The congregation left the church like stiff-legged dogs and cats ced to walk the same narrow bridge—with equal likelihood that a spat would ensue. Miss Devlin lengthened her stride to catch Regina Westbrook before she stepped into her Concord spring-top buggy for the drive home.
“If you please, Mrs. Westbrook, I would like a moment of your time.”
Regina responded to the authority in Miss Devlin's schoolteacher voice by turning around. But, immediately recovering herself, she replied, “I'm not sure what we have to say to one another.”
“I hoped you could tell me how Hadley is feeling this morning.”
The older woman's eyes filled with tears that she quickly blinked back. “The doctor promised Hadley will be himself again in a matter of days, and up and around before long. But I've never seen my son so pale. And Hadley swears he isn't hungry, but how will he get well if he doesn't eat? I confess, I'm worried about him.”
“How long before he'll be well enough to receive visitors?”
“Not for a while, I'm afraid,” Regina said in a frosty voice, her gaze skipping to where Bliss stood watching them from afar. “That is, some visitors will be welcome, of course. For instance if you want—”
“What about Bliss Davis?”
“That girl's father shot my son. His daughter isn't welcome in my home,” Regina retorted.
“I thought Sheriff Reeves said Hadley didn't see the man who shot him, so he couldn't keep Big Ben in jail.”
“Well, no, Hadley didn't. But everyone knows—”
“What people want to believe is quite often a far cry from the truth. Won't you please reconsider allowing Bliss to visit Hadley?”
“Never!” Regina turned abruptly, stepped up into her buggy, and sat down on the dark green leather-upholstered cushion. Taking the reins into her hands, she said a curt, “Good day, Miss Devlin.”
The instant the buggy pulled away, Bliss was at Miss Devlin's side. “Is Hadley going to be all right? Can I come and see him?”
Miss Devlin put a comforting arm around Bliss's shoulder. “Hadley's going to be fine, Bliss. But Mrs. Westbrook says he isn't well enough for company yet. You'll have to wait a little longer to see him, I'm afraid.”
Under the circumstances, Miss Devlin thought Bliss took this news with commendable stoicism.
“So long as I know he's going to be all right I can wait,” she said. “Thank you, Miss Devlin. I'm going home now. I didn't get much sleep last night
Miss Devlin followed Bliss with her eyes until she reached the welcoming embrace of her mother.
“You handled that very well.”
The rumbling bass voice in her ear startled Miss Devlin, but she quickly regained her composure and smiled as she looked into a pair of friendly blue eyes. “I hardly expected to find you here today, Sheriff.”
“It was the one place I could be sure of finding you.”
“Me?”
“I was hoping you'd agree to have dinner with me.”
“Dinner?”
“You don't have other plans, do you?”
“No.”
Miss Devlin was aware how ridiculous her one-word responses must sound, but she wasn't sure what to say. The sheriff's invitation had come as a complete surprise.
When Felton Reeves had come to Sweetwater, she had noticed him right away because he was an attractive man, and one of the few tall enough for her to look up to. However, not once in the past two years had he expressed an interest in courting her. Fortunately, that also meant she had never used any Big Words to discourage him.
Since he had never expressed any personal interest in her in the past, Eden naturally presumed he must have some other reason for asking her to dinner—and a ready explanation came to mind. The invitation to join him must have something to do with the shooting. That settled in her mind, Miss Devlin smiled at the sheriff and said, “I'd be glad to dine with you.”
To Miss Devlin's dismay, when she walked into the Townhouse Restaurant with Sheriff Reeves, the very first person she saw was that no-name gunslinger, sitting with his back to the wall. As big as he was, and dressed all in black in a cheerful room full of red-checked tablecloths, he was hard to miss.
She planned to ignore him, but Felton made a point of raising his hat to the man as they headed past him on their way to the sunshine-brightened tables by the front window. Miss Devlin nodded but kept her eyes averted from the gunslinger's face, agitated anew by memories of the previous night's encounter. To her utter disgust, she felt her face begin to flush.
She had a vain hope that the gunslinger would keep his mouth shut, but he didn't.
“Good afternoon, Miss Devlin.”
She would have walked right past him without responding, except Felton had a politely supporting hand on her elbow and was able to stop her. She lifted her chin, determined not to end up in another confrontation with the stranger. “Good afternoon
“You two know each other?” Felton's surprise and distress were evident in his frowning face and disapproving voice.
“Miss Devlin and I have only a passing acquaintance,” the gunslinger replied. “In fact, we've never been properly introduced.”
“There's no need—”
Miss Devlin was cut off by Felton's brusque, “This scoundrel is Burke Kerrigan. You'll do well to avoid him.”
The flush on Miss Devlin's face darkened at Felton's rudeness, but the gunslinger only smiled and said, “Your introduction is only half complete, Felton. To whom do I have the honor of being presented?”
“My name is Eden Devlin.”
“This is the respectable lady you were telling me about, Sheriff?”
Miss Devlin was confused by the gunslinger's comment, which suggested he had been discussing her with Felton, and irked by the way he had said respectable lady as though she were no such thing. Why, everyone knew Eden Devlin was the soul of propriety! The gunslinger's eyes slowly raked her from ribbon-trimmed hat to high-button shoes, and she realized suddenly that the only other time she had met him she had been wearing a nightshift and spectacles.
Miss Devlin's jaw slackened in horror. There had been a perfectly good reason why she had answered the door in her bedclothes last night, and if the gunman had suggested otherwise to Felton Reeves, why— She turned to Felton for some clarification of Kerrigan's statement, but the sheriff avoided her eyes. Taking a firm hold on her arm, he urged her away from Kerrigan's mocking glance.
Miss Devlin refused to take another step. Her eyes darkened as she pinned the gunslinger with an icy stare. That rogue had obviously told the sheriff some slander about her. No wonder Felton had invited her to dinner today. He probably planned to warn her off the man. As if she would ever have anything to do with Burke Kerrigan again!
Eden's temper got the better of her. “As a respectable lady,” she began tartly, “I trust I will be safe from the unwelcome attentions of a gentleman like yourself.” She left no doubt when she said gentleman that she meant exactly the opposite.
Kerrigan grinned. “You're right, of course. A gentleman like myself could hardly be expected to have a conversation with a lady—especially if the lady in question is determined to act respectable.”
Eden opened her mouth to retort and found herself with nothing to say. That man had a way of turning her own words against her that she found totally reprehensible. Chagrined literally beyond words, and anxious to escape the scrutiny in the dark eyes that followed her, Miss Devlin allowed Felton to escort her to their table.
Felton was furious with Kerrigan. Why his former friend had stuck a spoon in the stew with Eden Devlin, Felton had no idea. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought, from the sparks flying between them, that the two had a long-standing feud. But Kerrigan had just gotten into town last night, so t
hat was clearly impossible.
Still, he didn't like it. Felton had told Kerrigan about his serious intentions toward Miss Devlin. Maybe Kerrigan didn't realize that meant the “share-and-share-alike” rules they had followed with women in the past didn't apply in this instance. He would have to make sure Kerrigan got the message before he provoked another scene with Miss Devlin.
“What possible reason could you have for talking to that man about me?” Miss Devlin demanded when they were finally seated across from each other.
Eden waited while Felton cleared his throat, refusing all the while to meet her eyes. She suddenly found the sunshine uncomfortably warm, and the glare through the windows began to give her a headache.
At last the sheriff met her gaze and said, “I'm sorry if you was—”
“Were.”
“Huh?”
“The correct form of the verb is were,” Eden said.
“Uh. I'm sorry if you were embarrassed by what Kerrigan said. But I ain't—”
“I'm not.”
“You ain't embarrassed?”
“No! I mean, yes! I was embarrassed. I was correcting your grammar, Felton. I'm not is the correct form of I ain't.” Miss Devlin could see they might spend the whole meal misunderstanding each other if she kept interrupting, and vowed to bite her tongue at whatever grammatical irregularities there might be in the rest of Felton's confession.
“What I'm trying to say,” Felton continued doggedly, “is that I ain't—I'm not—always going to be just a sheriff. I got plans to buy me land and start a ranch hereabouts. One day I'll be a man of position in Sweetwater, and I'll need a woman like you by my side. What I mean is, I want to court you, Miss Devlin, with the intention of marrying you.”
Miss Devlin's instinctive reaction was to tell Felton Reeves in Big Words she had no interest now, or in the future, in his courtship. A day ago, even a week ago, the words would already have been out of her mouth. Now she forced herself to stop and consider his proposition carefully.
As far as she could tell, the two of them had nothing in common. From what she had heard of him, and in a small town that was a lot, Felton didn't like to read and he preferred games of sport, cards in particular. Significantly, she couldn't seem to stop correcting his grammar, which was embarrassing for them both
Staring down at her gloved hands, which were gripped tightly together, she admitted she wasn't getting any younger. With the shortage of single men her size in Sweetwater, this might very well be her one chance for the kind of marriage she wanted and, more importantly, a family before she was too old to have children.
To the good—considering she had vowed not to love the man she married—she felt no affection for Felton. But to her consternation, neither could she imagine allowing him to touch her as intimately as a husband must if they were to have a family. She thought that perhaps, with time, she might grow to like him enough to conceive of such familiarities between them. And, if he was willing, she could help him improve his grammar.
She was a little surprised he had waited so long to declare himself, but brushed the thought aside. His offer would allow her to be a wife and mother, goals she had feared beyond her reach. So, instead of the sharp setdown that had been on her lips, she found herself saying instead as she carefully tugged off her gloves, a finger at a time, “I would be pleased to accept your suit, Felton.”
The beaming smile on his face below his bushy mustache was reward enough for her generous response. He was so genuinely nice and thoughtful for the rest of their meal together that Miss Devlin began to think perhaps she might have an easier time learning to like him than she had presumed.
She was conscious all the while of the man dressed in black sitting across the room. It vexed her that she knew the exact moment he rose to leave. Instead of heading for the door, he turned in their direction. She quickly forked a bite of pork chop into her mouth and began chewing vigorously.
“I assume from the smile on your face, Felton, that congratulations are in order,” the gunslinger said.
“I ain't going—”
“I'm not . . . going.” Miss Devlin bit her lip, but the damage was done.
Felton's jaw muscles worked for a moment before he continued, “I'm not going to invite you to kiss the lady's hand if that's what you was—”
“Were . . .” Miss Devlin turned her head away, feeling a sudden, desperate need to investigate an interesting knothole on the windowsill.
“—were angling for,” Felton finished determinedly. “But I'm pleased to say Miss Devlin has agreed to see me with the object of marriage.”
Miss Devlin turned back to observe what effect Felton's words had had on the gunslinger. To her utter disbelief, and right before Felton's frankly challenging eyes, Kerrigan took Miss Devlin's hand anyway—the one not holding the fork—and raised it to his lips.
The instant his lips touched her skin it was as though a lightning bolt streaked up her arm. She tried to jerk her hand away, but he had a firm hold on her ann't be denied.
“May I wish you happy, Miss Devlin?” the gunslinger said, his breath warm and moist against her skin.
“It appears you're going to do so despite Felton's wishes,” she said.
“Felton knows me well enough to allow the familiarity,” Kerrigan countered.
“Well, I don't,” Miss Devlin said, recovering her hand from him at last. She opened her mouth to give him a sharp setdown for his audacity, but was interrupted by Felton, who saw which way the wind was blowing and wanted to avoid the scene he felt sure Kerrigan would be happy to create.
“You ain't—”
“Aren't!” Eden snapped.
Felton flushed and Eden could have bitten her tongue off in remorse. If it hadn't been for that awful gunslinger, she would never have lost her temper with Felton, who couldn't help his atrocious grammar.
“—aren't,” Felton continued doggedly, “welcome company here, Kerrigan. So I'll thank you to be moving on.”
Eden stared up into the gunslinger's eyes and saw the mocking humor was finally gone, leaving them cold and hard and not at all friendly. She wondered what she had ever seen in him to allow him to invade her dreams. She swallowed the masticated lump of meat in her mouth with difficulty and said, “Anyway, I'm sure my happiness is no concern of yours.”
If possible, his eyes were even colder when he replied, “Pardon my presumption, Miss Devlin. Felton.” He tipped his hat in a gesture that was insolent in the extreme before sauntering out the door.
It was lucky she had already swallowed the pork chop because Eden's throat closed so tight, she might otherwise have strangled. She set her fork down and hid her trembling hands in her lap. “Ooooh! That man! I'd like to shake him.”
“Don't let Kerrigan upset you, Miss Devlin. He's more than likely going to find himself jailed, or hanging from the business end of a rope, in the not too distant future.”
“Can't you arrest him now?”
“He ain't broken any laws in Sweetwater.”
Catching herself in the nick of time, she let Felton's poor grammar pass, but said, “You mean you have to let him kill someone before you can do something?”
“What would you like me to do?”
Eden felt an uneasiness around Burke Kerrigan—almost agitation, not quite irritation—that made her nearly desperate to avoid seeing him again. It was nothing she could explain with words, but shehave been quite happy at the moment to know he was confined anywhere she wouldn't accidentally run into him. Jail sounded pretty good, actually. But she could see Felton's point. He could hardly put Burke Kerrigan in jail simply for being annoying.
Eden drew her kid gloves on, anxious to make her escape. “I'm sorry, Felton. I took out my anger at that gunslinger unfairly on yo
u. I hope you'll forgive me.”
Felton captured her gloved hand in his. “Certainly, Miss Devlin. Don't worry,” he reassured her. “I can handle Kerrigan.”
Miss Devlin noted she felt nothing remotely like the electricity with Felton that she had experienced with Kerrigan and felt relieved . . . but also somehow disappointed. She refused to think further on the matter. In fact, she couldn't sit still for another instant. “I have to go now. I have some papers to grade this afternoon.”
“I'll walk you home.”
Sweetwater Seduction Page 5