In a Cowboy’s Arms (5 page)

“You shot the man who killed Lester, so the town offered you the job of sheriff,” she said, and he nodded because that summed it up. “You could have declined.”

“I needed a job, Daisy,” he said. “This was the last town I trailed you to, and I wasn’t about to leave and risk missing you again.”

She blinked, and pressed her fingers to her lips. “So you stayed here all winter waiting for me to return.”

“Yep, and I’m glad I listened to my instincts.”

She didn’t say anything to that. But then she hadn’t given any indication that she was pleased about reuniting with him.

He blew out a frustrated breath. “So what do you want to do?” he said. “Stay here or move on?”

She dropped her gaze to her lap, her brow pulled in a frown. “I don’t know what I’d do here.”

Maybe that independent streak was a common thread among orphans. Whatever caused it, he wasn’t sure what to do with this beautiful woman with veins of grit.

Damn if he knew what to tell her. Most women her age were looking for a husband instead of a job. They’d marry. Raise children. Keep house.

But the fact remained that pickings in this town were slim. He couldn’t think of one man he’d like to see married to Daisy. Hell, just thinking of her with another man annoyed him.

“Do you plan to remain sheriff then?” she asked.

“It’s a decent job.” He slid her a quick glance and caught her staring at him and not with sisterly curiosity either.

And damn it all if her boldness didn’t get his blood heating.

He dropped his feet on the floor and sat up straight, as annoyed with her as he was with himself. “Anyway, we could continue living at Mrs. Gant’s until I could buy us a place. Maybe a farm so we could run some cattle–”

“I don’t want to stay here,” she said.

Well, that answered that question. But the fact remained that he didn’t care to stay here either, at least not for the rest of his life.

“You got some place in mind where you’d like to live?” he asked.

“East, west. I don’t know. Just far from here.”

That sounded like running away to him. But from what? Maybe it was too painful for her to think of staying here now that Lester was gone.

By her own words, there was nothing left for her in Burland. He suspected she felt the same here now. He dreaded that she couldn’t see them forming a deep family bond either.

“How’d you come to spend time here in Placid?” he asked.

She stared out the lone window, and for a moment he wondered if she was thinking up some story to tell him, for the truth ought to be easy enough to explain. But it was mighty clear she didn’t trust him.

But then that was not a commodity he handed out often either. At least they had something in common. He just hoped she hadn’t inherited their pa’s lying cheating ways.

“My foster sister and I passed through here last summer,” she said at last. “We were returning from Manitou Springs when she took sick, so we were obliged to stay until she was fit to travel.”

“You two were traveling alone?”

She nodded. “Yes. Car–” She broke off and pursed her lips, and he wondered what she’d started to say and why she’d changed her mind. “Actually, Eloisa’s mother had tired of making the monthly journey with us to the springs some time back, so we were used to traveling without a chaperone.”

“A mite risky for two women to go traipsing through the mountains alone,” he said.

“E-Eloisa would be the first to tell you that folks tend to ignore a person in a wheelchair,” she said.

Again she stumbled over her foster sister’s name. “What was wrong with her?”

“Arthritis. She was in the habit of taking the waters there.” Her brow creased, and a sadness came over her again. “She refused to give up hope that she’d be able to walk without pain.”

Now that had to take a lot of fortitude. “Did it help?”

“For a little while, but the crippling pain would return. Last winter was her worst yet.” She shook her head, clearly concerned over her foster sister’s health. “When her mother died, her father decided to stop her sojourns to the springs.”

“Is that best?”

Her fingers tightened on the handbag she clutched. “No, not when the waters eased her pain for a spell.”

No doubt this was a sore subject for her, but knowing how she lived, how she cared for a foster sister told him a lot about her. She had a good heart to battle for another’s care.

“A shame that you couldn’t convince her pa that the waters were a benefit for his daughter.”

“He never listened to me,” she said. “This time was no different.”

“But you tried to get him to see reason anyway and got on his wrong side.”

Her narrow shoulders racked tight, a clear sign he’d hit a nerve. Had she been asked to leave the home she’d known when she’d disagreed with her foster father? Had he turned her out cold?

Or had that been the out she’d been looking for all along? She was surely of an age to have a life of her own now. Is that why she’d come here alone to Placid, knowing Lester would marry her?

“You locking horns with your foster father have a bearing on why you left Burland?” he asked.

“Yes.” She stood and faced him, and the fury sparking in her eyes took him aback.

He had a hunch she hadn’t just had a set-to with the senior Reynard. She’d had an all out battle with the man who’d taken her in.

“What happened, Daisy?”

“He had made arrangements to send Eloisa to a relative, and since I was basically her companion, there was no reason for me to stay there.” She downed her head, hiding her face from him, hiding her emotions. “Even if he’d wanted me to.”

The last said it all. His own anger kindled to life over what she’d been put through. Being cast out again.

“Did he know about Lester Emery?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Eloisa knew, but neither of us felt the inclination to mention him or our time in Placid.”

A secret well kept between friends who were as close as siblings. He understood that trust well. Or had at one time.

“The journey here was more taxing than I recalled.” She moved to the door in a flurry of skirts. “I’m going to return to Mrs. Gant’s and take the powder Dr. Franklin gave me for the misery in my head.”

He rose, annoyed that she was closing him out again even though he had a better understanding of why she was slow to trust. “We’re family, Daisy,” he said, and that had her stopping in the doorway. “Think about what you want to do. Where you want us to live.”

She didn’t look at him, but she nodded. “I will.”

Then she was gone, and Dade was left to wonder if he’d ever be able to form that close bond with Daisy again.

Of all the things Dade disliked about being sheriff, the long stretches of having nothing to do but think wore on him. He’d spent the last twenty years on the Crown Seven working every job from rounding up cattle and mustangs to putting in the first fence that wide open Wyoming range had ever seen.

Though he’d often complained of having to fight the elements, he missed filling his lungs with clean air. Missed working from sunup to sundown and the pride that came with owning land and cattle.

He missed Kirby Morris and his sage advice.

He missed his brothers.

His jaw tensed. Reid’s betrayal had destroyed that bond. That year he was away in England with Kirby’s cheating cousin had been hard on all of them.

But the worst was yet to come.

When Kirby passed over, Dade and Trey had been forced off the Crown Seven. They’d taken jobs working from ranch to ranch in order to survive. Sleeping in bunkhouses or out on the range left him miserable and antsy.

By the time he’d learned that Reid had sold them out instead of securing the ranch for them as Kirby had intended, Trey had hired on with an outfit out of Texas and was long gone. Dade had lost touch with the man he’d considered a younger brother for the past twenty years.

The same anger and sense of abandonment that he’d felt when his pa dumped him and Daisy at the door of the Guardian Angel’s Orphan Asylum had engulfed him again. Only this time he was truly alone.

He’d lost his trust in Reid, the elder brother he’d looked up to. He’d lost track of Trey, the younger brother he’d taken under his wing in the orphanage. He’d lost his home and sense of place for the second time in his life.

Thanks to getting stranded here last winter waiting for Daisy to return, he had lost his second chance to reclaim his shares of the Crown Seven. He’d hoped that Trey had swallowed his pride and anger and showed up to confront Reid.

He hoped he had a stake in the ranch through Trey, if only to call it home. But he knew the chances were great that Trey had never returned to the Crown Seven. That Reid had screwed them over again, sold the whole damn ranch and moved on.

It shouldn’t matter. He’d made the choice to risk his stake in the ranch when he’d picked up Daisy’s trail. He’d counted himself damn lucky when he’d found her. But the close family bond he’d hoped to regain with Daisy seemed a lifetime away right now.

Dammit, family should stick together, even if they simply lived in the same town. But she might want to move east, and the home he’d hope to have one day was in the West.

Home. He longed for one so damned bad. Would he ever have a place to call his own?

The slow steady drum of footsteps on the boardwalk caught his attention a heartbeat before the front door opened. Dade shoved his worries to the back of his mind and whispered his Colt Peacemaker from the holster just as the stranger stepped inside the jail.

“Sheriff Logan?” the man asked.

“That’s me,” Dade said, sensing this stranger had all the charm of a rattler and was just as dangerous. “Something I can do for you?”

The man closed the door, and Dade got a glimpse of a pearl-handled revolver tucked in a tooled holster. Yet there was no star or badge pinned on his vest.

From his experience, men who sported flashy weapons were either outlaws or hired guns. Often it was difficult to distinguish between the two.

“I’m looking for a woman,” the stranger said, answering the question of why he was here. “She’s probably traveling alone.”

Like Daisy. “This woman have a name?”

The stranger dipped his chin. “Margaret Sutten, though she tends to go by Maggie.”

Dade shook his head. “Haven’t heard the name. What’s she look like?”

“Light brown hair, blue eyes. Taller than average and on the thin side. Mighty fetching.”

“That description would match a lot of women.”
Including his sister.
“Are you a lawman or a bounty hunter?”

“I prefer the term private detective,” the stranger said.

Dade just bet he would. “Afraid I didn’t catch your name.”

A couple of beats of silence drummed the air. “Carson. Allis Carson.”

Dade had heard the name mentioned and not kindly either. Allis Carson was a hired gun. A bounty hunter who tracked the worst outlaws and hauled them into the law, usually slung over a saddle dead to the world.

“What did this Sutten woman do?” he asked.

“She stole money and jewelry from her employer.”

“Must have been worth a lot for him to send a detective after her. What was she? A domestic?”

The bounty hunter shook his head. “Orphan. Family took her in as the companion and helper for their crippled daughter.”

Same as Daisy and her foster sister Eloisa? Had to be a coincidence. Yet the niggling unease that chaffed Dade’s nerves told him there was a connection he wasn’t going to like hearing.

“Sounds like she tired of being the nursemaid. How much did she make off with?”

Carson dipped his chin. “Several hundred dollars.”

Why would anyone hire a brutal bounty hunter to find Margaret Sutten if she was no more than a petty thief? Unless there was more to this story than Carson was telling.

The bounty hunter strode over to the posters on the wall, seeming to take his time staring at each in turn. Dade had the feeling the man did this often, looking for those outlaws who’d warrant the biggest rewards.

Like the Logan Gang.

Good thing he looked nothing like his pa and uncles. His surname was common enough that nobody should instantly think he was related to the Logan Gang. But the way Carson studied the posters made him uneasy.

“Who are you working for?” Dade asked.

A mocking smile curled the bounty hunter’s grim mouth. “Harlan Nowell. He hired me to find Margaret Sutten and bring her back to Burland and justice.”

Burland? The same place Daisy had been living? Ah, hell! Who was he to believe? Daisy or the bounty hunter?

He feared the latter, for Carson watched him like a hawk sighting prey. But Dade had learned at a young age to hide what was on his mind for his pa never hesitated to take the razor strap to him.

Those in the Guardian Angel’s Orphan Asylum weren’t any more lenient. He had the scars to prove it.

“You said this woman stole jewelry too?” Dade asked.

The bounty hunter faced him again. “The daughter’s blue cameo broach. According to Nowell, it wasn’t costly but it was a family piece that their daughter treasured.”

The words slammed into Dade like a gut-punch. He stared at the scuffed floorboards, feeling sick inside as he thought back to the broach Daisy wore. She’d not known it was a locket. Not realized that it’d been their ma’s.

Now he knew why her memory was so bad. Why she hadn’t recognized him–hell, why she hadn’t remembered she had a brother. She’d lied to him about her name. About her foster family.

She wasn’t Daisy Logan.

But the broach was his ma’s. He was sure of it. So why was the Silver King of Burland claiming it belonged to hisfamily? What connection did Daisy have with Nowell and Margaret Sutten?

“Bound to be a good many cameo broaches around,” Dade said. “How will you recognize the stolen one?”

The bounty hunter’s cold dark eyes glittered with malice. “Because this one is inscribed, and I doubt there are two blue cameos with the same quote. Once I find it, I’ll know I have the right woman.”

A feeling of dread settled over Dade, as biting as a winter northwester off the Rockies. “What’s the inscription?”