Charity (Brides of the Rio Grande Book 4)

by Peggy McKenzie

  "Well, good luck with that Miss Watson. I do have it on good authority that our handsome sheriff here doesn’t cotton to being hog-tied. In fact, I’ve seen him run clean over folks tryin’ to get out of the way. Isn’t that right?" Charity's green eyes stabbed his gray ones. He was speechless.

  He waited for the other shoe to fall, but there was nothing. It was like the adrenaline a man felt as he lit the fuse to a stick of dynamite, but the fuse burned down and didn’t explode. His heart in his throat, he was on edge waiting to decide if he should approach the singed fuse and take the risk of getting himself blown up or stand and look at it all day. Either way, it wasn’t gonna be a winning situation for him.

  Whether the fates designed this scene to punish him or not, he didn’t wait long for the outcome. He watched Charity give Selina a polite nod of her head and a sweet smile before she spoke. “Well, it is obvious I’m intruding. I’ll let myself out. With regard to our—previous discussion…sheriff,”

  Oh, here it comes. The dinner invitation. He cut a look at Selina.

  “If you have any further questions for me about the train robbery yesterday, I’ll be at the Hanovers.”

  He stood in shocked silence as she did, in fact, let herself out the door. He stared at the closed door and wondered why he was so disappointed she hadn’t caused a ruckus.

  "She seems like a lovely person. Do you know her well?" Selina asked him while she cut the fresh bread loaf into slices on a cloth napkin on top of his desk.

  He continued to stare at the door surprised it was still hanging on its hinges. The old Charity would have demolished his office if this scenario had played out before she left town. But this new Charity was…calm. Well-behaved even. Poised. Even gracious. And as much as he hated to admit it, he kind of missed the fire of the old Charity.

  "No, Selina. I don't know her well. In fact, I don't think I know her at all."

  3

  Charity left the jail the same way she arrived. Calm. Courteous. Collected. On the outside. But on the inside, she kicked everything she could hook a boot into.

  "Damn it." she muttered under her breath. Every gentleman she passed on the street took off their hat in greeting. A lady never ignores a gentleman’s greeting. So, she nodded back, but what she wanted to do was pick a fight with any one of them and punch the hell out of them until her anger faded.

  She didn't know who she was mad at the most. Her sisters for allowing Miles to court someone else while she was back east learning to be a lady, the woman she just met for daring to usurp Charity’s claim on the man, because everyone knew Miles belonged to her, or Miles for not having the sense to see that there would never be anyone for him but her. Charity Montgomery. Period. End of discussion.

  She had no idea where she was headed at the moment. She just needed to walk off some of this ever increasing tension building up inside. It never ended well for anyone when she got her mad on. And right now, her mad was running at a full gallop.

  How dare he do this to her? And after all the work she had endured to learn how to be the proper lady. The kind of lady everyone said he preferred. It irked her. It infuriated her. It made her want to—

  "Pardon me." A well-dressed gentleman caught her just before she plowed him over.

  Charity really didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment. She wanted to plug something full of forty-four caliber holes, but she didn't want word to get back to Hiram and Aggie that she was running around town being rude or crazy again. Not after they spent good money on making her a lady.

  She turned to the man who currently had his hands on her arms. "Good morning, sir. I do apologize for my clumsiness. Please. Accept my apology." She curtsied to him and waited for his response so she could get on with her angry tantrum. No, not tantrum. It was more like a vigorous debate with herself than a tantrum because a lady never threw a tantrum, especially not in public.

  "It is certainly my pleasure, madam. It isn't every day I meet someone as lovely as you, especially not here in this town.“ The smooth pleasant voice caught her attention and pulled her away from her internal battle.

  She really looked at the man for the first time since their collision and she found him quite attractive…in a non-rugged, non-mustached, non-Miles sort of way, of course.

  She curtsied again to him and practiced her shy demure facade. "Why, thank you so much for that wonderful compliment, sir. And it isn't every day a young lady such as myself stumbles upon a gentleman of your sophistication. In this town,” she added. “I’m usually accosted by dirty miners and ill-mannered cowboys on these streets,” she batted her eyelashes and studied his interest in her. It wasn’t a true statement. When she was here last, even those kind of men headed in the other direction when they saw her on the street.

  "May I make myself known to you for you are a breath of fresh air in a town full of soiled doves and weathered and worn women in gingham dresses, madam." His polite smile was open and his compliments seemed sincere.

  Visions of Miss Selina Watson in her crisp, clean blue and white gingham dress poked at her anger. “Yes, of course.” She practiced another demur and patient smile because a lady never utters curse words she reminded herself. "Yes, of course."

  The well-dressed gentleman bowed from the waist. "I am Benjamin Franklin Carter. New to this little mining town. And you are?"

  Charity nodded and introduced herself. "I am Charity Montgomery. I've only just returned from a two-year sojourn back east, but I do call Creede my home."

  "I am surprised and yet delighted to see such a lovely woman such as yourself here in the midst of this tedious little town and if I may be so bold, it is obvious to even a blind man you have not suffered a similar fate as most of these tired and worn-out women in this town. It seems you have been blessed with a well-kept life. Is there a husband waiting for you at home?" His eyebrows raised in question and he seemed very interested in her answer.

  She would normally brush the man off and continue on her morning stroll, but she wasn't on a morning stroll. She was on a morning rampage.

  "There is no husband, sir." Thoughts of her early morning appearance at Miles' office returned with a vengeance. She had intended to tell him she couldn't accept his invitation with hopes he would be so disappointed, he would insist on coming to her welcome home party. That hadn't gone as planned. Maybe if she had had more time with him before little miss baker showed up, he might have been persuaded.

  “That is certainly good to hear, Miss Montgomery. Very good to hear indeed." He bowed again over her gloved hand and kissed her fingertips. She really wished the man would move along and let her be so she could focus on Miles and that...woman.

  Thoughts of the baker, the type Miles seemed to prefer, made her want to act very unladylike. She wanted to push the woman to the ground and make her eat that damned loaf of bread she had in her basket. Every damn bite of it.

  Instead, she had leaned on every ounce of self-restraint she possessed to enable her to conduct herself in a manner she was certain Aggie would have been proud of, if not surprised at. She was still working on curbing her impulses. It was the part of her that resisted training the most. But, under the circumstances that presented themselves today, she was quite proud of herself. No one was hurt and the walls of the jail were still standing.

  But there was the unanswered question of what good did all of her new manners and self-restraint do if Miles couldn’t see anyone except Little Miss Watson in her boring blue and white gingham dress?

  The woman had acted as if she and Miles were already dancing to wedding bells. She wondered if they had—been intimate. The thought made her want to punch something. Again.

  "Madam, I am going to partake in a late breakfast over at the boarding house cafe. May I be so bold as to assume you would care to join me?" The man asked.

  Now the man was starting to irritate her. Why didn't he just move along? She had some serious thinking to do and this jackanape was muddling up her brain.

  “I a
ppreciate the offer, Mr. Carter. I truly do, but I have a lot on my mind this morning and I really should be—”

  Just then she caught sight of Miles leaving the jailhouse with her. He was walking up the sidewalk toward the bakery with Sarah or Sally or whatever the woman’s name was, and she was holding on to his arm…like she had a damn right too. Oh, she was exactly the kind of woman Miles had always said he wanted. He had told her those exact words often enough. But that’s why she had let her sisters and Aggie talk her into going back east. To be that kind of woman. The kind of woman he wanted. Respectable. Refined. Restrained. The very least the two-timing jackass could have done was waited for her to come back to town before he moved on.

  "Madame? Are you alright? You look rather pale of a sudden,“ the man's voice pecked at her again.

  "Yes, yes. I'm just fine." She snapped and then caught herself. "I'm sorry if I sound abrupt. It's just that I've got a lot on things to do today and I’m in a bit of a tizzy about it, I dare say." She tried to smooth over her social missteps.

  "I completely understand." The man was irritatingly gracious.

  Charity fumed. She had learned to be exactly the kind of woman Miles said he wanted. It would serve him right if she was snatched up right from under his nose by some dandy like Mr. Carter here.

  A sudden thought ricocheted around in her brain like a misdirected bullet in a cast iron tub. Snatched from right under his stubborn, know it all nose? Yes, that would certainly serve him right.

  She cast another look and saw him enter the bakery only to return a minute later without her. He was headed toward the boardinghouse cafe. For breakfast?

  A gleeful surge of retribution coarse through her body. Could she make her stoic lawman jealous? Would she stoop to such measures if she thought it would work? She thought a half second before she came to a conclusion. Damn right she would.

  She turned suddenly to the man standing beside her patiently waiting for her to decline his invitation to breakfast. But she had other plans.

  Miles was convinced he had dodged a bullet this morning when Charity and Selina had stumbled into one another in his office.

  He knew Selina paid a visit to his office every morning to offer fresh baked bread. He also knew part of her reason was to entice him to think about asking her to marry him even though he had been crystal clear that he was not the marrying kind.

  It seems every marriageable woman around these parts thought that feeding a man to death was the best way to open the door to matrimonial bliss. None of the women he knew could understand why a man would want to live alone for the rest of his life when he could enjoy the benefits of home cooked meals and a woman to warm his bed. And they never failed to remind him of that sentiment at every opportunity.

  "Mornin' sheriff." A man with a wife and three children nodded to him as he passed them on the boardwalk.

  "Mornin'." He touched the brim of his hat with his fingertips in greeting to the couple. The kids stepped around him and kept up with their parents. The smallest of the trio, a little girl, turned and gave him a shy smile. She was a cutie alright. He grinned back. Her mother turned and pulled her along with the family.

  He watched them for a couple of minutes until the familiar sadness crept over him. Whenever he opened the door to thoughts about how his life could have been different if he had made different choices. Or, if his father had made different choices.

  He shook off the feeling and refocused on getting his prisoner’s breakfast. He also needed to send a telegram to the federal judge in Denver asking for a trial for the man he held in custody. With six witnesses all describing the details of the attempted train robbery, the man was looking at a long sentence in a prison cell. No doubt about it. And all because a woman decided to fight back. That thought brought him right back to Charity Montgomery.

  Miles walked the few short blocks to the boardinghouse cafe and stepped inside. A waitress greeted him at the door. "Sit down anywhere, sheriff. I'll be with you in a minute."

  He nodded and sat at the nearest table, his back to the wall. It was a trait he had learned from his father. A lawman can never be too careful. Never expose yourself to danger. It was a mantra he took quite seriously.

  Sadness punched him in the chest again as memories of a different time and place invaded his thoughts. His father had learned that lesson the hard way. A determined criminal could always find an opportunity to seek retribution on a lawman. And his family.

  "Coffee?" The waitress stood over him coffee pot in hand.

  Thinking about the past made no difference in his life today, except to remind him again that a lawman with a family was a disaster waiting to happen. His father had made that mistake and his family fell into harm’s way.

  Miles didn't have to worry about that sort of thing happening to him because he was never going to get married or have a family.

  "Sheriff? Coffee?”

  "Yep, I'll have a cup. If it's fresh. Not any of that day old tar Deputy Bishop makes me drink over at the jailhouse,” he teased the waitress.

  She grinned. "No, sir, sheriff. I made it fresh myself."

  He slid his cup closer to her. When she filled it to the brim, he thanked her. "Will you tell Mrs. Bennett I'm here to pick up my prisoner's breakfast."

  "I'll get right on it." The waitress smiled and left to relay his message to the boardinghouse owner.

  The cafe was full of dining patrons and the din of many conversations filled the room. Miles sipped on his coffee and he waited for his order. A few of the men eating nodded to him when he made eye contact. Miles nodded back.

  He wasn't one to sit around and chew the fat with folks. It lent a sense of familiarity that made people ask too many questions. And once they thought they knew you, they started meddling in your business, like playing matchmaker with their relatives. Besides, he didn't like thinking about the past much less talking about it. There was just nothing to be gained by living in the past.

  He had learned to stay at arms-length with people and he liked it that way. Especially with the women folk who seemed to think that every bachelor in town was fair game. He most definitely was not fair game. In fact, he wasn't even in the hunt. Period.

  Lost in his thoughts, he sipped on his coffee when a laugh caught his attention above the din of voices. It was a familiar laugh and the sound of it gut punched him without mercy when he realized who it belonged to.

  Careful to keep his observation discreet, he looked toward the front door and saw her. His stomach somersaulted and his pulse thudded in his chest.

  Charity was standing at the front door waiting to be seated by the waitress. And she wasn't alone. He wasn't certain why the sight of Charity and a man waiting to have breakfast together made him unhappy, but it damn sure did.

  He watched her head tilt back as she laughed at something the jackanape dandy standing next to her was saying. Who was that man? Miles was certain he had never seen him in town before. Was he new to Creede or had he followed Charity home from back east? It was none of his business he reminded himself.

  Charity and her gentleman friend passed by his table at that moment. He cut a discreet look in her direction.

  "Good morning again, sheriff." Charity nodded and kept on going without stopping to introduce him to her escort. It was just as well. He didn't give a damn who she was with.

  He accepted another cup of coffee from the waitress and waited impatiently for the food to arrive. What was taking the cook so damn long? He just wanted to get the hell out of here and get back to work.

  A few moments later, he glanced around the room just in time to see Charity lean in to her companion and whisper something near his ear. The man could plainly be seen looking down the front of Charity’s fashionably low-cut neckline. He clenched his coffee cup with his fist until the chipped porcelain bit into his fingers. He forced himself to relax.

  "More coffee, sheriff?" the waitress came by with a half-empty pot.

  "No, but how about you check on t
hat food for me?"

  "Will do."

  Another laugh from the corner set his teeth on edge. Maybe he would come back for it. His prisoner wouldn’t starve.

  Before he could decide to stay or go, the waitress returned with the food. "Here ya go, sheriff." She set the flour sack down on the table. "Mrs. Bennett said don't worry about paying for it today. She set up a credit account for your prisoner's meals. You can pay on the jail’s account once a month.”

  “Tell Mrs. Bennett I appreciate it. My budget doesn’t get a lot of extra money for long-term prisoners, so that’s gonna help me out a lot.”

  “How long do you think you’ll have a prisoner?”

  “About three weeks. Just long enough for the federal judge to arrive from Denver.”

  “Would you care to take a look at the menu for yourself?"

  Miles gritted his teeth, shook his head no, and threw down a coin for the coffee.

  "No, ma'am. I don't have much of an appetite this morning."

  4

  Charity couldn't have been more pleased when she walked into the boardinghouse cafe and saw the object of her heart's desire sitting at a table over by the far wall. She knew when she saw him enter the eating establishment, she should make the most of the situation. And she was happy to say she had succeeded in her mission.

  She congratulated herself on a successful first step toward making Miles Grayson jealous as hell. And the fact that he looked perturbed when he left made her smile even more.

  "You seem a bit distracted still, Miss Montgomery. I dare say I'm beginning to take it personal that I am unable to hold your attention." her companion teased.

  She reached for her cup of tepid coffee and sipped. She didn't answer his comment because 'a lady keeps a gentleman guessing' her classmates told her more than once. And she had learned her lessons well. She knew how to keep men on their toes. Well, all but one and she was going to keep trying until she figured the impossible man out if it was the last thing she did.