The Heart of Mary: A Thorn Novel

by Brandy Golden

  They could hear him fidgeting on the other side of the door and Clary snickered. "He's waiting for a penny or a piece of candy," she said.

  Thorn sighed and took a piece of candy out of the jar Clary had on the table by the door. "You spoil the boy," he growled. But he opened the door and handed Billy his reward.

  "Thank you, sir, thank you," gushed Billy, barreling down the steps with the candy clutched in his small hand.

  Clary smiled. "Probably. But it keeps him eager and ready to do whatever I ask when I need it," she replied. "He checks in with me all the time and hangs around the telegraph office and the hotel just waiting for someone to need him. Plus, it helps his mother out. You know she's a widow, right?"

  "I know," he replied, running his palm down the side of her soft cheek and tipping her chin up. "But I also know you have a soft spot for children." His eyes were gentle as he leaned down to kiss her. "Someday, we'll have some kids, I promise."

  She nodded, eagerly lifting her mouth to accept the firm lips that claimed hers, trying valiantly to ignore the ache in her heart. "I know," she whispered against his sensual mouth. "Someday."

  She leaned against the door after he left, making sure it was locked. She sighed with longing, the ache he had left unassuaged burning between her thighs. She tried to ignore it and turned her mind to other things.

  The only reason Thorn had let her stay in Arizona with him was because she could never have children. A riding accident and a long recovery of some broken bones and internal injuries had seen to that. And neither one of them was ready to get married and settle down, especially Thorn, with his restless blood.

  Thorn had hated her following him out to Arizona from lush green Pennsylvania. Both of their families had horse ranches in Pennsylvania, and he and Boxcar had grown up as friends together. And he had fallen in love with Clary at an early age and swore she would always be his girl. Then he had taken a job with Wells Fargo, and it had taken him west into uncivilized territories, leaving his childhood sweetheart behind. He'd always planned to return, but three years later, he was still gone.

  Clary had tried to see other beaus and usually always had someone dancing attendance on her, but her heart belonged to Thorn. When she had turned twenty-one, she had defied her father and made the decision to go west, whether Paddington Jersey Thorn liked it or not! And even if he refused to be with her, she intended to stay in the west because she had grown restless feet herself. She'd wanted to experience the excitement of new places, face dangerous situations and open her own business, a dress and milliner shop. She figured the new territories would be hungry for what she had to offer. And Clary's sewing and creative skills with materials more than made up for her lack of baking skills.

  The west needed her!

  She'd made up her mind that wherever Thorn was, she'd find some way to stay near him, no matter if he spanked her six ways from Sunday! Clary was a very determined and stubborn young woman, and what Clarice Allison Worthington wanted, she usually got.

  She drifted back to when she had first arrived and she'd used her feminine wiles on Thorn, and it had backfired. Once he had taken her to his bed, he decided they had to get married and move back to Pennsylvania because she could be with child, and he wasn't having her in these uncivilized lands trying to raise their children with him gone all the time. He was going to give up the life he loved—and she knew he would always resent her.

  She didn't want him like that.

  She'd finally been able to make him listen to her, she'd told him what the doctor had said and assured him that she wasn't ready to settle down either, she just wanted to be near him. He had finally relented and allowed her to stay. Which was just as well, because she certainly wasn't going anywhere!

  * * *

  Thorn shook his head decisively at the tin badge Sheriff Holden shoved at him. "No, I'm not taking that badge—I'm not going to be a sheriff. I'm an investigator for the governor and that's my job," he declared.

  The stale smell of unwashed men, burnt gunpowder and overheated coffee assailed him, making his nostrils flare. In one corner of the jailhouse sat an old potbelly stove with the coffee pot still warming. The spittoon bucket sat beside it, the wood floor around it stained black with missed tobacco spit. The window on his right facing the street had the wooden doors shut on the bottom three fourths of it and the small upper window open to let in what air might be moving outside. Other than an old filing cabinet, a few chairs and the sheriff's desk, there wasn't much else in the room.

  "I know that," growled the sheriff. "This is just temporary. He was leaning forward, the chair creaking slightly beneath his tall rangy frame as he laid his arm across the desk to hand Thorn his badge. "I've cleared it with the governor, and he's on board with you doing this."

  Thorn still wouldn't take the badge. His eyes narrowed as he took in the beads of sweat on the other man's forehead, the pale look of his sun-leathered face and the frustration glaring in his steel gray eyes. In spite of the neck length black hair with the silver at the temples, you'd be hard pressed to put an age to the man, but Thorn knew he was somewhere in his fifties. He also knew that Holden had no plans to retire, so why had he practically thrown the badge at him as soon as he stepped through the door, telling him he was going to be Potluck's new sheriff?

  Finally, Thorn reached out and snaked a chair leg with his foot, set it out of range of the badge, and slammed himself into the seat. A growing frustration was chewing into his gut. What in the hell was the governor getting him into now? Something odd was going on, and it made him very uneasy. He was man of instinct and, right now, his instincts were telling him he wasn't going to like what was coming. "I think you better tell me what this is all about," he spat out.

  Thorn's time in Potluck was never very long, and he and the sheriff just didn't cross paths much. His work for the territorial governor almost always took him to other towns and far reaches of the territories to work on whatever sort of problem the governor wanted fixed or investigated. He and Boxcar worked together—so where was Boxcar now?

  "Told you he wouldn't want the badge," drawled the voice of the missing partner that had just crossed his mind.

  Thorn whipped his head towards the doorway leading to the cells to see his erstwhile partner grinning and leaning indolently against the doorframe, a cup of coffee in one hand and a hunk of bread sandwiching a huge wad of meat in the other.

  "Why didn't he offer you the badge?" Thorn snarled, his stomach suddenly feeling very empty on top of uneasy.

  "Because if I get killed, too many women would miss me," responded Boxcar cheerfully, pulling up another chair to dump his long lean frame into and tilting it back against the wall. He grinned at Thorn, that lazy grin that usually got him around any woman—and that was age eight to eighty as far as Thorn had seen. His brown eyes were dancing with mischief right now but then Boxcar was always easygoing and harmless looking—until he wasn't.

  "You get that from Tilly's?" Thorn snapped abruptly, eyeing the food.

  "Yup, she makes the best bread. You eat at Clary's?" Boxcar took another big bite, making Thorn want to snatch it away from him.

  "No, I didn't have time," he snarled in disgust.

  "What did she do this time?"

  "What do you mean?"

  Boxcar chuckled. "I can tell from the lack of dust on a certain strategic area of your pants that it's probably now on the front of my sister's dress, which means, from my elite powers of observation, that you must have hauled her over your lap for something as soon as you walked in the door."

  "Mind your own business."

  "You were the one coveting my sandwich," Boxcar pointed out between mouthfuls. "You could have had your own."

  The sheriff's hand slammed into the top of the wooden desk. "You two finished?" he gritted.

  Their bickering interrupted; they turned back to the sheriff. Thorn resumed his study of the man's trembling body. He looked as if it had taken most of his strength just to get their attent
ion diverted back to him. "Get on with it, Sheriff," he growled unhappily. "But this better be good."

  "He gets really crabby when he's hungry," pointed out Boxcar, finishing the last of the bread and meat and casually leaning forward.

  Thorn knew Boxcar was taking in every detail, just as he was. In spite of his flippant tongue, his friend was a master at observation and details—and he never forgot anything.

  The sheriff's eyes swiveled from one man to the other. "There is trouble coming, and I can't do anything about it," he replied, his whole body tense. "I got in a shoot out last night at Fanny's with a couple of men who were looking for a girl. One of the whores from a house in El Paso, who robbed and killed a man, so they say. They were tearing up the place, slapping Fanny's girls around, and one had a gun on Fanny, demanding she give up the girl. I finally got one of them arrested but the other got away. They left me with a broken leg and a bullet hole in my side."

  "Is he in the cell right now?" queried Thorn.

  Boxcar broke in. "Yup, but he's dead from a gunshot to the forehead. Must have taken it through the window bars when the partner came back."

  Thorn frowned. "Why would he kill him instead of just breaking him out of jail?"

  The sheriff leaned heavily on the desk. "Because it was cleaner to just kill him than risk a posse," he replied. "Whoever these men are, they must be working for someone else."

  Thorn nodded. "Did he say anything last night when you put him in jail? Did you question him?"

  The sheriff shook his head. "No, I didn't have time. By the time Charlie took me to Doc, and he fixed me up, the man had already been killed. Didn't even know his name." His eyes narrowed. "But who literally executes someone over a whore? And where is she now? If more of these types of killers are coming to Potluck, I need someone who can handle them and figure out what's going on." His gray eyes bore into Thorn's, their steely gaze never wavering.

  "The governor appointed you."

  Chapter Two

  Thorn frowned and stared back, his gaze assessing the disabled man behind the desk. "I can see your problem, Sheriff, but why do I need the badge?"

  "Because I'm stuck on desk duty for at least a month," he retorted impatiently. "Whoever these men were, they knew what they were doing. They worked fast and mean. The son-of-a-bitch in the cell slammed a chair into my leg, broke it in two places. Charlie came in the back way and took him down with a pistol whip. If it weren't for Fanny knocking the other one under the chin to throw the gun off, he would have killed Charlie or me. As it was, he winged me and was out the door before either Charlie or I could get a clean shot at him. Didn't want to hit any of the girls."

  "Sounds like they were professionals," replied Boxcar thoughtfully.

  "Exactly," replied the sheriff. "And they know I've been injured. Which also means they think there isn't a working sheriff in Potluck right now, and we can't have that. If this is going to get ugly, and my gut tells me it is, I need someone to fill in for me—someone I can count on. The governor agreed with me."

  "Which means you get to play sheriff, old buddy," responded Boxcar gleefully.

  "Why me, why not you?" Thorn argued.

  "You fit the part better; you have that mean, hard look down pat."

  "You mean you already turned it down and stuck me with it," snorted Thorn.

  The sheriff shoved the badge across the desk, and it fell on the floor at Thorn's feet. "The governor assigned you, Thorn, I didn't ask his reasons." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  Thorn picked up the badge and stood. He stared distastefully at it, then pinned it to the inside of his duster on the pocket of his shirt. "Fine, I'll play the sheriff," he growled sarcastically. But you owe me one, Holden!" He turned towards the cellblock. "I'm going to check out your corpse."

  Sheriff Holden just nodded and plonked one heavy booted foot on the corner of the desk. He was aggravated and grouchy as hell that he couldn't put the broken leg up there. He watched the two men through slitted eyes as they went into the open cell. He didn't like giving up his badge but he hadn't any choice in the matter. He supposed that since he had to give it up, Thorn would have been his choice as well, even if the governor hadn't assigned him the job. A bead of sweat rolled down into one eye, the salt stinging as it made contact through the eyelashes. He brushed it away impatiently.

  For such a smart man, he couldn't figure why Thorn thought he was hiding his love affair with Worthington's sister by renting a room at the hotel when he was in town. Every man in town knew where he spent his nights after the sun went down, but he'd been young once, too. Men in love do stupid things, that's why he didn't intend to get involved with a woman ever again. No sir, once was enough for him. He'd learned his lesson the first time about the fairer sex. But that was all water under the bridge and years ago. Now, he was right where he wanted to be, out of the east and away from civilization. Fanny's girls were plenty good enough for him when the mood struck him, and no baggage to worry about. They didn't expect anything from him, and he expected nothing from them. It left him free to pursue his job with no one to worry about.

  He liked it that way.

  He didn't know if Thorn knew it or not, but he was going to have a come to Jesus meeting with Miss Worthington's father one of these days. The recent telegram sitting inside the desk drawer was from Charles Robert Worthington, and he was threatening to come west if someone didn't reply to his missive about his daughter. Her letters to her mother were vague, and Thorn hadn't answered him in months. He wanted to know what was going on out there in that god-forsaken country.

  He had sent a brief reply by telegraph to Mr. Worthington that his children and Thorn were all well and that was it. It wasn't his job to interfere in family relations.

  His duty—as far as he saw it—was done.

  Inside the cell, Thorn was going through the pockets of the man they had spread eagled on the wooden floor of the cell. The man must have put in some hard riding to get to Potluck because the stench of stale body odor and sweaty clothes was enough to gag him. Not to mention the smell of blood and death. His body was already starting to bloat in the heat. Rifling through the pockets of the man's vest hadn't produced anything other than an expensive pocket watch and a mostly empty packet of rolled cigars with a few matches. The bandana around his neck was soaked with blood, the edges dried and heavily clotted. It was impossible to see the color of his eyes because they were wide open and coated in the same blood, but the face didn't look familiar to Thorn. The tan colored Stetson was expensive, though, and the leather vest well cut. So were the boots. Whoever he was, the man had good taste.

  "Has anyone searched him before this?" asked Thorn, looking up at Boxcar.

  Boxcar shrugged. "The sheriff said Charlie put the man in the cell before he took him over to Doc's, but I haven't talked to Charlie yet. He didn't think Charlie had time to search him."

  Thorn grunted as he pulled off the dead man's boots. There was a sharp knife tucked inside the slot on the left boot, and Thorn laid it aside. There wasn't anything in the boots or inside the socks, either, and he tossed them aside. "I guess Frank will have something to sell to pay for the coffin, anyway," he remarked, standing up.

  Boxcar was fiddling with the hat, a frown on his handsome features. "I think there might be something under this silk edging," he said, running his finger over the band around the hat. Finally finding a small opening, he reached in and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it up triumphantly. "Looks like he hid something."

  Thorn reached for the paper, and Boxcar released it, tossing the Stetson aside. He read over Thorn's shoulder as he opened the paper. The Heart of Mary was written on it. That was it.

  Boxcar grunted and took the paper from Thorn, reading it again, as if he hadn't caught it the first time. "The Heart of Mary, that sounds familiar, somehow."

  "What's that?" yelled Sheriff Holden from his desk. "What did you say?"

  Boxcar grinned. "He must have really good h
earing."

  They walked back into the office and handed the slip of paper to Sheriff Holden. "Does this mean anything to you?" asked Thorn.

  Sheriff Holden quickly scanned the paper and nodded. "The Heart of Mary is a heart shaped ruby. It was set in a statue of Mary in the Mission San Xavier Del Arc down south of Tucson. Back in 1855, after the Gladsen purchase made that mission part of Arizona and under United States property, a Father Tobias Benedict came over from England to work for the Santa Fe Diocese to rebuild it. He brought that ruby with him and had it put into a statue of Mary. It was to go to the Santa Fe Diocese of the Catholic Church after he was gone because he never planned to marry or have children. But when the Apache attacked and burned parts of the mission, three years later, the statue was destroyed and the ruby reported missing. They've been looking for it ever since." He handed the paper back to Thorn.

  Thorn rubbed his chin speculatively. "How much is it worth, do you know?"

  "Last count I had, it was over half a million dollars," replied Holden heavily. "A lot of money to be lying in some savage camp somewhere or looped around some squaw's neck as a cheap bauble."

  "Why would anyone put something that valuable into a statue in the middle of a savage and virtually lawless territory?" asked Boxcar. "Sounds like he was begging to be robbed!"

  Holden dropped his good leg back to the floor so he could lean forward in his chair. "I've talked to men from the Diocese a couple of times over the last fifteen years since I've been sheriff here, and they say it wasn't common knowledge. Only Father Benedict and the Diocese knew it was a real ruby. Father Benedict just wanted to do something special with a family heirloom, and the best he could come up with was to gift it to his life's work, the church. Of course, I don't expect he figured on being killed like that, but these are untamed lands and the Indians don't want to stay on their reservations, especially Geronimo. They think it was Geronimo that attacked the mission."

  "Can you blame him?" retorted Thorn. "That property the mission sits on was supposed to be Indian reservation until the government decided to move them further north after Cochise died. They barely put Geronimo on the San Carlos reservation a couple of years ago. Our luck, he'll probably escape again."