Tatiana March - The Marshal's Wyoming Bride

She bounced up from the cot. Turning her back to hide her efforts, she fluffed up the wispy curls at her temples and adjusted the collar of her sage-green wool dress, a worn but good quality garment which Permelia Jenkins, the tailor’s daughter, had only just that morning returned after cleaning and pressing it with an expert touch.

Today the sheriff must have dispensed with his guardian duty, for the marshal with a crescent-shaped scar on his cheek walked up to the cell unaccompanied. A jolt went through Rowena at the sight of him. He’d had a haircut. And he’d tidied up his clothing. Although the difference was subtle, it emphasized the combination of violence and elegance that would surely have sent all her old school friends into a swoon.

The marshal unlocked the iron grille with one hand, while dangling a sturdy captain’s chair from the other. Not making a sound—not even a muffled clunk, as if to compensate for his angry outburst the day before—he lowered the chair to the floor, settled onto the wooden seat and fired a question at her.

“How do you know the men called Elroy Revery and Robert Smith?”

Rowena controlled a flinch. So, the marshal had already figured out the connection between her and the fraudsters. She sank to sit on the cot. “I have nothing to say.”

“What are their real names?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Why did you help them escape?”

She clamped her lips together. I have nothing to say no longer seemed an adequate response, so she chose to meet a question with a question.

“How did you get your scar?”

“Do they have some kind of hold on you?”

“How did you become a federal marshal?”

That last question hit its mark. She could tell from the slight narrowing of those cool green eyes that watched her every move. “I have a deal for you,” Marshal Hunter said. “I shall answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”

Rowena mulled it over. In the back of her mind, she could hear her father’s voice, raspy from a lifetime of herding cattle in the harsh Wyoming climate. “Make a deal with the devil and you might end up in hell.” He’d quoted those words about using violence to defend the ranch, and the memory of his reluctance had made her doubt the word of Reese, the gunman who claimed her father had employed him.

But now, as Rowena met the sharp scrutiny of Marshal Hunter, an odd tingle of anticipation and daring skittered along her skin. Such a bargain could be used to provide misdirection, confuse the marshal’s train of thought. And, in truth, she wanted to learn more about him. What harm could there be, if she posed her questions wisely and gave her replies with caution.

“Can I choose which questions to answer?”

Marshal Hunter nodded his assent.

“How did you get your scar?”

“I was left for dead and a coyote tried to have me for his supper.” He paused and gave her a speculative look. “How did you end up in Pinares?”

Rowena suppressed a smile. So, he had accepted she wouldn’t talk about the shooting. He would lead her round and round the topic, attempting to trip her up. Sitting straighter on the cot, she curled her hands around the rough timber edge and sharpened her concentration. “I came here soon after I left school. How did you become a federal marshal?”

“I had nothing better to do. Where did you go to school?”

“Boston. Where did you grow up?”

“Louisiana. Are you running away from something?”

“I…” She was wearing thick socks and no shoes, and she lifted her heels, balancing the balls of her feet against the cold cement floor, the nervous movement hidden by the folds of her green wool skirt. “I was running away…when I came here…” Rowena lowered her lashes, but she could not resist glancing up again. She studied the crescent-shaped scar on the marshal’s face—a scar that bore the fang marks of a coyote. “And you…when you became a United States Marshal…were you running away from something?”

To her surprise, Marshal Hunter broke into a smile. It transformed his face, making him look young and carefree. The green eyes sparkled with humor. “I was running away from something,” he admitted. “And that something was an overbearing, determined mother who had her own ideas about how I should live.” The smile lingered. “My turn. Who were you running away from?”

She hesitated, then spoke quietly. “Myself.”

“Never an easy thing to do,” the marshal replied with a note of empathy in his tone.

Rowena nodded. “My turn.”

She intended to fire out another question, but her mind went blank. She had asked about his home, about his choice of career. What about his family? Before her brain caught up with the implications of the question, she blurted out, “Are you married?”

Slowly, the marshal’s expression sharpened and those green eyes fastened on her, so bold and direct Rowena believed they could see to the very core of her. But when the marshal replied, his voice was bland, perhaps a little impatient. “Why do you want to know?”

Up to now, she’d been enjoying the sparring. It had been like bantering with her suitors in Boston—not that she’d had many, for unlike some of her school friends she possessed neither great wealth nor important family connections—but what she felt now was not the girlish, superficial fluster of those occasions. What she felt now was deep and dark and laced with undertones of danger.

She inhaled a fortifying breath and refused to contemplate why the question about the marshal’s marital status might be of interest to her. “No particular reason,” she replied with a casual air. “I was just making conversation. And that was your question. My turn.”

She racked her brain, but her concentration was in tatters. She couldn’t think of anything that would allow an emotional retreat, could come up with no casual question that would draw them back from the dangerous waters of exchanging intimacies, of confessing hidden thoughts.

“Will you come back tomorrow?” she asked finally.

“Yes.” Like a gentleman who has been given a hint that his allotted visiting time had come to an end, the marshal rose to his feet. “Good night, Miss McKenzie.”

He retreated with those strangely deliberate footsteps she’d noticed before, not because of any visible quality in how he walked, but because her musician’s ear had picked out the distinctive cadence of his boot heels against the cement floor.

As the marshal turned around to slide the iron bars back in place, Rowena couldn’t stop herself from staring at him. One by one, she registered every part of his appearance—the coal-black hair, freshly cut, the gaunt face with high cheekbones, the green eyes framed with dark lashes, the hard slash of a mouth, the lean yet powerful body. Marshal Hunter stood still, aware of her scrutiny. For a while, it appeared to Rowena that time had stopped turning.

After what seemed like an eternity, the marshal dipped his head in a curt nod of farewell and vanished out of sight, leaving her alone with an avalanche of confused thoughts that ran the gamut from past failings into future possibilities.

* * *

Dale finished his morning shave and studied his reflection in the gilt-framed mirror hanging above the cracked porcelain washbasin in his hotel room. What had Rowena McKenzie seen when she’d stared at him with such intensity? Had she been repelled by his scar?

Are you married? Are you married? Are you married?

The question seemed to whisper at him from every corner of the shabby, well-worn hotel room. Dale shook his head, as if to dislodge the soft feminine voice that appeared to be stuck inside his mind. The attempt proved as futile as swatting at a fly with a piece of string.