In a Cowboy’s Arms (3 page)

Maggie forced a smile and hated that she lied to this kind woman who seemed hungry for family. As for Dade … Well, if lying sent a person to hell she was halfway there.

“I’d about given up hope of finding you,” Dade said after Mrs. Gant took herself off, his voice going rough with emotion.

Maggie squirmed, truly bitten by guilt. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.”

Sorry she didn’t know what had happened to Daisy. And sorry that she was going to destroy his dream of a family without any explanation. But she couldn’t keep up this charade.

She couldn’t get too close to Dade Logan either.

The man was simply too big and too discerning for her peace of mind. And if she was honest, he stirred feelings in her that were best left sleeping. Feelings a woman would never feel for her brother. Feelings that would surely give her lie away.

No, she didn’t dare get too close or too comfortable around Dade Logan.

As much as she wished otherwise, she couldn’t remain here long either. Harlan Nowell would come looking forher, and he might do worse than drag her back to Burland and marry her to Whit Ramsey.

A chill tripped down her spine at the thought of being sold off like cattle. There had to be a trustworthy man she could confide in, a man who’d help her escape Whit Ramsey for good.

Her gaze flicked to the tall imposing man beside her. Dade Logan?

Those clear brown eyes of his had seen a world of trouble. According to Mrs. Gant’s tale, he knew how to use that gun strapped low on his hip.

Yes, he was the type of man who’d risk his life to save his sister. But she wasn’t his kin. She couldn’t intentionally make him a target for Harlan Nowell’s wrath.

For a few days she’d be safe here in Mrs. Gant’s boardinghouse. She could plan what to do. After she’d gained Dade Logan’s trust and he let down his guard, she’d make her escape.

It was the only way. She knew Harlan Nowell was in a bind. He needed her to satisfy a debt, and he’d move heaven and hell to bring her back.

Or silence her.

Dade sat at his desk, crossed boots stacked on the edge and fingers twined at his nape. He’d left the boarding-house an hour ago so Daisy could settle in and he could make his rounds. Now he had nothing to do but watch time crawl by, hope trouble didn’t gallop into town, and think about Daisy.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a groan. Finding his sister should’ve eased the worry that had nagged him for years. Instead, he was more restless than before.

The door swung open, and his gaze shot to the door. Damn, he’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard footsteps on the boardwalk.

Nor would he have, he realized as the former U.S. Army scout stepped inside the jail and closed the door without making a sound. Dade still couldn’t believe Duane Tenfeather could move like smoke and catch him by surprise every time.

“How is your sister?” Duane asked, likely having heard about Daisy’s arrival from Raymond.

“She doesn’t remember me.”

Duane straddled a chair and crossed his arms on the back. “You told me she was very young when she was taken away.”

He snorted. “I can remember back that far.” And he wished to hell he didn’t, for that brought to life dark memories of his pa abusing his ma that he’d just as soon forget.

“So she will come to know you in time, and maybe then her memory will return.”

“Maybe.” But he wasn’t holding out much hope that Daisy would mellow toward him anytime soon.

“You will stay here as sheriff then?” Duane asked.

Dade shrugged. “Reckon so.”

He didn’t have the money to buy a farm. Didn’t have a home to take Daisy to anymore, thanks to his foster brother selling him and Trey out.

“What about that ranch in Wyoming?” Duane asked.

He rolled his shoulders where the old tension tended to pull tighter than bowstrings. “I’ve no claim on it now.”

If he’d gone to the Crown Seven before last Christmas, he could’ve claimed his rightful shares and had it out with Reid Barclay once and for all. But he’d stayed here too long waiting for Daisy to arrive and ended up snowed in.

“You could fight for your shares,” Duane said.

His mouth quirked to one side. “It’d be that all right.”

But he wasn’t about to drag Daisy along with him, and he wasn’t willing to leave her here while he headed off to Wyoming.

It wasn’t that he thought she needed protecting. But she had that jumpy look about her like she was running from something.

Yep, if he left her to her wiles now, he feared she’d skedaddle and he’d have the Devil’s time finding her again. It was just dumb luck that he’d stayed put long enough for her path to cross his this time.

“You are going to give up on it then?” Duane asked, his one good eye fixed on him.

Dade rocked forward, boots hitting the floor and forearms slapping the desktop. “You trying to get rid of me?”

Duane smiled, his teeth stark white against his dark copper skin. “I know you don’t want to be the sheriff.”

“And you do?”

Duane rolled his muscular shoulders. “It beats working in my father’s livery.”

“Is this what you had in mind to do when you mustered out of the cavalry?”

“Yes.” He downed his head. “I’d lost an eye in battle and the desire to keep fighting my own people. I wanted to come home to heal. Find a good woman and raise children.”

Dade wanted the same someday, but that dream just kept getting pushed farther away for him. A good woman wouldn’t want to hitch her wagon to a man who didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. A man whose kin were notorious outlaws.

Staying in this sleepy town was his best bet right now. Daisy and he could live comfortably in Mrs. Gant’s boardinghouse. He could remain on as sheriff, watching over the town and his sister. And if Daisy refused to stay here?

Well, he just might follow her because there was nothing to hold him here but his promise to protect this town. Duane could take over the job. If he could still handle a gun.

“How’s your aim?” he asked.

“I haven’t tested myself since I was wounded,” Duane said.

“Let’s make a point to do that one day,” he said, and Duane gave him a broader smile and a nod in answer.

Duane got to his feet and towered over the room. “Give your sister time to get used to having a brother, and don’t be too bossy with her. Siblings don’t like it.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

The door swung open and a wooly haired boy poked his head inside. “Sheriff Logan! I bought a bag of penny candy–” The boy gaped at his big brother. “Duane, I didn’t know you were here.”

“I was just fixing to leave,” he said. “How did you afford candy?”

Raymond gulped. “The sheriff gave me a reward for finding the pretty lady named Daisy.”

“Well, now, that’s good work, little brother.”

Raymond smiled nervously as he moved toward Duane. “Are you going to tell pa?”

He ruffled Raymond’s mop of curly hair and dredged a smile from the boy. “Nope. That’s for you to do. Don’t bother Dade too long now, you hear?” Duane said as he headed out the door.

“I won’t stay long,” Raymond promised, and Dade knew he’d be good to his word.

Raymond took a few shuffling steps toward his desk, his gaze fixed on Dade. “She’s sure a pretty lady.”

“That she is.”

“You sweet on her?”

“Not like you’re thinking,” Dade said, refusing to acknowledge that odd pull he’d felt for Daisy when he first saw her. “She’s my sister.”

Raymond’s eyes went wide. “She is?”

“Yep.”

The boy leaned on Dade’s desk and stared up at him. “I got a sister too. And a brother. You got a brother?”

He hid a wince. “Two of them.”

“Are they with your ma and pa?”

Dade shook his head, not wanting to go into the details of his sorry life with the boy, but looking into those wide dark eyes told him he’d have to say something. “Our ma died when Daisy was a baby.”

The boy frowned like he was deep in thought. “Did you cry?”

“Yeah.” Dade scrubbed his knuckles along his jaw, having admitted that to two people in his life–Reid and Trey.

“I would’ve too. I can’t imagine not having Ma around,” Raymond said.

Neither had Dade been able to imagine it. In fact, the world he’d known ended the day his ma died.

Not long after his pa had brought a woman into the house to tend to Daisy and him–their new ma, his pa had told him. But she hadn’t taken care of the house or them like his ma had. Pa started spending less time on the farm chores and more time alone with the woman.

Dade never knew if they’d tied the knot, but she held sway over his pa all the same. He’d never forget the day he overheard the woman suggest that his pa get rid of the brats and head out west.

Lying in the loft on his cot, Dade hadn’t believed his pa would do such a thing. But he had without batting an eye.

“What about your pa?” Raymond asked.

He flicked a quick glance at the wanted posters and felt that old slow burn in his gut flare to life. “Don’t rightly know what happened to him.” Didn’t rightly care either.

At the time, Dade had hated his pa for putting him in the orphanage, and hated those in charge for taking Daisy away. But he had fared better in the long run.

Reid, Trey, and he had formed a bond tighter than brothers. But the saving grace came to their lives when Kirby Morris took them in and made men out of them. He’d been a good father figure. He’d made them a family.

He’d given them a home, and though Reid had ultimately betrayed them, Dade wouldn’t trade those early memories for anything.

A flash of deep blue across the street caught his eye. He took a better look at the woman on the other side of the street and scowled.

The feathers on her hat shielded her face, but he remembered that dress and that eye-popping figure. Daisy.

She was walking at a good clip down the boardwalk, head high, firm breasts thrust forward, and hips swaying to a beat that pounded in his blood.

He wasn’t the least bit surprised that male heads were turning her way. But the sudden jealousy that tightened his balls took him by surprise.

Hell’s fire, what was wrong with him? She was his sister, for God’s sake. But what he was feeling for her right now wasn’t the least bit fraternal.

He expected her to slip into the general store, the dress shop, or the milliner’s nook. But she breezed past them and headed for the little house tucked between the bank and the meat market.

Now why in the hell was she visiting Dr. Franklin? Was she sickly?

Worry had him pushing out of his chair. If something was ailing Daisy, he needed to know about it.

Maggie stared at the kindly physician who’d cared for Caroline Nowell for years as well as assumed the duty of company doctor before he’d fallen into ill favor with Harlan Nowell and been dismissed. It was reported he’d left the county, but down deep Maggie had feared he’d suffered a deadly fate.

So when she and Caroline stayed in Placid the last time, they’d been surprised and delighted to discover the doctor had taken up practice here. He’d laughed when they’d told him they were traveling under aliases, but agreed to go along with it.

Now it was imperative that he keep her identity secret.

“Well if it isn’t Maggie Sutten,” Dr. Franklin said, giving her a thorough once over. “Is Miss Nowell with you again?”

She gave the room a quick scrutiny and heaved a sigh to discover they were alone. “Caroline stayed in Burland. Do you recall how she liked to pull spoofs on folks?”

He laughed, a deep rumble of sound that brought a smile to her face. “That I do. If a sense of humor could cure a person, she’d be pain free and walking on her own.”

She couldn’t argue with that–Caroline had such a wonderful attitude, even on those days she was beset with pain. “She thought it would be fun if we assumed different names each time we left the springs. So last time I picked my friend’s name.”

“I remember,” he said, and she nodded. “The sheriff was mighty smitten with you as I recall.”

“He asked for my hand in marriage.”

“So I heard. When you left without enlightening him about your identity, I assumed you weren’t coming back.”

“I promised I would, and here I am.”

His expression turned somber. “You’ve heard about Lester.”

“Mrs. Gant told me everything.” She blinked back the sudden sting of tears over Lester dying far too soon. “Lester was a good man–I’d never met anyone quite like him before, so honest and so sweet. The day we left Placid he proposed marriage, and I almost told him my real name then.”

“He didn’t know?” Doc Franklin asked.

“I couldn’t tell him the truth then, but I intended to do so this time.” Before she told Lester that she couldn’t go through with the wedding. Before she surely broke his heart.

Doc scrubbed a hand over his grizzled face. For all the care he dispensed with compassion, he looked more outlaw than gentleman. But she knew the heart of the man was pure, and she knew about some of the demons that drove him.

“What’ll you do now?” Doc asked. “Return to Burland?”

“No! I’m never going back there.” At least not willingly.

One bushy gray eyebrow squiggled over a discerning hazel eye. “Who are you running from, Maggie?”

“Whit Ramsey.”

“Harlan Nowell’s partner?”

“One and the same,” she said.

“Why? What did he do to you? Or should I ask what have you done to him?”

She smiled at that. Doc was one of the few who knew about and applauded her spunk.

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time. You want coffee?”

“Please.”

She followed the stoop-shouldered man to the kitchen in the back of the house. He poured two cups of strong coffee and added a generous splash of whiskey to his own.

“Don’t have any milk but there’s sugar if you’re so inclined.”

Maggie added one lump and took a chair across from the doctor. She wasn’t entirely sure where to begin.

“How is Caroline?” he asked.

A sad smile tugged at her mouth. “She had a bad winter, in pain more than not. But she didn’t complain.”