Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone Sheriff\The Gentleman Rogue\Never Trust a Rebel (6 page)

“Hungry?”

“Good heavens, yes. I skipped breakfast.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Paper crunched and then he held something out to her. “Biscuit? Probably as cold and hard as saddle leather, but better than listening to your stomach growl all the way to Smoke River.”

At once she covered her belly with her hands. “Was it growling, really?”

He gave her one of his raised-eyebrow looks and folded her fingers over a lumpy biscuit. “Eat.”

“Right,” she murmured. She gobbled it down and held out her hand for another.

The biscuits lasted until Riverton, and during the ten-minute stop she sped into the stationhouse and came back with a cardboard box containing hard-boiled eggs and slices of cold ham. It all disappeared before they rolled through the tiny town of Saint Xavier, and they were still only halfway home.

Maddie found the ball of pink crochet thread and, when her hands stopped shaking, began to work on her lace pattern.

Jericho watched her for a long minute and thought about doing his daily wrist stretches. He settled for right-hand finger flexes. The stuff in Maddie's green bottle had helped, but not enough. He wondered how she'd known what to buy.

After a long silence, she turned toward him with a smile. “We might talk over our next plan,” she said happily.

“
We
don't have a plan.”

“I have an idea for—”

“Won't wash. The plan is gonna be
my
idea.”

She missed a stitch. “Oh? Have you a plan?”

“I might, yeah.”

“Jericho...” She folded the length of pink lace onto her lap. “I apologize for this morning. For making you wait.”

“And worry,” he added. “And rip my arm half out of its socket.” Absently he began to massage his right wrist. “I told myself I shouldn't worry,” he said, an edge coming into his voice. “Smart detective lady like you could figure out how to get back to Smoke River. For one thing, you could ride that pretty little mare you're so fond of.”

Maddie threw the ball of crochet thread at him. She liked his teasing, she admitted. Up to a point. She liked his eyes and his unkempt dark hair and the strong chin shadowed with a growth of beard. She liked
him
.

Up to a point.

“I want to know what you are thinking, Sheriff.”

“No, you don't, Mrs. O'Donnell.”

Well, yes, she did. But perhaps now was not the time to push the point. Tomorrow, she decided. After she visited the dressmaker and ordered a new shirtwaist and talked to the bank manager and the Wells Fargo agent again.

After she found out when they planned the next gold shipment.

She let her crochet work drop onto her lap and drew in a deep, clarifying breath. Jericho would insist on his plan, whatever it was. Surely it would be more than sitting on the train, waiting for the Tucker gang to strike? While that had afforded them a good look at the robbers, what they planned next had to result in the capture of at least one of them.

He wouldn't want to include her, but that did not matter.

She had been sent to help Sheriff Jericho Silver, and that is exactly what she intended to do.

Whether he liked it or not.

Chapter Seven

M
addie entered the Smoke River restaurant tired and hungry to find the waitress looking surprisingly pleased to see her. “Evenin', Miss.”

“Good evening, Rita. But it's Mrs. O'Donnell. How are you this evening?”

“Feet hurt,” the plump woman confessed. “Been on 'em all day, and I worked later than usual knowin' the sheriff would be comin' in for his supper. He eats here most nights, see, and I thought—”

“I thought he would, too,” Maddie said. Jericho had bolted off the train the instant it rolled into the station and, without a word, headed off toward the jail. It was obvious he couldn't get away from her fast enough.

Rita led the way to the corner table and Maddie sank onto the upholstered seat.

“Think he'll be along soon?” the waitress ventured. “I saved some of his favorite dessert for him.”

“Oh? What is the sheriff's favorite dessert?”

“You won't tell him I told you, will ya, ma'am? Johnny's mighty fussy about people knowin' personal things about him.”

“I will not breathe a word, Rita. I promise.”

The waitress leaned down. “Johnny's real partial to peppermint ice cream. Cook makes a good double-layer chocolate cake and the sheriff always has two slices with peppermint ice cream. Maybe you'd like to try some after yer supper?”

Maddie's gaze met the older woman's. “Why do you call the sheriff ‘Johnny'? His given name is Jericho, is it not?”

Rita's lined cheeks turned pink. “Well, ma'am, it's 'cuz to some of us the sheriff's special. We've known him since he was a boy, really.”

“Oh?” Maddie couldn't help herself; she wanted to know more about the tall, mysterious sheriff. “Oh?” she said again.

Rita smoothed down her starched apron and leaned closer. “Well, ya see, Johnny come to Smoke River when he was just a kid, about twelve years old. He was all alone, never had no family that he knew of. Didn't even know how old he was, really. So we kinda adopted him. Jericho's the name they gave him at the orphanage—from the Bible, you know. Johnny's kind of a pet name the townsfolk gave him.”

Johnny. It suited him in a way, Maddie thought. A bit boyish, with a generous dash of what her mother would call “sass.” Underneath his taciturn exterior, she suspected there was still a bit of “Johnny.”

But when he blustered and swore at her, then he was Jericho for certain—a hard man. A loner who expected the walls to come tumbling down when he made himself known.

She ordered steak with peas and a baked potato, and sat sipping her tea, hoping Jericho—Johnny—would show up. She had some ideas about how to capture the Tucker gang, and besides, she admitted with a little flutter in her chest, the sheriff was certainly the most intriguing man she had ever encountered. It had only been a few hours, but she wanted to see him again. Even his growly voice sent a shiver up her spine.

She consulted the watch pinned to her shirtwaist; another fifteen minutes had passed since the last time she looked and still no sheriff. Apparently he preferred being at the jail to eating supper with her. Part of her felt a bit miffed; another part...well, she wouldn't think about that now, with Rita watching her. She was afraid she would blush.

She sliced up her medium-rare steak with ruthless efficiency, then purposefully mashed down the halved baked potato with her fork and dumped all the butter in the dish on it. While the butter slowly melted, she wondered for the tenth time what the sheriff was doing that was so important he would miss his dinner.

Maddie slowly lowered her fork. Of course. He was off making plans—plans that did not include her. She pressed her lips together. She hated being left out of anything, especially something as important as gold shipments and train robberies and the job she had come to do. An assignment like this made her life worthwhile. And full of adventure. She especially liked the adventure part.

All her life she had felt different somehow. Alone. Even when she was married. She swallowed a little sniffle. Then it had been even worse. Being excluded was her own private version of hell.

Rita slid a piece of cake onto the table and coughed deliberately. Maddie looked up. There he was at the restaurant entrance, tall and long-legged, his smoky eyes scanning the room. She gulped and dug her fork into the butter-drenched potato.

A beaming Rita waved him over and bustled off to bring another menu as the sheriff took the seat across from Maddie.

“You look different,” she observed.

His dark eyebrows rose. “Yeah? You mean I look better?”

“Not better, just...different.” Her voice came out sharper than usual. In spite of herself, she smarted over his long absence. Now that was just silly. She did not care one fig where Jericho preferred to spend his time.

“Yeah, might be I do look different. Had a shave and got Sandy to trim my hair some. Wearin' a clean shirt might make a difference, too.”

It surely did, she admitted. When he was rumpled and unkempt he looked...interesting. All cleaned up, he looked very male and devastatingly handsome. Dangerous, even. For a long minute she could think of nothing to say.

“How about you, Mrs. Detective?”

Maddie bit her lip. “I have enjoyed a bath upstairs in my room, with that nice lavender soap from the mercantile. And,” she added with emphasis, “I have almost finished my supper.” She did not add
while waiting for you
.

Rita fluttered near with her pad and pencil. “The usual, Johnny?”

“Yep. Well done and—” he glanced at the uneaten peas on Maddie's plate “—skip the peas.”

“You do not care for peas?” Maddie blurted out.

“Nope. Can't keep 'em on my knife.” He said it with a perfectly straight face, but she laughed anyway.

“And they taste awful when I eat 'em with honey.”

She wanted to laugh again, but she did not want to seem the least bit accepting of his humor. Or his late appearance. After all, he had practically stood her up for supper.

She suspected he had been off somewhere making plans, and she itched to know what they were. Besides her duty to the bank manager and Mr. Pinkerton, she did not want to be left out of anything exciting.

Rita brought Jericho's steak and a cup of coffee, and he waited until the waitress retreated to the kitchen before he spoke. “I've been thinking, Maddie. Someone here in Smoke River is tipping off the Tucker gang about the gold shipments. No other way they'd know which train to rob.”

Maddie clunked her teacup down on the saucer. “An informer? Who is it?”

“Keep your voice down, dammit.”

“Who?” she repeated in a soft murmur.

“Dunno yet. Important thing is to keep my movements secret.”

“
Our
movements,” Maddie corrected.

“That's what I said.” He said it so blithely she was positive he'd said no such thing. And that, she decided, tightening her mouth, was another indication of how he felt about her help on this mission.

She worked to keep her voice calm. “Keep our movements secret, how?”

Jericho swallowed a forkful of fried potatoes. “Set up a smoke screen. Not let anyone see what I'm really doing.”

“And just how do
we
—” she purposely emphasized it “—do that? This is a small town. Everybody knows everything that goes on in a town like this.”

“You ever camped out in the open overnight?”

“Certainly not. I prefer warmth and privacy and a soft mattress and extra pillows.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” He grinned and munched up a bite of steak. “Fact is, I'm betting you'd rather hightail it back to the city than sleep on the hard ground.”

Maddie put down her fork. “Not if I could capture some train robbers. In that case I would endure anything. Well, almost anything. Not bugs or wolves or thunderstorms.”

His smoke-blue eyes regarded her for a full minute. “Let's face it, Maddie. You're too citified for my plan.”

Maddie opened her mouth, then snapped it shut until the impulse to scream passed. “For a good cause, I can be so uncitified you would not recognize me.”

“Uh-huh.”

He didn't believe her. “Jericho, what
is
your plan? Tell me.”

He swigged down the last of his coffee and sank his fork into the slab of chocolate cake Rita had brought. It was twice the size of Maddie's piece. Oh, yes, this man certainly was “Johnny” to those who knew him well. And, she thought with growing respect, those who knew him well, loved him.

But that most definitely did not include her.

Jericho swallowed a mouthful of cake. “I'm going after the gang tomorrow morning. Alone.”

“Not without me,” Maddie retorted sharply. “You underestimate me, Sheriff, and I will not stand for it. I am carrying out an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton and you cannot —”

“Shut up, Maddie. Just shut the hell up, will you? I can do whatever the hell I want.”

She went as white as flour. A tension so thick you could cut it like an overdone steak dropped over the room. Maddie stared at him.

“I don't want you along,” he said, his voice quiet.

She pressed her lips together. “I came out here to help you catch the Tucker gang,” she said, in an equally quiet voice. “And until you can shoot straight with both your hands, you are stuck with me.”

Jericho made up his mind for the third time. He sure as hell wasn't stuck with her. She wasn't used to the West. She always slept indoors, on a soft mattress; she didn't like bugs. She'd never be able to manage what he had in mind. He knew it, but she didn't, at least not yet. The woman was so damn stubborn....

Jumping jennies, how could he get her out of his hair?
And his mind
.

He sucked in a quick gulp of air. He wished to hell she'd just climb on the train back to Chicago where she belonged, and he wished she'd do it now, before she got hurt.

He didn't like his reaction to her. Something about her sure set his teeth on edge. He found himself uneasy and tense when she was around.

“Listen, Maddie. Today I sat down with Colonel Wash Halliday and studied an army map. If I'm figuring it right, I know where the gang will try next. I've got an idea where they'll hole up and I'm going to surprise them before they stop the train.”

“But—”

“You're a good sport, Maddie, but you've grown up soft and citified. Forget it. You're not coming with me.”

“You are wasting your breath, Jericho. I took this job and I intend to finish it.”

“Oh, no, you won't,” he growled. One thing he was learning about Mrs. Detective—she had enough sand to try anything. What she didn't have was good sense.

She looked him straight in the eye. “Don't argue, Sheriff. We've been through this before, but apparently you are hard of hearing because—” she raised her voice until she was shouting “—whatever you plan on doing,
I am doing it with you!
”

They stared at each other in silence. He respected her dedication. He admired her grit. But this pretty lady was just too much pretty lady to be any real help. She distracted him, and besides, he preferred to work alone; he always had. He wasn't about to change for Madison O'Donnell.

She had sand, all right, but she wouldn't last an hour on the trail with him. He knew it, but she didn't.

He admired her can-do attitude. What he didn't like was his reaction to her. He was scared of something. Not her, exactly. But something about her sure set his teeth on edge.