A Sheriff's Fugitive Bride

by Blythe Carver

  She couldn’t let them see how she felt.

  The street was quiet, at least, which was a relief. No one to witness her shame. What time was it? No way of telling. Molly would be so worried. They all would. Though even the thought of their worry was easier to live with, than knowing what they’d think if they saw her like this.

  A prisoner.

  Cate would enjoy it, she thought with a smirk. She’d see the entire affair as very dramatic, even romantic in a way. Sacrificing herself for the sake of another, a stranger. A poor waif who’d robbed someone in a failed attempt at escaping her unhappy lot in life.

  Perhaps it should’ve been Cate, then, who’d taken the ride to town. For even Phoebe found it difficult to see this as anything but a dreadful mistake she would just as soon have avoided. The shame of it. The absolute shame as the sheriff and his sister led her down the street, around a corner and further down a smaller, narrower street filled with modest homes.

  They came to a stop in front of what she supposed would be a rather pretty place in daylight. The scent of many different flowers hung in the air, heavy in the warm air of late summer. The garden must be lovely, though there was no making it out in the darkness.

  Not that she cared much. A pretty jail was still a jail. Her heart was just as heavy as she climbed the wooden stairs to the deep porch as it would’ve been if she were being led to the gallows. How would she ever get out of this?

  “Mind your manners,” the sheriff muttered as they stepped into the house. As if she wouldn’t. As if she couldn’t be trusted. The indignity of it all. She gave no sign of having heard him.

  The moment they were over the threshold, a ball of energy came running at them. Phoebe pressed herself to the wall to avoid being knocked over. “Uncle Rance! Uncle Rance!”

  A small, curly-headed boy slammed into the sheriff, wrapping his arms around the man’s knees. This was unexpected. She hardly had time to catch her breath before the little boy turned and looked up at her with wide, innocent, curious brown eyes which matched the brown of his hair and the freckles which dusted his nose and cheeks.

  “Who’s this pretty lady?” he asked, all charm. His smile revealed a gap in his front teeth.

  “This is a friend of Uncle Rance’s,” the boy’s mother explained.

  So she was a mother. Where was her husband? The sheriff—Rance—had called this his home. He was taking her home. He lived here with the family?

  “What’s your name?” the boy asked, unaware of the happenings and circumstance around him. Lucky lad.

  Rance grabbed him about the waist and tossed him into the air, causing him to squeal and giggle. Now that they were outside the jail, he seemed an entirely different person. As though the hard, toughened sheriff was merely a mask he wore in a play.

  Once again, this would have been the perfect situation for Cate to stumble into. Phoebe was entirely out of her depth.

  “Now, now.” The boy’s mother, Rance’s sister, shook her head and waved a finger. “I don’t want you getting him worked up so close to bedtime. Remember, you’re supposed to put him to bed, not play rough games.”

  “What do you say, Jesse?” Rance asked. “You reckon you might be about ready for bed? I hear you wouldn’t go unless you got your bedtime story.”

  So that was it. Phoebe felt herself softening, dangerously so, toward the man who’d jailed her. He had to come home to put his nephew to bed. He wasn’t quite the kind of man he pretended to be—or, rather, he was a man with more than one side to his character.

  Phoebe remained with her back to the wall, confused and deeply uncomfortable with this turn of events. What was to become of her in this house?

  “Will you come with us?” Little Jesse asked with one of his disarming smiles. There was a cheekiness to him, a streak of mischief she supposed all little boys shared, and she couldn’t help but smile in return.

  Rance was too quick. “No, she can’t come with us. She’ll stay here, in the sitting room, while you and I go off to your bedroom and I tuck you in. Mama will walk Mrs. Smith home, and she’ll stay right here, outside your bedroom, and she won’t make a move until I’m finished with you. Isn’t that right?” he asked, turning to her.

  To the devil with him. Only the presence of the child made her hold her tongue. She said everything she needed to say with her eyes, which bored holes into his as he smiled that knowing smile. As if he could read her thoughts and knew how dark and hate-filled they were.

  She made a show of choosing a high-backed chair near the window, folding her hands in her lap as she’d done in the jail cell, and smiling at the boy. He was the only person in the room she liked.

  Rance looked to his sister, whose creased forehead and deep scowl revealed her hesitation—and the fact that she hated this arrangement. “It’s all right, Martha. You can walk Mrs. Smith home. Everything will be safe here.”

  Phoebe wanted to scream and stomp her feet just to show him he couldn’t tell her what to do. There was a lovely china tea set on the small table beside her. Perhaps she would throw it to the floor just to prove a point.

  But Martha wasn’t the one who wore a smug smile. Martha was a mother worried about her boy, and about the condition of her home. Even a modest home was a home, and it was hers. While she could have perhaps taken better care of it—dust covered the tables, dirt-streaked the windows, and the drapes and rugs needed to be taken outside and beaten hard—it was likely all she had.

  Phoebe wouldn’t prove the sheriff right about her. He suspected her of being little better than trash. She’d show him. “It’s all right, Martha,” she murmured. “I’ll stay right here.”

  “Martha?” An old woman stepped into the room from what must have been the kitchen, tucked away in the rear of the house. “I really must get home before it’s too much later.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Smith.” One more worried look, then Martha hurried into the kitchen.

  A door opened, then closed.

  “Mrs. Smith lives in the house behind this one,” Jesse explained. “She don’t like to walk by herself at night.”

  “She doesn’t like to, and it’s none of this young lady’s business,” Rance corrected him. “Come on, now. We’ll get you settled in.”

  There was a small room beyond the parlor, on the other side of the front door. Through the doorway, she could just make out the foot of a child’s bed, along with a few scattered toys on the otherwise neat, clean floor.

  He bounced Jesse in his arms as he carried the boy to his bedroom, now smiling at the sound of his nephew’s squeals. How could one man seem like two entirely different people?

  No matter how many times she told herself she shouldn’t, there was no helping the impulse to lean in and listen hard as Rance put Jesse to bed. There had to be something she could learn about him.

  6

  “Uncle Rance, tell me all about your day.” Jesse’s dark curls bounced in time with his jumping on the bed, still too full of energy. Perhaps he had worked the tyke up a bit too much, after all.

  “What do you wanna know?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Did you catch any bad people today and put them in jail?”

  Rance was keenly aware of the woman sitting outside the room. She could probably hear every word. “I did catch someone and put them in jail today,” he responded with a glance toward the open door. “More than one person, in fact, though two of them weren’t really bad people. You ought to lie down and get settled, young man.”

  Jesse finally stopped fidgeting and allowed Rance to tuck the sheets around him. “Why would you put somebody in jail if they’re not a bad person?”

  “There’s different reasons,” Rance explained, choosing his words even more carefully than usual. “Not everybody who does something bad is a bad person, for one thing. They just do bad things. There were two men tonight who started a big fight. Not bad men, but men who were fighting and making things rough for people who just wanted to go about their busin
ess.”

  “Who were the men?” Jesse asked, eyes sparkling.

  “No, you don’t need to know that.” He’d recognize them on the street and, knowing him, would ask why they were fighting and how long they had been in jail for. Children had a way of asking such questions at just the right—or, better put, wrong—time.

  And they had long memories, too.

  “Aww, Uncle Rance.” Jesse pouted, sticking out his bottom lip.

  “You can’t get to me like you get to your mother with that pout,” he reminded the boy, tussling his hair to show there were no hard feelings on his end.

  Jesse tried to duck him with a laugh.

  “I thought I was supposed to read you a story.”

  “I want to hear more about what happened at the jailhouse. How come Mama had to go fetch you? You always come home for supper, but you didn’t tonight.”

  Children also had a tendency to hold onto a subject no matter how a person wanted them to forget it.

  Rance rubbed his temples. “I was busy, like I said.”

  “Who’s the lady in the parlor? Was she one of the bad people?”

  “I told you, there aren’t—” Rance cut himself off before he said something he’d regret the woman hearing. “She’s just a guest. That’s all. A guest.”

  “But what’s her name? Doesn’t she have a name?”

  “What’s it matter what her name is? She’s a guest in our house.” Jesse’s house. Martha’s house. The house he’d come to live in after Charles died. Not his, not really, though he did protect those who lived beneath its roof just as he would if they were his wife and son.

  They were still his blood, after all.

  “But you don’t bring lady guests over, ‘specially not at nighttime.” He was too clever by half, his nephew.

  Though the fact that he’d pointed out Rance’s lack of lady friends was not lost. Another skill particular to children, their ability to speak the profound truth without being aware of just how profound it was. He bit back a chuckle at his own expense. “You’re right about that.”

  “So? Why’d you bring her over, then?”

  “I expect you won’t be satisfied with a story now, will you?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s grownup business. And if you’re not asleep, or at least tucked in with your eyes closed, by the time your mama gets home she’ll be after both our hides.”

  Jesse appeared to contemplate this. “What’s her name? I’ll go to sleep soon as you tell me her name.”

  “I’m not here to bargain with you, young man. That isn’t how this works.”

  “I can always ask her myself.”

  “Sure, you can,” Rance agreed. Anything to end this so the boy would go to sleep. He had bigger problems in need of his attention. Such as the one sitting in the parlor, more than likely listening to every word of this. “You can ask her the next time you see her.” That time would never come, but the boy didn’t need to know it. She’d be back in jail first thing in the morning.

  “I’ll ask her right now!” Jesse jumped up and scurried over the bed, then shot to the floor and was out the door in a flash.

  “Get back here, you!” Rance chased him to the door, then stopped when he saw it was no use. Jesse was already standing in front of the stranger, who looked genuinely pleased to see him.

  She also looked as though she was rearranging herself in the chair. As if she had crept nearer the bedroom door and was caught unawares when Jesse made his quick escape. Her cheeks were flushed, too, and her chest rose and fell in short gasps.

  Tricky woman, but not as clever as she believed herself.

  “What’s your name, lady?” Jesse blurted out.

  “My name?” The woman’s eyes were round with surprise—and maybe dismay. She couldn’t deny him any more than Rance could. No one could deny him. He had a special charm unlike that of any other child.

  Maybe he would prove very helpful in this matter, too. Rance leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, waiting to hear her answer. She couldn’t avoid the boy’s questions—even he couldn’t, and he was much more experienced with doing so.

  Her gaze flickered up to his for the briefest moment, and he knew she saw the peril she was in.

  “You want to know my name?” she asked, slowly. Her voice was pleasant enough, honey-rich and sweet, now that she was speaking to a child and not to the man who’d jailed her.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  She smiled. “My good friends used to call me Peepsy when I was growing up. I think you can call me that, too.”

  His heart sank. She was a smart one.

  “Peepsy?” Jesse echoed. “Does that mean we’re good friends, too?”

  “It sure does.” She beamed. “And because I’m your good friend, I’m going to tell you something else that’s very, very important—and you’ll listen and do as I say, because you’re my good friend and good friends listen to each other. Isn’t that right?”

  “It sure is.” His gap-toothed grin tugged at Rance’s heart just as he could tell it tugged at hers. She looked upon him with the same affection Rance did.

  “All right, then.” She waved him nearer, smiling playfully. “Here it is, it’s very late, and you ought to get to bed before your mother comes home and gets upset with you.”

  “Oh, gee,” Jesse frowned, scuffing the floor with one bare foot.

  “Come on, young man.” Rance took him by the hand and led him from the parlor. “This time, you’re going to bed, and you’re going to stay there.”

  He made a point of avoiding her gaze. She didn’t need to know how she’d affected him, and he had the feeling she’d see it on his face. He was never good at hiding his thoughts, especially ones as angry and dark as his were just then.

  Peepsy. A very clever way around the question.

  Jesse waved to her over his shoulder, and Rance glanced back in time to see her doing the same. She did seem sincere. That was to her credit, if nothing else.

  By the time he finished tucking Jesse in, Martha had returned. She was waiting in the kitchen for him—and he noticed a cup of tea in the stranger’s hand. Peepsy, he reminded himself to call her, though no one would ever mistake them for good friends.

  “Since when do we serve prisoners tea?” he whispered once he was with his sister.

  She rolled her eyes. “Since when do we bring them to the house?”

  “Jesse’s in bed now, so I suppose I’ll be taking her back with me to the jailhouse.”

  “Wait.” She touched his arm. “I meant it earlier when I said she could stay in a locked room and be perfectly safe. You know we have the space.” Her eyes lowered until she was looking at the floor, probably thinking of the children she and Charles had planned on. They’d bought a house with plenty of rooms to hold all of those children who would never be born.

  “It’s a terrible intrusion—and besides, she doesn’t deserve a comfortable bed in a nice home. She doesn’t deserve a cup of tea.”

  “You still think she’s guilty?”

  “She’s given me no reason to believe otherwise.”

  “That doesn’t mean you ought to spend the night sitting up in a chair, as though she were a train robber or murderer. She’s just a girl who looks younger than me, even.” Martha was all of twenty-four.

  And she had a point. The girl was young, though youth had nothing to do with it. She wasn’t a violent criminal, and taking her back to the jail would mean sitting up to keep an eye on her. He didn’t much enjoy the notion of sitting up in his chair all night—he’d done it before and had nothing more than a sore back to show for it the next day.

  “So long as you don’t feel uncomfortable with the arrangement.”

  “If you mean to ask whether I’ll be able to sleep tonight with a hardened criminal under my roof…”

  “All right, all right,” he muttered, knowing when he was licked.

  They returned to her, where she waited with teacup and saucer in lap. “Thank you for th
is,” she smiled to Martha. “It’s very generous of you.”

  “Her generosity knows no bounds,” Rance explained. He was feeling rather surly, so it more than likely came out that way, but he was far past the point of caring what she thought. Or even what his sister thought.

  Martha shot him a warning look which he ignored. “The fact is, I can’t let you go, but I don’t much take to the idea of spending the night in the jailhouse. So, you’ll be spending the night here.”

  Good thing she’d already put the cup and saucer on the table. They would’ve shattered to the floor otherwise, the way she bolted up from the chair. “Here? In your home?”

  “You’ll be locked in the bedroom, of course,” he continued, ignoring her, “so you’ll want to go to the outhouse with Martha here and take care of what needs taking care of.”

  “Rance,” Martha hissed, blushing.

  Peepsy didn’t blush. Her gaze was defiant. “If I refuse?”

  “You’ll go back to the jailhouse, and you can deal with the men and whatever noises they happen to make in the night. Drunken men rarely sleep deep for long,” he warned. “Though you might already know that.”

  Her fist clenched as fast as lightning, but she refrained from using it on him. At least if she’d struck him, he’d have good reason to hold onto her.

  “Enough of this,” Martha decided in her customary sudden manner. “Come. I’ll show you outside, then we’ll settle you in for the night.”

  As she led Peepsy through the parlor, past the dining room, and into the kitchen, she glared at Rance in a way which promised they’d have it out later.

  He was too tired to care very much. This was a matter of business, nothing more, and he couldn’t treat her with kid gloves simply because she was a woman.

  Still, it was looking like the start of a very long night.

  7

  “Don’t worry too much about my brother,” Martha whispered on their way back into the house. “He means no real harm.”