Marrying Miss Marshal (12 page)

He was silent for a long time. “No. No, he didn't.”

He didn't say more, and with the closeness between them broken, she shifted over to reach the saddle and opened one of the saddlebags. There was hardtack and jerky inside a wrapped pouch. Fred had always insisted on traveling with a little food in case of emergency. It wouldn't be much to eat, but if she needed to hunt up a rabbit for supper, she could. At least it gave her a distraction right now. She handed a portion of the dried meat to Chas, who took it and ate silently.

Where was the canteen? She reached back into the saddlebag, but this time her fingers brushed against
soft leather and she pulled out Fred's journal. She'd forgotten sliding it into her bag this morning.

She flipped open the journal and ran her fingers over the writing. How many nights had Fred sat at his small desk in their room above the jail, writing in this book?

She blinked away her memories and returned the journal to her saddlebag, where it would be safe from the snow still falling.

“You ever read that, or just like touching it?”

Danna looked up with surprise to find Chas's eyes on her.

“I've seen you handle that book several times, but never read it.”

It was already a night for sharing confidences. What would it hurt to reveal this, too? “I can't read,” she answered quietly, a little ashamed by the admission. “It's one of the many things I don't know how to do. Cooking, sewing, keeping house. It was good my husband was a bachelor for years before we married, or we'd likely have starved.”

 

Chas felt the tension crackling in the air between them. It mattered to Danna how he reacted to her revelation that she couldn't read.

He noted the distance she'd put between them when he'd rebuffed her mention of God, saw how she stared into the fire with her arms crossed protectively over her middle, a shiver coursing through her.

She thought he would think less of her because she couldn't read? Or cook?

“Not knowing those things hasn't stopped you
being marshal, hasn't stopped you doing a good job of it either.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes.” He was surprised to find out it was true. He
did
think she did a good job. Her loyalty to the people of Calvin couldn't be questioned—she'd ridden out into a blizzard trying to chase down those thieves!

Now that he took the time to think about it, he should have recognized the clues right in front of him. The way she'd squinted at his letter of introduction from the detective agency, that she'd pushed the Wanted poster for Jed Hester to him to read.

“Come back over here. It's cold,” he said when a second shiver shook her shoulders. She shifted into place at his side and he couldn't ignore the brush of their shoulders. She spread one of the horse blankets over both their legs. Chas knew it was just to keep them warm, but the intimacy of the action had him scrambling for a distraction.

He choked out the words, “Now that I know you a little, I can't imagine you doing anything else.”

Sitting so close, he had only a profile view of her face, but still he saw the wry smile. “Can't picture me as a seamstress or cook?”

“Perhaps a ranch foreman…or running your own spread.”

Her lips quirked, but didn't quite form a smile this time. When she spoke, her words held a wistful quality. “When I was a child, I often dreamed of having my own homestead. Raising cattle.”

“What changed?”

She was quiet for a long time. “I got married.”

He remembered her previous statement that her
brother had sent her away, not to finishing school but to get married, and desperately wanted to ask what had caused the rift between them. She seemed to know.

“When I was fifteen,” she started, “I took a horse from my brother's barn to chase down a heifer that was due to calf any day. I ended up in the mountains alone and my horse threw me. I was…injured.”

“Is that why the mountains bother you?”

She looked him full in the face, her eyes asking him how he knew that.

“You've been jumpy all afternoon. Reacting to little noises, shadows.”

A flush crept up her cheeks and she rested her head lightly on his shoulder. So he couldn't read her expression?

“Maybe I
am
a bit anxious. Anyway, because of my injuries I couldn't get home. It took my brother nearly a day and a half to find me.” She inhaled deeply, her shoulder moving against his chest. “I'd never seen him so angry before.”

“And that's why he sent you away? Because he was angry?” The question was out before he considered that she might not answer.

She hummed. “I think…I think also he didn't know what to do with a sister. If I'd been born a boy—or maybe if he'd had more time with my parents—he might have known how to handle me.”

She yawned, and for the first time Chas realized how tired she was, how tired they both were. After being up all night dealing with the robbery and its aftermath, neither one of them had had any sleep, then they'd ridden all day. No wonder she was exhausted.

“Should we rest awhile?” he asked. “The blizzard doesn't seem to have slowed any.”

Her head came off his shoulder. “One of us should probably keep watch. We don't know if the bank robbers are near or made it farther away—once night falls, which won't be much longer, our fire will be a beacon in the darkness.”

She sounded bone-tired.

“I can stay awake for a bit,” Chas said, shifting his arm around to support her shoulders a bit more. “You're sure?”

“Yes.”

She didn't speak again; her head lolled against his shoulder and her breathing evened out. That quickly, she'd fallen asleep. It told him just how much she trusted him. It was a sobering thought.

Mind whirling, he watched the flames flicker, shadows dance against the trees.

He was getting too entangled with the marshal. Everything she'd shared tonight had served to open his heart toward her. Before, he'd thought her crude, out of place as she fought to be marshal, but that impression had been completely wrong.

He couldn't imagine her brother sending Danna away. She was so strong, unbelievably beautiful, independent. She'd taken the circumstances life had given her, like the loss of her parents, and gone on. Not just existing, but
living
. She'd made a place for herself, provided for herself…

She was amazing.

How could someone who claimed to love her abandon her?

His thoughts went to his sister in Boston. Hadn't he
done the same thing and left her to the devices of their overbearing father and matchmaking mother? What if she needed him?

Not for the first time, he thought of sending for her. He could make a home for his sister in St. Louis or another western town, if need be. The question was, did she hate him the way his parents surely did?

The chance that she hated him was too great. There was no resolution for the situation between himself and his family.

He thrust thoughts of Boston, of
home,
away, focusing instead on the problem of his growing feelings for the marshal.

But there was no resolution to be found for that either.

D
awn arrived with a lightening of the steel-gray sky and the absence of snow falling.

Chas woke to a hand on his shoulder—much pleasanter than a kick to his boot—to find himself wrapped in one of the horse blankets and the fire already extinguished.

“You all right?” Danna asked, crouching near. “Is your head paining you? You were mumbling in your sleep.”

The nightmare. Just before Danna'd woken him, he'd watched Julia fall away from him, lifeless….

Chas scrubbed a hand over his face. “I'll be all right in a minute.” It was a lie. He'd never be all right again, not without Julia.

He squinted up at the sky, then back at Danna who had moved back to the horses, one of which was already saddled up. She must be ready to leave.

He remembered waking her several hours into the night, when he could no longer keep his eyes open. She'd gone after more firewood, and he'd wrapped himself in the blanket to lie down and wait for her—and
that's the last thing he remembered. Had he slept the rest of the night through? And only had the nightmare there at the very end?

It seemed impossible. The dream usually recurred multiple times, making his sleep broken each night.

With the return of his nightmare came the return of his hatred for Hank Lewis.

“Any chance of finding fresh tracks in this snow?” Chas gestured to the several inches of powder accumulated on the ground. A smaller layer dusted his blanket.

She considered him. “Depends. If they were nearby, it's possible we could pick up their tracks. We should get back to town soon…but we could spare a little time scouting, I guess.”

Too soon—although the sky had lightened considerably—Danna declared they had to return to Calvin.

The disappointment was sharp in his chest, but he had no choice but to follow orders. Plus, they only had the one uninjured horse between them. Danna's original horse followed behind, its reins held loosely in her gloved hand.

By midday, they had descended out of the mountains and were only a few miles out from Calvin.

Riding double in the silent, snowy landscape was much different than when they'd ridden into town coming out of the canyon.

He was different.

The dynamics of their relationship had changed last night, as well. They were no longer simply marshal and deputy. Two people couldn't share the things they had and remain in a cordial working relationship.

But he was unsure about defining their relationship as “friends.” He cared about what happened to
Danna—wanted her to be safe in her job—to be sure, but it couldn't be more than that.

He wouldn't let it.

Couldn't.

Because the only other woman he'd cared about—loved—had died, and it was his fault.

 

Safely back in town, Chas and Danna parted ways at the livery. He desperately wanted his bed, but a grumble of his stomach had him stopping in at the café first.

He still didn't know what to do.

He needed to find and kill Hank Lewis.

He needed to protect himself, protect his heart. And that meant distancing himself from Danna Carpenter. Because he could see himself falling for her if he stuck around. And he couldn't afford to lose another person he loved, not after what happened to Julia.

Inside the café, he was greeted by the smell of frying meat and the familiar waitress.

“Afternoon, hon.” She set a mug of coffee down and motioned him to sit at one of the few empty tables. “Meat loaf or stew?”

He grunted what must've been a satisfactory answer, because she smiled at him and left.

How could he find Lewis? At this point, he didn't even care about the job he'd been assigned. James could send someone else to find the rustlers.

“Marshal come and claim that boy yet?” a male voice asked from a table nearby.

“No, he's still in the doc's office. Heard he's in bad shape,” another voice answered.

A plate of steaming biscuits covered in thick gravy, eggs and fried ham appeared in front of him and Chas
tucked in to the fare, trying not to listen to the talk swirling around him.

Someone slurped their coffee.

“…said she gut-shot him. Poor soul didn't have a chance.”

Chas choked back words in Danna's defense. She'd been
alone
for most of that robbery. It was a miracle she hadn't been killed.

“I've seen her shoot. Wouldn't want to be on the other end of her gun, that's for sure.”

“Nor her temper. I heard she let it fly at Harold's wife once for no reason a'tall.”

A young woman breezed through the door and joined the waitress a few tables over. “Mama! You'll never guess who I saw riding into town this morning, proud as could be. The marshal!”

Chas's head came up; he fixed his gaze on the pair. The mother appeared harried, carrying two plates to a table at the far side of the room, while her daughter followed at her elbow.

“Put your apron on. We've got a full crowd,” the waitress said, not appearing to pay attention to her daughter's words. She stopped for a moment at Chas's table to refill his coffee.

“But, Ma! She was out all night—with
her deputy
. Everyone saw her leave town.”

The men sitting nearby who'd been talking about the marshal now sat silent, staring at Chas.

Danna wasn't going to like this one bit.

 

Danna darted toward the jail and the safety of her rooms. How could those hurtful rumors have spread through town so fast?

Her visit to the doctor hadn't provided any good
news. The outlaw was still in serious condition and hadn't roused except for a few lucid moments. And on her way to her rooms, she'd heard two different people speaking about her reputation being compromised after being out all night with her deputy.

She couldn't help the anger that clenched her fists. She neared the jail and quickened her steps, wanting nothing more than to escape to the privacy of her rooms.

She hadn't paid any attention to who might have seen her yesterday when she'd left town. No one else would help her. What was she supposed to do?

She'd been so relieved to have his help, she probably wouldn't have cared if the town had staged a parade to see them out of town. And she'd never expected to be caught in the snowstorm. Hadn't even considered she had a reputation to be damaged.

Nothing inappropriate had happened. And yet, rumors were swirling through town. She'd never had to worry about rumors or inappropriate behavior when she'd worked with Fred. No one would have dared start a rumor about her; Fred wouldn't have stood for it.

But how did she stop something like this?