A Sheriff's Fugitive Bride

by Blythe Carver

  He groaned. “Martha.”

  “I mean it. I can’t have him up until all hours of the night. You’re the only one who can get him to bed.”

  Rance rubbed his temples. Would this day ever end? While he loved his nephew the way he’d imagine loving a son, this was hardly the time. “Why not tell him I’m coming home, then allow him to fall asleep on his own? Tell him to stay in bed and wait, and if he’s a naughty boy and he gets out of bed, I won’t be there to tell him any stories at all.”

  Her scowl was exactly what he’d expected, but he had to try. “You know I won’t lie to my boy that way. I hate to think of him lying there in bed, waiting, watching for you from the window by the bed.”

  When she put it that way, he hated to think of it, too. Poor little fella. Disappointment had already touched him far too many times. Many was the night when Rance had found his nephew waiting at the window for his papa to come home. Too young to understand that such a time would never come again.

  Even so, no matter the love he bore his family, the very real fact of the young woman in the cell buzzed in the back of his mind like an entire swarm of bees.

  “I can’t leave just now,” he informed his sister in a low whisper, jerking his head in the direction of the cells. “I’m afraid it simply isn’t possible.”

  “What, pray tell, is important enough—” Martha craned her neck to look and barely concealed a gasp of surprise. She turned back to Rance, mouth hanging open. “Who is that?”

  He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, sister.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I do not have the slightest idea, is what it means. And I’m about fit to be tied. She won’t say a word. I don’t even know if she hears me. She certainly hasn’t reacted to anything Curtis, and Vernon have said.”

  “Those old fools,” Martha muttered with a roll of her eyes. “You believe her to be a deaf-mute, then?”

  He shrugged again, this time throwing his hands into the air. “It’s as good an explanation as any I can think of. Why else would she offer no defense?”

  “Defense of what?”

  “Of the fact that she was found holding Jake Nielsen’s stolen wallet.”

  Martha winced. “Of all people.”

  “Precisely.”

  The fact was, as put-out as his sister’s visit had left him at first, he always felt better for talking to her. Even better than he did after discussing such matters with one of the deputies. Maybe there was something to be said for being the other’s first friend, for knowing each other better than nearly anyone else did.

  Martha folded her arms, her face screwed up in concentration. He knew this expression well and also knew it was best to sit back and let her think things through. She often noticed things he did not. Maybe because she was a woman and simply saw everything differently.

  “Where was the wallet stolen?” she whispered, glancing through the doorway to where the girl sat. She hadn’t moved, remarkably, still with her back straight and her hands clasped in her lap. If it weren’t for her continuing to blink, he might have believed her dead.

  “In the saloon.”

  Martha’s mouth fell open again. “There? A girl like that?”

  “All sorts of people visit the saloon.”

  “Not her. Not a girl dressed that way, with no face paint or jewelry. You know how those girls are.”

  “It sounds like you know quite a lot more than I would ever have guessed.” He grinned. “How much time have you spent in their presence?”

  “Oh, hush.” She scowled with a half-hearted swat at the side of his head. “Everyone knows. I don’t have to sit down for supper with them to know one when I see one at the mercantile.”

  “I’ve never known you to have such narrow-minded opinions.”

  “I never said I had a bad opinion of them. I just bet I’d rather be friends with one of them than some of the so-called upstanding citizens of this town. That’s neither here nor there.” She looked through the doorway again. “I tell you, she isn’t one of them. Just the dress alone tells me. It’s too nice.”

  “Nice?” It didn’t look too nice to him. “There isn’t anything fancy about it.”

  The way she rolled her eyes, he thought they might fall out of her head. “Which is the point. Men don’t understand anything. It isn’t fancy. It’s simply a nice dress. Nicer than anything I’ve worn in…” She cleared her throat. “I’m confident she isn’t one. I think you have the wrong girl entirely.”

  He thought so, too, in the deepest part of his heart. Hadn’t he already doubted her? “Little difference it makes if I can’t get a word out of her. I believe she can read lips, since it seemed she understood what was happening on the street.”

  “You believe Lawrence would employ a deaf-mute in his saloon?” she whispered, raising an eyebrow. Then, she smiled, and her voice was loud enough to carry when she spoke again. “Do you suppose she’s with child? Or that she might have one of those terrible diseases those saloon girls catch?”

  A gasp echoed out from the cells. A decidedly female gasp.

  Martha looked down at him, smiling in wry triumph. “It looks as though she isn’t deaf, after all.”

  Rance could only stare in surprise. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

  “Why I never,” the young woman murmured. She sounded quite flustered, as if her feathers were good and ruffled over his sister’s insinuations.

  They exchanged a glance.

  “Eastern?” he whispered. She had the accent of a woman not from those parts.

  Martha merely shrugged. It seemed the mystery would not be so easily solved. What was a woman from the east doing in this situation?

  His sister was just as curious, if not more so. Before he had the chance to hold her back, she went straight through the doorway and down the line of cells. He reckoned this wouldn’t end well and followed close behind.

  “My name is Martha. Who are you?” she demanded, though she did not ask in the same spirit in which he had. She was curious. Insanely so. Her eyes were wide and bright, her cheeks flushed with excitement. This was the most interesting thing that had happened to Martha in ages.

  The woman stared at her, brows lowering. She loathed being tricked into speaking.

  “Good luck gettin’ a word outta this one.” Curtis laughed.

  “Oh, hush,” Martha hissed. “It’s little wonder she doesn’t wish to speak, being in the presence of you two. Why don’t you go to sleep and leave her alone?”

  The ghost of a smile touched the stranger’s lips, curving them upward. Rance blinked, and the smile was gone, as though it hadn’t existed.

  “You can trust me,” Martha explained as she stepped closer to the iron bars. “Truly. I know my brother isn’t always the friendliest cuss, and I won’t pretend there haven’t been times I’ve purposely gone against him just because he was getting a little too big for his britches.”

  Rance did what he could to maintain his dignity through this.

  “But I want to help you,” she continued. “I knew from the first that you aren’t one of the girls who works over in the saloon. Not you. And I know you must have a reason why you were holding that wallet. You look like a nice young lady. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell us who you are and how we can clear this whole thing up?”

  There were times when he wondered if his sister wouldn’t have made a good sheriff had she not been born female. Or maybe it was because she was a woman that she could understand people and how to speak to them better than he could.

  To his surprise, none of this seemed to make the slightest bit of difference to the stranger. Instead of admitting her name, what she was doing in town and with a stolen wallet in hand to boot, she chose to turn her face away with the same stony expression she’d worn earlier.

  Martha fell back a half-step, and a few sniggers sounded from the other cells. Rance merely took his sister’s arm and led her away before her temper got the bett
er of her. After years at the receiving end of her flare-ups, he knew how quickly they could appear.

  “How rude!” she whispered, incensed. “She might not be a saloon girl, but she certainly has no manners!”

  “This is what I’ve dealt with ever since I brought her in,” he grunted, glancing the stranger’s way. How perplexing she was.

  “Well, what can you do?” Martha shrugged. “We’ve both tried, to no avail. Let her spend the night here—that will change her tune, I reckon.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” When Rance stared pointedly at Curtis, visible from where they stood, she sighed. “It isn’t as if they can get to her, unless they can suddenly walk through iron.”

  “No, but they can say dreadful things to her. It wouldn’t be right.”

  She sighed. “I know better than to argue when you believe something’s a matter of right and wrong. But why can’t one of your men do it? Isn’t that why the town employs them?”

  “Bill’s out of town, helping catch those cattle rustlers who’ve been causing trouble. Henry’s wife’s been sick, and Pete’s got family visiting. I can’t ask them to spend the night here, in the office. Besides, it’s my job. I’m the sheriff.”

  “Which means you have to do everything, because you feel responsible for everyone in town and must keep their welfare in mind at all times, even above your own.”

  “I’m not interested in having this argument with you again. You’ll never understand. Wouldn’t you feel responsible if something were to happen to Jesse, even if you weren’t there for it?”

  “Jesse is my son. This town isn’t your child. The girl isn’t in any danger here, and if she’s stubborn enough to remain silent when speaking might spare her all of this, then maybe she deserves a night between those two.” She jerked a thumb in the direction of the cells. “All I know is, Jesse won’t go to sleep without his Uncle Rance tucking him in and telling him a story like he does every night.”

  What she said touched him—but it was what she left out that touched him further, for it was Charles who used to tuck Jesse in every night. Charles would tell him a story. His father. Now, it was up to Rance to continue that, for Jesse relied on him.

  “Hang it all,” he muttered.

  “What if…” Martha hesitated, biting her lip.

  “What if?”

  “I don’t like this idea any more than you will when you hear it, but what if you bring her along?”

  “To the house? I must be hearing things!”

  “You can lock her in a bedroom if it comes to that, but at least you’ll know she’s safely locked away and no one will bother her. And you won’t have to spend the entire night here in the jailhouse.”

  Bringing a prisoner home with him. If that didn’t beat all. “She will not spend the night under any circumstances, but I suppose keeping her in the house, locked away, while I take care of things won’t be taking too great a chance. And I can always bring her back.”

  “It seems as though you’ve solved your problem. Now, you need to solve the problem of an active little boy who refuses to go to sleep and who’s been driving me to distraction all day.” Martha brushed back the same offending strand of hair which insisted on falling over her forehead, and it was then that he took note of how tired she looked. In the six months since Charles’s fall from a ladder—the oddest, most pitiful accident—she had aged far past her years.

  “I suppose I have no choice,” he decided.

  5

  What were they talking about out there? Phoebe strained to hear, holding her breath whenever she could just in the hope of catching their words. Plotting something, no doubt, just as there was little doubt she wouldn’t like whatever it was they had in mind.

  And she didn’t like that Martha. Demanding. Probably a gossip, too. She’d all but licked her chops at the chance to learn something of the stranger in the cell. Not because she wanted to help, though she might pretend otherwise.

  Now that he wasn’t alone, the sheriff was more likely to come up with a way to make her talk. Why oh why had she come to town? She made a vow to herself, then and there, that she would give up her romantic ways. No more falling in love, even if the man in question had marvelous sideburns and beautiful eyes and a solicitous manner.

  A lot of good any of that did her just then.

  The men to either side seemed to be sleeping, finally, or they’d at least given up taunting her in favor of lying across their cots, eyes closed. She knew they were asleep when they began to snore, which might have been amusing had she heard them under different circumstances. They sounded like dueling tuba players.

  The faint smile this image brought to mind vanished when Rance Connelly appeared once again, this time without his friend. He looked rather grim, though that was nothing new. The man could have been anywhere between twenty-five and fifty. While his face was young enough, his eyes were those of a very old man. A man who’d seen quite enough of life, thank you very much, and was not inclined to see more.

  And he was looking at her.

  “You sure you don’t want to tell me how you came to be in possession of that wallet? And before you decide to ignore me again or pretend you can’t hear, I know you can hear me, and I know you can speak. You might at least acknowledge me when I’m talking to you. After all,” he reminded her with a faint smile, “you are my guest.”

  “An unwilling guest.”

  “Ah, there’s your voice,” he marveled. Then, “You don’t seem unwilling. How can you call yourself unwilling when you could have left by now? Hell, you might have avoided this whole mess.” He hooked his thumbs under his belt, which fastened in the front with a wide, silver buckle.

  “Please watch your language,” she sniffed.

  “Right. Because I’m in the presence of a lady. Is that it?”

  She stared at him, unwilling to grant him a reply.

  “Well,” he continued when she didn’t speak, “it looks like we’re in a bit of a tight spot here, thanks to you. See, I’m needed at home. My sister came to fetch me. But going home would mean leaving you here to listen to… this.” He gestured to the two occupied cells.

  “I’ve heard worse.” She truly hadn’t, it was a wonder the men didn’t keep the entire neighborhood awake, but she was not about to admit that. Besides, her chance of sleeping even if she were there alone was slimmer than slim.

  “Even so, it would sit on my conscience, and I don’t take to the idea of having you on my conscience. While you haven’t done a doggone thing to make me like you or even trust you, that doesn’t mean you deserve to hear whatever comes outta their mouths when they wake up.”

  “I’m sure I can handle it.”

  “You do know what the buckets in the corners are for, don’t you? And how much a man sometimes wants to empty his belly after a night of drinking? And how bad that smells?” He took a step nearer the bars. “And how bad other things smell?”

  Her stomach churned, and her nose wrinkled before she could help it.

  He nodded slowly, knowingly. “I’m gonna have to bring you with me, then.”

  She glared at him, stunned. “You’re joking.”

  “Wish I was.”

  “I won’t go. You can’t make me go.”

  He growled like an angry dog. “You don’t seem to understand that I’m only doing this because you’re making it impossible for me to do otherwise. You could’ve been out of here by now, or we could at least have gone about getting things settled, if you weren’t so all-out stubborn. I can’t let you go if I don’t know what happened earlier this evening, and I thought you might be more comfortable elsewhere. Even now, when I’m offering you a night in my home rather than here in jail…” He trailed off with a few muttered words which she guessed were not complimentary.

  She chewed on her lip.

  “Look.” He lowered his head, looking at her from beneath his heavy brow. “You can either come with me in shackles, like some common criminal, or yo
u can behave like a lady and come quietly. If you even know what it means to behave like a lady.”

  Her wounded pride cried out for vengeance, and a tart remark sat right at the tip of her tongue. To think! Being mistaken for one of those girls! The indignity of it all!

  When he held up the shackles he had in mind—heavy, iron, with a thick chain connecting them—her pride moved back to make room for nervousness. He meant it. He would affix the cuffs to her wrists—or, worse, to her ankles—and lead her out of there. People on the street might see her being led around like a common criminal!

  Even so, pride made her feign the confidence she lacked. “I know how to behave like a lady, thank you, and if my choice is between going peacefully and going in shackles, I choose peace.”

  “I thought you might.”

  Oh, how she wished she could reach out and wipe the smug look from his face. It was nearly enough to make her wish she’d chosen differently, even though he would still look just as smug if he were affixing the shackles. Perhaps even more so.

  She was barely able to contain her disgust as he opened the door, swinging it slowly as if he expected her to bolt out. She knew better. Where would she go, after all? The buggy wasn’t far, but there would still be the matter of driving home in the dark.

  Though under the circumstances, she thought she might be willing to risk it.

  Good sense held her in place, however, until the sheriff waved her out. “

  Come on, then,” he groaned. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Indeed. She stepped out, eyeing one of the two sleeping men as they walked past him. The sheriff’s sister waited in the office, tapping her foot as though impatient to start out. Phoebe wasn’t certain what she thought of this woman.

  “He’ll be anxious,” she said, leading the way out of the jailhouse and onto the dark street. “We’ve kept him long enough already. Heaven knows what he’s put Mrs. Smith through while they were waiting.”

  Who? Who was waiting? Who was anxious? The sheriff didn’t offer any response, leaving Phoebe as confused as ever. They were taking her home, but who else was there? Her heart pounded maddeningly, her head spun, her legs shook.