Never Love a Lawman (39 page)

Rose nodded, kissed him again. “Help yourself to the applesauce cake.”

Rachel took a steadying breath as Will opened the office door for her. Her heart still hammered in her chest, but she mastered the short, panicked breaths that had made her light-headed earlier.

Wyatt stood up from behind the desk immediately and held out a hand to her. “It’s all right,” he said gently, beckoning her forward. “Thanks for escorting her, Will.”

“Do you want me to hang around?”

“You’ll be upstairs?”

Will nodded.

“That’s good enough. Appreciate your help.”

Rachel waited until Will backed out the door; then she took Wyatt’s face in her hands and examined it for bruises. “Rose said Foster hit you.”

“Tried
to hit me. Sam Walker saw it coming and blocked it with his arm.” He caught her wrists and drew her hands away. “You’re cold. You could have taken the time to put on a pair of gloves.”

She ignored the admonishment and just let him rub her hands. “Where’s Sam now? And everyone else for that matter? I heard you had seven men with you.”

“I let them all go except Ezra. He volunteered to sit in the back with our guests.”

“Foster’s really behind that door?”

“Behind the
bars
behind that door,” he corrected. “He’s sharing a cell with his accountant. The two men he brought along to provide protection are in the adjoining one.” He studied her worried face. “What is it?”

She hesitated. “I wonder if it was wise to arrest all of them.”

“Even Mr. Dover attempted to throw a punch,” he said. “It was more for show, to prove that he stood with his employer, so I obliged him by putting him with Mr. Maddox. The other two had more serious intent. Ezra got the worst of it before we settled them down, that’s why he volunteered to stay with the prisoners and why I didn’t send him to Rose’s to get you. Virginia wouldn’t let him out of the house if she saw his face.”

“Does he need attention?”

“Doc’s been here and gone. He’ll be fine. He packs a little snow over his eye now and again to keep the swelling down.”

“Why did they start fighting?” Rachel’s gaze became narrow, suspicious. She removed her hands from his. “What did you do, Wyatt?”

Her question was more in the way of a scold, and Wyatt was inclined to grin. He tempered that inclination, suspecting that she would fail to see the humor right off. If he even hinted that she was being wifely, she’d think he was patronizing her, whereas he believed it was simply an acknowledgment of how well she knew him.

He offered up a less provocative response: he shrugged.

“Wyatt?”

“I told him you and I are married.” He held up his hands. “I swear. That’s all I did.”

“Then it must have been the way you said it.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I was just matter-of-fact.”

Still skeptical, Rachel sighed. “Very well. May I see him?”

“That’s why I wanted you here. I don’t think it’s a good idea, Rachel, but it’s also your decision.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? He was unflattering in his description of you.”

“I’m sure he was. Can you listen to him say those same things to my face?”

“Without flattening him?”

“Without showing any reaction. That’s what he wants to provoke. He’ll want to gauge your intentions, observe your weaknesses. He’s a master at it.”

“He threw the punch, Rachel. I didn’t.”

“Yes, and he’ll be looking to settle the account. To his way of thinking, he came up short in that column.”

“Not surprising, then, that he chose to travel with his accountant instead of his lawyer.”

Rachel smiled at his dry tone, but her message didn’t change. “I’ll see him alone if you don’t think you can bear it.”

“You aren’t seeing him alone.”

She understood that he hadn’t agreed to anything, but she nodded as if he had. “Where can we talk?”

Wyatt would have preferred that Foster remain behind bars, but there was no privacy in the jail area. He made his offer reluctantly. “I’ll bring him out.”

Rachel unwound the scarf she’d loosely thrown over her head and shoulders, but she didn’t take off her coat. If she had to leave, she would rather it were done quickly, without scrambling for her outerwear, or worse, going without it. Every conversation she’d ever had with Foster Maddox tested her mettle. Her caution to Wyatt that he should not reveal any reaction was also a caution to herself, and she hoped she could heed it.

She was standing on the far side of Wyatt’s rolltop desk, taking advantage of the barrier it presented, when the door opened. Her features remained perfectly still as Foster stepped into the office.

He had changed very little. There were perhaps a few more lines at the corners of his eyes, and the crease across his brow appeared now to be permanent, but on the whole he looked as fit as she remembered. Where her memory had failed her was in the true accounting of his size. She’d forgotten how fine-boned he was, how slender his shoulders were, how sharply pointed his knuckles could be when he clenched his fists. She had misrepresented the angular nature of his features in her mind, making him broader and bulkier when in fact, he was lean and taut and wound like a spring.

He stood slightly taller than Wyatt, but the correctness of his posture and the narrowness of his frame seemed to lend him additional height if no more authority. He breathed in his own air of superiority, and as often as Rachel had wished he might choke on it, he never did.

He crossed to her quickly, and Rachel was hard-pressed to hold her ground. It was only because she anticipated that he would try to crowd her that she was successful.

“Step back,” Wyatt said. “Stand over here.” He tapped the side of the desk.

The small smile that Foster offered Rachel was both apologetic and regretful. “It’s an unsatisfactory manner in which to greet a dear friend.”

Rachel offered no comment, and she was careful not to look to Wyatt. She hoped the relief she felt when Foster retreated was not palpable.

“You are looking very well, Rachel.”

“As you are.”

His eyes made a second examination of her, this one more thorough, slightly insolent. “Very well, indeed.”

Rachel could do nothing about the blossom of heat in her cheeks. Far from being flattered by his study, she felt as if fire ants were crawling helter-skelter across her skin.

“Well,” Foster said, looking around the spare office. “A stove. May I? Your husband’s jail is cold. I could stand to warm my hands.”

Wyatt was not sympathetic. “Rub them together. Or better yet, blow on them.”

Foster chuckled, and he continued to address Rachel. “I suppose he is telling me I’m full of hot air. Not a terribly subtle allusion. He is not at all the sort of gentleman I thought you might choose, Rachel. Is it really true that you’re married?”

“It’s true.”

He glanced pointedly at her hands. “No ring, though. Why is that?”

His observation startled Rachel. She glanced at Wyatt for the first time and saw he was similarly struck.

Their brief exchange was not lost on Foster Maddox. “As I suspected. You’re not married at all. Why the ruse, Rachel? What purpose did it serve?”

“It’s not a ruse. Wyatt is my husband.”

“I don’t believe you. I saw how you looked at him. You were surprised. So was he.”

“We were surprised because neither one of us has ever given thought to a ring.” She wondered how to explain that without revealing the unusual circumstances of their marriage. “It was a civil ceremony, Foster.”

“Now I’m certain you’re lying. Do you imagine I never paid attention to the things you said? I know there was very little that you wanted as much as to be married in church.”

“My life is different here.”

“Reidsville has churches, doesn’t it?”

“This is not a conversation I care to have with you. I can offer the proof of our wedding certificate, but that seems excessive. Believe what you like. I can’t see that it matters one way or the other.”

“Oh, it matters,” he said softly. “I always said I would find you.”

“So you did, and so you have.”

“If it’s true that you’re married, Rachel, it seems especially providential that you married this particular man.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s what passes for the law in this town, isn’t that right?”

“He’s the sheriff, yes.”

“The sheriff.” Foster laid his hand lightly on the top of the desk. His fingers were long and tapered, the nail tips buffed and squared off. “Have you told him about yourself, Rachel?
All
about yourself?”

Rachel’s gaze remained focused on Foster, but she was acutely more aware of Wyatt in her peripheral vision. Although Foster’s question was directed at her, she understood his intent was to raise doubt in Wyatt’s mind. When Wyatt didn’t turn by so much as a hair in her direction, she felt the trust he’d extended to her as a tangible thing.

Rachel sidestepped Foster’s question by asking, “If there is something you’d like to tell my husband, then you should do so.”

Foster rubbed his jaw. “He took violent exception the last time.”

“Actually,” Wyatt said, “it was Ezra.”

Rachel’s right eyebrow lifted a fraction as she addressed Foster. “Then you must have said I was a whore. That would raise Ezra’s hackles.”

“To be perfectly correct, I said you
are
a whore. I was particular about the tense.”

She nodded. “Is that something you think I should have told Wyatt?”

“Don’t you?”

“It’s really only ever been your opinion, Foster, and it seemed to concern you more that I wasn’t your whore.”

Foster Maddox’s lips twisted in a slight smile. “It won’t surprise you that he spoke of you at the end. His last words were for my grandmother, but he was crossing over by then. His last lucid thoughts were for you.”

Rachel refused to snap at the bait he dangled. “You were with him, then.”

“Yes, of course. So was my mother.”

She closed her eyes briefly against the sting of tears.

“We didn’t abandon him, Rachel.”

It was too easy for Rachel to hear the accusation that went unspoken. She had abandoned Clinton Maddox, allowed him to die with family at his side, but no one who had ever loved him as she had. “I miss him terribly,” she said quietly. “He was a good friend to me. An extraordinary mentor.”

The line of Foster’s mouth became disapproving. “I am endlessly fascinated that you are able to describe your relationship with him as anything but what it was.”

She sighed deeply. “And here we are, returned to this single argument. I can’t imagine that there is one thing to be gained by going over it again. We’re done here, Foster.”

When Rachel started to turn away, Foster reached for her. He had extended his arm only half the distance when it was abruptly caught and pulled hard behind his back. He grimaced, clenching his jaw.

Rachel’s eyes flew to Wyatt’s. “It’s all right,” she said, backing up another step. “Please, let him go.”

Wyatt did, and Foster carefully brought his arm around. He shook it out and made a particular point of tugging on the sleeve of his jacket, then brushing himself off. “Does he always do as you tell him, Rachel?”

She ignored the barb and addressed Wyatt. “Shall I wait for you outside or at home?”

“At home. I won’t be much longer, but there’s no point in you waiting in the cold.”

“One moment,” said Foster. This time he did not put out a hand to stop her. “I have something to show you.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Both of you, actually.”

Wyatt indicated that Rachel should stay where she was. “Where is it?” he asked.

“Inside my jacket. May I?”

Nodding, Wyatt moved to the side so he had a better view of Foster’s hands.

Foster showed his amusement. “It’s not a weapon.”

“I know it’s not,” said Wyatt. “All the same, I’ll watch.”

“Of course.”

Rachel frowned slightly, suspicious of the turn in Foster’s demeanor. There was a certain civility to his tone that made her brace for the blow.

“Right here,” Foster said, producing a folded document from his pocket. He held it up with his fingertips. “Sheriff?”

“Why don’t you just tell us what it is?”

“Naturally, if that’s what you want, but I don’t flatter myself that you’ll believe me.” He placed the paper on top of the desk and tapped it lightly with his index finger. “It’s a warrant. It authorizes me to take Rachel back to California, specifically to Sacramento.”

Rachel’s stomach clenched. She stared stonily at Foster. “Why would any judge authorize that?”

“I imagine because my lawyers presented a compelling case.”

“They lied for you, you mean.”

“I don’t mean that at all.”

Wyatt stepped in and asked calmly, “What are the charges?”

“Theft and attempted murder.”

Rachel blanched, but Wyatt went on without blinking. “Tell me about them.”

“If Rachel has revealed anything of her true nature to you, they should be painfully obvious. She took advantage of my grandfather’s bedridden state and stole a great many items from his home when she left. Most of the things were gradually secreted away in preparation of her departure. Furniture. Jewelry. China. Silver. I left behind a full accounting of the items on the train. I expect to find most of them here in Reidsville.”

Wyatt’s expression remained shuttered. “And the attempted murder?”

Foster shrugged lightly. “I confronted her about the thefts, and she tried to kill me.” He lifted his hand slowly and rubbed the back of his head near the sandy-colored crown. “Twenty-two stitches.”

“You waited a very long time to bring your charges forward.”

“Two reasons. I did not want to distress my grandfather, and I didn’t know where Rachel was. His death finally eliminated the first impediment and eventually provided me with the answer to the second.”

“I see.” Wyatt did not argue either of Foster’s points. He turned his attention to Rachel instead. “Go on home. I’ll be along directly.”

Rachel was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing out her hair, when she heard Wyatt come in. She called to him to let him know where she was but didn’t get up to greet him. She continued to apply the brush, counting out the strokes, while she listened to him preparing the stoves for the night. For the first time, she found herself wishing these last chores took longer to complete than they did. No amount of brushing could diminish this final vestige of dread.