Lauri Robinson (3 page)

Extremely quick for a woman of her size and age, Birdie had them all picked up and resettled on the plate by the time Hannah thawed. “B-best one of the bunch?”

Birdie nodded. “I suspect Adam’s thinking he best take a wife now that his brothers have. And with women more scarce than good water in these parts, you’re the prime candidate.”

Hannah followed the woman into the dining room. “I-I’m already married.”

Birdie chuckled. “Of course you are, dear.”

The coppery taste of blood made Hannah lift her teeth off her lower lip. How had Birdie figured out she wasn’t really married? Did the woman also know Stewart wasn’t her real last name? Well, it was—kind of. Stewart had been her mother’s maiden name, so when she needed an alias, she figured the name was hers for the taking.

Heart racing, she twisted and bolted back into the kitchen to busy herself at the stove. If Birdie knew, did Adam McBride know as well? Did the sheriff know she was wanted for breaking her cousins out of jail back in Ohio?

Birdie re-entered the kitchen. “Oh, by the way, did I mention Adam is joining us for supper?”

****

Adam took the front steps two at a time and pulled open the screen door. “Aunt Birdie?” He scanned the empty front room of the boarding house, his gaze lingering on the desk where Mrs. Stewart had stood this morning. A clatter sounded. Blinking away the delightful remembrance, he turned to walk through the dining room and into the kitchen.

Birdie had a hold of Hannah Stewart’s elbow, leading her toward the sink.

“What happened?” he asked from the arched doorway.

“The child done burnt her hand. It’s already blistering,” Birdie said as she began to pump cold water over Hannah’s hand.

“Let me see.” Adam strolled across the room.

“No! No, it’s fine,” Hannah said as Birdie stepped aside.

“Let me see, Mrs. Stewart,” he insisted with a tone that didn’t leave room for challenge. A long, red blister angled across her palm. He pushed her hand back into the basin of cool water. A sweet smell, reminiscent of wild flowers in springtime wafted from her bun of honey-colored hair. Every muscle in his body tightened. “What did you do? Pick up the kettle without a pot holder?”

“Yes, that’s just what she did.” Aunt Birdie held out a bowl. “Here’s some butter.”

He shook his head. “No, butter only holds in the heat. Get me some vinegar and a chunk of ice.”

“Really, it’s fine.” Hannah tried to pull her hand out of the water.

Being much stronger than a woman no larger than a school girl, he didn’t even need to increase the pressure holding her hand in the basin to keep her from moving. “No, it’s not fine. It’s blistered. The vinegar and ice will take out the sting,” he said.

Birdie set the bottle of vinegar near the sink, and he emptied the water from the basin. As soon as air hit her palm, Hannah took a swift intake of breath.

Adam quickly dumped the vinegar in the basin. “Drop the ice in, Birdie,” he instructed as he gently lowered the blistered hand into the vinegar.

“Oh, my!” Hannah wrinkled her pert nose. The sight was adorable and made his heart skip faster than a square dancer.

“I know, but it’ll ease the pain in no time,” he assured, closing one eye against the strong vinegar vapors.

Clearly refusing to look at him, Hannah’s gaze followed his aunt’s movements near the stove. “Birdie, I’ll get that,” she said.

“Nonsense, I got it. You just keep your hand in that basin until Adam says to take it out.” Birdie carried the cast iron pot into the other room.

Adam figured now was as good a time as any to get the answers he hoped to gain tonight. “So, Mrs. Stewart, tell me, have you ever been to Ohio?”

The way she gulped one would have thought she swallowed her own tongue, and the way she squeaked, “Ohio?” Adam wondered if she had.

He studied her mouth, glad when a pink tongue slipped out to run over her bottom lip. “Yes, Ohio. It’s a state, over east of the Mississippi,” he said.

“I know where Ohio is, Sheriff.”

“So you’ve been there?” he asked. The hand beneath his in the basin trembled hard enough to slosh vinegar over the sides.

“I didn’t say I’ve been there. I said I know where it is.”

“So have you?”

“Have I what?”

She was stalling; it was as plain as the little freckled nose in the center of her charming face. And it made him smile. “Been to Ohio?”

She didn’t answer right away, just shuffled her feet beneath the hem of her blue calico dress. When her face lifted, tears welled in the bottom of her eyes, and her long, dark lashes glistened with moisture. “Sheriff, if you plan on arresting me, I implore you to wait until after supper. I shan’t want to leave the kitchen in this state for Birdie to clean.”

Damn!
He’d never have guessed in a thousand years that was how she’d answer. His mind went blank. Not a notion or thought formed into a retort. He let out a sigh of relief when Aunt Birdie ambled back into the room.

“Supper’s on the table. Come and eat while it’s hot. Ralph and Elwood have arrived,” Birdie said before she took the butter dish and left the room again.

He lifted the hand out of the basin then pulled a dish towel off the hook above the sink. Carefully he wrapped the material around her hand. “It’ll probably sting for a bit, but by morning it should be fine.”

She nodded, still looking at him with tear-filled eyes, waiting for an answer.

He rubbed a hand over his mustache.

“Sheriff?” she whispered softer than an early morning breeze.

“It’s time to eat, Mrs. Stewart.” He wrapped one hand around the upper part of her arm and turned her toward the dining room. “Whatever I’m going to do can wait until after supper,” he said as much for his sake as for hers.

Hannah let Sheriff Adam McBride escort her into the other room and settle her on a chair. The sting of her burn was completely forgotten, taken over by thoughts of being arrested. Her freedom had been short lived. It had been wrong to break Tom and Joe out of jail back in Ohio, but they’d been wrongly arrested—all because she wouldn’t marry Nathaniel Kingston and refused to leave town without her mother’s jewelry box.

Shame filled her mouth with an awful taste, and when it mixed with the smell of food, her stomach threatened to erupt.

“Sorry to hear about your injury, ma’am,” Ralph Anderson, the school teacher, said kindly. “Is it so bad you can’t eat?”

The man had been very kind to her the past weeks. She would miss him. Blinking, she lifted her face to give the teacher a slight smile.

Ralph glanced to her right. “You want me to get the doctor, McBride?”

The muscles in her neck tightened as she realized the sheriff sat beside her. Her gaze went to the table. It must have been he who filled her plate, for she hadn’t. The food swam before her eyes.

“No, it’s not so bad we need to get Jake,” he answered. “But you should try to eat something, Mrs. Stewart.”

Of course he’d sit next to her. Keep her from trying to escape. And of course he’d tell her to eat. It could be her last meal. Hannah squeezed her eyes shut. The tears refused to be dammed by her lids. Little by little they trickled through until droplets ran down her cheeks.

“I don’t know, McBride,” Elwood Jackson, the blacksmith, another man who quickly had become her friend, said from across the table. “The way she’s crying it must hurt something awful.”

Hannah pressed her napkin to her burning cheeks, both to absorb the water and to hide her humiliation.

“I told you to use the butter,” Birdie said.

“Excuse us,” the sheriff said.

Before she realized what was happening, she was scooped into strong, steady arms and carried out of the room. She pulled the napkin from her face and whispered, “Y-you said it could wait until after supper.”

The friendly smile usually hiding behind his mustache was gone; a worried frown had replaced it. “I’m just taking you as far as the parlor,” he said.

She didn’t know why she was so infatuated with his mustache—had been since the first day she arrived in town and he’d smiled a greeting her way. From that moment on she’d wondered what it would be like to kiss his lips, feel the fringes of hair tickle her lips. She frowned, tried to pull her mind from such thoughts. But it was difficult with his arms holding her so close.

The only other man to carry her, outside her father when she was little, had been Nathaniel when he’d swiped her off her horse and lugged her into his mansion. That certainly hadn’t sent her heart into a flutter, nor made her body feel like jelly—the way it did right now. When Nathaniel had carried her she’d fought, kicking, screaming, and scratching with all her might. But right now, none of those defenses rose, instead her body melted against the solid muscles holding her, relishing in the potency of Sheriff Adam McBride.

He settled her onto the small divan before he sat down beside her and removed the cloth from her injured hand. His eyes examined the burn. “Does it still hurt that bad?”

“No,” she admitted.

Gentle fingers rose to wipe at the wetness on her cheeks as he asked, “Then why the tears?”

Hannah tried to breathe. An impossible feat when a man this handsome sat next to her, making her skin, from head to toe, tingle with pin pricks of pleasure. His face, tanned by the sun, and decorated with dark brows, and that fascinating mustache hovered mere inches from hers. If she leaned in just a touch, their noses, or possibly their lips, would bump.

She flopped back against the divan, once again trying to clear away outrageous thoughts. The metal badge pinned to his chest caught her attention. She felt as defenseless as a new born kitten. “Because you’re going to arrest me,” she choked.

Chapter Four

His frown deepened, and his head tilted sideways. “Oh, yes, you mentioned that. Why would I arrest you?”

She closed her eyes. “Because of what happened in Ohio.”

“Perhaps you should tell me about what happened in Ohio.”

An eerie feeling tickled her spine, she opened one eye, studied his face for a moment. “You don’t know?”

He shook his head.

“But in the kitchen—”

“I asked if you’d ever been to Ohio.”

“Why?” She used her uninjured palm to wipe at the beads of sweat tickling her forehead.

“Because Oscar, down at the saloon, told me the two boys who spent last night here said they knew you from Ohio, and I was wondering who they were.”

“Oh,” she said with a deflating sigh. Why had she opened her mouth?

“But, now I need to know why you think I should arrest you.”

His hand still held her injured one. The way his thumb roamed over the inside of her wrist made little bolts of pleasure jolt up her arm. He arched one brow, waiting for her answer. She couldn’t lie, didn’t want to lie to him. “Because I broke my cousins out of jail.”

He looked her up and down as if mocking her small size and then smiled. “Really? Tell me more.”

“They were wrongly arrested.” She licked her lips. Perhaps he could help. If nothing else it would feel good to tell someone the truth about what happened. Not the tales Nathaniel had made others believe.
“There’s a man back in Ohio who wanted me to marry him. I refused his offer, so he had the bank foreclose on our farm and left us all but destitute. When Tom, Joe, and I decided the best thing to do was leave town, he waylaid me and took me to his house. The next day the boys came to rescue me. Nathaniel wouldn’t let me out of his sight.” Her cheeks burned at the next memory. “He even followed me to the-the outhouse. But the boys had figured it out and loosened a couple of boards on the backside. While Nathaniel stood guard at the front, I snuck out the back.”

He grinned, a genuine, lip-curling smile. “Good thinking.”

She nodded, but then frowned. “But I was so foolish. When Nathaniel ambushed me, I had my mother’s jewelry box; it was all we had left. When I escaped, it was still in his house. I insisted we get it back. That’s when the boys were arrested. Nathaniel claimed it was his and they were thieves.”

Wispy tendrils framed her face. Adam pushed a long strand of the honey-colored hair away from one cheek. His fingers wanted to wrap the curl around one, feel the silkiness of it. Instead, he tucked the hair behind a petite ear, and asked, “How did you break them out?”

“I waited until the sheriff went to supper with Nathaniel, then I paid a young boy to go in and tell Deputy Sanders the sheriff wanted to see him out at the Kingston mansion. Sanders’ was in such a hurry, he left the cell keys hanging on the wall.” She paused to shake her head and explain, “No one is ever invited to the mansion.”

“What did you do then?”

“I unlocked the cell, and we rode out of town. We just kept riding until we ran out of money near Topeka. There I saw the posting for Birdie’s job, and the boys heard about jobs at a spread west of here.” She ended her tale with a deep sigh.

I’ll be damned!
Adam thought. Her cousins must be working for Cal, the oldest of the three McBride brothers. He ran a hand over his chin. An answer to the telegram he’d sent to Ohio should arrive by morning, either way he needed to investigate this Nathaniel Kingston a bit further.

She raised both of her hands, held them out in front of him and said, “Go ahead and arrest me, Sheriff.”

A longing he’d had for six weeks became too strong to resist any longer. He brushed her hands aside to cradle her face. Silky, warm skin filled his palms. Wetting his lips, so they’d be ready to taste hers, he leaned forward. “I don’t think I can.”

“Uh?” she asked just before his lips merged with hers.

He ignored her question, too overtaken with her closeness. The soft, subtle smell of wild flowers filled his nose, and sweetness, more intoxicating than any brew sold down at Oscar’s place flowed from her lips onto his. He tightened his hold, tilting her head so the kiss could deepen and spread the heady nectar through his body. Like a pup chasing its tail, his mind spun out of control as the kiss opened every fiber of his body. He’d kissed many a women in his days, but never had one affected him like this.