Pearl: Sweet Western Historical Romance (Walker Creek Brides Book 4)

by Miriam Minger

  One boy with reddish-blond hair appeared to have been crying, his freckled face flushed and tear-stained, while the darker-haired boy glanced with apprehension at his bearded captor as if he expected at any moment a good shaking.

  “Tommy Padgett?” cried Ingrid, jumping up from the table, her face stricken. “And your cousin, too, Franklin Hobbs?”

  The freckled boy began to cry again in earnest, but their fearsome-looking captor had no mercy. He hauled the two offenders right up to where Pearl was sitting and shook them both, hard.

  “Apologize to the lady for your rude behavior, now!”

  “I-I’m sorry, M-Miss McMaster!” blurted Tommy in between sobs, looking thoroughly contrite. “I’ll never trouble you again, I promise!”

  “I’m sorry, too,” mumbled Franklin, though clearly that wasn’t good enough for his captor.

  “Louder, boy, so everyone can hear you!”

  “I’m sorry, Miss McMaster, I’m sorry!”

  Pearl didn’t know what to say; she had never seen such a thing in her life. Meanwhile, Ingrid sank into her chair, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “They’re both students of mine…oh, dear, I feel so terrible about this—”

  “It’s not your fault, Ingrid,” Pearl broke in, finally finding her voice. “I know they didn’t mean to bump into me—”

  “No, ma’am, it was an accident on my part, only an accident!” Tommy cut her off, only to earn himself another good shake.

  “Where are your manners, boy? The lady was speaking to you!”

  Touched that her rescuer had gone to such lengths to bring the boys to her to apologize, Pearl nonetheless feared he might be handling them too roughly. He looked so angry, his handsome face flushed and his gaze darkened, which was far more ire than the boys’ unfortunate behavior warranted.

  “Please, sir, you must release them, I beg you.” She reached for her cane resting against the table so she might rise, but it dropped to the carpeted floor with a thud. At once Tommy, clearly freed due to her soft plea, rushed to retrieve it for her.

  “I’m sorry, miss, truly. Let me help you.”

  A lump in her throat at how remorseful he looked, Pearl accepted the cane from him, but before she could stand, Ingrid rose beside her.

  “Tommy, Franklin, I will be discussing today’s incident with your parents, you can be sure. Miss McMaster has only arrived in our town and instead of a kind welcome, you would have been responsible for her grave injury if this gentleman hadn’t intervened. I’m shocked by your behavior, shocked!”

  Both boys hung their heads, which made Pearl feel they had suffered enough censure for one day and hopefully had learned their lesson. “I accept your apologies. Go on with you now and try to enjoy the rest of your Saturday.”

  “Oh, ma’am, thank you!” came from Tommy, who bobbed his head and then gave his stern-faced former captor wide berth as he scrambled from the dining room. Franklin, hard on his cousin’s heels, didn’t say a word and bolted around the corner, too, as Anita hissed an aside to Pearl.

  “I’ve seen that man before! He’s a drifter my brother hired a couple weeks ago to work with him at the blacksmith—”

  “Ladies, a good day to you.”

  Pearl turned from Anita, but it was too late. Her rescuer had left them, too, disappearing from the room as abruptly as he’d entered, the thud of his footsteps fast receding.

  At once the other guests erupted into astonished conversation while waiters rushed forward to resume their duties, removing the china soup bowls as Kari turned to Anita.

  “Do you know the gentleman’s name?”

  “Gentleman? I just said he was a drifter, or at least that’s how Andreas described him.”

  “He’s deserving of our gratitude, Anita, whoever he is,” Kari gently corrected her sister. “Wouldn’t you agree, Pearl?”

  She nodded, her mind already set that she would visit the blacksmith shop as soon as she could to thank the man.

  Thank him…and to ask him, too, about the anger she sensed ran so deep inside him. It really wasn’t her business, but he’d helped her after all. Perhaps she might be able to help him, too, simply by listening.

  If, of course, he didn’t decide to leave town before she could get there—oh, she hoped not!

  Daniel Grant shook his head as he strode away from the Frederick Hotel, knowing he had broken the cardinal rule he’d lived by since leaving Nashville a year and a half ago.

  Keep to yourself, man! Securing employment, lodging, and food was one thing, but interacting with anyone else beyond those basic needs might lead to curiosity and questions—and he didn’t want to answer any questions!

  Perhaps he had stayed in Walker Creek too long already and it was time for him to jump aboard a train or hitch a ride on a wagon and head for the next town, any town. Another job, another dingy rented room in a boarding house or a cot in a bunkhouse or even a pallet on the ground under the stars, what did he care? As long as he kept his head down and applied himself to his work, any work, he didn’t have time to think…and thinking was his enemy.

  Thinking brought up painful memories that made him so angry—an impotent rage at the cruelty of life and his utter failure to save the one person who had always believed in him—that he would have drowned himself in whiskey long ago if he hadn’t become a drifter.

  Moving from town to town had kept him sane, and kept him from getting close to anyone—until today. Today!

  Daniel shoved his clenched hands into his pockets as he walked in the direction of Andreas Hagen’s blacksmith shop.

  The wind had picked up and grown colder, telling him the weather was turning for the worse. Heavy gray clouds scudded across what had been a clear blue sky an hour ago, which might mean rain was coming that could turn to sleet and ice if the temperature dropped much lower.

  At once he thought of Pearl McMaster trying to walk on a wet, slippery sidewalk.

  Maybe he should turn back to the hotel and wait for her to make sure she got home all right—God help him! There he went again, wondering about the welfare of a woman he didn’t want to be wondering about!

  Thinking about sea green eyes filled with utter surprise when he’d caught her from falling and then such gratitude as she stared up at him—No! What in blazes was he doing?

  He didn’t want to think about the mesmerizing color of her eyes or the way the sunlight had glinted off her red hair or how she’d softly drawn in her breath when his fingers grazed hers!

  Standing outside the bank, he had recognized at once from her gait that she was an amputee above the knee, and walking too fast for her own good on her peg leg. His heart had lurched into his throat when one of those two young hoodlums had bumped into her, Daniel not sure he would reach her in time.

  Thankfully, he did catch her, but he still couldn’t believe he had run down those boys and hauled them to the hotel.

  Something had snapped inside him. The overwhelming need to make a wrong a right.

  He didn’t doubt he might even hear from the sheriff at the ruckus they had caused, one boy crying like a baby and the other flailing his arms wildly in a vain attempt to punch him.

  “Better get back and let Andreas know what’s happened before the law comes calling,” Daniel muttered, raising his collar against the wind as he once more thought of Pearl.

  So much for keeping to himself!

  “What do you mean he’s been arrested?”

  Pearl stared in disbelief at Andreas as Kari spoke for all of them, their slices of birthday cake forgotten and her presents still unopened.

  Andreas nodded, his expression grim. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your lunch, but Daniel asked for me to let you know so you might consider vouching for him to Sheriff Braun. He’s probably locked up in a jail cell by now—not the most pleasant of accommodations, I can assure you from experience.”

  “Consider?” Kari echoed, glancing at Pearl before back to her strapping blond brother who had rushed so unexpected
ly into the dining room. “Of course we’ll vouch for Mr. Grant! I can’t imagine what complaint could have been raised against him—”

  “Disturbing the peace for now, but Jedidiah Hobbs is outraged that Daniel roughed up his son and he went straight to the sheriff’s office to raise the roof about it.”

  “Oh, dear, I can’t believe this is happening,” Pearl murmured, knowing her rescuer’s name at last as Daniel Grant, but how awful a way to discover it! “Mr. Grant saved me from falling. Those two boys followed after me, taunting me, and then one of them, Tommy, bumped into me and I lost my balance—”

  “That’s exactly what Daniel said, but he was hauled off anyway,” Andreas interjected, his white-blond brows knit in consternation. “Ingrid, your husband was a much more reasonable sheriff than Luke Braun will ever be, that blasted hothead! Any chance he has to fill a jail cell, he takes it!”

  “We have to do something,” Kari said as she started to rise from her chair, though she sank back down with her hand pressed to her rounded stomach. At once Ingrid and Anita jumped up and rushed to her side, but Kari shook her head. “It’s nothing, just the baby kicking.”

  “All the more reason for me to accompany you out to the ranch,” Andreas said firmly. “The weather’s changed and a storm is coming. Seth would never forgive me if I didn’t get you home. Ingrid and Anita can take Miss McMaster over to the jailhouse—Ingrid, your buggy is parked outside, right?”

  Ingrid nodded and went to interlace her arm with Pearl’s. “We’ll see you home afterward, all right?”

  Pearl nodded, too, imagining the whole town must be talking about today’s doings. Gossip traveled faster than the wind, but she took heart at the witnesses who’d seen Daniel help her earlier that day. Yet some of them must have also seen him dragging those teenaged boys to the hotel, Tommy probably crying every step of the way…

  “Let’s go,” Andreas urged them, assisting Kari to her feet. “The wind’s picking up and the temperature is dropping. No fear of a blizzard like in Minnesota, but I’ve heard that a Texas ice storm isn’t something to take lightly.”

  Daniel gripped the bars of his cell, relief flooding him when Pearl, Ingrid, and Anita entered the jailhouse along with a cold blast of wind.

  He’d not been formally introduced to Andreas’s sisters, just seen them earlier at the hotel, but he felt he knew all about them from their talkative brother.

  Daniel made it a point to speak very little, instead focusing on his work while Andreas, his boss and a good-natured young man who towered a half head above him, more than made up for his reticence in spades. The fact that two of his sisters had accompanied Pearl gave Daniel hope that he’d be released at once, and he could catch the next train out of town before the worst of the storm broke.

  His gaze caught her anxious one, a tug on his heart that she looked so pale. He didn’t miss the flicker of pain across her face as she came further into the room, and he knew only too well that all of this walking was costing her.

  “Ladies,” Sheriff Braun began, unfolding his tall lean frame from his swivel chair, only to have Anita rush forward and flourish her arm dramatically at Daniel.

  “Luke Braun, how dare you arrest this man after what he told you at my brother’s shop! Mr. Grant did nothing more than rescue our friend here, Miss Pearl McMaster, from those two odious boys saying awful things to her—”

  “Easy, Miss Hagen, I understand that part and I don’t condone for a moment Tommy Padgett and Franklin Hobbs harassing Miss McMaster.”

  “You don’t?” Anita and Ingrid intoned together, both of them glancing at each other while Pearl moved closer to the desk.

  “Please, sir, anything else Mr. Grant did today was out of concern for my feelings in the matter, I’m certain. He brought the boys to the hotel to apologize to me, which they did, I’m grateful to say—”

  “I understand, Miss McMaster, but I’ll get right to the heart of it, if you don’t mind.”

  Daniel tightened his grip on the bars as Sheriff Braun glanced in his direction with evident dislike.

  “He’s a drifter, an outsider, a nobody, and yet he thought he could accost two of our town’s own sons and haul them down Main Street for all to see. Tommy was crying his eyes out and Franklin taking swings at him to no avail, as reported to me by several witnesses, the poor boy only trying to defend himself—”

  “Poor boy?” Anita cut him off, aghast. “Franklin’s the one that shoved Tommy into Pearl! If she’d fallen, she could have been hurt! Doesn’t that count for something? Pearl’s grandparents are long-standing citizens of Walker Creek! What do you think they would have had to say if something terrible had happened to their granddaughter because of two of the town’s own sons? For goodness sake, Luke, use your God-given sense of reason! It’s as clear as day that those boys needed to apologize and Mr. Grant made sure they did! He should be applauded, not jailed! Now release him at once!”

  An ominous silence fell as Anita finished her tirade. She looped her arm through Pearl’s in a defiant gesture of solidarity while Ingrid, wide-eyed, looked from her younger sister to the sheriff.

  A handsome young sheriff that Daniel saw with a sinking feeling appeared more affronted by so lovely a young lady dressing him down than anything she’d just said.

  With a slow, studied motion, Sheriff Braun picked up his wide-brimmed hat from the desk and donned it as if to look more official, and then shoved his thumbs into his gun belt.

  “The prisoner stays.”

  Daniel lowered his head against the bars as feminine gasps filled the room.

  “Disturbing the peace. Accosting two of the town’s citizens. Disrupting a local business. Resisting arrest—”

  “Oh, no, Daniel, you didn’t!”

  He met Pearl’s stunned gaze, almost as stunned himself to hear his given name on her lips as he slowly nodded.

  “I could add a couple more charges, but a storm’s coming, ladies,” Sheriff Braun continued. “You’d best be heading home now. Judge Worthington will be passing through town in a week or so and he’ll handle this matter then.”

  “A week or so, Sheriff?” Daniel exclaimed. His answer only a curt nod, he could but watch as Sheriff Braun extended his arms to steer the women to the door. Anita resisted, and jutted her chin at him.

  “I’m going to send a telegram to Caleb in San Francisco as soon as I leave here and tell him what’s happened!”

  “You do that, Miss Hagen,” Sheriff Braun said as he pulled open the door to another cold blast of wind. “Mr. Walker gave me full authority while he’s gone to handle any situations that might arise, which I expect includes this one. I’d suggest you head straight home instead. That’s sleet coming down.”

  At least the sheriff followed them outside to help them into their carriage, Daniel thought as Pearl cast him a worried glance over her shoulder and then was gone.

  Her peg leg thudding on the plank sidewalk as Sheriff Braun pulled the door shut behind him.

  Chapter 3

  “Thank you, Grandpa.”

  Michael McMaster pulled up the collar of his wool coat to his ears as he walked with Pearl to the jailhouse door, his weathered face somber. His silver hair glinted in the bright midday sunlight, all traces of the icy weather two days ago melted away but for the brisk air.

  “You’re a good-hearted lassie, Pearl, but have a care. The man came to your aid, it’s true, yet he’s a drifter. I worked with many of his sort before I retired from the railroad, and they’re usually running from something. The law. A wife and children back home, the weight of responsibility too much for them. A guilty conscience—”

  “Grandpa, please,” Pearl broke in gently. “I’m only bringing him a home-cooked meal, a bit of soap and a towel, and a warm blanket. He was so kind to rescue me from those boys, it’s the least we can do to try and make him more comfortable. Who knows how long it might be before the judge comes to Walker Creek? I’ll be fine, truly.”

  Still appearing reluctant, he
nevertheless opened the door for her, which set Pearl’s heart to racing. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous all of a sudden as she stepped inside, her gaze flying to the middle cell where she’d last seen Daniel.

  Except she didn’t see him, such disappointment sweeping over her that she faltered just beyond the threshold.

  “Mr. McMaster. Miss McMaster. Is there something I can do for you?”

  As Sheriff Braun came around his desk to meet them, Pearl heard the squeaky springs of a cot and saw Daniel rise to his feet.

  He was still there! Oh, dear, she didn’t wish him to be confined in a jail cell, but she didn’t want him to be gone, either, not before she had a chance to thank him. She stared speechless at the sheriff, her pendulum swing of emotions unlike anything she’d felt before as her grandfather inclined his head at Daniel’s cell.

  “My granddaughter Pearl’s brought some things for your prisoner, Sheriff, a plate of food, a blanket and the like. She’s got it set in her mind to speak to him—I hope it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble at all,” Sheriff Braun echoed, though he glanced at the basket covered by a red gingham napkin and slung over Pearl’s arm. “I’ll have to inspect it first, if you don’t mind.”

  “By all the saints, Luke, can’t you smell the fried chicken?” Michael exclaimed, frowning. “It’s my own granddaughter here, not some criminal coming to break the lad out of jail! You may be sheriff now, but I remember you tearing around town as a runny-nosed runt while your father, God rest him, worked with me on the rails—”

  “All right, all right!”

  Sheriff Braun stepped aside to let them pass, while Pearl felt her pulse racing again. Her grandfather accompanied her right up to the cell, Daniel already standing at the bars to meet them, and looked him straight in the eye.