Laurie Grant - The Ranger's Bride

“Now you’re sounding more sensible!” Miss Beatrice crowed triumphantly. “You do just that! I’ll sit right here and wait. Don’t you get up a single moment before you’re ready.”

As soon as Addy rose and moved toward the cell on the right, she plopped herself down in the same chair Addy had been sitting in. Already, the plump older woman’s eyelids were sagging over her watery, pale eyes. “I’ll be right here, dear,” the older woman murmured.

Addy made a great show of settling herself down on the narrow cot, yawning elaborately while she said, “I declare, I’m suddenly so tired…don’t let me fall asleep, Miss Beatrice….”

Beatrice Morgan’s eyes had already drifted shut.

Addy lay on the cot in the jail cell, listening to the horses’ snorting and stamping of hooves, the creak of leather and the jingling of spurs and bits as the men of Connor’s Crossing prepared to ride in pursuit of the Fogarty Gang.

It took about half an hour, but finally they were ready and Addy heard Asa Wilson call, “All right, men, looks like we’re ready to move out. Sooner we hit the trail, the sooner we catch those no-account bastards and bring them to trial. Now, there’ll be no talk of lynching, is that clear?”

Dear Asa, Addy thought. As upright and steadfast as the day was long. He truly believed that he and his little Connor’s Crossing posse were going to come upon the outlaws, milling around out there among the hills, just waiting to be caught.

Asa was a good man, and Addy was fond of him, and even fonder of his little boy Billy. Billy’s mama had died two years ago during a cholera epidemic, and Addy knew Asa wanted to give the boy a mother again. And so Asa had decided he was in love with Addy, and perhaps he really was. But Addy knew she didn’t love Asa, and probably never would, and that her assumed widowhood functioned as a sort of shield from his ready devotion. She realized that when the year was up since her husband’s supposed “death” she was going to have to either accept the proposal of marriage Asa would undoubtedly offer, or admit that she didn’t love him.

She also knew that all it would take to discourage Asa Wilson was the truth—that she was a divorced woman, not a widow. Shock would widen those clear blue eyes, and then he would look sad. He would say he understood, and of course he would not trouble her with his attentions again. And he would never tell anyone in town that she had deceived them all in order to retain their goodwill, and that she was no honest widow, but a woman who was beyond the pale of respectability—who had actually divorced her husband.

Addy couldn’t tell him, or anyone, the truth. No one must know that her former husband still lived back in St. Louis—assuming, of course, he had not fallen afoul of some liquored-up gambler who caught him cheating at cards.

All sound had died away outside. Carefully, moving slowly to minimize the rustling of the straw-stuffed mattress beneath her, she sat up and then tiptoed to the shuttered window.

By the desk, Beatrice Morgan snored, her mouth slackly open, her head sagging on her thick neck.

The shutter creaked on its hinges as she pulled it open, and Addy froze, but the old woman did not awaken.

Cautiously, she peered out.

The streets were deserted for as far as she could see in either direction. The stagecoach had been moved down the street and parked in front of the undertaker’s shop, no doubt to make removal of the big man’s body easier. Someone had unhitched the four horses that had pulled it. She couldn’t see the livery from here, but she was sure the horses had been put into the corral with hay and water and would remain there until the stage company claimed them.

She had to leave Asa a note, or he’d worry, and perhaps come looking for her at her house. She’d better include Miss Beatrice too, who would be distraught when she woke to find her gone. Careful not to make a noise that would wake the still-snoring woman, Addy grabbed a wanted notice lying on the desk and a stub of a pencil, turned the stiff paper over, and wrote:

Dear Asa and Miss Beatrice,

Thank you for your kindness. I’ve gone on home, as I’m sure I’ll be more comfortable in my own place. I’m going to go to bed as soon as I get there. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll see you both tomorrow.

Gratefully,

Addy Kelly

Then she tiptoed to the back door and stealthily lifted up the latch and let herself out. So that no one would see her, she would go down the back street, which connected up with the main road at the edge of town. Once she crossed the bridge over the rocky-bedded Llano, it was just a short walk to her house.

The house was quiet—much too quiet—when Addy entered it. Dear Lord, had his wound somehow started bleeding again? Had Rede Smith bled to death?

The thought pierced her with guilt for having left him, even at his direction and for so brief a time. Addy hurried down the hall and through the kitchen to the back bedroom.

“Judas priest, woman, where have you been?”

Rede Smith was sitting up in bed, propped up by her two feather pillows, his color pale but no paler than when she had left him.

She let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding.

“It took considerable cunning to escape a woman like Miss Beatrice Morgan, I’ll have you know,” she informed Rede tartly, and then explained how the sheriff and the old woman, determined to coddle her after her ordeal, had conspired to keep her in town.

He frowned as she described Asa Wilson’s concern for her.

“Don’t worry,” she said, assuming he was just worrying about the bandits’ trail getting cold, “he didn’t remain any longer than he had to, once he’d gotten the facts and seen to my welfare. He’s already out there with a posse, looking for the Fogartys. It was the Fogarty Gang, you think?”

He gave her a baleful look. “I don’t think, I’m sure of it,” he said. “You didn’t tell him about me, did you?”

She was already exhausted from the day’s events, and his scornful tone sparked her ire. “No, I most certainly did not, though it felt despicable to be lying to that good man, not to mention the whole town—telling him the Ranger was dead, when you’re lying right here in my bed!”

She felt herself blushing at what she had said, and hoped he hadn’t noticed, but of course the Ranger missed nothing.

He scowled. “What’s the matter, is the virtuous Widow Kelly the sheriff’s secret sweetheart? Are you afraid he’ll find me here and think he has a rival?”

Her temper reached the flashpoint and ignited.

Hand raised to slap his face, Addy took one step toward the bed before she realized what she was about to do and stopped dead in her tracks.

Addy saw in his eyes that he fully realized her intention, and wanted to die of shame. She took a deep shaky breath. “I won’t do it. I won’t slap a wounded man, though you richly deserve it after what you just said.”

He looked away first, scowling again. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business who visits your bed, Mrs. Kelly,” he said stiffly.

“No one—” she started to say, and then stopped herself. He was right. It was none of his business. Let Rede Smith think Asa Wilson was her lover, if it would keep him from behaving improperly toward her. He didn’t have to know Asa was the last man who’d make an ungentlemanly move toward a woman he thought was a six-month widow and whom he considered a lady. But if she expected meekness out of Rede Smith now, she was doomed to disappointment.

“Are you a good liar?” he demanded. “Did they believe you?”

“I think so,” she said, striving for a level tone. Oh, you don’t know how good a liar I am, Rede Smith. I’ve been living a lie ever since I came to Connor’s Crossing.