Josie: Bride of New Mexico (American Mail-Order Bride 47) (13 page)

“I know you. You don’t like the idea of my making off with someone’s property, so I’ll tell you before you ask. I
paid
for these clothes. I paid triple their value.”

Hunger made her cranky, too. “I suppose you found the market open and made our purchase?”

“I clipped a five dollar bill to the clothesline. When the lady of the house comes out to see about her laundry, she’ll find the money.”

Josie didn’t want to respect her husband’s so-called honest thieving. It still inconvenienced the family— what if everything they had was on the line and now draped over Adam’s arm?

Money didn’t solve everything. They still had to buy the fabric, spend the hours and hours sewing the replacements. She’d not worked at Brown Textile Mill sewing ready-mades like Lessie had, but she’d heard plenty knew how much work it was to sew clothing… even with a sewing machine.

“I even got you these.” Adam crooked his elbow and raised a dark blob which had to have been boots of some kind.

“Do not steal that woman’s boots!” she hissed.

“They’re not a woman’s. They’re a young man’s, but they’ll do. Your own are so worn out you might as well go barefoot.”

“Put them back.”

“I left ten dollars under a rock, right where these boots had been.”

“What do you want from me, Adam Taylor? A sweet smile and a thank you? For thievery?

The unmistakable clatter of a rifle hammer cocking back cut off anything Adam might have said.

Lessie’s anger evaporated. It dried up and blew away in the desert wind.

If she could, she’d take it all back.

She and Adam were about to die at gunpoint, and if she had it to do all over again, she’d have kept quiet.

The whole getting caught disaster was entirely her doing.

Adam raised his hands, the pair of ‘purchased’ boots still clutched in one paw and an armload of clean laundry over the other arm.

Josie followed suit. She raised both hands. And prayed real hard the property owner would go easy on Adam.

He’d been knifed, bombed, and
his home-away-from-home destroyed.
He’d have died twice already if it weren’t for the grace of God.

Perhaps God had one more miracle for Adam Taylor.

“Turn around nice and slow.” A woman’s voice. Low, steady, with more than a pinch of west Texas in her drawl.

Adam turned. Slow and sure. “I left a ten-dollar gold piece for the boots, ma’am, and—”

“Did I
ask
a question?”

Adam’s heart did a back-flip. No, no, no! This whole supposed wedding trip had turned into one unmitigated disaster. If they didn’t get out of their highly recognizable clothing that labeled them the targets— as far as the bad guys were concerned— he and Josie didn’t have a chance.

But the lady with the rifle seemed to be in charge of this circus, so he turned. And doing so, made sure he put himself just a little more in between the fire arm and Josie.

I’m your target, lady. Leave my wife out of this.

What would he do if the woman got trigger-happy and shot Josie?

“Drop the boots.” Gun lady’s voice was steady and fierce as the desert sun.

He dropped the boots.

“I don’t cotton to my clean laundry on the road, stranger, so you and I are going to walk nice and slow back to the house and like the gentleman I know your mama raised you to be, you’re going to set those freshly washed clothes on the rocking chair.”

…but that put the woman’s back to Josie.

Why would she
do
that?

“And you, Mrs. Taylor, you’re going to come walk beside me.”

Adam nearly swallowed his tongue.
Mrs. Taylor? Mrs. Taylor!
Who was this woman? She may have overheard
some
of their exchange— they hadn’t used names, had they? Had Josie called him
Adam Taylor
when this woman might have heard?

Oh, yeah! He could have sworn and would have, to, if the woman with a rifle trained on his back hadn’t already shushed him. He remembered, clear as day, Josie calling him by name the second before the woman cocked her rifle and alerted them to her presence.

With a man and woman their age, prowling around together under cover of darkness, one could assume they were man and wife… or not.

Did it give Josie a better chance of survival if he denied a marriage relationship?

She hadn’t been the thief. She’d argued to put their belongings back.

What would the woman do if he asked her to go see, check out the money he’d left behind for herself… and also gave her back everything. Would she still insist on putting a bullet in him? Would she tie him up and send for the lawman?

But they’d arrived under the even darker overhang of the porch of the woman’s adobe house. With care, he set the pile of pilfered clothing onto the rocking chair, just like she’d asked.

“I changed my mind, Mr. Taylor. You’re going to hold that laundry— pick it up.”

He scurried to obey.

“And you, Mrs. Taylor, are gonna go get my boy’s boots.” A second passed and Josie didn’t move. “Go. And remember I have a gun trained on your man. You better hurry.”

Josie did as she was told. She scampered off but it took her several long moments to locate the boots in the dark and bring them back.

The whole time, Adam struggled to think it through, decide what would give Josie the best chance for survival.

She had to survive this… and not just because he’d promised Josie he’d look out for her sister.

Josie had given herself to him, had vowed to love him, live with him as his wife… she’d trusted him. And he was a man who didn’t fail nearly so easy as this.

Really, how good of a shot could that woman be, in the absent light of a new moon?

She gestured with the barrel of the rifle. “Both of you. Go on inside. Don’t forget I’m right behind you.”

Chapter Sixteen

“We’re terribly sorry to inconvenience you, ma’am.” Josie’s raised hands trembled. Never in her life, not even when Adam’s body had convulsed with fever and the effects of poison had she felt
this
helpless.

Not even that last week between the fire that destroyed Brown’s Textile Mill and the day she and Lessie had said goodbye to Lawrence and friends in Massachusetts and boarded the train.

“
Josie.
”

The single word was obviously her husband’s warning. He wanted her to remain silent. He thought that would give them the best chance for survival.

Maybe.

But
maybe
not.

“Maybe you heard me chastising my husband for, ummm…
buying
your clothes and boots… without your permission?”

“If you could just see it in your heart to let us go, I promise we’ll go. Far away. Never bother you again.”

The woman struck a safety match. Bright light flared and the odor of sulfur burned Josie’s nose.

The woman touched the match to a lamp’s wick, adjusted for best light, and replaced the chimney.

The warm glow of lamplight told Josie plenty in one glance.

She took pride in her belongings, took good care of them. She wasn’t rich— nothing like the opulence of the private rail car Adam’s family had owned, and nothing like the stark dormitory Josie had lived in with Lessie. And this woman wasn’t the feminine sort who decorated her home with needlework and crocheted doilies.

The woman herself wore a man’s denims, a man’s plaid shirt, buttoned up but not all the way. A good bit of her throat showed at the open collar. Long, honey-golden hair hung down her back as if they’d awoken her from a dead sleep and brought her outside to investigate.

Josie’s perusal made it all the to the woman’s bare toes. Little feet. Feminine feet.

Just the right size to fit the boots Adam had pilfered from the back porch.

“Done looking your fill?” the woman asked.

Josie blanched. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Please— If my husband said he left fifteen dollars on the clothesline and back porch, I believe him.”

“Josie—” Adam cut himself short with a growl of frustration. “You’re the worst possible vagrant I ever imagined.”

“That’s because we’re not vagrants.”

The woman looped two fingers into her mouth and whistled. Sharp and crisp.

That’s when Josie noticed two dogs had been asleep in the corner, motionless, soundless— despite their entrance— until their mistress whistled.

Josie flinched.

She shook so desperately she nearly collapsed. She swayed on her feet.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” The woman yanked a chair out from beneath the table and pointed at it. “Sit.”

In one surprising movement, she uncocked the gun and hung it on its bracket on the wall.

What?

Josie couldn’t believe her eyes— she watched the woman carefully for what felt like a very long moment or two, fully expecting her to wield her next weapon— a knife? A pistol? But all she did was approach on silent feet. “Give me the boots.”

They fell out of Josie’s fingers and
plunk-plunked
onto the floorboards.

Immediately, Josie bent to retrieve them. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to—”

Her head connected sharply with the woman’s as they both grabbed for the boots.

The woman growled. “Ouch.”

Josie clutched her head, sat back with great care, sure at any moment the woman would draw back a fist and wallop her a good one. She’d heard several of the young women in the dormitory speak of working in service for wealthy families, and how quickly homeowners lost patience with the clumsy, any damage to their property.

This woman, their… captor? Hostess? This person wasn’t wealthy, at least didn’t appear so on the surface, but she’d already been most proprietary about her clothing and boots.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Call me ma’am one more time and I’m likely to do somethin’ we’ll both regret.”

Josie glanced at the homey, clean living space, the open doorway that must lead to the second room in the house, probably a bedroom, but found no answers as to the woman’s name. Adam’s grim expression gave her no clues, either.

“I’m sorry—”

“Gertie. The name’s Gertie.”

Josie didn’t know how to respond, what to say, how to acknowledge the woman had just given them her name. After she’d caught them
buying
her clothing and boots.

“Miss Gertie?” Adam drew the woman’s attention. “Would you mind if I set your clean laundry on the sofa?”

Apparently he had no trouble figuring out what to do with the woman’s name.

She shrugged. In the lamplight she could’ve been anywhere from thirty to fifty. Lean and hard as the land she lived on, as sun-baked as the soil surrounding her adobe home.

So very different than the tenements of Lawrence and absolutely nothing like the extravagant wealth of Cannon Mining’s third-generation owner.

Just how were they going to find their way out of this mess?

Adam set the clothing down, straightened his dirt-streaked jacket and held up his hands as if Miss Gertie still held him at gunpoint.

“Mind if I ask you for a drink of water for my wife and me? We’re both powerful thirsty.”

Water?
All Adam could think of was water? Didn’t he have about twenty-seven questions for this odd woman who’d essentially invited them into her home… with a rifle as persuasion?

To Josie’s surprise, Gertie rose, turned her back to them both— what an unbelievably strange woman this was— and filled two tin cups with water from a wooden bucket on what passed for a sideboard.

Gertie turned about and set both cups at her table as if she’d just offered the finest tea service imaginable.

“Do have a seat, Mr. Taylor.” She eyed them both, took in their dirty, tattered clothing in one long sweep. Once Adam had taken the seat beside Josie, said his thank-yous and downed his water, Gertie said, “Now, suppose you two tell me who tried to kill you?”