The Widow's Little Secret Page 6

  “So here’s what we need you to do, Sheriff,” Gil said. “We want to make certain that everything in Stanford is running smooth as silk when those investors get here.”

  “We can’t let them think this ain’t the right kind of town for them,” Hayden Langston said. “We don’t want no problems while they’re here.”

  “We’re counting on you to keep everything under control,” the mayor said.

  “Yeah,” Hayden said, “just like Sheriff Hickert used to do.”

  “When are these investors arriving?” Jared asked, glancing toward the kitchen, watching for his breakfast.

  “In a few weeks,” Marvin Ford said. “That don’t give us much time. We’ve got all kind of plans to make, things to do.”

  “The whole town is getting involved,” Mayor Rayburn said. “Why, just think—”

  “Sheriff?”

  Jared turned in his chair to see a man standing at the window, gazing outside.

  “Sheriff, I think you ought to get over to the Lady Luck,” he said, pointing. “Looks like that Ballard boy is shooting up the place again.”

  “Tarnation!” Olin Burrows, who ran Stanford’s bank, thumped his fist on the table. “See there? This is just what we don’t need with those investors coming out.”

  Jared didn’t answer. He headed out the door.

  The street had cleared when Jared stepped onto the boardwalk. A shot rang out. He drew back, then peered down the block. At the entrance to the Lady Luck Saloon, a man dangled by one arm from the bat-wing door, swinging back and forth, waving his pistol around and singing at the top of his voice.

  Jared drew his gun and eased down the block. When he got closer he saw that it wasn’t a man, but a boy. Probably no more than sixteen years old and drunk as a skunk.

  Drunk, but still dangerous.

  It seemed the boy was more interested in swinging on the door and singing than firing, but Jared didn’t take any chances. He crept down the boardwalk, keeping close to the building, taking cover in doorways until he reached the saloon. He ducked into the alley and waited until the boy swung the opposite direction.

  “Drop the gun!” Jared came up from behind, aiming his Colt.

  “Huh?” The boy swung around.

  Jared backhanded him across the face. He went down like a wet sack of flour.

  Jared scooped up the boy’s pistol and nudged him with the toe of his boot. Blood trickled from his nose. He was out cold.

  A half-dozen men came out of the saloon, staring down at the boy. They all looked up at Jared.

  “What did you have to go and do that fer?” one of them asked.

  “Yeah, Johnny was just having a little fun, that’s all,” another said.

  “That there is Johnny Ballard. His pa is Jim Ballard. He owns the biggest spread around these parts.”

  “Yeah, Sheriff Hickert never done nothing like that,” someone else said.

  Rafe Duncan, the bartender, pushed his way through the crowd, wiping his hands on a towel. He shook his head gravely. “Big Jim ain’t going to be happy when he sees what you’ve done to his boy.”

  Jared hoisted the kid to his feet, then heaved him over his shoulder.

  “You tell this Big Jim when he gets here that he can find his boy at the jail.”

  Whispers, finger-pointing and some frightened looks from women followed Jared as he carried the boy to the jail. He dumped him on the bunk inside one of the cells and locked the door.

  From what the men at the saloon had said, Jim Ballard wouldn’t be pleased when he found out his son had been arrested. Jared didn’t care. He wasn’t pleased about having his town shot up.

  Stomach rumbling, Jared pulled the ledger from the bottom drawer of his desk and sat down. He didn’t especially like doing the paperwork that came with his job, so he made it his policy to do it as it came up, do it and get it over with.

  He flipped through the pages of arrests, fines and incarcerations until he came to the one with Johnny Ballard’s name on it. This wasn’t the first time the boy had been in trouble with the law.

  Jared wrote down the information, hoping the Silver Bell was keeping his breakfast warm. He was ready to leave when his office door opened and four women marched in—all well dressed, all pinch-lipped, all scowling.

  Trouble. Just what he needed. Especially on an empty stomach.

  The tallest woman stopped in front of his desk, the others crowding around her. “Sheriff McQuaid, I am Mrs. Pomeroy, and we are from the Ladies for the Betterment of Stanford Committee.”

  Jared frowned. “The Ladies for what?”

  Mrs. Pomeroy drew herself up. “We are appalled—appalled—by the incident that took place only moments ago at that disgusting haven of sin and evil.”

  Jared frowned. “Haven for sin and what?”

  “The saloon!”

  Jared rocked back in his chair. “You mean the Ballard boy?”

  “Exactly.” Mrs. Pomeroy’s lips curled down distastefully. “Imagine, drinking and shooting up the town. And at this hour of the morning, too.”

  The ladies behind her made little tsking sounds.

  Jared’s stomach growled. “Look, ladies, I arrested the kid and threw him in jail—”

  “Woefully inadequate!” Mrs. Pomeroy declared. “We, of the Ladies for the Betterment of Stanford Committee, insist that you take steps to close down that saloon.”

  “What?” Jared came out of his chair. “What the hell do you expect me—”

  “Really, Sheriff, your language,” Mrs. Pomeroy admonished. All the ladies cringed.

  “Look,” Jared said, “I’ve got nothing to do with the saloon—”

  “You most certainly do, Sheriff McQuaid, and I—we—insist that you—”

  “I’m not going to do anything about that saloon,” Jared told them. “Now, you ladies get on back to whatever it is you were doing, and—”

  The door burst open and Tom Keaton from the feed and grain store stuck his head inside. “Better get over to the mercantile, Sheriff. Looks like trouble brewing.”

  “Oh, hell, what now?” Jared muttered.

  “Sheriff!” Mrs. Pomeroy declared. “Don’t you dare leave until this discussion is finished.”

  “It’s finished,” he told them, and headed out the door.

  The ladies swarmed after Jared, crowding around him on the boardwalk, all of them talking at once.

  “What’s the problem?” Jared shouted to Tom.

  He pointed to the Stanford Mercantile just down the street. “Old Ben and Abel. Looks like they’re at it again.”

  Jared craned his neck toward the mercantile, trying to see over all the hats bobbing in front of him.

  “Sheriff,” Mrs. Pomeroy said, planting herself in his path, “I insist you give this issue your immediate attention.”

  He waved his arms. “Ladies, will you just—yeow!”

  Pain shot through Jared’s left knee and vibrated up his thigh.

  “Goddamn, son of a—”

  “Sheriff!” Mrs. Pomeroy gasped. “Such language! In front of ladies!”

  Holding his knee, Jared whirled to see a little boy probably no more than five years old, dressed in a blue coat, disappear into the alley.

  “You kicked me!” Jared yelled. “Get back here, you little—”

  “Oh, my word, Millie’s going to faint!” one of the women cried.

  Two women screamed. Jared turned in time to grab Millie as she swayed.

  “You insensitive brute! Look what you’ve done!” Mrs. Pomeroy swatted him over the head with her handbag. “Get away from her!”

  The women pulled Millie from Jared’s grasp and hustled her down the boardwalk. Mrs. Pomeroy turned back. “Rest assured, Sheriff McQuaid, the mayor and the town council will hear about this.”

  All the women threw him murderous looks as they walked away.

  “Come on, Sheriff, better get over to the mercantile,” Tom Keaton insisted.

  Jared rubbed his aching knee and hob
bled along behind Tom to the store across the street, getting stares from most everyone he passed. Once there, he saw two old men in buckskins and battered hats, nose-to-nose over a checkerboard balanced atop a barrel, shouting at the top of their voices.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Jared demanded.

  One of the men pointed at the other. “He cheated! Abel Conroy here is a low-down, cheating skunk. He took his hand off his checker, then claimed he didn’t!”

  “I never did such a thing, Ben Paxton, you lying dog, you!” Abel yelled.

  “I seen you! With my own two eyes!” Ben shouted. “You took your finger off, plain as day!”

  “And you’re a-lying, plain as day!”

  Ben put up his fists. “Nobody calls me a liar. Come on, let’s go!”

  Abel’s fists went up, too. “I’ll knock you flatter than your mama’s pancakes!”

  “Them’s fighting words, for sure!” Ben’s face turned red.

  “Back off! Both of you!” Jared pushed between them, separating them and knocking over the barrel with the checkerboard resting on it. Red and black checkers flew everywhere.

  Ben and Abel both froze, watching their checkers roll into the street and drop between the cracks in the boardwalk.

  “Now look what you’ve gone and done,” Ben said to Jared, the fight gone out of him.

  “Yeah,” Abel echoed. “What kind of man goes and ruins another man’s checker game?”

  Ben and Abel squared off at Jared.

  “That’s about the lowest thing I’ve ever seen done in my whole entire life,” Ben declared. Abel nodded along with him.

  Even Tom Keaton nodded. “Yeah, Sheriff, that’s pretty bad.”

  Jared seethed. He was in no mood to argue. His knee hurt, his stomach rumbled and now his head was starting to ache.

  He pointed his finger at the two old men. “If I catch the two of you disturbing the peace again, I’m throwing you both in jail.”

  Jared whipped around. A little crowd had gathered behind him. They eyed him sharply as he pushed through and headed toward the Silver Bell.

  But when he arrived, all he got was a sorrowful headshake from Ennis Everette.

  “Sorry, Sheriff, we didn’t think you were coming back. My wife, she served your meal to somebody else.”

  Jared grumbled under his breath. “This is a restaurant, isn’t it? You’ve got something to eat in there, don’t you?”

  “We might have a little something,” Ennis said, wringing his apron in his hands and glancing into the kitchen. “But we’re just starting on lunch and it’s not ready yet. Come on back in a couple of hours and—”

  “Never mind.”

  Jared stomped out of the restaurant and stood on the boardwalk. He was hungry, and grumpy, and irritated beyond belief. What in the hell was wrong with all the people in this town?

  A flash of blue streaked by. Pain shot through his knee.

  “Damn it!” Jared limped after the boy, who’d kicked him again, until the child ducked into the alley. Cursing, Jared sank onto the crates stacked outside the restaurant, rubbing his knee.

  He sat there, cursing everything and everybody, ignoring the looks he got from passersby, until the pain died down enough that he could walk. He headed toward the Cottonwood Café.

  Mattie. He wanted to see Mattie. Just the sight of her would soothe him. And if he didn’t get soothed soon—and fed—all hell was liable to break loose in Stanford.

  When he rounded the corner at the rear of the Cottonwood, he saw her coming out of the kitchen. Jared’s heart lurched. A wave of calm passed through him.

  Mattie had on a green dress today, one he’d never seen before. Little tendrils of brown hair bobbed against her neck as she walked. She looked pretty, so pretty. He could have stood there and looked at her all day.

  But then his chest tightened when he saw her stop at the woodpile and load logs into her arms.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, charging toward her.

  She gasped and spun around, juggling the logs in her arms. “Good gracious, you scared me.”

  He jerked the wood away from her. “Don’t you know better than to carry heavy things in your condition?”

  Her lips thinned as she glared up at him. “It’s not that heavy—I wouldn’t carry it if it were. Besides, it’s none of your business. I told you that last night.”

  “It is my business!” Jared cursed again. “As long as you’re walking around with my baby inside you, everything you do is my business!”

  Red flashed across her cheeks and her eyes narrowed. She took a step forward. Jared backed up.

  “You stay away from me, Jared McQuaid. You’re not a nice person and I don’t like you. I had a husband who bullied me and I’m not going through that again.” Mattie jerked the logs from his arms. “And don’t you ever raise your voice at me again!”

  Jared watched her stomp up the steps and into the kitchen. He nearly went after her. He itched to. Instead, he turned and strode away.

  By the time he got halfway through town, his temper was boiling. No breakfast, some kid shooting up the town, those ladies screeching at him about the saloon, two old men coming to blows over a checker game and, of all things, that kid kicking him. Then Mattie. Talking to him like that. Telling him to stay away. Saying she didn’t like him.

  Up ahead on the boardwalk he saw a woman gather her small children and pull them aside as a man staggered toward her. His gray hair was unkempt, his whiskers ragged, his clothes soured; he had a half-empty bottle of liquor in his hand.

  Jared swore. He had little patience left, and none for a drunk.

  “Hey!” Jared called.

  The man lurched toward him, waving the liquor bottle. He grabbed the man’s collar and slammed him against the side of the building; the bottle broke on the boardwalk. The man grunted, made a gurgling sound in his throat. Jared held him there for a minute, then yanked him away.

  When he turned, he saw the woman and her children. They looked frightened. But of him, not the drunk.

  Jared carted the man to the jail, half carrying him most of the way, and tossed him in the cell beside the Ballard boy.

  When he walked into his office, he found Mayor Rayburn standing in the middle of the room. The older man slid his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Appears you and me need to have us a little talk,” the mayor said.

  “I got no time,” Jared answered. He pulled the ledger from the bottom drawer and slammed it down.

  “Oh, I think you do,” Mayor Rayburn said. “We need to talk about whether or not you’re going to be able to keep your job.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jared glared at Mayor Rayburn. “Keep my job? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Seems you’ve had a busy morning,” the mayor said, seating himself in one of the chairs in front of Jared’s desk.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Have a seat,” the mayor said, gesturing to the desk.

  Jared glared at him a few seconds longer, then dropped into the chair.

  Mayor Rayburn stroked his side whiskers thoughtfully. He was a good twenty years older than Jared, graying and wrinkled, with a wizened gleam in his dark eyes. “Heard you locked up the Ballard boy,” he said.

  “Damn right I did.”

  “And I see you brought old Mr. Hopkins in just now.”

  “That drunk? Yeah, I brought him in. Liquored up like a blind owl, staggering through town.”

  Mayor Rayburn nodded slowly. “Mrs. Pomeroy and the Ladies for the Betterment of Stanford Committee paid me a visit a while ago.”

  Jared cursed. “Those women barged into my office making demands—”

  “Seems you got Ben and Abel pretty riled up outside the mercantile.”

  “Yeah. So what?” Jared came to his feet. “Look here, mayor, you hired me to enforce the laws in this town.”

  The mayor drew in a deep breath
, then let it out slowly. “Now, see, son, that’s where you’re wrong.”

  Jared blinked at him. “Wrong?”

  “I hired you to keep the peace.”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Nope, that’s not what you’re doing. Enforcing the laws and keeping the peace are two different things.”

  Jared just looked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Sit down. I’ll explain it to you,” Mayor Rayburn said.

  Jared hesitated a moment, then sank into his chair.

  “You see, Stanford is a good town, with a lot of good folks,” the mayor said. “We have a little trouble from time to time, but nothing big.”

  “I wouldn’t call a kid shooting up the town ‘nothing big’.”

  Mayor Rayburn waved his hand for quiet, then went on. “The kind of trouble we have here in Stanford means that sometimes you might have to be a friendly ear, instead of a lawman. A preacher, or a pa. A brother, sometimes. Usually, a lawman is the last thing you’ll have to be. Understand?”

  Jared shook his head. “That’s not what you hired me to do.”

  “Well, maybe I didn’t explain it good enough,” Mayor Rayburn said. “But the long and short of it is that we don’t need a lawman who causes more problems than he solves.” The mayor got to his feet. “You think it over. And if you don’t believe you can be the kind of sheriff we need, well, then we’ll just have to find us somebody else.”

  He nodded pleasantly and left the office.

  “Damn it…” Jared heaved the ledger across the office.

  What was that mayor thinking, accusing him of not knowing how to do his job? He’d been a United States Marshal for ten years. Ten long years of distinguished service. He knew how to be a lawman. He’d proved it with the capture of hundreds of criminals.

  From the sound of it, Mayor Rayburn didn’t need a sheriff—he needed a nursemaid. And that wasn’t the kind of lawman Jared was, and that’s all there was to it.

  He sat back in his chair and sighed heavily. To hell with them. He didn’t need this job. With his record he could go anywhere and get hired. He could go back to the marshal service, if he wanted.

  Maybe that’s what he ought to do. Jared slumped further into his chair, considering the possibility. Listening to a bunch of women bellyaching about the saloon, breaking up a fight over a checker game…well, it was beneath him, a man of his reputation. It was almost embarrassing. Maybe he should just march over to the mayor’s office and resign.