Whirlwind Groom. Debra Cowan
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sheriff drew back, eyes widening. “What are you doin’?”
“Getting my weapon.” If she weren’t so rattled, she might have laughed at the expression on his face—half anticipation, half stone-cold fear that she might expose herself.
She pulled the blade from between her breasts and saw his eyes darken. Not with curiosity or surprise, but with raw, hot desire. Her stomach did a slow drop to her feet.
“What—” he cleared his throat “—the heck is that?”
The fire in his gaze sent a tingle to her toes and she swallowed hard. “It’s a scalpel.”
“A doctor’s instrument?”
She nodded.
“I thought you said you were a dressmaker.”
“I am.”
He frowned at the weapon’s short silver blade. “You beat all, lady. What are you planning to do with that?”
“Defend myself.” She pressed harder against the door, trying to escape the feel of his lean thighs, the warmth from his body. “My father was a doctor and he taught my mother and me how to use this.”
“Then why do you need to learn how to shoot?”
“With the scalpel, I have to be really close to someone. Like I am to you.”
He eased back slightly, frowning.
She tried not to smile. “But I have no defense if someone were to shoot at me.”
“Just what can you do with that thing?”
“Stab it in someone’s windpipe or eye. If I go deep enough, I can slice into this big vein here.” She touched the side of her neck.
The sheriff eyed the scalpel warily. “You already seem plenty dangerous to me. I’m not sure that you having a gun is a good idea.”
If she had known how to use a gun two years ago, her family might still be alive. “Are you saying you won’t help me find a teacher?”
“Are you saying you’ve decided to make a home in Whirlwind?”
“Uh, yes.” From the excruciatingly slow way her plan was progressing, she would have to. At this rate, she’d be a year older before she ever got to McDougal. “But Whirlwind seems less…civilized than Galveston. I would just feel safer if I knew how to use a gun.”
“And you’re going to open a dressmaker shop?”
She laughed lightly. “That’s the only skill I have.”
Holt stared at her for a long minute, his eyes hooded beneath his hat. “I’ll teach you to shoot.”
“You? But I thought—”
“Change your mind?”
“No.” But maybe she should.
“Then I’ll teach you. I’m good with guns and I can show you the proper way to handle them.”
“Could you give me a lesson every day?” She needed to check on McDougal as often as possible.
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Oh, good. Thank you, Sheriff Holt.” Why was he so willing to help her? Her smile felt overly bright as she realized exactly what their deal meant.
He finally stepped back a few inches. “If we’re going to see each other every day, you should call me Davis Lee.”
“All right.” She wouldn’t. “I’ll see you in the morning then, bright and early.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday. I’ll be in church. Won’t you?”
She hesitated. She and her parents had regularly attended church in Galveston. It was the one place she had been able to find a small amount of peace after the murders. But she had come here to kill a man. “Church?”
“It’s at the end of Main Street. You can’t miss it.”
“Oh, yes.” She recalled the white frame building with the steeple, and a part of her wanted to be there tomorrow.
“I’ll see you here on Monday then. Make it about six-thirty or seven in the evening. I’ll have to get my other deputy, Jake, to guard the prisoner.”
“All right. Monday.” Tarnation!
She would be spending far more time with the sheriff than she wanted. Despite the opportunity she now had to wheedle information about McDougal out of the lawman, she had the uneasy sense that Holt had agreed to teach her to shoot for the very same reason she had asked—so he could keep an eye on her. She didn’t like that at all.
Chapter Three
W hy in the Sam Hill had Josie Webster been in his jail? Davis Lee was still chewing on that question the next morning during church. He knew exactly how she had managed to wind up in his office the minute he left it. And it was mighty suspicious that Jake’s horse just happened to spook at the same time.
Davis Lee didn’t know what to make of the woman. When she had pulled that scalpel out of her bodice, he’d nearly swallowed his teeth. The last thing he needed was to replay the image of her hand slipping between her breasts. He couldn’t seem to stop it though he tried hard to focus instead on the doubts she raised in him.
Maybe he was suspicious because the first time he had seen Josie, desire had hit him hard and fast. He didn’t trust such raw instant want. It had gotten him in a passel of trouble before and he wasn’t giving in to it again. Still, he spent more time thinking about the intriguing brunette than Reverend Scoggins’s sermon.
Catching her in his jail reinforced Davis Lee’s certainty that she was up to something. Which was why he had gone straight to Ef and gotten a big padlock for McDougal’s cell. One reason—the only reason—he had agreed to teach her to shoot was to see if she was comfortable with guns and knew how to handle them. The woman knew how to use a scalpel, for crying out loud. It was possible she knew how to use a gun, as well.
He had no proof, but he couldn’t shake the feeling she had some connection to McDougal. Her request for shooting lessons had seemed too ready. Prepared almost.
After church he turned around and saw her rising from the back pew. The burn of desire he felt didn’t surprise him, but the relief that she was here and not slipping inside his jail again did.
She stepped outside and started down the stairs, but the reverend stopped her. Keeping an eye on her, Davis Lee moved into the aisle as his brother, Riley, and his wife, Susannah, gathered up their baby. He greeted Cora Wilkes and her brother, Loren Barnes, who had come to Whirlwind about two months ago to help his widowed sister.
From the corner of his eye, Davis Lee saw Josie move down the steps then stop to speak to Pearl Anderson. This time he walked out on the landing and she glanced up. When their gazes locked, he nodded and met her at the bottom.
He greeted Pearl as she walked past him to speak to someone else, but his attention stayed on Josie.
“Sheriff,” she said.
“Davis Lee.” He smiled. The peach dress she wore accentuated her breasts and small waist. The color became her, warming her golden skin and deepening the green of her eyes. He couldn’t help wondering if the deep-cut bodice filled with white pleating hid her scalpel. “Nice to see you, Miz Webster. Did you enjoy the service?”
“Yes, I did. Did you?”
She was about the same height as Susannah, and she was small. A small brown hat circled by a ribbon matching her dress sat jauntily on her head, crowning the mass of hair she’d worn up today. A tiny mole on her collarbone peeked out at him. “Reverend Scoggins always has something good to say.”
A smile curved her lips. “That’s the least committed answer I’ve