Chapter Fourteen
Jessi wondered why John hadn’t kept his word, but at the moment she didn’t care. Being mad at the man gave her something else to think about. In fact being mad at him felt absolutely wonderful.
“Good mornin’, Inga,” Jessi called out. “Why are ye at the cookstove, when ye know I promised to help ye with the meals.”
Inga stopped and stared at her. “Are you the same woman John Reilly carried inside the house last night?”
Jessi sniffed and tossed her head. “As if I’d have anything to do with the man.”
The other woman looked at her and shook her head. “You said you’d marry him. I’d think that would require spending some time in his company.”
“If I have to,” Jessi said. “Then I will, but I won’t make it easy on the man.”
“Did something happen since he took you upstairs last night?”
Jessi snorted. “Promised me he’d be there for me if I needed the thick-headed man.”
Inga wisely waited, while Jessi ranted, “Told me I had nothin’ to fear as long as he was nearby.”
Looking over at Inga, she motioned for the woman to sit. Hesitating, Inga finally did as Jessi bade her. “Wasn’t I the fool to believe him?”
“Would you feel better if you told me what happened?”
Jessi shook her head. “Not in the slightest.” She put the kettle on and placed the largest of Inga’s frying pans on the cookstove to start the bacon.
While she worked, she mumbled beneath her breath about the man she thought she knew, but didn’t. The one she’d agreed to marry.
“I appreciate you helping me, Jessi,” Inga began, “but don’t you think you should be resting?”
“I rested last night.”
“What about your bruises?”
Jessi shrugged. “They’ll fade with time.”
“And your ribs?”
Jessi turned quickly and winced. “They’ll be painin’ me for a while yet. As long as I’m careful, I can still help ye as I promised.” She laid a few strips of bacon in the pan and walked over to where Inga sat slicing the bread she’d baked the day before.
“Yer health is more important. Yer babe is more important.”
“But what about your health?” Inga demanded. “Don’t you care about your own?”
“Of course I do,” Jessi said. “I need time to heal on the outside. The inside might take a bit longer.” She laid her hand on top of Inga’s. “Ye have to listen to what Doc said so ye can bring a beautiful life into the world . . . one ye made with yer green-eyed lawman.”
Inga brushed the crumbs from her hands, and Jessi added, “If I push too hard, I’ll get winded and feel the pain of me ribs. If ye push to hard, ye’ll lose the babe. Do ye really want that?”
Inga’s pale blue eyes welled with tears.
Jessi patted her hand. “Go ahead and cry. Mrs. Reilly always said that a woman who’s carryin’ needs to cry and should.”
The normally stoic boarding house owner was openly weeping when Reilly walked into the kitchen. “Inga!” he called out, rushing over to where Inga sat with her head on the tabletop.
Jessi looked over her shoulder at him and snorted. “Leave the poor woman alone. She’s just gettin’ the fears out, as yer own ma used to say.”
John looked at her as strangely. She asked, “Did the Wee Folk curse me in me sleep? Have I sprouted another head?”
She mumbled a string of curses that had him shaking his head. He declared, “Faith, yer a difficult woman, Jessi Fahy.”
She smiled and nearly had to sniff back the emotion that wanted to flow over at his words. “That’s the nicest thing ye’ve ever said to me.”
Inga dried her tears and sipped from the cup of tea Jessi had placed in front of her. “Thank you, Jessi. I do feel better.”
“Of course ye do. Mrs. Reilly’s never wrong.”
John crossed his arms and glared at Jessi. “What else did me sainted mother have to say about breedin’ women?”
Jessi flushed a bright pink. “Ye shouldn’t be speakin’ to me about such things, John. We’re not married yet.”
“Weren’t you just speakin’ of them with Inga?”
“ ’Tis another thing entirely.” Jessi tossed her head and called him a horse’s arse beneath her breath. She’d feel better if she’d said it out loud, but…
“Did ye just call me an arse?”
Jessi looked over at Inga. The dear woman was smiling at her. “I thought I was being quiet.”
The other woman shook her head at Jessi. “I wasn’t sure I heard the word arse, but I distinctly heard the word horse’s before it.”
Reilly’s face mottled with patches of bright red. “So ye think I’m a horse’s arse? What kind of a wife will ye make if yer callin’ your intended such names?”
Jessi sighed deeply. “A truthful one. If ye think I’m not bothered by yer lies, then ye’d be mistaken, and ye’d best be knowin’ it now before we’re wed.”
His face turned a darker shade of red. Jessi turned the bacon and started to break eggs into a bowl and said, “Is that steam I see comin’ out of yer ears?”
“Jessi Keely Fahy!”
She set the bowl down with a thump and whirled around with her hands on her hips. “Now ye sound like yer sainted mother. A better woman I’ve never known. Ye’ve a terrible temper, John Reilly, and if ye can’t learn to listen to what I have to say and accept it as kindly meant, then ye’d best be askin’ someone else to marry ye.”
Marshal Justiss leaned against the doorway to the porch and took it all in. “Reilly.”
“Bleedin’ buggerin’ eedjit!”
Jessi tossed her braid over her shoulder and turned her back on him. “At last somethin’ we can agree on. Ye are an eedjit!”
Reilly took two steps closer to the woman who’d just taken a strip out of his hide, and then he stopped as reason returned. Why did she have to torment him now? Couldn’t she wait until they were alone? His thoughts dissipated as he realized for the first time since he’d met her again, he thought of her as a woman. Too bad for him, she didn’t want to have anything to do with him right now, because he was thinking the best way to get her to stop cursing him was to kiss the breath out of her.
Before he could take a step closer to her, the marshal said, “I need your help over at the jail.”
Reilly sent one last glare in Jessi’s direction before following Justiss out the door. Hurrying to catch up with him, Reilly said, “I thought ye didn’t want me anywhere near the men ye arrested last night.”
Justiss agreed with him.
Reilly was confused. “Then why do you need me over at the jail?”
“To keep you from placing your big hands around Jessi’s slender throat until she stops taunting you.”
Reilly jerked to a stop. “Then why didn’t you say anything to her?”
Justiss snorted and kept on walking. “Do I appear to be lacking a brain?”
Reilly knew then that Justiss had helped him, whether he wanted to accept it or not. “Would it have bothered Inga?”
“If you strangled Jessi before she finished cooking my breakfast? Yes.”
Reilly matched his steps to the marshal’s. “Now that we’re here, will ye keep me from going inside?” The jail was just two storefronts away.
Justiss eyed him and seemed to be trying to decide. “What do you want to do? The men are behind bars, and Jessi’s safe over at the boarding house.”
“I just want to see them in the full light of day.”
“Why?” The marshal wasn’t going to back down. Reilly should have figured that out before now; he’d known the man for nearly a year.
“Because it’s important to me to know their faces.”
Justiss was about to refuse when Reilly threw down the gauntlet. “What would ye do if it were Inga?”
Justiss’s eyes darkened until Reilly would have sworn they were black, not green, and knew the man understood what Reilly was
suffering when he answered, “You don’t want to know what I’d do.”
“Then let me go with ye.”
“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You check your guns before I let you in the back where they’re locked up.”
“Done.”
Reilly let the marshal enter the building first. When he stepped through the doorway, he was amazed that it looked exactly like the one O’Toole’s gang blew to smithereens nearly a year ago.
“Smythe did a fine job gatherin’ the men and the lumber for yer new jail.”
“It was his way of saying thank you,” Justiss replied.
“Ye saved his skin,” Reilly said, “and the woman he loves.”
“Not before both of them had been shot.”
“Does that prey on yer mind?” Reilly didn’t think such things bothered the marshal.
Justiss nodded, shut the door behind Reilly and held out his hand. “Your gun, Reilly.”
Reilly sighed, but removed the gun from his holster and handed it over. “I don’t suppose ye’d be wantin’ me true weapon of choice, would ye?”
Justiss narrowed his gaze at Reilly and finally gave up. “Hand over whatever you’ve got hidden in your boot.”
“How did ye know it was in me boot?”
“You’re a big man, Reilly, but even I didn’t think you could hide a knife up your—”
“Marshal Justiss!”
He looked up. “Mrs. Peabody,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”
She sniffed and said, “That’s because you weren’t on your guard. I wonder what the townsfolk would say if they knew I’d been able to sneak up on the marshal.”
Reilly counted to three so he wouldn’t open his mouth and say something he’d regret. He’d heard the lies the woman was still trying to spread about Jessi setting the fire and attacking Peterson from behind. “I saw ye sneakin’ in, quiet as a mouse, Mrs. Peabody. If ye’d knocked or called out to the man the way any law-abidin’ citizen would, ye wouldn’t be braggin’ right now.”
Mrs. Peabody tilted her head up and glared at Reilly. “So, I hear you’re marrying the tramp.”
Reilly took a giant step and got right in the woman’s face. She trembled with fear, satisfying him immensely. “You’d be right to be afraid of me, Mrs. Peabody.” Reilly told her. “No one, and I mean no one, speaks that way of me bride.”
To give Mrs. Peabody credit, she didn’t back down. “She’s not your bride yet.” Pushing Reilly out of her way, she walked over to stand right in front of the marshal. “I insist you do something about that woman.”
Justiss looked at the ceiling and started counting. Reilly knew just how he felt. When Justiss reached ten, he looked at Mrs. Peabody. “Which woman? There are quite a few in town.”
Millicent pointed her finger at the marshal. “You know exactly which woman I mean. That foreigner—”
“Mrs. Turner isn’t a foreigner. She’s been in this country for the last five years.”
Mrs. Peabody’s face purpled. Reilly nodded to Justiss, approving of his tactic of angering the woman so she would shout out something she didn’t intend to.
“You know I meant that brawling hoyden Jessi Fahy.”
The way she said Jessi’s name bothered Reilly, but he wisely kept silent.
“Miss Fahy is a guest at Swenson’s,” the marshal said. “And as such—”
Millicent Peabody interrupted, “If you continue to ignore the fact that she knocked that poor man on the back of his head and set his stable on fire, then I’ll have no choice but to wire the governor and ask that you be replaced.”
“I’ll have to ask you to leave, Mrs. Peabody.” Justiss placed his hand on her elbow and guided her to the door. “Unless you have a legitimate complaint, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t interfere with the law.”
“Law?” she shouted as he opened the door and gently pushed her out. “You don’t know anything about the—”
Justiss closed the door on her. “Something’s got to be done about that woman,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve already spoken to her husband, but Peabody doesn’t seem to be able to keep her in line now that Sarah Burnbaum has started obeying my orders.”
“ ’Twas about time someone shut that committee down. They’re nothin’ but a bunch of harpies.”
“On that, we both agree.” Justiss held out his hand.
Reilly obligingly bent down and pulled the knife from his boot.
“You can have it back as soon as you’re ready to leave.”
Reilly nodded and followed behind Justiss down the short hallway to where four men sat in two cells. The men obviously hadn’t seen soap or water in quite some time, but that wasn’t a crime. Abducting and hurting Jessi Fahy was.
“Step back from the bars, boys,” Justiss ordered.
The men grumbled, but seeing the dark look on Reilly’s face, they obliged.
Reilly looked from one man to the next and nodded. Then he asked them to hold out their hands.
“You’ll want to do as he asks, boys.”
The men held out their hands, and Reilly sized them up. He decided the one man the others kept looking to before they obeyed the marshal was probably their leader and the one who’d left the most marks on Jessi.
“Ye made a mistake when ye touched what wasn’t yers,” Reilly ground out. Two men shoved their hands in their pockets and the other two put theirs behind their backs.
“Open yer mouths,” Reilly ordered.
“Now wait just a minute, Marshal—”
Justiss jiggled the ring of keys in his hand. “You can open your mouths, or we could do this another way.” He turned toward Reilly. “Would you like me to open their cells so you can open their mouths for them?”
The foul odor of rotting teeth was the first thing Reilly noticed about the four men. Once he could get past that, he gauged the approximate size of their teeth, remembering clearly the size of the bite marks on Jessi’s inner thighs. Again he thought it might be the same man who’d left the other bruises.
Grabbing a hold of the bars, he leaned as close as they would let him. “I’d be prayin’ that ye spend years behind bars.”
“No judge would sentence us for what we did. She was all alone, asking for—”
Reilly’s hand shot through the bars, caught the bastard by surprise and had him by the throat before Justiss cautioned him.
“Now, Reilly,” Justiss said quietly. “You know you can’t kill him.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t squeeze this bastard’s neck until he starts kickin’.”
“Jessi wouldn’t want you to.”
“Bugger it.” Reilly opened his hand and the man fell to his knees, gasping. “Ye don’t know how close ye were to meetin’ yer Maker.”
The others stepped back while Reilly turned toward Justiss. “Do ye know their names?”
The marshal nodded. “I’ll tell you later.”
“But—” Reilly began.
“Justiss!”
The marshal turned and shouted, “In the back, Turner.”
“What’s he doin’ here?” Reilly demanded.
“Just as a precaution,” Justiss told him. “We haven’t had a full jail since the paint dried.”
Reilly nodded as Turner walked toward them.
Turner took one look at Reilly and shook his head. “Which one?”
“How do ye know it’s only one?”
“It’s usually the leader,” Turner explained. “And being that they’re usually of such sterling moral fiber, they generally don’t want to share, although they might have promised they would.”
He turned toward the cell. “How close am I?” he asked the one still rubbing his throat.
The man grunted.
Turner ignored him. “Inga’s looking fine this morning.”
Justiss smiled. “She slept well last night.”
He turned toward Reilly. “Jessi’s tired.”
“She’s being difficult, too.”
Turner and Justiss laughed. “Then she’s on the mend, Reilly.”
“Seen enough?” Justiss asked Reilly.
“For now.” Reilly turned to go, then stopped, but didn’t turn around. “If by some chance ye let these men go free, they won’t live long enough to hide.”
The sharply indrawn breath and collection of swear words from the cells made him feel much better. “I’ll just be getting me gun and me knife.”
“See you later,” Justiss called out. “Oh, and Reilly?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you see if Mick can bring over the food to the prisoners? I don’t want Inga or Jessi near here.”
“It might be hard to convince Inga to stay away,” Turner said. “She’s been takin’ care of that particular chore for the last few years.”
“That’s why I want you to ask Mick. She’s partial to him.”
Reilly agreed. “I’ll send him over in a couple of hours.”
“But we’re hungry now,” the tallest of the bunch grumbled.
Reilly glared at him, but it was the marshal who spoke. “You must be confusing me with someone who gives a damn.”
Feeling much better than he had since last night, Reilly retrieved his weapons and headed back to Swenson’s. Wanting to test the waters, and wanting to see if Jessi had calmed down, he stood at the bottom of the steps for a few minutes, listening, and was rewarded when he heard Inga speaking.
“Maybe you should just ask him.”
“Are ye out of yer mind?” Jessi protested. “He’d only make up another lie.”
“You don’t know John Reilly like I do,” Inga began, only to be interrupted by Jessi.
“I’ve known him the whole of me life,” Jessi protested. “I can’t speak for what he’s done in the last six years, but I can for the first thirteen, and when himself’s back is to the wall, he’ll be makin’ up any story he can think of to keep from feelin’ the back of his mother’s hand.”
“Now aren’t ye the one who’s tellin’ stories?” Reilly said from where he stood in the doorway.
Jessi whirled around with her hand to her throat. “John!”
Sorry to have put the fearful look on her face, but not for catching her telling tales, Reilly crossed his arms and stared at her. “Ye might want to correct how long ye’ve known me, since yer ciphering is off by a few years.”
The Irish Westerns Boxed Set Page 90
