Tempting the Marshal: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Series Book 2) (22 page)

Fletcher studied Zeb’s eyes, hoping he would not see what he’d come here to find. “Truthfully, I wasn’t busy. I was up all night, just thinking.”

Zeb sat silently, staring. “About what?”

“Marriage.”

Elizabeth strode toward him, her cheeks flushing, her eyes regaining some of the radiance Fletcher had not seen in her lately. “Marriage? Fletcher, what do you mean?”

“You, Liz, of all people, should know exactly what I mean. Can’t you tell by looking at me?” He had to swallow the bitter realization that he’d never lied to his sister before now.

Zeb continued to stare at Fletcher, dumbfounded, and Fletcher stared right back at him, searching.

Elizabeth smiled. “Oh, do say it, Fletcher! Is it what I think?”

He would come clean soon enough, he told himself, trying to ease some of the guilt. Just as soon as all this nasty business of murder and cattle rustling was cleared up.

“You said you had bad news about Mrs. O’Malley,” Zeb interrupted with a frown.

“I never said it was bad,” Fletcher said, “but you can judge that for yourself.” Fletcher’s gut wrenched at Zeb’s slipup, but he tried to hide it as the lie spilled from his lips. “Mrs. O’Malley and I are going to be married.”

“Oh!” Elizabeth squealed, but Fletcher was watching Zeb, who cupped his head and winced with pain at his wife’s jolly outcry. She hurried to sit beside Fletcher and threw her arms around his neck. “I’m so happy!”

“So am I,” he replied, still digesting Zeb’s words.

“But you’ve only known her a few days!” Elizabeth said with a smile. “She must be incredibly special. I thought her so when I met her. She and I will be like sisters, I know it!”

Fletcher watched Zeb, who rose to his feet and dutifully offered his hand. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

“Thank you, Zeb.” Fletcher stood and shook hands with his brother-in-law.

“You’ve asked her, I presume.”

“Of course,” Fletcher replied.

“When? You must have ridden out there very early this morning,” he commented, his tone brimming with curiosity and impatience.

Fletcher thought carefully about how he should answer that loaded observation. Was it best to let Zeb believe, for a little longer, that Jo might be dead, if that was in fact why he was asking?

Or was it worth the risk to see Zeb’s face when he found out that she was still among the living?

“I asked her first thing this morning,” Fletcher replied matter-of-factly. Then he paused to await Zeb’s reaction.

The man’s jaw twitched.

“She came into town to buy some things for her house,” Fletcher continued, laying down more information for Zeb to take in. “There was a fire in her parlor.”

“What a shame,” Zeb replied, his eyes void of any sentiment.

Elizabeth covered her mouth with her hand. “Good gracious. No one was hurt, I hope.”

“It was a small fire,” Fletcher replied. “Clumsily started, I think.”

“No doubt,” Zeb said, his mood dark.

“Will you bring her for supper this evening?” Elizabeth asked. “We can all celebrate.”

Fletcher glanced at his sister, so lighthearted and smiling, and he wanted to sink through the floor at the thought of capsizing her perfect new life.

Then he glanced at Zeb, saw the annoyance hovering in his eyes, and felt his instincts begin to boil. He had no definite proof of anything, but he knew something was up with Zeb, and it was his duty to find out what it was.

He supposed it was time to surrender to the one thing he’d wanted to avoid—a social evening with Zeb and Jo together.

Chapter Nineteen

Jo stood inside the city clerk’s office while Fletcher dug into his pocket for keys.

“I’m curious what the city council did about your husband’s letters,” he said, unlocking and opening a drawer in the large desk under the window. “Were they publicized at all?”

“Not that I know of. I never heard another word about it after he sent them.”

“He didn’t send them to the newspaper or anything like that?”

“Definitely not. Edwyn didn’t like to bring attention to himself.”

Fletcher nodded in understanding. “He took the time to make copies of the letters, so he must have been serious about the situation.” Fletcher pulled a large hard-covered book out of the drawer and set it on the desk. He began to flip through the pages. “I’m looking for the city council minutes of last July. That’s when he sent the first letter.”

Jo leaned forward over Fletcher’s shoulder, trying to ignore the subtle scent of leather from his gun belt as she watched his sun-bronzed hands turn page after page of the ruled paper. “Here it is—council meeting on July 23. Look for your husband’s name.”

They both read over the minutes, but Edwyn’s letters were never mentioned.

“Are you sure the first letter was dated in July?” she asked, refusing to give up hope that they would find something.

“Positive. I’ll check August. Maybe he sent it late.” They searched through the records, page after page, every month in the whole year.

“There’s nothing,” Fletcher said grimly. “No mention of either of Edwyn’s letters or any cattle-theft problem.” He set the book back in the drawer and leaned against the desk, the heel of his palm braced upon the top while he rubbed his forehead with the other hand.

Jo stood before him, watching the stress lines deepen around his eyes. “Zeb got rid of those letters. He must be involved in the cattle-rustling ring and that’s why he came after Edwyn, and why he destroyed the police records about Edwyn’s death.”

“We can’t be certain of that yet.”

“But Zeb has the power and the access to these records.”

“So do a lot of other people.”

“But I know it was Zeb that night. This only confirms it. Why can’t you at least say it’s possible? Give me that much?”

At last, Fletcher surrendered to her on that point, and she had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around his neck and thank him properly.

“I won’t say it’s impossible,” he replied, “but we still have to keep looking.” Fletcher locked the desk and retrieved his hat from the hook by the door. “Which is exactly why I want to know more about this cattle-rustling problem.” He pressed the hat onto his head.

“At least we’re in agreement on
that
.” Jo followed Fletcher outside into the bright sunlight and shaded her eyes with her gloved hand. He locked the door behind them and began to descend the steps ahead of her. “Let’s move fast,” he said, “I want to get to the stockyard before the train comes in.”

Picking up her skirts in one hand, Jo hurried down the steps and followed him over the tracks toward Front Street.

A few minutes later, Fletcher and Jo approached the cattle-loading pens, packed tight with Texas longhorns shrieking and snorting and clacking their horns together, while they awaited the train that would take them east to a Chicago slaughterhouse.

Fletcher guided Jo past the station depot, and as soon as his hand touched the small of her back, he noticed a knot in his gut the size of a watermelon—which had nothing to do with stockyards, cows, or cattle-rustling. Things were getting pretty dicey around here, and he was finding it more and more difficult by the second to keep his mind on his job, when all he wanted to do was take Jo back to his room at the boardinghouse, tie her to his bed again and see where things might go from there.

God
, he wanted her too much. He
cared
too much. And having her with him all the time like this, while pretending to be engaged, was turning into a cruel form of torture. But he had to remember his position. She was his prisoner and she wanted her own brand of justice with a passion that was simply too dangerous, not to mention illegal.

Hence, the colossal knot in his gut he couldn’t quash…

They approached a short, stocky cowhand and Fletcher forced himself to get his mind back on business.

“Mornin’,” Fletcher said to the man, who was leaning back against the gate, his face leather-brown from hours spent in the saddle under the scorching western sun. “You responsible for this herd?”

The man took one look at Fletcher’s badge and stepped away from the fence. “Yes, sir. I’m the trail boss, Cory Hays.” He glanced at Jo and fingered his hat. “Morning, ma’am.”

“Where you from?”

“I come from Montana originally, sir.”

Fletcher nodded. “This herd from Texas?”

“Yes, sir. It belongs to Mr. Addison of San Antonio. There a problem, Marshal?”

Fletcher glanced at the branding on one of the steers—the letter A in two places—on the shoulder and back hip.

Jo stepped forward and the young man smiled nervously at her. “Have you lost any head to rustlers, Mr. Hays?” she asked directly.

Fletcher gave her a look, wishing she would remember that she was supposed to be his fiancée, not his deputy marshal.

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, yes. Or at least, that’s what we think. They just seem to disappear. Mr. Addison hired extra hands this season, hoping to figure out what was happening, maybe put a stop to it. But the size of the herd keeps getting smaller and smaller as we drive ’em up the trail. It don’t make a lick of sense.”

“How many have you lost?” Jo asked.

“He ships about fifty thousand head a year, altogether. He probably lost close to five thousand, and he ain’t too happy about it.”

Fletcher squinted across the top of the pen, over the heads of cattle toward the treeless, unbroken horizon. “Do you lose them off the ranch in Texas, or just along the drive?” Fletcher asked.

“Both, sir. All year round. And it ain’t just the Western Trail. I hear they go missing off the Chisholm Trail, too.”

Fletcher inclined his head in a way of saying thanks. “You can tell Addison that there’s a new marshal in Dodge, and I’ll be looking into things for him. I’ll do my best to put an end to this problem.”

“Yes, sir, Marshal Collins. I’ll tell him today, when I send the wire.”

Fletcher placed his hand on the small of Jo’s back again and directed her toward town. “I’m supposed to be asking the questions,” he told her quietly. “You’re just supposed to be my fiancée.”

“I’m only trying to speed things up.”

She said nothing more, but he felt her frustration in the way she moved—the straight set of her shoulders, the sway of her hips. He found himself wanting to explain everything better, to talk openly and reveal how completely torn he felt about all this.

“Let’s go to the bakery for some bread and a pie,” he suggested, hoping to untie that bothersome knot in his gut. “I hear the lady who works there has a nose for gossip, and it wouldn’t hurt to get the town talking, create a diversion while we poke around a bit.”

“It’s the widow Harper you must be referring to,” Jo said. “And she definitely loves to talk.”

Fletcher offered Jo his arm and escorted her past the crowd of curious onlookers who stood in front of the Dodge House Hotel.

“I’m not sure how you’ll feel about this,” he said, leaning in and stealing the opportunity to breathe in the sweet scent of her perfume. “But maybe it’s time you removed your wedding ring. Folks might wonder about it otherwise.”

And he had to wonder, himself, why—after all his efforts to keep his mind on business—he’d noticed that she still wore the ring, and why he was pleased to have an excuse to ask her to take it off.

Jo stopped and appeared flustered. “Of course.” She fumbled to pull off her gloves and fumbled even more to pull the gold band off her slender finger. “There.” She popped it into her reticule and pulled the drawstring closed.

Fletcher offered his arm again, feeling far more pleased than he should.

* * *

“I haven’t told you this yet,” Fletcher mentioned later, as he steered Jo’s wagon across the toll bridge toward the open plains, “but we’ve been invited to supper tonight.”

Jo held on to the spring seat as they bumped along, her sunbonnet tied tightly under her chin. “Something tells me I shouldn’t ask who our dinner companions will be.”

“I couldn’t very well refuse the offer,” he went on, apologetically. “I’m supposed to be proud about us getting engaged, and Elizabeth…well, she was just so darn happy.”

“Really?” Jo replied, trying not to feel too flattered. Why should it matter that Fletcher’s sister approved of her?

“They’re expecting us at seven, but I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. I don’t want you in the same room with Zeb.”

“Are you worried about me, or him?”

Fletcher shook his head with what seemed surprisingly like admiration. “I’ve never met a woman quite like you before.”

“I wasn’t trying to impress you,” she said, bumping shoulders with him.

“I know. That’s what impresses me the most.” A sexy grin passed across his lips. Jo had to force herself to look away.

Fletcher steered the wagon off the bridge and over the short grass toward a cowhand, sitting against his bedroll with one knee up while he watched his herd, his horse grazing nearby.

“Howdy,” the young man greeted as he rose to stand and brush off his pants.