“Damn it, Charity.” He recalled those same words he uttered but for a very different reason. He knew she had been trouble the very first day he met her. And he knew he was even more vulnerable to his attraction to her when she returned looking like a beautiful and regal queen. So why in the hell was he still falling for her? Maybe Selina was right. He was a fool.
He strode over to the jail house to check on his new deputized employee. Eli Dalton had worked at the general store. In his mid-thirties, he looked like a big puff of wind would blow him over, but Miles knew for a fact the man could pack a wallop when he hit. He had arrested Eli more than once for fighting in the Holy Moses Saloon, but to the man’s credit, he was never drunk and he never started the fight. He just finished it.
“Hey, Eli. How you settling in?” Miles hung his hat on peg by the door and poured himself a cup of strong coffee. He really wanted to pull that half full bottle of whiskey out of the bottom of his desk drawer and add a generous splash to his cup, but he didn’t need something else to dull his senses. Charity had done a bang up job of that already this morning.
“Mighty good, sheriff. This is the best job I ever did get paid for. I ain’t never got money for just sit-in’ around. General store work is always breakin’ my back. Liftin’ them feed sacks. Loadin’ lumber. I was hoping maybe after your jailbird back there is gone, you might think about keepin’ me on.”
Eli spit tobacco juice into the tin cup sitting next to him on Miles’ desk. It was a habit Miles found disgusting, but he wasn’t gonna make it an issue.
“I doubt it, Eli. My budget isn’t much and I don’t see the town council uppin’ it to add more deputies when there’s no need. I will say if you do a good job for me, I can put you at the top of my list for recruits in case Bishop moves along.”
“I’d be right obligin’, sheriff. Right obligin’ indeed.”
Miles nodded and sipped his coffee. “Bishop is headed to bed and I’m headed over to the Hanovers. Since my witnesses live there, I thought I could better protect them if I was inside the house with them.”
“Sounds like a right smart plan. And you can rest assured, there ain’t no murdering train-robin’ cutthroat gonna get past me. You can bet your life on that, sheriff.” Eli spit in his cup again. The sight of the thick brown liquid near gagged Miles so he looked away and focused on getting his gear together.
“Did Bishop tell you where the key to the gun safe is?” Miles asked as he gathered his bed roll stashed behind the door to the cell area.
“Yep. And I lock the door when you leave and nobody gets in unlessen I know who they is. Bishop was clear about that.” Eli spit again.
“Good. I know I can count on you to keep that man behind bars until Judge Kennerman arrives next week from Denver. The problem I’m having, Eli, is that he has an accomplice killing my witnesses. I don’t know who he is or what he looks like, so…”
“I got it. I don’t know ‘em, they don’t get in. They try anything funny and I’ll fill them so full of lead, you’ll see daylight right easy through ‘em.”
Miles grinned and slapped Eli on the back. “That’s good to know, my friend. That’s really good to know.” Relief flooded his body knowing he had one more ally in his battle against the unknown predator lurking about. He relaxed a little and stacked his stuff next to the front door. “Okay, then. In that case, I’m gonna head on over to the Hanover house and get settled in. He had intended to bunk with Big Angus in the carriage house, but after he spoke to Hiram this morning about his plan, the man wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted Miles stay inside the house. He said he wanted assurances that if anyone breached his home, he wanted another gun between them and his beloved and precious wife.
The thought of someone trying to kill sweet and generous Aggie Hanover made his blood boil. And so did the thought of Charity lying in a blood-soaked dress with a bullet in her. And then there was Joshua Putnam. Miles had a lot of people depending on him to keep them safe and being under the same roof with Charity Montgomery was going to test his limits as a lawman and a man.
Selina and Josh had both expressed their opinions as to who was responsible for this mess. Both blamed Charity.
And although he had to agree that she could have handled things differently, it wasn’t her fault some madman was hell bent on killing witnesses. Granted, if she had just kept her seat and her mouth closed, the robbers would have taken their money and valuables and left. Well, in a perfect scenario they would have left the victims alone.
He had seen robbers who weren’t satisfied with just taking honest people’s valuables. Some criminals were just so mean, they got pure joy outta just killing’ people for no reason. Billy Buchanan’s brother came to mind. Bobby Buchanan was dead now, but he was a mean son-of-a-bitch when he was alive. Good riddance.
In all of Miles’ years of being a lawman, or watching his father’s career, he had never heard of anything like this. What on earth was so special about his prisoner that someone would be willing to hang alongside him when they could have just disappeared from the train and ridden away, never to be heard from again. If the man was afraid his partner behind bars would implicate him, then why not just kill him instead of all the witnesses. He just couldn’t get the connection. But he would.
“Eli, I’m expecting a packet of wanted posters on this afternoon’s train. Will you bring those by the Hanovers when Bishop comes to relieve you this evening?”
“Yep. Sure will, sheriff.”
“Good. Well, I guess that’s about it. Lock the door. I’ll have Mrs. Bennett over at the boardinghouse bring your meals with the prisoners. If you need to relieve yourself, there’s a piss bucket in the corner. Otherwise, you are under lock and key. Got it?”
“Ain’t no problem here, sheriff.” Eli spit out the entire wad of chewed tobacco. Miles gagged and picked up his bed roll and bag with a couple of changes of clothes. Just as he was reaching for the door, it burst open.
Surprise pumped adrenaline through his body and his instincts kicked in. He dropped everything and reached for his sidearm. The pistol was halfway out of the holster when he realized his unexpected intruder was Selina Watson.
“Damn it, Selina. Don’t do that. You scared the living’ daylights outta me and almost got yourself shot.” He reholstered his gun and stepped back from the door. His irritation at seeing her again after her verbal attack on Charity this morning reminded him he told her not to come back to his jail.
“Well, I’m not sure which is better, being shot or being sliced to ribbons.” Selina held up her arms and blood ran down both sleeves.
Shock at the sight slowed Miles’ reaction a millisecond before he rushed to her side. “What the hell happened to you?” He guided her to the chair in front of his desk and rushed to get a clean towel. He ripped it into strips and wrapped it around her arms.
“Eli, run get Doc Howard.”
“Yes, sir sheriff.” Eli was out of his chair and out the front door in two seconds or less. Miles closed the door and locked it.
“I was attacked. That’s what happened to me.” He saw tears pool in her eyes.
“By who? Did you know them? Who did this to you, Selina?”
Miles tied off the clean strip of town around her injuries.
“I don’t know who it was. It was a man and he had his hat pulled down low and he had a bandana over his face. I couldn’t see anything.” Selina burst in to tears and hid her face behind her hands.
“Why do you think someone would do this to you?” He couldn’t for the life of him think of anyone who had anything against Selina.
She raised her head and stabbed him with her eyes. “I know why the man did this. He told me.” She sniffed and wiped at her face with her apron.
Miles had a bad feeling about this. “Tell me.”
“He said since I’m your sweetheart, he was gonna kill me like he killed them other people. He said he was gonna make you pay a high price for keeping his kin behind bars.”
�
��My…sweetheart?” Miles’ gut heaved at the thought of another innocent person being murdered because of him. “I’m sorry, Selina. I don’t know what to say other than…I’m sorry.”
Her kind eyes gazed at him and her smile trembled. “It’s not your fault, Miles. I don’t hold you responsible. It’s that red-headed harlot that has brought all of this down on our heads. What I want to know is what are you going to do about this?” She held up her injured arms to emphasize her question.
“I’m doing the best I can, Selina. I deputized more men and the judge is coming next week. I told you to stay away from me and this jail. What more can I do?” He raked his hands through his hair in frustration. What could he do?
“I’ll tell you what you can do, you can move me in to that Hanover house with the rest of the people you are protecting. It’s the least you can do.”
17
Charity was helping with Joshua’s lunch tray in the kitchen with Sarah when Miles came knocking on the kitchen door. She was thrilled to see him standing at the door with his bed roll and clothes, but when she invited him inside, she was shocked to see he had a friend in tow. Selina Watson.
She stepped back as if she couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing. Some of the old Charity sparked when Miles led Selina into the house. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“Charity, that’s no way for a lady to speak.” Sarah admonished her language. “I thought you learned better than that at that fancy finishing school.”
Yeah, she had learned better, but some situations were just too unbelievable for even a lady to refrain from cursing. And her manners were still on the sharp edge of a slippery slope. She could go either way right about now.
“Charity, Selina was attacked so I’m bringing her in to protect her with my witnesses.”
Miles turned to Sarah. “Would you mind taking Selina upstairs and finding her a bedroom. She’s gonna be another house guest of the Hanovers for a while.”
“Of course, sheriff. Come this way Miss Watson.”
Charity’s anger ignited at the smug look the hateful little baker woman shot her when she followed Sarah out of the kitchen. Charity drew a deep breath and turned on Miles. “What the hell is happening here? How dare you—”
He must have known she was cocked and loaded for a fight, because he dropped his gear on the kitchen floor and did the only thing that could have stopped her in mid-sentence.
He pulled her to him and slammed his lips down on hers. When he raised his mouth, she said “if you think that’s gonna stop me from kicking her ass, you’ve got another—” His lips crashed down again to stop her words. When he released her again, she shook her head at him. “I’m not gonna live under the same roof as Selina Watson. Not while you’re here too. If she thinks I’m gonna let her—” He kissed her again, this time he rammed his hot tongue between words. Okay, now he had her attention.
He finished off his assault of her mouth and spoke to her with his lips still on hers. His words were mumbled, but she understood enough to know she was not going to like them.”
“I don’t have a choice, Charity. She showed up at my office this morning, demanding protection.”
“Why would she need protection. She wasn’t on the train. She’s not a witness to the robbery. Maybe it was just a random miner who was looking for a good time dolly to have fun with.”
“Charity, Selina isn’t that type of woman. And no, her description of the man matched your description of the same man you chased behind the jailhouse exactly.”
“I didn’t chase him. I followed him. Big difference,” she corrected.
She squinted a warning at him that he better stop defending her. “So, if she isn’t that kind of…woman and she isn’t a witness, why is she here?”
Miles’ hesitation sent up warning flags just before he inhaled a deep breath and backed up a few feet before he answered. “She said the man who attacked her told her why he did it.”
“Told her? You mean she just stood there having a conversation with the man while he hacked away at her with a knife? I don’t believe it.”
“That’s her story.”
“And what did she say he told her was the reason he just randomly picked her out of all the other people in town.”
She watched Miles step back another two feet giving him quick access to the kitchen’s back door.
“It wasn’t random. He attacked her because—”
“Because?” She advanced on him and his eyes rounded in anticipation.
“Because she was my…” Miles stopped in mid-sentence.
“Your what?” Charity snapped her words like a bullwhip. “She’s not your anything.”
Miles stood in the middle of the second story hallway and looked around. Charity and Josh were in the bedrooms at the front of the house. He was in the bedroom near the stairs as first line of defense against an intruder. And now Selina was in the bedroom at the back of the house, just down the hall from him…and Charity.
How on earth had he gone from a man who’s biggest drama of the day was making evening rounds and putting a couple of drunken miners to bed courtesy of his hard jail cell bunks, and…this? It all changed when Charity rolled into town. That girl was hell on wheels. He smiled at the thought. Yes, she was.
“What’s going on? Why are you standing in the hallway? Problems already?” Charity said from her open doorway. He turned to see her standing there leaning against the doorway. Was that invitation he saw in her eyes. Of course it was. His body was more than ready to accept, but his head, at least the one he thought with most of the time, denied him access.
“What’s she doing here?” He whirled away from Charity to see Selina walking up the hall toward him. She stood beside him and rested her hand on his arm. He saw Charity’s eyes round in surprise, but it was the hard squint into green slits that forewarned the coming storm.
He pulled Selina’s hand off his arm and stepped back. “Ladies, I expect you both,” he cut a pointed look toward the red-head standing in the doorway, “to behave yourselves while we are all living under this roof. Do I make myself clear?” He used his most authoritative sheriff’s voice to deliver his message. When the two women just stood and glared at each other. He repeated his orders. “I said, do I make myself clear?”
“Yes.” Selina tossed her blonde head and whirled on her heels back to her bedroom. Once inside, she slammed it hard, rattling the second-story windows.
He turned back toward Charity. “And what about you, Miss Montgomery? Are you going to act like a lady or—”
“Sheriff Grayson,” She said still wearing that slant-eyed cat glare, “I am nothing if not the picture of deportment.” her tongue slicked across her lips. The sight of that tongue and her wet lips punched him in the gut which in turn created heat down low. Her eyes slid down to that exact spot and a ghost of a smiled curved her lips. “Don’t worry, Miles. I’ll behave myself. The question is…can you?”
Before the whole meaning of her question reached his thinking brain, the one he kept under his hat, she stepped inside her bedroom door and closed it. He stood in that hallway for a few more heartbeats before he grinned at that closed door. Then, he turned to look at the spot on the wall next to it where he had pinned her against it. Was that only this morning? He shook his head. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
He heard the jingling spurs and boot scuffs coming up the wide staircase. His thoughts redirected, he placed his hand on his gun.
Deputy Bishop came around the corner and stopped short when he saw Miles standing there with his hand on the butt of his gun. “Um, sorry, sheriff. I shoulda called out. I’ll remember that next time.”
“What are you doing here?” Miles relaxed a bit and met the deputy at the top of the landing.
“Eli said you wanted him to bring these wanted posters to you when he got off, but the man is determined to stay a little longer before he goes home. Said he ain’t got no one waiting’ on him so it didn’t much matter when he got
there.”
Deputy Bishop handed him a package. “Here ya go. I’m gonna grab a bite to eat at the boardinghouse cafe and then I’ll head on down to the jail. Everything good here?”
Miles took the package and nodded. “As good as can be expected, I suppose. Wait a minute. I'll throw this in my room and then I'll walk you down.”
Bishop stood outside in the hall while Miles threw the package on the top of the dresser in his room. He turned and closed the door behind him and then he and Deputy Bishop walked back down the hallway. They were halfway down the staircase when a loud knock on the front door alerted them to a visitor.
Sarah rushed out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. “This is a very busy house today,” she said and headed to open the front door.
Miles frowned and turned to his deputy. “Who let you in?”
He nodded to the housekeeper. “Sarah.”
“Damn it. Sarah, from now on, you won’t open the door to anyone, understand?” He met her at the front door and stopped her.
“Well, yes. I guess. If I don’t, then who is?”
“Either I will or one of my men will. It’s too dangerous for you to just open that door not knowing who is on the other side. Understand?” He raised his brows in question.
“Yes, sheriff. I understand. No one opens the door but you or one of your men. What about the kitchen door?”
Miles didn’t have enough men to do the job he needed. “I’ll talk to Hiram and see what he recommends.” He knew Hiram was a wealthy man and would spare no expense to protect his wife or anyone else under his roof. Miles’s sherrifin’ budget was already blown to bits with all of these new men, so hiring any more men was gonna be out of the question.
Charity (Brides of the Rio Grande Book 4) Page 16
