She winced at the sight of the tooth, sympathy flooding through her. “At least it wasn’t one of your front teeth. Wouldn’t have wanted them to ruin your perfect smile.”
“I can’t tell if you are picking on me right now or not.” Peter laughed. “I guess I’ll choose to take it as a compliment.”
“That’s good because it was a compliment. Why would you think I was trying to insult you?” Melanie asked, reaching across the desk and poking the back of his hand playfully. “Just because Johnny was hurling insults at you doesn’t mean I feel like joining him.”
“I appreciate that. I would hate to feel like people were ganging up on me today,” Peter shot back, grinning from ear to ear. “Especially you.”
Melanie blushed beet red from the sudden change of tone in Peter’s voice, doing her best to try to change the subject. “Alright, time to spill. You seem to care deeply for Darwin and already act like a father figure to him, so why don’t you take the next step? Why not just adopt him as your own and cut out the middleman? I’m sure Darwin would be ecstatic to be able to live with you.”
“It isn’t quite as easy as all that, Melanie. I’ve never seen myself as the kind of man who would ever be able to settle down and raise a family. I lived the earlier part of my years questioning if each day would be the day that someone finally managed to kill me. I made enemies from countless states all over this country, and we saw today that I have men who wish to be rid of me even here in good ol’ Santa Fe. What fairness would it be to my spouse to have to live every day worrying about whether or not her husband was going to come home?”
“It wouldn’t be easy, but I feel like you could make it happen,” Melanie offered encouragingly. “You’ve already done half of the work. Darwin looks up to you and takes your advice, which is more than most other townsfolk have a claim to. I think that if you gave it a chance, you’d be able to surprise yourself. You just need to find someone who understands the responsibilities of your job and can handle them with you.”
“A single man like me can’t be raising a boy in any manner that isn’t going to leave that person irreparably scarred. I don’t know the first thing about being a parent, and some of the things that I yell at Darwin aren’t exactly endearing. I would need someone else there with me to keep me in line and play the good guy, and there are very few people in this world I would even consider for that position,” Peter said softly, his eyes growing distant as he looked at Darwin.
“What about me? I don’t think we make that bad of a team. I could offer you assistance and advice from time to time as you needed it. I’m not sure I could commit to anything more than that right now, no matter what my personal feelings might be. Whatever they might be,” Melanie added quietly. “But at the very least I could help keep an eye on him for you and offer you pointers.”
He gave her a long, lingering look for a while. Melanie almost wished for a moment that Peter would just come out and ask her to act like a mother to Darwin, but what she really would have liked would be to hear him admit if he had any feelings for her. She already noticed the tension that seemed to hang in the air between them, and she was guilty of shooting glances at him when he wasn’t looking. The two of them were so close to a breakthrough, Melanie could feel it. He had slid his chair around the side of his desk, so they were sitting closer to one another, his hand moving to gently take hers in his.
“Melanie, I will try my best to say this without sounding like a complete fool, but I make no promises. I’ve never been the kind of man that you could call romantic. I’m not one of those fellas who oils back his hair and buys bouquets of flowers to win his woman’s fancy, nor am I the kind of person who enjoys making idle chatter. I have found in my lifetime that sometimes the best feeling in the world is sitting silently with someone you care about, merely enjoying their presence and knowing that they are enjoying yours in return,” he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
“I don’t know, that sounds pretty romantic to me,” Melanie breathed quietly, her heartbeat starting to speed up as she realized that Peter had leaned closer to her now. His face was mere inches from her own. “I don’t think it is such a bad thing to want to enjoy peace and quiet from time to time.”
“Melanie, there’s something I’ve been wanting to give you for a while now,” Peter admitted, his hand now completely enveloping hers. “Something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to and have finally steeled my resolve for.”
“What is it?” she whispered, her throat and mouth suddenly dry. She knew what was going to happen even before she felt Peter’s hand on her chin tilting her head upwards and his lips pressing against her own. It was a soft and questioning kiss, the kind you give when testing the waters. Melanie was caught off guard by the sudden act but didn’t try to pull away, a part of her having yearned for something like this to happen for a long while now. The ruggedly handsome sheriff before her had proven himself to her quite a few times now, hadn’t he?
She felt herself press her lips back against his, wanting to deepen the kiss but feeling reservations about it at the same time. His kiss felt nice, but hadn’t her whole reason for coming to Santa Fe been to escape from a relationship?
Peter was nothing like Edward, though. She had no doubt in her mind that Peter would treat her infinitely better than Edward would ever have, not to mention he wouldn’t try and court other women behind her back.
Peter still didn’t know about Edward, and she doubted that his opinion of her would be improved knowing that she had run away from a prospective lover before. Her eyes slowly fell to the brass star pinned to his chest, a fresh wash of sadness rushing through her and causing her to pull away from the kiss.
Who was she kidding? The sting of loving a lawman was still too great for her. She felt tears begin to burn at the corners of her eyes, silently hating herself for not being able to just listen to her feelings. She pulled away from Peter, her hand slipping free from his as she rose to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Peter, but I can’t do this right now. I have to get going.”
“Going?” Peter sounded confused as he rose to his feet as well, everything about his body language telling her that he didn’t want her to go. “But I thought that maybe you and I could spend more time together. Get to know each other better.”
“Oh, Peter,” Melanie breathed, tears dripping slowly down her face. “I only wish that things could be that simple for us. I wish I knew how to explain to you what I’m feeling, but I don’t. I just know that I can’t be here with you right now.”
The look of hurt on Peter’s face was almost enough to shatter her right there. Everything about how their feelings were forming for one another felt so right, yet she couldn’t cast aside her reservations no matter how hard she tried.
“I’m truly sorry, Peter,” she repeated, turning on her heel and dashing out of the door of the station before Peter could say another word, leaving her half-eaten dinner behind. She didn’t even bother to try and stop the stream of tears that began to flow. She did her best to keep her sobs silent to prevent drawing attention to herself, beginning the long walk back to the Brough’s homestead.
Chapter 26
It wasn’t hard for him to realize that something had changed between them that night, but he’d gotten no chance to follow up on it. When he tried to see her at the school, he was surprised to find Iris there instead. Upon asking her about it, he was informed that Melanie had apparently taken ill and was not feeling up to venturing out of the house.
When Peter tried to visit Melanie at the Brough’s home, however, he found that John served as the obstacle to him seeing Melanie this time. “Iris said she isn’t feeling well and to let her rest, and I’m afraid that includes everyone. I will be sure to tell her that you came by to send her your regards and to wish her well, and when she is feeling better, I’m sure she’ll seek you out on her own.”
With John busy having to look after the chores on the farm, Peter had no choice but to return to the jailhou
se. He ignored Chris as his deputy tried to make cheerful chatter with him and simply made his way over to his desk, where a large stack of paperwork was sitting.
“I haven’t seen Melanie for a while,” Chris said, doing his best to sound casual. “I am surprised she hasn’t been stopping by to visit you every other day since you managed to take down Johnny Carrington. Did the two of you fight or something?”
“Of course not. Do not be ridiculous,” Peter snapped shortly. “I guess she is feeling ill and has been keeping herself at home. She’ll come to see us once she is feeling better, assuming she wants to.”
“Woah, easy there. I was just asking a simple question,” Chris huffed. “No need to bite my head off.”
“Chris, I have a bunch of paperwork that needs to be completed. I don’t have time to sit here and flap gums with you. If you don’t have something pertaining to a case, I ask you to leave me to work in peace. I’m busy,” Peter finished irritably.
Chris looked like he wanted to say something, but he refrained. Instead, the young deputy grabbed his hat from where it was hanging on the nearby hat stand and placed it on top of his head. “I think I am going to go ahead and take a walk around town. You know, patrol the place for any suspicious characters. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
Peter hadn’t meant to get so short with Chris, and he couldn’t understand why he was in such a bad mood. Surely, he should have been used to Melanie ignoring him from their earlier days together, but maybe that was half the issue in itself. No matter how hesitant and chaste it had been, he had felt Melanie returning his kiss the night before. No matter how much they might have butted heads, that kiss had told him for the first time what he had so desperately wanted to know. That Melanie had feelings inside of her that matched his own.
That was why it was all the more confusing to him that she had suddenly cut things off. He hadn’t meant to come on so strong, and he still didn’t know what had possessed him to lean forward and brazenly kiss her the way he had. Still, he had liked the feeling of her soft and slightly dry lips against his own. He could still feel his lips tingling faintly from it, the smell of her perfume suddenly tickling at his nose.
He looked up from his paperwork, hoping to see Melanie standing there. Instead, he found Darwin looking at him with a worried expression on his face. “Iris said that Melanie isn’t feeling well and isn’t allowing visitors. Is that true?”
“It was true a few hours ago when I tried to go over to talk to her,” Peter replied, setting the slip of paper he’d been reading from back down onto the sizable pile in front of him. “Unless you’ve heard something different since then, it would be safe to assume that is still in effect.”
“You didn’t do anything to her, did you?” Darwin asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion at Peter. “The last time I saw her was when we headed back to the station, so that means you were one of the last people to see her.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Peter snarled, slamming his hands down on the top of his desk as he rose to his feet. “I don’t know what has gotten into that woman, but I am not going to sit here and be treated like it is my fault. If she is sick, then it's probably from all the stress that you’ve put her through recently.”
Darwin shrank away from him, causing Peter to be flooded with guilt immediately. “Darwin, I’m sorry. I will tell you what, though. Why don’t you come along with me on my rounds today? I’ll let you help me oversee some of the tasks that I need to check off the list.”
“That sounds fine,” Darwin replied softly. “If you’ll have me along.”
Peter nodded, doing his best to muster a smile for the boy. “We’ll also need to take a wagon over to the next town to pick up some spare supplies they have for us at their town jail, so we can take this opportunity to help you work on your driving.”
“Do you mean it, Sheriff? Can I really drive the wagon today?” Darwin’s face had lit up with a wide grin, eyes shining with joy at the prospect.
“I’m serious, my boy. If you can prove to me that you can do it somewhat reliably, I might even entertain the idea of you doing more errands like this for me. That is, if you prove to me that you are a man capable of handling things by himself,” Peter replied, grateful that he had managed to temporarily distract the boy from thoughts of Melanie. It wouldn’t have helped his mood much to have Darwin constantly moping around or bringing her up, which would have only served to remind Peter of his own conflicting feelings.
Peter and Darwin had spent the rest of that afternoon walking around town, helping to tick off some of the things on Peter’s to-do list. They stopped for lunch at the town eatery, treating themselves to a couple of thick slices of steak pie. The combination of spices that had been used to make it was one that he had never thought to use, but he could definitely see himself eating more in the future. In slightly higher spirits now that his stomach was full, Darwin and Peter posted up outside of the train station.
Peter had been asked to inspect the cargo of one of the incoming trains by an anonymous citizen who suspected that stolen goods were being transported on it. A large number of munitions had recently gone missing from one of the nearby military supply wagons a few weeks back, and it was believed they’d be making their way here. Peter assumed that the stolen goods were either designated for a private buyer or were going to be put to use for the nefarious purposes of the robbers themselves. Either way, it spelled possible trouble for him, and he didn’t see the harm in investigating just in case there turned out to be something to the anonymous tip.
While sitting outside of the station, Peter heard the sound of a carriage trundling toward him. He turned his head to the right, catching sight of the dust that was being kicked up in its wake. There was a black raven painted on the door of the carriage on each side, a family crest no doubt, albeit one that Peter didn’t recognize. Whoever it was, they certainly weren’t from around these parts. The door pushed open to reveal a blond-haired gentleman with blue eyes that reminded Peter of the frozen-over lakes of his youth. There was nothing warm in the man’s gaze, no matter what the smile on his face would have him believe.
“You look like a knowledgeable man,” the man said, offering his gloved hand. “My name is Edward Brighton. I have come here looking for someone and was hoping that you might be able to assist me in finding her. I’ve gone through a good amount of trouble to come here to collect her, you see. If you could tell me where Melanie Thompson is, I will be on my way and allow you to return to your business,” the blond-haired man said in a short, clipped manner.
“What is your business with Melanie Thompson?” Peter asked, doing his best to keep his voice neutral. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable just giving out her location to some random stranger.”
“Ah, with all due respect, we are far from strangers. In fact, you could say that the two of us were prepared to become quite close. I am Melanie’s betrothed; we were due to marry before she decided to randomly take this excursion out here, and now that I’ve managed to find her, I’ve come to ask her to return home with me,” he replied, his words causing Peter’s heart to sink slowly in his chest.
“Her betrothed?” Peter asked, feeling as though someone had just knocked all the air right out of his lungs.
“That is right, sir. I’m glad to see you are not slow on the uptake. Now, if you would please tell me where she is? I am very much eager to be reunited with her,” the man said, smiling expectantly at Peter.
“Follow the main road through town until you reach the outskirts, then follow the leftmost road for five miles until you come across a house with a chicken coop out in the front yard. You’ll find her there,” Peter replied numbly, doing his best to ignore the pain in his chest. Was what this man said true?
“Thank you so much for the help, sir. I’ve given you my name, but I don’t believe I caught yours,” Edward said politely. “I find myself very curious to know.”
“I’m Peter Matherson, the sheriff around these parts,” P
eter answered, doing his best to keep his tone polite.
“Well, thank you for your help, Sheriff. Perhaps we will see more of one another in the coming days,” Edward said, tipping his hat in farewell before calling out to his driver and giving him the instructions he’d received. The carriage soon sprang into motion once more, careening out of sight as it kicked up a cloud of dust that forced Peter to cover his eyes.
“Are you okay, Sheriff? You look as pale as a sheet all of a sudden,” Darwin asked, peering over at him with concern. “Who was that man?”
“I don’t know, Darwin. He said his name was Edward and that he was Melanie’s fiancé. You were here with me, so you had to have heard him say it,” Peter replied brusquely. “He is the man that Melanie is set to marry.”
Turning back toward the train station as the train’s whistle sounded in the distance, Peter had never been more grateful for a distraction in his entire life. The search would help to temporarily divert him from the feeling of his heart slowly breaking in his chest.
A Bride to Melt the Sheriff’s Iron Heart Page 14
