The Marshal's Wyoming Bride. Tatiana March
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keeping his footsteps quiet. He found Rowena McKenzie in her jail cell, squatting on all fours beneath the window, peering at something on the floor. Like yesterday, she was dressed in a green gown, with a shapeless man’s sweater worn on top to provide an extra layer of warmth.
“Miss McKenzie.”
Even though she ignored his greeting, her body seemed to stiffen. Then she sighed, loud enough for the sound to carry out to him, and hard enough for her shoulders to slump. She scampered up to her feet and turned to him, a frown of dismay on her face.
“I almost had him,” she complained. “Or her. I don’t know which.”
He stepped into the cell. “Had what?”
“Mousie.” Her expression softened. “He—or she—is a tiny mouse. A field mouse, I think. I’ve been feeding him with bread crumbs. He’s been letting me get very close. I was hoping that today he would let me pick him up, but you scared him away.”
“I have that effect on small children and mice.”
Miss McKenzie glanced at him, but either she missed the reference to his damaged looks or chose to pay no attention. Once again, Dale speculated about her past. She must have been brought up wealthy. However, he could sense no bitterness in her, no resentment over her loss of status in life. To the contrary, she seemed to possess the ability to find joy in little things, even having a rodent for a pet.
“Try it,” she urged him now, gesturing toward the floor beneath the window. “Mousie knows she didn’t get all the bread crumbs. She’ll be back.”
Dale edged closer and dropped to his haunches where he could see a scattering of bread crumbs. He wondered if Miss McKenzie realized she had just made her little mouse into a female, presumably for his benefit. He kept still, his attention on the floor. Silence settled over the jail cell. Just as well, Dale thought, for he seemed at a loss for words.
Seconds ticked by, turned into minutes. Rowena McKenzie crouched beside him. Their bodies seemed very close to each other in the confines of the narrow space. Dale could feel the sleeve of that shapeless sweater brushing against his arm, adding to his awareness of her presence.
“Listen,” she whispered. “Mousie has returned.”
The slight rustling sound grew louder, and then a tiny gray-brown mouse emerged from a crack in the brickwork. Scurrying, the creature hurried over to the pile of crumbs and began to feast on them.
“See,” Miss McKenzie said. “She is not afraid of you at all.”
Side by side, they watched the mouse, until the clatter of footsteps along the corridor sent the tiny creature into a frantic flight back into the safety of the hole in the brick wall. Instinctively, Dale curled his hand around Miss McKenzie’s elbow to help her up. She accepted the gesture with practiced ease, which added to his certainty that she’d been brought up a lady, accustomed to men who performed such courtesies.
By the time a sturdy woman wrapped in a long wool cape came to a halt by the open iron grille, they were facing the entrance, however Dale’s hand remained curled around Miss McKenzie’s arm.
“Good morning, Miss Rowena.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Powell.”
The woman held out a basket. “Brought you lunch.”
The visitor’s face was red from the cold, her nose dripping, but she managed to give Dale a haughty look. “I trust you to do your job, Marshal. None of us understand what’s going on, but we know Miss Rowena is no murderer. We don’t need no badge and gun to figure that out.”
Rowena flapped her hand. “Oh, don’t be so grumpy, Mrs. Powell. We were just feeding my pet mouse. The marshal wasn’t beating me up so I’ll sign a confession.”
“I’m not cooking lunch for no mouse,” the woman muttered. She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “Well, I’d best be going. The chicken coop won’t clean itself and the firewood don’t fall into a pile on its own. I’ll see you on Tuesday, Miss Rowena.” With a curt nod of farewell, the visitor turned around and strode off, her bulky cape flaring behind her.
“I apologize for Mrs. Powell,” Rowena whispered after the woman’s footsteps had faded away. “She likes to gossip, and being stuck in a jail cell makes me a captive audience. You being here deprived her of spreading what little scandal she has managed to stir up since her last visit.”
Not pausing to ask if he wished to eat, Rowena stuck her head into the corridor and yelled, “Can I come out, Sheriff Macklin? I need plates and cutlery.”
“Prisoner transit approved,” the sheriff called back.
Bemused, Dale watched as Miss McKenzie marched out, graceful even with the shapeless man’s sweater covering her dress. Her feet were encased in thick socks that made her footsteps soundless. Her glossy mahogany hair was piled into an upsweep that her mouse-taming must have caused to unravel, allowing strands to flutter free around her face.
As Dale followed her with his eyes, he felt a tug in his chest. There was a gentleness about Rowena McKenzie that touched some sore spot inside him. He’d known ladies in his childhood, and many of them had been haughty and conceited. Lacking concern for the welfare of others, taking masculine admiration as their birthright, they had only shown friendship to those they considered their social equals. Rowena McKenzie was different, and that, combined with her beauty, fascinated him.
When she came back, she bustled about. Using the edge of the bunk as a table and the floor for seating, she served him a lunch of spicy stew. While they ate, they talked. Nothing personal, merely lighthearted observations about the town and its inhabitants. Two more times they were interrupted by visitors, a blushing teenage girl who came to lend Miss McKenzie a book, and an elderly woman who brought her another pair of thick wool socks.
“Why not tell the truth, Miss McKenzie?” Dale asked after the woman left. “The people in town worry about you.”
She stacked the empty plates, ready to return them to the sheriff’s office. “I will…eventually…when I have to…”
Dale didn’t press it. It might be something to do with her background, perhaps the events that had brought about her reduced circumstances. Most likely, she owed a debt of gratitude to the men she’d helped to escape, and her silence was to protect them. But did she understand the gamble she was taking with her life? She expected that once she decided to reveal the truth, everyone would believe her and the charges would be withdrawn. However, sometimes the wheels of law took a wrong turn, and being innocent might not be enough.
* * *
Dale shuffled the pack of cards and dealt two hands of five-card draw on the table fashioned from an overturned crate. Despite the bare brick walls, the jail cell appeared homely now. Books jostled for space with newspapers in the small bookcase he’d knocked together from a piece of waste lumber, and a coal burner in the corner provided a source of heat.
Rowena picked up her cards, studied them with a notch between her straight, dark brows. Unable to hide the flicker of excitement, she rearranged the cards in her hand, extracted three and laid them facedown on the table.
“Three,” she said.
Dale gave his own hand a cursory study. Two eights, two kings, a queen. Why did luck favor him now that he would have preferred it to remain absent? He discarded one of the kings and dealt the replacements.
“Three for the lady. One for the dealer.”
Rowena picked up her cards. Her face clouded with disappointment. Dale gathered his own hand. Damn. Another eight. He kept his features impassive while he waited for Rowena to open the betting. Maybe he could scare her into folding.
“Bet one hundred thousand,” she said.
“Call your hundred thousand…and raise five hundred thousand.”
“Call your five hundred thousand…and raise another