“I need to have a word with your teacher first,” he said. “You run along and I’ll be right behind you.”
Rafe and Millie left obediently, but Teddy lagged behind. “You just got here. Where are you going?” he asked in a low voice.
In spite of his surprise, Jed’s expression didn’t change. “What makes you think I’m going anywhere?”
Teddy didn’t hesitate. “The twitch in your right eyelid. You only get it when you’re ready to go. Ma calls it wanderlust. Pa calls it itchy feet.”
His right eyelid did not twitch! He laid a casually raised finger there, just to see if it felt any different. “I may have to make a quick trip to Ranburne,” he answered casually. “I’ll just be gone a day or two. Thought I’d see if Reese might like to ride along.”
Jed still had difficulty seeing Reese—his former commander, a fine soldier, a fast gun who didn’t take any shit from anybody—as a schoolteacher. A husband. A father. He shook his head as he turned his eyes to the schoolhouse door.
“You wouldn’t ask Mr. Reese to join you unless you were expecting trouble,” Teddy added, his voice much too grown up.
“I don’t expect any trouble.” After all, two on four were fair odds, when you figured that the two were himself and Reese and the four were bumbling bandits who couldn’t find their own asses with both hands and a map.
“Then take me with you,” Teddy suggested softly.
Jed looked into deep, dark eyes, a gift from Teddy’s Mexican mother. “Nope,” he said, without offering further explanation.
“I knew it,” Teddy said with a shake of his dark head. “‘You are always looking for trouble, Uncle Jed.” There was a touch of melancholy in his low voice.
Teddy headed for home, the Paradise Hotel, and Jed strode toward the schoolhouse. He reached the door as it swung open and Reese stepped into the sunlight, a small stack of books in his hands.
A schoolteacher!
Reese smiled widely. “Jed! I didn’t know you were expected back.”
“Neither did I,” he said. “Sylvia wired me.”
Reese’s smile died. “Then you heard about Sutton.”
“Yes.” He still couldn’t believe it. Baxter Sutton, the tenderfoot storekeeper. “I don’t get it.”
“There was talk about Rose and Clancy,” Reese said. “I didn’t believe it, but the rumors were enough to get Sutton riled. Have you talked to Sylvia yet?”
Jed shook his head. “Nope. I’m not looking forward to that conversation, I have to tell you.”
Reese nodded in commiseration.
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking of putting the chore off until, oh, maybe Sunday afternoon. After I get back from Ranburne.” He had Reese’s attention.
“What’s in Ranburne?”
“The son of a bitch that stole my rifle.” Jed smiled. “Wanna ride along?”
Reese might be a schoolteacher and a husband and a father, but a man didn’t change that much in just a few years. He was still a good man to have beside you in a fight. Maybe the best.
He gave the request only a moment’s consideration. “Why not?”
Jed leaned in and lowered his voice. “And I’m gonna need to borrow a horse.”
* * *
Knowing the reason for the urgent telegram, Hannah couldn’t possibly take time for a nap and a bath before searching out Rose. She left Bertie unpacking, and followed Eden’s directions to the general store.
She stepped through an open door, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust from the bright sunlight to the dimness of the rustic shop.
Rose stood behind the counter. Twelve years had not been enough to destroy her beauty, but she did look haggard. Weary. As if some of the spirit that made her who she was had been drained out of her.
Rose lifted her head to see who had entered the shop, and when she saw Hannah she went stock-still. For a moment it was as if she didn’t even breathe. Suddenly, she began to cry hysterically.
“You came,” she said, rushing from behind the counter to greet Hannah with a tight hug and more tears. “Oh, you’re here. I didn’t know... I wasn’t sure... It’s been so long.... I didn’t know where else to turn.”
Hannah returned her sister’s hug, then stepped back, steady, stilling hands on Rose’s shoulders as she looked into pale, teary eyes. “I heard what happened. Baxter’s been arrested?”
Rose nodded quickly. “He didn’t do it, Hannah. I swear, he would never hurt a living soul!”
“I know,” Hannah said softly. She’d never liked Baxter Sutton, not as a child and not as a cowardly adult who refused to fight in the war to which his neighbors marched. She’d never known exactly what her sister saw in the man she’d run off with, the man for whom she’d been willing to leave her home and family. Baxter was not a murderer. If nothing else, he didn’t have the backbone required for such an unpleasant task.
“But Baxter’s in jail,” Rose wailed, “and the trial starts in less than two weeks, when the judge comes through, and everyone thinks he did it!”
Hannah took a deep breath. Well, obviously the people of Rock Creek didn’t know Baxter Sutton well. The coward was incapable of murder.
“Let me have a talk with the sheriff,” she said sensibly. “I’m sure we can straighten this out.”
After all, she made a profit running a plantation, while those around her, men who considered themselves superior, sold their land a piece at a time to keep their heads above water. She sent men who mistakenly thought they could woo their way into her bed and her bank account packing, and if any tears were shed they were theirs, not hers. She could surely handle a backwater sheriff who had arrested the wrong man.
“But first, tell me what happened.”
Rose held on to Hannah’s arm as they walked to the back of the store and a pair of ladder-back chairs there by the stove. They sat down, facing each other. Hannah couldn’t help but notice that Rose’s hands trembled as she clasped them in her lap.
“It all started with senseless, vicious, untrue gossip,” she said, her voice lowered even though they were alone in the store.
“What kind of gossip?” Hannah asked calmly, when it seemed Rose would go no further.
“About me and the Reverend Clancy,” she whispered, lifting her pleading eyes. “They weren’t true, I swear. Reverend Clancy had made a... an improper suggestion a few weeks earlier, but I let him know plain and simple that I was a married woman and that I was not interested in his offered counseling sessions.” She shook her head.
“This is the Reverend Clancy?” Hannah asked, amazed.
Rose nodded and sniffled. “Yes.”
“You refused his advances.”
Rose nodded, vigorously this time. “I did, but he kept asking and coming into the store when Baxter was chopping wood or collecting a shipment and no one was here but me. Sometimes I’d turn the corner and there he’d be, a smile on his face and his hands...” She shuddered. “I didn’t tell Baxter, not for a while. I didn’t want to upset him.”
“Heaven forbid,” Hannah muttered.
“But eventually I did have to tell him, when I heard the whispered rumors, when people started to look at me differently.” Her eyes teared up again. “I didn’t want Baxter to hear that nonsense and wonder...”
“So you told him about the reverend’s behavior,” Hannah said, interrupting before Rose could start crying all over again.
“Yes. The next morning Baxter went to see Reverend Clancy, just to tell him to leave me alone. When he burst into the rectory he found the preacher already dead. He didn’t know Clancy was dead at first, just that he was bleeding, so he tried to help. He got blood on his hands, and when he saw the knife laying there on the floor he picked it up.”
Hannah groaned aloud. Baxter’s intelligence had not grown in the past twelve years!
“And then Sylvia, the preacher’s wife, walked into the room and saw Baxter standing there with the knife and the blood... and she screamed and the sheriff came
and they put Baxter in jail.”
They got no further before two loud, rambunctious youngsters barreled through the front door.
Rose leaped to her feet and quickly dried her tears. “Boys, come meet your Aunt Hannah.”
The two straw-haired, identical twins approached her with skeptical expressions on their young faces. They would be eleven now, she remembered.
“Is this the brilliant Aunt Hannah who’s going to get Pa out of jail?” one of them asked.
Hannah raised her eyebrows at his insolent tone.
“Jackson,” Rose reprimanded, “remember your manners.”
“What’s for dinner?” Jackson asked. “If it’s chicken again, I’m not eating. I’m sick and tired of chicken.” He looked Hannah up and down. “And I’m not giving her my bed just because she’s your sister.”
“Now, boys, when we have a guest...” Rose began calmly.
The other child, Franklin, turned his back and walked away. “I’m going to the river,” he said.
“You have homework...” Rose began.
“I’ll do it later,” Franklin shouted as he left the store. Jackson followed his brother.
Rose just sighed and reclaimed her seat.
Rose had given birth to the twins within a year of marriage, but according to her letters the delivery had been difficult, and there would be no more children. Perhaps that was the reason, Hannah surmised, the boys were such spoiled brats. It appeared to her that what they needed was a good spanking and a night or two without supper.
“I’ll go talk to the sheriff immediately,” Hannah said, rising from her seat.
“And you’ll stay with us?” Rose said. “We have a large living area upstairs. Don’t pay any mind to what Jackson said. This... situation has been very difficult for them.”
Having met the twins, Hannah was doubly glad she’d decided to stay at the hotel. “That’s very sweet of you,” she said. “But I have a companion with me and we’re already checked into the hotel. I don’t want to be underfoot.” This situation was difficult for Rose, too. Didn’t the children understand that?
Rose nodded as if she understood. Perhaps she was even a little relieved.
Hannah gave her sister a smile. “Now, let me see what I can do with your simpleton sheriff.”
* * *
Jed was headed for the hotel when he saw her crossing the street. No one walked quite like Hannah Winters, he thought with a grin. Cane in hand, head high, dark red hair bouncing, he would recognize her anywhere. Anytime.
She was headed straight for the jail and Sullivan’s office. He changed direction and followed her.
No doubt Hannah was going to confront Baxter about what he’d done. She’d poke that cane of hers through the iron bars and call him a cretin and a bully, and then she’d most likely pack up her sister and the Sutton twins and take them back to Alabama.
She threw open the door to the sheriff’s office and marched inside, Jed several steps behind her.
“You imbecile,” she was saying as he opened the door. “Baxter Sutton is a coward who doesn’t have the spine for murder.”
Sullivan looked silently down at Hannah, a disconcerted expression on his face.
“I insist that you release him immediately.”
Jed closed the door quietly behind him, catching Sullivan’s eye as his brother-in-law replied, “Ma’am, I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can,” Hannah insisted. “You’re the sheriff, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then I’m going to assume you have some authority here? Is that also correct? Or are you a simpleton sitting at this desk as some kind of joke?” She rapped the top of his desk with her cane.
“Jed,” Sullivan said, stepping around Hannah, looking relieved to have the excuse to leave her behind. “Good to see you. When did you get back?”
Jed grinned. “Don’t let me interrupt. You finish up your business.” He leaned casually against the closed door. “I can wait.”
Hannah turned slowly and placed wide, intelligent eyes on him. “Are you here to report the robbery?”
“Among other things.”
She took a deep breath. Ah, she was still tired, exhausted from the excitement and the long walk and the news that her brother-in-law had been charged with murder. He wanted to pick her up and carry her to bed, cover her with a soft quilt, and make her stay in that bed for at least three days. He wanted to crawl into that soft bed with her. Silly thoughts.
He nodded at her. “You go ahead and finish what you were saying.”
Sullivan narrowed his eyes in disgust and turned to face Hannah again.
But Hannah kept her gaze riveted on Jed. “Baxter didn’t kill anyone. He is incapable of violence. Your incompetent excuse for a sheriff has jailed the wrong man and a murderer is loose on the streets of Rock Creek.” Her eyes pleaded with him to agree.
“Doesn’t seem like Sutton at all,” Jed allowed.
Sullivan shook his head. “I know, but he was caught red-handed. He had the knife in his hand, and he was covered with Clancy’s blood.”
“I can explain that...” Hannah began.
Sullivan lifted a silencing hand. “I’ve heard the story a thousand times.”
Hannah cast a cutting glare in Sullivan’s direction. “Incompetent and rude. How charming.”
“You’ll have to forgive him,” Jed said, trying to save Hannah from digging herself a hole she couldn’t climb out of. “It’s his heathen blood that makes him so damn rude.”
Sullivan shot a glare at Jed.
“That,” Jed continued, “and living with my sister and four... make that four and a half,” he added darkly, “kids. Hannah Winters, I’d like to introduce you to Sheriff Sinclair Sullivan, my no-good half-breed brother-in-law and father to the most beautiful little girl in all of Texas, my niece Fiona.”
Hannah went paler than before, which was a small miracle.
Sullivan sighed despairingly. “You two know each other, I take it.”
Jed winked at the pale woman standing before the desk. “We spent the night together.”
The color returned quickly to her face. “We did not spend the night together. At least, not in the way you’re making it sound. Oh, how ill-mannered you are!” She turned to Sullivan. “Obviously my sister and her family do not belong in this godforsaken town. If you will release Baxter to me, I will take him and his family with me, and I promise you they will never return.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Jed muttered.
Sullivan shook his head. “Miss Winters, I’m sorry. Baxter is here to stay until the judge comes through town and he has a right and proper trial. I’m just doing my job.”
Hannah looked like she wanted to smack Sullivan with her cane. Jed wondered what would happen if she did. If Sullivan raised a hand to her... Jed stilled the odd surge of unnecessary protectiveness. Sullivan would never raise his hand to a woman, and if he did... this one could take care of herself.
“May I see my brother-in-law?” she asked, just a touch of defeat in her voice.
“Sure.” Sullivan opened the door at the back of the room and led Hannah down the hallway to one of the two cells in the Rock Creek jail-house. He left her there, standing before the bars.
From the outer office they couldn’t hear what was said, but Jed noted that Hannah kept a distance between her and the bars as she spoke in a low voice. She didn’t raise her voice and she didn’t poke her cane through the cell bars. She spoke softly and nodded her head when Sutton replied.
“What happened?” Sullivan asked simply.
Jed told him about the stagecoach robbery, leaving out the details of Hannah’s interference and her stubbornness when it came time to walk to their destination.
“I recognized one of the bandits, young fella from Ranburne,” Jed confessed. “Reese is going to ride with me over that way this afternoon. We’ll take care of it.” He looked down the hallway to a whispering Hannah. “D
o you think he did it?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Sullivan grumbled. “Doesn’t look good for him.”
The door flew open and Sylvia, dressed in black and weeping openly, threw herself at Jed. “I heard you were here,” she sobbed. “Oh, thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you.” She draped her arms around his neck and held on tight.
Sullivan excused himself, leaving the main office to supervise Hannah’s visit with her brother-in-law.
Jed gave Sylvia the hug she was begging for, then set her on her feet. She looked good, as always. In spite of the tears, her face was lovely and unlined and creamy smooth, and her figure was as fine as ever. Marriage to the reverend had agreed with her.
“I’ve heard all about what happened to Clancy,” he said. “I’m real sorry.”
Her tears didn’t completely dry, but her eyes hardened. “Maurice wasn’t a perfect man, but he deserved better than a knife through the heart,” she said lowly. “That... That vixen Rose seduced him, and then in a jealous rage Baxter murdered my husband. I want him to hang,” she whispered. “Promise me you’ll make sure Baxter Sutton hangs.”
He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder but made no promises. The last thing he needed was to get tangled up with Sylvia again. She’d been a good lover, for a while. Until she’d started talking marriage. Until she’d given him that ultimatum. Marry me or I’ll find someone who will. He’d stepped aside and let her commence her husband hunting, which was what she’d been up to all along. Which was what she’d be up to again, soon.
No, Maurice hadn’t been a perfect husband, but then it was unlikely Sylvia had been the perfect wife. When she’d propositioned Jed a couple years back and he’d turned her down, hadn’t she promised to find someone who would be willing to sleep with a married woman? Sylvia always kept her promises.
She attempted a smile. It was weak and watery. “You’re the only man I could ever depend on,” she cooed. “When Maurice was killed, all I could think was Jed will know what to do. Jed will take care of this.” She lifted a hand and placed it on his cheek. “And now you’re here, and everything’s going to be all right.” She laid her head against his chest and breathed deep. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Jed (The Rock Creek Six Book 4) Page 5