The Ranger's Bride. Laurie Grant

at her and the news of a woman driving the stage to patrons inside.

      Addy ignored them all, determined not to be delayed. She wanted to tell the story only once. Approaching Miss Beatrice Morgan’s trim cottage, she spied a towheaded, freckle-faced boy of five staring between the slats of the white picket fence. It was Billy, the sheriff’s son, whom Miss Beatrice looked after during the day while his widowed father served as Connor’s Crossing’s sheriff.

      “Billy!” she called, “run ahead and find your father for me, will you? Tell him to come to the jail, that I need to speak to him right now!”

      If he had no prisoners to guard, Sheriff Asa Wilson spent little time in his office at the jail. Usually, at this time of day, he was ensconced in the general store playing checkers, but there was no guarantee of that, and Addy didn’t want to spend valuable time looking for him. She was eager to turn the coach and its dead passenger over to him as soon as possible so that she could get back to the wounded Ranger in her house.

      Still paying no attention to the questions called out by every soul she passed, Addy had just reined in the team in front of the jail and was setting the brake when Asa Wilson catapulted out of the general store with Billy on his heels.

      “Miss Addy! I thought Billy had lost his mind when he told me you were driving a st—Dear God, what’s happened to you? You’re all bloody! Are you—are you shot?”

      Belatedly, she gazed down at her dress and saw the blood that had dried into dark-brown splotches and streaks across the front of her bodice and skirts. Dear God, indeed! But her appearance was of no concern to her right now.

      “No, Asa,” she said, as she took hold of his hand and allowed him to help her down. “I’m unharmed. But…I’m afraid we were robbed back there.” She gestured back up the road that led past her house into town.

      “Wilson, there’s a dead man in here,” called the barber, who had apparently been peering inside the coach while she spoke. “He’s all shot up.”

      Asa’s eyes flew to her face, and he seized her other hand.

      Addy nodded in confirmation, feeling her knees starting to turn to jelly now that she had accomplished her mission of bringing the coach—and the news—to town.

      “Th-that’s how I got so bloody,” she told him, aware that more than half the town was clustered around the coach and hearing every word. “I was crouched down in the floor of the stage…and he fell over on me.”

      A buzz arose from the crowd at her words, but over it she could hear Asa murmuring, “Dear God,” once again.

      “You could have been killed,” he added in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, Miss Addy, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself!”

      Her eyes dropped, uneasy at the naked devotion in his eyes. His kindness and caring made her feel guilty. Ever since she had come to town and made his acquaintance he had always been a gentleman. He’d said he understood that she couldn’t return his feelings just yet since she had only been a widow for half a year. But she couldn’t think about the way she’d been deceiving this good man, not now.

      “Asa…there’s five more people dead out there, about three miles out, where we were attacked. The driver, two women—”

      “Women?” someone cried. “They killed women?”

      Suddenly feeling more weary than she ever had in her life, she nodded and went on. “Another man who was a drummer, and the sh—” She shut her mouth. She had almost said, “the shotgun guard.” Quickly she corrected herself and told the lie. “And a Ranger.”

      “There was a Ranger aboard? They killed a Texas Ranger?”

      “Where was the shotgun guard? The stage company usually has a shotgun guard riding up top with the driver.”

      “I—I—” Addy stammered. Was her lie to be exposed so easily? She thought fast. “The Ranger was riding up on top…I guess he was acting as the shotgun guard?” Then she thought it would be best to mix in as much truth with her lie as she could. “The stagecoach driver was killed first, and he fell off the top. Then I think the—the Ranger grabbed the reins and tried to fire back at them…but they caught up and then the man…inside there—” she shuddered as she gestured at the interior of the coach “—was shot and fell over on me. I guess I must have fainted, for when I awoke and managed to get out from under…the body—” she closed her eyes, and her shudder was not the least put-on “—I found everyone else lying dead outside the coach.”

      “Sweet heaven,” someone muttered.

      “Sounds like the Fogarty Gang,” someone else said.

      “Didja see their faces, Miss Addy? Any of them buzzards?” someone else asked.

      Addy shook her head. “Not really,” she said, though the image of a face half-concealed by a red bandanna as he stuck a pistol in the window flashed through her brain.

      She shut her eyes again, suddenly feeling more than a little dizzy. She swayed.

      “Miss Addy, didja—”

      “Shut up! Can’t you see she’s about to swoon?” snapped Asa. “Back away, gentlemen, back away. I’m gonna take Miss Addy inside so she can sit down where it’s cooler.” Asa Wilson inserted an arm bracingly around her and guided her firmly but gently toward the door of the jail. “You men, stick around,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re going to have to form a posse—and if someone can drive a buckboard out there, those bodies have to be brought in for identification and proper burial. Oh, and Miss Morgan, would you have any smelling salts with you?”

      “Oh, dear me, no,” Addy heard Beatrice Morgan say. “But I could run back to my house….”

      Beatrice Morgan was a plump old maid of perhaps sixty years who had already come to Addy once for the making of a new black bombazine dress. Black was all she seemed to wear, though who she was in mourning for was a mystery to Addy and the rest of the town.

      “No smelling salts, Asa,” Addy protested. The stinging scent of hartshorn always nauseated her.

      “Never mind, Miss Morgan, perhaps it would be more helpful if you’d come in and be with Miss Addy,” Asa said. “A feminine presence, you know…just Miss Morgan,” he said, as a handful of Connor’s Crossing ladies moved to follow them. He pushed open the door and ushered Addy and Beatrice Morgan inside.

      It felt good to sink into Asa’s big chair while he bustled about, pouring Addy a drink of cold water from the pitcher he always kept on his desk. The cool dimness of the jail office was restorative, too, after the heat of a Texas summer afternoon.

      “Here, my dear, let’s elevate your feet on this,” Beatrice said, lifting Addy’s feet and shoving a stack of unread newspapers underneath them. “Addy,” she whispered, “surely we had better loosen your stays, too? Sheriff,” she called in a coy voice, “would you please step out while I…ahem!…assist Miss Addy to breathe better?”

      Addy had no need for tight-lacing and had had about enough of Miss Morgan’s fluttering, well-intentioned though it was. She opened her eyes. “Never mind, Miss Beatrice, I’m breathing just fine, truly I am,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster.

      Beatrice Morgan looked disappointed. “Well, if you’re sure, dear.”

      Asa Wilson cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Addy, I’ll be leaving for a little while anyway. I’ve got to go out there now and organize a posse. I won’t be gone any longer than it takes to capture those no-good bas—Pardon me, ladies, those outlaws,” he amended. “In the meantime, Miss Morgan can stay with you here. And then I’ll take you home in my buggy.”

      Addy knew there wasn’t a chance in a million that the outlaws would still be in the area, but she didn’t want to deflate his pride by arguing with him. She couldn’t stay here, though, not with the wounded Ranger awaiting her return!

      “But