The guards paused before the screen door. “Where would you like him, ma’am?” one asked.
The judge, in his wheelchair, appeared in the doorway, his face flushed from an afternoon nap. His thatch of gray hair stood on end. “Bring him into the parlor, officer.” He opened the screen, and the aroma of frying chicken penetrated the air. Judge McMann smiled. “Come in, son. It’s hot out there.”
The three men stepped inside, and an officer unlocked the handcuffs. Straightening, he tipped his hat. “I’d watch this one, Judge. He’s a hardhead.”
The judge nodded. “Thank you, gentlemen. Sure you won’t stay to supper?”
As he chatted with the sheriff’s men, Ragan stepped into the foyer with the prisoner, flicking at imaginary dust on the hall table. She supposed she was uncomfortable because this prisoner was near her own age. The others had been either younger or older. She avoided his bitter gaze.
The man stood quietly, hands folded in front of him. His stance made it clear he wasn’t inviting conversation, so she didn’t have to worry about social niceties.
Well, this is plain silly, she told herself when she felt perspiration begin to dampen her back. They couldn’t stand in this strained silence all day. The judge was a talker, and her chicken needed to be turned. The prisoner was here, so she would make the best of it.
“Would you like a glass of tea?”
The man shook his head, his dark eyes now avoiding hers.
“Procky does tend to go on at times. I’ll show you to your room.”
Judge Leonard had said the prisoner wasn’t considered unduly Dangerous. Bank robbery. He wasn’t to be locked behind bars, but his whereabouts were to be known by Ragan or Judge McMann at all times until they felt comfortable giving him more freedom. Ragan didn’t care for the idea of trusting a prisoner with any freedom, especially as the last two adult cases had proved Judge Leonard’s judgment erroneous.
She climbed the stairs leading to the second landing, motioning for the prisoner to follow. He picked up a worn brown satchel and followed. Pity that a man’s whole life can be carried in one insignificant bag.
Opening the door to the east bedroom, Ragan said, “I think you’ll be comfortable here.” The room was her favorite of the guest rooms. Sunny in the morning, shaded during the hot afternoons. Maddy McMann had stitched together the pretty wedding ring quilt the year she died. The walls were wallpapered blue, and the rosebush beneath the open window perfumed the room with its heavenly scent.
The prisoner’s gaze traveled the quarters dispassionately. She couldn’t tell if the room suited him or not. She supposed it didn’t matter; he had no choice. It would be his home for the next twelve to twenty-four months, if he made it that long.
“You’ll need a pitcher of water for the washbowl,” she said. “I’ll get it for you.”
He nodded, setting the valise on the floor. She turned and hurried to the door.
“Is that it?”
She turned. “Breakfast is at six, dinner at noon, and supper at five o’clock sharp. Please try to be prompt. Procky gets cranky if he doesn’t eat on time.”
He lifted a questioning brow.
“Procky—Judge Proctor McMann. His friends call him Procky.” She supposed he wouldn’t find that information all that useful, though whether or not the prisoner knew it, Procky would be his friend. “And one other thing: no profane language. Ever. Liquor is forbidden as well as tobacco.”
“And I suppose church every Sunday.”
“No. You are welcome to accompany us to services when we’re able to have them, but unfortunately our church is not fit for worship at this time. We hold services in our homes. You are invited to join the Judge for Bible study anytime you want, but he feels you can’t make a man come to the Lord. It must be of his free will.”
His gaze roamed the room, coming to rest on the open window. “Are you the judge’s daughter?”
“No. His housekeeper. I leave after the supper dishes are done and return in the morning to fix breakfast and clean.”
His eyes came back to meet hers briefly. Goose bumps rose on her arms as his dark gaze boldly assessed her. “That’s all that’s expected of me? Show up for meals on time?”
“Don’t curse, drink, or use tobacco and attend daily research sessions.”
He gave her a hard look. “Every day?”
“Monday through Friday.” Did he think this was a guest ranch? “You rest up from your trip and eat your supper. If you need anything, please inform me.”
He turned and walked to the window. Pushing the curtain aside, he looked out. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll have to sit at the table anyway.” Prisoners attended meals, hungry or not.
He slowly turned to face her, his eyes locking with hers. “Why is this town shot to pieces?”
She thought about the chicken frying in the skillet. “There’ll be time for chitchat later.” She turned toward the door. “I’ll get that water for you.”
“Don’t bother. I can wait on myself.”
Kitty shot through the door, darting between the man’s legs. He looked down as the cat purred, rubbing her whiskers against his scuffed boot.
Ragan’s eyes acknowledged the pet. “Kitty, the judge’s pride and joy. If she bothers you tonight just push her off the bed. She’ll likely end up trying to sleep with you.”
The man’s expression said the cat wouldn’t be sleeping with him.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
She opened her mouth to respond and then closed it. “My chicken needs turning.”
Chapter Three
Leaving the room, Ragan pulled the door closed behind her. Her legs felt a bit shaky as she descended the stairs, thinking about the coming months. How would she ever manage this man? Judge Leonard expected Procky and her to set his scuffed boots on a righteous path?
She couldn’t be sure she’d convinced him to come downstairs for supper.
Well, the judge couldn’t fault her. She’d warned him the subjects were getting increasingly worrisome. From the moment Everett delivered the wire from Judge Leonard, she’d made her protests vocal.
“Want me to get that?” the judge asked when the knock had sounded at the door.
“No, stay where you are.” Ragan wiped her hands on her apron and went to answer it. When she opened the door, she found Everett Pidgin trying to catch his breath. The lanky telegraph operator panted as though he had run all the way from the telegraph station. His breath came in ragged jerks. He eyed Ragan, flushing four shades of red before he could state his purpose. “Afternoon, Miss…Miss Ragan.”
“Hello, Everett.”
“Tele…telegraph just came in for the judge. I came as soon as I could.”
He looked for the entire world like a puppy that wanted his owner’s approval for retrieving a thrown stick. Ragan had to squelch the urge to say, “Good boy.”
“Telegraph for me?” The judge made his way to the door to join them. “Now, who could be sending me a telegraph?”
Everett grinned, his eyes fixed on Ragan. “Robert Leonard in Barrow County.”
“Robert?” Judge McMann quickly scanned the missive.
“Procky,” Ragan warned. A telegram from Judge Leonard usually meant trouble. She returned Everett’s smile. “It’s warm out there today. Would you like to come in for a glass of lemonade?”
The besotted young man took a step backward and promptly dropped off the front of the porch. He landed in the rosebush at the side of the steps, his spindly legs floundering in the air.
Ragan hurried to assist him. “Are you hurt?”
The red-faced messenger thwarted her efforts. Arms flailing, he rolled to his feet, flushing a deeper hue. “Not hurt, thank you. Just a misstep. Could have happened to anybody.”
Ragan reached to brush off a clump of leaves, but Everett backed away.
Jerking his suit jacket into place, he stalked off, opened the whitewashed gate, and then latched it car
efully. Striding toward the telegraph office, he kept his chin held high. She probably should have told him about the rose branch dangling from the back of his jacket, but it would only mortify him further.
“Poor man’s got it bad,” the judge chuckled when Ragan came back into the house.
“I know, and I wish he wouldn’t think of me in a romantic vein. He’s had his share of rejection, and I don’t want to hurt him too.”
After Sunday services, Everett followed Ragan around like a lovesick fool. During the week, he waited outside the mercantile to carry her parcels.
If the sun was too hot, he was there with a parasol to shade her. If it rained, he held an umbrella over her head.
It was a wonder he found time to run the telegraph office. He smothered her, yet she couldn’t and wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Though he was a wonderfully kind young man, Ragan had no romantic feelings for him. His infatuation with her made him the laughingstock of Barren Flats. He had been in love with her since he was in the first grade and she was in the fifth. He refused to accept the fact that she didn’t love him back. She’d tried, desperately tried, to center his interests elsewhere, but he only had eyes for her.
“Well, well.” The judge refolded the message, following Ragan into the kitchen. “Seems we’re about to have company again.”
She whirled to face him. “Procky! You promised.”
“I know I did, and I wrote the letter, but apparently it didn’t reach Robert in time. Don’t get your skirts in a bunch. We’ll manage.”
Who was Judge Leonard sending now? Hopefully it wasn’t another sixteen-year-old. Last time Max almost did them both in.
“This particular fellow is a little older than you,” the judge mused. “Says here he’s twenty-eight.”
Ragan’s heart dropped. “After Max, Robert promised to send only older subjects, Judge.”
“I know, but Robert must feel this case is an exception. We do need the documentation, you know. Why, the book’s only half done.”
“Wire Robert back and tell him we can’t accept this man, and make it stick this time. We agreed. At least six months of rest.”
“I know you’re upset, but there’s not much we can do about it now,” the judge said. “The prisoner is already on his way.”
Ragan groaned.
“One last try,” the judge soothed. “If this one doesn’t pan out, then you have my promise that we will quit the program and complete the book as is.” The old man chuckled. “If Robert knew about all the trouble we’re having with gangs here, he wouldn’t have sent us another case.” The judge poured cream into a saucer and set it on the floor for Kitty. “He’d insist that I move.”
Ragan cracked an egg into a bowl. “If we had the sense God gave a goose, we’d all move.”
“And where would we go, missy?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here.” Ragan added salt and then began to knead the dough. “A town with a perfectly lovely name, Paradise, forced to change its name to Barren Flats because of gangs. Disgraceful.”
“I’m not going anywhere. This is my home.” The judge’s faded eyes roamed the kitchen, pausing on the cracked floor covering, walls begging for paint, and cabinets needing repair. The old house was falling down around his ears, but that obviously wasn’t important to him.
“This is where I brought Maddy the day I married her. This is where my three children were born, where two died of smallpox in infancy. Maddy drew her last breath there on the parlor sofa.” His tone wavered as it always did when he reminisced about Maddy and the twins, and he blinked to clear the mist from his eyes.
“I’m an old man. I’m not leaving the only home I’ve ever known. Paradise is where I was born, and it’s where I’ ll die. No matter how bad it gets, I’ll stay right here. They’ll bury me right out there next to Maddy and my babies. No-good hoodlums aren’t going to run me off.”
Covering the bowl with a cloth, Ragan set it on the counter to allow the dough to rise. The judge was lonely. His only living child was his son, Blake, who lived in Colorado. They were seldom able to see each other. The judge had never made the trip to Denver.
She sighed. “When will the new prisoner be arriving?”
“The wire didn’t say. I’d guess soon, if I know Robert. He insists on swift justice. He’ll either hang a man or dole out suitable punishment. He won’t keep a man guessing.”
Ragan shook herself free from her thoughts when she walked into the kitchen and smelled the chicken burning. Jerking off the skillet lid, she turned the scorched pieces, her mind now fixed on supper.
Chapter Four
So this is Paradise.
Johnny’s eyes roamed the room again. Someone needed to buy Judge Leonard a dictionary. Johnny didn’t know much about spiritual things other than what Grandpa had taught him, but he’d gotten the impression that Paradise—or heaven, if there were such a thing—didn’t look a thing like this town. He stood up and walked to the window to part the curtains. God. He mentally scoffed. It had been a long time since he’d thought about his Maker.
Main Street stretched north to south. He’d noticed a livery and blacksmith shop as they came into town. Then they’d passed a general store, telegraph office, bank, the sheriff’s office, saloon, surveyor’s office, and title office. Didn’t look like a place where there would be much buying and selling going on. The buildings were peppered with bullet holes, and he’d noticed more than one buckshot-riddled windowpane. The town looked like a battlefield.
At the south end sat a steepled white building that looked to be in bad shape. He hadn’t seen a cow, goat, or steer in the area.
Johnny let the curtain drop back into place, his mind going back to the illfated day two weeks earlier that had brought him here.
After stepping down from his saddle, Johnny climbed the three wooden steps to the First Territorial Bank of California and scanned the row of weathered wanted posters flapping in the hot breeze for information on outlaw Dirk Bledso. Two smiling women emerged from the land title office. He touched the brim of his hat. “Morning, ladies.”
They eyed his trail-worn appearance and ragged shoulder-length hair. Chins tilting upward, they pointedly looked in the opposite direction. One raised a dainty lace handkerchief to her nose and sniffed as she passed.
And a good morning to you. He wasn’t surprised by their lack of civility. A lot of folks didn’t cotton to drifters.
His gaze shifted back to the posters. No telling how old these things were. He smoothed a torn fragment, holding it down with his palm. Outlaw Jack Brooks, wanted for thieving horses. He’d been hanged two years back, in seventy-four, for his crimes.
A gust of hot wind ruffled the tattered flyers, and Johnny reached to steady one. Nothing posted about the Bledso gang, in particular Dirk, the yellow-bellied coward who had consumed Johnny’s life since the day he shot and killed the McAllister family. Bledso, known in some circles as the Viper, always seemed to be one county ahead of him. Then, about two years ago, all news of the Bledso brothers had dried up. They seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.
The slaughter drilled through Johnny’s mind as it had hundreds of times in the past sixteen years—Mama’s screams, her pleas that the children be spared. Baby Elly’s frightened whimpers while little Lara slept, never knowing the terror she faced. Johnny’s hand tightened into a fist. Pa’s angry shouts, in his struggle to save his family, still rang in his ears. The images cut through his soul like a knife.
Memories tightened Johnny’s stomach, and the acrid taste of sun-dried hay choked him. Sweat had rolled down his temples into his shirt collar as he huddled in the barn loft, terrified for his life. No twelve-year-old should have to witness such carnage. No one of any age should have to see those horrors.
A ruckus inside the bank jerked Johnny back to the present. Raised voices barked orders, growing persistently louder. He stepped toward the open door as three masked men burst through in a hail of bullets. Two aimed their pistols ov
er their shoulders, returning fire.
A big man with a bushy red beard encircled the waist of a young, screaming girl with one arm while he shot with the other. Fighting to break free, she kicked and struggled.
Johnny dodged another round of bullets. Instinctively, his hand flew to his holster. Before he could pull his pistol, the frantic girl latched onto his hand. His fingers reflexively clamped around her arm and he pulled, trying to break her assailant’s grip.
The outlaw held on.
“Let her go!” Johnny shouted.
The bearded man tightened his hold, trying to drag his squirming hostage toward a waiting horse.
Diving in headfirst, Johnny knocked the man to the ground. They scuffled, each trying to gain control of the hysterical girl.
The young woman kicked and clawed. Her skirt flipped over her bonneted head and Johnny blindly grappled with a sea of frilly petticoats. Bystanders stood rooted to their spots, eyes wide and mouths agape.
A fourth man backed out of the bank, guns blazing. Two doors away, the sheriff and a deputy spilled from their office, weapons drawn. Bullets zinged and ricocheted in rapid-fire volleys.
Johnny finally gained control of the female. He tucked her close, and in a split-second decision, he made a break for his horse, shielding her with his body. The girl fought like a wildcat, flailing and squealing, pounding his chest as he forced her across the porch, keeping low.
She dug her toes into the boards. “Let go of me this instant!”
Clamping his arm tighter around her waist, he grasped the saddle horn and his foot found the stirrup. Something heavy slammed into his chest and wedged itself between him and the girl. He glanced down to see a bank bag. Teetering in the stirrup, he strained to balance, and then he swung into the leather, positioning her protectively in front of him. His spurs dug into the horse’s sides.
The riders disappeared in a hail of bullets, hightailing it out of town.
Dust rose in red plumes as the sheriff and his deputy returned fire toward the disappearing cloud.
Outlaw's Bride Page 2