Kate Bridges - Welcome To Wyoming

“But I’ve already told you.”

“Tell me again. A man likes to hear in person what his bride thinks of him.”

“There were dozens of respondents, as I mentioned, but yours stood out. It was so well worded. Your education truly does you justice with the written word. When I discovered you were putting your business education to good use in your jewelry enterprise, I thought I could be very supportive to you.”

“Supportive. Hmm.”

“And that’s why I posed the question. The one you’re still thinking on.”

“Ask me again,” he said softly. “Tell me more directly so I get a true sense of what’s on your mind.”

She inhaled. “Well, it’s just that I believe that you and I could build quite a business establishment as a couple. We could do this together, Jarrod. We’d be twice as good, twice as big, twice as profitable. I know the jewelry business.”

“And so...?”

“I’m asking you if you’d please consider letting me join you in your travels. You know, do whatever needs to be done?”

She sipped another smooth mouthful of red wine as he leaned back in his chair and stared at her so intensely that she thought he would shatter his wine goblet.

* * *

She was in on it, thought Simon with rising anger. Sure as thunder came before lightning, Natasha O’Sullivan was devoted to helping Ledbetter’s criminal jewelry business. How much more obvious could she be?

He tried not to moan. He tried not to flinch as he sat watching her. He tried not to move a muscle in his face to indicate in any manner that he was affected by her request to join him. She knew about jewelry repair and was quite willing to indulge her would-be husband by jumping in with 100 percent enthusiasm.

How could a man from Harvard accomplish so much and yet now be so dead?

Why did Simon feel such disappointment in her?

She had many positive attributes. Why did she wish to become a criminal herself?

Greed?

All right, he’d play along. After all, she might know the whereabouts of the missing three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cash and jewels and lead him directly to it. In fact, if she was guilty, that would let him off the hook for how he should treat her. He’d met criminal women before, and they were just as vicious and deadly as men. Didn’t he owe it to Eli and Clay to put her behind bars? Some of her cohorts had shot them in cold blood! They’d made Simon go mad at the scene, trying to stifle the flow of blood from Clay’s neck where a gunshot had severed the artery. And poor Eli with a bullet straight through the heart.

If this woman was involved in any manner, she deserved what was coming.

Simon could only pray that she wasn’t too bright and wouldn’t pick up on the fact that he wasn’t really her beloved partner in crime, Ledbetter.

But maybe he was jumping the gun. Maybe he was assuming too much, assuming that she knew what she was getting involved with, that it was a criminal enterprise with Ledbetter.

Slow down, he told himself. Let’s not pull the trigger yet. Give her the benefit of the doubt.

How much, thought Simon as his pensive gaze swept over the caring eyes and the pursed feminine lips, did she know about Ledbetter’s business? The lawmen were still looking, but as far as they could gather so far, they hadn’t been able to uncover any stores that Ledbetter had actually opened in any town. Yet he’d claimed he had several. The man knew a lot about jewelry, but maybe only because he’d been a thief.

But surely the man hadn’t written too much in his letters for fear of incriminating himself. Or maybe he had. Maybe the braggart couldn’t help himself. All he had to do, once he’d trusted her and revealed his hand, was tell her to burn his letters.

“Well?” she prodded. “What do you say? Shall we run this business together, Jarrod?”

In all the years he’d been chasing criminals, he’d arrested only two women. He’d never injured one before, for neither had resisted arrest. Laws were laws and whoever broke them would come to justice.

“Before I answer that,” he said, bringing the French Burgundy to his lips once more, “I need to ask if you’ve kept any of our correspondence.”

She frowned at the question and lowered her voice. The grapes on her bonnet flashed in the candle’s flicker of light. “I did as you asked. However, I don’t see why I needed to burn them all,” she whispered, “even though I do understand your need for privacy and security, seeing how many jewelry shops you intend to open. And how you’ve been robbed yourself just recently.”

He quirked an eyebrow. So he’d been right. Ledbetter had asked her to get rid of all his letters. “Thank you kindly for understanding.”

“I admit, I thought it odd at first. But the more you explained, the clearer it became.”

Clearer? His side was getting murkier. They were speaking in riddles. How much did she know? Was she a criminal or simply in over her head?

Hellfire. He couldn’t send her home on the next train or stagecoach yet. He had to find out how much she knew and whether she could lead him to the jackpot. It was what his superiors at the detective agency would expect him to do. To follow through on every lead, and certainly not to feel sympathetic toward a possible criminal only because she was a head-turning female.

He pushed away his plate and tried to act civil and calm, as Ledbetter would do in this situation. All in a day’s work for that bastard. “Would you care for anything sweet? I saw raspberry pie on the menu.”

She leaned her pretty frame back against the chair rails, smiled down at her empty dinner plate and sighed in contentment. “I don’t think I can fit another morsel. Thank you for the wonderful meal and the wonderful company.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, Natasha.”

She kept flushing at the mention of her name. It did feel rather intimate to him, too, sitting here across from a seemingly lovely lady who soon expected to be his bride.

If these were normal circumstances, if he was allowed to be himself as Simon Garr and she was his mail-order bride, he’d be as nervous as a trapped cougar. He’d seen what sort of marriage his parents had had: his father walking out, his mother drinking herself to death. No way on this earth he ever wanted that.

She lifted the white napkin from her lap and folded it across the table. She looked rather nervous, pursing her lips as though straining to find the right words. “What—what did you have in mind for the wedding ceremony? How soon would you like to do this?” The smooth muscles in her throat moved up and down with her delicate question.

Everything about her was a trap. Her smooth voice, the soulful brown eyes, the scattered freckles on her face that made her seem so innocent.

He silently cursed. There’d be no damn wedding.

He was saved from answering by their waiter.

“May I offer you some coffee?” the man asked as he gathered plates. “Perhaps some pastries, miss?”

She shook her head and nervously brushed her sleeves. Pastry was the last thing on her mind, he guessed, for she had a marriage to pursue.

“Please send the bill to the front desk,” said Simon, pushing his long legs back from the table. “I’ll settle up when I pay for Miss O’Sullivan’s room.”

“My room?” Those cinnamon-and-brown-sugar eyes flashed at him again as if to add, Not our room? We won’t be married tonight?

“I thought you might like to settle in. Find your way around town, rest up a few days before we plunge into this.”

She might be beautiful and tempting, but he was not Jarrod Ledbetter. Fortunately, she was not his mail-order bride and it was not truly him who needed to make decisions about an upcoming wedding.