Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone Sheriff\The Gentleman Rogue\Never Trust a Rebel (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

T
he next four days were the longest Maddie could ever remember. The sun rose every morning, a fat golden ball that heated her hotel room, the town, the jailhouse where Sandy made coffee for her every day, even Mrs. Rose's front porch where she sat making notes in her log about bank shipments and the Wells Fargo agent that brought them to town.

By afternoon, she usually began to wilt. Her camisole plastered itself to her skin, her whalebone stays poked into her flesh, her starched petticoats went limp and got tangled between her ankles.

And her eyes, merciful heaven! Her eyes itched and burned after hours spent watching the road into town for a glimpse of the tall, lean sheriff of Smoke River.

She visited the dressmaker's neat shop next to the bakery and bought a new wide-brimmed straw hat, trimmed with a yellow ribbon, and another shirtwaist with lace down the front, in pale blue dimity. She found, however, that new clothes did not help.

Nothing helped. She could not believe she missed that maddening, set-in-his-ways, unmovable man so much. But she did.

Maddie, what is happening to you?

Every morning Rita heaped her breakfast plate with scrambled eggs and crispy fried potatoes and laced her coffee with Jericho's favorite brandy, and each evening the waitress saved her a piece of the sheriff's favorite chocolate cake.

No matter what she did, she could not stop thinking about the determined, foolishly courageous sheriff of Smoke River.

Rita talked about him constantly, how she'd tried her best to fatten him up when he was “just a scrawny, lost kid,” and what Jericho had given her last Christmas, a real cashmere shawl. The man was a puzzle, remote and hard-edged to the point of rudeness, yet gentle toward those he cared about.

Sandy talked and talked and talked while she sipped coffee in the sheriff's office every morning. Maddie learned where the swimming hole was, and how Ellie Johnson, the schoolteacher, had married her handsome Federal Marshal after twenty-nine years of spinsterhood. How practically everyone in town admired their sheriff's bravery and skill and unflappable calm under fire. She learned more about Jericho in four days than she had ever known about her employer, Allan Pinkerton.

Before each day drew to a dusky close, she was a bundle of anxieties, and nights in her stifling hotel room were sleepless ordeals. She lay awake for hours imagining Jericho lying wounded and alone.

Each bright sunshine-washed morning she lay listening to the sounds of life in this small town, the clank and jingle of wagons rattling down the main street, the rhythmic swish-swish of the barber methodically sweeping off the board sidewalk in front of his shop, the excited clamor of children allowed to buy a cookie or a tart from the bakery.

Life in Smoke River seemed a thousand miles away from the bustling city she was used to. The days meandered by at a snail's pace, leaving her far too much time to think.

Tonight, lying in bed, she mulled over that kiss Jericho had given her. It was odd that he did not seem to remember it; his behavior the next day had not changed one bit. However, she did note a new tension between them that had not been there before. Perhaps he had been delirious that night and he really did not remember kissing her.

But
she
remembered it. She remembered every single second of it. The touch of his lips on hers had startled her, but then his gentle but insistent pressure had nudged her entire being into flame, like a smoldering campfire when a drop of kerosene falls onto the coals.

She remembered how he tasted, like coffee and something hot and sweet. Peppermint. How her insides had begun to tremble and how afterward her lips had felt swollen and hot.

Unconsciously she touched her forefinger to her mouth. Even when she was married, her husband's kiss had never felt like that. It was shocking. And disturbing and thrilling and unnerving and wonderful all at the same time.

You silly goose, it was just one kiss
.

And she wanted another one.

She flung off the sheet and rolled over. “It has been four whole days,” she moaned. Four endless, broiling, nerve-racking days. And four balmy, wide-awake nights, the kind of nights that should have crickets and the scent of honeysuckle and...and...

Someone breathing beside you
.

She sat straight up in bed and clapped her hand over her mouth. Well! Not “someone,” exactly. Jericho Silver was not just “someone.”

Ah, Madison O'Donnell. Just what
is
he
?

She pulled the sheet over her head and shut her eyes again. She could not face another day of waiting and wondering and wishing...

The sharp clatter of horses' hooves sounded on the street below, and in an instant Maddie threw off the cover and streaked to the window.

Two men on horseback. She recognized Jericho's low-brimmed gray hat, but the second man, who was that? She pushed aside the curtain, shoved the sash up, and leaned out for a closer look.

The stranger's wrists were tied to the saddle horn, and his mount was roped to Jericho's mare. An outlaw! She leaned so far out the window she teetered on the sill and had to grab for the frame. Then she spied the bandanna around the man's neck, that strange shade of red-orange she'd seen at the mercantile. One of the Tucker gang.

Hurriedly she ducked back into the room, splashed her face with water from the china washbasin, and pulled on her shirtwaist and a skirt. Then she sped down the staircase and out onto the board walkway in front of the hotel. She had to race along the street to catch up with him.

“Jericho!”

He looked up. His face was pasty gray, his eyes unfocused with exhaustion.

He reined up in front of her. “Morning, Maddie.” His heavy-lidded gaze traveled over her from head to toe and a baffled expression crossed his dust-streaked countenance.

Maddie looked down at her skirt. Had she put it on backward? No. And her one hastily donned petticoat did not show at the hem, so...? She dropped her eyes lower to examine her shoes.

She
had
no shoes. Mercy, had she really dashed out in public, in plain sight, with bare feet? She could not bring herself to meet Jericho's eyes. After a long moment she heard his low chuckle.

“Mighty pretty...mornin',” he murmured. He lifted his reins and moved on down the street toward the jail. Maddie raced up back to the hotel and up the stairs for her shoes.

Ten minutes later Jericho stepped onto the boardwalk beneath her hotel room window and looked up. Her heart skipped. She had been watching for him.

He tipped his head to one side, indicating the restaurant near the hotel. Checking to make sure she had shoes on her feet, she sped down the carpeted stairway, outside and down the street, and into the restaurant.

Without a word, Jericho took her elbow and guided her to their usual table, away from the window. He looked dreadful, hollow-eyed and rumpled, as if he had slept in his shirt for a week. At her inquiring look he shrugged, ran a hand over his dark-stubbled chin and sent her a crooked smile. She would bet he had not slept since she last saw him.

“Coffee, Rita,” Jericho grated. “Pronto.”

“Sure, Johnny. My stars, you look awful.”

Maddie's thoughts exactly. “Jericho, are you all right?”

“I will be,” he said heavily. He straddled the chair across from her and ran his hand—his right hand, she noted—through his tousled dark hair. “Right now, I'm damn tired.”

And hungry, judging from the terse breakfast order he gave the waitress.

Rita glanced at Maddie. “And for you, Miz O'Donnell?”

Suddenly she was ravenous. “Steak and scrambled eggs, please. And lots of fried potatoes.”

Once their breakfasts arrived, she watched Jericho's weary eyes scan the room before he focused on her.

“I nabbed one of them,” he said some minutes later, frustration evident in his tired voice. “But that still leaves four more on the loose.” He swallowed a gulp of coffee as their food arrived. “Next time...”

Maddie sat bolt upright. “Next time,” she said crisply, “we try
my
plan.”

“Don't think so, Maddie. I think I know where they're holed up for the time being. All I have to do is—”

She smacked her fork onto her plate so hard a slice of fried potato bounced out onto the tablecloth. She snatched it up between thumb and forefinger and waved it in front of him.

“Now you listen to me, Jericho Silver. You gave me your word.” She popped the potato slice into her mouth and waited.

“Maddie, be sensible. I didn't come back empty-handed. I brought in one of the gang, but it wasn't easy. The others hightailed it off into the hills.”

“Then it is time for
my
plan.”

“No.” He turned his chair around for better access to the platter of steak and fried eggs in front of him.

“But—”

“I said no, dammit. Hush up and let me eat.”

“Jericho,” she said, her tone sharp and hard as a steel ax. “You agreed you would try my plan next. I made that bargain with you in good faith, and you cannot wriggle out of it, you just can't. We shook hands on it, and I know what that means out here in the West.”

He looked up. “Oh, yeah?” A low laugh rumbled from his throat. “What would a big-city girl like you know about life in the West?”

His tone was not challenging, exactly. Just determined. Well, she could be determined, too.

“All right, laugh. But I do know some things about the West. I know that a man's word is as good as his handshake. You told me so yourself.”

“Must not have been thinking too clear,” he muttered.

“You cannot pretend you are not an honorable man, can you? Of course not. Besides, how can you reject my plan before you know what it is? And besides that—”

Jericho groaned. “Okay, okay. Stop your yammering. Makes my head feel like the inside of a beehive.”

Worse than a beehive. The woman could nag a man to distraction, could drive him to curse and drink and probably get into a mess of trouble just tryin' to stay one jump ahead of her.

When it came to Maddie, he figured he had to be
two
jumps ahead. She had a will as stiff as a green-oak limb and a mind like one of those woven willow traps the Nez Percé used for fishing: only one way in and no way out.

While she waited for him to say something, her cheeks grew pinker and pinker. Hell, she sure looked pretty.

“Well?” she said sharply.

Jericho laid his knife on his plate and began to twirl his empty coffee mug around and around on the tablecloth. He figured she'd explode with impatience if he didn't let her have her say.

“All right, Mrs. Detective, I'm listening.”

“Very well, Mister Sheriff, I will tell you my plan.”

She explained her idea in detail, watching his face.

He let her talk until she ran out of breath. “You talked Old Man Warriner at the bank into going along with this idea?”

“Yes, I did. He was not the least bit difficult to convince. Mr. Warriner saw the logic of my scheme in an instant.”

“I'll bet,” Jericho said in a dry voice. “Warriner's not known for his analytical mind.”

“Well, he agreed it was a clever idea. He thought sending another fake shipment was...was a brilliant idea.”

“Brilliant, huh?”

“That is what I said, Jericho. Are you not listening to me?” Probably not. She would bet the sheriff had already made up his mind and was just humoring her. That made her so furious she considered dumping her coffee over his head.

“Sure, I'm listenin'. Let's see, now. First we stir up a big hullabaloo about Warriner's fake gold shipment on the Portland train—”

“And we pretend it's heavily guarded,” she interrupted.

“Okay. My posse and I—”

“And me! You cannot leave me behind.” She would die if she missed the chance to help capture the outlaws. Her reputation as a Pinkerton agent depended on completing successful missions. Besides, an adventure would help keep her mind off...well, never mind. She sipped her coffee and waited.

He shot her a look that could spit bullets. “Yeah, I sure couldn't forget you,” he grumbled. “So, we make sure everybody in town knows about the gold shipment, and I—

“We,” she interrupted.

“Yeah, ‘we.' We get on the train and wait for the gang to show up. That right so far?”

Maddie shook her head. “No. The first time is just for show. The next time is when we make our move. We make another fake shipment and the gang hears about it and—”

“It'll never work, Maddie. The gang's holed up somewhere. Tucker will never know a shipment—even a fake one—is on its way.”

“But of course he will,” she snapped. “Whoever is tipping him off will ride to their camp and dangle the bait right in front of his nose.”

Jericho sighed heavily. “Maddie, I'll—we'll—have to ride every train to Portland waiting for Tucker to strike.”

“No, we will not, Jericho. You are not listening to me. We have to make only two trips. First we make a big fuss and fake one shipment, and then we tell everyone exactly when the next gold shipment is planned. Someone here in town will go off and alert Tucker about that shipment date, and then on the day of the supposed shipment we board the train and—”

“It's a waste of time. I could track them all the way to Idaho in the time it'll take traveling back and forth between Smoke River and Portland.”

“Jericho, you are the most stubborn man I have ever known. But you are also intelligent enough to recognize a good idea when you hear it, and this is a very good idea.”

“Won't work, Mrs. Detective. I can see why Warriner liked your plan. It won't risk his gold. But it won't nab Tucker, either.”

“Yes, it will! He is sure to rob the train, and we will be right there to arrest him.”