The Lone Sheriff. Lynna Banning

       Chapter Two

      Rita rolled her eyes, slipped away and returned with dinner menus. Before she could get her notepad out of her apron pocket, Mrs. Detective started talking. “I’d like a big, juicy steak, rare, and lots and lots of fried potatoes. Extra crisp.”

      Maddie watched the sheriff seated across from her. His frown brought his dark eyebrows close to touching across the bridge of his nose.

      “Same for me, Rita.” He folded both menus with his left hand and handed them back.

      Maddie studied his hand—long, tanned, capable-looking fingers and a muscular wrist. An odd little twang of something jumped in her chest. She always made it a point to notice hands; this man’s said a great deal about him. For one thing, he used them a lot outdoors. And for another, he didn’t fidget like so many men did in her company.

      When their steaks came, Sheriff Silver took one look at her heaping plate and his eyebrows went up. “You eat like this all the time?”

      “Oh, no. But I do love steak. My mother’s French cook served nothing but chicken breasts drowning in fancy sauces. Now I eat steak every chance I get, pan fried, broiled, even baked. I never grow tired of the taste.”

      The sheriff said nothing, but she noticed he managed a surreptitious glance at her waistline. He did not believe her. Probably he did not believe she was a Pinkerton agent, either. She calmly cut into her steak and forked a bite past her lips.

      She chewed and swallowed while he stared at her. “Are you not hungry, Sheriff Silver?”

      He looked down at his untouched plate. “Guess not. Guess I’m feeling a bit off with you here.”

      “But you knew I was coming.” Maddie’s arrival on an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton often elicited such a response. She had learned to disregard it and get on with the job she was hired to do.

      “There’s ‘knowing’ and ‘knowing,’ Mrs. O’Donnell. I sure as h—sure as hens lay eggs wasn’t expecting anything like you.”

      “Mr. Pinkerton selected me especially for this assignment. It will be easier to disguise my purpose in Smoke River. Being a woman, I mean.”

      He fanned his gaze over her body again. “There’s not a way in hell to disguise that fact, Mrs. O’Donnell. Seems Pinkerton didn’t think this all the way through.”

      She watched him study her face. Oh, my. The sheriff’s eyes were such a dark blue they looked almost black. And tired. And mysterious in a way that made her knife hand tremble.

      She laid her shaking hand in her lap. “Mr. Pinkerton always thinks things through. A woman can be in plain sight and still be in disguise. No one will question a female being in your company.”

      “Yes, they will,” he said. “I’m pretty much known as a loner around these parts. A woman in my company, especially one like you, will have tongues wagging all the way to Gillette Springs.”

      “Not if I am your sister, on a visit.” She picked up her knife.

      “Not possible.”

      “Oh? Why not?”

      “I was raised in an orphanage. I’ve no idea who my parents were, save that they were in a hurry to get rid of me. So I don’t have any sister, and the whole town knows it.”

      Maddie thought for a long moment. “Your cousin, then. We will tell people I am your cousin.”

      “My cousin!” His left hand jerked and his fork skittered off the table.

      “Once removed,” she purred.

      Rita appeared, rescued the sheriff’s fork and supplied another. “Want me to cut up your steak for you, Johnny?”

      He grunted. The waitress made quick work of the sheriff’s meat and retreated to the kitchen. He speared a bite left-handed, then swigged down a gulp of coffee.

      Again she noticed something unusual about him—the way he handled his coffee cup. He turned the handle away from him and picked it up by covering the top with his fingers and lifting up by the rim. He slurped in the liquid between his thumb and forefinger. But he never took his eyes off her face.

      “If you are my cousin,” she admonished, “you should stop looking at me like that.”

      He clanked the cup onto its saucer. “Like what?”

      “Like you have never laid eyes on me before.”

      He stared at her. “Shoot, lady, I haven’t laid eyes on you before.”

      Maddie swallowed. She had never encountered anyone like this man. He was tall and he moved quietly, like a big cat she’d seen in the zoo once. He was short-spoken to the point of rudeness. He was amusing in a backhanded sort of way. He was...fascinating.

      “Well, Cousin...Jericho, should we not get acquainted?”

      “Acquainted?” He frowned.

      “Of course. To start with, my given name is Madison. Maddie for short.”

      “Maddie.”

      She watched his mouth when he said her name. She liked it best when his lips opened for the “mah” and she glimpsed straight teeth so white they looked like fine fired china from England.

      “Cousin or not, Mrs. O’Donnell, I don’t need you.”

      “Oh, but you do. I have observed that you have been wounded and cannot use your right hand. I am here not only to cover your back but to serve as your gun hand.”

      “No, you’re not,” he grumbled. “Tomorrow you’re getting on the train back to Chicago.”

      “But you cannot—”

      “Try me.”

      His lips were not as attractive pressed in the thin straight line they were in now.

      Rita popped up to take their plates. “Like some dessert tonight? Got some fresh rhubarb pie, Johnny.”

      “No, thanks.”

      “Rhubarb!” Maddie’s mouth watered. “My mother’s cook made rhubarb pies every summer. I would simply love a piece of pie. A big one.”

      The sheriff’s eyebrows did their little dance again.

      “And a scoop of ice cream on top, please.”

      The sheriff looked at her as if she had cotton bolls growing out her ears. “You don’t like rhubarb?” she asked.

      “Love rhubarb. Just lost interest in the idea right now. We were talking about the train to Chicago.”

      “You were talking. I was not.”

      “Look, Mrs.—Cousin Madison—”

      “Maddie,” she reminded.

      “The Tucker gang’s not just dangerous, they’re mean. All five of them are escaped convicts, and they’re desperate.”

      Her coffee cup paused midway to her mouth. “Do you know their identities?”

      “Only one of them. Tucker. I saw the whole gang once, after they pistol-whipped a train engineer so bad he couldn’t see for a month. Saw their dust when they rode off, and counted five horses.”

      “Did you recognize any of the horses?”

      “Yep. All stolen from the Bevins ranch up north. Didn’t see the gang again until the next gold shipment was stolen.”

      “Is that when your arm was injured?”

      “Yeah. I was on the train, but just as I got to the mail car, one of them fired on me. Bullet caught my wrist.”

      She