Undercover Bride (9781634094573)

by Brownley, Margaret

  She was so deep in thought she almost missed seeing Sheriff Summerhay drag Linc across the street by the ear.

  Worried that the boy might have gotten into serious trouble, she picked up her pace and followed the two into the sheriff’s office. Linc, looking pale and close to tears, was emptying out his pockets.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  The sheriff looked none too pleased to see her. “Not that it’s any business of yours, but the boy’s a thief.”

  She turned to Linc. “Is that true?”

  Linc dumped a handful of penny candy and coins onto the desk and shook his head.

  The sheriff pulled something out of his pocket and waved it in front of the boy’s face. “Then suppose you tell me where you got this?” It was a hundred-dollar bill. To Maggie he said, “Bought a bagful of candy with it.”

  Maggie stared at the note in disbelief. It was the second bill to show up in little more than a week. What was going on?

  The sheriff tucked the bill in his pocket. “If you don’t want to tell me now, you can sit in that cell over there till you do.”

  “Wait,” Maggie said. “Let me talk to him.”

  Summerhay looked about to object but then changed his mind. “All right, but make it quick.”

  Maggie placed her hand on Linc’s shoulder and looked him square in the eye. “I won’t let anything happen to you, but you have to tell me the truth. Do you understand?” After getting a reluctant nod, she asked, “Where did you get the money?”

  “I found it,” he muttered.

  “Found it where?”

  “Right there in front of the barbershop.”

  She pulled her hand away. “By ‘in front of the barbershop,’ do you mean it was on the ground?”

  Linc nodded. “I was inside selling my newspapers. When I walked outside, there it was. Like I said, right in front.”

  “Do you know how it got there?”

  Linc shook his head. “Nope.” She studied him, and he said, “Honest.”

  She turned to the sheriff. “He’s telling the truth.”

  Summerhay made a face. “The boy doesn’t know the truth from the backside of a mule.” He turned to Linc. “Sittin’ in jail for a while is bound to change your tune.”

  Maggie’s temper flared. “He’s responsible for his grandmother’s care. Unless you wish to care for her yourself, I suggest you let him go.”

  He glared at her. “The boy’s a thief.”

  “His name is Linc, and he told you how he got the money.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I do. So either you let him go, or you’ll have to put us both in jail because I’m not leaving without him.”

  Okay, maybe giving the sheriff an ultimatum was not Maggie’s most brilliant idea, but who would have guessed he would have the gall to throw her in jail? And what was taking Rikker so long to come to her rescue? He kept his ear to the ground. Surely he must have heard about her arrest by now.

  So far she’d spent three hours pacing the tiny cell back and forth while Linc alternated between sleeping and complaining of hunger. Finally the door of the sheriff’s office flew open. Much to her shock, Garrett, not Rikker, barreled inside, and he looked fit to be tied.

  One glance at her behind bars and he whirled about to face Summerhay. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The sheriff scowled from across the desk. “Your woman insists on putting her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “What are the charges against her?”

  “I told you. Being a busybody.”

  “If that was a crime, you’d have to arrest half the people in this town.”

  The sheriff sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t like people questioning my judgment.”

  Garrett placed his palms on the desk and leaned over. “And I don’t like you throwing your weight around… especially since you’re up for reelection. Either release her or you’ll have to deal with my lawyer.”

  Glowering, the sheriff rose and pulled the keys off the wall. Muttering beneath his breath, he unlocked the steel jail door.

  Maggie motioned to Linc, and the boy walked out of the cell ahead of her. The sheriff started to protest, but one look at Garrett changed his mind.

  Chapter 27

  Suppose you tell me what that was all about,” Garrett said once they reached the privacy of his shop. He’d turned the sign in the window to read CLOSED. Linc had already taken off, and it was just the two of them.

  She quickly explained about the hundred-dollar bill. “I think Linc was telling the truth.” She studied him. “So where do you suppose the money came from?”

  He looked as mystified as she was. Of course that could be an act, but somehow she didn’t think so.

  “Search me,” he said. He then surprised her by laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You should have seen the indignant look on your face when I walked into the sheriff’s office.”

  “It’s not every day that one is thrown into jail,” she said. It was the first time she’d been in jail for at least six months. “You looked pretty incensed yourself.”

  He studied her. “Is this what married life will be like?” he asked. “You getting into trouble and me coming to the rescue?” Glints of humor sparkled in his eyes.

  “It could be the other way around.”

  “You think I need rescuing?” he asked.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  His hands slipped up her arms, and she felt an unwelcomed surge of want and need, and more than anything, excitement. “Not anymore,” he whispered.

  The brush of his lips against hers made her senses spin. Leaning into him, she absorbed his manly essence before pulling away.

  “The ch—children,” she stammered. “I—I don’t want to be late picking them up.” Before he could respond, she whirled about and dashed out the door.

  The next day, Maggie glanced at the calendar on the kitchen wall. Only two weeks left until June 15. How quickly time flew! Fourteen days. The clock was ticking.

  Rikker’s theory about three robbers was possible but didn’t explain why suddenly the stolen money had begun to surface. Working at the bank Dinwiddie had to know that large bills would attract attention, so his involvement in spreading them around made no sense. Cotton wasn’t even in town for the school fund-raiser, so that omitted him. That left Garrett.

  Did he think that giving the money away anonymously offered protection? Was it possible that he just wanted to rid himself of the money and be done with it?

  The thought nearly crushed her. No matter how much she wanted to believe in Garrett’s innocence, things always pointed back to him.

  Garrett’s voice floated from the other room, startling her out of her reverie. “Toby, Elise, in the wagon, or you’ll be late for school.”

  His footsteps echoed behind her. He laid something that looked like a legal document on the kitchen table. “Some papers for you to sign,” he said.

  She ran her hands down the front of her apron. “Papers?”

  “I had my lawyer draw up a new deed with your name on it. Should anything happen to me…”

  She stared at him, speechless. Was that what he was doing at the lawyer’s office?

  He chuckled. “Don’t look so alarmed. Just a precaution. You never know what the future holds, and I want to make sure you and the children are taken care of.”

  “I…” She cleared her voice. “I don’t feel comfortable signing anything until after we’re married.”

  He frowned, and his eyes sharpened. “Yesterday… in the shop. I didn’t alarm you, did I?”

  She held herself still. Alarm her? No. What he did was confuse her. He kept peeling away her defenses, and that scared her. It made her feel vulnerable and want things that a hard-nosed detective could never have.

  Hiding her rampaging emotions behind a calm demeanor, she shook her head. “It was late, and I was worried about the children,”
she said. The words—the lie—left a bad aftertaste. In a couple of short weeks this would all be over, and he would know the truth. Everyone would.

  His gaze latched onto her lips as if he regretted the disrupted kiss as much as she did. “I’ll leave the papers on the table. You can sign them when you’re ready.”

  Grateful that he didn’t press her, she forced a smile. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve got a delivery to make this morning. I’ll drop the children off on the way.”

  He studied her a moment before turning. “Toby, Elise, hurry!”

  A flurry of activity followed as the children grabbed schoolbooks, gave her quick hugs, and followed their father through the house and out the door.

  All at once it was silent and the walls seemed to close in around her. Maggie picked the document up from the table. Rikker expressed concern about Garrett leaving town after ascertaining his children were in good hands. His willingness to put her name on the deed led her to believe that perhaps Rikker was right. Maybe that had been the plan all along.

  Less than two hours later, Maggie pounded on the door of Rikker’s hotel room with both fists. They’d agreed that she was not to visit him in his hotel room, but this was an emergency, and she had taken care to make sure that no one had spotted her.

  The door opened and Rikker greeted her with a frown, his jaw covered in white foamy lather. He glanced up and down the empty hallway before pulling her inside. Shutting the door, he turned. “What are you doing here? Something happen?”

  “I can’t do this anymore.” She paced a circle around the room, wringing her hands.

  He reached for a towel. “Do what?”

  She whirled around to face him. “This job. This—” She shook her head, and her voice wavered. “Don’t you ever hate what you’re doing? Hate the lies? The deceit?”

  Rikker’s face darkened. “I’ll tell you what I hate. I hate crime. Last month I helped put a mass murderer away. Did I feel guilty for befriending his wife to get to the truth? Not one bit. It’s our job. It’s what we’re trained to do.”

  He turned to the dry sink and scraped the lather off his chin with a straight razor. He met her eyes in the mirror. “What’s the matter with you? I’ve never known you to act this way.”

  “No job has ever required so much from me.” She clenched her hands into fists by her side. “No job ever involved children or—”

  “Or what?” He wiped his face off with a towel and turned. “What happened to get you all riled?”

  “This morning…” She swallowed hard and forced herself to continue. “This morning Garrett handed me papers to sign. The deed to his property. He’s putting my name on everything. Don’t you see how that makes me feel? It’s not bad enough that he trusts me with his children. Now this.”

  “You knew it was a tough assignment when you took it.”

  She thought she did know, but she was wrong. Never had she imagined how hard it would be. “It’s not just that.” She sank into the only chair in the room. “I don’t believe he’s the man we’re looking for.”

  Rikker shook his head. “We’ve gone all through this.”

  “I know.”

  “Everything points to him.”

  “I know.” She closed her eyes. Big mistake, for a vision of a crooked smile came to mind. She looked up at Rikker. “You always told me to go by my gut feeling, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  She knew he hated it when she tossed his own words back at him, but she didn’t care.

  Rikker flung the towel onto the dry sink “You’re letting your personal feelings interfere with your job, and that’s not like you.”

  “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Isn’t it?” His eyes blazed. “You’re a professional. You have a job to do. Whatever feelings you have for Thomas or his children can’t interfere.”

  “That’s easy for you to say!” she snapped. “You don’t have to live with them. You don’t have to tuck the children in bed and hear their prayers. You don’t have to see the love and trust in their eyes as they look at you.” Nor did he have to lie in bed at night and listen to Garrett pace the floor, and fight the urge to go to him and give in to the desires of her heart.

  Rikker’s expression softened, and he blew out his breath. “I know this is hard, Duffy. But it will soon be over.”

  That’s what she was afraid of. Because no matter what happened, she couldn’t imagine a happy ending for anyone. Not for Garrett. Not for her.

  Rikker pulled his suspender straps over his shoulders. “If we don’t come up with something soon, we’ll both have some explaining to do. You know Allan. He wants results, and he won’t be happy to hear that his best agents came up empty-handed. Is that what you want?”

  “What I want is out.” Her mind suddenly made up, she added in a quieter, more contained, voice: “I’m leaving on tomorrow’s train.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” He snapped the last suspender into place. “You mess this job up and your career is over.”

  “That’s the chance I’ll have to take.” She stood and reached for the doorknob. “Sorry, Rikker.”

  She hated leaving him in the lurch, but it couldn’t be helped. Her only hope was that in time he would forgive her. Opening the door a crack, she peered into the hall. Seeing no one, she slipped out of the room and down the hall.

  Chapter 28

  A hot breeze blew across the desert when Maggie picked up the children from school later that afternoon. Sand and dust spiraled upward, turning the sky a murky brown.

  “Can we stop for ice cream?” Elise asked.

  “Not today, pumpkin. It’s too windy,” Maggie replied. The children liked nothing better than to stop in town for an after-school treat. Elise looked disappointed but didn’t argue.

  For once Toby’s and Elise’s chatter failed to raise her spirits. This would be the last day they spent together, and the thought nearly crushed her. She only hoped to get through the night. The worst part was leaving town without an explanation—of simply disappearing. But what could she say?

  I’m sorry, but this was all a farce. I never intended to marry you.

  She turned the wagon homeward with a heavy heart. Toby said something, and Elise’s laughter barely cut into her troubled thoughts.

  Concerned about Elise’s still delicate lungs, she handed her a clean handkerchief. “Put this over your mouth and nose.”

  Toby, as usual, was in his own little world. “Did you know that even when you can’t see the moon it’s still there?”

  “Why can’t we see it?” Elise asked.

  “Because the man in the moon turns out the light,” Toby said.

  Maggie smiled through her tears. She was going to miss the boy. Miss both children. She didn’t even want to think about missing Garrett.

  “Why are you crying?” Elise asked.

  Maggie swiped away a tear. “It’s the wind. It’s making my eyes water.”

  Elise peered at her from over the top of the handkerchief. “Can we have a tea party when we get home?”

  Maggie was just about to say no when she changed her mind. She wasn’t leaving until tomorrow. No reason not to make a little girl happy today, especially after denying her request for ice cream.

  “I think that’s a very good idea.”

  Elise’s eyes shone. “Can we have it in our tree house?”

  Maggie drove the wagon alongside the house and set the brake. A tree house, boogeyman, and a man in the moon; there seemed to be no end to the children’s imagination.

  “Toby said that only special people get invited to your tree house.”

  “Papa said you’re special,” Elise said.

  Maggie’s breath caught. “Your… your papa said that?”

  Elise nodded. “Can we have a tea party in the tree house? Pleeeeeeeease?”

  “It’s may we have a tea party.”

  “May we, can we?” Elise asked.

  Maggie forced her brightest smile. She’d p
layed dozens of roles as an undercover agent, but none were as difficult as the role she now played.

  “A tea party it is!”

  Much to Maggie’s surprise, there actually was a tree house. Not the kind she expected: this one was located in the barn’s hayloft.

  Whitewash greeted her in the yard with wagging tail, and she bent to pet him.

  Straightening, she studied the open window above and stepped back. Whitewash had been up to his old tricks and her heels sank into the newly turned soil.

  “You must train your dog to stop digging,” she said.

  Elise’s face grew serious. “It’s not Whitewash. It’s the boogeyman.”

  “Whitewash, the boogeyman, whatever. These holes are a hazard.” She stared up at the ladder clinging to the side of the barn. “You aren’t going to make me climb that, are you?”

  “It’s the only way to get into our tree house,” Elise assured her. “I’ll show you.”

  Elise scampered up the ladder with the ease of a cat climbing a tree. Toby placed the picnic basket in the wooden hay lift next to the ladder. He then scrambled up after his sister.

  Both children hung their heads out of the narrow window above and beckoned to her.

  “You can do it!” Elise called.

  Maggie wasn’t so sure about that, but she wasn’t about to disappoint the children on her last day in town. Tongue between her teeth, she grabbed hold of the ladder and placed a muddy sole onto the lower rung.

  The ladder trembled beneath her weight and the wind played havoc with her skirt, but somehow she made it to the top.

  With the children’s help, she crawled through the loft opening and landed on a prickly bed of hay. Standing, she brushed off her skirt and looked around. So this was the tree house she’d heard so much about.

  The loft was cut off from the barn’s first floor by a wood partition. Elise pointed to a corner piled high with scraps of metal and an assortment of tools. “That’s Toby’s room,” she said with sisterly disgust. “Over here is mine.”

  Her area was much neater and included a doll bed and small rocking horse. A child-sized table and two chairs stood on a rug beneath a hanging lantern.