The Lone Sheriff. Lynna Banning
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Did you notice?”
Jericho said nothing. He had to admit she had sharp eyes and a keen mind. Her “observations” were valuable.
Dammit, anyway.
The trembling mail clerk slid the railcar door shut. The train tooted once and jerked forward. Maddie stumbled and bumped his injured wrist. He sucked in a breath. Hurt like blazes.
With his good hand he holstered his Colt and turned back to the passenger car. “Better let me take a look at your bullet burn,” he said as they made their way down the aisle.
She plopped down into her seat, pressing her lips together. “No, thank you. The bullet just skimmed my arm. I’m sure the skin is not broken.”
He settled beside her with an exasperated sigh. “Yeah? Show me.”
“No.”
He reached for her wrist. Before she could stop him he’d unbuttoned her sleeve and pushed it up above her elbow.
“Hurt?”
“Yes,” she said tightly.
He ran his gaze over her slim upper arm, noting the angry red crease above her elbow. From his inside vest pocket he grabbed the bottle of painkiller.
“What is that?” she said.
“Painkiller. Alcohol, mostly.”
She rolled her eyes. He uncorked the bottle with his teeth, lifted her elbow away from her body and dribbled the dark liquid over the abrasion. Her breath hissed in and she moaned softly.
Jericho closed his eyes for an instant. He hated hearing a female in pain. “Sorry.”
“It is quite all right,” she said, rolling her sleeve down. She poked her forefinger through the bullet hole and sighed. “Another visit to the dressmaker, I suppose.”
“Maddie, maybe you ought to see a doctor when we get to Portland.”
She shook her head. “What is that you poured over it?”
He recorked the bottle. “I told you, painkiller. For my wrist.”
She gave him a lopsided smile that made his insides weak. “We are a pair, are we not?” she said, her voice just a tad shaky. “A one-armed sheriff and a Pinkerton detective with a bullet burn.”
“Yeah,” he said drily. “We’re a team, all right. Listen, Maddie, tomorrow I think you should go back to Chicago.”
“No, you don’t, Jericho. Whether you admit it or not, you need me. This is my job—apprehending lawbreakers. I’m your right arm, so to speak, so you’re stuck with me.”
He felt more than “stuck” with her. He felt bowled over. Something told him his lady detective wasn’t going to back down and go home to Chicago anytime soon. Torn between worry over her safety and his need to see this job through, his insides were in an uproar.
With a sidelong glance at her, he settled back to think about how he could keep her alive while he did what he had to do, apprehend the Tucker gang. The townspeople always wanted him to get up a posse, but Jericho preferred working alone. Always had and always would. He did what any sheriff worth his salt had to do, and he’d never wanted to get anyone else involved.
And he sure as hell didn’t want to get a lady detective mixed up in a manhunt, even if she could shoot straight. She had to go back to Chicago.
She picked up her crocheting again and worked a row of stitches before she said anything more. “Do you suppose there might be an opera or a play of some kind in Portland?”
“Might be. You miss the city, huh?”
“Yes,” she said. “To be honest, I enjoy cultural things.”
“Bet you feel like a fish out of water on this assignment.”
“Oh, no. I am not that easily discouraged. This fish likes doing something worthwhile, Sheriff. Catching train robbers is worthwhile.”
Jericho nodded. He felt the same way, when he thought about it. He had a job to do. But he’d been on his own since he was a kid, and that’s how he liked it. Wasn’t responsible for anybody’s skin but his own. Every time Sandy begged to come along on a manhunt, Jericho neatly evaded the issue.
He liked Sandy. Maybe that was the problem. He was beginning to like Maddie, too, and that was an even bigger problem.
To calm her nerves Maddie paced up and down the passenger car aisle until Jericho glared at her. She would never admit to the sheriff how shaken she felt after her encounter with the train robbers, but there it was. She’d come close to being killed for the first time in her career as a Pinkerton agent. Mr. Pinkerton had trained her in the use of firearms, but he’d used her to carry messages and smuggle maps, nothing so violent as being caught in the middle of a gun battle.
After four round trips from the back of the car to the front, she sank onto her seat. Still jittery, she hunted up the wooden crochet hook and resumed work on her edging. Jericho sat next to her, exercising the fingers of his right hand.
Was his heart pounding as hard as hers was? She shot a look at his impassive expression and almost laughed. If it was, he hid it better than she did.
The train jerked, and her ball of crochet thread rolled down the aisle, leaving a trail of pink string. She huffed a sigh and began to rewind it, but the ball settled into a crack in the floor.
The sheriff stopped flexing his injured wrist, got to his feet and chased the ball of thread into a corner. He snatched it up, stomped back and dumped it into her lap. Then he plopped back down in his seat without saying a word.
Well! He had no right to be angry with her. She had probably saved his life; he might at least say thank-you.
The train rolled smoothly forward through wheat fields and cattle ranches. The peaceful scenery soothed her to the point where she could review the events that had occurred in the mail car. One thing she couldn’t forget was the look on the sheriff’s face when she’d first drawn her pistol, part shock, and part fear. She could understand his surprise, but fear? She would bet a barrel of fancy hats this man didn’t fear outlaws or anything else.
And then suddenly she understood. He feared for her.
Maddie laid her hands in her lap. “I had no idea you could shoot left-handed. Why did you not tell me?”
“You never asked. You just jumped to a conclusion. That’s another reason why you should skedaddle back to Chicago, you jump to conclusions.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t. That is not why you don’t want me along. Is it?” She pinned him with eyes as hard as green stones. “Is it?”
He waited a long time before answering. “Nope.”
“Then would you tell me what the real reason is?”
“Nope.”
She waited. The train picked up speed and the car began to sway. “Sheriff, I deserve to know. I am waiting.”
“Okay,” he growled. “Here it is in plain English. You are the reason I don’t want you along.”
“Oh, for mercy’s sake! Sheriff Silver, you are irritating enough to drive a person crazy.”
He gave her a tight smile. “But not irritating enough to drive you away.”
She blanched. “Well, of course not. It would take more than a stubborn, bad-tempered, set-in-his-ways man to make me give up on an assignment.”
“Damn,” Jericho muttered. What would it take, he wondered. He couldn’t forget the picture she’d made in that yellow dress, firing her shiny pistol at armed outlaws. He knew she’d been