A Sheriff's Passion

by Michelle Beattie

  “Wait,” Shane called. His brother was not walking away until Shane knew what in blazes he was doing in Marietta. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  Mitch looked over his shoulder but didn’t stop walking. “I imagine you’ll find me later,” he answered.

  “Thank you for winning my basket,” Melissa said, pulling his attention from his brother’s retreating swagger. Her smile was as sad as her eyes. “I hope you enjoyed it.”

  “I always do,” he answered. He didn’t want to give her false hope but neither could he bear knowing he’d hurt her.

  “Run, Annabelle!” Wade yelled.

  Shane looked over in time to see Annabelle and Jacob hobble over the finish line in first place. He cupped his hands around his mouth, shouted a cheer.

  “You should join them,” Melissa said. “I’m going to get on home. I told ma and pa I wouldn’t be long.”

  Shane was about to agree when he saw Mitch set his hand along Silver’s waist, saw her tip her head up and smile at him.

  Like sour milk, his stomach curdled. Yes, he could join his friends but it would be best if he didn’t. He wasn’t feeling very charitable toward his brother at the moment and Mitch’s familiarity with Silver was only making things worse. As was the fact his brother could make her smile, make her happy, when he managed to do the complete opposite. Silver deserved to enjoy this day and the only way Shane could ensure he didn’t ruin it for her was if he left.

  He turned to Melissa, caught her elbow just as she was turning away. “Wait. I’ll walk you home.”

  She frowned. “Wouldn’t you rather stay with your friends?”

  Guilt was an uncomfortable cloak and it sat heavy on Shane’s shoulders. Twice that day she’d caught him distracted, thinking of someone else and, because of it, had clearly gotten the impression he’d rather be anywhere but with her. She’d done nothing but treat him kindly; she didn’t deserve how he’d made her feel.

  “I am going to be with one of my friends,” he answered, gently squeezing her elbow. “If she’ll agree to let me walk her home.”

  After catching himself at the window for the third time, peering down the street toward the saloon, Shane knew he needed to find something better to do with his time. He wasn’t a lovesick boy. Mitch and Silver were both adults and he wasn’t either of their keepers. If they wanted to spend time together, if Mitch wanted to court her...

  The growl that came from his throat, that echoed off the wooden walls, confirmed what Shane already knew. He was making himself crazy and he needed to get out of there. Taking his hat off the hook behind the door, he grabbed the shotgun from the corner, opened his desk drawer and took out some shells. If he was going for a ride, he might as well make it a productive one.

  What Katie hadn’t mentioned to Mitch was that on her journey to come visit Jillian her stagecoach had been robbed outside of Chico, a half-day’s ride from Marietta. Luckily she hadn’t been hurt, although not everyone had been as fortunate. The shotgun rider had been killed.

  Shane had been in contact with Bozeman, Chico, and all the other towns he could either ride to or send a telegraph to ever since. There hadn’t been any further robberies or complaints of rustling. Instead of being reassured by those facts, however, it left Shane with an itch between his shoulder blades. He just couldn’t shake the feeling the robbers were just buying time, laying low until they struck again.

  Yet, despite his many rides, he hadn’t found any clear signs that the outlaws who’d robbed Katie’s stagecoach had moved toward Marietta.

  Main Street was quiet as a tomb when Shane stepped from his office. On the next street over, however, he heard the crack of a bat followed by cheers and shouts. Apparently the baseball game was under way.

  After locking the door, Shane strode down the boardwalk toward the stable. The door was open and Shane let himself inside. Hay and straw dust tickled his nose. Other than a few horses, the only other movement came from the thick assortment of flies that buzzed around the animals and pinged against the dusty windows. Because of his job and the occasional need to get out fast, his horse was in the first stall on the right.

  His black gelding plodded from the back corner of the stall, reached his neck over the rail.

  “Hey there, Justice,” Shane crooned as he patted his horse’s neck. “Ready for a ride?”

  The animal snuffled, nudged Shane’s shoulder as though to hurry him along.

  “I know. I’m ready to get out of here, too.”

  Less than ten minutes later, Shane rode Justice out of Marietta. He went up Main Street, past his office and the saloons. Chico was south and east of Marietta but he’d been riding that way of late and hadn’t found much in that direction. He thought he’d head north and west this time, scout the way toward Bozeman. As a stagecoach route, it made sense the robbers could be considering that stretch of road.

  Of course as it had been a few weeks since Katie was robbed it was also possible the bandits had moved clear out of the area but his gut told him otherwise. Just as his gut told him his brother’s sudden appearance meant something.

  Contemplating both, Shane directed Justice off the trail and into the tall grass then, after a while, up into the rolling hills. He looked around copses of trees, along ridges and near outcroppings of rocks, anywhere that would have a good vantage point but also provide some cover.

  While he rode, keeping an eye out for campfire smoke or remnants of a camp, his mind drifted. The picnic would be winding down soon. Would Mitch walk Silver back to the saloon? Would she invite him in? His jaw clenched at the thought of Silver inviting Mitch into her closed saloon. With the privacy they’d have, who knew what Mitch would try? Would she kiss Mitch the way she’d kissed Shane? His blood ran hot just thinking about it.

  Shane hadn’t meant to kiss Silver that day. It had all started innocently enough. He’d seen Katie and Scott ride into town and had gone out to say hello, tease Scott a little as he was his friend and that was what friends did. Besides, since Scott had wrangled Shane and Silver to act as witnesses in his sudden marriage, he figured the man owed him.

  The three of them had been walking up Main Street, heading toward Silver’s, when a harlot had stepped from Grey’s saloon. Without warning, Scott had asked Shane to take Katie home and left them there while he followed the strumpet into Grey’s. But Katie hadn’t wanted their company and she’d left soon after. Shane had remained with Silver and together they’d gone into her saloon seething over Scott’s unusual behavior.

  When Silver said she had a mind to storm into Grey’s and drag Scott out by his ear, Shane had imagined all manner of dirty prospectors and miners pawing at her and he’d made the mistake of telling Silver he’d better never hear of her going into Grey’s. He sighed, shook his head. He should have known better. Not only was Silver strong-willed, she was a fighter. She’d turned a run-down barn into a saloon and had stood up to every man and woman who’d questioned, doubted, and belittled her. So naturally she took exception to his order and told him she could go where she pleased.

  He should have left it at that. If he had, he wouldn’t have suffered so many sleepless nights since. Wouldn’t remember the taste of her, the feel of her until his body throbbed with the need to taste and feel her again.

  But, no, he’d been a fool and he’d told her she wasn’t to ever go into Grey’s. Especially dressed as she was. He shook his head. He really was an idiot. When she’d demanded to know what was wrong with her mauve dress, he’d sputtered, said there wasn’t anything wrong. Except to his mind there was. The gown did little to hide her curves and he’d told her men would paw her looking as she did. She’d been furious and accused him of calling her a whore, which he bloody well hadn’t.

  From there the argument escalated until he could only think of one thing to keep her quiet. That was when he’d kissed her. But hell if she hadn’t kissed him back, throwing her whole body into it. Her mouth had been hungry and wet, so wet and hot he’d lost himself in it. In the feel
of her wrapped in his arms, pressed tight against him. If a gunshot hadn’t sounded outside, if a drunk hadn’t stumbled out of Grey’s and nearly shot off his foot, Shane would have laid Silver across one of her tables and—

  Shane drew in a haggard breath, shifted in the saddle. Feeling perspiration sliding down his temple, he took off his hat, dried his forehead with a swipe of his forearm. Staring at the hat in his hand, he remembered Silver handing it back to him that day. He’d felt badly, knowing that by kissing her he’d given her false hopes. Hopes he had no intention of seeing through. Sorry it couldn’t be different, he’d thanked her then taken the hat and jammed it on his head.

  “Is that it?” she’d asked.

  He remembered her eyes, clear and forthright. No regret to be seen. Her mouth had been plump and pink from his kiss. He’d wanted to take her, crush her to him again.

  Instead, he’d simply answered, “Yeah.”

  Saying nothing more, she’d opened the door for him and closed it quietly behind him. He’d been kicking himself ever since because when he did go into her saloon—though it was less often now than it had been mere weeks ago—things were different. Though she still teased him and gave him a harder time than she ever gave Wade or Scott, there was an awkwardness between them that hadn’t been there before. An awareness that couldn’t be dismissed, that refused to be ignored.

  He couldn’t look at her and not remember how she’d felt against him. How her passion had matched his own. How, if it hadn’t been for that gunshot, he’d have done things he’d have regretted.

  It was best he hadn’t.

  Still, he couldn’t help wishing he’d have had one chance, one glorious chance, to be with Silver. He could see it now, so damn clearly it hurt. Her curls twisted in his hands, her body bowed under his...

  Shane cleared his throat, exhaled heavily. Neither action eased the blood heating his loins. Knowing what would, Shane dug through his memories.

  “Stay here, boy.” Eyes dark with meanness bored into Shane’s, reminded him what would happen if he disobeyed. “Don’t make me have to go looking for you.”

  “But Ma—”

  Trevor McCall didn’t linger to hear what his son had to say. He never did. Because he didn’t care about anyone but himself. And he proved it yet again when he simply shoved past Shane and into the doors of the saloon. Shane curled his nine-year-old hands into fists, glared at the swinging doors. They weren’t supposed to stop anywhere. They were supposed to sell his ma’s raspberry preserves, buy some flour, and go home. It was why his ma had sent him along to begin with. Why she’d started sending him on these errands with his pa. She hoped having his son with him would deter him from gambling away the meager money his ma’s preserves had earned.

  Shane kicked the wall of the saloon. It didn’t work. Well, once it had. The first time. But since then Trevor had simply come to do exactly what he’d just done: leave Shane outside to wait like he was nothing but a pack mule. No, that wasn’t true, Shane thought as he kicked the saloon again with his too-big boots. He’d never seen his pa turn his fists on the animals.

  Resigned to having to wait, Shane hunkered against the building. Dusk was falling and with it the late summer temperature. He drew the worn edges of his blue jacket together, or as much as the too-small fabric would allow.

  The jacket had first been his brother Logan’s, then down the line to Mitch before it became Shane’s. Of course that had been two years ago. It had already been covered in patches by then. Embarrassing colorful reinforcements covered the elbows, wrapped around his wrists to extend the sleeves and scattered across the chest. A large brown patch rode over his left shoulder. Logan and Mitch hadn’t considered their jacket going to their younger brother when they’d raced through the forests, grappled on the ground.

  Though he loved his brothers fiercely, the unfairness of it all churned in his belly. Logan, as the oldest, always had the best clothes. While most of his were also hand-me-downs, at least they hadn’t been passed down four times, full of patches and worn thin by the time he got them. And while Logan and Mitch both worked hard on their pitiful little parcel of rented land, they at least got to stay home. Shane would rather stay at home any day then be dragged around with his pa.

  But he wasn’t as strong as Mitch and Logan and couldn’t yet do the hard chores they did, so it was Shane who always got stuck being sent with their pa. Who always had to suffer the sympathetic smiles and pitying glances of those who walked by and saw him sitting alone outside the saloon.

  Angry, Shane shoved from the wall. If he weren’t afraid of what his pa would do to him if he simply left and walked the miles home, he would. But the bruises on his arms hadn’t faded from the last pounding he’d taken and he wasn’t in a hurry to get any new ones.

  With nothing else to do, Shane wandered to the hitching post. He greeted the horses, patted them, went around back and ripped handfuls of grasses to feed them. That only took a few minutes. Tossing rocks and drawing in the dirt soon became tiresome and boring. When a horse snuffled he turned to it.

  “I know how you feel. I’d rather do about anything than stand here waiting.”

  When the horse’s soft brown eyes looked at him as though it understood, Shane sighed, stepped closer. “You’re bored too, aren’t ya?”

  Rising on his toes, Shane scratched between the mare’s ears, underneath her mane. When his eye caught the fancy engraving on the saddle, he traced his fingers over it. Though Shane liked to draw and considered himself pretty good at it, his skill was nothing to that of the eagle carved into the saddle. His fingers traced over the individual feathers, the curve of the talons.

  “Hey, boy, you step away from my horse.”

  Shane’s head whipped up. He’d been too engrossed in the detail of the eagle to hear anyone approach.

  “I was just—”

  The wrangler’s eyes narrowed under the brim of his hat. “I know what you was doing. Thinking to steal from my saddle bags, that’s what you was doing.”

  Stealing? Shane looked down, saw his hand was indeed near the bags. He yanked it back. “No, sir. I was—”

  He pointed a stubby finger. “Don’t bother lying. You’re just like your no-good-account for a pa. Now git.”

  A cramp in Shane’s hand pulled him from the memory. He opened his fist, stretched his fingers. The memory faded but not the feelings it had resurrected.

  You’re just like your no-good-account for a pa.

  Well, he’d proved them wrong, hadn’t he?

  And he’d proved it to himself, and continued to do so every time he went into Silver’s and stopped at one drink. Yet, for some reason, he always felt he was only one mistake away from going back to being one of the McCall boys folks talked about, felt sorry for, and assumed the worst from.

  Courting a saloon owner? That was a surefire way to lose the respect and reputation he’d spent his life building.

  Mitch, however, would have no such reservations. After all, he was a gambler. He didn’t stand to lose what Shane did by courting Silver. Not that he’d care even if he did. Mitch had never cared what others thought of him. In fact, there’d been times growing up when Shane had wondered if Mitch cared about anything at all.

  He’d sneered at their father’s beatings, made light of the endless chores, and hadn’t even shed a tear at their mother’s burial. Nothing stuck to him.

  Which was just one reason Shane itched to turn Justice around and hightail it back to Marietta. Yet, despite wanting to warn Silver to be wary where his brother was concerned, he wouldn’t forget his duty.

  He’d been diligent in keeping an eye out for the robbers and he wasn’t going to stop now.

  Shane sighed. While his lungs filled with crisp, mountain air, he smelled something else. Smoke. His gaze raked the hillside. His gut twitched when he saw the thin plume of grey rise up against the dark green of the pines.

  Nothing else moved that Shane could see but he nonetheless pulled his shotgun from its sca
bbard and kept a sharp eye as he turned Justice toward the smoke.

  It was more than a fire; it was a full-fledged camp complete with small canvas tent and a rope strung between two cottonwoods. A pair of socks and some long underwear hung limp on the line. There was only a bearded old man sitting before the fire and, while he stood at Shane’s approach, Shane saw no weapon on the man.

  Not much of a threat.

  Nevertheless Shane kept his grip firm on the rifle, though he left the weapon lying across his lap. Justice clomped forward easily, simply pricked his ears at the scent of another horse. The man’s paint nickered a greeting. The stranger simply stood there watching and waiting. As Shane rode closer he saw the man’s weathered face, the calm look in his brown eyes.

  “Afternoon,” Shane said, as he reined in his horse.

  “Sheriff.” The man nodded. “What brings you by?”

  “You by yourself?” he asked instead.

  “I am. Just me and Patience here.” He tipped his head toward his horse.

  “You a prospector?” Shane asked, gesturing to the picks and shovels spread beyond the tent.

  The man broke into a grin, complete with missing front tooth. “If you’re going to question me, why don’t you come down and share a cup of coffee with me. I don’t get much in the way of conversations in my line of work.”

  He turned his back on Shane, rummaged through his bags and came back with another battered tin cup. Either the man was simple or he was simply far too trusting. Shane was likely to believe the latter as the man’s shotgun lay untouched next to his prospecting tools. He poured Shane a cup of steaming brew, held it out.

  “Way I see it, a young buck like you could shoot me dead before I even reached my gun. That is, if I had a mind to shoot anybody, which I don’t.” He moved to the other side of the fire, across the flames from his weapon. “That make you feel better?”

  “You’re awful trusting,” Shane said as he slid from the saddle.