by Linda Broday
Keith’s mood lightened a smidge. At least she’d done right by the old man.
She tossed him a quick glance, like she feared him. “The squatter thought he could outsmart Chief Dee, being the old man was a drunkard. But in my courtroom, the Chief’s bad habit was no substitute for justice.”
He raised his eyebrows while a grudging respect started to hum in his veins. Looking back, the previous circuit judge had always held the Chief’s feistiness against him. Keith almost wanted to shake her hand.
“Too bad he didn’t have the chance to enjoy your brave verdict, though.”
“Yes. Sad.” This time her gaze didn’t waver. He had to shake his head or get lost in the blue mist.
“The Mud Puddle’s played out,” he said quick, changing the subject. “Chief never got more than a handful of silver smelted off his diggings.” But then it hit him again, her disguise. Her lies. “But where is the true judge?”
“He’s dead. And by natural causes.” Now, she stared at him, full bore. Looked somehow remarkable, even tied to a bedstead. “I will clear my conscience and tell you the truth.”
Just then, a gust beyond all gusts grabbed the little shanty and shook it like an angry giant’s fist.
“Storm got here. So now you’re stuck here with me. You best get Cinch stabled in my shed.”
“Your shed?” Thoughts of Chief Dee raced inside Keith’s head.
“Sheriff, it was an honest transfer of property.” Those flower eyes again…
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “My old friend would never give his life’s work to a woman. Not after Safira ran off after emptyin’ his bankroll. So let’s have it. What are you hiding?” He pushed the gun harder into her face.
Snow pounded wild and wet against the oiled paper windows.
“Take care of Cinch. Then I’ll explain.”
His forehead tightened. Ire sparked again. Man, woman, impostor. Whatever good she’d done Chief Dee, no matter her concerns for his horse, she had set free the killer Moosejaw Boyle and disavowed an honest lady like Miz Borchers.
And now, he was stuck with her until the storm blew over. She had him there, and despite everything, his shaft hardened. She was damn lovely, damn desirable. Even Chief Dee and him together wouldn’t have dared the trail back to Red Cliff in a blinding storm at dull dark.
And he admitted it. Besides the Chief, she’d judged plenty of cases fair and square. Most of them, truth was.
Well, all of ’em, except Moosejaw.
Now, here he was, alone with a woman…
A species he’d sworn to protect. He lowered his gun. “Get going with your information then.”
“Please tend your horse. A true man would do that and not fret about me. You’ve seen to it I won’t be going anywhere.”
Keith started. She used her judge tone and he found himself listening. Picking up her white shirt from the floor—true as Slim Billy had accused, it was stuffed with padding. Well, the long sleeves would make a good rope to tie up her long, white legs. But…
“I’m really not going anywhere, Sheriff.”
No, she wasn’t. But neither was he. “Well, I am that, a true man. More than I can say for you.” He stalked out. And the storm outside just about beat him up.
Chattering lips murmured love words to Cinch…words a normal man might use on his woman. Keith shoved the fake female judge from his mind and settled his horse in the shed, not at all remorseful at using the supplies the woman kept at hand. The two horses whickered at each other friendly-like, unlike their masters.
Mistress. Keith bit back the word as he headed back into the shanty. Damn, hard to admit, but the faker had done a livable job on a place once too ramshackle to be believed.
The wind all but tossed him inside on his rear.
“Tell me. Everything.” He pulled a blanket away from her face. That face…damn, he had to harden his heart. The blue blossom eyes, the pretty nose. The pink lips not hidden by fake whiskers. Everything merged into a thing of beauty.
Damn kissable beauty.
Her soft brown hair, not long but long enough, fanned out across a white pillow. He curled fingers that ached to comb through it. Stepped, sank into a chair made from a stump with elk antlers for arms.
“Badge—Henry Batchelor Audiss is…was my twin brother.”
Twin brother? Keith’s cheek twisted. A hearty bond he respected, but he firmed his words anyway. “The man hired to do the job.”
The fine brown hair trickled across the pillow like spilled coffee. “And a man who apprenticed me in the law, as well as he could.”
“How’s that?”
“Although I graduated with a full degree, no law firm would touch me. But I was good. I am good.” The voice soured, then stopped.
“Go on.” He leaned close to jab her cheek with his gun again. Almost felt her softness through the metal. Felt bad doing it, so he pocketed the thing. “Just who are you?”
“Henrietta Barbara Audiss, Esquire. Folks have always called me Barbara. Badge…called me Babby.”
The tenderness in her tone melted Keith’s mood, and he all but warmed up through and through. But it was just the puny stove shoving out decent heat. Wasn’t it?
“So, what happened to this Henry Batchelor Audiss?” His voice mocked, and he didn’t quite like the sound.
She rustled, restless, amidst the blankets. The sound quickened his blood, much as he tried to slow it again. A naked woman wrestling with blankets just did things to a man.
“He died. A sudden infection, and his kidneys failed. Western Nebraska. A fine country doctor had no remedy, and Badge died after about three days.” She swallowed so hard Keith heard. “We had headed out to Colorado together, soon as he accepted the judgeship. He thought the West might offer me a chance nobody back home ever would.”
“So you took his place?” Keith couldn’t decide whether to admire her or haul her to jail.
“No. I mean yes. But it was his idea as he lay dying. And a deathbed promise is a vow I couldn’t break, Sheriff.”
The honor in her voice, keeping a deathbed vow come hell or high water, touched him deep down. He understood, he surely did. Honor was a big thing to a man, a woman, too. He’d seen a man who couldn’t swim die saving a foe’s drowning child. A woman lifting an upturned wagon from a suffering horse, no matter her losing her hand. A man giving his name to a good woman carrying a babe not his. Yes, he knew honor. Had yet to live it himself.
Until now.
Patty Mae still screamed inside his head. She’d told him the truth. It’s not what you think, Keith, my love.
But he’d hadn’t believed her. Called off the vows. Grabbed his ring from her finger.
She’d left Red Cliff in disgrace. Later, when Keith had found out the truth, he’d hated himself. Forced himself to change his hard mind.
And since, he’d believed women honorable, truthful. Willing to give them every benefit of any doubt.
Except this one wasn’t any of those things. She’d lied and deceived the folks of Red Cliff, of Leadville, of Eagle County as well as the entire judicial system of the state of Colorado.
And Keith Rakestraw had vowed to uphold the law.
Confusion rumbled in his belly. He stood up, turned his back. Saw how his rage to get inside the shanty had torn loose the door hinges. Some metal, others old leather soles.
“I spent a good effort getting the door winter-worthy,” her dry voice came from the bed. “You ought to watch your wrath.”
“You ought to watch your bad habits, too.” He turned to face her, saw her eyes bigger than blue plates, helpless, hopeless. And all alone, bearing grief of a brother whose illness had no remedy.
A twin, yet.
But he had no remedy to offer. Keith was, after all, the law, and she knew it. She’d broken it. He had to turn her in.
“I know you’ll have to arrest me. I just…” She lowered her head. “I am a good judge, Sheriff Rakestraw. I’m a good lawyer. All my verdicts
will be dismissed. So many miscreants will go free…”
He wasn’t sure what her big word meant but reckoned it was thugs like Moosejaw Boyle. The many whose eyewitnesses hadn’t been blind. Whose fates she’d sealed with honor and knowledge.
Could he be the one to unseal ’em? Should he? His mind churned. She’d be fully sanctioned to practice the law had she been a man. Then the wind hammered again.
Ah, hell. He’d think those thoughts another day.
“You got any tools at hand, Miz Barbara?” It seemed polite to call her so, rather than some masculine insult. After all, they were stuck together. “I can tighten this jamb. And I’ll turn my back. You get yourself dressed. Then…I got some provisions to put together for supper.”
“All right.” Her blue gaze met his, with a shaky smile. “And I’ve a fine fresh loaf of bread from the hotel.”
Chapter Five
He’d used her name. Her female name! Something in his face touched her, relieved her. So had the gentling in his voice, the invitation to supper. Her heart started to beat at a normal rate. Well, when it wasn’t pittering at his handsomeness, that is. While he repaired the damage he’d made, she calmed herself and dug in her bags.
The first dress she pulled out, by chance—or were there any chances?—the loveliest of her winter gowns, a gift from Aunt Hetty three Christmases past. Aunt Hetty, her namesake, spinster and suffragist who, nonetheless, knew how to dress and impress.
Against Barbara’s skin, the chemise soothed. Under the silk, her heart lightened. The plaid gown’s purple and dark green brightened her mood, especially its easy front opening. She had no need to seek anybody’s aid. Heat—and not from the stove—drenched her, as she imagined the sheriff’s hands on her back, buttoning her up. She sighed.
It would probably be a bit much to attach the chignon, but the silk slippers…under no circumstances would she brave Badge’s boots before she had to. No fancy earbobs, but a potion for her raw skin, and cologne to help rid the stench of cigar.
He turned to her just in time. “Sorry.” He gestured toward her face. “The whiskers and all of that. Reckon you’re right. I mean, I best watch my wrath. But—”
She trod the rough-hewn floor to his side, almost eager to take his hand. Almost eager to agree with him. “No, you were startled. Far as you knew, I was breaking and entering. I’ll heal just fine. It’s a cream made from aloe and geraniums.”
“Smells fine. Door’s tight now. Soon’s we eat, I’ll bed up in the shed.”
“No, no.” Something else bustled in Barbara’s heart now, beyond hospitality. Beyond normal humanity. She’d loved a man once, in all the ways a woman does. Was it all starting up again with this angry, magnificent sheriff? If she was soon to spend her life in jail, why not? “You couldn’t. With two horses and all the tack and hay bales, there’s no room. You’d sleep underfoot. In the muck. You can…settle in by the stove.”
His eyebrows raised to wrinkle his forehead like crushed paper. “I don’t know.”
“I do know.”
“Well, if you’re certain.” He seemed shy. “It’s not quite proper.”
Barbara laughed with irony, not amusement. “I’ve been a fraud for two years, Sheriff. No one knows but you, but nothing much is left of my reputation once I’m discovered by the rest.”
His grin was crooked. “I’ll get my bedroll.”
The bed was big enough for two, but now was not the time to mention it. Warmth spread all over Barbara’s body beneath the woolen gown. Oh, dear Aunt Hetty, who’d long claimed women were equal to men in all ways and society’s misfortune not to accept it. She’d proclaimed a woman’s right to love a man without all the trappings of marriage and child-raising. She’d had men without weddings and so skillfully done, she’d remained respectable her whole life long.
Barbara swallowed hard, reached for Chief Dee’s two battered tin plates, sliced the bread. Brought out jars of honey and chokecherry jam. Pickles, and the nut-raisin mix.
The sheriff chipped at cans with his Bowie, then set a couple of little pans to heat on the stove. Whiffs of coffee and some kind of meat floated on the hot air, and her stomach burbled. The scene, the scents, were almost sweetly domestic—until his tense back proved he was still unsettled about her. She doused her feelings, quick, when he plunked his gun dead center of the table.
But her heart lightened right away when he stuck it back into his belt.
His knees didn’t fit beneath the chief’s ratty table—two planks nailed to a barrel. While he sat sideways pointing away from her, Barbara’s disappointment burgeoned, and confusion swamped her. Hadn’t she sensed a smidge of interest from him?
She’d damped her emotions but oh…how she’d have loved their knees to meet, to touch, and all for the innocent reason of sharing a meal. She bowed her head to say grace. After hesitating, he did the same.
“Sorry, but I never imagined you one to beseech the Lord,” he said after the Amen, bringing his tin cup of coffee to his moustache. Her false beard had definitely warmed her face; she wondered if his whiskers protected his handsome features from the cold.
But his words, and the doubt in them, sent her spirits plummeting again. To him, she was still the imposter Badge Audiss. Could she ever rise above it?
“Sheriff, I did what I did because I believed it the right thing to do. I truly served justice. My decisions are sound, and all are wrought in the law. Have you ever read Mr. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience?”
He shrugged, flushed. “Not an ignorant fool. Ma’am.”
“I didn’t mean any such thing.” She shook her head, somehow hurt. “I mean I’m fully prepared to face the consequences. But decorum and faith have always guided my life. I pray before all my verdicts. And I never tweak the law. I’m a good judge, Sheriff. A decent person.”
“Might as well call me Keith,” he muttered, not looking at her. “Considering our close quarters. But likely, folks won’t agree. Anyhow, why not tell me over this supper what lets you believe what you do? What let you do what you did?”
“My brother died…”
“I know.” He set down his coffee a bit too hard. “I mean, before all that. What set you on this such unwomanly course?”
She gasped. “What do you consider womanly?”
His big shoulders rippled. “Tending a home, young ones. Being there for her man.” Something shuddered in his voice. Was he shaking off some hurt? A bad memory? A broken heart? The longing to hold him close, to shelter him…she struggled with good sense.
“You sound just like my parents.” That cooled down her warm thoughts.
He grunted. “I sound just like everybody in the world.”
She decided to tell him. Maybe, just maybe his hostility would soften. If not, what had she to lose? She faced prison anyway. “Papa has the largest law firm in Philadelphia. Mama is an educated woman. She attended finishing school in Switzerland. Married well—Papa is a rich man. Mama did all those things you just said.”
Holding a slice of bread dripping honey, Keith stopped it at his mouth. Nodded at her. “So?”
“They wanted the same for me, but I never did. I spent hours in Papa’s office. He indulged me, but never took me seriously. The law made such perfect sense to me. The thought of another useless needlepoint cushion had me screaming. Oh, good gracious.” Barbara shuddered. “Another mindless tea party…”
“Needlepoint and tea parties sound about right, even here in Red Cliff. Ladies like some civilization about ’em.”
With a sigh, she passed him a pickle. “I’ll bet you never asked a lady what she’d rather be doing with her days. With her life.”
That faint flash of pain across his face… “A schoolmarm, maybe. Leastways, she’s working with kids before she has her own.”
Barbara rolled her eyes. “Truly, teaching is an honorable profession. Until the ’marm weds. No school will keep her on.”
He sopped some bread in the canned meat. “She’ll soon have her own bab
e is why.”
At his words, Barbara chewed slow on a pickle of her own. “That may be. But her teaching ability hasn’t been harmed. It may even be enhanced, from being around her own children. As for me, sometimes I’d come up with a defense or tactic Papa had yet to see. I know he was proud of me, but he wanted me to be another Mama. A proper high society woman. It was Great Aunt Hetty, Henrietta for whom I was named, who got me thinking I could do, be, whatever I wanted.”
“A fake judge? A pretty woman in a man’s clothing? Breaking the law he—she’s supposed to uphold?” His handsome lips curled over a mouthful. “Sounds like an irresponsible woman to me.”
Despite his smile, Barbara disregarded his words. He sounded too much like everybody else. Instead, she poured canned milk in the Arbuckle’s he’d boiled up. Strong, dark, like him.
“Matches your hair.” His nonsensical words and twinkling eyes surprised her.
“What?”
“Coffee with that milk in it. Same color as your hair.” His little grin made her breathless. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend your auntie. What else about her?”
“A very independent woman. She set up her money in a trust fund just for me. Fought every politician and millionaire in Illinois to get me accepted into Union College. Washed her hands of my father when he refused to let me into the firm.”
“So you decided to run west?”
Barbara rested her chin in her hands, elbows on the little table. Oh, such bad manners. Keith smiled along with her, but things turned serious fast.
“It was all due to Mama’s favorite cousin. All us kids loved him dearly, called him Uncle Samuel.”
“All us kids? More’n you and Badge?”
“Goodness, yes.” Hadn’t he been listening? Tending children had been Mama’s principal occupation. “Two sisters who followed Mama’s footsteps and married rich influential men. And three other brothers, all members of the firm.”
“My, my. And you left all of them?”
“They left me.” She spoke slowly, her heart reliving every second of the pain. “Disowned me, clear as a bell.”
