Teresa Medeiros - Nobody's Darling

“There’s no need for name-calling, ma’am,” Darling said. “If you’re not careful, you might bruise my tender feelings.”

She turned the full force of her scorn on him. “I sincerely doubt that a man of your character has any feelings.”

“You might just be surprised.” He spoke the words softly, but his gaze trapped and held hers in a velvety vise broken only by the sheriff’s heartfelt sigh.

“I have to respect the lady’s wishes. William. It wouldn’t look good to the townsfolk if I let you drag her out of here against her will.”

Darling shook his head ruefully as he turned to go. “I understand, sheriff. Let’s just hope that marshal gets here before my brothers do.“

Esmerelda bounded to her feet. “Your brothers? Why would your brothers come here?”

Billy turned back, but it was McGuire who replied. “Gossip spreads like prairie fire on the range, miss. The Darling boys probably won’t take very kindly to hearing about their brother’s narrow escape from death. They might just want to pay the lass responsible a wee social call.”

She shuddered, remembering the wizened cowhand’s warning. You don ’t want to mess with them Darlin ‘ boys. They set a high store by Billy, him bein’ the baby o ‘ the family and all .

“Just how many brothers does he have?”

“Four,” the sheriff replied. “William here is the runt of the litter.”

Esmerelda swallowed hard before slanting Darling a wary look. He probably stood all of six feet two inches— without his boots. As their eyes met, an emotion that might have been remorse flickered across his face. Surely he must realize he was asking her to choose between the gallows and the firing squad.

She could not have said what made her even consider entrusting herself to his hands. He didn’t try to coax her into coming or offer her his arm, but simply stood there, awaiting her verdict.

When he’d denied killing her brother, the conviction in his voice had been unmistakable. But he could be a liar as well as a murderer. Or he could be innocent. If she let him walk out on her without so much as a backward glance, she might never learn the truth.

She jerked on the hem of her basque and smoothed her overskirt to hide the trembling of her hands. “Very well, sheriff. If you’ll be kind enough to fetch my bonnet and reticule, I shall accompany Mr. Darling from the jail.”

Billy had to admire the lady’s nerve.

Once she decided to accept his offer, she sailed from the cell as if it had been her idea all along, her delicate nose tilted to an imperious angle. He and Drew exchanged a wry look before trailing after her like a pair of mismatched footmen.

She tapped her foot impatiently while Drew retrieved her personal belongings from the bottom drawer of his desk. Her composure didn’t waver until she saw her bonnet. The homely little hat had been knocked from her head and thoroughly stomped on during the chaos in the saloon. Billy’s own boot print scarred the battered crown.

Her lips puckered in dismay as she tried to coax some life back into the bonnet’s bedraggled feathers. Billy scowled, both touched and annoyed by the pathetic gesture. How could the woman mourn a bonnet when the undertaker might be measuring her for a coffin at this very moment? His scowl darkened as he swept his gaze down her slender form. A very small coffin.

He leaned down and whispered, “The next time you swoon after trying to murder me, Miss Fine, I’ll leave you to be trampled and save your hat.”

Drew chose that inopportune moment to place her derringer on the desk. She snatched at it, but Billy swept it neatly out of her reach.

She smiled at him through gritted teeth. “Why, Mr. Darling, surely you can’t object to the sheriff returning my gun. After all, it’s not even loaded anymore.”

His answering grin was equally tender. “That can be easily enough rectified.” He slid the miniature gun into his pocket. “If I turn up dead, Drew, check my back for hat pins.”

Exchanging her smile for an open glare, Miss Fine slapped on the bonnet. It sat askew on her head, the bird that hadn’t flown the coop bobbing over one of her narrowed eyes like a broken spring. Billy swallowed a sigh of regret. Her hair was a warm chestnut tinted with honey and cinnamon and he rather enjoyed the sight of it hanging all cockeyed like that. It made her look like she’d just rolled out of some man’s bed.

Before he could follow that dangerous thought to its inevitable conclusion, he thrust her reticule into her hand and herded her toward the door.

Her brash courage didn’t falter until they reached it.

She clutched his arm and gazed up at him, her brown eyes the precise shade of candied maple sugar. “I can’t go out there. Can’t you hear the mob? They’re howling for my blood.”

Billy cocked his head to the side. He did indeed hear an ominous rumbling, punctuated by the occasional masculine bellow. Tucking a grin into the corner of his mouth where she wasn’t likely to see it, he dipped his head close to her ear and murmured, “You’d best stay close to me, ma’am. They’re bound to be a bloodthirsty lot.”

Although he knew it must have galled her, she shrank into his side as he eased open the door. He’d expected her to be all angles and sharp edges, but she was much sorter than she looked.

As they appeared on the stoop, the shouts and cursing dwindled to an expectant silence. It seemed the entire male population of Calamity had turned out to gawk at his companion. Billy even spotted Dauber and Seal in the crowd, their eager faces scrubbed free of trail dust and their hair slicked back with enough bear grease to fry an elephant.

As he ushered Esmerelda onto the sidewalk, the men retreated to a respectful distance. A shoving match between two grizzled sodbusters broke out on the fringes of the crowd.

“Git back! I done seen her first!”

“Shit, Elmer, ye’re nearsighted as a prairie dog. You ain’t seen nothin‘ in nigh on twenty years.”

“I see good enough to know ye’re nothin‘ but a yellow-bellied, two-timin’ old sonofa—”

“Gentlemen!” boomed Horace Stumpelmeyer, the recently widowed town banker. “I urge you to remember that there is a lady present.”

Both men immediately snatched off their dusty hats and clutched them to their hearts. A stripling cowboy, still young enough to have a chin furred with peach fuzz, lifted his hand. Esmerelda ducked as if she expected to be pelted with a rotten tomato. But he only smiled shyly, revealing a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth, and thrust a bouquet of wilted ragweed beneath her nose.

She gave Billy a puzzled look before accepting the offering. Capturing her elbow, he guided her firmly through the throng. A mounting chorus of mutters and whines marked their progress. Some of the bolder men began to declare themselves.

“I got me ten acres and a mule, miss.” “My Effie birthed me nine younguns afore she died at the tender age o‘ twenty-four, God rest her sweet soul, and they sure do need a ma.”

They were halfway across the street when a cowboy tore off his hat and tossed it on the ground. “Hellfire, Billy! You git all the purty ones. It jest ain’t fair.”

Esmerelda waited until they were safely out of earshot before casting a baffled glance over her shoulder. “Who were those men?”

“Your suitors,” he replied shortly, tightening his grip on her elbow.

“I don’t understand. I never had any suitors.” He shot her a skeptical look. If that were true, the men in Boston must all be more nearsighted than old Elmer. Her finely chiseled features were only enhanced by a straight, narrow nose with just the faintest hint of a cleft at its tip.

“You do now,” he said. When she continued to look doubtful, he sighed. “You see, Miss Fine, the male population in Calamity outnumbers the unmarried female population by at least twenty to one. And that’s even counting the whores and old Granny Shively.”