Tempting the Marshal: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Series Book 2) (21 page)

He stood in silence behind her. She heard him breathing hard and it made her uneasy, so she faced him squarely and spoke firmly. “Wait outside, John.”

Finally his boots thumped across the floor and the front door creaked open and slammed shut behind him.

Good God, was there no one she could trust?

Feeling angry and disillusioned, she collapsed into the chair and wondered how in all the world her life had plunged into such depths of misfortune, and how she would ever claw her way out of it.

Chapter Eighteen

While the ranch hands burrowed into their breakfast plates in the dining room, Jo stood at the stove in the kitchen, serving up a large helping of fried eggs and bacon for Fletcher.

Perspiring over the hot stove, she reached for two slices of corn bread that Matilda had made before she left, dropped them onto the plate and set the heavy cast-iron frying pan aside. She reached for a jar of molasses to set on Fletcher’s tray, and wondered why she was taking such pains with his food. It wasn’t as if her cooking was so stupendous, it would convince him to let her go.

She poured a cup of black coffee for him and arranged everything on the tray. Untying the strings of her apron, she draped it over the kitchen chair, picked up the heavy breakfast tray and walked down the hall toward the den with caution on her mind. When she set eyes on Fletcher, she would not—absolutely not—let herself think about how it felt to kiss him. She would focus on her purpose: to ensure her family’s safety and see that Zeb paid for what he did.

With that, and only that, in mind, she pushed open the door to the den and entered.

Fletcher sat in one of the leather upholstered chairs reading a letter. Both his eyes were black from being punched in the nose so many times, and Jo felt a twinge of guilt about that. She stared at his focused expression, then at his big, manly hands, and a flurry of disloyal butterflies created a disturbing breeze inside her belly. Why wasn’t her body listening to what her head was telling it?

Standing like a dazed ninny in the doorway, Jo tried to concentrate on moving her feet, one in front of the other. Somehow, she managed to fully enter the room. She set the tray on the center table, brushed her hair back from her perspiration-dampened forehead and looked toward the window, all in an effort to fight the memories that would not retreat from her mind.

She thought of Fletcher giving her back her weapon that morning, of the way his eyes told her that he trusted her with it; she recalled how he had courageously fought the fire and how he’d insisted that she leave the smoke-filled parlor to go outside and breathe clean air.

He did those things not because it was his job, but because he sincerely and genuinely wanted to protect her. That’s just the kind of man he was.

Fletcher lowered the page he was reading, and the sound startled her from her thoughts.

“Did you know that Edwyn reported cattle theft to the city council more than once?” he mentioned with interest.

So, for him, it was business as usual. It would be that way for her, too, she decided.

Jo moved to stand behind the chair and look over Fletcher’s shoulder at what he was reading. “Yes, I’ve seen that letter, but I never thought much about it. Most of the ranchers have lost head to rustlers.”

“Seems like there’s been a lot of rustling in these parts lately.” Fletcher rose from the chair and moved to the old ledgers lying open on a corner table. “I just compared the losses Edwyn reported at year-end with the losses from previous years. I know ranching,” he added, “and these numbers seem high to me.”

Jo followed him and looked at Edwyn’s year-end adjustments in the ledger. “It was a hard winter. We lost quite a few head to the early storms. Maybe that’s why he was adjusting the accounts.”

“No, no, he was a very meticulous bookkeeper. There’s a year-end entry over here for winter losses, and a separate entry here for unexplained disappearances—most likely theft. It’s this number that doesn’t compare to other years. Look at the difference.” He lifted up the ledger and pulled out the one from the year before.

Jo examined the two books. After Edwyn’s death, she’d pored over the year-end statements, and thought she’d gained a thorough understanding of the bookkeeping. Why hadn’t she thought to study the previous years?

She stared at the ledgers in disbelief. Had Edwyn been murdered because he knew something about the cattle rustling around Dodge? How could she have missed this?

Fletcher walked toward the breakfast tray. “Looks like we may have found something.”

Jo turned. “No,
you
found it.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I only found it because I’m used to following tracks. Hoof-prints or a paper-trail, it’s all the same to me.” He pulled a chair across the rug toward the table and sat down to eat.

Jo paced back and forth behind him, remembering the night Edwyn was killed and all the times she’d seen Zeb Stone, before and after. She’d never connected him with the business of ranching. Even Fletcher had called him too civilized to meddle in it.

Unable to come up with any answers herself, she sat down in the leather chair across from Fletcher and watched him eat. “How much do you know about the cattle thefts around Dodge?”

He didn’t look up as he cut his eggs. “Not a whole lot. You’ve been my chief concern since I got here. You and Six-Shooter Hank, that is.”

She tried not to let him make her feel guilty about that. “I apologize. Perhaps I can make it up to you by filling you in on some of the local crime. I do read the papers, and there’s at least one herd with missing cattle reported each week. Different ranchers, small outfits and large ones, Texas-based herds driving up the trail. They start out with a certain-sized herd, then arrive in Dodge with a smaller one, and the cowboys can’t explain it.”

“And you think you can?”

“Just give me a chance to explain what I think. Maybe Zeb is running a cattle-rustling ring, and that’s why he was so vague last night about what he hired you to do. Maybe Zeb killed Edwyn because of the letters he sent to the city council.”

“How long has this cattle rustling been going on?”

“You saw the books. A few years, maybe. It seems normal to most people now.”

Fletcher took a sip of coffee and nodded his head, still without looking up. “A few years, you say. If this has been going on for a few years, don’t you think it’s possible that you might be the teeniest bit mistaken about Zeb? After all, he’s only been in these parts for two.”

Feeling as if her theory had been quashed, Jo tried to prevent the inevitable loss of color to her cheeks. “Where was he before that?”

“Chicago. Meeting my sister for the first time.”

Jo shifted in her chair and cleared her throat, her hopes sinking at this supposed alibi. “Are you sure?”

“Elizabeth told me she met him briefly in her first year of college—the year his family died and left him all his money. Then he courted her and proposed to her during her third and final year.”

“But he could have been back and forth that first year.”

“He opened his dry goods store exactly two years ago,” Fletcher said, “and before that, he was burying his parents in Chicago. It was only after he inherited his money that he decided to invest it out here, in the West.”

Jo twisted her wedding ring around on her finger. “Perhaps, with your resources as marshal, you could look into it. His past may very well be a fabrication.”

“And my sister imagined meeting him in Chicago three years ago?”

Jo squeezed the smooth arm of the chair. She had held a loaded gun to Zeb’s head and very nearly pulled the trigger. She would not have done that without the strongest of convictions about his murderous heart. “Maybe Zeb became involved with whoever started this cattle-rustling ring after he came here.” Proud of herself for that little suggestion, she raised her chin.

Fletcher set down his coffee cup and wiped his hands on the linen napkin. “Your theories are all well and good, Jo, but you know I need real evidence. I’m willing to look into these cattle thefts, but I don’t know how to do it without locking you up.”

“But Fletcher—”

“There’s no other way to keep you safe and in custody at the same time.”

“But I won’t be safe in jail,” she argued. “I can’t trust anyone, not even your deputies. Zeb might own them already, and you said yourself that if people find out why you arrested me, you won’t be able to investigate.”

“What do you suggest we do, then?” Fletcher rose from the chair and threw his napkin on the tray. “I can’t let you off, and I can’t take you with me. That would look just as suspicious. If I believe that I can’t trust my deputies…”

He paced the room for a few minutes while Jo sat there, watching him.

“Unless…” he said, not looking at her, his thoughts only on his job, it seemed, and the best way to do it.

“What’s your idea?” she asked.

Fletcher rested his hands on his hips. “This may sound strange, but after my altercation just now with your foreman, John—news of which will probably be all over town by midday—we could tell people we’re engaged.”

Despite the sleep she badly needed, Jo felt instantly wide-awake. “You’re not serious.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but it would just be an act to distract people. If you were my fiancée, we could be seen constantly together without raising suspicion. There’d be all sorts of gossip and no one would question what was
really
going on. I’d only be doing it to keep watch over you without raising suspicion, and to solve this case at the same time, as quickly as possible. If there’s any truth to what you say about Zeb, this will rattle his cage for sure.” Fletcher paced the carpet, never making eye contact. “And you’d only be doing it to help find the men who killed your husband,” he added. “Maybe lighten your sentence a bit, if the judge is sympathetic.”

“If it means Zeb will get what’s coming to him,” she replied, “I’d be willing to go along with it. Just don’t expect me to play the lovesick fool. I have more important things to accomplish.”

That last little bit was her pride talking, and she suspected he knew it.

* * *

It was nearly noon by the time Zeb forced himself to roll over and slide out of his luxurious mahogany bed. His bare toes touched the cold floor, and he cursed the maid for not making his house more comfortable with a fire at dawn, especially when he paid her far more than her pathetic, stubby fingers were worth.

Only then did he realize, with another irritated curse, that he’d worn his blue silk nightshirt to bed inside out.

Squeezing his hammering temples, he swallowed against the dry, detestable taste of the morning in his mouth. He was glad Elizabeth had risen early, as was her usual habit, for if she were here, just the sound of her high-pitched, chattery voice would have driven him mad.

Zeb rang for his manservant, Matthews, who assisted him in dressing and shaving, then he made his way downstairs, trying not to move too quickly. He was on his way to the library for a medicinal shot of brandy when he heard Elizabeth’s heels clicking fast across the polished floor behind him, and he had to fight the urge to whip around and silence her with a slap, as he had silenced her last night.

“What is it, Elizabeth? And don’t ask me how I slept.”

She stopped in the center of the wide hall and cleared her throat. “I…I’m sorry to disturb you, Zeb, but Fletcher is in the drawing room. He has some news, but he wanted to wait for you before he said anything. I believe it’s about Mrs. O’Malley.”

Ah!
Good news to wake up to for a change.

Fletcher had come, no doubt, to deliver
bad
news about a fire and a dead widow—news that would cure Zeb’s headache just as effectively as half a bottle of brandy.

He guided Elizabeth back toward the drawing room. “Nothing wrong with the woman, I hope.”

“I don’t know. He’s been very secretive about it.”

“Well, we shall find out soon enough.”

* * *

Fletcher stood in his sister’s drawing room at the window, his gaze following Zeb’s tree-lined driveway, his worries drifting back to Jo. He hoped she was still sitting in the church confessional where he’d left her. He felt badly about tying her to the bench leg, especially after she’d protested, but he still couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t try to escape, and he wanted to deliver this news on his own, without distraction.

He turned when he heard Elizabeth and Zeb enter the room. Watching them together—her slender arm looped through Zeb’s, both of them richly dressed in the finest attire Dodge had to offer—Fletcher felt his heart darken with regret.

Maybe Jo was wrong about Zeb. He was Elizabeth’s husband, after all. The man she had chosen above all others, the future she had embraced with her whole heart when she’d married him.

Fletcher wondered uneasily if he was prepared to kick it all out from under her.

Zeb stopped in the doorway. “Good heavens, you look exhausted. What in the world has happened?”

“I am a little tired,” Fletcher confessed. “I was up most of the night.”

Zeb moved fully into the room. “Busy, were you? Please sit down and tell us all about it.”