Gunsmoke and Gingham

by Kirsten Osbourne

  “You’re coming with me.” He seized Elizabeth’s upper arm and marched her to the door.

  If she hadn’t wanted to go along, she’d have put up a fight.

  But she did want to go.

  “Dad, lock up. Arm yourselves. We’ll be back as fast as possible.”

  Chapter 12

  With Lizzy close beside him, Morgan strode at a fast pace to the sheriff’s office. No telling if he’d be there, but they had to start somewhere.

  One thing they hadn’t considered—Dad might think somebody aimed at Zee, but Morgan thought it more likely somebody took aim at Dad, and Zylphia, flighty thing that she was, stepped into the line of fire, then out again, just in time for Dad to take a bullet. Thank God, the bullet barely grazed his skin.

  One thing still chafed. What was Ray playing at? Morgan had known that man all his life. Loved him, but knew his shortcomings—and that man apologized to no one. He didn’t believe, not for one second, that Ray would apologize for bad behavior…unless it was a front for something else.

  Especially as it happened during the one time Morgan wasn’t at Lizzy’s side, all day long. Whole thing gave Morgan a real bad feeling.

  “You’re sure. About Ray and that prickly sense…” Just like when he’d lost his mother, helpless to fight a monster he couldn’t see or lock his fists around, Lizzy could’ve been snatched from him.

  Before he’d ever had the chance—

  “I’ve had it up to here—” She swept one blade of a hand across her forehead, the high-water mark, he supposed. “You, Mr. Hudson, are unbelievable.”

  Worked up, but nothing like the shrew her mother turned into when riled. Elizabeth—his Lizzy—was hurt. He’d somehow cut her to the quick. He’d never meant to. “That’s not what I meant—”

  “Stop.” She brushed past him, her boots striking the boardwalk planks with crisp, even reports.

  In the distance, the first fireworks erupted against an indigo sky.

  To less-honed ears, either one sounded a bit too much like gunfire.

  “Wait.” He slipped his hand about her upper arm, pulled her around. She came easily into his arms, and he simply held her, savored her warmth and the movement of breath in and out of her lungs.

  Vibrant and animated with life.

  He drew a deep breath of her rose-scented hair. He smoothed his hands over those blue gingham sleeves, savoring her warmth beneath. “I can’t lose you. Could’ve been you today, in that crowd.”

  His throat closed. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to block his overactive imagination. Her pretty blue gingham dress spattered with red blood, her face as pale as Ma’s had been at the end.

  “You believe me?” She spoke so quietly, he barely heard.

  He clung to her all the tighter. “Of course, I believe you.”

  “But—” She pushed against his chest.

  He didn’t want to let her go, but he did. Her eyes met his, open wide, searching, every emotion plain as day in their blue depths. But light was fading fast, and in moments he wouldn’t be able to make out the subtle shifts of emotion.

  “Why wouldn’t I believe you? You said Ray apologized, but something was off. So, something’s off.” Anger at his stupid cousin flushed hot and fast and overwhelming. “I find out he put your life in danger, and I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”

  Lizzy flinched. “Why? He’s your cousin. You l-love him.”

  He ought to keep a look out. It wouldn’t do to be so wrapped up in this lady that any one of their supposed enemies could come out of a shadowed alleyway between buildings and finish the job they’d started. Dad and Zee were counting on them to bring the law in on their troubles.

  But nothing was half as important as Lizzy.

  In that moment, he couldn’t remember his manners. He hadn’t the patience to woo her gently.

  He kissed her.

  Hard. Quick. Desperate to convince his soul the woman he loved yet lived.

  She must’ve been in shock. She stood, stiff in his arms while he kissed her like a brute.

  A second passed and his conscience nearly convinced him he’d gone about this all wrong.

  But then, all of a sudden, she kissed him back. Her arm looped around his neck as she pulled his head down and leveraged herself up higher to meet him. He nearly laughed aloud as she used his boots for a step-stool.

  His heart sang with arresting joy and he lost himself in the eagerness of her kiss.

  “Lizzy—”

  Her kiss claimed his mouth again, in two short bursts. “I’m mad at you.”

  He’d been downright mad at her—about something. Serious, too.

  Fireworks in the distance erupted in close succession. Muted whistles and applause filtered on the cooling breeze.

  A gunshot whistled through the air. Nearby.

  Unmistakable—Colt six-shooter.

  Ten feet away. Twenty, at most. Close! Much too close.

  Terror sank poisonous fangs deep.

  He shoved Lizzy down, threw himself in front of her, a shield.

  Morgan’s hand closed over the butt of his pistol.

  Another shot—in warning? Fired into the air?

  The Peacemaker cleared leather, and he zeroed in on target.

  “Drop your weapon.” Sheriff Liam Talmadge. Morgan’s pistol aimed straight at the sheriff’s heart.

  Sheriff. Smoking six-gun in his grip.

  Morgan’s heart pounded, way too fast. If the law had turned bad, they were all dead.

  “Drop it, Morgan.” The sheriff’s aim was true. Better than most.

  No respectable gunsmith threw his weapon in the dust. He stuffed the pistol in its holster and raised his hands.

  Lizzy squirmed beneath him on the boardwalk. “Get off me.”

  He ignored her. No sense dropping the only shield she had until he knew which way the wind blew. “Sheriff Talmadge.” Morgan squinted in the slowly darkening street. “That you shooting at us?”

  “At you?”

  Might as well find out. “Yessir.”

  “Boy, if I’d shot at you, you’d be bleeding all over Mrs. Whipple’s Bakery boardwalk.”

  “You’re holding the smoking gun.”

  “Don’t sass me, Morgan Hudson. I fired a warning shot at the moon, in fair warning.”

  “Warning?” Another quick look up and down the street—nothing. Everybody who was out was at the fireworks, six blocks down, near the town green.

  “Law’s on the books, son. You’re in clear violation, kissing like that on Mountain Home’s city streets.”

  Lizzy shoved harder, and satisfied she wasn’t in imminent danger, he pushed to his feet and pulled her up against him.

  “We were headed to the jail, Sheriff.” Lizzy cut to the reason for their outing. “To report a crime. We need your help.”

  “Later, Miss Speare. You two are under arrest.” Liam Talmadge wasn’t one to joke. The old man hadn’t pulled a prank…ever.

  “Since when,” Morgan asked, “is kissing illegal?”

  “Since the day this fair city was incorporated. The law clearly states kissing—like that—on city streets is punishable by two days in jail.”

  “Two days!” Lizzy whirled from Sheriff to Morgan. “That’s ridiculous. Why, it’s—”

  “Unless, of course, the kissin’ is done by married folk. Who could blame you, then?”

  “—preposterous!” Lizzy sputtered. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “I’m gonna have to take you two in. Might as well start your sentence tonight.”

  “I can’t. We can’t. Sheriff—a gunman fired on my mother this afternoon in the crowd, when the melee interrupted the shooting contest.”

  “She hurt?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Come along quiet like, Miss Speare.”

  “—but Mr. Hudson was shot in the belly.”

  The Sheriff looked Morgan over, apparently searching for indication he’d been gut-shot. Morgan would’ve laug
hed if he weren’t irritated. “My father, Sheriff. Grazed just under the rib. Cartridge dug out a trough nearly a quarter-inch deep.”

  “He won’t be attending the wedding.” The sheriff shook his head. “That’s a shame.”

  “What wedding?” Lizzy’s remarkable blue eyes narrowed.

  “Hudson.” Sheriff Talmadge’s attention never left Lizzy’s face. “I can understand the draw, you choosing this lively, pretty gal for your bride, but she really ain’t the brightest star in the sky, now is she?”

  Lizzy gasped in outrage. “No matter what your law says in this town, Sheriff, we are not engaged to be married.”

  Not what a man wanted to hear—though he’d far rather have her for a wife than a stepsister—and she had a distinct possibility of turning out just like her Ma, and he’d barely kissed her once.

  Must she act like a shotgun marriage—to him—would be a terrible thing? Hadn’t she kissed him as if she couldn’t bear to lose him?

  Lizzy raised her chin. “I’ll take my sentence and sit in your jail for two days.”

  “Fine then. Git a move on.” Sheriff Talmadge resettled his hat more firmly in place. “When your two days are up—and two nights, too, I’ll hear your complaints about whatever that hoopla was about on main street.”

  “You can’t mean to wait two days to hear testimony about the shooters—” Since when had Talmadge been such a stickler?

  “Indeed I do.” He spat a stream of tobacco juice into weeds peeking from beneath the boardwalk. “Absolutely do.”

  Absurd. “Why?”

  “Them’s the laws, Hudson. Improper kissing on city streets of Mountain Home earns the guilty parties forty-eight hours locked up—apart from one another, mind you—and no hearing of complaints for the full forty-eight hours.”

  “You made that part up!” Lizzy had the roar of a lion.

  If circumstances weren’t so dire, Morgan would have scooped her up and kissed her again. “My Dad’s life is at stake, Sheriff.”

  “My mother,” Lizzy quickly added. “M-my mother’s in danger. I saw my father’s business partner in town, earlier today—he’s here, I just know it—”

  “Sounds like,” Talmadge cut her off, even as he widened his stance and rocked back onto his heels, “you two’d better be glad the law makes an exception for married folk. We’ll find the J.P., get you two hitched, then see what all this is about.”

  Lizzy turned to Morgan, skeptical and furious.

  He didn’t like that look in her eye.

  “Sheriff Talmadge, you’ll make an exception. This once.”

  He understood how she felt. No one told him what to do. Not if they wanted him to actually do it.

  It seemed Lizzy was of a like mind.

  If he said no…refused marriage, then maybe she’d be all for it. She might be mad as a wet hen, for awhile, but then she’d be his. Once they ironed out the trouble.

  “No.” He told Talmadge. “Lock me up. Do what you’ve got to do—right after you apprehend the trigger-happy fools running around Mountain Home. But nobody’s getting married today.”

  The sheriff clanged the cell door shut, tested the lock, and without looking back, left the jail. At least he’d assured Elizabeth he’d be back, as quickly as possible—not with the J.P., but with their list of suspects.

  Crazy old coot.

  She didn’t believe, not for one minute, that Mountain Home had a law on the books about public kissing. So why he’d left her with Morgan, in the same cell, where any crazy gun-toting fool could shoot them dead, she didn’t know.

  People passed by outside in the dark, making a nuisance of themselves. The fireworks must have ended.

  She gripped the iron bars and leaned her forehead against one. She forced herself to calm down.

  She would not behave like Mother, who would have stood up to Morgan, right then and there. You can’t kiss me like that, Morgan Hudson, then say you don’t want me.

  She should’ve said yes and demanded the sheriff fetch the J.P.

  But that would’ve made her as pathetic as Mother, begging the man she loved to love her in return.

  She’d done the right thing.

  Hadn’t she?

  Chapter 13

  “Everybody, settle down.” Sheriff Talmadge bellowed at the significant gathering inside the tiny jail.

  Morgan, in the first of two cells with both Lizzy and Miss Ina Dimond, scanned each face. One of those present must be the guilty party.

  Trying not to be too obvious, Morgan kept a close eye on Elijah Speare’s partner, Wardie Ferwinckle. And his own cousin, Ray. The two men both seemed properly shamed. Ray sat on the bare tick, his hands between his knees, his head bowed.

  The dentist, Ferwinckle, leaned against the far wall. Hard to believe a boy that young could be a professional, bonafide dentist, but Mrs. Speare, who’d just arrived with Dad—and waited on the freedom side of the bars with Sheriff Talmadge for the outcome of the questioning, verified that the young man was, indeed, her late husband’s partner and a real dentist.

  “Now,” the sheriff said, “I want to know, right now, Wardie Ferwinckle, why you’re in my town. You tell the whole truth, boy, or I swear you won’t like the consequences.”

  Wardie removed his pocket book from inside his coat, opened it, and pulled out a stack of greenbacks an inch thick.

  Whistles of appreciation echoed through the brick building. Morgan had seen a lot of stupid things in his life, but this had to be the dumbest.

  Did the boy want to find himself robbed on the way out of town?

  “I came to Mountain Home,” Wardie insisted, “to give Widow Speare this money—money I managed to salvage from the failing business.”

  “Where’d it come from?” Talmadge opened his hand and Wardie, trusting as the day was long—idiot fool—passed the stack of bills through the bars.

  Talmadge held one up to the light. If a forgery, Talmadge didn’t say anything.

  “I know Elijah would’ve wanted his sons to have a chance at university. He’d want his family cared for. I don’t need the money, so I thought…”

  “What?” Talmadge handed the money to Mrs. Speare. “You thought the money would assuage your guilty conscience?”

  “I did nothing wrong!”

  “Didn’t you, now.”

  “No. I didn’t kill Elijah Speare, and I didn’t steal a dime from him. But the money was gone, just the same.”

  “Uh-huh. What money?”

  The sheriff did a fine job questioning the witnesses, or the defendants, whatever they were, so Morgan watched everybody else closely. Someone would give themselves away.

  “My grandpa paid Dr. Speare a fair buy-in. To take me on as an apprentice, so I’d own a share of the business. It’s not illegal, Sheriff. It’s what’s done. See, an established dentist has patients, equipment, an operating business. He doesn’t just give that to a new graduate.”

  Mrs. Speare humphed. “Why didn’t you offer us this money months ago, when we needed it?”

  Wardie gripped the bars. “I’ve only salvaged it recently. It takes time to collect outstanding debts. When I saw the balance in the bank account, I decided to bring as much money to you as possible.”

  “You could’ve kept it for yourself.” Mrs. Speare opened Dad’s jacket and tucked it all inside, in plain view of everybody in the jailhouse and half the people gathering on the sidewalk.

  Morgan nearly rolled his eyes. Did Zylphia want to see Dad pummeled on the way home? Attacked for the absurd amount of cash in his coat pocket?

  “Or,” Wardie argued, “I could ensure my partner’s widow and children are cared for. It’s only decent.”

  “His children are older than you.” Talmadge, apparently, played devil’s advocate.

  “I have everything I need. If you met my parents, my grandparents…you’d see more money won’t change a thing.”

  Morgan mentally crossed young Wardie off the list of suspects. No way was the fellow guilty of a
nything.

  “Make way. Move aside.” A booming male voice cleared the congestion of onlookers from the jailhouse door. Mr. Harold Bayliss, filthy rich miner—and the man who’d stolen Arrah’s fickle heart, strode inside…his fickle-hearted wife trailing behind.

  What were the Baylisses doing here? Morgan hadn’t mentioned them to Talmadge as suspects.

  Harold Bayliss was dressed in all the finery of his station…as was Arrah. Morgan would’ve waged a constant battle, every day, keeping that woman’s dressmaker paid.

  The glittering diamonds on Mrs. Bayliss’s ring finger were ostentatious and made the expensive, tasteful engagement ring he’d presented look like a pauper’s gift.

  Morgan hadn’t seen it at the time, but he’d dodged a bullet.

  He forced himself to nod in greeting, first at Bayliss, then at Arrah. Her lips pursed as if seeing him behind bars made her inappropriately happy.

  “You require our assistance, Sheriff?” Bayliss offered the lawman his hand. “We returned to the house, and discovered your message.”

  The house. All thirty rooms. Morgan tried not to scowl.

  Bayliss, the pompous glutton, glared at Morgan even as he released the sheriff’s handshake.

  “Indeed, I do, Harold. See, I’m looking under every stone, behind every bush.”

  Harold clasped his coat, nodded his head…as if he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth instead of having made his millions dragging silver out of the mountains between grubby hands.

  “I have it on good authority,” Talmadge shifted to better address Bayliss, “you saw Mr. Hudson in the hour before the shooting contest and issued a challenge.”

  Harold Bayliss barked a laugh. “Who told you that?”

  Talmadge, more skilled at interrogation than Morgan had thought, smiled—a friendly, man-to-man smile that put Bayliss at ease.

  Lizzy turned to Morgan to whisper, “Who is that?”

  “Bayliss. Big mine.”

  She shrugged.

  The short answer would do. He indicated Arrah with his chin.

  Arrah, still a willowy blonde, did resemble Lizzy, but was so much less. Less pretty, less bright, less spirited. Just…less.