Taken by the Cowboy (14 page)

Jessica was vaguely
aware of the townsfolk taking notice – for Truman was their
trusted, single sheriff, and she was a single woman, a stranger in
town, not to mention a possible outlaw.

None of that mattered,
however, for her body was reeling from the rapture of being held in
his arms and losing herself in his eyes.

Slowly, inch by inch,
he closed the distance between them until their bodies touched and
their hearts throbbed together. The sensation ignited something
desperate within her, and she longed for so much more. She wanted
to dash off into the shadows and kiss him passionately until he
whisked her back to his bed and made love to her until dawn.

When the waltz ended,
they did not let go until a polka began.

Truman let go first,
and Jessica stepped back, feeling half-dazed with giddy,
overpowering desire. They faced each other without speaking a word,
while the townsfolk danced around them. Someone bumped Jessica's
shoulder.

"Come and sit with me,"
Truman said.

He closed his hand over
hers and led her toward a long wooden bench on the boardwalk.
People wandered past them, laughing and talking, some staggering,
but Jessica was aware of little else but Truman's sleekly muscled
leg touching hers in the most innocent way.

"I take it you haven't
heard from Lou's gang," he said.

"No,” she replied. “Do
you think I will?"

"Hard to say."

"It's been four
days."

"Yeah, but don't get
too comfortable, Jessica. Men like them are hard to predict."

A lot of things in her
life were hard to predict these days.

"Don’t look so
discouraged,” he said, meeting her eyes. “If they come around
again, I'll be here."

Just then, a shot rang
out from the saloon across the street, and some of the women
shrieked. Truman jumped clear off the boardwalk. The music and
dancing ceased, while everyone in town watched Truman bolt toward
the gunshot. He disappeared into the saloon.

A few minutes later,
the saloon doors flapped open and a cowboy came flying out. He
tumbled across the boardwalk and down onto the street, where he
crouched on his hands and knees, wiping a spot of blood from his
mouth.

The saloon doors swung
open again, and three men burst through. They grabbed the cowboy by
the collar and hauled him to his knees. Truman strolled out of the
saloon, twirled his revolver around his index finger and dropped it
into his holster. The men held the cowboy until Truman thanked
them. He took the drunken troublemaker by the arm and dragged him
down the street toward the jailhouse.

"He's quite a sheriff,
isn't he?" Angus said, stepping onto the boardwalk with Wendy on
his arm.

"He certainly is,"
Jessica replied. She watched Truman until he disappeared from
sight. “Are you having a good time?" she asked Angus and Wendy.

"We sure are.” Wendy
patted Angus on the belly. “This one’s a real gentleman.”

"Would you like to
dance again?" he asked.

Wendy glanced at
Jessica. "Maybe we shouldn't leave her by herself."

"I'll be fine.” Jessica
waved a glib hand. “Really. Go have fun."

Wendy and Angus
returned to the dancing, while Jessica stood and watched.

Later, she spotted
Truman on the other side of the street, talking to a woman in a
low-cut lacy gown. She wore dark red lipstick and her hair was the
color of a ripe tomato.

He nodded and laughed
at something. Then he removed his hat and ran a hand through his
hair while the woman smiled and fingered his badge.

Any fool could see she
was flirting with him, and in this day and age, she could only be
one type of woman—the kind who earned her living on her back
counting ceiling tiles.

Truman glanced around,
as if to make sure no one was watching. Jessica took a quick step
back behind a mule. When she peered out again, Truman was reaching
into his pocket. He withdrew some money and placed it in the
woman's hand. She shoved the payment into her deep cleavage, then
wiggled her hips in the other direction.

"What was that?"
Jessica whispered.

She didn’t want to feel
jealous without knowing what it was all about, but how could she
help it? The mere thought of Truman with a woman like that made her
feel nauseous.

Deciding it was time to
go home, Jessica returned to the dance to find Angus. She stopped
in the middle of the crowd and looked all around.

Before long, unfamiliar
faces glared at her, winking and smiling to reveal missing front
teeth. Most of them were drunk and rowdy. Jessica covered her nose
with one hand, all at once aware of the smell of cows and pigs and
the droppings they left everywhere.

She suddenly felt very
displaced and desperate for her family and home and all the modern
conveniences she missed so much. If only she could pick up a phone
to call her parents and ask them to come and get her. They’d be
here in a heartbeat—if only it were possible.

A horse bucked as a
cowboy tried to mount him, then they galloped past Jessica,
swirling up a cloud of dust. Coughing and waving her hand in front
of her face, she swung around, her eyes still searching the
darkness for Angus or Wendy.

She looked around for
Truman too, but couldn’t find him anywhere. No one seemed to know
where he’d gone, but one drunken cowhand offered to escort her into
the dance hall to keep her entertained while she waited.

It was time to go.
She'd walk home and wait for Angus on his front porch if she had
to, but she no longer felt comfortable at the dance, and wanted to
get out of there.

Swiping at a pesky fly,
she walked through the crowd and kept her eyes lowered. The music
grew distant as she walked on, and soon she was far enough away
from the business district that she could hear the crickets
again.

Blinking her weary
eyes, Jessica stopped and looked up at the sky. It was a comfort to
think that in some other dimension, her family could be admiring
the same sky and glittering stars.

Who really knew how
this worked? Maybe Jessica was still living her life back home.
Maybe she was alive there, everything was normal, and her family
had no idea she was living a parallel life in another century.

As she considered it
more, however, she decided that the most likely scenario was that
she had died in that car accident, and her family had already
buried her. Maybe this was purgatory. Or hell. But why the Wild
West of all places? If God really wanted to punish her, He could
have put her on
The Bachelor
.

She took in a deep
breath and wondered if destiny's blueprints were written up there
somewhere, and if a doorway back to her own time even existed.

All at once, a distant
clamoring interrupted her thoughts. The ground rumbled beneath her
feet.
Stampede
. She felt a surge of panic.

Straining to see
through the darkness, all she managed to make out were the gloomy
shapes of buildings and abandoned wagons. An angry dog barked
somewhere down the street.

Then, from around a
corner, they appeared like living shadows.

Hooves thundered toward
her. Dust rose up from the ground. There must have been four, maybe
five horses approaching, and Jessica's heart began to race. She
felt like she was standing on a boat, rocking back and forth on a
series of swells while she tried to keep her footing.
Please,
let them ride right by
. But her prayers were in vain.

She hurried to the side
of the road, but they skidded to a halt in front of her. She backed
up and bumped into a white picket fence at the edge of someone's
yard. Two of the men dismounted while the others, scowling down at
her, remained astride their horses. The tallest man approached.

He was difficult to
make out in the darkness, but Jessica could sense, simply by the
manner of his stride, that he was big and strong and he meant her
harm.

"Looks like we found
her, boys." His face sagged into a vile frown. "Your sheriff ain't
here to protect you
now
, is he, little darlin'?"

Jessica glared up at
the man’s brute size and took in the foul stench of his clothes.
She clenched her jaw and demanded, "What do you want?"

He stroked her cheek
with his knuckles. "You sure got soft skin."

Jessica jerked away
from his loathsome touch.

"She's shy, boys!"

Another approached and
cocked his head to the side. "She sure is pretty, Bart. What do ya'
say we take her for a ride?"

"Sounds like a fine
idea, Corey. Then we can search her." The others laughed. One of
them hawked and spit tobacco onto the ground.

"If you lay one hand on
me…" Jessica threatened through gritted teeth.

"Yeah?"

"I swear you’ll wake up
tomorrow and wish you were dead."

He scowled. "I don't
think you'll get a chance to take your revenge out on me, Junebug.
Not when we’re through with you."

The one named Corey
grabbed her wrists, but she kicked the leader in the shin. He
groaned and crouched down, while Corey shoved her up against the
fence pickets. The point dug painfully into her skin beneath the
fabric of her dress and forced her into submission as he brushed
his lips over her ear. His foul breath sent shivers of revulsion
down her spine.

"Now, listen here,"
Corey said.

"Help!" she screamed,
but he quickly covered her mouth with his clammy hand while he
clamped both her wrists in the other.

Jessica bit him. He
hollered and let her go. She took off toward the dance, shouting
for help. The other three followed in quick pursuit.

"Someone, help me!" she
screamed.

It wasn’t long before
one of the gang members threw himself into a tackle and knocked her
down. Her ankle twisted as she tried to keep from falling, but she
fell anyway. The gritty dirt scraped into her palms, and her chin
hit the ground. She bit her tongue. Pain shot to her temples.

Scrambling to her hands
and knees, she crawled away from him, but he wrapped his arms
around her waist. He flipped her over onto her back and straddled
her.

"Get off me!" she
hollered.

Corey and the leader,
Bart, came running, out of breath, watching her with amused
expressions while she squirmed and wriggled helplessly beneath the
heavy brute. Where was Truman?

She quit fighting when
a gun cocked in front of her eyes. Paralyzed with fear, she stared
down its long, black barrel.

"Now, calm down,
Junebug. We ain't gonna hurt ya’." Bart knelt down next to her and
held the weapon steady. The cold barrel brushed over her eyebrow.
Jessica squeezed her eyes shut.

"Now, where is it?" he
asked.

"Where is what?”

"Ah, come on. You know
what I'm talkin' about."

She shot him a fierce
glare. "No, I don’t. Let me go."

"Think hard,
sweetness."

Jessica glanced
sideways at the gun, while searching the far corners of her mind
for an answer. "You mean...the reward?"

"Hell, no."

She shook her head
quickly. "Then I don't know what you’re looking for."

Bart squeezed her
cheeks together in one hand so her lips puckered like a fish.
"That's an awfully pretty face you got there. I'd hate to see it
messed up."

"Just tell me what you
want!" she pleaded.

"You know what we want!
Where is it?"

Somewhere, a door
opened and smacked against the outside wall of a house. A skinny,
little old man in a white nightshirt, partially silhouetted by the
light shining through the open doorway behind him, stepped onto his
porch and aimed a shotgun.

Bart's gaze darted
wildly toward him. "You stay out of this, mister!" he called
out.

"You let the lady go,
ya' hear?" the little man replied.

Bart's eyes burned with
rage. "I said stay out of this, you old coot!"

Just then, voices
called out from the bottom of the hill, accompanied by the welcome
clatter of speedy footsteps.

"Let's go, boys," Bart
said.

The gang took off like
a pack of wolves.

Jessica rolled over
onto her hands and knees, then rose unsteadily to her feet. Limping
toward the side of the road, she leaned on a wagon and looked up to
see a crowd of townsfolk running toward her.

Bart and his gang were
long gone.

Barely able to support
her weight on her twisted ankle, Jessica hung onto the side of the
wagon.

"Miss? You all right?"
someone asked.

She looked up at a
worried face. It was the little old man with the shotgun. He must
have leaped out of bed to come to her aid, for he wore no
shoes.

"I’m fine now,” she
said. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done.”

"I think you better
come and sit down." He helped her to a rocking chair on his covered
porch. The anxious group of rescuers followed and began to ask a
confusing mix of questions.

"Do you know who they
were?" someone asked.

"How’s your foot?" The
boy looked really worried.

"What's your name,
Miss?" another asked.

She wished all these
people would just slow down.

Jessica rubbed her
temples and squeezed her eyes shut. "I think someone better get the
sheriff."

"I'll go!" The young
boy bolted back to the main street before anyone else had a chance
to offer.

The old man knelt
beside her. "Can I get you anything? I got whisky."

"Yes, please."

He went inside, leaving
her in the protection of the crowd.

"I can't thank you
enough," Jessica said, wiping the blood from her lip. She wasn't
sure whose blood it was at first, until she felt the sting and
swelling when she ran her tongue across the inside of her
mouth.