In a Cowboy’s Arms (12 page)

“Yep, like an apprentice.” And wasn’t that just a hoot.

Dade had had nobody to show him the ropes of this job when he took it on six months past. He’d just known that a sheriff had to have eyes in the back of his head.

He felt certain Duane had already honed that same trait. Yep, when he moved on, which seemed to be sooner than later now, it’d be with a clearer conscience.

“That bounty hunter that came through last week,” Duane said. “I swore I saw him this morning riding just north of town.”

That was the last thing Dade wanted to hear. “Did he seem to be moving on?”

“Hard to tell. At first I thought he was setting up camp above town, but when I looked up on the ridge an hour later, he was gone.”

But where to?

Dade had a hunch it wasn’t far. Allis Carson was probably looking for a place to watch the town unobserved. Like a sniper, he needed a location that gave a good view of the town so when Maggie stepped into the open, he’d know where to find her. He’d be able to figure out the best place to catch her off guard and make off with her.

“About what time did you see him?” Dade asked.

“Right before the bank was robbed.”

Dade swiped a hand over his mouth, mulling that over. He’d assumed Carson had returned to town in the hopes he’d spy Maggie. But it was just as likely that he was trying to pick up the trail of the Logan Gang.

“You remember what ledge you saw him on?” Dade asked.

“I sure do,” Duane said.

“Then show me.”

They mounted up and headed out with the new deputy leading the way. Twenty minutes later they stood on a wide natural ledge of granite.

Dade squatted by the fire pit that had been covered over. He looked south. This location gave an unobtrusive view of the bank, but when he shifted a bit to the side, the livery, the boardinghouse, and Doc’s office were visible.

“You said you noticed he left after the bank was robbed?” Dade asked.

“Sure did.” The deputy toed the stub of a brown cheroot that’d been stomped out, and Dade noted it was one of many the bounty hunter had smoked while he was up here. “You think he went after the Logan Gang?”

Dade shrugged. “Hard to say.”

Whether Carson recognized the outlaws or not, he could be trailing them if he’d witnessed the robbery. The reward on them would be mighty tempting to most men, and if this bounty hunter had run into a dead end searching for Maggie Sutten, he might invest the time necessary to round up the Logan Gang.

The outlaws and Carson could be miles from here by now. No matter how much he wished that to be the case, he suspected Carson would come back. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But when Dade and Maggie least expected it, the bounty hunter would show his face.

Carson had been hired to find Margaret Sutten, and he imagined Harlan Nowell was paying a handsome fee to find her. The man damned sure wouldn’t give up the chance of making easy money–and tracking a woman was considered just that.

“Carson will come back,” Dade said.

“What makes you think so?” the deputy asked. “The woman he seeks isn’t in Placid.”

It wasn’t in Dade’s nature to lie, but he had done it many times when he was protecting his sister. Though he had no idea where to find her, Maggie was his strongest tie to Daisy. He wasn’t about to just hand her over to this bounty hunter now.

“He thinks she is. You tell me if you’ve seen her.” Dade repeated the description Carson had given.

The deputy went white around the mouth. “That sounds like the mayor’s wife.”

Now there was a bonus Dade hadn’t anticipated. “It also sounds like my sister, but I have my doubts that this bounty hunter would take the time to figure out which one was Margaret Sutten.”

“You think he’d just grab any woman who came close to that description and hightail it?”

“It’s a possibility we can’t dismiss.”

“We damned sure ain’t gonna stand for that.”

Just what Dade wanted to hear.

He got to his feet and scanned the canyon walls that curved around the mountain town like protective arms. The serenity was deceptive, as those who’d recently been robbed could attest.

Yep, the town lay before him from this angle. He wasn’t fool enough to think this was the only spot. If Allis Carson had found one place to observe the comings and goings down below, he had likely found another hidey-hole.

The bounty hunter could know Maggie had returned to the boardinghouse. He could be planning how to grab her at this moment.

Duane scanned the area with sharp eyes, looking more like a lawman than Dade could have imagined. “Just what the hell did this Sutten woman do anyway?”

“Stole a couple of hundred dollars from the man she worked for, plus an old broach.”

“Seems a waste to send a hired gun after her for just that.”

Dade couldn’t agree more. How much of what Maggie told him was fiction?

She swore Harlan Nowell’s daughter had given her money to escape, yet Harlan Nowell claimed Maggie had stolen it. If that was not the truth, then why was Harlan Nowell hounding her?

He had a hunch that Maggie had done something far more serious to rile the rich man. Something that he wasn’t willing to forgive or forget.

“Let’s head back,” Dade said. “We’ve got a town to protect.”

Dade had to have another long talk with Maggie. If he was to protect her, he had to know the whole story.

Even then he knew it wasn’t going to be easy to keep her safe. What he wasn’t sure of yet was if he should even try.

Maggie paced her room at the boardinghouse, pausing at intervals to gaze out the window. Her bath had refreshed her, but tension continued to hold her prisoner.

How long would it take for the bounty hunter to find out that she and Caroline had stayed in Placid after visiting the baths in Manitou Springs? How much longer would Maggie be safe here?

At the time it had seemed like such a grand adventure to pretend to be someone else as they rode the narrow gauge rail from Colorado Springs to Burland. She and Caroline had both wanted to escape the lives they had, so dreaming up new names and pasts had been innocent fun that they could enjoy if only for a little while.

But on three occasions they’d taken their journey a step further by taking the southern route out of Pueblo instead of the western one that wound toward Burland. That’s how they found Placid. That’s where they’d had a taste of true freedom.

If Maggie had known what Nowell had in store for her then, she would’ve boarded a train and disappeared. She wouldn’t have returned to Burland. But she hadn’t any inkling of his plans.

Just like she hadn’t had any idea that Daisy Logan had a brother. That he was here in Placid waiting for his sister to return. Now that the truth was out, escaping him might be more difficult than eluding the bounty hunter Nowell had hired.

Maggie could change her name again, but she couldn’t change her appearance that much. She had no idea how many people the bounty hunter had questioned about her, but she knew staying in Colorado was far too dangerous now.

But unless Doc could secure a safe place for her in St. Louis, she’d be afraid to stay in any town too long. She could end up being on the run for the rest of her life.

She left the quiet of her room and hurried down the steps, wishing that she was once again that little orphan that nobody wanted. She could be herself then. She could do what she wanted to do.

If she didn’t have the threat of facing Nowell’s wrath, she could entertain thoughts of having a normal life. She could marry. Have a family.

Now she’d be lucky to have a brief romance. The thought had her thinking of Dade again. Dare she encourage him that way? Would he even be interested in getting cozy with the woman who’d deceived him?

“Ah, you look refreshed,” Mrs. Gant said, catching her before she could dart through the parlor.

“I feel more like myself.” A truth on several levels.

She was beset with that old fear of having to run and never look back. Of never fitting in. Of never having anything permanent in her life. Heavens, would she ever find peace?

“You never did say exactly where Eloisa was living now,” Mrs. Gant said.

“Sss"–Maggie caught herself before blurting out St. Louis–"Cincinnati.”

That kind of slip of the tongue could mean the end of her freedom, for it would draw the bounty hunter to the place she’d hoped to disappear.

Mrs. Gant went about dusting the parlor, seeming not to have noticed her near blunder. “I’ve never been there.”

Neither had Maggie, nor would she ever go there now that she’d claimed that Eloisa was there. “I hear it’s quite cold in the winter.”

“Poor dear. That won’t be easy on her,” Mrs. Gant said. “I hope this new hospital helps her condition.”

“As do I.”

If only it were so. If only Caroline was getting the help she needed.

It angered her that Nowell had denied Caroline the healing benefits of the waters after his wife died. That he’d likely keep his own daughter a prisoner in that emotionally cold house. That he might just decide to ship her off to a private sanitarium anyway.

But if he did, at least she’d be able to take the waters again. She’d be pain free, and free of her father’s interference.

If only Maggie could be so lucky.

“Well, if you get back that way to visit Eloisa, do tell her I’m thinking fondly of her,” Mrs. Gant said.

“I’ll surely do that should I make the journey there, though I don’t imagine it’ll be any time in the near future.”

Yes, for all the money that Harlan Nowell possessed, she and Caroline were equals in one regard. Both had been unwanted by their parents.

“How terrible that you’re so far apart,” Mrs. Gant said. “Have you any family other than your brother?”

“None.”

She had a vague memory of an older woman singing to her and holding her close. She couldn’t bring the woman’s face to mind, but she remembered feeling safe.

Another memory triggered a lightning flash of ice-cold fear. There’d been another woman too–one who was much younger and who terrified Maggie. Her aunt perhaps? The one who hadn’t wanted her?

“What about friends?” Mrs. Gant asked.

Maggie shook off the unpleasant memory of her own life. “Eloisa is the closest I have to family or friends.”

The truth, and just knowing she’d likely never see her again brought sudden tears to her eyes. There was no one out there for her. There never had been.

Mrs. Gant enveloped her in a hug, and Maggie resisted her natural urge to pull away. “Now, now, don’t fret, child. Eloisa might have a miraculous recovery at this new hospital and make a trip here to see you.”

“That would be nice.”

She’d like nothing better than to one day hear that Caroline was cured and had slipped free from her father’s hold. But she also knew it wouldn’t be easy for either of them to escape the life planned for them.

If Caroline returned here, Maggie would be long gone.

She gently extracted herself from Mrs. Gant and flushed at the compassion the woman directed at her. She wasn’t used to anyone fussing over her.

Heavens, she could count on one hand the times someone had coddled her or hugged her. She hadn’t known how to take their kindness then, and she still hadn’t learned.

“Forgive me for prying,” Mrs. Gant began, putting Maggie on alert that she was in for another probing question. “But how old were you when the Reynards adopted you?”

“Eight years old,” Maggie said, clearly remembering that cold day.

“Oh, my! Judging by the close bond you and Eloisa had, I was sure you’d been taken in by them when you were a baby.”

Maggie merely smiled, for she wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. But Mrs. Gant didn’t appear to take her silence as an insult. No, she took it as an excuse to ask more questions.

“Dade never said, but had you been in the orphanage long?” she asked, staring at Maggie with such pity that she wanted to scream.

“Too long...”

The longest months of her life, for the foundling home had felt like a prison sentence. But she surely couldn’t tell Mrs. Gant about the first family who’d adopted her, only to return her to the home nearly two years later.

She’d tried to fit in with them, to win their affection, to form a sisterly bond with their beautiful daughter, Becka. And maybe that would have happened if not for the accident.

To think how different her life would have been if she’d been able to stay with them. She surely wouldn’t be on the run now. Nor would she have met Dade Logan.

“Such a long time for a child to be cooped up in an orphanage,” Mrs. Gant said. “Am I to assume you and Dade lost your parents? That you had no other family to take you in?”

Maggie nodded woodenly, for she didn’t wish to say anything that would contradict what Dade might have said. Nor did she care to go into the painful details of her own life.

“Such a shame that the Reynards didn’t take you and Dade both into their home,” Mrs. Gant said.

“Very true.” Having remembered how alone Daisy had been, and knowing how hard Dade had tried to find her, she thought it a crime that the siblings had been separated.

Mrs. Gant heaved a sigh. “But good fortune reigned when you found each other again.”

“I suspect that is a rarity among separated siblings.”

“And how sad that you had forgotten you had a brother,” she said, and Maggie got the first inkling that Mrs. Gant was piecing things together to see if there was a hole in the Logan family story.

She couldn’t blame the woman. After all it was two tales and both were centered on lies and half-truths.

Maggie thought back to what Dade had told her and factored in what she remembered about Daisy’s mishap. “My brother and I were separated when I was just five years old. I was told I took a spill from a wagon, but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember anything much before age seven.”

“For one so young, you have certainly led a tumultuous life.” Mrs. Gant looked genuinely worried. “There are those in town who fret about you and the sheriff being the outlaw’s children.”

Maggie thought back to what Dade had told her. “As Dade said, our father lost all rights to call us his children when he dumped us on the steps of an orphanage.”