Her Sheriff Bodyguard

by Lynna Banning

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Is very hard decision, to stay or go. I will miss Billy, mi amiguito. And Señor Hawk’s sister, she work very too hard. I could be much help. But my lady, she does what she think her madre would want.

  I know inside what Señora MacFarlane would want, and that is for her daughter Caroline to be happy in her life.

  Why is this not simple? I ask the priest, but he have not an answer. I ask Señora Ilsa, and she weep and snuff her nose on her kerchief. Eli, he say women are foolish creatures, but Eli not so smart. He does not win me in checkers.

  Me, I think it is mens who are foolish. Even Señor Hawk does not think sharp about this.

  Dios, I do not know to do what.

  Before dawn the next morning Hawk again forced his aching body out of bed and into his jeans and shirt. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but he had to settle some things.

  The town looked deserted. The throngs of visitors who had traveled to Smoke River to hear Caroline’s speech had departed for homes as far away as Portland. Jingo confided over a whiskey that he was making so much money hauling passengers north to Gillette Springs and beyond he was thinking about retiring to raise goats.

  He stepped through the door of the sheriff’s office to find Sandy slouched in the chair behind the desk, his hat over his face. The jail was empty except for one sozzled cowhand, sleeping it off in the back cell.

  Quietly Hawk checked his messages, inspected the new Wanted posters, and read over his logbook where both Jericho Silver and Marshal Johnson had made entries. Then he sat down heavily in the chair reserved for guests and acknowledged that he didn’t have the stomach for law and order today. His head still pounded and he couldn’t think clearly.

  Caroline was leaving tomorrow morning.

  Just how had it happened, this thing with Caroline? How had he been blindsided by a slim, starchy lady with a single mission in life—turning a man’s life upside down?

  Hell, she didn’t need to get the vote to tip his life on end. All she had to do was stand there looking at him with those soft blue eyes and take the pins out of her hair.

  Oh, hell, he couldn’t let her leave.

  He couldn’t stop her.

  Damnation. He felt like something was eating him alive from the inside out. Part of him wished that bullet had killed him outright. Watching Caroline climb onto that stagecoach tomorrow and roll out of his life would be a helluva lot worse than taking a bullet in the back.

  *

  At eight the following morning, Hawk walked Caroline out to the stagecoach waiting in front of the house. She gestured at the porch where Ilsa sat studiously avoiding her gaze while she shelled peas and Billy and Elijah bent over the checkerboard, wolfing down Eli’s fresh batch of cookies.

  “It is very hard to leave, Hawk. It is even harder to say goodbye to you.” She turned to him and laid her hand against his cheek. “I will never forget you, Hawk. Never.”

  She knew this would not be easy, but she had no idea how much it would hurt. She felt like a wild horse was trapped inside her chest, stomping its way out with hooves sharp as razors. She bit her lip to stop its trembling. She could love a man and leave him to carry on with her own life, couldn’t she?

  Well, couldn’t she?

  “Hawk, please, kiss me now, before the others come to say goodbye.” She stretched on tiptoe, felt him wrap his arms around her and lift her off her feet. He held her close for a long minute, then tipped his head to catch her mouth under his. His scent, of leather and wood smoke and mint, washed over her and her heart dropped into her belly and began to break into tiny, sharp pieces that hurt and hurt and hurt.

  He lifted his lips from hers and set her on her feet. “You’re more woman than I deserve, Caroline, but I want you anyway. I will always want you.”

  Blinded by tears, she turned to hug Billy and Eli and Ilsa one last time, then took a deep breath and pivoted toward the waiting stagecoach. She let Jingo hand her inside and set her canvas satchel at her feet.

  “I’ll get yer trunk when it comes in at the train station, Miss Caroline, and I’ll send it on to Portland, like you said.” He tipped his dusty hat to Fernanda and slammed the passenger door shut.

  Caroline sat without moving, her eyes closed, her hands clenched in her lap. She couldn’t bear to look out the window at Hawk, couldn’t bear to see his drawn, tense face, and she did not want him to see her tears.

  At last she heard the crack of Jingo’s whip, and the horses jolted forward. She kept her eyes shut tight until the coach turned onto the town road, and then she stared straight ahead until Fernanda folded her into her arms and began to rock her like she would a child.

  “Mi corazón,” she murmured. “It will not hurt so much in time. But for now, you must bite down hard. Hard.”

  An hour went by. Then another. Caroline stared out the stagecoach window, her mind numb. The landscape changed from rolling green hills to sagebrush-covered flatland and then to meadows with knee-deep golden grass and clusters of cottonwood trees where the road ran along the river.

  She thought of Billy’s pail of worms and about her tumbling headlong into the river when she leaned out over the water too far with her fishing line and baited hook.

  Then her thoughts settled on the young girl in the pink pinafore, Manette Nicolet, who made Billy blush and stammer. Would the girl grow up to take part in the affairs of Lake County? Vote as a member of the school board? Help elect a judge or even a senator? Oh, she did hope so.

  In fact, she would write about this in her next speech, and she would do it right this minute. She withdrew a lined notepad and a stubby pencil from her pocket and began to write.

  Wouldn’t it be grand if every single speech she created could be sent—

  With a cry she stopped midsentence and stared down at the paper on her lap.

  Of course. Of course.

  She leaned her head out the window. “Jingo!” she shouted, desperate to be heard over the noise of the coach and the hoofbeats of the team of horses. “Jingo, stop. Stop!”

  *

  Inside his office, Hawk heard the thunder of horses’ hooves and the rumble of a stagecoach. That was odd. The southbound stage wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow morning, so what was—? He rose from his desk.

  Jingo’s shout brought him to the open doorway. The team slowed in front of the jail and before it halted the passenger door banged open and a slim figure in a flounced green skirt stumbled out and began to run.

  “Hawk! Hawk!”

  What the— He started toward her. “What’s wrong? Did you forget something?”

  She threw herself into his arms. “Hawk, I am such an idiot! I can carry on the suffrage campaign from right here in Smoke River. Oh, why did I not see this before?”

  “See what before? Caroline, what are you talking about?”

  She laughed and lifted her face to his. “Oh, don’t you see? I can write—” She stopped to catch her breath. “I can write newspaper columns for every paper in every town and city in the country. From right here in Smoke River!”

  Hawk heard the words pouring from her mouth but none of them made any sense.

  And then suddenly they did.

  “You mean you’re not leaving?”

  She nodded and started to cry. “I—I’m n-not leaving.”

  He stared at her flushed face and the tears sheening her cheeks. “You mean you want to stay in Smoke River?”

  “Yes.”

  “With me?”

  “Yes!”

  “You mean, uh, you’ll marry me?”

  “Oh, yes, Hawk. Yes!”

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “And I will be goddamned, too.”

  He gave her a swift, hard kiss. “Honey, what has campaigning for the vote done to your polite Bostonian language?”

  “Oh, I don’t care what it’s done. All I care about is that it’s brought us together.”

  Fernanda climbed out of t
he stagecoach and stood watching them, a sly smile playing about her lips. My, my, mi corazón. You are not so stubborn like I had think yesterday. You make your madre very happy.

  *

  The wedding took place the following afternoon in Ilsa’s front parlor. Caroline wore a simple morning dress of yellow dimity and Hawk dressed in the tailored dark suit he wore only on special occasions. Both were in for a gentle surprise.

  Judge Jericho Silver stood at the fireplace, a Bible in his hands, as they recited their vows and Fernanda and Ilsa wept in the background.

  “I, Anderson Luis Rivera, take this woman…”

  “Anderson?” Caroline suddenly whispered. “Your first name is Anderson?”

  “Yeah. My mother’s maiden name,” he murmured.

  “I like it.”

  “She used to call me Sonny.”

  Jericho cleared his throat. “You two want to get married today or not?”

  Caroline sobered. “Oh, yes. Let’s see…I, Caroline Marguerite MacFarlane, take—”

  Hawk blinked. “Marguerite?” he whispered.

  “Yes. That was your mother’s name, was it not?”

  He nodded.

  Again Judge Silver lowered his Bible. “Not sure we’re going to get through this before midnight, folks.”

  Following the ceremony, Ilsa presided over a table loaded down with a fourtier wedding cake surrounded by yellow roses and Fernanda served gallons of coffee to half the population of Smoke River, which included Jingo Shanahan, and even Jonas Overby, who turned out to be an undercover detective.

  The men kissed the bride, all except Billy, who stole a kiss from Manette Nicolet instead and blushed until his bedtime.

  Halfway through the afternoon Fernanda took Hawk out to the front porch and sat him down in the swing. “Señor Hawk, I say something now.”

  Hawk looked up at her. “Yeah? I’m listening.”

  “Is about your madre. I know her for many years. Two things I say now. First is that your madre she go with your young wife to keep her safe, not to run away.”

  “Yeah, I figured something like that. Took me a few years, but I worked it out.”

  “Second is this, señor. Your madre would be proud that you protect Caroline. And most proud that you find love with her. Comprende?”

  Hawk rose and gently kissed the Mexican woman on both cheeks. “Comprende.”

  That night Caroline and Hawk quietly moved into the house next door to Ilsa, which Hawk, just as quietly, had purchased from the Monroes. That morning he had sent Fernanda to put clean sheets on the big double bed upstairs.

  And that is how I, Fernanda Elena Maria Sobrano, came to live in the town of Smoke River, in the Territory of the Oregon, named by the Americanos. God looks down and smiles on my lady and Señor Hawk. And me.

  *

  If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to miss these other great reads from

  Lynna Banning

  PRINTER IN PETTICOATS

  SMOKE RIVER FAMILY

  THE LONE SHERIFF

  SMOKE RIVER BRIDE

  LADY LAVENDER

  Keep reading for an excerpt from SHEIKH’S MAIL-ORDER BRIDE by Marguerite Kaye.

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  Sheikh’s Mail-Order Bride

  by Marguerite Kaye

  Chapter One

  Kingdom of Murimon, Arabia—May 1815

  Daylight was just starting to fade as he neared his journey’s end. He guided his deliberately modest caravan, consisting of the camel on which he sat and two pack mules, through the broad sweep of the valley floor where the largest of Murimon’s oases fed the fields and orchards, sheltered from the fierce heat of the desert sun by the serried ranks of date palms laden with their ripening fruit. Towering above, the crags of the Murimon Mountains he had just traversed provided further shelter, the silver-grey rock streaked with ochre, gold and umber glinting in the sun’s rays.

  The small town which served the oasis was built into the foothills of the mountains, consisting of a steep jumble of houses and rooftops which clung precariously to the hillside, leaving every precious scrap of level land free for cultivation. The delicious aroma of roasted goat meat wafted on the faint breeze, along with the soft murmur of voices. There was precious little chance of him being recognised for who he was. His recently ended seven years of self-imposed exile and the kingdom’s state of hibernation due to the current period of deep mourning saw to that. But he kept his gaze turned away all the same, leading his camel and his little train of pack mules past the town towards the final mountain pass he must negotiate, keffiyeh pulled over his face leaving only his eyes uncovered.

  His brother would not have countenanced travelling in such a low-key manner. Butrus would have ridden in regal splendour at the head of a caravan of magnificent proportions designed to proclaim his majesty, to encourage his people to pay homage to their ruler, to marvel at and to revere him, to bask in the opulent glare of his princely person. But Butrus was dead. He, Kadar, was Prince of Murimon now. Ostentation sat uneasily with him, though he was beginning to realise that his personal views quite often differed from those of his subjects, and their expectations of him.

  Three short months Kadar had reigned, and the full gamut and weight of responsibility he had been forced to assume were becoming clearer. Responsibilities that would never have been his, had fate not twisted and turned so cruelly. He had returned from his exile to attend his brother’s wedding as an honoured guest. Instead, he had attended his funeral. Kadar’s domain was no longer the palace library he had more or less inhabited while growing up here, but this entire nation. People and not books were his subjects. Instead of studying and interpreting the complex legal systems, both ancient and modern, of other lands, for other rulers, he must apply the laws of this land himself, sitting in judgement on a royal throne rather than interpreting dusty tomes in a seat of learning.

  Emerging from the narrow pass onto the plateau, Kadar brought his camel to a halt. Below him lay the palace, the wide courtyard already lit by the lanterns hanging in the distinctive rows of palm trees which stood guard with military precision at the entrance to the palace itself. The serpentine road which wound down the cliffs to the port was also lit, lamps winking in the fast-fading light, like stars greeting the dusk. And below that, the two enveloping arms of the harbour, the dark mass of ships and the vast sweep of the Arabian Sea.

  The sun was
setting on the horizon, a golden orb casting streaks of vermilion, scarlet, orange and dusky pink into the sky. The rhythmic swish of the waves on the shore was like a whispered lullaby. It was the sea he had missed most in his years abroad. No other sea was so brightly blue, scenting the air with that unique combination of salt and heat. Kadar took several deep breaths. The relatively short journey to a neighbouring kingdom he had just completed, his first official state visit, had changed him irrevocably, forcing him to accept that his wishes, his desires, were no longer relevant. Or rather the outcome of this visit had done so. He was a prince first now, a man second. His unwanted inheritance must take priority over all else. Accepting custody of the kingdom he had always loved, he could reconcile himself to that. But as to the stranger he had inherited as a bride…

  No! Every instinct rebelled. The echoes of the past, the dark, painful memories which he had travelled half the world to escape, still had the power to wrench at his heart. He could not endure it. Yet he must, and he could.

  He must not draw comparisons between the past and the present. He must not dwell on the similarities, must focus on the differences. For a start, this particular woman had made her indifference to him very clear, a sentiment he reciprocated entirely, despite her beauty. It ought to make it easier. No need for pretence. No requirement for false declarations of emotions he was incapable of feeling. Not now. Not ever again.

  It ought to make it easier, and yet still he struggled to reconcile himself to this passionless contract. He must steel himself. He must remember that this wedding was what his people demanded, his country required. To honour his brother’s memory by fulfilling his brother’s vision of a new royal dynasty and a suitable heir. And more importantly for Kadar, a large dowry, money with which he could transform Murimon, bring it into the nineteenth century, implement his own golden vision for his people’s future.

  Yes, he could do that. It was a huge personal sacrifice, but it was one worth making.

  Arabian Sea—three weeks earlier

  The storm had been gathering ominously on the horizon for some time. Lady Constance Montgomery, standing in what had become her habitual position on the deck of the East Indiaman sailing ship Kent, watched as the grey clouds mustered, rolling onto the distant stage one after the other as if in response to some invisible cue.