Captivated By A Gunslinger (Emerald Falls Book 3)

by Ivy McAdams

  The first thing she noticed was that she didn’t know him. A little of the tense air in her lungs eased out.

  He wore a clean vest and jacket with a matching brown hat. Pinned high on his chest was a gold metal star.

  One of the second most threatening people she could see in town: the Law.

  “Hello there,” he drawled with a smile.

  He was tall and lanky. Younger than she’d ever seen a deputy. A double-holstered gun belt hung low on his narrow hips.

  “Good morning, sir,” Sadie offered.

  Clara had almost forgotten to speak, especially with his eyes roaming over her. “Morning,” she said.

  “Certainly is a nice one,” he said. “You know, you both look familiar, but I can’t place you. Thought for sure I knew everyone around here. You just passing through?”

  As he spoke, Clara quietly folded the letter behind her back and slipped it into the pocket of her pants.

  “You can say that,” Sadie said. “My father and I live off the west road out that way. We only come into town every so often.”

  His friendly smile remained, and he nodded. “That must be why. What about you?”

  His tone was casual, conversational, but his eyes changed when they moved to Clara. They were more pointed and expectant. As if he’d just performed a very specific process of elimination, and she’d come up short.

  “I’m traveling,” she said. “Passing through. Just visiting my friend here.”

  Sadie wrapped an arm around Clara’s shoulder as if it might make her lie more convincing.

  At first, the deputy didn't question her. He seemed to accept her answer. Then he pursed his lips.

  “I was just passing through not long ago myself. I’m actually from Hollard.”

  Clara’s breath caught in her lungs, throat constricting so tight she knew she’d pass out right there in the street.

  “Nice place.” The words were so sour she nearly couldn’t spit them out.

  “Been there?” The subtle tilt to his hat was enough. He was on to her.

  She swallowed an uncomfortable lump in her throat. “A couple times.”

  His mouth formed a hard line, and he gave an acknowledging jut of his chin. “I thought you looked familiar.”

  Her blood ran cold.

  She wanted to turn and run. To push past Sadie and the horses and just take off across the train tracks.

  “I believe I’ve seen your picture up.”

  Alarm bells went off in her head, and she gnawed at the inside of her cheek. She should have brought a weapon. Maybe she could pull Ira around to block his path. She was a spirited little horse.

  Anything she could do to keep herself out of the sheriff’s office and away from her father.

  "It's been a while since I saw it, but now that I think of it, you sure are the spitting image of her. I'd remember those big bright eyes and freckled nose anywhere. Too bad she's wanted for such a horrible crime."

  Clara’s eyes closed, and all the air left her body.

  She’d known better than go back to Emerald Falls.

  Chapter 5

  “No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t just a smack around. He broke my arm,” Clara pleaded, tugging against the deputy’s hand on her wrist.

  He held firm until she was fully inside the empty cell. After letting her go with a hint of a shove, the door clanged closed behind him.

  “Oh, come off it, Bullock,” a voice behind her scoffed.

  She jumped, pressing herself against the brick wall lining one side of the jail cell and squinting into the seemingly empty cell next to her.

  “Don’t start your complaining,” the deputy said without turning around as he sauntered over to the single desk at the front of the room. He shuffled through some papers without another word.

  Clara leaned further back into the wall as if it might absorb her if she pressed hard enough.

  She’d spent countless hours inside the jail as a child. Even inside the cells when there were no prisoners. Laughing and playing. Pretending to lock her sisters up and lose the key. But she’d never been in there for a reason, contained without so much as a trial or a chance to give her side of the story.

  Well, she’d tried to give it, but it’d fallen on deaf ears. Deputy Bullock had no interest in what she had to say on the matter.

  “Don’t mind him,” the gruff voice in the next cell over grumbled. “He forgets to be a gentleman sometimes.”

  Despite the charming words, the voice was harsh.

  The pile of blankets on the cot fell away as a man stood and walked to the bars adjoining the cells. He leaned into them, fingers wrapped around the cold steel. His face was so dirty it looked as if he'd taken a roll in a pigsty. He didn't smell much better, even from across the cell. His fingernails were caked in dirt, split into jagged edges in some spaces. It looked as if he'd been digging at a very unforgiving surface. Perhaps trying to escape? A patchy few-day-old beard ran along his jaw. His eyes were wide and wild as he grinned at her.

  "Welcome to the funhouse," he said.

  Her lips skewed in disgust, nostrils flaring, and she averted her eyes.

  “No, over here. Hey, lady,” he said. “Come over here. I have a secret.”

  She fought a shudder. The stench was beginning to get to her.

  A glance to the front told her Deputy Bullock had disappeared. The only exit was out the front door back onto the street. A disappointed grumble tickled her throat. How was she going to convince him to let her go if he walked out on her?

  She slumped further down the wall and put her head in her hands.

  At least her father wasn’t around. Or at least for the moment. Bullock was probably off to find him.

  She rubbed at her eyes, trying to flush the thoughts from her mind. The sweet but sad look on her father’s face the last time she’d seen him three years ago. The hopeful one on Ace’s when she and Sadie left that morning. The frightened one on Sadie’s when Bullock had grabbed Clara by the arm and pulled her into the street. She’d told the woman not to linger, to go back to camp right away. Sadie had backed into the horses but not turned away from the sight of the arrest. Clara wasn’t sure if she’d left or not. She hoped so.

  Clara’d spent the long drag off to the sheriff’s office with her head bent and face hidden behind her hair. Thankfully they’d passed only a handful of people. She’d heard them mutter in surprise. It was probably quite an odd sight to see a woman being brought in by a deputy. But she’d heard no indication that anyone else recognized her.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d sit in the jail. Most likely until the sheriff came around to hear her case.

  She’d rather pull her teeth out with a pair of pliers.

  After an hour of silence, Clara set her head back against the wall, and her consciousness wavered. Images of her father and Ace danced about her mind’s eye. She tried to force them away and think of beautiful things, like Sadie and her baby, but her energy was spent and she dozed.

  * * *

  A shuffle against her hip stirred Clara, and she frowned, fluttering her eyes open and staring at the dusty wood floor beneath her face. It needed to be swept. Probably a good polish too.

  Her frown deepened. It’d been months since she’d been in a place with actual floors. Where the hell was she?

  Her eyes drifted up and caught sight of the long vertical bars across from her. The single desk beyond them. The picture of her father in uniform, shaking the mayor’s hand.

  She sat upright with a gasp.

  She’d been thrown in jail. Brought in with no clear charges, and her arrestor had vanished.

  A stale rancid smell reached her nose, and her attention leapt. She wasn’t alone in there.

  She spun on the floor, gasping again when she realized how close she was to the adjoining bars in between the cells. She must have slid down to the floor as she slept. The space was so small it had only taken a roll in the wrong direction to put her up against her neighbor�
�s cell.

  She jerked her body clear of the nearby bars, but it was too late.

  The man pulled a folded piece of paper through to his side and flashed a disgustingly triumphant grin full of craterous, dark teeth.

  It took her only a heartbeat to lock in on the paper. Sadie’s letter!

  “Hey!” she barked, throwing herself at the bars and reaching through.

  The thief fell back to the floorboards with a cackle, clutching the paper close to his chest. “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Shut it,” she growled. “That’s mine. Give it back.”

  “Really?” the man said as he opened the letter. “Says here this is for Jed Tanner. You don’t look like a Jed.”

  She stretched, pressing her face into the bars until it pinched and reaching her hand as far as it would go, but he was well beyond reach.

  “Just give it here, you dirty thief!”

  “Oh, of course,” he said as he held out the paper. “My apologies for slipping that right out there.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she reached for it, but just as she thought, he snapped it away again and laughed.

  “Finders keepers, dear. Now let’s see what they want to inform Mr. Tanner of.”

  She gnawed the inside of her cheek, cursing herself for falling asleep.

  The man’s eyes moved slowly, tracking over the page, but he didn’t immediately react. She wondered if he could read properly.

  Before she could ask, the front door of the office opened, and Bullock walked in.

  Clara jumped to her feet and leapt for the bars at the front of her cell.

  “Hey. I need to get out of here,” she said. “Where is the sheriff?”

  Bullock removed his hat and set it on the desk. “Away from town.”

  Clara frowned. Away? Her family didn’t travel away. They had no nearby relatives. Where on earth had they gone?

  “When’s he coming back?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Couple days. I’m in charge while he’s gone.”

  Her lips pinched as her nose wrinkled. This guy was in charge? He couldn’t hold her forever.

  It was time to flex the side of her brain she’d hidden away so long. Ace had managed to shake it loose the day before, but it was muscles she hadn’t used in five years.

  “Statute seventy two point two says you can’t hold me on speculation,” she said. “If you have no proof, you have to let me go.”

  Bullock looked up at her with a curious smirk. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “A lawyer, and Sheriff McGowen.”

  He scoffed at her. “My, Mrs. Martin, you’d think a lady that knew the law so well would know better than to kill someone.”

  Clara’s jaw clenched, both from his accusation and the sound of her married name on his lips. It wasn’t something she’d heard in a long while. Her fingers tightened on the bars. She wanted to shake them and yell horrible things at him.

  It wasn’t as if she’d murdered Lloyd Martin in cold blood. She could barely see out of the swollen eye he’d given her the day before. She’d spent part of the night curled in the fetal position, nursing a wounded chest and afraid to move because she could scarcely breathe. It was that night that she told him in her weak, wheezing voice, that if he ever came near her again, that she’d kill him.

  He hadn’t believed her, of course, but she’d stolen his shotgun as soon as she could properly get off the floor and stashed it under the couch. The next afternoon when he came at her, yelling over a broken window in the kitchen, she was ready.

  Fear and rage had blinded her at first, and she clutched the gun with all the muscles in her body ready to fire. He kept yelling and throwing his hands up in wild gestures as he continued to advance.

  When the disconnected calmness settled over her, she welcomed it. It was as if she were watching from across the room, no longer worried about holding a gun up and pointed at anyone.

  If she didn't follow through with her threat, he'd beat her close to death. And he'd do it again the next day. Until the day she died.

  It only took one raised hand in her direction for her to pull the trigger, and that pig shit would never touch her again.

  It'd been the beginning of her freedom, but also her hell.

  She shuddered and forced the memories away.

  Murdering Lloyd wasn’t when her isolation from her family started, but it certainly was the final nail in her coffin.

  “You’re right. I do know better. But why am I here?”

  Bullock sauntered over and stared at her, hands on his hips. “You think I’m just going to let you go free? I know it’s you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t even know who I am.”

  “I know faces, and I saw yours on a poster in Hollard. I’m sure of it.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  His lips pinched in, and the fingers resting on his belt twitched. “Once I find a copy of that poster, I’ll match you up. I’ll drag you down to Hollard for someone to identify you if I have to.”

  Clara slid down the bars to her knees and let out a breath.

  Damn. Worth a shot.

  * * *

  Clara awoke to the sound of the front door opening, and she sat up. She’d tucked herself onto the small makeshift cot this time to be sure she was as far away from her neighbor as possible.

  Deputy Bullock entered the office without a sound and strode over to her cell. He inserted his key and turned the lock.

  She scrambled to her feet in surprise and hurried over to the door.

  “Get out of my jail,” he grumbled as he swung the framed bars open.

  She had so many questions, but her common sense told her to shut up and get out. Thankfully he offered up information on his own.

  “Policy says I can’t hold you more than six hours without direct evidence.”

  She waited for him to possibly throw in that she’d been right, but he didn’t.

  He stood aside, and the exit was free and clear. She looked at him, still unsure if he was certain. He stared at the floor, the wall, anything else but her.

  She grinned and hurried out. Bullock closed the door with a clang.

  As she reached the front door, he called out. “I’ll get in touch with Hollard and figure out who put out the report. They were obviously looking for you.”

  She hovered there a moment, awash with a new wave of guilt.

  The only people that would have been searching for her were her family. It’d be best if they were never informed she’d been found. She hated that they’d searched for her, possibly mourned her, but it was the best for everyone. They’d be so ashamed if they knew how her marriage had fallen apart and what she’d done to remedy it.

  Without waiting for him to present any further questions or guilt-inducing scenarios, she slipped out the door and into the late afternoon sunlight.

  The street was busier than it had been that morning, and she held her head low as she stepped off the platform onto the worn, dirt path. She lifted a hand over her eyes to block out the sun, as well as somewhat hide her face.

  The road back to the train station seemed much shorter when she wasn’t being dragged. She walked quickly around the side of the train station where she and Sadie had hitched up that morning.

  There was no sign of her or the horses.

  Clara hadn't expected to find her there, of course, but she'd had a small sliver of hope that her horse would still be around. Otherwise, she'd have to walk. It'd take half a day to make it back to camp on foot. Not to mention the danger. Anyone could track her moving so slowly, and she'd already alerted enough attention to herself.

  She blew out a ragged breath and ran a hand over her face.

  She glanced at one of the nearby auction pens where a group of horses stood.

  Stealing one was tempting, but she’d had enough of the Law for the day. The last thing she needed was to bring Bullock over. He’d throw her back in jail in a second.


  It looked like walking was her only option.

  Until her gaze landed on one of the horses in the pen.

  Her strawberry roan stood in the back, head down and ears twitching. Clara's heart leapt, and she ran over.

  The closest horses snorted and eyed her warily. She slid along the edge of the fence with a smile burning her cheeks.

  “Ira,” she whispered.

  The mare’s head bounced up, ears pressed forward and eyes moving. When her gaze landed on Clara, she whuffled a deep breath in greeting.

  Clara beamed. “Hey, girl. You have no idea how glad I am to see you.”

  Thankfully, the horse was still saddled. She'd just been moved from the station to the pen, by who knows whom. Clara glanced around and dipped under the fence board. Ira bumped her with her nose, and Clara rubbed her fingers along the animal's head.

  With a flip of a gate latch and leap into the saddle, Clara maneuvered them out of the pen. Just as she was turning to push the gate closed, someone shouted.

  She gasped, head popping around. A man stalked out of a nearby auction barn, shaking his fist.

  Time to split.

  Without bothering to close the gate, she touched Ira in the flank with her heels, and they took off. The road out of town was only a few feet away from the pens, and they hit it at a run. After they’d gotten out of hearing range of the pens, she glanced over her shoulder.

  No one was following them. They were free.

  She turned Ira into the woods and got good and lost before slowing down.

  Chapter 6

  “Who goes there?”

  Clara startled, pulling back on Ira’s reins with a gasp. The mare high-stepped in a tight circle as she came to an abrupt halt. Clara’s heart hammered in her chest as her breath fought to catch up.

  Jack peered around a tree, rifle in hand and a surprised look on his face.

  The air she held rushed out, the nerves zipping along her skin both anxious and relieved.

  “What in heavens you doing scaring me like that, Jack?”