Sweetwater Seduction (37 page)
Read Sweetwater Seduction Online
Authors: Joan Johnston
“I never thought you would stoop this low, Kerrigan.” Her voice quivered with anger and hurt.
“Eden, I'm not lying, I'm—”
“What you are is a dog in the manger, Kerrigan. You don't want to marry me yourself, but you can't stand to let another man do the honest thing. Get out! I never want to see you again.” When he just stood there, her voice got quiet again, like the terrible calm before a storm. “You heard me. Get out.”
Kerrigan's face paled. He opened his mouth and realized he wanted to beg her to forgive him—to demand she take off Felton's ring—and to insist she marry him instead. That series of thoughts, jumbled on top of one another, made him alternately disgusted (He had never begged in his life!); furious (She didn't even
love
Felton Reeves!); and horrified (He had to be crazy to be thinking of marrying a woman as mixed-up as Eden Devlin). But the next thing he knew, he was saying, “What if I asked you to marry me right now?”
Kerrigan was appalled at the look of pain that crossed Eden's face before she lifted her chin and replied, “I think you'd better leave.”
He felt both relief and fury. She hadn't said no. But the damn woman hadn't said yes, either. “Just remember,” he warned, “when Sheriff Felton Reeves goes to jail, that
I told you so
.”
After the things Eden had said to him, Kerrigan was tempted to let her ruin her life by marrying an outlaw. But hell, no woman who wanted kids the way Eden did ought to tie herself to a man who was going to spend the better part of her good childbearing years in prison. Kerrigan would make a much better husband, and Eden would see that as soon as he showed her Felton's true colors.
Miss Devlin watched the gunslinger stalk from her bedroom for what she was sure would be the last time. It hurt to know she had given up the chance to have a husband who loved her. But not as much as she was certain it would have hurt some day in the future when Kerrigan got himself killed.
Eden walked over to the Wish Box on her dresser and carefully opened the lid. She fingered the bone teething ring and slid the satin ribbon through her fingers. She tested the barber snips, liking the raspy metal sound they made as the spring contracted.
At last she lifted the genuine badger-hair shaving brush out of the box and ran the ticklish bristles across her palm. She looked into the mirror over the dresser and tried to imagine her husband standing beside her lathering his face with Perkin's English Shaving Soap.
Her imaginary husband applied a razor to the stubble on his chin and the foamy soap disappeared, all except for a little spot by his ear that he wiped away with the warm shaving towel she provided. But when the towel came down, instead of Felton Reeves, it was Burke Kerrigan's face she saw.
Eden groaned. She turned her back on the mirror, the same way she had turned her back on the gunslinger. Kerrigan was nothing but trouble. She was well away from him. Felton Reeves would make a fine husband and father. She had been willing to settle for that. At least it had been enough until that low-down snake Burke Kerrigan had come along and spoiled everything. Well, she wasn't going to spend her life wishing and wanting. She was going to be satisfied with what she had.
Mrs. Felton Reeves. Mrs. Eden Reeves. Mrs. Eden Devlin Reeves. That sounded a whole lot better than Mrs. Eden Devlin Kerrigan. Didn't it?
Chapter 16
Suspicion ain't proof.
K
ERRIGAN WAS RACING AGAINST TIME.
H
E HAD FIVE
days to prove that Felton Reeves wasn't deserving of Miss Devlin's hand in marriage. He hadn't slept at all, talking instead to dozens of people since he had left the schoolteacher's house last night. Everyone from cowboys and farmers to whores and drunks had all told him the same thing: Felton Reeves had been out of town frequently in the past nine months. Nobody knew where he went. Nobody knew what he did. And nobody seemed to care.
Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, frustrated by the trusting attitude of everyone in town toward a sheriff who had been making clandestine trips to who knew where for who knew
He found Deputy Joe asleep in one of the jail cells, the other being empty because disturbances usually occurred on Saturday night when the cowboys came to spend their wages at the Dog's Hind Leg. Kerrigan rattled the jail bars to waken the deputy. “Hey! Deputy! Wake up!”
Deputy Joe came awake with a gun in his hand, which shouldn't have surprised Kerrigan, but did. In their one and only meeting he had judged the deputy to be a meeker sort. The man in this jail cell had woken up wild-eyed and mean.
The deputy caught him staring and snarled, “What the hell's your problem, Kerrigan? The damn sun's barely over the sill.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I go on duty at eight o'clock. Come back and see me then.” The deputy stuck his gun back in the holster on the floor and pulled the tattered blanket back up over his shoulder.
An instant later Kerrigan had a fistful of Deputy Joe's long johns and the deputy was blinking into the bright sunlight streaming in the jailhouse window. “It's eight-oh-five and I'm in no mood for any back talk.”
“I'm the law here in Sweetwater, Kerrigan, so you better let go of me.”
The gunslinger released the deputy, and Joe stood there in his long johns and stocking feet looking foolish and feeling feisty. “I could arrest you for that.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
The tone of Kerrigan's voice said he wouldn't make it easy. Deputy Joe wasn't as dumb as Kerrigan had thought. The deputy reached for his wool pants at the foot of the bare mattress and started pulling them on. He stuck his arms in his web suspenders and rolled his shoulders through to settle them comfortably, making sure the adjustable nickel buckles etched with the word
DEPUTY
were facing forward on his chest.
As he reached down for his gun belt Kerrigan said, “You won't be needing that. Leastaways, not until you've had your morning cup of coffee.”
Kerrigan followed Deputy Joe to the sheriff's office at the front of the jail, which was little more than an anteroom with a desk and chair, a low-back bench for visitors, a potbellied stove, and a spur-scarred leather armchair that was situated to get the most warmth from the stove. At the foot of the chair, where he had left them the previous night, stood the deputy's boots.
Deputy Joe stuck more wood on the fire to heat up the day-old coffee before he turned to confront Kerrigan. “Now, what do you wanta know?”
“Which days over the past nine months was Felton Reeves out of town?”
Deputy Joe's eyes narrowed. “What you wanta know that for?”
“Never mind. Can you give me the dates?”
“Sure. I got them marked on that calendar there on the wall, 'cause I was in charge while the sheriff was gone.”
The calendar, put out by a gun manufacturer and featuring prints of western scenes, was hanging on a nail next to a bulletin board full of
WANTED
posters and public notices. Kerrigan took down the calendar and laid it on the desk. Quickly paging back from November to March, he saw there were at least three days, usually during the last week of each month, that Felton was out of town.
Kerrigan turned and confronted the deputy, who by now had poured himself a cup of coffee and was sitting in the armchair by the stove with his stocking feet aimed at the fire. “Where does the sheriff go when he leaves town?”
“I don't know.”
Kerrigan took a step toward the deputy. “I don't believe you.”
Deputy Joe's stocking feet hit the icy floor, and he held up his cup of hot coffee to stave off Kerrigan's advance. “It's the truth!”
“You mean to say it never came up in conversation?” Kerrigan said, his skeptical.
“He never volunteered and I never asked. Felton would disappear for a couple of days, and then he'd come back. Rode east outta town. That's all I know.”
“You never thought that was a little strange?”
“Woulda been more odd to hang around town on his days off,” Deputy Joe said. “Sure as shootin' something woulda happened and he'd have to go to work. 'Sides, he was owed the time. He worked it out with the town when they hired him. Weren't no business of mine nor nobody else if he chose to go somewhere else on his days off.”
Kerrigan grimaced. That certainly made sense. But he couldn't shake the notion that there was some connection between Felton's disappearances and the disappearances of the stolen cattle. Or maybe that was jealousy doing his thinking.
Kerrigan felt the cold from the open door a moment before he heard Felton's voice.
“I hear you've been asking questions all over town about me. Why not come straight to the horse's mouth?”
“Morning, Felton.”
“Joe, why don't you go have some breakfast at the Townhouse,” Felton suggested, only it was pretty much an order the way he said it.
“You sure you won't need me?”
“If I do, I'll shout, and I'll trust you to come running.”
The deputy stepped into his boots, grabbed his coat and hat, and after a surly look at Kerrigan, grabbed a shotgun from a rack across from the desk and headed out the door.
Kerrigan had to admire the way Felton had assuaged the deputy's ego. Deputy Joe was not somebody you would want to have to rely on in a pinch. Not that Felton was ever going to need much help. If it came down to it, Felton was damn near as fast on the draw as Kerrigan was.
“Have a seat.” Felton got a cup and checked to see if Joe had made fresh coffee. He swore when he tasted it. “Damn that deputy. Useless as a four-card flush.” He sat down in the chair next to the fire. “So what do you want to know, Kerrigan?”
Kerrigan leaned against the bare wall where the calendar had been. He gestured with his head toward the damning evidence on the desk. “I want to know where you've been going and what you've been doing the last weekend of every month since March.”
“That's none of your business.”
“I'm making it my business.”
Felton crossed his ankle onto the opposite knee. “Let's talk about what's really got you upset, Kerrigan
Kerrigan's eyes narrowed. “What's that?”
“Miss Eden Devlin.”
Felton had jabbed a spur where it hurt, and Kerrigan worked a muscle in his jaw to keep from losing control.
Felton drew blood when he added, “You know, the woman who's engaged to be my wife.”
Kerrigan bucked under the provocation, like a green-broke bronc. “Not for long. Not if I can help it.”
“Still determined to be the one to win the girl, Kerrigan? It's too late this time. The ring is on her finger.” With a hard voice he said, “Eden Devlin is mine.”
“She won't have a thing to do with you once she finds out you're the fangs in this poisonous band of rustlers.”
Felton laughed. “You've got to be kidding.” Another look at Kerrigan's face and he sobered. “You're not kidding.”
“I'm about as serious as I've ever been in my life.”
“You're wrong, Kerrigan. I'm the sheriff here in Sweetwater. I've done my best to keep law and order ever since I got this job.”
