A Tumble Through Time (6 page)

Absolutely nothing about this woman made sense, so different from any other he’d ever met. Strong, compassionate, and brave enough to shoot an outlaw dead. And instead of having hysterics at her ordeal, she wanted to help
him
. But no matter how compassionate she was, no one could ever erase the horror of that morning, and his part in hiding it.

Lips tightened, he reached for paper and pencil.

Anna collapsed into the seat across from him again and sighed. “All right, then, let’s get this paperwork done. I have to find another job today.”

Wes frowned, his tightened stomach reminding him of the lecture he’d put off for too long. “Before we do that, let’s talk a little bit about why you were following Ben Coates this morning.”

She chewed her lip. “To bring him in.”

“Damn it, Anna. I don’t want you hauling in outlaws. It’s dangerous.” This woman would drive him crazy. That she thought she could drag in criminals irritated the hell out of him. Indeed, her bringing down the cowboy in the bar, and having the presence of mind to shoot Ben before he could kill him, had earned Wes’s grudging respect, but that was a far cry from dealing with desperate bandits to earn a living.

“I can do it. I told you I have experience.”

“I have no idea what kind of experience you have, but I’m ordering you, as marshal of this town, to no longer attempt to bring in outlaws.”

She went slack-jawed. “You can’t do that.”

“I certainly can.” His mouth tightened. “Don’t make me lock you up to keep you from getting into trouble.” The thought of having her next to him in the jail all day brought both terror and joy, definitely not something he wanted to deal with.

“Well, in that case I better go find another job,
marshal.
”

Wes stood as she did and reached for her. “Wait.”

“What?”

He clasped her hand. “You scared the hell out of me out there.”

Anna studied him, her features softening. “I’m sorry, and thank you for arriving when you did.” She’d opened her mouth to continue when the door flew open and Marcus Heard, the town blacksmith, rushed through the doorway.

“Marshal, they just brought Slug in. He’s been shot.”

Wes dropped her hand. “What happened?”

Marcus gasped, “The stage got held up. None of the passengers was hurt, but Slug tried to shoot one of the outlaws, and got hisself shot instead.”

Wes headed toward the door, Anna on his heels. “Where is he now?”

“They brought him to the doc’s house.”

Chapter Six

T
he three hurried along the boardwalk, Anna having a hard time keeping up with the marshal’s lengthy strides. “How often does this happen?” She puffed out the words.

“Hasn’t for a while. I thought the gang that was holding up the stage coaches around here a few months back had moved on. I guess not.”

“Could be a new gang.”

Wes nodded as they turned the corner and headed for the blue and white clapboard house that Anna had visited with Wes several d
ays ago. He flung open the door, and Anna followed him in.

She
took in the scene before her. Blood had dripped onto the floor from Slug’s wounds. The doctor worked on the pale-faced man, cutting away the pants plastered against his skin where a gaping hole oozed blood.

“Is he conscious?” Wes approached the table Slug rested on, his eyes closed.

“He was until a minute ago when two cowpokes dropped him on this table. Screamed like a banshee before he passed out.” The doctor turned to Anna. “Little lady, go wash your hands and come back here. I need someone to help me, and my wife’s gone visiting. Damn poor timing,” he grumbled.

“I’m going to question the passengers. Where are they?” Wes glanced toward the man who’d brought the news.

Anna watched as the blacksmith shoved a chunk of tobacco in his mouth and started chewing. Hopefully, he wouldn’t spit on the floor right next to the patient.
Some operating room
.

“They was pretty shook up. Especially the ladies. I think they done gone into the café.”

Wes nodded and left.

For the next hour, Anna fought her gurgling stomach as she witnessed surgery in the nineteenth century. The man who’d come with them left shortly after Wes.

Anna’s CPR and First Responder classes didn’t look a thing like this. Barbaric. That was the only word she could conjure up. After stripping away the ruined wool pants and gray-tinged drawers, Doc Oliver proceeded to pour some type of liquid into the hole. Even in his unconscious state, Slug had flinched. Then, taking long pinchers, that he−thank goodness−washed under hot water, the doctor poked and prodded until he found the bullet, and extracted it.

Feeling a bit lightheaded herself when he held it up like a trophy, she took in a deep gulp of air and held on. The stitching wasn’t much diff
erent than what she’d witnessed before, but instead of disposable, sterile suture material, the doctor used thread off a spool that looked as though he’d fetched it from his wife’s sewing supplies. Mercifully, the patient remained unconscious throughout the ordeal.

As soon as the wound had been cleansed once more and bandaged, the doctor turned to her, as if seeing her for the first time. “What happened to your neck?”

Anna reached up and touched the crusted line where Big Ben had cut her, all of that seeming to be days ago, instead of early that morning. “I ran into a little trouble and got cut.”

“Sure looks to me like it was more than a little trouble.” He studied her under craggy eyebrows. “I heard you like to beat up cowboys. That so?”

Anna flushed. Life in a small town was certainly different from anything she’d experienced before. These people didn’t need the internet; news traveled from ear to ear just fine. “Yes.” She raised her chin. “I didn’t like the way he was touching me.”

The doctor’s eyes twinkl
ed, and he grinned. “Let me took at that cut before you race out of here. I can see you’re fixing to go chasing after the marshal and get in his way.”

She huffed a response, but allowed the doctor to clean her up−after making certain he washed his hands ag
ain. He swabbed some liquid on the cut that had her shooting up out of the chair like she’d been thrust from a cannon. “What was that stuff?”

Doc Oliver waved her off. “Something to help you heal.”

She blinked away the tears from the sting and hurried to the door.

What a morning it’s been so far.
Wes flung his hat on the desk and collapsed into his chair. First Anna almost got herself raped, and then the stage was held up. He had a dead body to contend with, reports to fill out, a gang to capture, and a woman who was driving him crazy. What happened to his peaceful life?

The interview with the passengers on the fated stagecoach hadn’t helped much. According to reports, there were either four or five outlaws. One was big as a horse, or they were all skinny and scrawny. They all wore a red bandana, or two of them wore black ones. They all had black hair, or one of them was blond, two had mustaches, or they all had beards. He sighed. Witnesses never agreed on anything. His best bet was to go to where the hold-up took place and see if he could find any clues.

He no sooner settled into his chair when the door swung open and Anna hurried in. Wes groaned. The look on her face told him all he needed to know about what she planned to ask him. He leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “No.”

She stopped abruptly. “No, what?”

“Whatever it is your determined look tells me you want.”

Anna sat in the chair facing him, one leg tucked under her in a most unladylike fashion. “What did you find out?”

“About what?”

“Come on, Wes, don’t play games with me. What did the passengers say?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, his fingers steepled as he regarded her. “This is no game. If they’re the same gang that wreaked havoc a few months back, we’re talking about some dangerous men. I’m just amazed they left all the passengers alive.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Wes hesitated. The last thing he wanted was for Anna to decide she could
help
him search out the gang. He still wasn’t completely sure where this woman came from, and why she was so determined to do a man’s job. Wherever her life was, someone hadn’t done his duty of reining her in, and letting her know that women didn’t go around chasing outlaws and fighting their own battles with good-for-nothing cowboys. He scowled. It sure as heck wasn’t his task.

“I’m going to ride out to where the hold-up took place, and take a look around.” He raised his eyebrows. “And don’t ask, because you can’t go with me.”

“You can deputize me, and I can help.” She raised her chin when he chuckled.

“The town would never survive a female deputy.” Wes shoved his chair back and stood. “No. And I’ll need someone to watch the jail while I’m gone. A man.”

Anna glared at him. “That is such a sexist statement.”

Wes glanced up at her, his eyes wide. Who’d said anything about sex? But now that she’d brought it up, his body decided he might want to hang around and continue the conversation. This puzzling woman said the strangest things.

She sighed. “Never mind. I guess like a good little woman, I’ll just let the big, strong man take care of the problems, and I’ll saunter on back to my hotel room and work on my embroidery.”

Wes reached for his hat lying next to the scribbled notes from the interview with the passengers. “Now you’ve got it.” Without a backward glance, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

“I was being sarcastic, you know!” Her voice reached his ears through the door, and he chuckled.

Wes strode into the mercantile, nodding briefly at the women with their shopping bags slung over their arms.

“Morning, marshal.” Liz Bennett flashed him a bright coquettish smile, one of many she’d cast his way since his arrival in Denton.

He tipped his hat and continued to the counter where shop owner, Arnold Prentiss, finished tying the string around a brown paper package.

“Thank you, Mrs. Brown, and have a pleasant day.” Arnold handed the parcel to a stout middle-aged woman, who nodded her thanks, then left the store.

Arnold
rested his elbows on the counter. “What can I do for you, marshal?”

“I’m needing to deputize you, so you can handle any problems while I’m gone.” When
Arnold raised his eyebrows, Wes continued, “The stagecoach’s been robbed, and Slug’s been shot.”

“Robbed!” Beverly Haskell hurried to the counter, her hand pressed against her thin chest, her eyes ablaze with curiosity. “Oh my. And poor Mr. Slug.”

Wes inwardly groaned. Mrs. Haskell was the nosiest busybody in Denton, and a well- known gossip. Any chance of keeping this quiet so as not to alarm the townsfolk had just disappeared.

“I’ll be glad to help.”
Arnold untied his apron and cast it over the counter. “Just let me get my wife to come down and take care of the store.” He gestured with his thumb toward the ceiling. “She’s up there feeding the baby.”

“Thanks. Meet me at the jailhouse.” Wes left, scooting around the gaggle of women all waving their arms and talking frantically. The robbery would spread like wildfire.

Wes sighed when he returned to his office to find Anna gone. The woman would give him a heart attack sometime soon with her reckless behavior.

After packing his saddlebags with supplies, Wes swore
Arnold in, his makeshift deputy grinning as he rubbed the badge on his chest.

“I may be gone a day or two. If I find tracks, I’ll be following them.”

“No problem, marshal. I can handle anything that comes up.”

Wes nodded and headed out. Although the passengers he talked to had disagreed on most things amongst themselves, they were united in the fact that it all happened about ten miles east of town, on the north to south stagecoach road. He headed in that direction.

Within minutes after leaving the town proper, the hair on the back of his neck warned him he was being followed. It wasn’t all that unusual, since this area was well traveled, not like the stagecoach road he’d hit in a few miles. He slowed his horse, Nektosha, and the horse behind him slowed. Keeping the same pace, he eased his fingers into his holster, and fisted the gun grip.

Suddenly, he reined his horse, quickly pulled the gun from the holster, and spun around. “Hands up.”

Anna yanked on the brown mare’s reins, her eyes wide. Startled, the horse bucked, and Anna tumbled to the ground.

“Goddammit!” Wes re-holstered the gun, jumped from
Nektosha, then raced to Anna’s crumpled form on the ground, squatting alongside her. “What the hell are you doing, woman?”

She sat up and rubbed her right arm. “Following you.”

Wes thumbed back the brim of his hat. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t want your help?”

Anna groaned as she stood and dusted off her bottom. “Yes. But I’ve never been good at taking orders.”

His groin tightened when he realized she was again dressed in her men’s trousers. Except no man ever looked like that. The snug outline of her rear as she swept her hand over it had his stomach clenching and his heart pounding. She wore his shirt that she hadn’t returned, but had tied the two bottom halves of it together right under her breasts, exposing the tawny skin of her stomach. If he didn’t get rid of her, he might act the fool, grab her, and devour that pouting mouth. “Get right back on that horse and return to town.”

“No. I can help you.” She waved her arms around. “You need a back-up. Why would you go after a gang by yourself? It’s not correct police procedure.” Anna winced as she rotated her shoulder, her soft breasts swaying under the shirt.

Wes tightened his jaw. “Are you hurt?”

“Not really. Just banged up a bit.” She squinted as she looked up at him. “How far from here was the hold up?”

“Don’t change the subject. I want you to go back to town.”

“Look, I no longer have a job, so while I’m looking for another one, maybe my training can help you find these outlaws.”

He snorted. “Training from the academy for young ladies where you learned to shoot and wrestle men, or from the Indians where you claim you lived?”

“Let’s just say I know a little bit about crime scenes.”

Wes pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I suppose you’ll continue to follow me no matter what I say?”

“Pretty much.”

“I don’t have time to drag you back to the jailhouse and lock you up, but I’m warning you, stay out of my way.”

“Yes, sir.” She grinned and gave him a two-fingered salute.

They both mounted and continued on, side by side. Wes tried very hard to ignore what her body was doing to him.

Anna studied Wes as they rode. He certainly looked like one of the heroes in the romance novels that she loved to read so much. But this was a flesh and blood man, who caused a reaction in her she didn’t want or need. Barely over Robbie and his deception, the last thing she needed was another man to inflict damage in her life.

Which brought her back to the biggest problem she faced. How the heck had she landed in the past, and how was she going to get back in time for her hearing? Before Slug had picked her up, sweating, frustrated, and wandering in the prairie, she’d spent a good two hours trying to find the Indian store. She’d tamped down the panic that rose every once in a while since that fateful day.