Marrying Miss Marshal (15 page)

D
anna perched on the edge of the bed, flustered and ill at ease. Last night, after helping Corrine birth her baby, she'd fallen into bed exhausted.

Tonight she was alone with Chas.

And it was completely different than when they'd been stuck in the snowstorm. They hadn't had a choice that night, and they didn't have one tonight either, but she still felt…discomfited.

A soft knock on the door announced his presence and then he was there, filling her small upstairs room with his broad shoulders and his very presence.

He took off his hat once he was inside, and ran his hand through the auburn curls plastered to his head. She'd seen him do that before. Did it mean he was as nervous as she was?

Chas looked around the rooms, and Danna refused to be ashamed of the simple furnishings. They might not be as fancy as something he'd find in Penny Castlerock's home, but they were functional.

She'd been thinking on Chas's suggestion that the town council could be dirty all afternoon, and she just
couldn't see it. Wouldn't Fred have had some suspicions, if that was the case?

Chas reached into his chest pocket and withdrew a small bundle, distracting her from her thoughts. “I— This is for you.”

He stepped forward to hand her the cloth-wrapped item, then stuffed his empty hand in his trouser pocket. “It's not much of a wedding present, but I thought perhaps it was something you'd get some use out of.”

A gift? For her?

Heart pounding, Danna unwrapped the small bundle of cloth to find a pair of spectacles with round lenses and thin wire frames. She looked up at Chas, puzzled.

“What—”

“To help you read.”

The words stretched in the sudden stillness between them, the last thing she'd expected him to say. He'd been so kind, so considerate all day.

And now he'd touched on the one thing she'd never been able to accomplish, no matter how hard she'd tried. Would he be ashamed of her, like Rob had been?

She averted her face, set the spectacles on the desk before her, her fingers flexing against the wood.

“I've seen you…the way you squint sometimes…” His voice trailed off, and she glanced at him to see his gaze focused on the wall, as if remembering something. “Just like a friend I used to know.”

“There was no school here when I was a child.” Danna spoke, her eyes trained on his shoulder. “Fred tried to teach me…for months after we were married. I never took to it.”

He turned to her, watched her face. And picked up the spectacles from the table to hold them out to her again. “My friend could see fine at far distances—maybe
better than I could. But up close—” he held his hand about a foot in front of his face “—everything was a blur.”

She didn't take the spectacles from him; neither did he lower his outstretched hand.

“I can't do it,” she said.

“Wouldn't you like to read your husband's journal?”

She glared at him. “That book is not your concern.”

“Will you just try?” His hand remained extended, his eyes serious.

Exasperated, she took the spectacles from him, expecting him to gloat, but he watched her in silence.

She slipped them over her nose, tucked the curves behind her ears. Reached for the sheaf of papers in one of the desk drawers. When she looked down at the top sheet, she expected to see the same thing she always saw—blurry lines that didn't make any sense. To her surprise, the words came into sharp focus. She could make out each individual letter clearly.

She looked up at Chas in amazement. “I can see!”

 

Danna slept with her face to the door, one hand tucked under her cheek. With her face flushed from sleep, she looked young. Not old enough to be married, or in charge of keeping in the peace in this town.

Chas watched her for a long time, this woman he…had feelings for. He'd been fighting against himself all evening, against the greed inside that claimed “she's mine.”

She was his, but not forever. Just for long enough that she didn't get herself killed. Then they'd get an annulment and he'd leave.

He still felt warm from the giddiness she'd shown when she'd tried on the spectacles. They'd sat together
at the small table, heads together, reviewing the alphabet and sounding out some small words. Each inadvertent brush of her hand had sent his senses spiraling.

Now he looked down at the leather-bound book he'd palmed as Danna readied for bed earlier. Part of him felt guilty for what he was about to do, but the other part wanted to know if her first husband had left them any clues.

He flipped the book open, toward the end. The writing was cramped, but readable. It seemed to be the middle of an entry.

Chas slapped the book closed. It felt
wrong
to read the inner thoughts of the man who'd been Danna's husband. And yet a part of him wanted to know more. More about what this other man knew about Danna. Part of him seethed with jealousy that Fred had known Danna intimately, had known her secrets.

But not all of them. Chas remembered the night—
was it just two nights ago?—he and Danna had spent tucked next to the small campfire she'd built. She'd told him her brother had basically thrown her away. From her first husband's words, it didn't sound like she'd ever told him.

And several things she'd said about herself made him think she
didn't
know her own worth, like the husband said. She saw herself as a deputy, a friend. Not as a woman.

Maybe, after they caught Lewis's gang and he finished his job for the WSGA, he would have time to prove to her that she was a beautiful, capable
woman.
He could show her she deserved love.

And maybe he'd find a lost treasure mine while he was at it.

Chas slapped the lid closed on his wishful thinking just as he'd closed the journal a moment ago. He wasn't here to woo Danna. He was here to help her with her problem. Then he was gone. He had to finish his job, and then he'd likely never return to Wyoming.

That was it.

No happy ending for him.

He didn't deserve one.

 

Danna woke with a start, instantly alert.

What was that noise?

She rolled her head across the pillow and saw that Chas's head tossed, though he appeared to be asleep. His face creased in a frown.

What did a man like Chas dream about? They still hadn't talked much about
him.

Had he moaned? Or had she imagined the noise?

The sound came again, and this time she knew it was Chas. She slid off the edge of the bed and quickly
pulled on her overshirt and trousers and tiptoed closer to where he sprawled across the floor. She didn't want to wake him if she didn't have to.

His head thrashed on the pillow, his lips moving, brow wrinkled.

She reached out her hand to touch him, wake him, but she froze when his moan turned into a word.

“Julia.”

Feeling as if she'd been punched in the stomach, she backed away until her calves hit the bed.

Who was Julia? A sister? Friend? Wife?

She was shaking. She clasped her hands together in front of her to try and stop them trembling. She'd known he had a past she knew nothing about, but for him to call out another woman's name…

A sudden noise from street level made Danna jerk her head toward the window. That had definitely been a horse's whicker.

She carefully pulled the edge of the curtain back. The moon was only half-full, but it was enough to see the three men on horseback, just below her window. Wearing bandanas over their faces.

With no time to categorize her emotions, to stifle the hurt that his dreamed woman had caused, she fell back on the training learned from years of working with Fred.

She darted across the floor, slapped her husband's shoulder and held a finger to her lips when he started awake.

“There are masked men downstairs. I don't know what they want, but I don't wish to be trapped up here with only one way out.”

She was gratified when he rose without a word and reached for the weapon he'd left on the table.

He glanced at her over his shoulder and she prayed he couldn't read the turmoil in her face.

“I'm going out the window. You'd better sneak down the stairs, and quick.”

As quick and silent as she could, Danna slid the window all the way open and swung one leg over the sill.

“Wait!” Chas had found his voice. He grasped her arm above the elbow. She flinched but forced herself not to pull away. She couldn't read his face in the darkness, but the rasp of his breath was rapid, almost anguished. “Please—be careful.”

She nodded, not sure if he could even see her in the dark, but she couldn't make words emerge from her suddenly parched throat. He sounded as if he cared.

She pulled away from his grasp and slipped out the window.

 

Chas woke from one nightmare to be thrust right into another.

The stench of blood and death was strong in his mind, and he didn't have time to shake it off before Danna was halfway out the window.

He clung to her for too long, afraid this whole thing was going to end badly. He couldn't watch another woman he…
cared about
die.

When he opened the door with a soft snick, he didn't even have a chance to step outside before he heard the thump of boots on the wooden staircase. He shut the door with another near-silent click, and latched it, for all the good it would do.

Now what?

He made for the window, swung one leg over to try
to find the footholds Danna had used a moment ago. Where was she?

“What are you doing?” A sharp hiss from above his head answered his unasked question. She was on the roof.

“How did you get up there?”

Before she could answer, a loud thump announced someone was attempting to force their way inside the marshal's room. Chas needed to get out of the window, which was in direct sight of the door. He swung his other leg over the windowsill and then was supporting his weight with his posterior and a white-knuckled grip. “Chas—”

He didn't hear the rest of Danna's words, because the distinct sound of wood splintering—the latch?—obscured her whisper. He slid off the windowsill, now hanging by his fingertips. Dangling like a monkey he'd once seen at a circus.

He didn't think it would hurt too much if he fell to the ground—he couldn't be more than eight or ten feet up. He was more afraid of the noise he'd make if he hit the boardwalk.

Angry voices from inside the room preceded the sound of boots stomping, moving toward the window. Chas knew he'd run out of time to make a choice.

He let go.

 

This was a disaster.

The two men in her rooms weren't making any effort to be quiet. Their rapid, pounding bootsteps told her their exact locations inside. She even heard them swear when they realized the room was empty.

She could drop off the edge of the roof and have the element of surprise, but she wasn't sure her husband
could keep himself from getting killed. Clouds blew in and covered the moon, provided poor visibility, and she couldn't see Chas on the ground.

She waited for the exclamation that would come when they discovered a man hanging in the window, but nothing happened.

And she was afraid to call out again with the two men inside. From the angry buzz of their voices, they'd discovered no one was home. Where were the two other men? And where was Chas?

How she wished Fred was here; she'd even settle for one of his deputies. She could trust Fred to take out the two other outlaws and leave these two for her. But she knew Chas had different instincts, and she couldn't be sure how he would respond. He could get them both killed.

She closed her eyes. No more time to decide.

Careful to stay light on her feet, she darted across the roof and grabbed the rope she'd left earlier, then hopped down to the stair platform. She slammed the door closed. A muffled curse came from inside. She looped the rope around the doorknob and tied off the end to the beam supporting the stair railing.

The door rattled under her hands as someone started pounding from the other side.

Running down the stairs, she paused behind the corner of the building and strained her ears to hear over the drumming from upstairs. She had no desire to run smack into any lookout they'd thought to leave nearby.

She unholstered her pistol and held it at her side. Hearing nothing, she skirted the building, keeping to the shadows close to the wall. Where had her husband gotten to?

The three horses now stood saddled and ready to go in the alleyway between the jail and the saloon behind it. One of the shadows behind the horses moved, and she was able to make out a head and shoulders of someone standing on the other side. She edged closer.

“Hold up a minute.” The harsh, deep voice, undeniably male, came from behind the horses.

The pounding from upstairs ceased, and in the silence Danna heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol hammer being cocked. She froze a few paces from the horses, crouching close to the ground.

“Where's the marshal?”

“Don't know.” And, lovely. Chas's voice answered the unknown man.