Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone SheriffThe Gentleman RogueNever Trust a Rebel

by Lynna Banning

  Rita led the way to the corner table and Maddie sank onto the upholstered seat.

  “Think he’ll be along soon?” the waitress ventured. “I saved some of his favorite dessert for him.”

  “Oh? What is the sheriff’s favorite dessert?”

  “You won’t tell him I told you, will ya, ma’am? Johnny’s mighty fussy about people knowin’ personal things about him.”

  “I will not breathe a word, Rita. I promise.”

  The waitress leaned down. “Johnny’s real partial to peppermint ice cream. Cook makes a good double-layer chocolate cake and the sheriff always has two slices with peppermint ice cream. Maybe you’d like to try some after yer supper?”

  Maddie’s gaze met the older woman’s. “Why do you call the sheriff ‘Johnny’? His given name is Jericho, is it not?”

  Rita’s lined cheeks turned pink. “Well, ma’am, it’s ’cuz to some of us the sheriff’s special. We’ve known him since he was a boy, really.”

  “Oh?” Maddie couldn’t help herself; she wanted to know more about the tall, mysterious sheriff. “Oh?” she said again.

  Rita smoothed down her starched apron and leaned closer. “Well, ya see, Johnny come to Smoke River when he was just a kid, about twelve years old. He was all alone, never had no family that he knew of. Didn’t even know how old he was, really. So we kinda adopted him. Jericho’s the name they gave him at the orphanage—from the Bible, you know. Johnny’s kind of a pet name the townsfolk gave him.”

  Johnny. It suited him in a way, Maddie thought. A bit boyish, with a generous dash of what her mother would call “sass.” Underneath his taciturn exterior, she suspected there was still a bit of “Johnny.”

  But when he blustered and swore at her, then he was Jericho for certain—a hard man. A loner who expected the walls to come tumbling down when he made himself known.

  She ordered steak with peas and a baked potato, and sat sipping her tea, hoping Jericho—Johnny—would show up. She had some ideas about how to capture the Tucker gang, and besides, she admitted with a little flutter in her chest, the sheriff was certainly the most intriguing man she had ever encountered. It had only been a few hours, but she wanted to see him again. Even his growly voice sent a shiver up her spine.

  She consulted the watch pinned to her shirtwaist; another fifteen minutes had passed since the last time she looked and still no sheriff. Apparently he preferred being at the jail to eating supper with her. Part of her felt a bit miffed; another part...well, she wouldn’t think about that now, with Rita watching her. She was afraid she would blush.

  She sliced up her medium-rare steak with ruthless efficiency, then purposefully mashed down the halved baked potato with her fork and dumped all the butter in the dish on it. While the butter slowly melted, she wondered for the tenth time what the sheriff was doing that was so important he would miss his dinner.

  Maddie slowly lowered her fork. Of course. He was off making plans—plans that did not include her. She pressed her lips together. She hated being left out of anything, especially something as important as gold shipments and train robberies and the job she had come to do. An assignment like this made her life worthwhile. And full of adventure. She especially liked the adventure part.

  All her life she had felt different somehow. Alone. Even when she was married. She swallowed a little sniffle. Then it had been even worse. Being excluded was her own private version of hell.

  Rita slid a piece of cake onto the table and coughed deliberately. Maddie looked up. There he was at the restaurant entrance, tall and long-legged, his smoky eyes scanning the room. She gulped and dug her fork into the butter-drenched potato.

  A beaming Rita waved him over and bustled off to bring another menu as the sheriff took the seat across from Maddie.

  “You look different,” she observed.

  His dark eyebrows rose. “Yeah? You mean I look better?”

  “Not better, just...different.” Her voice came out sharper than usual. In spite of herself, she smarted over his long absence. Now that was just silly. She did not care one fig where Jericho preferred to spend his time.

  “Yeah, might be I do look different. Had a shave and got Sandy to trim my hair some. Wearin’ a clean shirt might make a difference, too.”

  It surely did, she admitted. When he was rumpled and unkempt he looked...interesting. All cleaned up, he looked very male and devastatingly handsome. Dangerous, even. For a long minute she could think of nothing to say.

  “How about you, Mrs. Detective?”

  Maddie bit her lip. “I have enjoyed a bath upstairs in my room, with that nice lavender soap from the mercantile. And,” she added with emphasis, “I have almost finished my supper.” She did not add while waiting for you.

  Rita fluttered near with her pad and pencil. “The usual, Johnny?”

  “Yep. Well done and—” he glanced at the uneaten peas on Maddie’s plate “—skip the peas.”

  “You do not care for peas?” Maddie blurted out.

  “Nope. Can’t keep ’em on my knife.” He said it with a perfectly straight face, but she laughed anyway.

  “And they taste awful when I eat ’em with honey.”

  She wanted to laugh again, but she did not want to seem the least bit accepting of his humor. Or his late appearance. After all, he had practically stood her up for supper.

  She suspected he had been off somewhere making plans, and she itched to know what they were. Besides her duty to the bank manager and Mr. Pinkerton, she did not want to be left out of anything exciting.

  Rita brought Jericho’s steak and a cup of coffee, and he waited until the waitress retreated to the kitchen before he spoke. “I’ve been thinking, Maddie. Someone here in Smoke River is tipping off the Tucker gang about the gold shipments. No other way they’d know which train to rob.”

  Maddie clunked her teacup down on the saucer. “An informer? Who is it?”

  “Keep your voice down, dammit.”

  “Who?” she repeated in a soft murmur.

  “Dunno yet. Important thing is to keep my movements secret.”

  “Our movements,” Maddie corrected.

  “That’s what I said.” He said it so blithely she was positive he’d said no such thing. And that, she decided, tightening her mouth, was another indication of how he felt about her help on this mission.

  She worked to keep her voice calm. “Keep our movements secret, how?”

  Jericho swallowed a forkful of fried potatoes. “Set up a smoke screen. Not let anyone see what I’m really doing.”

  “And just how do we—” she purposely emphasized it “—do that? This is a small town. Everybody knows everything that goes on in a town like this.”

  “You ever camped out in the open overnight?”

  “Certainly not. I prefer warmth and privacy and a soft mattress and extra pillows.”

  “Yeah, I thought so.” He grinned and munched up a bite of steak. “Fact is, I’m betting you’d rather hightail it back to the city than sleep on the hard ground.”

  Maddie put down her fork. “Not if I could capture some train robbers. In that case I would endure anything. Well, almost anything. Not bugs or wolves or thunderstorms.”

  His smoke-blue eyes regarded her for a full minute. “Let’s face it, Maddie. You’re too citified for my plan.”

  Maddie opened her mouth, then snapped it shut until the impulse to scream passed. “For a good cause, I can be so uncitified you would not recognize me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He didn’t believe her. “Jericho, what is your plan? Tell me.”

  He swigged down the last of his coffee and sank his fork into the slab of chocolate cake Rita had brought. It was twice the size of Maddie’s piece. Oh, yes, this man certainly was “Johnny” to those who knew him well. And, she thought
with growing respect, those who knew him well, loved him.

  But that most definitely did not include her.

  Jericho swallowed a mouthful of cake. “I’m going after the gang tomorrow morning. Alone.”

  “Not without me,” Maddie retorted sharply. “You underestimate me, Sheriff, and I will not stand for it. I am carrying out an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton and you cannot —”

  “Shut up, Maddie. Just shut the hell up, will you? I can do whatever the hell I want.”

  She went as white as flour. A tension so thick you could cut it like an overdone steak dropped over the room. Maddie stared at him.

  “I don’t want you along,” he said, his voice quiet.

  She pressed her lips together. “I came out here to help you catch the Tucker gang,” she said, in an equally quiet voice. “And until you can shoot straight with both your hands, you are stuck with me.”

  Jericho made up his mind for the third time. He sure as hell wasn’t stuck with her. She wasn’t used to the West. She always slept indoors, on a soft mattress; she didn’t like bugs. She’d never be able to manage what he had in mind. He knew it, but she didn’t, at least not yet. The woman was so damn stubborn....

  Jumping jennies, how could he get her out of his hair? And his mind.

  He sucked in a quick gulp of air. He wished to hell she’d just climb on the train back to Chicago where she belonged, and he wished she’d do it now, before she got hurt.

  He didn’t like his reaction to her. Something about her sure set his teeth on edge. He found himself uneasy and tense when she was around.

  “Listen, Maddie. Today I sat down with Colonel Wash Halliday and studied an army map. If I’m figuring it right, I know where the gang will try next. I’ve got an idea where they’ll hole up and I’m going to surprise them before they stop the train.”

  “But—”

  “You’re a good sport, Maddie, but you’ve grown up soft and citified. Forget it. You’re not coming with me.”

  “You are wasting your breath, Jericho. I took this job and I intend to finish it.”

  “Oh, no, you won’t,” he growled. One thing he was learning about Mrs. Detective—she had enough sand to try anything. What she didn’t have was good sense.

  She looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t argue, Sheriff. We’ve been through this before, but apparently you are hard of hearing because—” she raised her voice until she was shouting “—whatever you plan on doing, I am doing it with you!”

  They stared at each other in silence. He respected her dedication. He admired her grit. But this pretty lady was just too much pretty lady to be any real help. She distracted him, and besides, he preferred to work alone; he always had. He wasn’t about to change for Madison O’Donnell.

  She had sand, all right, but she wouldn’t last an hour on the trail with him. He knew it, but she didn’t.

  He admired her can-do attitude. What he didn’t like was his reaction to her. He was scared of something. Not her, exactly. But something about her sure set his teeth on edge.

  Chapter Eight

  Jericho reined up and sat listening to the morning sounds that were beginning to turn night into day—the squawk of a jay, doves burbling under mesquite bushes. The light was turning from gray to peach and the hills ahead were tinged with pink.

  But it was another sound that stopped him. Someone was following him. Had been for the last ten miles or so. Whoever it was wasn’t subtle about it, so he knew he wasn’t being stalked; if he were, the rider would stop when he stopped and move on only when he did.

  Maybe an Indian? No. He’d never hear an Indian until too late, and anyway most of the tribes knew him on sight and wouldn’t care what he was up to. He lifted the reins and moved on.

  When he reached a copse of alders, he dismounted, made sure his horse was hidden, unsheathed his rifle and waited.

  Within half an hour a mare he recognized drew into his sights and he swore under his breath. A young cowboy plodded toward him on Sandy’s horse. It wasn’t Sandy, so who the hell...?

  Jericho stepped into his path and raised the rifle. “Hold it right there, mister. Hands in the air.”

  The rider—a boy, he gathered from the size of his small frame—froze and looked up.

  Maddie. Damn it to hell. He took one look at her, her body drooping over the neck of the horse and swore again. “Hot damn in a haystack!”

  What had happened to Mrs. Mint-Ice-Cream Detective? She looked like a lost orphan, and he winced at the needle of pain in his chest. He must have looked just like that once.

  The shirt hung off her shoulders, though it sure buttoned up nice over the swell of her breasts. She’d rolled up her jeans at the bottom, but they fit just right everywhere else. The boots—oh, hell, he recognized Sandy’s boots. They were four sizes too big. Her toes were probably wriggling around in nothing but air. How had she talked Sandy out of them?

  She looked like a half-grown boy dressed up like his pa.

  She needed a neckerchief. And her hat, damnation! Somewhere she’d found a small-size black Stetson that looked stylish over her pinned-up hair. Too stylish.

  “What the devil are you doing out here?”

  “Following you. Or trying to. I am not experienced at tracking.”

  “Go home, Maddie. Turn your horse around and skedaddle back to town.”

  She just looked at him.

  “You hear me?”

  She nodded but didn’t move an inch.

  “I don’t want you, Mrs. Detective. Get it through your thick head, will ya? I don’t want you.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice quiet. “But you need me, just the same. And I am here now, so why do you not just be quiet and get on with whatever it is we are going to do?”

  “I ought to—oh, the hell with it.” Maddie O’Donnell was like a dollop of pitch; once it stuck to your fingers, no matter what you did, it was still there, being sticky. Too late to talk her out of anything, he figured. Besides, they were too far out to send her back now; within an hour she’d be lost.

  “I never give up, Sheriff.”

  “Yeah. I guess I knew that.” Dammit, anyway.

  He unbuckled his leather belt, yanked the blue bandanna from his neck and handed them over. “Hand over your hat.”

  “My hat? What for? It fits perfectly.”

  “It’s too fancy.” He snatched it off her head, dropped it onto the ground and stomped on it a half dozen times. She watched him, her face flushed and growing stiffer every minute. He handed the Stetson back to her, noting with satisfaction that the feather in the band was bedraggled and bent in two places.

  “Thank. You. Very. Much.” Her voice was glacial.

  “Had to get the ‘new’ out. Same with your duds.” He looked meaningfully at her shirt and jeans. She clapped both arms across her body. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

  Jericho stepped in close, dragged her out of the saddle and dropped her in the dirt. Then he knelt over her and with his left hand pushed her down flat and rolled her over and over until her garments looked dusty and wrinkled. It made his right wrist hurt like hell, but it couldn’t be helped. She had to look scruffier.

  When he was finished she looked mad enough to spit bullets. He snaked his belt through the loops at her waist and tightened the leather with a jerk while she glared at him.

  He looked her over. “Nope, too tight,” he observed. “Gives you too much of a waistline.” And a hipline. And a bustline.

  He loosened the belt until her jeans hung loose around her hips and knotted the bandanna around her neck. Patting her dark mare he noted the saddlebag she carried. Probably full of undergarments.

  “Remount,” he ordered.

  She hesitated. “I do not think—”

  “Either mount up or
shut up.”

  Her head jerked up. “You are despicable.”

  “You are damned difficult. Makes us even.”

  In cold silence he made a step out of his laced fingers and shoved her up into the saddle. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he climbed onto Dancer and reined away.

  “Follow me.”

  “Damn right,” she muttered under her breath.

  Those were the last words she said for the next ten miles. He didn’t expect her to last more than a couple more hours, but she surprised him.

  He tried to ignore the tense silence between them. When the sun arced overhead and the green-and-gold countryside stretched before them he tried to focus on the scenery instead of the set look on her face. Her eyes were so turbulent they made him think of green stones heated in a campfire. Pines and fir trees so green they looked black, blue chicory blossoms, and scarlet paintbrush helped keep his mind off her.

  * * *

  There was no trail. Jericho headed cross-country without slowing his pace or changing direction.

  Or stopping to rest, Maddie noted. He was like a well-oiled machine that never faltered. And she was most certainly not well oiled. Her joints were beginning to ache like an old woman’s and her throat was so dry and dusty she could not even spit.

  At last, Jericho raised one hand and halted near a copse of cottonwoods by a spring. He slipped off his mount, led her horse to water and waited for her to dismount.

  She tried it. “I cannot lift my leg that high.”

  “Lift your leg frontways, up over the saddle horn.”

  She gritted her teeth. “I—I cannot.”

  His voice hardened. “Then bump your butt off backwards over the saddle lip and slide off the mare’s rump.”

  “I can’t let go of the reins,” she muttered. “My fingers are cramped in place.”

  Jericho stomped toward her, pulled off one leather riding glove and laid his warm hand over hers. Then he kneaded the joints until she could loosen her grip.