The Sheriff (Historical Romance) (5 page)

T
ravis muttered to himself as he walked back to Fortune.

Damn her to hell!

Of all the gold camps in all the mountains in all the world, why did she have to wind up in his? Protecting Kate VanNam would be a twenty-four-hour-a-day job, and just himself and his deputy, Jiggs, wouldn’t be enough manpower to keep ten thousand desperate miners at bay.

Impossible.

He’d be damned if he’d spend all his time worrying about a woman who didn’t have enough sense to know what she was in for. She’d confront all sorts of problems up there all alone in that run-down mansion where she didn’t even have a door to lock.

By the time Travis reached the sidewalks of town,
he was in a black mood. He would have to forget about Miss Kate VanNam.

It had been a long day. Travis was tired and thirsty.

But when he heard the piano music coming from the Golden Nugget, he finally smiled. He walked into the saloon and immediately felt better. All was as it should be.

In a corner was Big Maude, the muscular, six-foot-plus Amazon who was a fixture at the Golden Nugget, presiding nightly over the roulette wheel. With a smile, she called for him to come join her.

In the most crowded part of the room, Rosalita, a strikingly pretty Spaniard, sat behind the monte table, a cigarillo dangling from her painted red lips. Players flocked to Rosalita’s table, their hard-earned money going across the green baize and into her small deft hands.

Travis walked inside just as the beautiful, dark-haired Valentina, garbed in a dazzling gown of bronze satin, climbed up on the square piano, smiled down at the piano player and crossed her shapely legs.

Whistles and applause from the roomful of men was deafening.

Valentina caught sight of Travis and threw him a kiss. He nodded and headed for the bar. She turned her attention on her adoring audience. Raising her hands for silence, she waited until they had calmed a bit before she placed a palm on the skirt of her shimmering gown, raised it a trifle, opened her mouth and began to sing.

Travis stood at the bar. He tossed down a straight whiskey and motioned the barkeep to pour another. As the liquor burned its way down into his chest, he relaxed and stopped worrying about the strong-willed, golden-haired Kate VanNam. Instead he looked at Valentina perched atop the piano, singing to the miners in her sweet, clear voice.

She was both a temptress and a tease. Her gown was cut so low and the waist was so tight that the tops of her full breasts swelled above the bronze silk. Travis grinned. He could see the twin nipples pushing against the shimmering fabric and a shapely gartered knee of her crossed legs.

“…Come again my true love,” she sang, and looked directly at Travis.

He lifted a hand, pointed a finger at the ceiling. She smiled and nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

Travis turned and walked out of the saloon. For a time he stood just outside in the cool mountain air, listening to Valentina sing. Then he walked away. When he reached the alley, he turned and went to the back of the two-story building that housed the rollicking Golden Nugget. He climbed the outside
stairs, fished in his trousers pocket for the key and turned the lock.

When he entered Valentina’s private quarters Gigi bowed and quickly took her leave. She had been told that anytime—day or night—Travis McCloud came to visit, she was to leave and stay in her quarters until Valentina summoned her.

Travis stripped down to his skin and sat down on Valentina’s bed. From the silver box on the night table that Valentina kept filled for him, he took a fragrant cigar and lit it. Next to the silver box was a cut-crystal decanter filled with Kentucky bourbon that was also for him. Valentina drank only French champagne.

Travis poured himself a drink, then sank back onto the soft bed. He knew he’d have to wait at least an hour for Valentina to finish entertaining, but he didn’t mind. He’d enjoy a smoke and a drink and unwind so he’d be completely rested and ready to make love to the beautiful Creole when she arrived.

When an hour finally passed and Valentina walked through the door, she smiled seductively at Travis. Yanking the covering sheet down, she glanced at his flaccid groin and said, “Well, now, I can’t allow this.”

Travis grinned. “No? Then what are you going to do about it?”

Valentina assured him she could fix it. She laid a warm hand on him and felt him immediately stir against her palm. She leaned down, kissed his bare
chest, nipped playfully at his flat brown nipple, then raised her head.

“That’s better, my love,” she said. “I like my man with a drink, a smile and a hard cock.” She laughed musically. “And not necessarily in that order.”

Travis laughed, too, then surged upward when she ran her long-nailed forefinger the length of his erection and around its thrusting head.

“Don’t torture me tonight, Valentina,” he said, ready for her to come into his arms.

“My impatient darling,” she murmured as she hastily shed her shimmering satin gown and climbed astride her lover. She wore nothing but her long silk stockings and a necklace of glittering jewels.

Hands folded beneath his head, Travis watched approvingly as Valentina reached out to the bedside table, stuck her fingers in his shot glass of bourbon, rubbed up and down the length of his straining masculinity, then guided him up inside her. She moved her hands away, loosened her swept-up hair from its restraints and allowed the dark locks to fall down around her bare ivory shoulders.

“I’m gonna give you some extra special loving tonight, my darling,” she promised, rolling her pelvis and setting her heavy breasts to swaying. “And I will not allow you to get out of this bed before morning,” she whispered, using her lush body to excite him in ways she had been taught in New Orleans. There she had learned how to please a man so completely he’d
become a helpless slave to the unique sexual pleasures she could provide. Valentina practiced everything she knew to keep Travis satisfied and coming back for more. She wanted only to please this darkly handsome lawman, with whom she was madly in love.

She was extremely disappointed when Travis said, not an hour later, that he couldn’t stay the night.

“What is it?” Valentina asked, when he rose and hunched into his trousers. “What’s bothering you, Travis?” She sat up in the bed and wrapped her arms around her raised knees.

“Not a thing. But you know that I can’t lie around here all night making love. I’m the sheriff, hired by the Committee of Vigilance to keep the peace.”

Left unsaid was that he couldn’t forget about a young, foolish woman who was living alone and unprotected in a run-down mansion. Or that he felt compelled to walk half a mile and check on her.

With his white shirt back on but unbuttoned, Travis shoved his arms into his black leather vest and strapped on his gun belt.

“Thanks for a great evening, Val.”

“It wasn’t an evening,” she huffed, “it was one short hour.”

He grinned. “You sure made that hour count, baby.”

“Go! Get out of here,” she said, and threw a pillow at him.

After the sheriff had gone, it had taken Kate awhile to calm herself. She was upset and it was his
fault. She didn’t like Travis McCloud. She didn’t like the conflicting emotions he aroused in her. She’d met him only tonight and yet he was keeping her awake. One minute she was seething with anger at him for his high-handed audacity, and the next she was squirming at the vivid recollection of being momentarily pressed against his lean, powerful body.

Finally, after a couple of hours had passed, Kate was just about to fall asleep when a noise came from the back of the house. It was the same sound she had heard every night for the five nights she had been here! Her heart racing, Kate reached for her loaded revolver. She lit her lamp and crossed the room to the wide corridor.

Cautioning herself to stay calm, but remembering the sheriff’s advice to “shoot first and ask questions later,” she crept down the long hall, not knowing if she would encounter a bear or a bandit. She was halfway to the back of the house when she saw something move in the shadows.

She lifted the revolver and took aim.

“I…I’ve got a gun,” she threatened. “I know how to use it!”

Her eyes widened when she heard a distinctive hiss. Kate lifted the lamp high and saw, crouched against a wall, its back arched, a big fat calico cat, its golden eyes gleaming in the darkness. Relief flooding through her, Kate sank to her knees.

“Here kitty, kitty,” she called, not really expecting
the overweight feline to come to her. “So it was you,” she said in soft, low tones. “You’ve been making all the noise and I thought it was a bear. Come here, let’s be friends.”

The cat made a low rattling sound in the back of its throat and stared at Kate with slitted golden eyes. It didn’t budge.

She laughed softly. “You know, I wondered why there were no rats in this old house. From the looks of you, I’d say there’s not a rodent within a mile of the place. What do you say?”

The rattling stopped. The calico finally meowed.

“That’s better. Now come over here. Please. I’m all alone and I need a friend.”

To Kate’s surprise, the cat padded slowly closer, stopping just beyond her reach. “I’m Kate, Cal. If this is your home, that’s fine with me. We can live here together. Okay?” Kate reached out and tried to touch the cat. It backed away.

But when she’d sat there unmoving for a minute, the cat cautiously came closer. It reached her and, when she didn’t make a move to touch it, rubbed its furry side against her knees. Then it slowly walked around her, rubbing up against Kate as it went.

When the cat was again facing her, Kate said, “I’m going back to bed now. You’re welcome to come sleep at the foot of my bed. It’s up to you.”

She lifted the lamp and gun, rose to her feet,
turned and walked away. She was disappointed to see that the cat hadn’t followed. Still, just knowing it was there made her feel less lonely and afraid.

She lay back down, but sleep still would not come.

Kate again got up.

She left the lamp and gun where they were and went out onto the porch. She yanked up the tail of her long gown, sat down on the first step and tucked the fabric between her knees. She gazed up at the deep cobalt sky overhead. The heavens were brilliant with stars. They glittered like diamonds in the still, thin mountain air.

She smiled when she felt something warm and furry press against her hip. She looked down at the big calico cat and knew she’d found a much needed companion. Very slowly, very carefully, she lifted a hand and laid two fingers lightly atop its head. When the cat looked up at her, she slipped her hand beneath its throat and began to gently stroke it. The cat purred contentedly and was soon catnapping.

Neither the girl nor the cat were aware that someone was watching.

When Travis had reached the clearing, he’d seen a lamp flickering inside the house. From afar, he’d watched as the light moved from the front room and down the hall to the back of the mansion. Minutes later it returned to the front and soon went out.

The girl had, he supposed, gone to sleep.

Travis had started to turn away. Then he hesitated, deciding to stay just a few more minutes.

He’d moved closer to the mansion and took up a post beneath a towering pine at the edge of the yard, where he had an unobstructed view of the house and its surrounding grounds. He sat down and leaned back against the solid trunk.

Less than ten minutes later the girl came out of the house dressed in her long nightgown. She stood on the porch for a couple of heartbeats while the night winds pressed the thin white garment against her tall, slender body, and her unbound hair whipped around her head.

His eyes dry from not daring to blink, Travis stared at the vision in white and lost his breath entirely when she impetuously yanked the long skirt of her nightgown up around her thighs and sank down on the front step, shoving the fabric between her legs and pressing her knees together.

Travis ground his teeth so hard his jaws ached.

Damn her beautiful hide!

All the warning in the world hadn’t made one bit of difference. He had a good mind to march up there and haul her back inside.

Just then a big calico cat sauntered out of the house and over to her. Travis watched, disbelieving, as Kate stroked the cat’s raised throat.

That cat had been left behind when Mrs. Colfax moved away. He’d seen the creature running wild
through the woods. Apparently it had taken up residence in the empty mansion.

The animal had turned feral years ago. Yet already this Boston blonde had made an obedient pet of it.

Travis’s eyes narrowed.

He stared at Miss VanNam, remembering how another golden-haired beauty had made a pet—and a fool—out of him.

Silently he vowed that would never happen again.

A
s Sheriff McCloud had suspected, Kate VanNam’s presence in Fortune caused quite a stir. In mining regions, men would travel a great distance for a glance at a newly arrived female, since, aside from the girls working in the bordellos, very few unattached women lived in gold camps, and none were as young and as pretty as Kate VanNam. She was, fortunately, such a novelty that most of the hard-bitten miners treated her with awed respect. She represented their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and sweethearts back home.

But not all.

There were a number of dirty, foul-mouthed curs who would have loved to get their hands on a genteel woman like Kate VanNam. Sheriff McCloud put the word out that if anyone trifled with her, he would have to answer to him. Still, Travis worried for her-safety.
She was, he knew, too much of a temptation to the lonely miners.

Travis enlisted the help of his deputy, Jiggs Gillespie.

“I need a hand, Jiggs,” Travis said early one morning as the two were drinking coffee at the jail.

“What can I do?” asked the always congenial Jiggs.

Travis took a sip of the steaming black brew. “The young woman up at—”

“Kate VanNam?”

“Yes, Kate VanNam. Jiggs, she’s up there by herself in that run-down mansion. Jesus, there’s not even a front door and—”

“Why don’t we take turns checking on her?” said Jiggs, anticipating Travis’s request.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

The skinny deputy smiled, rose to his feet and hitched up his trousers. “Lordy, no. It’s not like I have a wife and family to go home to at night.”

“I’d be much obliged to you, Jiggs.” Travis frowned when he added, “God knows she’s a royal pain in the ass, but I don’t look for her to be staying long in Fortune.”

“I do, Trav.”

Travis blinked, taken aback. “Why would you say a thing like that?”

He shrugged narrow shoulders. “I heard her talking to Doc Ledet on the steamer up from San Francisco. She told him she was going to stay here until
she found gold in the Cavalry Blue. I’d say that should take about…um, well, put it this way. You and I will be dead and gone, and she’ll be a withered old woman, before an ounce of gold is brought out of the worthless Cavalry Blue.”

Travis nodded. “I’m betting she’ll tire of the futile undertaking.” He took another drink of coffee. “But until that happy day, we’ll have to keep an eye on the pretty Easterner.”

“I’ll wander on up two or three times tonight.”

“Thanks, Jiggs. Once you’re up there, stay safely out of sight. She’s got a gun and I told her to shoot and ask questions later.”

“She’ll never know I’m within a hundred miles of the place.”

There were no respondents to her “Miners Wanted” ad in the weekly
Fortune Teller.
Kate was disappointed. She was becoming increasingly frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t find anyone to work her mine. Obviously Sheriff McCloud had been right when he’d predicted she wouldn’t be able to hire any laborers. It seemed that all the men in Fortune were working their own claims.

Since she had been warned by the inflexible sheriff not to step foot inside one of the many saloons, Kate had to limit her hunt to placing the advertisement in the weekly newspaper and to checking at the Wells Fargo office when the mail carrier delivered the post.

After sending a letter to Alexandra Wharton, her dear friend back in Boston, Kate made an inquiry at Wells Fargo. No takers. Discouraged, she left and was heading down the sidewalk when she heard loud thudding sounds and muffled groans.

She stopped, turned her head and listened.

She heard the unmistakable moaning of an animal in pain. Kate hurried and peered down the shadowy alley between two buildings.

She gasped in horror.

Two big, rough looking men, the taller one with a black patch over one eye, the other sporting a bushy red beard, were mercilessly beating a helpless little Chinaman. The one-eyed man had his knife out, trying to cut off the Chinaman’s queue.

Kate didn’t hesitate.

She reached into her reticule, drew her uncle’s Navy Colt revolver, hurried into the alley, raised her arm above her head and fired into the air.

“Hit him one more time and I’ll blow your heads off!” she warned, lowering the gun and at the same time taking close notice of their faces and clothes so that she could describe them to the sheriff and help identify them.

The startled ruffians instantly released their victim and fled out the back of the alley. Kate put the weapon away and hurried to the suffering Chinaman, who lay crumpled on the ground.

“You speak English?” she asked, taking a hand-kerchief
from her reticule to dab some of the blood from his pummeled face.

He grimaced, but nodded.

“Good. We’ll get you across the street to Dr. Ledet’s and he’ll—”

“No…no,” said the man through clenched teeth. “No doctor. Not need one.”

“Yes, you do! You’re badly hurt and—”

“Do not need doctor,” the Chinaman said again.

“You are going to the doctor!” Kate stated firmly. “Now, we’ll carefully sit you up and let you lean back against the building. Once we’ve accomplished that,” she told him, “I’m going to drape your arm around my shoulder and put my arm around your waist. You understand?”

He grimaced, his eyes glazed with pain. Kate slipped her arm around him and very carefully, very gently positioned him beside her.

“That’s good. You ready to give walking a try?”

“Ready,” he muttered, then groaned in agony when she moved him.

“I’m so sorry,” Kate murmured, supporting the little man’s weight as she half dragged, half carried him across the street.

“Can I help?” asked a toothless old sourdough with a miner’s pallor who looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away. “Want me to carry him?”

“We can manage,” Kate said with a smile of gratitude, “but thank you, Mr….”

“H. Q. Blankenship,” the man said, and backed away.

Dr. Ledet, seated at the desk in his front office, looked out the window, saw the pair and came running out to meet them.

“Chang Li, who did this to you?” asked the white-haired physician. The battered Chinaman gave no reply. Dr. Ledet instructed Kate, “Let’s get him into the back room, Miss VanNam.”

Once there, they carefully lifted the suffering man up onto the examining table. While the doctor turned away to wash his hands, Kate stood gently patting Chang Li’s shoulder while she stated, “Two bullies, Doctor. Both very large, very dirty men. One had a black eye patch, the other a full red beard.”

Over his shoulder as he soaped his hands, Ledet said, “Titus Kelton is the one-eyed man. The red-bearded fellow is Jim Spears. Miscreants both. Always trouble, they are. Mean as snakes and—”

“I must go, Dr. Ledet,” Kate interrupted, then smiled down at Chang Li. “The doctor will care for you.”

“Yes, yes, you go on, child. I’ll take over,” Dr. Ledet said as he dried his hands on a clean white cloth.

Once outside she took a deep breath but quickly lifted her skirts and hurried across the dusty street. The few men who were loitering about noted the set of her jaw and the flash of her eyes. Everyone wisely stayed out of her way.

She marched two blocks up the sidewalk to the city jail.

Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light inside the office, Kate saw Fortune’s fearless sheriff, his feet propped up on his desk, his hands laced across his stomach. He was dozing in his chair.

Her anger immediately flared.

While a poor, defenseless little Chinaman was being brutally beaten in an alley two blocks away, the town marshal was asleep at his desk. Unforgivable! Seething, Kate swept over to Travis. Peaceful as a baby he was, shiny star moving up and down on his chest with his slow, rhythmic breathing.

She reached out and shoved his booted feet to the floor.

“What the devil!” he snarled.

“I’ll tell you what the devil!” Kate said, leaning close. “You! You’re the devil! The big, bad sheriff who’s supposed to be some kind of legend. Everybody talks about your he-man prowess, your pistol-packing, rifle-toting, frontier-taming…your unsurpassed greatness. You think you’re tough. You’re not so tough. Dear Lord, here you are sleeping on the job! You’re supposed to keep the peace in this town, Sheriff! Do it!”

She turned to leave. Travis’s hand caught hold of her flowing skirts.

“You let me go!” she ordered, trying desperately to free herself.

“Go? You came here to make a complaint, didn’t you?” He reeled her in by her skirt. To her chagrin, he plunked her down hard on his left knee. “Make it. Tell me what has happened to bring you here in such a state of agitation.”

“I am not agitated and you are not awake. I’ll come back later to—”

“You’re going nowhere until you tell me what this is all about.”

“Let me up this minute or I will scream,” she warned.

“No you won’t,” said Travis, clamping a long arm around her trim waist.

Kate stiffened. “I will, so help me.”

“You do and I’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace,” he said, unsmiling. “Toss you right into a cell and lock you up. Now what’s on your mind, Miss VanNam?”

Leaning away from his muscular chest as far as she possibly could, Kate stated, “Two of your town bullies—Titus Kelton and Jim Spears—have beaten a poor, helpless man within an inch of his life while you were sitting here sound asleep!”

Travis said nothing. Looking directly into his dark eyes, she continued, “They attempted to cut off his queue, but I got there in time! Swear to me you’ll make them pay.”

“I swear,” Travis said. He yawned, pushed her to her feet and rose to his own. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Kate took a step back. “What are you going to do to them?”

“Find ’em first,” he said with slow smile that made her want to smack his smug face.

“And then?”

Travis shrugged broad shoulders, “Perhaps a dose of their own medicine.”

Kate was appalled. “For heaven’s sake, are you saying that you intend to beat them?”

“What would you suggest I do with them?” he asked, running a hand through his thick raven hair. He reached for his hat.

“Why, that’s barbaric! You simply cannot behave like an animal, Sheriff. You’re supposed to be an officer of the law and—”

“I
am
the law, Miss VanNam. And you have just reported a criminal act, one that calls for harsh punishment. This is not Boston. It’s Fortune, California. If you don’t like the way things are done here, may I suggest you return to the civilized East.” He picked up his gun belt, slung it around his hips and buckled it. “You come in here and tell me that Kelton and Spears beat up a defenseless man. Fine, I believe you. Now believe me when I tell you that they will pay.”

Travis stepped around her, headed for the door.

“Marshal McCloud.”

He turned back to look at her. “Yes, Miss VanNam?”

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“What’s that, Miss VanNam?”

“Sit me on your knee.” Her face flushed as she said the words.

Travis put his hat on his head and adjusted the brim. “Wake me like that again and you’ll be lucky if I don’t turn you
over
my knee.”

He tipped his hat and left Kate glaring after him. She watched him unhurriedly cross the street, and felt again the heat of his arm around her waist when he’d sat her on his knee. She shivered inwardly. There was an air of mystery and power about the town sheriff that both repelled and excited her. He was handsome in a ruthless way and she had no doubt there were women who looked upon him with favor.

Kate shook herself out of her foolish reveries and hurried back to Dr. Ledet’s office to check on the patient.

For the next hour she stayed at the physician’s elbow, assisting in any way she could while he worked on Chang Li. Dr. Ledet had given the suffering man a liberal dose of laudanum, and Chang Li was now sleeping soundly.

When finally the doctor was finished with the task, and both he and Kate had washed their hands, he quietly motioned her to precede him out of the room.

Once they were in the front office, Kate reached for her reticule. “How much does he owe you, Doctor? I want to pay.”

“Not a thing, Kate.” He smiled as he rolled his
sleeves down. She tried again, but he refused to take any money. He said, “Chang Li is resting well, so we’ll leave him here in my office for a couple of days. He’s going to be fine. Sore for a while, but no permanent damage was done.”

Kate nodded. “Thanks to you.”

“No, I’d say it’s thanks to you, child.” He chuckled and said, “You faced down the town bullies. I don’t know of many men, much less a woman, who would….”

A disturbance outside caused the doctor to stop speaking. He and Kate exchanged glances, then quickly turned to look out the window.

Marshal Travis McCloud, mounted atop a snorting Appaloosa stallion, came riding down the center of the Main Street with two big, dirty prisoners—one with a black eye patch, the other with a full red beard—stumbling behind him. A long length of rope was wrapped around their bound hands and tied to the sheriff’s gun belt.

Bordello girls, bartenders, hotel clerks, store proprietors and anybody else who happened to be in town spilled out into the street. The spectators pointed at the humiliated pair and laughed merrily. They shouted and whistled and applauded.

“Dr. Ledet,” Kate said, aghast at the sight of the men’s bloody noses and blackened eyes. “Those prisoners have been beaten. Did the marshal…?”

“Indeed he did. Found them and fought them both
and brought them in to jail. And look at Travis—not a scratch on him,” the doctor said admiringly.

Kate’s jaw dropped. “You approve?”

“Absolutely,” he declared with a smile. “Street fighting, stabbing, shooting and claim jumping. You name it, Travis handles it with ease. He’s the bravest, finest sheriff in all California.”