The Sheriff (Historical Romance)

by Nan Ryan

  Kate put the bills back into the leather pouch, tightened the drawstrings and stuck it under a sofa cushion.

  She turned to the portrait of her aunt Arielle and said, “I know you would never have left me a worthless claim. There has to be gold in the Cavalry Blue.”

  Determined she’d be as optimistic as Chang Li, Kate left the house with the unrepentant Cal right on her heels. Dressed in a work shirt, britches and rubber boots, Kate hummed as she headed for the mine and another hard day’s labor.

  As she trudged through the thick forest and up the rocky hill to the side of the steep mountain where the mine’s entrance was located, she looked to a bright future ahead. One of these days she and Chang Li would find the gold, and when they did, he could bring his family to California. And she could restore the mansion to its former splendor.

  It was just a matter of time.

  The courtship continued.

  The handsome Winn DeLaney was vigilant in his single-minded pursuit of Kate. He made no effort to conceal his growing affection for her, and yet he was ever mindful of her reputation. He knew that she was a refined young lady, so he behaved unfailingly as a consummate gentleman.

  DeLaney delighted in escorting Kate around Fortune. He told her he was the envy of every male in town, and that there was nothing he liked better than showing her off, knowing that everyone was jealous of him.

  Kate believed it was true, because many evenings after they shared a leisurely dinner at one of the hotels, Winn would suggest that they take a stroll through town. When she agreed, he’d hold her hand while they sauntered aimlessly up and down the sidewalks. Winn would nod to passers-by, clearly wanting everyone to know that she was with him, that she was his sweetheart.

  Kate was flattered. And she was almost as eager as he for everyone to know that he was courting her.

  Especially Travis McCloud.

  Anytime they caught sight of the sheriff, Kate made it a point to either cling to Winn’s arm and gaze fondly up at him, or to laugh merrily as though she were having the time of her life.

  And, she reminded herself, she was.

  Winn DeLaney was handsome, sophisticated and charming, and he adored her. She was a lucky woman indeed to have such an entertaining beau. Furthermore, she was glad that Winn’s good-night kisses continued to be restrained. That was as it should be. He would never have kissed her against her will. And when she gave him permission, he didn’t dare kiss her passionately as the arrogant Travis McCloud had done!

  Thank heavens.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening,” Winn said now, at the end of an evening, as they stood outside the mansion in the July moonlight.

  “I had a wonderful time, Winn.”

  “I’m glad, my dear. By the way, have you heard? A traveling Shakespearian troop is coming to town for a week-long engagement at the Bird Cage. Shall we attend?”

  “Oh, yes, absolutely. I wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  Winn smiled, took both her hands in his. “I wouldn’t want you to miss anything you’d like to do, Kate. If there’s anything at all that you…”

  “There is, Winn,” she said, her eyes flashing. “In a couple of weeks, on August 11, there’s to be a big street dance to celebrate the sixth anniversary of gold being discovered here in Fortune.”

  He frowned slightly, slipped his hands up her arms and let them settle on her shoulders. “My dear, surely you don’t mean it. Why, that will be no place for a lady.”

  Kate cocked her head to one side and smiled. “It’s not a saloon or gambling hall, Winn. It’s the street. And it’ll be fun, I know it will. Doc Ledet says everyone will be there, including the handful of miners’ wives that live in Fortune. It will give me the opportunity to meet—”

  Interrupting, he said, “Miners’ wives won’t be the only females present, Kate. Saloon girls and bordello women will turn out, as well.”

  “So?” She lifted her hands, laid them lightly on his chest. “They won’t bother me and I won’t bother them. Please, Winn, say yes.”

  He finally smiled. “I can refuse you nothing.” He drew her closer. “Now, it’s quite late, my sweet. Kiss me good-night.”

  Kate nodded, tilted her face up and closed her eyes. His lips brushed hers tenderly, but only for an instant. And once again she felt nothing.

  “Sleep well, Kate,” Winn whispered against her cheek, carefully keeping his passion in check.

  “And you as well,” she replied.

  “It’s straight to bed for me,” he said, as he touched her hair. Then he was gone.

  Twenty

  Winn DeLaney whistled as he hurried back to town.

  But as soon as he reached the Bonanza Hotel, he yawned sleepily and entered the lobby. Dwayne, the clerk on duty, looked up, saw Winn and reached for his room key.

  Handing it across the counter, Dwayne commented, with a sly grin, “All tuckered out after another evening with that pretty Kate VanNam, Mr. DeLaney?”

  Winn said nothing, just smiled, turned and climbed the stairs. He paused outside the door of his suite. He took a deep breath. He cautiously looked around and, seeing no one in the corridor, reached out and opened the door. A door that he had purposely left unlocked. He quickly stepped inside.

  He immediately smiled with pleasure. Winn DeLaney closed the door and leaned back against it, pleased with what he saw.

  A straight-backed chair that had been turned around to face away from the door was six feet away. And there in the shadowy, lamplit room, a woman sat straddling it. She was smiling at him. She had clear olive skin, ruby-red lips, emerald-green eyes and dark, dark hair that was held off her face with a flashing golden dagger.

  The dagger was her only adornment.

  The woman was naked as she sat astride the chair, her strong thighs widely parted, her heavy breasts looking like succulent melons. She was a sight to arouse any man’s passions. The habitually cool, calculating Winn DeLaney took one look at her and was instantly excited.

  He anxiously came to her, thrust his hands into her lustrous dark hair, yanked her head back, bent and aggressively kissed her. His tongue searched and found fervent answer, a seeking, sucking response that quickly set his heart to hammering. Her lips beneath his were blazing hot, and all logical thought quickly burned away in the sexual heat.

  While her generous mouth devoured his in a kiss he felt down to his toes, the woman’s nimble fingers found the buttons of his shirt and swept it apart. When finally she ended the prolonged kiss, a totally conquered Winn DeLaney sank weakly to his knees before her as if to worship her.

  The woman laughed throatily and sat up straighter so that her naked breasts rested on the chair’s top edge and were fully accessible to him. She arched her back and boldly invited, “See anything you’d like to taste, Mr. DeLaney?”

  “Oh, Melly,” he managed to gasp.

  Again she laughed as she placed a hand in his golden hair and guided his face to a waiting nipple. Anxiously, he opened his mouth and began to suck greedily, noisily.

  “I start to work at the Whiskey Hill Saloon tomorrow night,” she casually told him, her red-nailed fingers toying with a lock of his gleaming hair while he suckled her. “I suppose I’ll be expected to laugh and flirt with the miners I serve drinks to.” She purposely needled him by adding, “You won’t be jealous if I’m required to do more than flirt, will you, Winn?”

  Winn’s lips released the wet nipple and he abruptly raised his head. “Don’t torture me like that, Melly. Promise me all you’ll do is serve drinks, nothing more. Swear it. Tell me you’ll behave. You know how jealous I am.”

  “What about your behavior? What have you been doing with that little Boston blonde before I got here?”

  “Nothing. Not a thing.” He cupped her face in his hands. “You’re the only woman for me, you know that. I’m crazy about you, Melly.”

  “That may be, but I don’t like the idea of you being with her, and I don’t like the idea of having to serve drinks to a bunch of
dirty miners in a smoky saloon.”

  “It’ll only be for short while, my love.”

  “It had better be,” she warned, and, moving his hands from her face, urged him back to his feet. “Stand up, Winn. Let’s get you undressed.”

  He rose, and while he shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, she unbuttoned his trousers. In seconds his clothes lay on the floor and he was as naked as she. He stood before her and shuddered when she looped her arms around him and pressed kisses to his bare abdomen.

  Knowing her well enough to realize that she was not yet ready to get into bed, that she preferred making love the first time somewhere else, Winn took her arms from him, stepped around and sank down onto the chair behind her.

  She sighed and squirmed and clung to the twin newels of the chair as his hard, heated flesh surged against her naked buttocks and he crushed her up against the chair’s back. Sliding his lips up and down the side of her throat, he slipped his hands under her heavy breasts and plucked at the peaking nipples with his fingertips. Winn listened and murmured in agreement as she told him exactly how she wanted him to make love to her.

  “I want it right here in this chair, Winn DeLaney,” she commanded. “I want to climax in this chair. It’s up to you to figure out just how to go about it.”

  “That should pose no problem, my love,” he said, brushing kisses across her bare shoulder.

  He raised his head, straightened, reached up and plucked the decorative golden dagger from her dark hair. Melisande waited, tensed. She trembled when his hand, clutching the dagger, came up in front of her.

  “Lick it,” he said.

  “Now, Winn,” she half protested, but was eager to do anything he might suggest.

  “You heard me, Melly,” he said, knowing she would do as ordered. That’s what he liked best about Melly. Nothing shocked her, nothing repelled her. In the realm of sex, she was willing to do anything he wished. “You know the dagger’s not sharp,” he said. “You won’t get cut. I’d never hurt you. Now, lick the blade.”

  Melisande put out her tongue and licked the tip of the dagger.

  From just above her ear, he said, “Put it in your mouth. Suck on it. Pretend it’s me.”

  Her heart racing, her face flushed, Melisande lifted a hand, placed it over his and carefully guided the dagger’s dull tip into her mouth. As she did so he whispered, “Ah, yes, gold, precious gold. Soon, darling, we’ll have the gold.” He carefully took the dagger out of her mouth. He murmured, “Isn’t the thought of all that gold enough to bring you immediate sexual fulfillment?”

  “You really believe we’ll get the gold?” she asked, panting now.

  “I know we will,” he said, and very carefully drew the tip of the dagger around each of her diamond-hard nipples before lowering it and placing its flat edge between her parted thighs. While he cautiously pressed the gleaming blade against her wet, throbbing flesh, he spoke of all the lovely nights to come when they would be so rich they would make love in a bed fashioned from gold.

  Melisande climaxed as Winn regaled her with tales of the wealth that would soon be theirs. When she collapsed back against him, Winn dropped the golden dagger to the floor, lifted Melisande up, bent her forward over the chair and entered her from behind. Once he was inside her, he brought her back down onto his thighs.

  And he made urgent love to her.

  Melisande’s bare bottom slapped up and down atop his thighs while the chair banged up and down against the floor.

  “Gold,” she murmured as he thrust deeply into her. “Bright, shiny gold.”

  “Gold,” he groaned. “Valuable, spendable gold.”

  “Our gold,” she gasped, her second climax rapidly coming on. “More gold than we can spend in a lifetime.”

  “And all of it ours. Just yours and mine,” he moaned, his own release starting.

  “Gold!” they cried out together in orgasmic ecstasy, and when both collapsed forward against the chair back, Winn swept Melly’s dark hair up and kissed the blue trinity tattoo on the side of her neck, which was glistening with sexual perspiration.

  Twenty-One

  “Look, Trav, over across the street,” said Doc Ledet, gesturing out the front window as he walked into the jail. “There they are again. That sweet Kate VanNam and that well-heeled San Francisco fellow.” He smiled, admiring the pair. “They’re off to the Bird Cage to see that Shakespearian troupe perform this evening. Kate told me about it last week. My, my, aren’t they just the handsomest couple you’ve ever laid eyes on?”

  Travis never turned his head, never glanced out. “Doc, I’m in a bit of hurry here,” he said, lifting his battered, bloody right hand.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry,” murmured the white-haired physician, and set his black bag down atop Travis’s desk. “Have a seat and I’ll fix you up good as new.”

  “Thanks.” Travis sat down, clasped his wrist and gently placed his throbbing right hand on the desk.

  Opening his black bag, the doctor said, “It looks to me like Winn DeLaney is pretty well smitten with that little golden-haired girl.” He waited for Travis to comment. The sheriff said nothing. “Wouldn’t you say so, Trav?”

  Travis rolled his eyes.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Beats me, Doc.”

  “Well, it’s just my opinion, of course, but I really believe DeLaney is more than a little sweet on Kate. No sir, it wouldn’t surprise me if he soon proposed marriage. And she could do a whole lot worse, if you ask me, so if they—”

  “Doc, I hate to interrupt these newsy bulletins, but I haven’t had any supper and it’s coming up on eight o’clock.”

  The doctor nodded. Then, squinting, he leaned close, studied Travis’s injured hand, shook his white head and reached into his bag for a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a roll of bandages.

  “The hand is already badly swollen,” the doctor said, as he cleaned Travis’s bruised, bloody knuckles with the alcohol. His white eyebrows rising, he asked, “Is it throbbing yet, son?”

  “A little,” Travis replied, and shrugged his wide shoulders.

  The physician released a long sigh. “You know, Trav, you ought to try and avoid getting into so danged many fistfights. You’re not a kid anymore. Besides, you can’t expect to lick the whole town and if you—”

  Again interrupting the talkative physician, Travis said, “Doc, what do you suppose a man like DeLaney is doing in Fortune?”

  “What do you mean?” The doctor was puzzled by such a foolish question. “I understand Mr. DeLaney is a very successful entrepreneur. I would imagine he travels extensively.”

  “Exactly. What’s a ‘successful entrepreneur’ like DeLaney doing in a little mountain mining town?”

  “Winn DeLaney says he buys and sells gold mine claims,” said the doctor with great authority. “Purchases and sells claims all the way up and down the western side of the Sierra Nevada foothills. From the far southern fields on up here through the northern diggings. There,” he said, “that should do it.” He tossed the soiled gauze away and began wrapping a clean white bandage around Travis’s hand.

  “Has he bought any claims since he got here?” Travis asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure. He might have and—”

  “Doc, you pride yourself on knowing everything that goes on in this town. If he had bought or sold any claims in or around Fortune, you’d have heard about it.”

  The doctor stopped wrapping Travis’s hand. He screwed up his face in thought. “You know, you’re right. DeLaney hasn’t really bought or sold much of anything. What the devil is he doing here?”

  With his good hand, Travis opened the bound leather crime ledger resting on his desk. He said, “Doc, in this ledger is the record of an assayist’s murder that took place in San Francisco several years ago.”

  “What’s this got to do with DeLaney?”

  Travis shrugged. “Nothing. But DeLaney was in San Francisco at the time of the murder.”

  The two discussed Winn DeLaney, Kate V
anNam and Kate’s great-aunt Arielle Colfax. They talked about the fact that Arielle’s husband, Benjamin Colfax, had been with John C. Freemont when he’d mapped out the area in 1844.

  “You think DeLaney believes there’s gold in the Cavalry Blue, Travis?” Doc Ledet asked. “You figure that’s what he’s after?”

  “Don’t know,” said Travis, his eyes narrowing. “I do know that since he’s been in Fortune, DeLaney’s done nothing other than diligently court Kate VanNam.”

  “That’s true. But he couldn’t have come here just to court Kate. After all, what were the chances of him finding a pretty young lady like her in a rough mining town like Fortune?”

  “My point exactly.”

  “You think Delaney somehow knew that Kate was…”

  “Finish up, will you, Doc?” Travis prodded. “I may need this fighting hand again before the night is over.”

  “Yoo-hoo! Miss VanNam, you in there? Is anybody home?”

  Kate was in the back of the house on a late Sunday afternoon when she heard someone calling her name. It was clearly a woman’s voice, so Kate dropped what she was doing and hurried toward the front door. Cal, the cat, beat her there.

  Kate paused before the closed door, smoothed her uncombed hair back off her face, looked down and frowned at her bare feet. She was afraid that if she took the time to put on shoes and stockings, her unexpected visitor would leave, so she yanked the door open.

  A tall, slender woman with chestnut hair, green eyes and a friendly smile stood on the porch with a covered plate in her left hand.

  The woman stuck out her right one and said, “Kate VanNam? I’m Alice. Alice Hester.”

  “I’m so pleased to meet you, Alice,” Kate said, and warmly shook the offered hand.

  “Hope I haven’t come at a bad time,” said the woman, her wide-set green eyes sparkling. “Doc Ledet said it would be okay if I visited you this afternoon.”

  “Oh, Alice, yes, by all means, come in, come in,” Kate said, delighted. “You’re welcome here anytime.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  Staring at the young woman, whose face was too thin, but whose flashing green eyes made her almost pretty, Kate told her, “You’re the very first woman I’ve met since arriving in Fortune.”