The Marshal Meets His Match

by Clari Dees

  Meri grinned at him. For the first time since her mother’s death, the mention of her didn’t send a shaft of pain through her heart. Instead the memory of her mother’s teasing statement whenever father got emotional was heartwarmingly pleasant. They softly reminisced until Meri’s eyelids drooped again, and her father turned the lamp down low.

  Leaning over, he softly kissed her forehead, his Scottish brogue rumbling softly against her ears. “Sleep well, lass. Yer Faither will be watching over ye. And so will I.”

  * * *

  The day passed in a confusing blur, laudanum keeping the worst of the pain at bay, but making Meri’s brain so foggy, wakefulness and sleep swirled together in a surreal tangle. She wasn’t sure if she dreamed Wyatt’s voice, but the word sweetheart spoken in a rich baritone brought a drowsy smile to her lips.

  The sun was high in the sky the following day when she finally woke with a clear head and ravenous hunger. Her father was busily scanning the newspaper, but at the sound of her growling stomach, he lowered the paper to his lap. “Ye’re awake. And hungry from the sound of it.” A relieved smile lit his face.

  “I’m starving.”

  The door swung open, admitting Dr. Kilburn. “How’s our patient feeling today?” Meri’s stomach rumbled in answer. “Sounds like your appetite is in good working order.” Doc laughed as he felt her head and reached for her wrist. “We’ll get it quieted down in a few minutes. Until then, how are you feeling?”

  “Still trying to figure out which end is up.” Meri shifted slightly, regretting it instantly as the pain reminded her why she was flat on her back, or rather, propped up on pillows.

  Dr. Kilburn smiled. “Your wound is looking good, no sign of infection, and you haven’t had any laudanum for several hours. How’s the pain?”

  “Bearable, as long as I don’t move.”

  “Then don’t move. It’s going to take some time to heal, and you’ll be sore even after that. Now, how about some food?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He left the room, and soon Mrs. Kilburn breezed in with a fragrant-smelling tray. Setting it down on the bedside table, she turned to Meri. “Do you want to try sitting up?”

  “Yes, I’m tired of lying down.”

  Meri thought better of the idea when Mrs. Kilburn helped ease her into an upright position, but she gritted her teeth and refused to let a whimper escape. Mrs. Kilburn artfully arranged the pillows to support her while keeping pressure off the damaged shoulder, and Meri gratefully sank against their softness. Pain had effectively quieted the noisy rumbling of her stomach, leaving her nauseous instead.

  “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.” A bead of sweat trickled down her back.

  “I brought some nice broth to start with. Why don’t you try a few sips and see if it doesn’t calm your stomach?”

  Meri felt very weak and helpless as the woman spooned broth into her mouth, but after a few swallows, Mrs. Kilburn proved she knew what she was talking about.

  Meri’s appetite returned with a vengeance. The broth disappeared quickly, and she gratefully accepted the soft, buttered bread. “Thank you. That tasted wonderful.”

  “We’ll give you something a little more substantial for supper, but Doc wanted to make sure you handled this okay before trying anything heavier.” She gathered up the dishes. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to help you freshen up. You’ll have guests before long. You’re quite our most popular patient.” Mrs. Kilburn grinned and winked before bustling out of the room.

  “What did she mean?”

  McIsaac lowered the paper he’d been quietly reading. “I’m not sure who’s left to run the ranch since most of the hands rode in at various times yesterday to ‘check on you’ and carry news back there. Half the town has stopped by to check on ‘Miss Meri.’ Franks is more worried than I’ve ever seen him.”

  She was humbled so many people cared about her, but had Wyatt not stopped in? Was that why her father hadn’t mentioned him? Maybe she had only dreamed the sweetheart endearment.

  Mrs. Kilburn returned, interrupting her musings. Hustling McIsaac out of the room and closing the door behind him, she helped Meri with a personal urgent need. When she was settled back in bed, exhausted, Mrs. Kilburn brushed Meri’s hair smooth and tamed it into a neat braid. Then she bathed Meri’s hands and face in refreshing warm water before arranging a pretty little crocheted bed jacket about her shoulders and straightening the colorful quilt around her waist.

  “There,” she said, stepping back to admire her work. “Don’t you make a lovely picture?”

  “If you happen to like looking at what the cat dragged in.”

  “Absolutely not!” the woman argued stoutly. “You look fashionably pale, and I know a certain lawman who won’t be able to take his eyes off you.” A distant knock sounded, and Mrs. Kilburn smiled knowingly. “I suspect that’s him now.” She eyed Meri’s blooming cheeks. “Ah, you’re not quite so pale now. Feel up to a little company?”

  Meri’s heart was in her throat, so she could only nod. First she was disappointed when she thought he hadn’t dropped by, and now she feared seeing him again.

  Fickle female! You don’t know your own mind.

  “I’ll show him in then.” Mrs. Kilburn pulled the door closed behind her.

  Meri barely breathed, straining to hear identifiable voices. When she heard steps approaching, her heart shuddered to a stop.

  You don’t even know if it’s him.

  But she did. She recognized his steps on the wood flooring. Her stomach lurched as they came to a stop outside the door, and a light tap caused her heart to explode back into action.

  “Come in.” It was more croak than voice, but it did the job because the door swung inward.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wyatt stepped into the room and stood looking at her for a long moment, his eyes seeming to absorb every inch of her. His powerful presence shrank the space until it felt too small to hold two people comfortably, and Meri felt he could see all the way through her. She wanted to lower her gaze, but it tangled irretrievably in his.

  He exhaled a noisy sigh. “You look so much better today. You had me worried, Mac.”

  Meri opened her mouth to protest the name then shut it abruptly. She might actually be starting to like it.

  “Uh-oh. I thought you were doing better, but maybe I ought to call Doc.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re not arguing with me. You must be feeling worse than I thought.” The sparkle in his eyes belied the concern in his voice, and Meri felt an answering grin struggle for freedom.

  She sobered quickly, however, and dropped her eyes to the quilt. “I need to apologize for that.”

  “Apologize for what?”

  “Apologize for always arguing with you.”

  “You don’t always argue with me. I seem to recall we worked pretty good together at the picnic.”

  Meri ignored the heat in her cheeks and forced herself to continue. “I’ve been fighting the Lord on some things, and I allowed it to affect my attitude and how I treated those around me, you especially. I’ve been rude to you, lost my temper…” Meri felt tears sting her eyes but refused to release them. “I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me, now I’m asking you to forgive me.” The apology was hard enough without blubbering all over the man.

  “Forgiveness granted, and I have a confession of my own.”

  Her eyes flew to his.

  “You’re not completely at fault here.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No.” He chuckled. “I did my fair share of provoking you.”

  “Why?”

  “Unlike most females of my acquaintance, instead of fussing about a ruined dress, a mussed hairdo or even acting helpless when you landed at my feet that day at Franks’s, you came up fighting. I liked your spunk and wanted to see it again. You mind if I sit down?”

  The question caught Meri off guard. “Of course.”

  “You want me to leave?”

>   “No! I mean… Yes, you can sit down.”

  “You had me worried for a minute there. I was afraid you were going to throw me out on my ear,” Wyatt said good-naturedly, seating himself in the chair by the bedside.

  If the room had shrunk when he’d walked in, it now felt positively minuscule. Meri looked down at her fingers mindlessly twirling a bed jacket ribbon. She folded her hands, forcing her gaze back toward Wyatt. He was watching her with a look she couldn’t decipher, but it made her stomach quiver. She rallied her retreating courage; just because she was more accustomed to arguing with him didn’t mean she was incapable of carrying on a normal, civil conversation, despite evidence to the contrary.

  Lifting her chin slightly, she broke the silence. “Thank you.”

  Those intense eyes never left hers. “For?”

  “For saving my life.”

  A breathtaking smile curved his lips. “The Lord saved your life, but it was absolutely my pleasure to be of some assistance. You scared a few years off my life when I realized you were bleeding. I’d rather not experience that again, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’d rather not repeat it myself. It’s painful. Would you tell me what happened after I was shot? Faither said the bank robber and the man who shot at us were the same person and you had him in jail. And you never did tell me why you and Jonah were out there in the first place.”

  Wyatt leaned back in the chair and crossed one ankle over his knee. “There were a lot of pieces that didn’t add up about all that, and I couldn’t figure out why the bank robber was still hanging around.”

  “Why did you think he was still around?”

  “Jonah matched the tracks where he stole your ranch horse to the ones on the road where you…”

  Meri interrupted. “The two men I saw on the road—I knew you and Jonah were acting funny. One of those men was the bank robber?”

  “Yes. His name is Ernie Mullins.”

  “Who was the other man?”

  “Mr. Phineas Samuels.”

  Meri’s eyes grew large, and her mouth dropped opened in surprise. “Mr. Samuels?”

  Wyatt nodded grimly.

  “But—I don’t understand.”

  Wyatt related what he’d learned from the bank clerk. “I’d already figured out someone else was involved in the bank job, and when every inconsistency kept leading back to Mr. Samuels, I began to have my suspicions. I could never pin him down on any explanations, and then you mentioned seeing him at the cemetery and his strange behavior. It just added to all the things pointing his direction. I put a couple pairs of eyes to watching him and sure enough it led back to the cemetery.”

  “I still don’t understand why you were there.”

  “Mullins was hanging around because he didn’t find a safe full of money like he was expecting. The majority of the money was gone long before he arrived. Mr. Samuels had been embezzling a little at a time and engineered the robbery to cover his tracks. He didn’t expect Mullins to realize there had to be more money somewhere and want more than his share of what he cleaned out of the safe. Mullins was trying to scare Mr. Samuels into giving him a bigger cut. That’s what you saw on the road that day and what you saw through the bank window the day of the picnic.” He shook his head. “There is absolutely no honor between thieves.”

  “I can hardly believe it.” Meri was stunned.

  “You were the other wrinkle in Mr. Samuels’s plot.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “You’d seen too much. Or so Mr. Samuels thought.”

  “I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t anywhere around when the bank robbery occurred.”

  “You saw Mr. Samuels in the cemetery, you saw him out on the road with Mullins and you saw the two of them in the bank. When you mentioned that at the picnic, he thought you were putting it all together and panicked. He told Mullins if he got rid of you, he’d give him a larger cut. You were too hard to get to at the ranch, but Mullins got his chance when you rode into the graveyard. He wasn’t shooting randomly that day. He was aiming for you.”

  Meri shivered at how close he’d come to being successful. She decided not to dwell on that thought. “What were you doing there?”

  Wyatt shifted in the chair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Jonah and I were following a hunch—one that played out. Mr. Samuels had been ‘depositing’ money in that ridiculous crypt. He buried it under a loose stone in the floor, believing no one would ever think to look in there. We’d just uncovered it when we saw you. We didn’t want you asking questions and were waiting ‘til you left, but Sandy caught us peeking out.”

  Wyatt threw his head back suddenly and laughed. “I wish you could have seen your face when we walked out. You looked like you were expecting a ghost, but you got me instead.”

  “I came close to shooting you just for scaring me.” Meri couldn’t hide an embarrassed grin.

  “I thought for a moment you were upset enough to pull that trigger.” He grinned back at her to show there were no hard feelings and continued his story. “Word got to Samuels that you were shot, and he went to retrieve the money before hightailing it out of the country. He got quite a surprise when he found an empty hole in the ground instead of his money. We were waiting when he burst back out the door.”

  “You got him.”

  “And found your father’s missing gun, too. Samuels had it and used it. Ruined a good shirt, too.” He scowled.

  “He shot you?” Meri jerked forward and yelped as the injured shoulder objected to the sudden move.

  Wyatt was gently easing her back against the pillows before she realized he’d moved from his chair. “Easy does it. Give it a minute, the pain will pass.” He gently rubbed her arm. “Breathe, sweetheart. Want me to get Doc?”

  “No,” Meri bit out, eyes closed and teeth clenched against the searing burn. Maybe she hadn’t dreamed up the sweetheart endearment in her drugged stupor after all.

  A cool cloth touched her skin. She opened her eyes, surprised to see Wyatt tenderly dabbing her forehead. Concern radiated from him. “Is it easing up any?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t great, but it was bearable, given the distraction of his fingers against her forehead. “Go on with your story.”

  He studied her closely before folding the cloth. Laying it over the edge of the basin, he reseated himself. “Okay, but no more sudden movements,” he cautioned anxiously.

  “I think I’ll take you up on that advice.” She breathed shallowly as the pain began to ebb.

  “Following orders? That would be a first for you, wouldn’t it?” Wyatt asked seriously.

  “Funny. I can understand why you’re a lawman. Your career as a jester was so short-lived.” Meri grinned dryly.

  Wyatt swiped his hand across his brow. “Pshew! Now that’s the Miss McIsaac I know and…I was beginning to worry that I didn’t have the right room.”

  She rolled her eyes with a grin. “You didn’t say if Mr. Samuels hit you or Jonah.”

  “He missed on both counts and only tore up the sleeve on my shirt. We didn’t miss.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No. Jonah and I winged him, one on each side. He’s sitting in jail with two very sore arms awaiting the U.S. Marshal to transport him to the county seat for trial.”

  “Sounds like you both nearly missed.”

  His eyes narrowed playfully. “No, Miss Doubting Thomas, we hit exactly what we were aiming at. We didn’t want to kill him. We wanted him to stand trial.”

  “What will happen to him?”

  “That’ll be up to a judge, but he’ll be tried for the attempted murder of you and your father as well as the theft of the bank’s money.”

  Meri shook her head in unbelief. It was bewildering that the man who’d attended church with them year after year had tried to have her killed! “But he was hurt in the holdup, too.”

  “I’ve not been able to get out of either of them whether Mullins hit him or if Samuels did it to himself, but either way, it
was done to make the holdup look real.”

  “Why would he do it—rob the bank?”

  Wyatt shook his head, thoughtfully quiet for a moment before answering. “I asked him that myself, and a lot of pent-up anger spewed out. Says he deserved to have the money because God never did anything for him. He’s raved about his poor childhood, the loss of a baby son, a wife that withdrew after the baby’s death, every little slight anyone’s ever done to him and on and on. Bitterness poured out of him like a festered sore. He doesn’t even sound rational half the time. I guess he let all his disappointments weigh on him until he snapped.”

  “So the money’s all back?”

  “Every penny according to the records we found at Samuels’s house. We even got back most of what Mullins took. He’ll stand trial for attempted murder, as well.”

  “What will happen to the bank?”

  “That’s up to the bank’s investors. Apparently, they were part of Samuels’s problem. Several of them wanted him replaced as bank president and had been working toward that end. Samuels knew about it and decided to get revenge along with what he thought he deserved.”

  She leaned her head back against the pillow. Just hearing the whole sordid story tired her out. “What a mess.”

  “I can’t help but think about Pastor Willis’s message a couple weeks ago. Samuels is a prime example of letting anger and bitterness fester until it ruined him. I suppose he’s had a hard life, but so has everyone to some extent, and he’d made something out of himself. But instead of letting the Lord help him through his difficulties, he allowed every little problem to grow out of proportion until he was willing to kill to get what he wanted.”

  Meri blushed to think how close she’d been to starting down the same path. She didn’t realize her eyes had drifted closed until they flew open when she heard Wyatt stand up from his chair.

  “I can see I’ve bored you to sleep,” he teased gently. “I’ll let you get some rest before Doc comes in and runs me out.” He pulled out his watch. “He gave me a time limit, and it’s almost up.”