Tara's Gold (4 page)

“You’re too kind.” Tara leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Since you are a man of the law, I hope I can be assured of your complete confidentiality in what I’m going to ask you.”

The sheriff removed his glasses and raised his thick brows. “But of course. I wouldn’t be able to uphold the law if I was a man who couldn’t keep confidences, now would I?”

Tara nodded. “I’m happy to hear you say that, because what I need to discuss with you is rather. . .delicate to say the least.”

He set his pencil down. “I’m listening.”

Confident she now had the man’s full attention, Tara continued. “My aunt, who sadly passed away suddenly last year, worked as a spy for the North during the recent War Between the States, and in reading through her journal, I came across some entries that, well, I simply couldn’t ignore.”

“Entries about what?”

“A cache of gold stolen from the Union army that is rumored to be buried somewhere in the area.”

Sheriff Morton leaned back in his chair and let out a deep belly laugh. “I hate to disappoint you, Miss Young, but I’ve heard more rumors about that missing gold than there are jackrabbits in our cornfields. Not too many years back a woman arrived in town who believed her father had a role in the heist, but no pot of gold ever turned up. Even the government claims that it exists, but I’ve been sheriff here for nearly thirty years, and I can promise you that if you go after that gold around here, you’re only going to be chasing ghosts. There’s no gold. Least not in my territory.”

Tara ignored the sting of disappointment, but she wasn’t finished yet. “I’ve got a name.”

The sheriff cocked his head and eyed her warily. “A name? What do you mean?”

“My aunt mentions a man named Schlosser in connection to the gold.”

“Schlosser. Richart Schlosser.” He rubbed his beard. “If I remember correctly, Mr. Schlosser moved away three or four years ago. Lived on a farm a few miles out of town. All I can suggest to you is that you talk to the land agent and see if he has an exact record of when the family lived here. But if you ask me, you’re better off spending your time caring for the Carpenters rather than chasing some alleged pot of gold.”

Tara frowned at the man’s last comment. Beauty and charm might give her an advantage at times, but it seemed they did little to ensure one was taken seriously. She stood and stepped behind the chair. It was time to end their conversation.

“I do appreciate greatly your taking the time to talk with me about this, Sheriff.”

“I’m at your service any time, Miss Young.” He stood and moved to the edge of his desk where he tapped his fingers against the hardwood. “There is one other thing, I almost forgot. I have the man who attacked you last night locked up in the jail. He’s slept off his stupor, and I’ve given him a thorough lecture. Unless you feel compelled to press charges. . .”

“No, please.” The last thing she wanted to do was make an incident out of the situation. “I think I’d rather put the entire episode behind me.”

Tara nodded her thanks, then stepped out onto the boardwalk. While she was embarrassed over her reaction toward the drunken man and would rather forget the discomfiting moment—except perhaps the encounter with the handsome stranger—she was even more disappointed about the sheriff’s reaction to the gold. Of course, she wasn’t certain what she had been expecting. At least the visit wasn’t completely in vain. She’d seen the land agent’s office on the outskirts of town, and would take the time to inquire after the whereabouts of Mr. Schlosser once she delivered Mr. Carpenter’s letter.

Tara crossed the street toward the post office, careful to avoid the patches of black mud that filled the street. She secured her hat with one hand as a gust of wind tried to blow it off her head. The last thing she needed was her summer hat to end up with a thick coating of Iowa mud.

At the edge of the boardwalk, an envelope fluttered to the ground in front of her. She caught it, then searched to find its owner. Her heart thumped as she looked up into the toffee brown eyes of the handsome stranger who had rescued her the night before.

❧

Aaron gazed into the familiar face of the woman who’d filled his dreams the night before, and he somehow managed to stammer an awkward,“good morning.”

Her bubbly laugh sounded as light as the tinkling of a bell. “It’s already afternoon.”

“Of course.” Aaron frowned, feeling suddenly foolish over his obvious display of nerves.

She held up one of his letters that had blown out of his hands. “Is this yours?”

He took the envelope, allowing the tips of their fingers to touch in the exchange. “Thank you. I was on my way to post the letters and there was a gust of wind. . .”

For a moment, an awkward pause hovered between them. Of course, she knew that. Aaron swallowed hard, wishing he didn’t feel quite so happy to see her. With his information coming straight from Washington, his arrival in Browning City had been planned out in detail. He was to arrive, spend the morning mapping out the town and its occupants, visit with the sheriff, then interview those he felt might have information regarding the events that led up to the disappearance of the gold five years ago. His itinerary didn’t include falling for the first beautiful woman he encountered. Not that he’d actually fallen for her. But it was true that he hadn’t stopped thinking about her.

He tapped the envelopes against the palm of his hand. “I hadn’t expected to see you again.”

She lifted the edge of her skirt and stepped onto the boardwalk. “Actually, since Browning City is no metropolitan center, I would think that the odds of us running into each other were actually quite high.”

“True.” He took off his Stetson and followed her toward the post office. “I wanted to apologize for not introducing myself properly last night. With all the commotion, it seems as if I completely forgot my manners.”

She stopped, turning to face him as a slight blush crept up her cheeks. “It’s only natural that the formalities would get pressed aside in such a situation.”

The explosion of a gunshot ripped through the afternoon air as a bullet ricocheted off the painted sign above their heads. Aaron grabbed her arm and shoved her through the doorway of the post office out of the line of fire.

Four

“Are you all right?”

Tara nodded as she stared into the face of the man who had managed to prevent her from harm for a second time in twenty-four hours. She crouched inside, beneath the window of the post office, willing the shots to subside. Someone screamed. The window shattered above them, sending thick shards of glass across the wooden floor.

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee. Fear thou not; for I am with thee. . .” She repeated the scripture over and over, mumbling the words aloud.

Aaron crouched next to her, leaning on his palms. “Isaiah chapter forty-one?”

She nodded at his question, surprised he knew the verse. “So you believe in God?”

“Especially at moments like this.” He pulled his gun out of his holster and checked the barrel. “I’ve faced death a time or two in my life and know that I don’t want to leave this world without the hope of spending eternity with Him.”

A gun fired again, exploding through the afternoon air like a blast of dynamite. Tara struggled to breathe. While she, too, believed as a Christian that the good Lord would one day take her home to live with Him forever, she hadn’t expected that moment to be now. There were still a few things she wanted to take care of on this side of eternity first.

She lowered her head and tried to take a handful of slow, deep breaths. Aunt Rachel would have strutted out the front door of the post office and given the gunman a severe tongue-lashing for his disrupting the afternoon of the good citizens of this town. Her father would have found a way to disarm the man before marching him to the sheriff’s office. She, on the other hand, was ready to hang up her fiddle and run. If the odds weren’t so overwhelmingly high that she would get shot in the process, she had half a mind to do just that.

The lawman beside her lifted her chin with his thumb and caught her anxious gaze. “It’s going to be all right, you know.”

His calm voice washed over her like a soothing balm. She stared into his toffee eyes and wished she could transport this moment to another place in time. He gazed back at her, and she wanted to believe that what he said was true. His lips curled into a smile, and her stomach flipped. She turned away, fiddling with one of the beads on her bag. How could she entertain thoughts of romance when any minute a bullet could ricochet off the brick wall, signaling the end to one or both of their lives?

Still crouched, she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back on the heels of her lace-up boots. “How do you know everything’s going to be all right?”

“Trust me.”

The silence that followed was as loud as the screams and gunfire that had permeated the afternoon seconds before. Tara held her breath. No one moved. It was as if time hovered between them, not wanting to go forward and uncover the final dreadful moment of the standoff.

The lawman signaled her with his hand. “Come with me.”

He hurried her behind the counter of the post office, where three other women and two men sat huddled against the wall. One of the women cried silently, while another one simply stared straight ahead, her face void of expression.

He reached out and grasped Tara’s hand. “You’ll be all right here. I’ve got to stop him.”

“No!” Tara’s eyes widened. She tugged at his sleeve as he moved to leave. “He’ll kill you.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m a lawman, remember?” He squeezed her hand. “And besides, I’m hanging on to those words from Isaiah.”

Tara clenched her jaw together as he crept around the counter. God might be with them, but that certainly didn’t always stop bad things from happening. And if he got shot. . .

She tried to steady her rapid breathing, but instead her pulse raced even quicker. The whole situation was ridiculous. Here she was caught in the cross fire of some madman, terrified something was going to happen to a complete stranger. She didn’t even know his name. Pressing her back against the wall, she squeezed her eyes closed and tried to ignore the whispers of the others huddling beside her. How could it be that instead of a quiet town among the rolling hills, fruit trees, and cornfields of Iowa, she seemed to have landed in America’s treacherous frontier?

She chewed on the edge of her lip. The whole reason she’d left her parents’ home and moved here was to prove to herself that she could handle a challenge. . .that she wasn’t the spoiled rich girl some of her acquaintances had accused her of being. . .that she wasn’t the terrified individual who was right now sitting in a volatile situation about to faint from fear.

Someone shouted.

Her fingernails bit into her palms as she squeezed her hands shut. She had to know what was happening. He had saved her life. She wouldn’t let him die in some futile attempt to hold on to his honor.

Keeping her head below the top of the wooden counter, she gathered up the thick folds of her dress material in one hand and scooted across the floor. One of the older women reached out and tugged on the waist of her skirt.

“What in the world do you think you are doing, miss?”

Tara glanced back at the woman. “I’ve got to know what’s happening. He’s—”

“This is not a time for curiosity.” A scowl crossed the older woman’s face. “All you can do right now is pray that man of yours doesn’t do something foolish and get himself killed.”

Her man? Tara frowned. That certainly was far from the truth, but it didn’t matter at the moment. She knew exactly how high his chances were for getting killed, and she didn’t need to be reminded of the danger into which he’d put himself.

Ignoring the woman’s unmistakable gestures to stay put, Tara continued to ease her way across the floor until she could peek around the edge of the counter. His Stetson lay discarded on the floor. Her foot crunched on a piece of glass. With her skirts gathered in one hand and her other hand pressed against the wall to keep her balance, she quickly picked up the hat and placed it on her own bonnet before continuing carefully toward the broken window.

A splinter of glass pierced through the delicate material of her glove, leaving a crimson stain on the white surface. Ignoring the sting, she pulled out the offending fragment, determined to tread more carefully across the floor. She’d deal with the blemished article of clothing later.

Once she reached the corner, she pressed her back against the brick wall and strained her neck to make out what was going on. From her new vantage point, she could see out onto the street and to the other side of the boardwalk that had been abandoned by dozens of early afternoon shoppers.

A man dressed in black pointed his gun to the sky and took another shot. She scanned her limited view through the framed window for a sign of the lawman. There was movement to her left. Finally, she caught sight of him. He was crouching behind a display of vegetables out in front of the mercantile, waiting his next move. The gunman let out a string of profanities. Tara covered her ears, then froze as the lawman stealthily moved across the boardwalk toward the street. A plank of wood groaned beneath his weight. The gunman whirled around and aimed his weapon.

Tara screamed, then everything went black.

❧

Aaron flinched at the deafening scream that pierced the humid afternoon air. The barrel of the gun that had been aimed at him a moment ago jerked to the left as the man turned to find the source of the scream. Being convinced the gunman was as crazy as a loon and wouldn’t hear his approach had been Aaron’s first mistake. But the gunman’s last move had just sealed his fate. All Aaron had needed was a two-second distraction to be able to restrain the man from injuring any innocent bystander. The scream had given him just that.

In four quick strides, Aaron reached the man. He secured the gun first, throwing it out of arm’s reach, then tackled the felon to the ground before the man had the opportunity to react to what had hit him. The gunman twisted around and threw a punch, skimming his knuckles across Aaron’s jaw. But Aaron had a good six inches on the man as well as extra muscle, and in a matter of seconds he had the man subdued.

With his knee against the man’s back, Aaron pushed away the blue-eyed vision that appeared in front of him, wondering if it had been her ruse that had saved his life. Another second later, if the gunman had any sense of accuracy, the bullet would have hit its mark and gone straight through his heart.

“Why didn’t you just shoot him?”

Aaron turned and looked up at the rider behind him. The sheriff dismounted from his stallion and folded his arms across his chest.

Aaron rubbed his jaw, thankful the man hadn’t broken it. “I’m not the killing kind. Try to avoid it at all costs.”

“Even at the cost of your own life?” The lawman stepped forward and rolled the gunman over onto his back. “Either way, it looks as if I’m in your debt once again, Mr. Jefferson.”

“I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

“If I’m not mistaken, I’ve got a wanted poster for this rogue.” The man tried to sit up, but the sheriff pushed him back down with the heel of his boot. “I appreciate your quick thinking. Any chance you might be looking for a job as deputy? My new one just quit on me.”

Aaron shook his head. “Thanks kindly for the offer, but I believe I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment.”

“Working for the government, I suppose you would.”

Aaron hauled the gunman to his feet. “But I would be happy to escort this man to the jail for you.”

The front of Aaron’s plaid shirt and denim jeans were covered with dust, and he’d lost his Stetson somewhere in the process. Glancing at the wooden sign hanging above the jail across the street, he had to wonder what kind of sheriff ran such an unruly town.

If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought he’d missed his mark and showed up in the lawless town of Abilene. Not that gunfights were uncommon. In decades past, learned men might have been excused for taking part in duels, but he drew the line at ruffians shooting innocent citizens in the streets.

He turned back to the post office and caught a flash of gray material through the broken window. He wondered if it was her. He still smelled the soft fragrance of her perfume, remembered every detail of her face, and could, even now, feel the softness of her skin when he’d briefly touched her jawline. And he didn’t even know her name.

Part of him longed to go after her. To properly introduce himself and discover more about her. He had a dozen questions he wanted to ask. . . But now was not the time to go chasing after some beautiful woman who’d somehow managed to capture a corner of his heart. She’d be fine, and he’d be gone from this lawless town soon. There was no reason to concern himself over her anymore.

He picked up the prisoner’s gun, then shoved it under his belt. With the prisoner firmly in his grasp, he made his way toward the jail. Once inside, he waited for the sheriff to secure the offender in one of the cells while he sat down and caught his breath.

The sheriff returned with two cups of hot coffee in his hands and passed Aaron one. “Thought you might need some. Your face is going to be sore. That felon gave you quite a punch.”

Aaron rubbed his jaw and nodded. “I need to go and clean up, but before I go there is one thing you can help me with, Sheriff.”

“Of course.” The sheriff ripped the wanted poster off the wall and dropped it onto his desk. “The citizens of this town owe you our deepest gratitude, not to mention a hundred dollars in reward money for the capture of this Sean Roberts. What is it that I can do for you?”

Aaron leaned forward and decided to get right to the point. “Verified reports have been recovered that point to the fact that the gold stolen from the Union army is located in this area. I was sent to find it.”

“Whoa, slow down.” The sheriff shook his head as he slid into his chair. “You’re not the first person to come charging into town with some grandiose idea that they are going to find the government’s gold in these here parts and walk away with some hefty reward money.”

“This isn’t about the reward money. The government wants back what was stolen from them.”

The sheriff tapped his pencil against the desk. “You probably won’t believe this, but you’re the second person today to walk in and tell me that they have information on where to find the gold.”

Aaron sat up straight in his chair. “Who?”

“Another dreamer who thinks they can find fame and fortune by digging up some rumored pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” The sheriff’s belly jiggled as he laughed. “I sent ’em to the land agent’s office on another wild goose chase.”

“What’s his name?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Oh no. I shouldn’t have even given you that much information. I thought it was bad enough to have one busybody poking around my town. Can’t you see? This rumor has been circulating for years, and there’s never been a sliver of proof that the gold even exists.”

Aaron slapped his hands against the desk. “But I told you, I have documented sources who claim—”

“Who’s making the claims, and what does that really mean? That someone’s grandmother’s cousin’s uncle thought he saw a chest of gold being transported across his farm back during the war? Things like this don’t just vanish. If there really was a trunk of the government’s gold lying around, you can be sure that it’s been spent by now.” The man took off his glasses and held them up. “Now that I think of it, there’s a man in Des Moines who recently built himself quite a house. It’s rumored to have ten bedrooms, seven fireplaces, and an entire wing for the servants. Of course, I ain’t never seen it, so I can’t say for sure. Maybe you should rush over there and see if he knows anything about the gold.”

Ten minutes later, Aaron unlocked the door to his hotel room and slipped inside the cramped space. He didn’t particularly like the sheriff, but he was glad for the tidbit of information he’d managed to procure from him. He might not have gotten a name, but one thing was certain. After cleaning up, he was going to pay a visit to the land agent, and find out just exactly who was after his gold.