this time, Rance Connelly. The least you could’ve done was send word that you wouldn’t be coming home for it.”

  “Would you please be silent, woman?” He glanced over his shoulder, where he could see both Curtis and the young woman in their cells. “I don’t need you undermining me when I have prisoners to deal with.”

  “Oh, pssh.” She waved a hand before gesturing to his desk, revealing what she’d brought along. “I thought as much when you didn’t come home, so I brough
t your supper to you. I only wish you would be a little more considerate.”

  He hadn’t smelled the rich, savory stew until that second. The thought of what awaited him in the covered pail set his mouth to watering. No one could cook like Martha.

  He sat down and pulled the pail to him by its handle before lifting the napkin she’d used to cover it. Inside were several biscuits, and beneath them was a bowl of the very stew he’d smelled. He barely had time to lift it from the pail before indulging in it.

  Martha pulled up a chair from another desk and plopped down onto it. “He ran me ragged today. Full of energy, as always.”

  “Has that other tooth come out yet?” Rance asked between bites. The biscuits were like clouds, as ever. How she got them so light, he would never know.

  “Not yet. I’ve found him wiggling it more than once today,” she admitted with a rueful laugh. “Always in a rush. That’s another reason why I came over.”

  “The idea that I would sit here, hungry and alone, wasn’t enough?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Hardly enough. I had to go to the trouble of fetching Mrs. Smith to keep an eye on Jesse—I wouldn’t ask her to come over if it were only to bring your supper.”

  He chuckled, knowing this wasn’t true but respecting his sister’s toughness just the same. She was what might be described as a piece of work. There was no choice but to be tough, Lord knew. No-nonsense. Hard as nails when the situation called for it.

  After Charles’s death, there had been no alternative.

  “Is there anything wrong at the house? Do you need my help with something?”

  She shook her head—then, “Nothing wrong, no. But I’m afraid I do need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “My son refuses to go to bed until Uncle Rance tells him his bedtime story, and I’m about beside myself at the moment. I need you to come home and take care of this.”