A Sheriff’s Fugitive Bride
Westward Hearts
Blythe Carver
Contents
A Sheriff’s Fugitive Bride
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Excerpt: An Undercover Detective’s Bride
Chapter 1
Afterword
A Sheriff’s Fugitive Bride
Phoebe Reed made the mistake of going into town. Maybe that wasn’t the mistake. Maybe it was staying in town after dark. Or maybe it was running into the saloon girl. Or maybe it was lying about the stolen wallet the saloon girl slipped her. Maybe it was a series of mistakes that have left her in hot water with the town’s hunky sheriff, Rance Connelly.
Rance takes his job as the town’s law seriously. He managed the lawlessness with a sensible head and a no-nonsense manner. He knows this woman’s lying to him. He just can’t peg why. He also knows she’s not a saloon girl. Why won’t she tell him her name? Why won’t she confess to stealing the wallet?
He’s got a mystery to solve but darned if his heart doesn’t get in the way of his head when it comes to the mysterious unnamed woman.
1
Phoebe Reed grumbled and huffed to herself as she recognized her quandary. The fact that it was one of her own making only made things worse.
Molly would never let her live this one down. She’d warned Phoebe against going to town so late in the afternoon, had she not? She’d told her the wiser course of action would be to wait until morning. There was nothing so important that it could not wait until morning.
Molly didn’t know what it meant to be twenty years of age and with absolutely no prospects of finding romance. Even in Baltimore, in their old life, Molly might have looked outside her narrow world and found a suitable gentleman. If she hadn’t always had her head in her work.
Now that she had a husband of her own, it didn’t matter that her sisters were without men, without prospects, without anything for at least the next ten months.
Months and months on a ranch in Carson City! Why not make it a lifetime? That was what it felt like.
And when she got back to Baltimore, no one would remember her. None of the young men she’d met at the ball or any other event would give her a second look, as they would most likely have found other girls by then. Girls who had not spent the last year living on a ranch. Phoebe harrumphed.
Molly understood none of this. She was married, she was happy. She all but glowed with it. How on earth was Phoebe supposed to go on with life as it was? Witnessing marital bliss with no hope of attaining it for herself?
Molly thought nothing of the fact that Mr. Stevens, who worked as the assistant in the mercantile, happened to be the most handsome thing on two legs. That Phoebe had all but fallen in love with him on the first visit, when he’d assisted in her fetching a bolt of calico too high up for her to reach.
In all honesty, she could have fetched it herself. But there he’d been, with his shockingly blue eyes and dashing mustache and marvelous sideburns and his solicitous manner. She’d been unable to help herself.
And now, now when she longed for nothing more than to see him again—while inquiring as to some supplies which Lewis had ordered, all in an attempt to be helpful—her long, lonely ride into Carson City had been for naught.
Molly was right. As always. And she would treat Phoebe like a silly little girl and tell her she should have exercised better judgment. She would laugh or, worse, be stern. Motherly. Nothing caused Phoebe greater irritation than that.
She sighed to herself as she walked the length of the block, noting how many businesses had already shuttered for the evening. Including the mercantile. There was a light burning in back, but the sign hanging on the other side of the glass door announced that the store was closed. She’d arrived too late in the day.
Her chance of running into Mr. Stevens was quite small, then. If she lingered outside the store, waiting for him to exit, she would surely appear desperate. While she was willing to admit she had a bit too much interest in him, that her heart opened a bit too easily, she was above behaving in such a desperate manner.
Besides, men tended to see through such behavior.
Drat that Molly! Always right, always the oldest in every sense of the word. Always knowing best, always certain of her views and her choices. Phoebe knew her sister laughed at her—not always unkindly, never out of malice, but always with the notion that Phoebe was nothing more than an empty-headed flirt. Man crazy.
The fact that she was now stranded in town, thanks to her desire to see a certain man only added to the potency of her frustration. It wasn’t her fault she was smitten. And that they lived so far from town. If they lived nearer, perhaps in one of the fashionable homes just off Carson Street, she might have her pick of Carson City’s eligible men.
No. Circumstances had left her in the middle of nowhere, or just as good as. Who was she to choose from? A bunch of ranch hands who stank of cattle morning, noon, and night? Hardly her idea of a suitable beau.
She brooded as she walked, the setting sun nearly gone now, casting the town’s main thoroughfare in the soft purples and blues of twilight. Men walked up and down the length of the street, turning on gaslights which sat atop iron posts, while the businesses which remained open began turning on their oil lamps and lanterns.
The night would turn full dark before she so much as reached the edge of town, and there would be at least two hours of slow driving in the dark after that.
A grave risk. She was not familiar enough with the terrain to make the drive comfortably at night. Just a bit too far to the right or left and she might steer the horse straight into a prairie dog hole. They might come across a snake, or worse, which would spook the horse and send them careening off into the darkness. For there were no homes or ranches between the edge of town and Reed Ranch. Nothing to light the way.
And of course, though she had little wish to give this more thought than was necessary, there were unscrupulous men who might follow an unchaperoned young woman from town when they spied how rapidly the night approached…
She would have to stay the night at the hotel—lucky for her there was enough money in her reticule. If that failed, she might pay a call on the sister of their neighbor, Ryan Belton. She’d met his sister, Lena, several times and knew she lived in town with her husband. They might take pity on her when the alternative was so treacherous.
Her sisters would be beside themselves when she didn’t return. This caused her no end of trepidation. She wrapped her arms around herself, deep in thought, hardly taking note of the few people walking around her any longer. She knew she’d be beside herself with fear if Holly or Cate didn’t make it home. Perhaps Lewis would come for her…?
Pounding footsteps stirred her from this train of thought. She looked up to find a young woman running toward her, skirts hiked up, nearly to her knees. Her lovely coil of honey-colored hair was loose, strands falling all around her face, and her expression was one of panic.
Instinct told her to step aside and let the girl past, though she had to wonder just w
hat inspired such a display. Perhaps this sort of thing occurred regularly in Carson City, just as it had in Baltimore. There was never any telling just what went on behind closed doors. Or what went through the minds of neighbors.
Yet she was not quick enough, as the girl’s shoulder hit hers. They both stumbled back.
“Excuse me!” Phoebe muttered, more than a bit indignant as she patted her dark brown coiled plait to be certain nothing had come loose.
When she saw just how emotional the young woman was, however, her indignation turned to concern. “Is someone chasing you?” she couldn’t help but ask as she looked around, waiting for a second runner to show themselves.
“Help me, please! Help me!” The breathless, trembling girl all but clawed at her arms.
“What do you need? What can I do?”
“Please, please—”
At the shout of a filthy word, the girl’s head snapped to the side to look down the street. She burst into tears.
“My dear!” Phoebe gasped. The poor thing shook like a leaf. Someone was menacing her, it was clear.
“He’s coming! Please, hide me! Help me!”
“Who? Who is coming? We can go to the sheriff!”
She shook her head, sending even more hair falling around her head. “No! No! Hold this!”
The young woman’s tears cut paths through her face paint as she shoved a small bundle into Phoebe’s hand.
“Wh—what is this?” she stammered. The sudden turn of events left her shaking so, she nearly dropped the bundle to the boards at her feet. It was made of treated cowhide and bulged with—
“Just hold it!” The girl picked up her skirts in both hands and ran like the wind, ducking around a buggy before dashing through the narrow space between two buildings. She vanished into the shadows, leaving Phoebe standing alone.
Holding a wallet fairly bursting with folded notes. Money.
The shouts she’d heard before grew louder, and it was soon clear they were coming from a very large man who appeared to be having difficulty navigating his way down the sidewalk. He moved as though the very boards beneath his feet rippled and flowed like the water in Baltimore Harbor, pitching from side to side.
“You!” he bellowed, staggering toward Phoebe.
Her way! He was pointing to her, glaring at her!
“Pardon me?” she gasped, backing away as he advanced. There was fury in his reddened face, and the hand with which he did not point at her was clenched in a ham-sized fist. He reminded her of a charging bull, if a bull were intoxicated.
“You thief! Here she is, Rance!”
“No! This is a mistake!” Phoebe didn’t know whether to run or scream or run screaming or even faint. Fainting did feel like the best choice, in fact, the closer the man came.
Only when he was near enough to all but spit in her face as he hurled expletives that would make a sailor blush did Phoebe startle out of her frozen shock and move her feet. She stumbled back, then turned with the intention of fleeing as the girl who’d handed her the wallet had been fleeing only moments earlier.
“Rance! That’s the one!” the man bellowed, just behind her. “Get ‘er!”
She glanced at him over her shoulder—bleary-eyed, red-faced, spittle flying—and thus did not take notice of the man she slammed into until it was too late to stop. He was large, solid, unyielding.
He took hold of her arms, steadying her before she toppled over. She looked up into warm, dark eyes which darted over her face as if examining her. “Are you all right, miss?”
Her savior. He seemed a decent man—she’d always been able to tell right off when it came to these things. Some men only pretended to be decent for the sake of earning a girl’s trust, but he bore none of the signs of a rake or a cad. His black hair did not even show signs of pomade. Certainly not a dandy.
In fact, at first glance, he reminded her a great deal of her brother-in-law, and he was a trustworthy man.
This was enough for her, especially in a moment such as this.
“This is the one, Rance.” The man stank like sour ale and sweat seemed to pour from him in buckets. “I been runnin’ all the way from the saloon. This little piece of baggage stole from me.”
She glared at him, no longer afraid. Oh, no, far from it. She had never been so insulted in all her life. The very shock of it was nearly enough to throw her into a fit of rage. She drew herself up to her full height, chest puffing out, jaw clenched hard enough to crack a walnut.
“She’s holdin’ my wallet!”
The wallet. Still gripped tight, just where the young woman had placed it. In Phoebe’s hand.
She looked up at the man, her protector, the one holding her away from the angered, drunken wreck of a man still bellowing and slurring beside them.
“She’s one of them girls from over in the saloon, and she has my wallet in her hand. Now what are you fixin’ to do about it, Sheriff?”
Sheriff?
Only then did Phoebe take note of the badge affixed to the man’s coat.
She had run into the arms of the sheriff, which would have served her well if she weren’t holding a stolen wallet.
And if he weren’t looking down at her as if he believed her to be the one who stole it.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to bring you in,” he announced in a rumbling voice. The grip on her arms tightened. “Come on.”
This couldn’t be true. She must be imagining this. It was all something from a terrible dream, only it had to be happening in waking life for she smelled the ale on the drunken man’s breath and felt the hands which still gripped her arms.
The drunken man wrenched the wallet from her hand before opening it, his fingers going over the notes inside. “He’s gonna take you to jail for what you did!”
She gulped.
Jail?
2
If this didn’t beat all.
Rance Connelly, Sheriff of Carson City, Nevada, found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun.
Not a true shotgun, of course, but it sure felt like one. When a man found a shotgun’s muzzle aimed straight between his eyes, there wasn’t much to be done but to get the hell out of the way.
Excepting there was no getting out of the way of this.
“Now, let’s just wait a minute, Mr. Nielsen,” he told old Jake Nielsen, possibly the town’s biggest drunk and loudest mouth. Of all the men for a girl to choose to steal from—then again, he happened to be a rather wealthy individual who lacked the common sense the Good Lord gave a goat, and who was not above flaunting his money around.
Especially at the saloon.
What did he expect would happen?
“What do you mean, wait a minute?” The man’s bloodshot eyes narrowed as he tried to bring Rance into focus. “What more do you need to see? Somebody stole my wallet. She was holding my wallet. She stole it. It don’t take a judge to tell me who’s guilty.”
“I do wish every case of theft were as easy as you make it out to be, Jake.” Rance looked down at the girl he still held. Anybody with eyes could tell she wasn’t the type to spend time in a saloon, much less steal from a patron. She was dressed prettily, he supposed, and with great care. She didn’t wear face paint or earbobs or anything that normally set such girls apart.
The way she’d reacted when Jake called her baggage told him quite a lot, too. She was a lady, or had at least been raised like one. This was a simple matter of clearing things up.
Or so he hoped.
“Well, miss? Can you explain what this is all about?” He stared hard at her, willing her to come clean and put an end to this foolishness. Only the ranting and swearing of Jake Nielsen had stirred him from the jailhouse, where he’d been fixing to close up for a bit and go home for a decent meal.
The timing could not possibly have been worse.
She opened her mouth, her fair cheeks coloring, her grey eyes widening.
Then, just as quickly, her mouth snapped shut. Rance could not have been more puzzled.
“See? She can’t even defend herself. If she was in the right, wouldn’t she defend herself? I know I would!”
Rance had half a mind to throw the man in jail for the night just for public drunkenness. He was on the verge of causing a scene, all over the wallet he had regained possession of. The man had lost nothing but his pride.
Which could be the greatest loss of all, when things came down to it, and could inspire the worst in a man.
It was time to drop the niceties. He’d never been one for them, anyway. “Talk to me, girl. Tell me what happened. This can go easily for you, or it can go badly. It’s up to you.”
She pressed her lips in a thin line. Her fine, arched eyebrows drew together over the bridge of her nose. What was she debating? It was clear she wanted to speak but for some reason wouldn’t allow herself to do so.
Was this stubbornness or something else? Maybe she had no defense. Maybe Rance was wrong about her. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had played him false.
There was nothing he could do. “Well, girl, you were found with the wallet in question in your hand, and you offer no defense. I have no choice but to bring you in.” He spoke with reluctance and the faint hope that the girl would find her tongue and explain all. She’d found it on the ground, for instance, where the thief had dropped it while running. That this was all a mistake.
“I hope you rot there!” Jake sneered when the girl remained silent as ever.
“That’s enough out of you,” Rance murmured, fixing the man with a cold stare which shut him up but quick. “Go spend some more of that money in the saloon and let me do my job.”
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