The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) (29 page)

“
No
food in there. You know how bears are.”

“Yes, Chief.” Jim saluted him. “Wait. Hold on.” A moment later he was back. “Take this, too.”

It was the sword.

He had to be kidding. The night just got better and better.

Oh, yeah, that would complete this delightful trip—staving off a hungry grizzly with a Revolutionary War sword. He could see that headline already: Small Town Police Chief Defends Girls By Skewering a Protected Species.

“See you later,” he muttered. “If I’m not blown to Nebraska by this wind. Or eaten by a bear. Or impaled on this sword.”

With a curse he went off into the darkness, and the bear wasn’t at all that hard to find. For one thing, bears are large and without any natural predators, besides other bears and humans, so it felt no particular need to be quiet.

Brown bear, he figured out quickly, and full-grown. Although it had wrecked several tents, two shots in the air were enough to persuade the offender to amble away into the forest.

Then came the worst part of the entire debacle.

None of the girls wanted to return to their beds.

All twelve of them, it seemed, insisted on sleeping together, in the tent with the four adult women. Which was impossible in such a small space, and the girls wanted Jim Galloway and him to sleep in there, too.

Where? Sardines had more space in one of those cans.

Nope. Not in one million years.

The howling wind outside was preferable.

It was sprinkling again. Pauline had regretfully told him she thought it was going to rain all night as she and Jim finally headed back to their tent.

“I’ll sleep across the doorway outside,” he promised the group of wide-eyed females. “I have my gun and the sword, so you should all be fine. Wake me up if—”

“Sword?” Melody interrupted. She sat up and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, never mind. We’ll talk about it later.” He pointed into the darkness toward the tree where he’d put his tent. “I’m going to get my sleeping bag and camp out on your doorstep. Okay? He’ll have to come through me to get to you.”

The girls seemed placated—and tired. “Okay.”

He was going to be wet again. Soaked. Maybe the bear would rip him to shreds in the night and end his misery, he thought as he dragged out his sleeping bag and adjusted the hood. He was sleeping with an ineffective .22 rifle and a sword that hadn’t been sharpened in about three hundred years, the grand protector of a group of girls in a seriously overcrowded tent.

Spence made himself comfortable in his sleeping bag, or as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Trying to ignore the rain, he closed his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
S HEROES WENT,
he was an impressive one.

When the horses trailed back to the Galloway ranch, Melody was sure there wasn’t a single girl on that expedition who didn’t have a crush on Mustang Creek’s handsome police chief.

She certainly did.

As soon as they got within range of a tower, the girls had started calling their parents, and there was a line of cars along the lane to the house, waiting to pick them up.

The sun had the nerve to actually peek through the clouds at the very moment Spence brought Reb to a halt. He slid off in a single athletic move that showed he wasn’t stiff and sore in the least, and began helping everyone dismount. Tripp had come out to deal with the horses.

Next to her, Bex groaned. “I’m going to have to borrow either Tripp or Spence to carry me to my car. Hope one of you will be generous enough to lend me your guy for ten minutes. I thought by the third day I wouldn’t be sore. I’ve trained for and run in six different marathons, but
this
was something else.”

Melody’s backside agreed. “I’ll never be the same again,” she declared as her horse came to a halt. “I’m not even going to dismount, I’m just going to fall off.”

Hadleigh said, “Stop your whining. Let’s see, yes, we were wet the entire time, fifteen people slept in a three-person tent, ate soggy sandwiches and were threatened by a monstrous bear—but it was a great experience.”

Bex and Melody looked incredulously at each other and then at her.

She amended hastily, “I meant for the girls.”

It was really hard to not laugh.

Melody said emphatically, “All I know is that there’s a hot bath with my name on it. A glass of chilled wine awaits and a nice soft bed will cure some of these aches and pains. I want a steak for dinner. A nice, juicy steak.”

She didn’t realize Spence had come to take her horse, but a queue of cars was already pulling away.

“That can be arranged.” Spence’s hands suddenly spanned her waist, and he lifted her easily from the saddle. He set her on her feet. “Do we have a date, then? My place or yours?”

She had steaks at home; she’d bought them on her last grocery trip. She wanted to be in her own place, wanted to see her cats. A friend had come to feed them, so they hadn’t been neglected, but she missed Ralph, Waldo and Emerson. “Mine. Bring Harley. I think the triumvirate would be disappointed not to spend some quality time with him.”

Spence winked at her. “Done. Six o’clock?”

Then he helped Bex out of her saddle, and walked along the line of remaining girls and their parents with that lanky cowboy stride. He spoke to a mom who had an anxious look on her face, probably due to the bear story. His quick smile was reassuring, and her anxiety eased almost at once.

“He’s smooth,” Bex murmured. “I’ll give him that.”

Melody didn’t disagree. She said, “You know, I see Tate Calder’s here helping out. That’s nice of him. Get
him
to carry you to your car.”

Bex blushed. Yes, she blushed. “We’ve only met once.”

Tripp came over to help Hadleigh down, interrupting the conversation. “How was it?”

His wife fell into his arms. “Um, ask Spence and Jim first. I’ll either confirm or deny what they say. Bex and Mel will back me up.”

“I see.” Tripp kissed her lightly. “All I know is that the girls claim they had a terrific time. I heard them talking to their parents as I got the horses.”

All three of them stared at him. “What?”

He gave a masculine shrug. “They said it was a great trip.”

Then all three of them stared at each other.

“I don’t think that’s what Spence would say, but it’s good to hear. Pauline, by the way, is wonderful, and I’ve always been impressed with Jim, too.” Melody wondered how long it would take her to limp to her car. She wanted the crowd to thin out first so there’d be fewer people to witness her current infirmity.

“They were robbed while you were gone,” Tripp said in a low, regretful tone. “Just like at your house. Came in through a window someone busted out. A neighbor called me.”

“Oh, no.” Hadleigh looked distressed, and Melody felt sick at heart.

“Funny thing, my dad wasn’t surprised when I told him a few minutes ago.” Tripp frowned. “He seemed almost happy about it. What’s up with that?”

*

R
EB WAS GLAD
to be home, and so was Harley.

One out to pasture, the other snoozing on the living room rug.

Spence was more content after a hot shower, and scrolled through the messages loading on his phone, not in order of delivery, but in order of importance.

Jack was at the top of the list.

He called back and managed to reach him.

“Pearson here.”

“Hey, Jack, this is Spence, fresh off a hellish trip we’ll discuss sometime over a pitcher of beer. I see you called. What do you have for me?”

“A potential arrest. Big one. Want details?”

“Are you kidding? I called
you
, remember?”

His colleague took a moment. “I’m looking through my notes...wait, here you go. There’s a ring based in my fair city that operates through most of Wyoming and into Montana, and might even be responsible for some robberies in Idaho. They specialize in antiques, have buyers all over the place, and their method seems to be to get a foot in the door by doing appraisals—and then the items disappear. The woman who’s fingered as the leader has a number of aliases and false credentials, but she does have a degree from Harvard, no less. Her real name is Marilyn Artois, and she really is an expert in antiques. The FBI has been sniffing around this since it crosses jurisdiction boundaries, but they haven’t been able to locate her. Do you have any idea how much old stuff can be worth?”

The sword. If Marilyn Artois, aka Mary Allen, got hold of it, he was sure it would never make it to auction. The thing was worth a fortune, and she’d almost certainly have a private buyer.

“I do, since an education on the subject is being forced down my throat. Can you send me a picture of this Marilyn Artois? I think I might be able to help out both you and the FBI, courtesy of one old crafty rancher. If she’s still here in Mustang Creek, and I suspect she is, given what happened over the weekend, then maybe I can pick her up.”

“I’ll forward it to your email.”

“That would be great.”

“You’ll look like a superstar if you pull off getting these guys. They’ve been in operation for a while. Several state agencies have them on their lists. Marilyn’s the ringleader, and without her, they couldn’t pull it off. From what I understand she’s very personable and attractive and her credentials are impeccable. The group moves around and they fly under the radar because no one’s been hurt yet, but they’re raking it in.”

Well,
hurt
was a relative term. He thought about Melody’s panic over the cats and Harley’s limp. And Jim and Pauline probably weren’t enjoying their homecoming after a less than satisfying trip.

“I don’t care about being a superstar. I just want to get a diamond back.”

And his great-grandmother’s canisters, which wouldn’t be worth all that much to anyone else, but he loved them. He recalled that he’d once said something about them to “Mary.”

“Diamond? Fill me in when we drink that pitcher.”

“Deal.”

“Good luck.”

The picture came through, and he had no trouble identifying the subject. A bit embarrassing that he’d dated a con artist and well-known thief, even if it hadn’t been more than two or three times.

He immediately called Tripp. “Tell your dad Operation Sword was a stroke of genius.”

“Uh, mind telling me what the heck you’re talking about?”

“Nope. I have a date, so I gotta go.”

“Tell Mel I said hello. I was so busy greeting Hadleigh, I don’t think I did earlier.”

On his way into town, he stopped at the antiques store and found Junie’s cousin, Cassandra, locking up. “Can you have Ronald give me a call? I was hoping to catch him,” he said.

She reached into her pocket, produced her phone and flicked open a screen. “Any chance this is about her?” She held it out.

Definitely Marilyn Artois, aka Mary Allen. He must have looked flummoxed, because his dispatcher’s cousin explained. “Melody asked if I’d watch out for someone who might know she bought that ring. I remembered she was in there when I was wrapping it up, so I took this picture with my phone. Mary floats in and out pretty often.”

He took a breath and said a prayer. “There’s no chance you have an address for her, is there?”

“PO box. My ex is a lawyer, and I used to work in his office as a clerk, so I know a little about how to do this. I looked through all our invoices. She bought something months ago and paid by check. The account is closed, but the PO box is still rented. I inquired about that on Friday and told Junie about it. According to her, this woman still collects her mail there, but under a different name. You know Terry, the postmaster? He noticed that she changes banks often or at least has a lot of different accounts.”

His smile was genuine. “I don’t want to steal you from Ronald, but if you ever need a job with the police department and we have an opening, let’s talk.”

He immediately called Moe. “Surveillance detail on the post office. I’ll send the number and the picture of the suspect. If she shows up, detain her.”

“Okay. How was the trip?”

“We’ll have to discuss that next year. I’m reluctant to have a repeat performance.”

“Word is, everyone had a ball.”

“Not everyone.”

A muffled laugh was the response. “I kinda heard about the bear when I saw one of the parents at the grocery store.”

He put his truck in gear. “If you keep this up, I’ll put you on third shift. Right now I’ve got someplace to be.”

When he and Harley pulled in to Melody’s house, the smell wafting out was fabulous. Melody answered the door barefoot, wearing a tan skirt and a pale blue sleeveless blouse. Her hair was smooth and shining, and she immediately bent to pet the dog.

“Good to know Harley’s welcome,” he joked.

Then she rose up on tiptoe and kissed him. Nothing complicated, just a kiss with her hands on his shoulders, but he felt weak in the knees when it was over.

She knew it, too. “Come on in. I’m hoping you’ll agree to grill the steaks, because I have everything else going.”

“I’m sure I’d agree to anything you suggest.”

“Really? Glad to hear it.”

She had a very nice backside, so following her into the kitchen was his pleasure.

When she turned around and rested against the kitchen counter, she brushed her hair back from her face. “So, not to waste any time, but... I did this once, and I need some sort of medal for trying again, but will you marry me?”

It wasn’t how he’d pictured the moment. Spence was tongue-tied.

Wasn’t
he
supposed to be the one on bended knee, holding a ring
...
?

“There’s a condition,” she said. “We’re only going to do this if you love me. We aren’t going to negotiate on that one.”

“Mel, you know I love you.”

“Honestly, I’ve never heard that from you.”

He stopped and considered. She
could
be right. But...surely he’d said it. Hadn’t he?

Maybe not.

“I’m not positive I’ve heard it from you, either.” He figured turnabout was fair play—especially in love. Or war? He was confusing his clichés.