Marrying Miss Marshal

by Lacy Williams

  “What are you doing here?”

  Chas grinned at the marshal’s discomfited expression. “Scare ya?”

  She shook her head but he didn’t believe her. Seeing her vulnerable put a hitch in his stomach, just like he’d felt when he’d seen the mercantile owner grab the teen girl Chas’d taken into custody.

  Women. They brought out the best in him—his desire to protect, take care of them. And also the worst—he seemed unable to stay away, even when he knew he should.

  He spotted the bundle in Danna’s arms and couldn’t help his smile. Something warm unfurled in his chest at the realization that Danna had the same thoughts he had about making friends with the mystery girl.

  “You felt for her, too,” he whispered. “I thought—the girl was stealing food. Figured you’d have to be pretty desperate—hungry—to do that. So I brought some things from the hotel.” He held up the burlap sack he carried.

  She nodded. “Perhaps, if we show her that we care, she will open up?”

  Those had been his thoughts exactly. He could put aside his quest for vengeance for a few hours. On his walk down from the hotel, the town had seemed almost deserted—probably most folks were still at the party outside of town. Finding Hank Lewis could wait until morning.

  Chas pushed the door open and allowed Danna to brush past him. In the warmth and light inside, he held up the burlap sack he’d filled with the goods begged from the hotel manager.

  “So you brought some leftovers from the hotel?” Danna asked, probably for the girl’s benefit, since they’d just discussed this in whispers outside.

  “Unfortunately, the hotel’s kitchen was closed—I had to bribe the manager for some eggs and bacon from tomorrow morning’s breakfast.”

  He waved the cast-iron frying pan in the air, moved across the room to the pot-bellied stove. “I borrowed this, as well.”

  The girl did her best to appear disinterested, but Chas saw the way her eyes tracked both his and Danna’s movements across the room. Danna moved to the desk, putting the bundle of cloth and pillow she carried on its top.

  The girl’s head came up off her folded arms, but she remained motionless on the cot.

  Danna moved closer to him, reached for the coffeepot on the shelf near the stove. “You want me to make some?”

  How could he cushion his answer? He didn’t have to. Danna’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t like my coffee.”

  It wasn’t a question. “Your coffee is a little…ah…” He started to say strong.

  She shook her head, cutting him off. “Don’t say it. I’ll fetch some water. You can make the coffee.”

  When she brought the pot back in, he had to push back the skillet to make room—the stove was made for heat, not cooking, but it would still work for their purposes. The food should be edible, at least.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Danna asked as Chas cracked several eggs into the skillet, where they sizzled.

  “I’ve been a bachelor long enough to know how to fry a couple of eggs.” He added some bacon to the far side of the pan and the scent of cooking meat wafted through the air. When he looked up at her, Danna’s mouth was pinched and white.

  “My husband used to say that.”

  “He cooked?”

  “One of us had to,” she said, and this time there was fond remembrance and a bit of humor in her soft smile.

  Chas jerked his focus back to the frying pan and away from her mouth.

  A glance from the side of his eyes revealed the girl sat forward on her cot, watching them. If they kept the conversation going, would she eventually say something?

  “I thought most mamas taught their daughters how to cook.”

  “My ma died when I was little.”

  She said the words so matter-of-factly that he glanced up quickly and the fork scraped across the bottom of the frying pan with a screech. “Sorry.” Was he apologizing for the noise or for her mother’s death? She always tangled his emotions until he didn’t know which way was up.

  “Who raised you?” He hadn’t meant for the words to come out of his mouth, hadn’t meant for the conversation to turn serious, but he couldn’t take them back now.

  “My brother. Until I was sixteen and he sent me away.”

  “Let me guess. He sent you to a finishing school, but it didn’t take?”

  She shook her head stiffly and gave Chas her profile, sitting on the edge of the desk. “No, he sent me away to get married.”

  The sound of bacon grease popping was the only noise in the room for a moment that stretched long.

  Finally, not knowing what to say, Chas scraped the bacon and turned it over. “Almost done.”

  Danna popped up from the desk and scurried to the door. “I’m going to run upstairs and get a plate for our…guest.” She nodded toward the girl now sitting on the edge of the cot.

  “Bring a couple,” he said, not looking away from what he was doing.

  “Hmm?”

  “I got a glimpse of that fancy spread at the party, but I didn’t get to partake.” He pointed the fork he was using to turn the bacon at the girl in the cell. “I can hear her stomach growling from here. I think you’re the only one who ate supper tonight.”

  “I didn’t eat either.”

  “Why not?”

  When she didn’t answer, he looked up from the popping grease in the pan to see her turn for the door with a faint trace of a flush on her face. “I’ll get the plates.”

  She closed the door behind her with a snap. A few moments went by and Chas heard movement above his head.

  Chas took a moment to try and make sense out of Danna’s comment. From the way she’d said it, it seemed as if her brother had pushed her into marriage. But why? And was it inappropriate for Chas to ask more questions of his boss?

  The door banged open again and Danna reappeared, holding tin plates and cutlery in her hands. “Are you burning that bacon?”

  She was going to ignore his question if he let her. So he didn’t. “No, I’m not. Why didn’t you eat supper at the dance?”

  She shrugged, but she wouldn’t meet his eye either, as he waved her over. He waited her out, scooping eggs and bacon onto the plates she held.

  “Goodness, there is a lot of food here. I was too busy avoiding rumors to stop and eat,” Danna said, all in a rush. “Someone believes they saw a man in my rooms, and it has scandalized everyone from town. Even the council members cautioned me about my behavior.”

  The thought of someone calling on Danna put a hot rock in the center of his chest, but he instantly knew she wouldn’t allow any inappropriate behavior around her. She was too straight-laced for that.

  He tried to make a joke out of it. “I’m sure once the idea of you accepting callers gets around, things will settle down.”

  If he’d hoped to calm her ire, his statement hadn’t worked. She sputtered. “I haven’t had any callers—or any men in my rooms—and I don’t want another husband.”

  The pressure on his chest eased a bit. Chas took the girl’s plate before Danna could dump it on him in her annoyance, and brought it to the cell. The teen still sat on the cot, her eyes fastened on the food in his hands, hope shining from their depths.

  “For you.”

  She was slow to get up, hesitated before she accepted the plate from his hands, but then began shoveling the eggs into her mouth with her fingers, not even using the fork.

  Chas turned away to give her privacy. Danna sat behind the desk, eating slowly, staring off at a point across the room. Had he offended her by his teasing comment? He could easily see her getting remarried—she was uncommonly beautiful, with her dark hair and eyes. The way she dressed couldn’t disguise it, men’s clothes couldn’t hide it. And her sense of duty was strong. Her dedication to the people of this town proved it; as a wife, she would never betray her husband.

  Scooping the last of his eggs—he hadn’t done too bad of a job—into his mouth, Chas let his gaze linger on Danna where she sat
behind her desk. As he watched, she slid open the top drawer and fingered something just inside.

  He’d snooped one afternoon when she’d been out visiting a sick friend and knew that the only thing in that drawer was a worn leather journal. Her husband’s journal. He’d glanced through the first few pages then decided it was too personal to keep reading.

  This wasn’t the first time Chas had seen Danna touch the object. Did she miss her husband? Did she keep the journal near as a reminder of him?

  It was another reminder of how deep her loyalty ran. Even after the man’s death, she sought to uphold his honor by defending this town.

  “I suppose your sister is a good cook? Pays lots of social calls?”

  Danna’s quiet question surprised him. He didn’t want to talk about his family, about home, but he could feel the teen’s eyes on him, though he didn’t turn and look at her.

  “Erin? Yes, I suppose my mother has been instructing her on how to best run a household.” Although his wealthy Boston parents would have a very different opinion on what that entailed from anyone in this small town. “She was only fourteen when I left home. Still having lessons with her tutors.”

  And it made him ache to think about home. He couldn’t speak of it any more. “It’s late,” he said, pushing off the wall where he’d been leaning. “Wouldn’t want any more rumors to get started about you, Marshal.” He winked at Danna.

  Chas collected the frying pan and fork he’d borrowed from the hotel kitchen and moved toward the door.

  Danna had gathered the plates and utensils on the desk and took the bundle she’d carried into the jail over to the cell.

  “I brought you a blanket,” Danna said, offering the girl a folded quilt. “I know the cots in those cells aren’t the most comfortable, but this will have to do if you won’t tell us your name or where you come from.”

  The girl slid her hands through the cell bars and accepted the quilt and pillow.

  “My name’s Katy.” With those softly spoken words, she went to the cot and began spreading out the quilt.

  That was it. Just Katy.

  The next morning, Danna finished a quick sketch of the man Chas had pointed out to her at the dance. She wanted to put his likeness on paper while it was still clear in her mind. If Chas thought the man was a suspicious character, perhaps she had a Wanted poster on him.

  Her next task was to flip through the stack of hand-drawn faces and see if she could match her sketch to any of them.

  However, it was a little hard to concentrate, with Katy humming a bawdy tune that she might’ve learned in a saloon.

  Danna didn’t move from where she sat with elbows propped on her desk, but flicked her eyes up to watch the teen.

  Katy seemed much more relaxed today than she had last night. The shadows behind her eyes had lifted somewhat, and her humming—a scandalous tune—showed her mood had lightened. Now all Danna needed to do was find out where she belonged and get the girl out of her jail.

  “I brought breakfast.” The cheerful, masculine voice preceded Chas into the jail as he backed through the door, two piping plates in his hands.

  She looked down at the Wanted poster, but she couldn’t make her eyes focus on the face it depicted. Chas’s casual statements last night about his sister’s tutor and running a household had thrown another obstacle in the way of her silly emotions. He obviously came from money. Somehow he’d ended up here in the West, but his roots mattered, even if he didn’t talk about home much.

  If she was right, and his family was well-off, she would never fit in. She was no lady. That was if her silly, female emotions ever came to anything.

  Not that her silly emotions would ever come to anything.

  A gilt-edged china plate—much nicer than the tin ones she owned—plonked onto the table and her head came up.

  Chas quirked a half smile, just a corner of his lips turned upward. “I grabbed breakfast at the hotel. Didn’t figure you had.”

  His kindness flustered her; she could feel a flush creeping into her cheeks. He didn’t seem to notice as he crossed to glance out the window.

  Chas kept one eye on Katy again shoveling the food into her mouth, ignoring the fork he’d put on her plate. Was she still that hungry?

  In the reflection of the window’s glass, he caught a glimpse of Danna with her head bent over the papers on her desk. Before he’d turned away, he’d seen her blush.

  She was sweet on him.

  The thought was terrifying. Surely he was mistaken. She couldn’t be.

  “I think I’ve found your man with the blond mustache.”

  He turned to find Danna waving a piece of paper in his direction. “You’re kidding.”

  Surprised she didn’t want to read the poster’s information first, he took it from her outstretched hand. He did indeed look down into the face of the blond man he’d seen in the café and then in the saloon with Hank Lewis.

  “Well, what does it say?” Danna demanded.

  “Jed Hester,” Chas read aloud. “Wanted in Kansas, the Indian Territory and Colorado. For robbery. There’s a reward.”

  “Robbery? Not rustling? Are you certain it is the same man you’ve seen around town?”

  “I’m sure,” he replied grimly. “But what is he doing around this area?” And what was his involvement with Hank Lewis? Hank had been a cardsharp in Arizona. At least, that’s what he’d been doing just before he’d killed Julia and Joseph.

  “How many times have you seen this man?”

  “Three.”

  “Then he isn’t just passing through.”

  “It would appear not.”

  What did it all mean?

  “Do you mind if I borrow this?” Chas indicated the Wanted poster with Hester’s likeness on it. “I might check around and see if he is staying at the hotel or boardinghouse.”

  “Do you think that’s likely?” From her skeptical frown, it was obvious Danna didn’t think so.

  “No, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Marshal?”

  The quiet voice from the girl huddled in a blanket next to Danna’s bed brought Danna from the brink of sleep instantly. It was the first time Katy had spoken since telling Danna and Chas her name the night before.

  “Hmm?” Danna levered herself up on the bed with an elbow, in order to see the girl, though she could only make out an outline—Katy appeared to be curled in on herself, though the room was warm.

  A barroom brawl earlier in the evening had filled the two cells, and Danna’s conscience wouldn’t let her leave the girl in the jail. Danna’d brought Katy into her room above the jail, telling the girl sternly that she was still under Danna’s custody.

  “Did your brother love you?”

  It wasn’t remotely the question Danna had been expecting. Stunned, half-asleep, she spoke before thinking about her words. “I suppose he must’ve.”

  “Then why did he send you away?”

  Danna had asked herself the same question for years after she married Fred. She’d never come up with a satisfactory answer. She hadn’t spoken to her brother much since she married Fred—hadn’t seen him in years now—so the subject was never brought up.

  “My brother had lived on the ranch his whole life. Didn’t even go to school. I don’t think he knew what to do with a sister—a girl.”

  Katy was quiet for so long that Danna almost drifted off to sleep again. When she finally spoke, her voice was almost a whisper, tentative.

  “What would have happened to you if…if there wasn’t a husband to take you in? If you had nowhere to go?”

  Aha. Now they were getting to the crux of the matter. Danna suspected Katy was speaking of her own situation. Finally.

  “Well, Katy… I guess if I hadn’t married Fred I probably would’ve found a family that I liked and that liked me and I would’ve stayed with them and helped work their farm. I was used to outdoor work from being on my brother’s ranch.”

  “What if you didn’t know how to wo
rk?”

  Danna followed her instinct and reached down to rest her hand on the girl’s shoulder. At first Katy flinched but then seemed to calm.

  “Honey, if you’re worried about what’s going to happen to you, you don’t need to.”

  Danna felt more than heard the girl take a shuddering breath.

  “Do you have any family?”

  “N-no,” came the whisper. “My p-pa died.”

  “What about schooling?”

  “I can’t read, but I can cipher some.”

  “Well, come tomorrow we’ll see if we can find you a place to stay and some work to do. You promise not to steal anymore?”

  The girl grunted and Danna decided to take it for a yes. She should probably feel good that she finally had a plan on what to do with Katy, but something about it sat like a stone in her stomach.

  Was it because the girl reminded her so vividly of herself at that age? Alone, uncertain, unloved?

  It was a long time before Danna drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Danna moved wearily up the stairs to her room above the jail, looking forward to her bed and some rest after breaking up a barroom fight after one gambler had declared the man playing against him was cheating.

  She’d nearly taken a broken bottle to the ribs. Chas would’ve been upset if he’d been there, but this was his evening off. Finally, in the wee hours, the saloons had closed, and she was free to get some sleep.

  She pushed open the door, being careful to stay quiet so she wouldn’t wake Katy, whom she’d settled earlier in the evening. A sliver of moonlight from the open door fell on the blanket Katy had used the past two nights.

  The girl was gone.

  A horrible feeling clenched Danna’s insides in a fist. She struck a match and lit the oil lamp she kept on the small round table in one corner of the room, only to find the entire room was empty.

  The blanket was folded neatly, extra pillow in the middle of Danna’s bed. No signs that the girl had ever inhabited the room with Danna. She’d left?