Taken by the Cowboy

by Julianne MacLean

She turned and walked to the door, leaving Truman in the bank, leaning against the counter. As soon as the door swung shut behind her, he quickly followed.

  Jessica stood on the boardwalk, waiting for him. "Truman, I know you don't believe a word I've told you about anything, but the truth is, I have secrets, and it’s going to have to stay that way."

  He chuckled with disbelief. “That was about the worst thing you could have said to me. Now I’m obsessed.”

  She stared at him for a moment while her skirt billowed and flapped in the wind. “Please trust me,” she continued. “I've never done anything dishonest or illegal, but there's a reason why I can't tell you these things, at least not yet. I wish you could just leave it be until I’m ready to tell you."

  "Sorry darlin’," he said.

  Jessica tucked her upswept hair behind her ear. “Why not?”

  “Because.” What a damned stupid answer. In a moment of weakness, he said, “Why won’t you just tell me where you’re going after you leave Dodge? In case I want to find you.”

  She scoffed. “Because you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Then tell me why it’s so important for you to leave.”

  For a long time, she struggled with that question, then said simply, “You’d think I was insane." She turned and hurried down the street.

  “But I already think that!” he shouted after her.

  Truman moved to follow, but thank God, he was able to restrain himself. He removed his hat and combed his fingers through his hair.

  * * *

  "Jessica!" Wendy greeted her at the door of her boardinghouse room. "What are you doing here?"

  "I went shopping." Jessica held up a large box on a string. “I like to shop when I’m confused.”

  Wendy stepped aside, and Jessica entered the sunny room.

  "I got my reward money and bought a ready-made dress,” she explained. “Why I bought it, I have no idea. With any luck I’m leaving town soon, and where I’m going, this is very passé." Jessica set the box down on the bed.

  "Can I look at it?"

  "Of course. I'm going to wear it to the circus tonight."

  "You're going?"

  "Yes,” Jessica replied, “and that's why I’m here. I would love for you to join Mr. Maxwell and me."

  Wendy sat down on the bed. "Mr. Maxwell, the solicitor? Goodness, I don't know about that."

  "Oh, please come. I need some female companionship. There's way too much testosterone in this town."

  "Testos..."

  Jessica sat down, too. "It means there are too many men waving their pistols around."

  Wendy nodded gamely. "I think I know exactly what you mean."

  Jessica smiled. "So will you come with us?"

  Wendy crinkled her nose. "I don't think it would be right. You two will be sitting on the west side. Those folks up there on the hill...they think I'm... Well, you must understand."

  "Oh, that’s a load of bull,” Jessica said, waving a hand through the air. “I’ve told Angus you're a fine, upstanding young lady. And you know, where Angus and I come from, just about every girl has waited on tables at some point in her life. Half the waitresses in the summertime are college students."

  "Really?” She frowned skeptically. “That seems odd. Waitresses are going to college?"

  "Yes!"

  Wendy glanced down at the dress folded in the box. "Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  There was a pause. “Well… I suppose," she reluctantly replied.

  Jessica flopped down onto her back next to Wendy. "Great. Now I need to ask you a favor."

  "What is it?"

  She leaned up on an elbow. "Could you come over to Angus’s house early and help me get ready? I haven't got a clue how to fasten this corset by myself."

  Wendy laughed, looking curiously at Jessica. "You don't know how to fasten a corset?"

  Jessica tried to backtrack. "Well, this particular one is complicated. I’ve never worn one quite like it.”

  Wendy sat back. "Sounds interesting. I'll come over to help."

  "Five o'clock?"

  "I'll see you then."

  * * *

  That evening, Wendy helped Jessica dress in her new gown. It was dark red plush velvet, trimmed with satin pleats along the bottom. More satin was draped across the front—from hip to hip—and it cascaded down the back, over a small bustle. The fitted bodice had long sleeves and a buttoned front opening with a high neck. It was like nothing Jessica had ever worn in her life.

  Wendy stood behind her, straightening the pleats and drapery. "He's clever, isn't he?" she asked.

  Jessica presumed she was referring to Mr. Maxwell. "Very."

  Wendy stood behind her, fluffing and poofing. "I don't think I've ever talked to anyone as clever as him. I’m not sure what to say. What if I bore him?"

  "Don't be silly,” Jessica replied. “He's very knowledgeable when it comes to legal matters, but other than that, he's just a regular man. I don't know anything about the law, but we hardly ever talk about that. There are so many other things to talk about."

  "Such as?"

  Jessica hesitated, wondering how, if ever, she would explain the conversations they’d had about daytime talk shows, processed foods, and all the other things Angus missed about the twenty-first century, like airplanes and toilet paper.

  "We talk about the weather," she said ridiculously. "What goes on in town, who's on the front page of The Times and what they did."

  “I can talk about that,” Wendy said. “I read the paper today.”

  “So did Angus. There you go. You’re all set.”

  After fixing each other’s hair, Jessica and Wendy left the house and walked down the hill toward the circus grounds. They met Angus outside the main entrance to the tent.

  “Angus, may I present Wendy Burchell?” Jessica said, introducing them formally.

  “It’s a pleasure Miss Burchell,” Angus replied.

  They smiled warmly at each other, so Jessica decided to enter the tent first and let them get acquainted.

  She stopped just inside to look up at the tall peaks of white canvas. Bleachers lined both sides of the three hundred foot long ring, and both sections were filling quickly. The other side was glutted with cowboys, bartenders, and colorfully dressed women who made their presence known with whoops and hollers.

  Jessica led the way to their seats, high at the top. Looking across the ring, she scanned the crowd for Truman. Her stomach fluttered with nervous anticipation at the mere thought of seeing him, and for the first time she was thankful for the distraction – for if there truly was no way home, letting loose with a man like Truman Wade would be a fine consolation indeed.

  Maybe that’s why she was here, she thought suddenly. Maybe he was her true soul mate, and there were other cosmic forces at work....

  At that moment she spotted him. At the far corner of the tent, he stood leaning against the side of the wooden stands, watching everyone enter and cross in front of him. Jessica grew suddenly warm under her tight corset, flustered by her body's intense reaction to one man in a room full of hundreds.

  Could this possibly be her destiny? she wondered with unquenchable desire. Maybe Angus was right. Maybe all she needed to do was simply surrender to it and accept that this was where she was meant to be.

  Chapter Twelve

  From the far corner of the tent, the ringmaster entered and turned a slow circle until the audience hushed. "Welcome! To Ed Roper’s Strictly Moral Circus!"

  On the west side the crowd cheered, whistled and whooped. On the east side, they applauded politely.

  The entertainment began with elephants circling the ring, followed by giraffes. A woman named Marla Peru walked blindfolded on a tight wire, one hundred feet above the ground. Another was hurled three hundred feet across the tent by what they called Ancient Rome's War Engine Catapult. She emerged unharmed, and the crowd cheered, but Jessica couldn't have been more preoccupied than she was by Truman’s pres
ence on the other side of the tent.

  Later, after the circus performers took their bows, Jessica, Wendy and Angus followed the parade down Front Street, where a crowd gathered around a crackling bonfire. A young cowboy filled the night with music from a fiddle, and another cupped his hands around a harmonica and joined in. Soon everyone was dancing and Jessica was interlocking arms with strangers, twirling around, and kicking up her heels.

  Perhaps she could live this life. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.

  A short while later she stepped up onto the boardwalk under an overhang to watch Wendy and Angus, who were holding hands as they danced a jig. Jessica smiled and clapped her hands.

  "Enjoying yourself, Junebug?"

  Jessica started at the sound of Truman’s quiet, sultry voice behind her. He was leaning against a wall in the shadows with a thumb hooked into his gun belt, his black hat dipped low over his forehead.

  "Hi," she casually said, while her body erupted with heat. She wondered how long he had been standing there and if he had been watching her the entire time.

  Truman’s spurs clinked softly as he moved to stand beside her. "You look pretty tonight."

  His gaze slid down the length of her body, and she felt it like a soft caress over her skin.

  “Thank you.”

  “Is that a new dress?”

  “Yes, I bought it with some of the reward money.”

  He glanced at her approvingly. “I’d call that money well spent.”

  She warmed at the compliment. Then a waltz began.

  While cowboys took partners and the merchants danced with their wives, she gazed up at the full moon against the black velvet sky.

  "Will you dance with me?" Truman asked, his voice close to her ear.

  Gooseflesh tingled deliciously over her body. "I’d love to."

  Did he know what she was feeling? Could he see what he did to her?

  His hand came to rest on the small of her back, and a pleasurable shiver of awareness rippled up and down her spine as he escorted her off the boardwalk to the center of the crowd.

  He placed one hand on her waist and held the other out to the side. She stepped into the waltz and was careful to keep her elbows high, which helped to maintain a safe and proper distance between them, while their eyes remained locked tightly together.

  Jessica was vaguely aware of the townsfolk taking notice – for Truman was their trusted, single sheriff, and she was a single woman, a stranger in town, not to mention a possible outlaw.

  None of that mattered, however, for her body was reeling from the rapture of being held in his arms and losing herself in his eyes.

  Slowly, inch by inch, he closed the distance between them until their bodies touched and their hearts throbbed together. The sensation ignited something desperate within her, and she longed for so much more. She wanted to dash off into the shadows and kiss him passionately until he whisked her back to his bed and made love to her until dawn.

  When the waltz ended, they did not let go until a polka began.

  Truman let go first, and Jessica stepped back, feeling half-dazed with giddy, overpowering desire. They faced each other without speaking a word, while the townsfolk danced around them. Someone bumped Jessica's shoulder.

  "Come and sit with me," Truman said.

  He closed his hand over hers and led her toward a long wooden bench on the boardwalk. People wandered past them, laughing and talking, some staggering, but Jessica was aware of little else but Truman's sleekly muscled leg touching hers in the most innocent way.

  "I take it you haven't heard from Lou's gang," he said.

  "No,” she replied. “Do you think I will?"

  "Hard to say."

  "It's been four days."

  "Yeah, but don't get too comfortable, Jessica. Men like them are hard to predict."

  A lot of things in her life were hard to predict these days.

  "Don’t look so discouraged,” he said, meeting her eyes. “If they come around again, I'll be here."

  Just then, a shot rang out from the saloon across the street, and some of the women shrieked. Truman jumped clear off the boardwalk. The music and dancing ceased, while everyone in town watched Truman bolt toward the gunshot. He disappeared into the saloon.

  A few minutes later, the saloon doors flapped open and a cowboy came flying out. He tumbled across the boardwalk and down onto the street, where he crouched on his hands and knees, wiping a spot of blood from his mouth.

  The saloon doors swung open again, and three men burst through. They grabbed the cowboy by the collar and hauled him to his knees. Truman strolled out of the saloon, twirled his revolver around his index finger and dropped it into his holster. The men held the cowboy until Truman thanked them. He took the drunken troublemaker by the arm and dragged him down the street toward the jailhouse.

  "He's quite a sheriff, isn't he?" Angus said, stepping onto the boardwalk with Wendy on his arm.

  "He certainly is," Jessica replied. She watched Truman until he disappeared from sight. “Are you having a good time?" she asked Angus and Wendy.

  "We sure are.” Wendy patted Angus on the belly. “This one’s a real gentleman.”

  "Would you like to dance again?" he asked.

  Wendy glanced at Jessica. "Maybe we shouldn't leave her by herself."

  "I'll be fine.” Jessica waved a glib hand. “Really. Go have fun."

  Wendy and Angus returned to the dancing, while Jessica stood and watched.

  Later, she spotted Truman on the other side of the street, talking to a woman in a low-cut lacy gown. She wore dark red lipstick and her hair was the color of a ripe tomato.

  He nodded and laughed at something. Then he removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair while the woman smiled and fingered his badge.

  Any fool could see she was flirting with him, and in this day and age, she could only be one type of woman—the kind who earned her living on her back counting ceiling tiles.

  Truman glanced around, as if to make sure no one was watching. Jessica took a quick step back behind a mule. When she peered out again, Truman was reaching into his pocket. He withdrew some money and placed it in the woman's hand. She shoved the payment into her deep cleavage, then wiggled her hips in the other direction.

  "What was that?" Jessica whispered.

  She didn’t want to feel jealous without knowing what it was all about, but how could she help it? The mere thought of Truman with a woman like that made her feel nauseous.

  Deciding it was time to go home, Jessica returned to the dance to find Angus. She stopped in the middle of the crowd and looked all around.

  Before long, unfamiliar faces glared at her, winking and smiling to reveal missing front teeth. Most of them were drunk and rowdy. Jessica covered her nose with one hand, all at once aware of the smell of cows and pigs and the droppings they left everywhere.

  She suddenly felt very displaced and desperate for her family and home and all the modern conveniences she missed so much. If only she could pick up a phone to call her parents and ask them to come and get her. They’d be here in a heartbeat—if only it were possible.

  A horse bucked as a cowboy tried to mount him, then they galloped past Jessica, swirling up a cloud of dust. Coughing and waving her hand in front of her face, she swung around, her eyes still searching the darkness for Angus or Wendy.

  She looked around for Truman too, but couldn’t find him anywhere. No one seemed to know where he’d gone, but one drunken cowhand offered to escort her into the dance hall to keep her entertained while she waited.

  It was time to go. She'd walk home and wait for Angus on his front porch if she had to, but she no longer felt comfortable at the dance, and wanted to get out of there.

  Swiping at a pesky fly, she walked through the crowd and kept her eyes lowered. The music grew distant as she walked on, and soon she was far enough away from the business district that she could hear the crickets again.

  Blinking her weary eyes, Jessica stopp
ed and looked up at the sky. It was a comfort to think that in some other dimension, her family could be admiring the same sky and glittering stars.

  Who really knew how this worked? Maybe Jessica was still living her life back home. Maybe she was alive there, everything was normal, and her family had no idea she was living a parallel life in another century.

  As she considered it more, however, she decided that the most likely scenario was that she had died in that car accident, and her family had already buried her. Maybe this was purgatory. Or hell. But why the Wild West of all places? If God really wanted to punish her, He could have put her on The Bachelor.

  She took in a deep breath and wondered if destiny's blueprints were written up there somewhere, and if a doorway back to her own time even existed.

  All at once, a distant clamoring interrupted her thoughts. The ground rumbled beneath her feet. Stampede. She felt a surge of panic.

  Straining to see through the darkness, all she managed to make out were the gloomy shapes of buildings and abandoned wagons. An angry dog barked somewhere down the street.

  Then, from around a corner, they appeared like living shadows.

  Hooves thundered toward her. Dust rose up from the ground. There must have been four, maybe five horses approaching, and Jessica's heart began to race. She felt like she was standing on a boat, rocking back and forth on a series of swells while she tried to keep her footing. Please, let them ride right by. But her prayers were in vain.

  She hurried to the side of the road, but they skidded to a halt in front of her. She backed up and bumped into a white picket fence at the edge of someone's yard. Two of the men dismounted while the others, scowling down at her, remained astride their horses. The tallest man approached.

  He was difficult to make out in the darkness, but Jessica could sense, simply by the manner of his stride, that he was big and strong and he meant her harm.

  "Looks like we found her, boys." His face sagged into a vile frown. "Your sheriff ain't here to protect you now, is he, little darlin'?"

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jessica glared up at the man’s brute size and took in the foul stench of his clothes. She clenched her jaw and demanded, "What do you want?"