Welcome To Wyoming. Kate Bridges

parents died early, sadly, both from tuberculosis.” When she was fourteen and had never even heard the word before. She’d become their caregiver for a solid month, getting instructions from the doctor and learning how to make chicken soup on her own, change bedsheets with a person still in them, and sit in the darkness night after night listening to their rattling breathing and praying they’d make it. God had never answered her prayers, and it had taken her years to forgive him.

      “I’m sorry to hear it.”

      She frowned gently. She’d already told him that in her letters. Didn’t he remember?

      He seemed to, for he corrected himself. “I mean to say—sorry to hear it in person.” His mouth twitched in genuine sympathy.

      “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “But I had a lovely upbringing with my grandfather. We didn’t have much, just each other. We lived above his jewelry shop.”

      “His jewelry shop. Tell me more about that.”

      “I thought you’d be interested in his business, seeing how much it is that you and I have in common.”

      A line in his cheek flickered. “My thoughts exactly.”

      “His shop wasn’t big, but he had a lot of customers. At first, I’d help him by working the counter. You know, taking in the cash, putting it in the drawer, making change. A couple of years later, I helped him with the watches.”

      “The watches?”

      “Pocket-watch repair. Cuckoo clocks. Grandfather clocks. He wouldn’t let me do much but hold the pieces for him. But I studied what he did. Sometimes if we were behind, he’d let me do an order. Then we expanded to repair gold rings. To reset loose stones in other pieces of fine jewelry. The business got bigger and bigger.”

      He frowned. “And then you must’ve...you lost it in the Great Fire?”

      She nodded.

      “And your grandfather passed away....” He prodded for more.

      She promised herself she wouldn’t get weepy. His death was more painful to her than her parents’. “That he did, unfortunately. A few days after the fire, when things had cooled down and it was safe, we were sweeping the streets of charred debris. One minute he was teasing me that I looked like a chimney sweep, and the next he was clutching his heart and falling to the ground. Apoplexy. His speech was so slurred I couldn’t understand him. We never got a chance for another conversation.”

      “That is a shame.” He reached over the tablecloth and touched her hand. His large, warm fingers pressed against her slender ones. Such a difference in size. Such pleasure in his touch.

      “Then I placed the ad,” she said on a brighter note. “And here we are.”

      “Yes, indeed.” He pulled his hand away. “Tell me again why you chose my letter,” he said, “above everyone else’s.”

      “But I’ve already told you.”

      “Tell me again. A man likes to hear in person what his bride thinks of him.”

      “There were dozens of respondents, as I mentioned, but yours stood out. It was so well worded. Your education truly does you justice with the written word. When I discovered you were putting your business education to good use in your jewelry enterprise, I thought I could be very supportive to you.”

      “Supportive. Hmm.”

      “And that’s why I posed the question. The one you’re still thinking on.”

      “Ask me again,” he said softly. “Tell me more directly so I get a true sense of what’s on your mind.”

      She inhaled. “Well, it’s just that I believe that you and I could build quite a business establishment as a couple. We could do this together, Jarrod. We’d be twice as good, twice as big, twice as profitable. I know the jewelry business.”

      “And so...?”

      “I’m asking you if you’d please consider letting me join you in your travels. You know, do whatever needs to be done?”

      She sipped another smooth mouthful of red wine as he leaned back in his chair and stared at her so intensely that she thought he would shatter his wine goblet.

      * * *

      She was in on it, thought Simon with rising anger. Sure as thunder came before lightning, Natasha O’Sullivan was devoted to helping Ledbetter’s criminal jewelry business. How much more obvious could she be?

      He tried not to moan. He tried not to flinch as he sat watching her. He tried not to move a muscle in his face to indicate in any manner that he was affected by her request to join him. She knew about jewelry repair and was quite willing to indulge her would-be husband by jumping in with 100 percent enthusiasm.

      How could a man from Harvard accomplish so much and yet now be so dead?

      Why did Simon feel such disappointment in her?

      She had many positive attributes. Why did she wish to become a criminal herself?

      Greed?

      All right, he’d play along. After all, she might know the whereabouts of the missing three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cash and jewels and lead him directly to it. In fact, if she was guilty, that would let him off the hook for how he should treat her. He’d met criminal women before, and they were just as vicious and deadly as men. Didn’t he owe it to Eli and Clay to put her behind bars? Some of her cohorts had shot them in cold blood! They’d made Simon go mad at the scene, trying to stifle the flow of blood from Clay’s neck where a gunshot had severed the artery. And poor Eli with a bullet straight through the heart.

      If this woman was involved in any manner, she deserved what was coming.

      Simon could only pray that she wasn’t too bright and wouldn’t pick up on the fact that he wasn’t really her beloved partner in crime, Ledbetter.

      But maybe he was jumping the gun. Maybe he was assuming too much, assuming that she knew what she was getting involved with, that it was a criminal enterprise with Ledbetter.

      Slow down, he told himself. Let’s not pull the trigger yet. Give her the benefit of the doubt.

      How much, thought Simon as his pensive gaze swept over the caring eyes and the pursed feminine lips, did she know about Ledbetter’s business? The lawmen were still looking, but as far as they could gather so far, they hadn’t been able to uncover any stores that Ledbetter had actually opened in any town. Yet he’d claimed he had several. The man knew a lot about jewelry, but maybe only because he’d been a thief.

      But surely the man hadn’t written too much in his letters for fear of incriminating himself. Or maybe he had. Maybe the braggart couldn’t help himself. All he had to do, once he’d trusted her and revealed his hand, was tell her to burn his letters.

      “Well?” she prodded. “What do you say? Shall we run this business together, Jarrod?”

      In all the years he’d been chasing criminals, he’d arrested only two women. He’d never injured one before, for neither had resisted arrest. Laws were laws and whoever broke them would come to justice.

      “Before I answer that,” he said, bringing the French Burgundy to his lips once more, “I need to ask if you’ve kept any of our correspondence.”

      She frowned at the question and lowered her voice. The grapes on her bonnet flashed in the candle’s flicker of light. “I did as you asked. However, I don’t see why I needed to burn them all,” she whispered, “even though I do understand your need for privacy and security, seeing how many jewelry shops you intend to open. And how you’ve been robbed yourself just recently.”

      He quirked an eyebrow. So he’d been right. Ledbetter had asked her to get rid of all his letters. “Thank you kindly for understanding.”

      “I admit, I thought it odd at first. But the more