She hated that childhood nickname. Her nose for trouble might not have changed, but in the decade since she’d last laid eyes on the handsomest boy in the West, the corkscrew curls—bane of her existence—had been tamed. Hattie tossed her head and allowed the hat to fall to the ground. Free of the confines of the hat, her golden hair spilled around her shoulders.
The indigo perimeter of his eyes deepened and merged with the black of the iris. “Harriet?”
“It’s the girl who’s ruined the festivities.” Hostile murmurs crescendoed. “What’s the sheriff gonna do now?”
Brax’s mouth snapped shut. Raising his firearm, his grip tightened on the Colt .45. He widened his stance. “Harriet Brimfield. You’re under arrest.”
“For what?” She started to cross her arms, but the black hole of the gun barrel beaded on her forehead. She let her arms drop to her side.
He jutted his jaw. “For disturbing the peace. For causing a riot and endangering lives. For…for anything else I can think of to tack on to the charges I’m filing against you.”
“But I’m only trying to do the right thing for these pitiful animals.”
His eyebrow rose like a question mark. “What’re you talking about, Harriet?”
She waved her hands. “I’m talking about saving those mules from inhumane treatment.”
He took a step closer. She stopped waving her hands. Braxton Cashel wouldn’t shoot her, would he? Hattie cut her eyes at the angry Hitching Post citizens forming a horseshoe. Maybe, on second thought, he would.
She didn’t know this grown-up version of the boy she’d followed around in one adventure after the other in the old days. After his ma died and he left town, she’d lost track of him. But one didn’t grow up with five overprotective brothers and become a shrinking violet. Not her anyway.
“I’m talking about what that man said.” Hattie motioned to the cowboy at the edge of the crowd. “He said the grand champion would be put permanently out to pasture. Lassoed, roped, and retired with a noose around his neck.”
Laughter erupted. Brax’s chest heaved under the brown vest with the shiny silver badge, setting off a ripple of muscular motion in his tan homespun shirt.
Hattie stamped her foot. “Mules are wonderful animals. Intelligent, patient. Hardworking.”
“They’re also stubborn, think they know better, and maddening. Mule-headed, hence the name. Like you, Harriet.”
She balled her fists.
“You got it wrong, Harriet.” Brax relaxed his stance and flicked a glance at the cowboy. “Jimbo here was just waxing poetic about one of our beloved Mule Days courtship rituals.”
Other cowboys who’d taken off after the rioting mules returned. Pulling the reins short, their horses stopped, sending a cloud of grit over the crowd. “Couldn’t catch ’em. We’ll have to round ’em up tomorrow, Sheriff.”
“Storm’s a-comin’ anyways.” An older man, carrying a black bag, nudged his chin toward the darkening sky over the distant mountain horizon. “I can feel the chill in my bones.”
And sure enough, Hattie shivered. Not because she was standing toe-to-toe with Braxton Cashel, either. Well, maybe. A little. But mainly because the west wind sweeping off the mountain range had kicked up a notch.
One man shook his fist. “Anything happens to my mules in the storm…”
A lovely lady in blue jabbed her parasol. “She’s cost us our chance to find a beau at Mule Days.” The mob tightened ranks.
Hattie backpedaled, hands in the air, till her spine pressed against the hitching post. All of a sudden she wished she hadn’t been so quick to leave the safety of the Bronco B. Faced with her brothers’ ultimatum that Hattie choose a groom or they’d pick one for her, she’d hightailed it out of the Wyoming Territory faster than you could say “Robinson Crusoe.”
“She’s a horse thief,” someone from the back of the crowd shouted. “We hang horse thieves in the Montana Territory.”
Hattie clamped her hands on her hips. “I did not steal any horses. If anything, I’m a mule thief.”
The crowd pressed closer. “Somebody grab a rope.”
Brax’s lips did that thinning thing when he bit back words. Which he often did when they were together, Hattie also remembered.
“Harriet,” he barked. “When will you learn to keep that mouth of yours shut?” Brax angled. “Nobody’s hanging anybody. Not on my watch. We’ll organize a rescue operation in the morning.” His gaze panned to the snow clouds billowing on the horizon. “Provided we’re not snowed in.”
“What about Mule Days, Brax?”
Brax Cashel smiled at the redhead with the heart-shaped face.
He had a right nice smile, Hattie acknowledged. Those even, white teeth reflected well in his deeply tanned face. Not that he’d ever smiled around her. Not when they were little. Certainly not today. Around Hattie, his face only scowled.
The redhead gestured toward the bevy of ladies huddling in their shawls. “After a long winter, we’ve been looking forward to this for months.”
Jimbo angled his Stetson on his head. “Especially the dancing. Judge Mitchell rode into town this afternoon. Ready for the marrying to commence.”
Brax smiled at the redhead again. “Don’t you fret your pretty head, Clarissy.”
And something roiled in Hattie’s gut. Must’ve been the beef jerky she’d eaten on the trail.
Brax held up his hand. “Fact is, nobody’s getting married with a late-spring blizzard on the way. You folks need to clear the streets and take cover.” He motioned toward the stately two-story hotel. “Everyone needs to find a warm place till the storm passes. And despite this recent crime wave”—the look he shot Hattie was not as sweet as the one he’d bestowed on Clarissy—“I’m not letting anyone ruin Mule Days.”
Muttering, the crowd dispersed, heading for buckboards to outrun the storm to nearby farms or toward a hot meal at the hotel dining room.
Hattie took a deep breath of the evergreen-scented air and dusted off her hands on the ragged trousers she’d appropriated from one of her brothers. She retrieved the valise she’d hidden under the wooden planks of the sidewalk. “Glad we got that settled.”
The gun cocked again. “Nothing’s settled yet.” Brax narrowed his eyes. “ ’Cept you’re going to be riding out the storm in a jail cell. ’Cause, Harriet Brimfield, I repeat, you’re under arrest.”
Chapter 2
A mule—the perfect result of the superior strength and stamina of a male donkey coupled with the intelligence and calm demeanor of a female horse.
FOR THE LOVE OF A MULE
Braxton brandished the gun toward the sheriff’s office. “You’re going nowhere but jail, Crazy Hair.”
His former childhood friend winced. Got to be twenty, Brax reckoned, if she was a day. She fingered one of the corkscrew curls hanging over her shoulder. He scowled. Okay—maybe her hair didn’t look so crazy now she was grown. A pretty shade of yellow. He motioned with the gun. “You’ll be cooling your backside in lockup tonight.”
Pesky tagalong, Harriet Brimfield had been nothing but trouble. Involving him much against his will in one harebrained—make that hair-brained—escapade after the other. Till he relocated to Hitching Post, Montana Territory, after his ma’s death to live with his bachelor uncle, the former sheriff. A quiet life—just as he liked it—without Harriet Margaret Brimfield in it.
Head held high, she flounced past the ornate Farm and Ranch Commercial Bank, the pride of Hitching Post.
Brax aimed to show her the gravity of her actions. Misunderstanding or not. You couldn’t go around messing with people’s property. “Of all the towns in all the territories, you had to pick mine? Why are you always such a burr under my saddle, Harriet?”
Lips tight and shoulders stiff, she stomped past the feed store.
“If any harm comes to those mules… What were you thinking?” He snorted. “That, if I remember correctly, was always your problem, Harriet. You don’t think. Not before you lea
p straight into disaster, dragging innocent bystanders into your chaos.”
Harriet whirled. “Why don’t you just save the taxpayers of Hitching Post the cost of a trial, Sheriff Cashel?” Her finger jabbed the badge into his chest. “Shoot me now and save the rope.”
Brax stepped back a pace. Before he remembered who he was. The sheriff of Hitching Post. And who this little minx was. The bane of his existence. He glared. “Don’t tempt me.”
She glared back. Funny, he’d never noticed how deep brown Harriet’s eyes were before. In the old days, she always smiled at him. Her eyes lit with new mischief.
Asserting his duly elected authority, Brax straightened to his full six-foot height. He towered over Harriet. Who wasn’t much bigger than she’d been ten years ago. “I wouldn’t think of depriving the fine citizens of Hitching Post the chance to see you pay for your crimes. I’ll be telegraphing those wild brothers of yours in the morning. You owe a lot of people a lot of money for those missing mules.”
For the first time, uncertainty coated her features. “Must we get the boys involved?” She moistened her lips with her tongue. “M–maybe we can work out a deal. I can work to pay off the cost.”
Brax’s gaze lingered on her mouth. “Not much a girl like you could do to work off that amount of debt.”
He flushed and hustled her off the boardwalk away from the town’s only saloon. “Nothing not illegal or immoral leastways.” Brax nudged her shoulder with the barrel of his gun. Crossing over Main, they dodged buggies hurrying home in the face of the coming storm.
Reaching the jailhouse, he threw the door open with a flourish. “Why can’t you ever do ladylike, Harriet?”
A stricken look crossed her face.
Brax tossed his Stetson on the desk. He holstered his gun and seized a brass key off the wall. “No surprise at your advanced age you’re still not married.” He wiggled the key in the keyhole till it turned. “But nobody’s that stupid. Or that big a glutton for punishment.” The hinges groaned as he swung the door wide.
Harriet slitted her eyes. “And what’s your excuse? Too many sweethearts to choose from?” She lobbed the valise inside the cell. It bounced against the stone wall and fell with a clatter onto the floor. “Your problem is you think too much about everything.”
Brax took hold of her arm. “Your problem is you don’t think enough.”
She looked at his fingers curled around her sleeve. And her gaze flitted to his face. Brax’s heartbeat sped up. He dropped his hand.
Harriet scanned the cell. “You’re really going to lock me in there?” Her mouth went mulish.
Brax hardened his heart. “Yes, Harriet. I am.” He pushed her—albeit gently—inside. He shut the door with a clang.
She peered at him through the bars. Her mouth trembled. Not so cocky now. Not so all-fired sure of herself for once. She looked scared, and all of ten years old. Some of his indignation seeped away.
“Brax…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Please…I won’t ever do that again. I promise. I don’t like it in here.”
He poked the fire iron inside the potbellied stove. “You’re not supposed to like it in there. That’s the point, Harriet.”
Brax shoved a few logs into the fire. “I’m going to the hotel for supper. And I suggest while I’m gone if you’ve got any girl clothes, you change. Judge’s more likely to be lenient on a woman.” Brax refastened the key to his belt and grabbed his hat. “If you can even do girly.”
Her eyes flamed. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll escape while you’re gone, Sheriff Cashel? S’pose I got a lock pick in my suitcase?”
“I’d enjoy dragging you kicking and screaming back to town.” Brax shrugged into his jacket. “And with the mood of this town since you’ve spoiled their fun, I wouldn’t advise escaping. You’re safer in here.”
Sounding not unlike Mayor Bledsoe’s prize bull, Harriet hollered. She undid the clasp on the valise and snatched something out of its depths. “I hate you, Braxton Cashel.”
Brax groped behind him for the doorknob. He also suddenly recollected she possessed the best throwing arm of anyone—male or female—at their school.
Should’ve searched her luggage before. But Harriet addled his brain. Made it hard for him to think straight. He’d rather tangle with a desperado than mix it up with Harriet. He’d pulled her off boy bullies double her size on the school yard more times than he liked to recall. Dragged her off because the bullies screamed for help.
Harriet let the object fly, hurtling with deadly accuracy across the space between them. Brax fumbled for the door. Flung it open. Stumbled over the threshold. Slammed the protective wooden panel behind him.
Something—the weapon of Harriet’s wrath—thudded against the other side. Brax—the object of Harriet’s wrath—blew out a breath. That was close. Too close. Best let Harriet cool off.
He adjusted the brim of his hat as snowflakes stung his eyes. Brax stuffed his hands into his pockets. Hunching his shoulders against the wind whipping the flakes, he set off toward the hotel. Brax planned to get stew from the dining room. And maybe, if she was over her little snit when he got back, give Harriet some food, too. Maybe.
’Cause he didn’t fancy a plateful of food hitting him in the face or marring the cell he’d scrubbed this morning. And people believed sheriffing was glamorous? Not with the likes of Harriet Brimfield in his holding pen.
Hattie fumbled with the buttons on her calico shirtwaist. She fought the urge to cry. Smoothing her skirt, she straightened the folds of the dark blue serge over the petticoat underneath. She propped her foot on one of the two benches and laced her black boots. As long as she didn’t think about the small space… Or how the walls were closing in on her…
She bit her lip. A fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into now, Hattie Brimfield. But when her brothers got here, they’d soon sort out the charges. And hog-tie her all the way home to Wyoming, where a certain railroad suitor awaited. She grimaced. How was she going to get out of this mess?
A real woman would employ her feminine wiles on the sheriff. Sweet-talk the key off him. And then run till she crossed the Canadian border. Hattie adjusted her shirt cuff. Brax would never be taken in by her version of feminine wiles. Not that Hattie hadn’t tried to attract his attention.
The best ten-year-old way Hattie knew leastways. Even then, girls flocked around Braxton Cashel like flowers to the sun. Not that he seemed to care one way or the other. Owing to some fatal flaw in the female gender, his apparent indifference only made the girls yearn for him even more. And his eyes? Her knees wobbled. She swallowed. Was it her imagination or were the walls shrinking?
Hattie squeezed her eyes shut. She’d been thinking about Braxton Cashel’s eyes. Prettier than most women’s. Longer lashes, for sure. Not that there was anything remotely girly about the ruggedly handsome sheriff. Then or now.
She put a hand to her throat. Her heart pounded. Upon reflection, his eyes might not be a safer topic. Because with all her up-close experience with the male species—five brothers and a ranch full of cowhands—she’d never met anyone like Braxton Cashel. She’d practically racked her brain to devise ways to force him to spend time with her after school.
Her gaze drifted through the bars and out the lone window facing Main. A hurricane of snow. Night had fallen. Where was Brax? For all she knew, he’d abandoned her. Leaving her to starve. Her frozen corpse discovered after the good citizens of Lynching Post, Montana Territory, remembered to dig her out.
Okay—that was a stretch. Brax had stoked the fire before he left. It was toasty in the stone-mortared jail. Stone… Hattie fought the hysteria building. Trapped like that day Brax pulled her out of a cave-in. Her mind flitted for something safer to dwell upon before she lost control.
Hattie focused on the battered wooden desk piled high with paperwork. At the Most Wanted posters mounted on the wall. To hear Brax tell it, her face ought to be right up there with the most brazen of outlaws.
In the fl
ickering light, Hattie studied the pit-marked complexion of the leader of a gang of bank robbers. Double Dog Derring. Killed three men and a sheriff’s deputy. His beady, paper eyes chilled Hattie to the bone. A meaner, uglier man, she’d never seen.
Where was Brax? The darkness outside the window deepened. The timbered eaves groaned at the gale-force winds. The entire building shuddered. Hattie’s gaze darted to the ceiling, expecting the beams to collapse.
Unable to breathe, she sank into the corner of the cell where the two benches butted ends. Was the oxygen thinning? She’d suffocate. He’d promised he’d come back. Why wasn’t he here?
She huddled on the bench. Her knees drawn to her chin, she tucked her boots under the hemline of her skirt. Arms wrapped around her legs, her head fell forward. Oh God. Help me. Please…
Chapter 3
This much-maligned beast of burden is the mainstay of the settlement of the West.
FOR THE LOVE OF A MULE
Brax stumbled across the threshold. He wrestled the door into its frame, fighting the forces of the storm until finally he heaved it shut.
Panting, he leaned his forehead against the splintered wood. Now to face a hurricane of a different sort. Brax pivoted and sucked in a breath at her motionless form on the bench in the cell. An inexplicable fear almost swallowed Brax whole. “Harriet!”
No sound. No movement. His boot sent the hairbrush—weapon of her wrath—scurrying. He dropped the pack slung across his shoulder. At the cell in two strides, he jerked the key ring from his belt. “Hattie!”
Her head snapped up to his short-lived relief. Short-lived because her brown eyes weren’t so merry. She’d been crying. The little tomboy who never cried. Her eyes flicked to his face. “I thought you’d l–left me here.”
And belatedly, Brax recalled the morning before his mother died. How little Harriet Brimfield enticed him to come see the cave she’d found. With an undiscovered treasure of dinosaur bones. Luring him as she’d known it would, with those big words from his books. One minute Hattie dashed ahead into the tunnel. The next? A portion of the ceiling collapsed, separating them. Trapping her on the inside in the dark.
The Lassoed by Marriage Romance Collection Page 13