The Sheriff (Historical Romance)

by Nan Ryan

  “I know, and I apologize for not coming up sooner,” Alice said, stepping into the corridor and handing the covered plate to Kate. “It’s a pie, Kate. An apple pie. I hope you like apple.”

  “Apple is my all-time favorite, Alice. I can’t afford the pies at Hester’s Bakery so I…so…” It suddenly dawned on her who this was. “Hester! Alice Hester! You must be the Mrs. Hester of Hester’s Bakery!”

  “That I am, Kate,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “The Mrs. Hester that charges a dollar-fifty for a pie. Still glad to meet me?”

  “You know I am,” Kate assured her, directing her into the drawing room. “You must excuse the looks of the place. It needs a bit of fixing up. Well, more than a bit. But please, won’t you have a seat here on the sofa while I go cut us each a slice of the pie?”

  “None for me,” said Alice, making a face. “You bake pies all day every day and you lose your taste for pastry of any kind.”

  Kate smiled, nodded. “I’ll be right back. Do sit down.” She caught the curious Cal starting to leap up onto the sofa to more closely examine their guest. “No,” she warned, and snapped her fingers at the cat. He hissed, looked at her coldly, but turned and padded out of the room while both young women laughed.

  Kate hurried out to the kitchen. When she returned, she apologized for the lack of furniture and for the ruined carpets.

  “Why, this place is a palace,” Alice said. “Wait until you see where I live.”

  “I fully intend to have the mansion restored once I can afford it,” Kate explained. “I know it will be very expensive, since I’ll have to hire craftsmen out of San Francisco.”

  “Maybe not,” Alice offered thoughtfully. “There’s this skinny, toothless old sourdough in Fortune that is an amazing carpenter and talented jack-of-all-trades. Built all the shelves in my bakery. Nothing he can’t do in the way of building and remodeling.”

  “Really? What’s his name?”

  “Blankenship. H. Q. Blankenship.”

  “The name’s familiar,” Kate said, trying to recall where she’d heard it. She snapped her fingers again. “I know! He helped me get Chang Li to the doctor’s office when Chang Li was badly beaten. He was the only man who offered.”

  “That’s old H.Q.,” Alice declared.

  “He’s a bit strange,” said Kate.

  Alice chuckled. “A couple of years ago the state board of health tried to have H.Q. sent to the lunatic asylum down in Stockton. The asylum was founded to treat those driven mad by the goldfields. The board claimed H.Q.’s madness had to do with ‘his speculative and gambling spirit.’”

  Kate was astonished. “That being the case, everyone in Fortune needs to be in the asylum. Including me!”

  Both women laughed. When they quieted, Kate said, “They never really locked him up, did they?”

  “No. Sheriff McCloud went before the board and vouched for H.Q. Told them the old sourdough was perfectly sane and a harm to no one. He said they could hold him responsible should H.Q. prove him wrong. H.Q. was so grateful, he’s been on his best behavior ever since. And, naturally, he thinks the sheriff hung the moon.”

  “Naturally,” Kate said, adding, “I’ll definitely call on Mr. Blankenship when I start my restoration.”

  She took a seat beside Alice. For a long moment the two young women simply stared at each other in wonder, each clearly starved for the companionship of another woman. Then, realizing they were gaping, they laughed, threw their arms around one another and embraced as of they had known each other for years.

  In that instant they became friends.

  Alice Hester stayed at the mansion until almost sunset, and Kate was glad she had turned down Winn’s invitation to go for an afternoon buggy ride. She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed having a female friend, especially someone as likable and as cheerful as Alice Hester, who, she soon learned, had plenty to complain about, but didn’t.

  The two talked and talked, eagerly getting to know each other. Kate told her new friend how she’d traveled all the way from Boston to claim the inheritance left her by her great-aunt Arielle Colfax.

  Then, eager to know more about Alice, Kate prompted her to talk about herself. She learned that her new friend had been in Fortune for the past three and a half years. She had arrived from her Missouri home with her bridegroom, Elmer Hester. They’d been in Fortune for less than six months when Elmer was killed in a mining accident. Left alone with no money to get back home, she’d opened a bakery.

  Alice laughed now when she said proudly, “I make more money than most of the miners!”

  “Good for you!” Kate declared.

  “And,” Alice confided, “I’ve a new fellow in my life. For the past six months he’s been my beau. He’s a good man. A little shy and quiet, but he treats me like a queen and I’m quite fond of him.”

  “Why, that’s wonderful,” said Kate. “Is he a miner?”

  Alice shook her head. “No. He’s a brave lawman.”

  Kate felt her heart mysteriously squeeze in her chest. This lively, enterprising widow was Travis McCloud’s sweetheart? Kate swallowed hard and tried to sound casual when she said, “Oh? So your beau is the town sheriff?”

  “Yes,” Alice said with a shy smile.

  “Ah…that’s…nice,” Kate managed to reply.

  “Well, deputy sheriff,” Alice corrected.

  “Oh.” Kate felt relief flood her. “I thought you meant…”

  “Travis? That big, handsome devil? Heavens, no. A man like Travis would never look twice at a woman like me. My beau is Jiggs Gillespie. You know him?”

  “I’ve never actually met him, but when I came up-river on the steamer, Deputy Gillespie was on board escorting a prisoner to jail.”

  “That’s my Jiggs,” Alice said proudly, then talked at length about the quiet good times the two of them had together.

  When she concluded, Kate couldn’t keep from asking, “Is there a special woman in Sheriff Mc-Cloud’s life? Not that I care. I’m just curious.”

  “I hear whispers that Valentina Knight, the Creole beauty who owns the Golden Nugget, frequently entertains the sheriff.” Alice raised her eyebrows and lowered her voice. “But you want to hear the most exciting gossip about Travis?”

  “Yes.”

  “When he was very young, he fought a duel over a woman. Killed a man for the love of a beautiful lady. Isn’t that the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?”

  “It is,” Kate murmured, dying to know more. Instantly she wondered who the woman was and what happened to her. Why had there been a duel? But she kept her own counsel.

  “…and hope you and your handsome beau will attend.”

  “Sorry? What? What did you say?”

  “I said, will you be coming to the street dance the first Saturday in August?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Kate replied. “Everybody will show up for the dance, won’t they?”

  “You bet.” Alice laughed. “The miners are amazing. They dig all day and dance all night. So be prepared to dance with every male in Fortune.”

  Twenty-Two

  All week long the male population of Fortune had looked forward eagerly to Saturday night’s big street dance. Doc Ledet was one of the celebration’s organizers, and he took his assignment seriously.

  The first thing he had done was to hire a quartet of strong-backed men to build a raised wooden platform to serve as the dance pavilion. It was the same quartet that always built the gallows when the Committee of Vigilance requested it. The doctor had been in Fortune long enough to know that a sudden rainstorm could make for a very muddy street. He well remembered the town’s fourth anniversary two years ago. Just as the dance began, so had the rain. In minutes the women’s best dresses were badly soiled and their shoes ruined. He’d never let that happen again.

  Next he managed to engage a five-piece orchestra from San Francisco to play for the big event. They would stay until 2:00 a.m., and longer if need be. Then he’d enlisted
the help of the saloon girls to festively decorate the town.

  By early afternoon on that blistering hot Saturday in August, colorful bunting graced the pavilion’s bottom perimeter and hanging oil lamps, carefully covered with green tissue paper, swung from every porch pillar up and down the street. Miners’ lanterns, swathed in the green tissue, sat evenly spaced around the edge of the dance floor.

  Well before sunset on the big day, intense grooming was taking place in hotel rooms, boardinghouses, canvas tents and open-air camps all over town. Scruffy miners who hadn’t bathed or shaved for weeks were scrubbing their dirty bodies with stiff-bristled brushes, and either shaving away all facial hair or neatly trimming their beards.

  Travis McCloud, a man who was always immaculately groomed, sat in his nightly tub of soapy water as the hour of the dance approached. Before his bath Travis had carefully shaved. Then shaved once more. He told himself, as he drew the straight-edged razor down his left jaw, that he was shaving the second time because he wanted his face to be as smooth as a baby’s butt when he danced with all the saloon girls. He recalled last year’s commemoration, when he’d been obliged to dance with every female in town if he wanted to keep the peace.

  This closer-than-usual shave had nothing to do with the prospect of pressing his face against the soft cheek of Kate VanNam, because he had no intention of dancing with her.

  With a thin black cheroot clamped between his teeth, Travis vigorously ran a soapy washcloth over his broad chest, his muscled arms, his long legs. When he had scrubbed every inch of his lean body, he snubbed his cigar out in a dish by the tub, rose to his feet and stepped out of the water.

  He grabbed up a towel and glanced at the clock on the bureau. Seven o’clock. Too early to get dressed. Travis toweled himself dry, then padded across the room to his big double bed. He tossed back the covers and stretched out on the clean white sheets, intending to doze for half an hour. He’d need all his strength to keep the miners in line tonight.

  But as soon as he folded his hands beneath his dark head and closed his eyes, he saw again the beautiful golden-haired Kate VanNam shedding her nightgown and plunging into the moon-silvered lake by her house. The vision haunted him. He felt his groin stir, and in seconds he was sporting a full-blown erection.

  Swearing, Travis opened his eyes and laid a restrictive hand over the rigid flesh bobbing involuntarily on his belly. There had been just one other woman in his entire life who was capable of arousing him just by thinking about her.

  Travis rolled over and anxiously pressed the unwanted, unwelcome erection into the mattress in a vain attempt to rid himself of it. It didn’t work. He flopped back over and angrily gave the offensive flesh a smart thump with his thumb and middle finger.

  He exhaled heavily, swung his long legs to the floor, snatched up his clean white underwear and stepped into it as if a dangerous she-devil was trying to get her hands on him.

  Travis poured himself a stiff drink of bourbon and tossed it back in one long swallow.

  Just before eight o’clock, he dressed in a pair of neatly pressed black trousers, a freshly laundered white shirt with his shiny silver sheriff’s star resting on his chest and a pair of well polished black cowboy boots, before leaving his quarters.

  He would never have admitted it to anyone, but he was almost as excited about the dance as the lonely miners.

  From the minute she’d heard about the festivities, Kate had looked forward to the celebration. Nothing dampened her excitement, not even her friend Alice Hester’s dire warning that she would have to dance with every miner in Fortune. Nor had Winn’s admonition and plea that she change her mind and skip the party caused her to have second thoughts.

  Kate hummed happily on that late Saturday afternoon as she sat in her zinc tub. Cal lay stretched out on the couch, purring. Kate suspected the reason for the cat’s serenity. Earlier in the afternoon she had spotted, down by the lake, a yellow, long-haired tabby. Cal had immediately shot out of the house and raced down there. The tabby had hissed at him and sprinted away, but, not giving up easily, he had followed. Both felines had disappeared into the forest, and Cal had come home an hour later looking pleased with himself and all tuckered out.

  “You have it made, don’t you, Cal?” Kate asked now as she soaped a slender arm. “All you do is eat and sleep and…”

  She giggled then, and Cal raised his head. He glared at her as if to say, Silence, please. I’m trying to get a little rest.

  Kate continued to laugh as she lifted a slim leg into the air and gave it a good scrubbing with her washcloth. When her laughter subsided, she began to hum once more and to swirl the soapy cloth around each breast. While she was at it, an unbidden image of Travis McCloud arose out of the blue: the sheriff with his shirt off and perspiration gleaming on his broad chest and bare, beautiful back. The vision that appeared far too often of late.

  Kate winced as the mere thought of him caused her nipples to tighten and tingle and her belly to constrict. She silently berated him for doing this to her. The dark, seductive sheriff was capable of stirring her senses when she merely thought about him. Kate took a shallow breath and looked at herself in the tall mirror that leaned against the wall. She blushed when she saw her nipples jutting out in twin peaks of sheer sensitivity, looking for all the world as if they were waiting for a man’s gentle touch.

  She dropped the soggy washcloth in the tub, slowly raised her hand and cautiously plucked at a pebble-hard nipple with her fingertips. Closing her eyes, she imagined the sheriff’s tanned fingers taking the place of hers. She toyed with and teased the aching tips and wondered how it would feel to rub them against the sheriff’s naked chest.

  Immediately ashamed of her forbidden thoughts, Kate dropped her hand away and opened her eyes.

  She grabbed up a towel, shot to her feet and gave her body a brisk, quick rub, anxious to get her undergarments on. She snatched up her pantelets and camisole as if Satan himself were reaching for her. When her underwear was in place and modestly covering her, Kate began brushing her hair before the mirror.

  After several long strokes through the freshly shampooed locks, she stopped the brush in midstroke and made a face in the mirror. Why, she wondered, had it been McCloud’s dark hand she had envisioned intimately touching her and not Winn’s?

  Kate suddenly trembled.

  There was something about the sheriff. It was more than just his masculine good looks that aroused her. He was a little dangerous. He harbored a secret. No one really knew him. No one frightened him. No one could get close to him.

  Cal abruptly leaped down off the sofa, the movement pulling Kate from her reveries. Winn was coming to collect her at any moment.

  She drew her blue silk dress over her head, reached behind her and deftly fastened the hooks running down the back. She then smoothed the billowing skirts and studied herself in the mirror. Earlier in the week she had purchased a strand of expensive ivory Irish lace. She’d carefully sewn it into the low-cut bodice so that the dress would look more chaste and proper.

  She was pleased with her handiwork. The fragile lace concealed the swell of her breasts. Still, she wished she had a new dress to wear, something no one had ever seen. The blue silk was the best she had, but she had worn it every time Winn took her out to dinner or to the Bird Cage. He was surely tired of seeing her in it.

  As Kate stared at herself in the mirror, Cal sauntered over to stand beside her. “So? What do you think? How do I look?” she asked him.

  The cat ducked his head and rubbed up against her full skirts. She laughed, sank down and petted his head while he meowed softly. “Now listen to me, Cal,” she said, stroking him affectionately. “Mr. DeLaney will be here any minute and I’ll be leaving. But I expect you to be right here in this room when I return tonight. Can I count on you?”

  The cat began to anxiously wiggle from her grasp, backing away, making a rattling sound. Kate sighed and rose to her feet. The cat behaved strangely every time Winn came to the mansion
.

  “What is that you don’t like about Winn De-Laney?” she asked, hands on her hips.

  The cat’s eyes narrowed into slits and he made strange growling noises.

  “Yes. Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. He’s a fine man and I’m quite fond of him.”

  Twenty-Three

  “Just look at them, Winn,” Kate whispered from behind her hand when a laughing, whooping group of saloon girls spilled out into the street shortly after eight o’clock on that warm Saturday night.

  “I warned you,” he replied.

  Kate tried not to stare, but that was impossible. The women were garishly painted, their lips and cheeks rouged scarlet, their faces heavily dusted with rice powder. They wore gaudy dresses of every bright hue known to man, the necklines of which were cut so low that their full bosoms were barely covered.

  One flamboyant woman in particular caught Kate’s eye. She was an exotic looking dark-haired, olive-skinned beauty in a shimmering, yellow satin gown. Her shoulders were bare, her waist was well cinched, and her heavy black hair was held off her face on one side with a unique golden dagger.

  “Look at that one, Winn,” Kate whispered, directing his attention to the woman in yellow. “She has a dagger in her hair. A golden dagger!”

  Just then the five-piece orchestra struck up “Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight” and eager dancers took to the floor amid much laughter and shouting.

  “Shall we, my dear?” Winn asked, after covertly casting another quick glance at the dark-haired woman in yellow.

  “Let’s wait for the next one,” Kate said, studying the crowd. “I’m looking for my friend, Alice Hester. She promised she’d be here at eight sharp.”

  “As you wish.” He was congenial, slipping an arm around her waist and smiling down at her.

  Kate’s eyes shone with excitement as she watched the dancers spin rapidly about the floor. Most of the big, rough miners were terrible dancers, but that didn’t seem to bother their partners. The women in flashy clothing laughed and flirted and didn’t object to being held in a crushing bear hug.