A Sheriff's Fugitive Bride

by Blythe Carver

  No such luck.

  “Have we had any visitors this morning?” he asked, eyeing both men.

  They glanced at each other. Pete’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed before speaking. “Um, yessir, we have.”

  “Jake Nielsen.”

  It was not a question. Both Pete and Henry nodded.

  Rance sighed, wondering when this would ever end. Likely he’d be an old man by then, brittle and broken, aged far beyond his years. He ground his teeth again before waving them closer.

  “There’s something I have to speak with you about, but I don’t want a word of it breathed outside these walls—and certainly, under no circumstances, should you speak of it to that no-good, big-mouthed Jake. Understood?”

  The men exchanged another look before nodding. “You know you can trust us, Sheriff,” Henry murmured. “Whatever it is.”

  Thus with a heavy heart did Rance explain what he’d done. “I just want you to know she’s safe and sound, where I can keep watch on her until this is cleared up. She told me what happened, that she had nothing to do with the theft, but she still won’t give up the girl who did it.”

  “Who is she?” Pete asked. “What’s her name?”

  Rance winced. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Pete. Or you, Henry,” he added, turning his gaze upon the other deputy. “It’s only that she has a family and they have a good name, and I would hate to see it dragged through the muck on this.”

  “But she’s not one of those girls?” Henry asked, and they all knew what he meant by that.

  “No, she’s most certainly not.” He couldn’t so much as try to imagine her doing that sort of work. The image simply wouldn’t bring itself to mind. “She’s well-off, in fact. No need to steal.”

  “And you must trust her, or else you wouldn’t have her in the house with Martha and Jesse,” Pete mused.

  He was a sharp one, Rance had always thought so, and he might make a decent sheriff one day. He had the sort of insight into the way people lived, how they thought, what made them do the things they did.

  “That’s exactly right. I do trust her. I think she got in over her head, is all, and she wants to protect the girl that did this. Felt sorry for her and all. Noble reasons, even if she’s been a damned fool about it. There’s a point where a person has to listen to the law, and she’s well past that point.”

  “Sounds like the two of you have argued this quite a bit,” Henry grinned.

  “You don’t even want to know just how much,” Rance groaned. “At any rate, I tell you this so you’ll know we’re making progress.”

  “What do we tell Nielsen when he comes sniffin’ around here?”

  “Just tell him I have everything under control, and that he can take up with me if he has anything he wants to say. I won’t have him bullying my men or my town. It’s about time he remembers just who’s in charge around here.” Rance stood and picked up his hat, still sitting on his desk where he’d all but thrown it upon first entering.

  Now that he was away from the house and away from her, his temper was under much better control, and he could think again. “I believe I’ll pay a visit to Judge Cavanaugh and see what he thinks about this, if he has the time for me. I’m sure Jake’s been in there to see him already, and he’ll wanna hear our side of the story. I might even pay a visit to the saloon, as I didn’t get the chance to do that yet and would like to get a look at the girls over there.”

  The deputies chuckled and elbowed each other, but Rance ignored this. They were still young men and would naturally think along those lines.

  Not that he was that much older than them. Barely twenty-eight. How was it possible for a man to feel twice his age?

  Life had a way of doing that, he reckoned as he stepped out onto the boardwalk and placed his hat on his head. A pair of pretty young things passed as he did and bowed in greeting, and he heard them giggling to each other when he tipped his hat before going on his way.

  When had he stopped looking at women as anything more than citizens of his town? A long time ago. It was easier that way. Less damage, less disappointment. Less entanglement for a man who had no time for entanglement.

  Though even he could admit, set in his ways as he was, that life had been a bit more colorful when he’d been interested in women. They still seemed interested in him—maybe more so, as there was hardly anything so attractive to a person as someone who kept to themselves. The women he met in the street wanted to know about him. Why was he still unmarried? Was there a secret heartbreak in his past? Had a woman wronged him so terribly, he could never bring himself to love again?

  Martha told him that once, and he’d never forgotten it. She’d informed him of the way women thought, especially when it came to eligible men with good looks. Her words, not his, and perhaps the nicest thing she’d ever said to him without there being something in it for her.

  He would’ve hated to end all their speculation with the simple, boring fact that becoming sheriff had wiped away almost everything else in his life. That had it not been for Charles’s passing, he might have gone days at a time without seeing his sister and nephew.

  When something mattered, he tended to go all-in. No holding back. The town had become his life. There was no room for anyone or anything else.

  While moving his things into Martha’s house showed him there was something to be said for finding a sort of balance between responsibility and the rest of one’s life, it was hardly enough to convince him to settle into domestic bliss.

  “Judge Cavanaugh isn’t in at the moment, Sheriff.” A young man barely old enough to shave sat outside the judge’s imposing offices. “He had some matters to attend to but promised to be back after dinner.”

  “Please let him know I stopped in to see him and will return later.” Rance left in an even worse mood than he’d been in earlier. Nothing bothered him so much as the sense that everything and everyone was against him, intent on holding him up or slowing him down.

  Though it was merely midmorning, the streets of Carson City were still abuzz with life and activity. He found himself comparing the noise and bustle—things he typically enjoyed—with the quiet serenity of the ranch he’d visited just yesterday. The majesty of so much wide-open land, stretching as far as the eye could see. No black clouds of smoke from the train yards or the many chimneys jutting up from so many roofs. No shouting, bickering folks getting in the other’s way.

  Sometimes, a man simply wanted peace and quiet.

  Rance was not destined to find either on that particular day.

  Jake Nielsen burst from inside the barbershop, bits of shaving lotion still visible on his throat and beneath his ears. “I think it’s about time you and I had it out, Sheriff,” he barked, quickly drawing the attention of numerous passersby.

  16

  “What are you doing?”

  Phoebe sat back on her heels, wiping sweat from her brow. Even without the stove on for the purposes of blacking, the room got quite warm at midday. “Blacking the stove,” she explained to the little boy who’d just come inside from playing in a tree out behind the kitchen.

  “Blacking?” Jesse asked, perplexed. “What’s that?”

  She held up the pot of stove black. “It’s a polish, sort of. It keeps the stove from…” She sighed when she remembered how young he was, and how she would have to explain things carefully. But she did want to explain them so he would understand.

  There was nothing worse to a child than being dismissed when an adult had not the time or the patience to answer a question.

  “See, the stove is made of iron.” She waved him nearer, away from the screen door. “It hasn’t been used since very early this morning, and now it’s cooled so I can work on it. The iron will rust and fall apart over time—have you ever seen an iron gate with rust on it?”

  “Oh, yes,” he nodded. “It gets red and dirty looking.”

  “Right, and we don’t want that. We want this stove to last for a long ti
me. The blacking helps prevent that rust from forming—and it makes it look pretty, doesn’t it?” Certainly, the area which she’d managed to polish up to that point looked far more appealing than the rest.

  Jesse frowned at this, however. “Things aren’t pretty. Just people and flowers. But a stove can’t be pretty.”

  “I don’t know if I agree with you.” She grinned. “I think a shiny stove, or a shiny copper kettle, are very pretty. Your mama’s china set is pretty.”

  “I s’pose.” With that, he ran off to some new adventure. Something else had captured his attention.

  She returned to her work.

  It was pleasant work, for all that the kitchen was so warm. She had always enjoyed this sort of task, something which allowed her to stop thinking and focus her attention on doing a good job. Something she could then stand back from once all was finished and feel proud that she’d accomplished something real, something she could touch.

  Something others would see and appreciate. She had the feeling that a certain sheriff did not find her capable of much outside of causing trouble. It meant something, the idea that she might prove herself to him.

  Perhaps that might help make up for the trouble she’d caused, even if she hadn’t meant to cause him any.

  Martha entered the kitchen then, rolling up her sleeves as she did. “Having you here is like a breath of fresh air,” she smiled.

  “I hope that’s so. Jesse is a charming boy, but there are times when a woman wants to talk to another woman, aren’t there?”

  “I suppose you’ve never had trouble with that, all those sisters of yours.” Martha went to the sink, where she pumped water into a bucket. She intended to scrub the stairs leading up to the house, which in daylight were clearly in need of the work. Darkness concealed the ways in which the house was falling into disrepair, but the sun’s light allowed for no such mercies.

  “That’s true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished for them to be silent, just for the sake of hearing myself think.”

  “You’ve never had to face having no one to talk to.”

  Phoebe stopped, looked up at Martha. Though the bucket was full, she remained in place, with her face toward the window. “Are there any friends who live nearby? Women friends?”

  Martha chuckled. “Oh, yes, and they were a great comfort. Bringing food to the house, offering to take Jesse in to play with their children for an afternoon. But now…”

  Her shoulders slumped when she sighed, turning from the window. “Now, they have their lives to get back to. Their families. Their homes. I’m only a reminder of something sad that happened a while back.”

  “I’m sure that isn’t true.”

  “But it is.” She shrugged. “I’m not upset over it, do not misunderstand me. I know how they feel and I know why they feel that way. I can see it in their faces. Oh, here comes Martha, the one whose husband died and left her alone with her boy. I make them uncomfortable.”

  Phoebe abandoned her work for a moment in favor of springing to her feet and wrapping her in a hug. Martha went still for a moment before returning the embrace.

  “You don’t make me uncomfortable,” Phoebe assured her with a kiss on her cheek. “You can say anything you want.”

  They stayed that way for a while, simply hugging in the middle of the kitchen with a bucket in the sink and a pot of stove black on the floor. Phoebe resolved to hug her as long as she needed, just as she would’ve hugged Molly if anything happened to Lewis.

  “Excuse me, ladies.”

  They gasped to find Rance standing at the screen door. “I took the back way because you told me you were scrubbing the steps today,” he explained with a sheepish look. “I didn’t expect I’d interrupt anything.”

  “You haven’t,” Martha laughed, touching the hem of her apron to her eyes. “And I’m just about to go out to do the scrubbing. What brings you home so early? Are you hungry?”

  “I wanted to see how things were going here, and I already had a bite to eat.”

  “Good thing, since we only have cold meat and bread with the stove being blacked, and I know that isn’t your favorite.” Martha rolled her eyes as she lifted the bucket from the sink. “The only man I’ve ever met who prefers to eat a hot meal even in summer.”

  When she’d left the room, intent on going about her work, Rance stepped into the kitchen. “Don’t let me stop you from whatever it was you were doing.”

  She held up hands stained with polish. “You can imagine, I’m sure. I hope I didn’t get any on Martha’s shirtwaist.” She folded her skirts in front of her knees before sinking to the floor to resume her task.

  “What—if it’s not too much to ask…” He cleared his throat behind her. “What were you talking about? Was she…?”

  “She needed to be hugged. Sometimes people simply need to be hugged.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Have you ever found that to be the case?”

  “For women, maybe.”

  “For all people. But especially when they’ve lost someone. I remember feeling so raw and bruised when my mama passed away. The only thing that ever helped was somebody—usually one of my sisters—giving me a hug. We would stay that way for as long as we needed to. It helps to feel like another person understands what you’re suffering. Even if they don’t say a word.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm?” She glanced back again in the middle of polishing.

  “It’s just that I never would’ve thought of it. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you.”

  “I know you didn’t. But she happens to mean a great deal to me, and I had hoped that bringing you here would help her. Not just with the housework.”

  “I understand. I’m glad to be here, really. I wasn’t doing anything at home that I’m not doing here.”

  “Is it true that you and your sisters have to stay for a year before you can claim ownership of the ranch?”

  She was so surprised by this, she nearly dropped the cloth she was using. “Yes. That’s so. I see you were talking with my brother-in-law while I got my things together.”

  He folded his arms, leaning against the wall behind her. “What of it? There was nothing else to do, and I had just been attacked by a band of screaming—”

  “Watch what you say,” she warned, holding up the polishing cloth. “I might lose my grip on this, and there’s no telling where it will go.”

  He surprised her by laughing. “Fair enough. I’m a pretty fair man once you get to know me.”

  “Yes, well, as there isn’t a chance of that happening, I suppose I shall take your word on it.”

  “As you’ll be leaving Carson City at the end of your year.”

  She opened her mouth to deliver a quick reply, then hesitated. “I—I don’t mean that.”

  “Oh? You simply don’t want us to be friends, then.”

  There was no telling from his tone how he felt about this.

  “You’re not my friend, and I’m not yours. I believe that’s fairly clear, don’t you?” She made a point of smiling back at him to soften her words, but this did not mean she was insincere. “You put me in jail, I ran away from you. Hardly the start of a friendship. And I’ve made your life uncomfortable since then, haven’t I? I’ve caused you no shortage of hardship.”

  “You make a good point. I wouldn’t call us friends at all.” He dusted off the brim of his hat and went outside again. “I’d better be on my way. I have work to do, and so do you. And by-the-by, I saw Jake Nielsen earlier and nearly laid him out flat in the street. If this comes up to a choice between you or my position, you know what I’ll choose.”

  “Rance…” But it was too late.

  He was gone, and now she wished she hadn’t said a word.

  17

  Rance strode into the saloon with a mission in mind. No more playing nice or taking it easy. No more letting things die down, no more trusting people to do the right thing.

  He needed to be rid of her. Life had to ge
t back to some semblance of normalcy before he forgot what normalcy was.

  The spectacled Henry Lawrence hurried across the room when Rance entered, already speaking and waving his hands. “We don’t want any trouble here, Sheriff Connelly,” he insisted, eyes wide behind wire-rimmed glasses. “When you and your men come around, you tend to drive away my customers. How are men supposed to relax and enjoy themselves when the law’s hanging about?”

  “I’m not here to do anything to any of your girls, and I could not care less whether the few men who are here instead of at work, where they ought to be at this time of day.” He glanced about, finding a handful of men scattered throughout the place. A pair of them played cards while another few sat at the bar and enjoyed their drinks.

  There wasn’t a girl to be seen. He wondered where they were hiding themselves.

  “Why are you here, then?”

  “Just because I don’t want to bring any of the girls in doesn’t mean I don’t wanna talk to them. Where do they keep themselves during the day?”

  “At home, as they should.” The little man puffed out his chest. “Is there anything wrong with that? They don’t live here during the day, Sheriff. I don’t run that sort of establishment, no matter what you believe.”

  “Yes. I’m sure of that.” Rance rolled his eyes as he brushed past the man. “Is there any way you can tell me where the ladies live, then? I would like to speak to all of them, but I don’t much take to waiting until tonight.”

  “I won’t have you harassing my girls, sir.” Henry followed him around the saloon’s first floor, between tables, moving chairs aside.

  “It isn’t harassment, sir. Not if I have questions I want answered. I don’t plan on beating the truth out of them, if that’s what worries you.”

  “No, sir, that is not what worries me.”

  Rance turned so abruptly, the little man nearly slammed into his chest. “You know what should worry you?” he asked, peering down. “You have a thief among your girls. I would be more concerned with her, and what she’ll continue to do to your customers, than I would be about the sheriff questioning and finding out just which one of the girls she is. Wouldn’t you agree?”