The Rancher’s Inconvenient Bride. Carol Arens

back of that one,” uttered Mr. Henry Beal. Henry sat beside William at the long council table drumming his fingertips on the polished wood. His vocation of blacksmith showed in the soot rimming his fingernails. “Too prissy to be sheriff if you ask me.”

      “And small,” declared a middle-aged woman perched on the edge of her chair. “We need a larger man.”

      “Yes, a much larger man.” This from the younger lady sitting beside the woman.

      William glanced away quickly when she winked at him and nudged her companion in the ribs.

      The wood legs of his chair scraped across the floor when he stood up. He made eye contact—frowned more to the point—at the four men seated with him at the table.

      “I understand that you want the best person for the job. We all do. But that man was qualified and willing to accept the pay you offered. He may have been short, but he came highly respected. You read his letters of recommendation.”

      “Still too small.” A man stood up from his chair near the front door of the Tanners Ridge Library where town meetings were held, shrugged his shoulders. “I think we all agree on that.”

      “He might be married,” came a muffled voice from the back of the room. Just not muffled enough so that folks didn’t hear the comment.

      “Really, Aimee.” The woman’s seat neighbor whispered too loudly. “Why do you care? The most eligible bachelor of them all is standing right in front of you. Forget about winning a sheriff.”

      “He’s not married.” William pursed his lips.

      This was supposed to be a serious meeting, not a matchmaking fest. He ought to be used to that kind of attention by now. Every unmarried woman and her mother knew he was rich, ambitious and needed a wife.

      But the matter at hand was to appoint a sheriff. Surely they understood how urgent the need was.

      “We’re running out of time, folks,” he pointed out. The man most concerned about the size of the fellow who’d just stormed angrily out of the library sat down. Feminine giggles stopped abruptly. “You know that Pete Lydle will be here soon. Do you really want him opening up a saloon like the one he had in Luminary?”

      “I wouldn’t mind having a nice place to play a game of cards,” Henry stood up to say.

      “It wouldn’t be a nice place. Pete’s Palace was a hellhole. Drinking, gambling, prostitution—it attracted a lot of unsavory folks.”

      “You been there? How do you know?” Henry spread his arms.

      “I’m the mayor. It’s my business to know.”

      As soon as the old Bascomb Hotel had been sold and rumors of a saloon surfaced, he’d made sure to find out what he could about the new owner. He’d discovered Pete Lydle to be an objectionable fellow who would do anything to earn a dollar. Didn’t matter if the thing was legal or not.

      “There are decent watering holes. This town could use one if you ask me,” said a man near the back of the room.

      “Maybe Lydle’s gone respectable,” said Henry. “Otherwise why would he come here? Why would old man Bascomb have sold out to him?”

      “It wasn’t him who sold out!” Henry’s wife stood to glare at her husband. “It was those next of kin in New York City, did that. And don’t think you will be going to the Bascomb come an evening. Mark my words!”

      “Just so!” agreed another woman, coming to her feet and wagging her finger.

      “Folks change. You women are seeing the boogeyman when you might not need to.”

      “Are you willing to risk the town’s safety on that? You need to hire a sheriff and you need to do it now,” William declared, trying to drive his point home. “What do you think will happen without a lawman to protect you?”

      “Maybe that fellow wasn’t so short after all,” Mrs. Peabody declared from her place in the front row. “He did have a hard look in his eye.”

      The glare had been because they insulted his stature and questioned his ability, William figured.

      “Who else have you got for us?”

      “Who else?” Did they think lawmen just wandered by seeking employment every day? “No one.”

      “But we need protection!” Mrs. Peabody stood up to speak her mind. She shook her cane to make her point. “We’ll be murdered in our beds when the saloon gets here—if the circus folks haven’t got to us first.”

      “We’ve got more’n a month.” Roy Backley, the banker, stood up beside Mrs. Peabody and placed a hand upon her shoulder. “Don’t you worry. The mayor will find us someone by then. For now, I say we all enjoy the circus tonight. Forget about that saloon for a while.”

      “I second that,” added the blacksmith. “No need to worry now when it might turn out to be a fine establishment. It’s hard to imagine the Bascomb Hotel turning tawdry.”

      The owner of the livery, sitting on the right side of William, stood up. “I third that notion and declare this meeting over. See you all at the circus.”

      William had lost count of the times he half regretted accepting the position of mayor of Tanners Ridge, but he had to begin his public service somewhere. He’d hoped to get his start as an appointee to the Territorial Legislature of Wyoming, but it hadn’t happened.

      The men who made legislative appointments had voted him down because he was not a married man. In their opinion, married men were more stable of character. In William’s opinion, it was their wives wanting other women to socialize with, hold balls and galas and the like.

      The loss had been a great disappointment. Especially since he had planned to be married. He’d made an arrangement with Ivy Magee. His money to save the Lucky Clover from ruin in exchange for her hand in marriage. The union would have given him the prestige that the highly respected Lucky Clover had to offer.

      In the end she’d turned him down and married Travis Murphy instead.

      She was right to have done so. For all that she would have suited his needs, she was a woman who deserved being loved. And Travis loved her to his bones.

      The problem with having befriended Ivy was that it complicated his bride hunt. Eligible ladies who would suit his needs in every way threw themselves in his path daily.

      An availability of suitable woman was not the trouble.

      The trouble was knowing how Ivy loved her man. Having seen it with his own eyes, well—he wanted that now. Or at least something close to it.

      He wanted a woman who sparkled for him. But he also wanted to be governor one day. For that he would need a wife and, God willing, children.

      Little girls to bounce upon his knee and little boys to play ball with. He wanted them, governorship or not.

      “I’d have voted for your man, Mayor English.” William gazed down into the face of a pretty young woman who smiled up at him with a winking dimple. “May I call you William?”

      One day he hoped to be as lucky as Travis Murphy.

      Gazing down at the woman preening beside him, he doubted it would be today.

      * * *

      Agatha reread the first three lines of the book on her lap, unable to concentrate. Here in camp, all was peaceful, although the wind swayed the trailer like a cradle.

      Everything added up for a cozy evening in the company of fictional characters whom she knew quite well, having read the book four times already.

      But just there, beyond the solitude of the nearly abandoned camp, she could hear a crowd of voices raised in merriment.

      A part of her longed to be out there, laughing and enjoying the thrills. But the nightly customers were loud and lively—there