The Lone Sheriff. Lynna Banning

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 covering his back, and he should be grateful. A wrong-handed sheriff was no match for outlaws with revolvers.

      But deep inside, where he never allowed himself to venture, something began to tighten. God, he hated that. Made him sweat. He couldn’t let her continue with this Pinkerton business. If she didn’t get him killed, she’d get herself killed, and that would be even worse.

      Two hours passed in uneasy silence. Maddie crocheted carefully on what looked like a lace edging; Jericho tried not to watch her slim fingers.

      “Last stop, Portland,” the conductor boomed. “Ten minutes.”

      Maddie smoothed out her skirt, shook her petticoat ruffles into place, and stowed her crochet work in her oversize reticule. “What do we do until the train leaves for Smoke River?”

      “Find a hotel.”

      “A hotel!” Her eyes went wider and even more green. “What do we want a hotel for?”

      “Don’t know about you, but I’m grabbing an early dinner and getting some sleep.”

      She eyed him with a look that could fry eggs. “You mean we are stuck here in Portland? All night?”

      “Yep. Train east doesn’t pull out until tomorrow morning. Thought you would have researched that, Mrs. Detective. Distances out here in the West are...long.”

      Maddie set her jaw. She was hungry, she admitted. And bone tired. But the worst part was that she was surprised at this turn of events. She hated being surprised. Back in Chicago, trains ran both east and west every hour. Somehow she thought trains out here would run every hour, as they did in Chicago. It never occurred to her the distance between Smoke River and Portland would mean an overnight stay. Why, she hadn’t even brought a night robe.

      * * *

      The streets of Portland were jammed with people—merchants, travelers, ranchers with wagons full of children, some fancy men who looked like gamblers, ladies driving trim black buggies, townspeople, schoolboys, even a few dusty-looking Indians. After battling the crowds, Jericho stepped into the foyer of the Kenton Hotel with Maddie at his elbow.

      The desk clerk looked up and thumbed through his registry. “’Fraid I got no rooms left, mister. Big carnival from San Francisco in town and we got lotsa visitors. You could try the Portland Manor, just across the street.”

      The Portland Manor had only one vacancy. “Two beds, take it or leave it. Town’s full up.”

      Jericho turned to her. “That okay?”

      Maddie stared at him. “You don’t mean one room for the two of us?” she whispered. “Together? Why, that is scandalous!”

      “Huh! That’s real funny coming from a lady who said she was bored to death with her marriage.”

      “But—”

      “Look, Mrs. O’Donnell, my arm is hurting like a sonofa—billion beeves. I’m worn out and hungry enough to eat just about anything. We’re here, and we’re staying. Like the man says, take it or leave it.”

      “But—”

      “And,” he added with a lopsided smile, “you can relax. I’m too flat-out tired to threaten your virtue.”

      Her cheeks went pink. “This is highly unusual. Mr. Pinkerton will certainly hear about it.”

      “No, he won’t. You let one word slip about our arrangement and I’ll tell Pinkerton it was all your idea.”

      Maddie turned crimson, then white, then crimson again. “You would not dare!”

      “Try me.”

      Stunned into silence, Maddie watched him sign Mr. and Mrs. J. Silver on the register. She wanted to protest, but everything was all so mixed up and tense between the two of them that...well, she would just have to act as if things like this happened every day to a Pinkerton detective and make the best of it. For her next assignment she would research geographical distances more thoroughly.

      The hotel room was small but clean, with a single СКАЧАТЬ