“You’re here to help?” Jericho echoed.

“Of course. I am Madison O’Donnell. The Smoke River Bank hired me to help catch the gang robbing their gold shipments.”

Jericho stared at her.

“I believe you were expecting me?”

He snapped his jaw shut. The last thing he’d expected was this frilly-looking female with her ridiculous hat. In her green-striped dress, and twirling her parasol like that, she made him think of a dish of cool mint ice cream.

“Whatever is the matter, Sheriff? You have gone quite pale. Are you ill?”

He jerked at the question. Not ill—just gutshot. “Uh, yeah. I mean, no, I’m not ill. Just…surprised.”

She lowered her voice. “Most clients are surprised when they meet me. It will pass.”

Hell, no, it won’t.

AUTHOR NOTE

During my research for this book I was pleased to discover there were a number of women Pinkerton agents; in fact Allan Pinkerton stated that some of his most valuable operatives, particularly during the Civil War, were women.

So I thought a female agent in the Old West deserved her own story.

The Lone Sheriff

Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Joe Walsh, with love

With grateful thanks to:

Suzanne Barrett

Carolyn Comings

Kathleen Dougherty

Tricia Adams

Brenda Preston

Susan Renison

Ann Shankland

Austin Sugai

David Woolston

LYNNA BANNING has combined a lifelong love of history and literature into a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she has lived in Northern California most of her life. After graduating from Scripps College she embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher.

An amateur pianist and harpsichordist, Lynna performs on psaltery and harp in a medieval music ensemble and coaches in her spare time. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at carowoolston@att.net or visit Lynna’s website at www.lynnabanning.com

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue

TO: SHERIFF JERICHO SILVER, LAKE COUNTY, OREGON

SENDING TOP AGENT MADISON O’DONNELL TO ASSIST CAPTURE OF ARMED GANG STEALING WELLS FARGO GOLD SHIPMENTS

ALLAN PINKERTON

PINKERTON DETECTIVE AGENCY,

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Chapter One

Smoke River, Oregon, 1873

“Sonofa—” Jericho shoved his shot glass of Red Eye around and around in a widening circle. That’s all he needed, some citified armchair detective telling him how to do his job.

The bartender swept out a meaty hand and rescued the glass. “Got a problem, Johnny?”

“Nope. Gonna get rid of it soon as it turns up.”

Jericho tossed off the whiskey and slapped the glass onto the polished wood counter. “No fancy-ass Pinkerton man from the city is gonna sit on his duff at the jailhouse giving me advice while staying out of the line of fire.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Fill it up, Jase. Jawing with some city slicker from Chicago’s gonna be easier with this inside me.”

The bar man looked him over. “Ya keep this up, you’re gonna be pie-eyed. That’s your fourth shot.”

Jericho grunted an obscenity. Pie-eyed was okay with him. Three weeks of chasing the Tucker gang, and now his arm was in a sling. His gun arm. He swore again and downed his shot.

The windowless saloon was smoky and dim, but it was over a hundred degrees outside and the Golden Partridge was the coolest place in town. He grinned at the paunchy man on the other side of the counter and slowly pivoted to study the room behind him. A puff of hot air through the swinging double door told him he was no longer alone.

Hooking his boot heel over the bar rail, he shoved both elbows onto the bar top and watched his still-wet-behind-the-ears deputy sidle up beside him.

“You gonna meet the train, Sheriff?”

Jericho nodded. The kid was young. Red-haired and shiny-faced, sharp as a whip and foolishly brave. Sandy had been with him two years, now. Jericho relied on him. Trusted him.

But Lake County had never faced anything like this before.

“Whatcha gonna do, Sheriff?”

Jericho shrugged. He had a plan, all right. At four o’clock this afternoon the big black steam engine would roll into the station and Madison O’Whatsisname would get off. At four-oh-five, Jericho would strong-arm him right back onto the train.

It’d be easy.

* * *

At precisely four o’clock, the Oregon Central chuffed into the station. Jericho adjusted his sling so the sheriff’s badge showed, jammed his left thumb in his belt and waited.

The first person off the train was Darla Weatherby with her bossy mother-in-law right behind her. Another trip to the St. Louis opera house, he guessed; both women fancied themselves singers. Jericho had heard them once at a church social, warbling a duet in Italian. Lessons in St. Louis weren’t gonna help.

After them came rancher Thad MacAllister, followed by old Mrs. Hinksley and her sister, Iris DuPont, both dressed in pink-checked gingham with parasols to match. Then came more passengers he didn’t recognize, but none of them looked remotely like a Pinkerton man. A Pinkerton agent would no doubt be wearing a proper suit. But the only male who looked the least bit citified was Ike Bruhn, home from his honeymoon with his new bride.

Sandy jiggled at his side. “Ya see ’im?”

“Nope,” Jericho grunted.

“Maybe he missed the train,” his deputy suggested.

“Naw, must be here somewhere. Look for a gent in a gray suit.” Pinkerton men always wore gray to blend in with crowds. He scanned the thronged station platform again.

“Check inside, Sandy. Maybe he slipped past me.”

His deputy jogged off and Jericho perused the crowd a third time. Nothing. Maybe Mr. Detective had chickened out at the prospect of fingering an elusive outlaw gang that was robbing trains. He narrowed his eyes and was turning to check the station once more when someone stumbled smack into him.

“Oh, I am terribly sorry.” An extremely pretty young woman carrying a green-striped parasol gazed up at him. Her voice sounded like rich whiskey sliding over smooth river stones, and for a moment Jericho forgot what he was there for. She only came up to his shoulder, and on her dark, piled-up hair sat the most ridiculous concoction of feathers and stuffed birds he’d ever laid eyes on.

He sucked in a breath to apologize, then wished he hadn’t. Damn, she smelled good. Soap and something flowery.

Made his head swim.

He stepped back. “’Scuse me, ma’am.”

She waved a gloved hand and peered at his chest. “Oh, you are the sheriff.”

“Yeah, I am.”

She smiled and his mouth went dry. “You are just the man I want to see.”

Jericho swallowed. “You have a problem?”

“Oh, no.” She twirled her parasol. “You have the problem. I have come to help.” She waited, an expectant look on her face.

“Help?” Jericho echoed.

“Of course.” The whiskey in her voice was now sliding over some pointy rocks. “I am Madison O’Donnell. The Smoke River Bank hired me to help catch the gang robbing their gold shipments.”

Jericho stared at her.

“I believe you were expecting me?”

He snapped his jaw shut. He sure as hell wasn’t expecting her. The last thing he’d expected was this frilly-looking female with her ridiculous hat. In her green-striped dress and twirling her parasol like that she made him think of a dish of cool mint ice cream.

“Whatever is the matter, Sheriff? You have gone quite pale. Are you ill?”

He jerked at the question. Not ill, just gut-shot. “Uh, yeah. I mean no, I’m not ill. Just...surprised.”

She lowered her voice. “Most Pinkerton clients are surprised when they meet me. It will pass.”

Hell, no, it won’t.

Madison O’Donnell picked up her travel bag. “Shall we go?”

Not on your life. “Uh, my deputy’s inside the station house. ’Scuse me, ma’am.” He strode past her without looking back. Inside, he found Sandy talking to the ticket seller.

“Charlie says he hasn’t seen anyone who looks like a—”

“No need. I’ve found him. Her,” he corrected himself.

Sandy’s rust-colored eyebrows went up. “Huh?”

“Madison O’Donnell. She’s a ‘she.’”

The deputy’s face lit up. “Oh, yeah? A female? What kinda female?”

“A female kind of female,” Jericho snapped. He headed for the doorway. “And don’t spread it around about her being a Pinkerton agent.”

“Gosh-a-mighty, Sheriff, what’re you gonna do with a lady Pinkerton detective?”

“I’ll think of something.” He slammed through the entrance, Sandy in his wake, just in time to see the train rattle on down the track.

“Where is she, Sher—” His deputy’s eyes widened. “Oh, criminy, she’s mighty good-looking for a...” Sandy’s voice trailed off. Jericho guessed young Sandy hadn’t seen a woman like her before. A back-east woman with birds on her head.

He swallowed a chuckle, then turned it into a cough. Hell, he’d never seen a woman like her before, either.

“What’re you gonna do with her, Sheriff?” Sandy said again.

“As little as possible. Close your mouth, Sandy.”

Without another word, his deputy stepped forward and snagged the woman’s travel bag. “Allow me, ma’am.”

“Why, aren’t you sweet! At least some of you men out here in the West have nice manners.”

Sandy blushed crimson and spoke to Jericho under his breath. “I moved the extra cot into the jail like you said, Sheriff, but maybe... I mean, where’s she gonna sleep?”

“I expect you have a hotel of some sort in this town, do you not? I will be staying there.”

Jericho pointed down the main street to the white-painted Smoke River Hotel. Sandy took off at a jog, the travel bag bumping against his shin every other step.

“And, Sheriff Silver, I hope there is a dining room nearby? I ate a ham sandwich back in Nebraska and a day later I had an apple in Pocatello. Believe me, I am quite famished.”

Famished, huh? She looked plenty well fed to him. Not for the first time, Jericho noted the swell of her breasts and the plain-as-day curve of her hips. Even without the bustle ladies wore these days, her backside was nicely rounded.

He stepped off the station platform and tipped his head after his deputy. “That way. Restaurant’s near to the hotel.” He gestured for her to precede him and they started single file down the main street.

Following her was pure misery. Her behind twitched enticingly and every male within fifty feet stopped dead and stared as she passed. Every last one of them pinned him with a you-lucky-son-of-a-gun look.

He caught up with her on the boardwalk and they walked in silence for exactly four steps. He noticed that her gaze kept moving from side to side, taking in everything, the dusty main street, the barbershop, the mercantile, even the honeysuckle along the fences. Her sharp eyes missed nothing.

“I am simply starving,” she stated.

“You said that already. Dinner’s up ahead.” He pointed to the restaurant close to the hotel.

“First I shall register and check for any messages.”

“Messages!” Jericho snorted. “Nobody’s supposed to know you’re here in Smoke River.”

“Mr. Pinkerton knows. He will want a report every twenty-four hours.”

Jericho snapped his jaw shut. Jupiter, he had a damn amateur on his hands. “A telegram can be intercepted—you ever think of that?”

“Why, of course. That is why I always send messages in code.”

He clamped his teeth together and rolled his eyes. Code. That was a fancy back-east way of doing things. Out here in the West, you just plain said things.

Sandy waited at the hotel entrance, a dazed look in his eyes. Jericho gestured him inside. “She’s gonna register. Tend to her bag, Sandy. I’ll wait in the dining room.”

“Gosh, thanks, Sheriff.”

Detective O’Donnell breezed past them both, through the hotel entrance and up to the reception desk. Sandy glued his eyes to the lady detective’s hip-swaying steps and Jericho swore under his breath. Clearly his deputy was already smitten. Young men were damn foolish.

He turned away, strode out onto the boardwalk and into the restaurant. “Bring me a cup of coffee, Rita. And add a shot of brandy to it.”

The plump waitress eyed him. “Something wrong, Johnny?”

Without answering, Jericho headed for his favorite table by the window. “Make it a lot of brandy,” he called over his shoulder. He had a bad feeling about this; the train back to Chicago didn’t leave until noon the following day.

* * *

The dining room was crowded. Ranch owners and their wives, townspeople with their kids in tow—the room buzzed like a hive of bees. He settled in the corner facing the entrance and waited.

Rita brought his spiked-up coffee, and he waited some more. What took a woman so long to unpack a little bitty travel case? Or maybe she was upstairs decoding her messages. He swallowed a gulp of the black brew in his cup.

Sandy crossed the room, grinning like a Halloween pumpkin, and took the chair opposite him. “Got her all squared away, Sheriff.” He tried to curb his smile. “She sure is somethin’, isn’t she?”

She was something, all right. She could be a lot of things, but one thing she was not was a Pinkerton detective. He could hardly wait to muscle her back onto the train.

Sandy stood up abruptly. “Here she comes.”

“Right. Sandy, go on back to the jail.”

Her entrance into the dining room caused a flurry of activity. When Detective O’Donnell glided into the room, every single male in the establishment rose to his feet, just like their mommas had taught them.

Jericho’s momma hadn’t taught him a damn thing. Jericho’s momma had dumped him at the Sisters of Hope orphanage in Portland and forgot he even existed. He never knew whether she was white, Indian, or Mexican, though his bronzy skin suggested one of his parents was something other than white.

Miss O’Donnell darted over to him. He rose automatically because that’s what the nuns had taught him. She grabbed his hand and yanked hard.

“What the—”

“Never, never sit by a window, Sheriff. Surely you know that?”

“Well, sure I know that, but I’m not exactly on duty.”

He lifted his trussed-up right arm. “Got shot up.”

“Of course you are on duty. A good sheriff is always on duty.” She tugged him to an empty table in the far corner of the room. “Sit with your back to the wall,” she whispered. “Always.”

“Oh, for crying out— Look, Miss O’Donnell, you fight your war your way and I’ll fight mine like I’ve always done.” He dropped into the closest chair.

“It’s Mrs. O’Donnell,” she shot back, sinking into the opposite chair. Her eyes snapped. For the first time he noticed the color, a green so clear and luminous it looked like two big emeralds floating under a cold, clear stream.

“Sorry. Didn’t know you were married.” Somehow that had never occurred to him.

“I am not married, Mr. Silver. I am a widow.”

He blinked. “Sorry,” he said again.

“Do not be sorry,” she sighed. “I was never so bored in all my life as when I was married.”

Bored? She was bored doing what all women dreamed about from the time they were in pigtails? Before he could pursue the subject, Rita appeared and quietly slipped Jericho’s forgotten cup of coffee onto the table near his left elbow. Detective O’Donnell peered at it with an avid look.

“Please, would you bring me what he’s having?”

Rita frowned, then caught Jericho’s eye. “You don’t mean exactly like his, do you, Miss?”

“Of course I do.”

“Just make it plain coffee, Rita,” he directed.

Mrs. O’Donnell’s green, green eyes flicked to his cup and then up to meet his. “Make it exactly like his, please.”

Rita raised her graying eyebrows and darted another glance at Jericho. “Exactly like yours, Johnny?” she murmured.

Jericho tried not to smile. “Yeah, exactly.” He’d teach Miss—Mrs.—City-bred Detective not to make assumptions about things in the West.

Mrs. O’Donnell’s coffee came almost immediately. Rita hovered near the table, and Jericho knew why. The detective’s coffee had to be at least half brandy, and Rita wanted to watch the lady swallow a mouthful.

So did Jericho. He followed the lady detective’s every move as she picked up the cup with a small white hand and blew across the top. Then she downed a hefty swallow.

He waited.

Nothing. No choking. No coughing. No watery eyes. Instead, she dabbed at her lips with a dainty pink handkerchief and took another mouthful.

Still nothing. He couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Taste okay?”

“Certainly. That is surprisingly good brandy. Made from cherries, is it not?”

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 fished her notepad and pencil out of her reticule. “And how long ago was that?”

“Eight days. Why all the questions if you’re leaving in the morning?”

“Sheriff Silver...Jericho.” She smashed her spoon into the scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of her piecrust. “The Smoke River bank manager hired me for a reason, Sheriff. I have a job to do and I intend to do it. The last thing—the very last thing—I am going to do tomorrow is leave.”

A forkful of rhubarb-stained ice cream disappeared past her lips.

Jericho sat back in his chair and stared at the woman across from him. What she was doing to her ice cream was exactly what he felt like doing as well, only not with a slab of pie.

“I don’t need you, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

“I am not leaving tomorrow,” she replied calmly. Her lips, he noticed, were colored rhubarb pink.

“Yeah, you are.”

“No,” she said calmly, “I am not. For one thing, with your arm in a sling you are not strong enough to force me onto the train. And for another, you do need me. I am a crack shot.”

She couldn’t be. She was full of baloney and a liar to boot. He had to get rid of her before she got all tangled up in something she didn’t know squat about and got herself hurt.

The thought sent a knife into his gut, a knife he’d thought long since forgotten.

“You realize I could have my deputy arrest you.”

She just grinned at him. “Your deputy is already swoony over me. He would never arrest me.”

Well, damn. He couldn’t let her stay. She could be dangerous to have around. He couldn’t shoot straight enough left-handed to protect himself, let alone protect her, too.

Somehow he had to scare her off.

“Listen, lady, I don’t know any way but blunt, so here it is. It’s no dice. You’ll get us both killed.”

“I would not. I would be an asset.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’d spend more time looking after you than catching up with Tucker. I can’t risk it.”

Her eyes flared into green fire. “You mean you won’t risk it. All outlaw chasing is risky and every Pinkerton agent accepts that. I did not take you for a coward, Sheriff.”

Jericho stared at her. She could sure talk a blue streak. Pretty convincing, too, with her chin jutted out like that and those ivy-colored eyes boring into him.

He massaged his chin. “You wouldn’t be a help, lady. You’d be a damn nuisance.”

She stabbed her fork into the center of her ice-cream-soaked pie. “Would you care to bet, Mr. High and Mighty? Within the next fifteen minutes, I will prove my worth to you. And when I do,” she added in a voice that could cut glass, “you can buy my breakfast tomorrow morning. Is it a deal?”

Hell’s bells, she made him so mad he couldn’t think straight. “If you’re finished mauling that pie, I’ll escort you to your hotel room.”

She laid her fork down with deliberate care. “I said, is it a deal?”

“Deal,” he bit out.

She scooped up the last mouthful of rhubarb-flavored ice cream and folded her napkin beside the plate. “Seeing me to the hotel won’t be necessary, Sheriff.”

“Don’t argue,” Jericho shot back. “We’re not in Chicago, ma’am. In this town at night it’s necessary.”

Once outside the dining room, she marched along beside him, talking a mile a minute while Jericho clenched his teeth.

“What a pretty little town this is.” She gestured across the street. “Just look at all those lovely green trees.”

He grunted. She might talk a lot, but again he noted her gaze was always moving, taking in everything from the street to the boardwalk to the storefronts.

Jericho only half listened to her chatter. “...in Philadelphia, where I was raised...and then Papa...I guess you could say that I ended up in a fancy cage with a rich, very dull banker. Just when I couldn’t stand it one more minute, he caught pneumonia on a sleigh ride and made me a widow.”

She paused for breath. “My goodness, what smells so sweet?”

“Honeysuckle. Along the boardinghouse fence.” He gestured with his sling arm, then winced.

“Do you think the owner would mind if I picked some for my room? What heaven, to smell that delicious fragrance all night long.”

“The owner is Mrs. Sarah Rose. Lost her husband at Antietam. She won’t mind, she picks it herself when somebody’s ailing or havin’ a baby.”

She stepped off the boardwalk and darted across the street to the white picket fence. From somewhere she pulled out a tiny pair of scissors. After a few delicate snips, she returned to his side clutching a straggly bouquet in her gloved hand.

“Oh, look, there’s the mercantile. I must visit the mercantile, and I must find a dressmaker, as well.”

Jericho groaned. A woman could spend hours in the mercantile choosing flower seeds or fabric or...whatever women bought. He followed the lady detective inside, where the proprietor, Carl Ness, slouched behind the counter reading a newspaper. At the sight of Maddie, he straightened up, ramrod stiff.

Jericho didn’t like the way Carl was staring at her, but Maddie seemed unperturbed. Her gaze scanned each shelf.

“Have you any scented bath soap?”

Carl sent Jericho a puzzled look. “What kinda scent?”

“This is Mrs. O’Donnell, Carl. She’s my...”

Maddie turned her attention to the proprietor. “Gardenia is my favorite. Have you any gardenia-scented soap?”

“Nope.”

“What about carnation?”

“Nope.”

She bit her lip. “Heliotrope? Rose?”

“All I got is lavender, ma’am. Take it or leave it.”

“I will take half a dozen cakes. Large ones.”

Jericho bit back a laugh. Half a dozen! She’d be the cleanest person in Smoke River.

Carl wrapped up her purchase in brown paper and tied it with string. “Anything else?”

The answer was immediate, and for a moment Jericho thought he hadn’t heard right.

“Yes. Three boxes of thirty-two-caliber cartridges.”

Carl stared at her, then turned his widened eyes on Jericho. “That all right with you, Sheriff?”

Hell, no, it wasn’t all right. Damned fool woman, what did she think she’d do with bullets, hold up the hold-up gang?

Maddie didn’t wait for his answer. “Double-wrap them, please. So they won’t get wet.”

“Wet?” Jericho exploded. “You gonna go swimming on your way back to Chicago, cousin?”

“Of course not. But it might rain while I—”

“Hold it!” Jericho had had enough for one night. “We’re goin’ back to the hotel. Now.”

“But what about the dressmaker?”

“What about her? Name’s Verena Forester and she opens up at eight o’clock every morning. Your train back to Chicago leaves at noon.”

Jericho smiled. Maddie practically spit sparks when she was mad. Before he knew it, she’d latched on to his good arm and drawn him off to one side.

“I absolutely must see the dressmaker,” she whispered. “Tonight, if possible. I am, well...out of...some things.”

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “I...um, I have no extrasmall clothes,” she intoned. She waited a beat. “You know, camisoles and bloomers and...things.”

He stonewalled.

“Lingerie,” she muttered.

He enjoyed baiting her. He also enjoyed imagining what her lingerie looked like. Silky, with lace? “How come you’ve got no underthings?” he asked blandly.

“My valise was lost when I changed trains in St. Louis. All I have with me is a very small travel case, and it carries only the minimum garments. So you see—”

“Tough.”

“Really, Sher—Cousin Jericho,” she murmured. “What would Aunt Bessie say about that?”

“Bad luck, I guess. Who’s Aunt Bessie?”

“My mother.”

Jericho almost laughed out loud. “Aunt Bessie would probably say ‘plan ahead.’” He looked up at the ceiling and noted the avid interest of the mercantile owner.

“Come on, let’s vamoose.” He pulled her toward the door.

“Hey,” Carl yelled. “What about my money?”

“Put it on my tab, Carl. Cousin Maddie always pays me back.”

Outside the heat had diminished, though the night air was still warm and soft. Jericho drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, looking up at the stars. Hell, he’d like a drink. Talking Mrs. O’Donnell out of something was like pushing a pig into a pillowcase. She was nosy and outspoken and attention-getting, and he’d be glad when she was gone.

In silence they started back to the hotel. Up ahead, Jericho spotted Lefty Dorran in the alley between the mercantile and the barber shop. Lefty was a big overgrown almost-man, and Jericho had arrested him twice this summer for assault. He caught the glint of metal and instinctively put Maddie on the other side of him.

Too late. Lefty had a sharp eye for a pretty woman, and even the fact that she was walking with the sheriff didn’t deter him. The kid burst out of the alley onto the sidewalk and sidled up to her.

Jericho tried to block him with his left shoulder, but Maddie stepped to one side and then faced the towering hulk with a perfectly serene expression on her face.

Lefty kept coming. Maddie neatly stepped into his path, pivoted on one foot and swept her other leg around behind him. Then she hooked the toe of her shoe around the back of his knees. The next thing Jericho saw was Lefty’s hulking body sprawled facedown in the street.

Maddie dusted off her white gloves and smiled up at him. “I told you I would prove you needed me. You owe me one breakfast. Eight o’clock sharp.”

All the way back to the hotel and up the stairs to Room 14, Jericho thought over what she had just done. Didn’t seem possible that a slim woman like Maddie had laid that big galoot out flat. Some kind of Oriental trick, maybe. Lord, the woman was downright dangerous.

At her hotel room door she slipped the key into the lock and turned to face him, her soft-looking mouth quirked up in a smile.

“It has been a most interesting evening, Sheriff. I would not have missed it for anything.”

“Sure wish I could say the same, ma’am.”

“Good night, Cousin Jericho. Do get some rest. You are looking quite peaked.”

Chapter Three

“Sheriff? Sheriff, wake up!”

Something joggled Jericho’s shoulder. “Go ’way,” he mumbled.

“Can’t, Sheriff. You gotta wake up.”

Jericho cracked open one eyelid to see his deputy standing over him. The kid better have a good reason for breaking into a damn good dream.

“Why do I?”

“Sorry, Sheriff. Maybe you forgot you’re s’posed to meet that detective lady for breakfast?”

Jericho shot upright and instantly regretted it. His temples pounded and he snapped his lids closed against the bright light. “You sure?”

“Eight o’clock, Sheriff. Least that’s what you said last night. But that was before—”

“Yeah? Before what?” The kid’s face seemed kinda out of focus.

Sandy studied his boots. “Uh, before you polished off that bottle of whiskey.”

Jupiter, now he remembered. Sort of. His head throbbed and his mouth felt as dry as an empty well. And his stomach—

He’d think about his stomach later. He dragged himself off the cot and pulled on jeans and a clean shirt. He’d skip shaving; he couldn’t really focus on anything, much less see his face in the mirror. Besides, it was hell to shave left-handed.

“She sure is pretty.”

“Who?”

“Miss O’Donnell. Sheriff, didn’t cha even notice?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, son. It’s Mrs. O’Donnell. And she’s leaving on the noon train.”

Sunshine poured through the front windows of the restaurant like the eye-stabbing beam of a lighthouse. God help him, he could barely see through his slitted lids.

He spotted Mrs. Detective perched primly at the corner table, spooning sugar into her coffee.

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

He winced. Did she have to sound so cheerful?

“Mmm-hmm,” he grumbled. He took the chair across from her, facing away from the glare. Rita appeared at his elbow.

“Coffee,” he managed.

Maddie looked up. “I will have three eggs over easy, bacon cooked very crisp, fried potatoes and some ketchup, please.”

Jericho’s stomach heaved at the description. “Just coffee, Rita,” he repeated. “And could you please bring it in the next sixty seconds?”

The plump waitress must have sensed his desperation because an entire pot immediately appeared before him, along with an oversize mug.

Jericho eyed Mrs. Detective through the steam rising from his cup. There was something annoying about a woman who looked this trim and tidy at breakfast. And this pretty. She sent him a wide smile and, without thinking, he nodded.

Big mistake. Any motion made his vision blurry and his head... He groaned. His head felt like a railroad crew was laying track between his temples.

She pulled out her notepad and pencil and plopped them onto the tablecloth beside her. “Well, Sheriff, would you care to hear my observations thus far?”

Jericho blinked. “Observations? You mean what you’ve learned so far about the Tucker gang?”

“Oh, no. I mean in general. It’s always wise to gather background information, don’t you agree?”

He gulped down another mouthful of the scalding coffee. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

She flipped open the small leather-covered book. “First, your deputy—Sandy, is it?—is too sensitive to be much help on this mission.”

Too sensitive? Exactly what did that mean? Did she think he was going to feel sorry for the outlaws? He gripped the coffee pot handle in a stranglehold and refilled his mug.

“Second, Mr. Ness, at the mercantile, does not like you.”

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Carl doesn’t like anybody much. Even his wife.”

“Has there been trouble in the past between you and Mr. Ness?”

“Yeah. Small stuff, mostly. He sold me a sack of moldy potatoes once, and I confiscated a shipment of some Chinese herb he ordered because it was half opium.”

Mrs. Detective nodded and went on. “Third, the hotel manager is cheating the Mexican couple who brought up my morning bath. Fourth—” She broke off and looked him over so thoroughly he wondered if his hair had gone curly overnight.

“You look awful, Sheriff.”

“Didn’t sleep much.” And he’d drunk more last night than he had in a dozen years.

“It appears to me you are not yet awake.”

Jericho snorted. He was awake enough to notice she smelled good, like lavender. “Is that your fifth observation?”

“My fourth, actually. My fifth observation is that there won’t be another Wells Fargo gold shipment until Tuesday.”

“Tuesday,” he repeated. He already knew that, but he was impressed that she’d talked to the bank manager already this morning. He wondered if she’d also visited the dressmaker.

That thought led to a consideration of her underclothes. Were they brand spanking new? Or maybe she wasn’t wearing any? Don’t go there, you damn fool.

“Yes, Tuesday,” she said. “That is tomorrow.”

Thank goodness, the coffee was kicking in. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Mrs. O’Donnell. You’ll be on the train going the other direction. Back to Chicago.”

And then he could get back to the plan he’d already laid out.

“I most certainly will not be.” She twiddled her fork until Rita laid a plate heaped with food in front of her. The smell of cooked bacon replaced the lavender fragrance and Jericho began to feel nauseated. He poured another mug full of coffee.

“I’ve got good reasons for sending you back, Mrs. O’Donnell. Care to hear ’em?”

“Certainly,” she retorted. She grasped a thick slice of bacon between a delicate thumb and forefinger and crunched it up in two mouthfuls.

Jericho tried not to watch. “First, you’re a woman. And being female and pretty fine-looking, that means you’re gonna draw attention wherever you go.”

“Pish-posh.” She stabbed her fork into the yolk of one fried egg. “I know how to disguise myself.”

Jericho had to look away from her plate. He’d sure like to see a disguise that would cover those curves. Even wearing a feed sack, she’d still look awful damned attractive.

“Second, you’re a woman. That means you’re not as strong as either me or my deputy, no matter what kind of fancy Chinese wrestling you can do.”

“Japanese. Judo is a Japanese art.” She stuffed a forkful of fried potatoes into her mouth.

“Third...” Jericho held up three fingers on his left hand—at least he hoped it was three. “You’re a woman, like I said, and that means you don’t think logically. Also you jump to conclusions.”

Her fork clanked onto her plate. “You are either misinformed about the capabilities of the female members of the species or you are just plain prejudiced.”

“I’m prejudiced,” he growled. “Fourth, I’m the sheriff here, not you. And on top of everything else, you don’t take orders well.”

An odd expression flared in her green eyes and Jericho unconsciously held his breath. After a tense silence, she folded her hands in her lap and her lips opened. “I have been told that over and over since I was three years old, and it is true. I do not take orders well. But I do take orders, provided they make sense and are halfway reasonable. However, I warn you those are big ifs.”

Jericho pressed on. “Fifth, you talk too damn much.”

She looked up from her breakfast, her eyes wide. “What?”

“I don’t talk much,” he offered. “I’ve got to ride the train to Portland to intercept the gang, and that train takes six hours. I don’t guess I could stand more’n about an hour of your note-taking and observations and jabber.”

Her face turned crimson. “Jabber! Why you arrogant, pigheaded, incapacitated, sorry excuse for a lawman. What makes you think I could stand an hour of your moody, bad-tempered silence?”

He delivered his final shot slowly, making every syllable count. “Let’s face it, Mrs. O’Donnell, we’re mismatched. The bottom line is we’re not about to partner up, and I’ll make it plain why not.” He made his voice as growly as possible. “You’re too much trouble.”

He could scarcely believe what he saw next. Huge, glittery tears rose in her eyes and hung trembling on her lower lashes.

“I do not care one whit if we are mismatched,” she said in a carefully controlled voice. “I am a professional detective. I have accepted an assignment. And I will follow through on it or I will die trying.”

Calmly she forked a bite of fried potato into her mouth.

Jericho seethed inside while she chewed and swallowed, her eyes still shiny with moisture. Good God, he could take a woman’s sobbing, even screaming, but tears that didn’t go anywhere, that just sat there like diamonds on her dark lashes, tore him up inside.

“Okay. Okay, Mrs. O’Donnell. You win.”

Her head snapped up and she glared at him.

“Madison,” she amended. “My given name is Madison but I prefer Maddie.”

More glaring. Hell’s half acre, now her eyes looked like chips of green ice.

“Okay, okay.” He wrapped her nickname around his tongue. “Maddie.”

She looked into his face for a long moment, and when she opened her mouth to let words fall out, her voice was so quiet it was like snow drifting onto a meadow.

“Damn right,” she said.

Jericho clenched his jaw. She had guts, he’d say that for her. She had other things, too, but he was trying like the devil not to notice.

He dragged his attention away from her soft-looking mouth. “Tomorrow’s train to Portland, with the gold shipment aboard, leaves at eight o’clock sharp. In the morning,” he said with emphasis.

“Thank you, Jericho.” She tried a thin smile, but it wavered out of her control. “I will be aboard.”

Chapter Four

At ten o’clock that night, Jericho crawled into his bed cold sober. He’d be up and bushy-tailed at dawn, and by seven o’clock he’d be on the train to Portland with forty thousand dollars in gold from Wells Fargo stashed in the mail car. Miners from all over Oregon and even Idaho brought their diggings to the Smoke River Bank, trusting they would safely ship it to the vault in Portland. And Jericho would be on board that train to make sure their diggings stayed safe.

Alone.

He hated to lie. It was one of the things he’d sworn he’d never do. Lying made him less of the man he’d wanted to be ever since he was twelve years old and on the run from the Sisters of Hope. Back then, he’d resolved he would always face up to the truth.

He lay on his narrow cot behind the sheriff’s office and tried not to flinch at the deception he’d laid for Mrs. Detective, telling her the train departed at eight o’clock when it actually departed at seven. First, he’d stopped in at the hotel and found that Mrs. O’Donnell had left a wake-up reminder at the desk. He’d suspected as much; she was the type who planned all her moves ahead. In exchange for agreeing not to arrest the hotel manager’s seventeen-year-old son for peeking in sixteen-year-old Lavonne Cargill’s bedroom window, the manager obligingly tore up Mrs. O’Donnell’s wake-up reminder note.

Next. He’d visited the mercantile for some painkiller. A skinny kid he’d never seen before lounged against the cash register, studying Jericho’s sling. “For yer arm, huh?”

“Yeah. Not too much laudanum—makes me drowsy. Where’s Mr. Ness?”

“Home, I guess. I’m his cousin from Idaho. Name’s Orion.”

Jericho nodded. He didn’t look much like Carl. “Been here long?”

“’Bout two weeks. Stopped here on my way to strike it rich.”

“Gold mining?”

“Nah. Selling Red Eye to the miners up in Idaho.” He scrabbled on the shelf behind the counter and produced a small bottle of dark liquid. “This stuff is mostly alcohol. How much of it do you want?”

“All of it.” He needed to start exercising his stiff wrist and limbering up his gun hand, and he knew it would hurt some.

The kid wrapped up the bottle and Jericho stuffed it into the inside pocket of his deerskin vest. Funny the way Orion handled the bottle—with his pinkie in the air like a lady lifting a teacup.

The last thing Jericho did before crawling onto his cot that night was slip off his sling and stretch his arm out straight. Made his wrist hurt like hell, but he managed eight stretches in a row.

* * *

Before first light, he rolled off the cot, downed a cup of Sandy’s gritty, cold coffee, and grabbed his gun belt. His deputy slept in the concrete-block jail in whatever cell was vacant. Jericho felt fine leaving the kid in charge; the jail was empty.

On his way to the train station he studied the second-floor windows of the hotel; dark as the inside of a barrel. He felt a stab of guilt, but he squashed it down and smiled instead. Mrs. Detective would sleep right on past train time. Kinda mean to trick her, but he knew he couldn’t tolerate sitting next to her for six hours.

And, he admitted, there was more to it than that. He couldn’t stand to see a woman get hurt, especially not one he felt responsible for. The Tucker gang could be vicious.

The train was already puffing smoke out the stack as he swung himself aboard and entered the passenger car.

What the—

Maddie O’Donnell sat in the first seat, smiling at him like a self-satisfied fox with a chicken in its belly.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She patted the faded red velvet cushion next to her with a gloved hand. “We settled all that yesterday, Sheriff. There is no need to go through it again.”

He couldn’t help staring at her. She wore a different hat, yellow ribbons with flowers and a veil rucked up on top. A crisp yellow ruffled skirt boiled around her ankles and a lacy yellow shirtwaist was tucked into as trim a waist as he’d ever seen. She looked like one of those daffodils that poked up each spring in the orphanage garden.

Her outfit looked brand-new. He wondered if her underclothes were new as well. He forced his gaze away.

The train lurched forward and Jericho grabbed onto the upholstered seat back. Maddie swept her skirt aside to make room for the sheriff beside her. He did not sit down for the longest time, just stood swaying in the aisle, staring at her. What on earth was he looking at? Oh, of course—her new hat. True, it was too gaudy, but it added to her disguise. Besides, once Mrs. Forester, the dressmaker, had warmed to the idea of the flowers, it was hard to stop her. The woman had grumbled at being roused at such an early hour, but Maddie had purchased enough clothing to make it well worth her while.

Carefully, she unpinned the creation, ripped off all but three daisies, and resettled it atop her pinned-up hair. She secured it with her longest hatpin; it was also the sharpest of her collection. In a pinch, it made an effective weapon.

“Why do you not sit down, Sheriff? I promise not to talk.”

He frowned down at her. “Don’t want to muss up your skirt, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

“You won’t. It’s made of seersucker. Wonderful fabric for traveling on an assignment—it never wrinkles, no matter what I do.”

The train picked up speed and swung around a sharp curve, and the sheriff edged onto the seat as far away from her as he could get.

Maddie huffed out a breath. “You do not like me much, do you?”

His eyes—a dark, inky blue—flicked to hers for an instant, then dropped to the boots he’d stretched out and crossed in front of him. “Not much, no.”

She pursed her lips. “Tell me something, Sheriff.”

He did not answer.

“Why are you so unfriendly?”

The sheriff gave an almost imperceptible jerk, and then he turned those eyes on her. Now they looked angry. Almost feral.

After a long silence he started talking, his voice so low she could hardly hear him. “Don’t really like most people.”

“But whyever not? What has happened to make you so...well, surly?”

“I watched a friend die in my place,” he gritted. “After that, I didn’t like being close to anyone.”

Maddie blinked. “Who was he?”

He looked past her, out the train window, and she watched his gaze grow unfocused.

“She.”

“She? Your...?” Maddie hesitated. He was so rough around the edges she doubted he’d ever been married. A lover, perhaps? She was keen to know, but it would be highly improper to ask. She said nothing, just noted the tightness around his mouth.

“She, uh, died for something I did.”

“Why, that is perfectly awful! How old were you then?”

He shrugged. “’Bout ten, I guess. I never knew for sure what my age was.”

Maddie’s throat felt so raw she could scarcely speak. She closed her eyes. How he must have hated himself. She would not be surprised if he still did. She shut her mouth tight. What could she say to ease a scar like that? Nothing.

He recrossed his legs. “Heard enough?”

“More than enough,” she breathed. It explained everything, his brusque manner, his hard exterior, the unreachable part of himself he kept shuttered.

He slipped the sling off his arm, flexed his wrist, and waggled each of his fingers individually. Some of them, she noticed, seemed reluctant to move.

“Does that hurt?”

“Hell, yes, it hurts.”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m gonna need a steady gun hand and a trigger finger that works, that’s why.”

Go ahead, she thought. Grumble and roar all you want. She was not going to let herself be intimidated by him.

He said nothing for the next hour, just worked his wrist and his fingers back and forth, his lips thinned over his teeth. Perspiration stood out on the part of his forehead she could see; his black hair straggled over the rest.

The uniformed conductor stuck his head into the car. “Next stop Riverton,” he yelled.

Two passengers boarded, an old man, bent nearly double and a young woman, probably his daughter, who held on to one of his scrawny arms. She settled him four seats behind.

The sheriff gave them a quick once-over, then reattached his sling and pulled a small bottle from inside his vest.

“Pain medicine,” he said to no one in particular.

“What you drink is your business, Sheriff.”

He gave her a long, unblinking look. “Damn right.”

Maddie laughed out loud, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Jericho swigged a mouthful from the bottle, corked it and stowed it in his vest pocket.

“Now, Mrs. O’Donnell, What about you?”

“Me! What about me?”

The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “What happened to you that makes you so sure of yourself and so stubborn?”

“N-nothing. It just comes naturally. My upbringing, I suppose.”

“Ladyfied and spoiled, I’d guess.”

Maddie bit her lip. “Well, let’s just say rich and protected. Actually, overprotected. My mother was English, very high society. My father was Irish and very well-off. A banker.”

“Figures,” Jericho muttered.

“I married young to get away from them, really. He was also a banker. After a while—a very short while—I realized my husband was only interested in my money and he only wanted a wife for a showpiece. So I became just that—a china doll with pretty dresses. It didn’t take long before I wanted a real life.”

He snorted. “What the hell is a ‘real life’?”

She thought for a long minute. “I am not sure exactly. Someone who loves me for myself. Real friends, not society matrons. At least I know what it is not—finishing schools and servants and a closet full of expensive clothes.”

He took care not to look at her, staring again out the window at the passing wheat fields. “Seems to me, Mrs. O’Donnell, that you’re gonna feel kinda lost out here in the West. Ought to be back in the big city, where you belong.”

She turned toward him. “I suppose I do feel lost, in a way. The West is so...well, big. Things—towns—are so far apart.”

“Yeah, that spooks a lot of Easterners.”

“But I do not feel lost when I am on an assignment for Mr. Pinkerton. Then I know exactly who I am. It makes me feel...worthwhile.”

She pulled a ball of pink cotton thread from her travel bag and began to crochet. Her fingers shook the tiniest bit.

Jericho leaned back and closed his eyes. Nothing more worth saying, or asking, he figured. He must have dozed for hours and suddenly the train screeched to a stop. A glance through the window told him they were not in a train station; they were out in the middle of nowhere.

Hell’s bells, here it came.

Left-handed, Jericho dragged his Colt out of the holster, thumbed back the hammer and started for the mail car. A swish of petticoats at his heels told him Maddie was right behind him.

“Stay here,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Try and make me!”

Damn fool woman. She’d get herself killed and he’d kick himself to hell and back. He wished he’d never laid eyes on her.

In the mail car, the white-faced clerk stood frozen, hands in the air, while a man with a bandanna covering the lower half of his face held a revolver on him with one hand and, with the other, hurled a canvas Wells Fargo bag through the open side door.

Maddie darted off to Jericho’s right, clutching a revolver.

“Get down!” he shouted. The young mail clerk dropped to the floor but Maddie went into a crouch and leveled her weapon at the robber.

“Hands up!” Her ordinarily genteel voice cut like cold steel.

The man straightened in surprise, then turned his gun toward the voice. Jericho sent a bullet zinging off the silver handle and the gun skidded across the floor in front of Maddie. She stopped it with her small black shoe and kicked it into a corner.

Three men on horseback waited outside the car. Maddie swung her pistol toward the opening and fired, winging one man. Another outlaw pointed his weapon at her but Jericho’s shot spun it out of his hand.

The mounted robbers began peppering the wall behind them with gunfire while the man inside ducked and began shoving more canvas bags out onto the ground.

A tall rider with a paunch walked his horse up to the car and took careful aim at Jericho, but before he could squeeze the trigger Maddie fired a shot that neatly spun his weapon out of his hand. Where had she learned to shoot like that?

Fat Man reined away. Maddie sent another bullet through his flapping black coattail.

The man inside skedaddled after the canvas bags, shoved one more off the car and then tumbled out onto the ground after it. He dove under his waiting horse. Jericho itched to shoot him, but with his left-handed aim off, he figured he’d kill the horse before he nailed the outlaw.

The three others hefted the canvas sacks behind their saddles, mounted and thundered off in a cloud of gray dust. The last man scrambled onto his horse and pounded after them.

Jericho raised his revolver to pick him off, but he was out of range.

Maddie put a shot through his hat, but he twisted in the saddle and fired back at her. She yelped.

The bullet tore through the sleeve of her shirtwaist, burning a path above her elbow. It felt like something scraping her skin with a white-hot knife.

Then there was nothing but dust, the audible prayers of the crouching mail clerk, the chuff of the train engine, and Jericho yelling at her.

“Dammit, Maddie, you’d think you’d be smart enough to stay out of the line of fire!” He leaped over the clerk and grabbed her arm. Right where it hurt.

She gritted her teeth. “If you do not let me go, Sheriff, I am going to shoot you, too!”

He snatched his hand away and stepped back, eyes narrowed. “Are you hurt?”

She lifted her arm and pointed to the black-rimmed hole in the sleeve. “Bullet burn.”

He opened his mouth again. She was sure he was going to yell at her some more, but she interrupted. “Sheriff,” she enunciated quietly.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

He looked dumbfounded. “What?”

“Be quiet. I am not seriously injured and I see that you are unharmed, as well.” She began to gather up the disordered mail bags.

“Hell,” Jericho muttered. “You’re not even shook up.”

She pocketed her pistol. “Stop complaining and help me.”

He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. “How come you’re not shakin’ or cryin’ or something?”

Maddie straightened, gripping one corner of a heavy canvas bag. “Why should I be?”

Jericho shook his head. “How much do you figure they got away with?”

Maddie cocked her head. “How much?” She found she liked teasing him. It made his eyes even darker blue, and the way he was staring at her now caused a little flip-flop inside her chest.

“How much?” she repeated. “Well, to the best of my calculation—did I tell you I was a whiz at mathematics at school? Let’s see now...”

He planted himself within spitting distance and propped his good hand on his hip. “I’m waiting, dammit.”

“The amount of money—” she smiled into his glowering face “—is exactly zero.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, zero. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Those Wells Fargo bags are decoys. The bank manager and I decided they would be filled with rocks, not gold.”

His eyes went even darker. “You mean this whole exercise was just a farce?”

Maddie straightened her skirt. “You could call it that, I suppose.”

“Then what the hell did we risk our lives for?”

“For observation.” She dropped the canvas bag in her hand, which landed with a clunk, and fished her notebook out of her pocket. Not her Pistol Pocket, he noted, but the Observation Notebook Pocket.

Jericho waited while she circled the pencil around like a branding iron. Part of him wanted to laugh. Another part of him wanted to wring her neck. He’d be damned if he’d risk getting shot for some damn decoys!

“Well,” she began, a note of relish in her voice. “We got a good look at the robbers, didn’t we? There are five of them.”

“We already knew that.”

“One of them,” she continued, “is lame. His leg is stiff.”

“And?”

“And one of them wore a bandanna from Carl Ness’s mercantile. I recognized the pattern and the color, a sort of pinky-red. Did you notice?”

Jericho said nothing. He had to admit she had sharp eyes and a keen mind. Her “observations” were valuable.

Dammit, anyway.

The trembling mail clerk slid the railcar door shut. The train tooted once and jerked forward. Maddie stumbled and bumped his injured wrist. He sucked in a breath. Hurt like blazes.

With his good hand he holstered his Colt and turned back to the passenger car. “Better let me take a look at your bullet burn,” he said as they made their way down the aisle.

She plopped down into her seat, pressing her lips together. “No, thank you. The bullet just skimmed my arm. I’m sure the skin is not broken.”

He settled beside her with an exasperated sigh. “Yeah? Show me.”

“No.”

He reached for her wrist. Before she could stop him he’d unbuttoned her sleeve and pushed it up above her elbow.

“Hurt?”

“Yes,” she said tightly.

He ran his gaze over her slim upper arm, noting the angry red crease above her elbow. From his inside vest pocket he grabbed the bottle of painkiller.

“What is that?” she said.

“Painkiller. Alcohol, mostly.”

She rolled her eyes. He uncorked the bottle with his teeth, lifted her elbow away from her body and dribbled the dark liquid over the abrasion. Her breath hissed in and she moaned softly.

Jericho closed his eyes for an instant. He hated hearing a female in pain. “Sorry.”

“It is quite all right,” she said, rolling her sleeve down. She poked her forefinger through the bullet hole and sighed. “Another visit to the dressmaker, I suppose.”

“Maddie, maybe you ought to see a doctor when we get to Portland.”

She shook her head. “What is that you poured over it?”

He recorked the bottle. “I told you, painkiller. For my wrist.”

She gave him a lopsided smile that made his insides weak. “We are a pair, are we not?” she said, her voice just a tad shaky. “A one-armed sheriff and a Pinkerton detective with a bullet burn.”

“Yeah,” he said drily. “We’re a team, all right. Listen, Maddie, tomorrow I think you should go back to Chicago.”

“No, you don’t, Jericho. Whether you admit it or not, you need me. This is my job—apprehending lawbreakers. I’m your right arm, so to speak, so you’re stuck with me.”

He felt more than “stuck” with her. He felt bowled over. Something told him his lady detective wasn’t going to back down and go home to Chicago anytime soon. Torn between worry over her safety and his need to see this job through, his insides were in an uproar.

With a sidelong glance at her, he settled back to think about how he could keep her alive while he did what he had to do, apprehend the Tucker gang. The townspeople always wanted him to get up a posse, but Jericho preferred working alone. Always had and always would. He did what any sheriff worth his salt had to do, and he’d never wanted to get anyone else involved.

And he sure as hell didn’t want to get a lady detective mixed up in a manhunt, even if she could shoot straight. She had to go back to Chicago.

She picked up her crocheting again and worked a row of stitches before she said anything more. “Do you suppose there might be an opera or a play of some kind in Portland?”

“Might be. You miss the city, huh?”

“Yes,” she said. “To be honest, I enjoy cultural things.”

“Bet you feel like a fish out of water on this assignment.”

“Oh, no. I am not that easily discouraged. This fish likes doing something worthwhile, Sheriff. Catching train robbers is worthwhile.”

Jericho nodded. He felt the same way, when he thought about it. He had a job to do. But he’d been on his own since he was a kid, and that’s how he liked it. Wasn’t responsible for anybody’s skin but his own. Every time Sandy begged to come along on a manhunt, Jericho neatly evaded the issue.

He liked Sandy. Maybe that was the problem. He was beginning to like Maddie, too, and that was an even bigger problem.

Chapter Five

To calm her nerves Maddie paced up and down the passenger car aisle until Jericho glared at her. She would never admit to the sheriff how shaken she felt after her encounter with the train robbers, but there it was. She’d come close to being killed for the first time in her career as a Pinkerton agent. Mr. Pinkerton had trained her in the use of firearms, but he’d used her to carry messages and smuggle maps, nothing so violent as being caught in the middle of a gun battle.

After four round trips from the back of the car to the front, she sank onto her seat. Still jittery, she hunted up the wooden crochet hook and resumed work on her edging. Jericho sat next to her, exercising the fingers of his right hand.

Was his heart pounding as hard as hers was? She shot a look at his impassive expression and almost laughed. If it was, he hid it better than she did.

The train jerked, and her ball of crochet thread rolled down the aisle, leaving a trail of pink string. She huffed a sigh and began to rewind it, but the ball settled into a crack in the floor.

The sheriff stopped flexing his injured wrist, got to his feet and chased the ball of thread into a corner. He snatched it up, stomped back and dumped it into her lap. Then he plopped back down in his seat without saying a word.

Well! He had no right to be angry with her. She had probably saved his life; he might at least say thank-you.

The train rolled smoothly forward through wheat fields and cattle ranches. The peaceful scenery soothed her to the point where she could review the events that had occurred in the mail car. One thing she couldn’t forget was the look on the sheriff’s face when she’d first drawn her pistol, part shock, and part fear. She could understand his surprise, but fear? She would bet a barrel of fancy hats this man didn’t fear outlaws or anything else.

And then suddenly she understood. He feared for her.

Maddie laid her hands in her lap. “I had no idea you could shoot left-handed. Why did you not tell me?”

“You never asked. You just jumped to a conclusion. That’s another reason why you should skedaddle back to Chicago, you jump to conclusions.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t. That is not why you don’t want me along. Is it?” She pinned him with eyes as hard as green stones. “Is it?”

He waited a long time before answering. “Nope.”

“Then would you tell me what the real reason is?”

“Nope.”

She waited. The train picked up speed and the car began to sway. “Sheriff, I deserve to know. I am waiting.”

“Okay,” he growled. “Here it is in plain English. You are the reason I don’t want you along.”

“Oh, for mercy’s sake! Sheriff Silver, you are irritating enough to drive a person crazy.”

He gave her a tight smile. “But not irritating enough to drive you away.”

She blanched. “Well, of course not. It would take more than a stubborn, bad-tempered, set-in-his-ways man to make me give up on an assignment.”

“Damn,” Jericho muttered. What would it take, he wondered. He couldn’t forget the picture she’d made in that yellow dress, firing her shiny pistol at armed outlaws. He knew she’d been covering his back, and he should be grateful. A wrong-handed sheriff was no match for outlaws with revolvers.

But deep inside, where he never allowed himself to venture, something began to tighten. God, he hated that. Made him sweat. He couldn’t let her continue with this Pinkerton business. If she didn’t get him killed, she’d get herself killed, and that would be even worse.

Two hours passed in uneasy silence. Maddie crocheted carefully on what looked like a lace edging; Jericho tried not to watch her slim fingers.

“Last stop, Portland,” the conductor boomed. “Ten minutes.”

Maddie smoothed out her skirt, shook her petticoat ruffles into place, and stowed her crochet work in her oversize reticule. “What do we do until the train leaves for Smoke River?”

“Find a hotel.”

“A hotel!” Her eyes went wider and even more green. “What do we want a hotel for?”

“Don’t know about you, but I’m grabbing an early dinner and getting some sleep.”

She eyed him with a look that could fry eggs. “You mean we are stuck here in Portland? All night?”

“Yep. Train east doesn’t pull out until tomorrow morning. Thought you would have researched that, Mrs. Detective. Distances out here in the West are...long.”

Maddie set her jaw. She was hungry, she admitted. And bone tired. But the worst part was that she was surprised at this turn of events. She hated being surprised. Back in Chicago, trains ran both east and west every hour. Somehow she thought trains out here would run every hour, as they did in Chicago. It never occurred to her the distance between Smoke River and Portland would mean an overnight stay. Why, she hadn’t even brought a night robe.

* * *

The streets of Portland were jammed with people—merchants, travelers, ranchers with wagons full of children, some fancy men who looked like gamblers, ladies driving trim black buggies, townspeople, schoolboys, even a few dusty-looking Indians. After battling the crowds, Jericho stepped into the foyer of the Kenton Hotel with Maddie at his elbow.

The desk clerk looked up and thumbed through his registry. “’Fraid I got no rooms left, mister. Big carnival from San Francisco in town and we got lotsa visitors. You could try the Portland Manor, just across the street.”

The Portland Manor had only one vacancy. “Two beds, take it or leave it. Town’s full up.”

Jericho turned to her. “That okay?”

Maddie stared at him. “You don’t mean one room for the two of us?” she whispered. “Together? Why, that is scandalous!”

“Huh! That’s real funny coming from a lady who said she was bored to death with her marriage.”

“But—”

“Look, Mrs. O’Donnell, my arm is hurting like a sonofa—billion beeves. I’m worn out and hungry enough to eat just about anything. We’re here, and we’re staying. Like the man says, take it or leave it.”

“But—”

“And,” he added with a lopsided smile, “you can relax. I’m too flat-out tired to threaten your virtue.”

Her cheeks went pink. “This is highly unusual. Mr. Pinkerton will certainly hear about it.”

“No, he won’t. You let one word slip about our arrangement and I’ll tell Pinkerton it was all your idea.”

Maddie turned crimson, then white, then crimson again. “You would not dare!”

“Try me.”

Stunned into silence, Maddie watched him sign Mr. and Mrs. J. Silver on the register. She wanted to protest, but everything was all so mixed up and tense between the two of them that...well, she would just have to act as if things like this happened every day to a Pinkerton detective and make the best of it. For her next assignment she would research geographical distances more thoroughly.

The hotel room was small but clean, with a single chest of drawers, washstand, armoire and two narrow beds jammed in an arm’s length apart. Jericho surveyed it and smiled inside. Wasn’t every day he got to sleep next to a pretty woman, even if it was in a separate bed.

“It’ll do,” he said as nonchalantly as he could manage. “It’s been a long day. Come on, let’s go have some supper.”

He downed two more slugs of pain remedy before entering the hotel dining room and, as he ate, his steak seemed to taste more and more delicious and the stale coffee less bitter. How much laudanum was in this pain stuff, anyway? Even Maddie’s stiff silence was less annoying.

Fact was, even bone tired with an arm that throbbed, he was beginning to feel pretty good. Who cared if she wanted to keep quiet? It was a rare woman who could talk a blue streak most of the time but keep her mouth closed when it was necessary. He had to give her some credit.

The waiter removed their plates and brought more coffee and some tea for Maddie. “You folks going to the carnival? Got some real pretty gir—uh, horses, I hear.”

“Horses?” Maddie’s eyes took on a sparkle he hadn’t seen before.

Jericho wasn’t interested in the girls the waiter tried not to mention, but horses? That was another matter. No matter how weary he felt, he always liked looking at good horseflesh.

“Oh, could we?” Maddie begged. “Please?”

He stared at her. He’d never heard her use the word “please” before. So the city girl liked horses, did she? Well, why not have a look?

The Summer Carnival was a six-block section of the main street, blocked off at either end. Admission was a nickel, and Jericho gallantly dropped two nickels into the burly ticket taker’s palm, one for him and one for Maddie.

She nodded her thanks. “Where are the horses?”

“Yonder.” The man tipped his graying head over his shoulder. “Behind the gypsy fortune-teller.”

Maddie wheeled in the direction indicated and started off down the walkway. She was in such a hurry, Jericho found he couldn’t keep up with her. He trailed her past the green-painted ice-cream stand and a man poking flaming swords down his throat to a roped-off area where a half dozen horses waited patiently for riders.

“Oh,” Maddie breathed. “How beautiful they are!”

He’d never heard such awe in her voice, but he had to agree. “Probably from a ranch nearby. They’d never look this good if they’d been herded up from Sacramento, or even shipped by rail.”

Maddie caught his good arm and pointed. “Look at that one, with the cream-colored mane.”

He’d been looking at that animal; she was a beauty, all right. A mare, maybe three or four years old, a golden-tan color with cream mane and tail. “You’ve got a good eye for horseflesh, Maddie.”

“In addition to the bank, my father owned a fancy riding stable in Chicago. All the society ladies took equestrienne lessons.”

Jericho moved in close to the palomino mare, let her smell his neck and chest.

“I do want to ride him.”

“Her,” he corrected. “Mares don’t have—” He swallowed the rest. “Sure, if you want to.”

She sidled up next to the horse and cautiously laid one finger on its nose. Then she looked up at Jericho with a yearning in her eyes that made his stomach flip.

“Could I really ride him? Her, I mean?”

The wrangler led the animal to the center of the roped-off corral. “She’s real gentle, Miss. You ever ridden before?”

“N-no, not much. My father never allowed me to ride.”

“Well, then, your man here can hold the rope so’s the mare can step real slowlike in a circle around him.”

Jericho walked her close to the animal and raised one knee so she could mount. “Put your foot here, Maddie, and I’ll boost you up.”

“Boost me? Is that proper?”

He laughed. She was one citified lady, all right. “Probably not,” he intoned for her ears only. “But seein’ as how we’re sleeping together...”

She sent him a dark look, then edged closer. Gripping his bad arm, she lifted her tiny little shoe onto his knee and he hoisted her up. He kinda regretted that she didn’t need more of a boost to her posterior; he enjoyed laying his hand on that nicely rounded behind.

His elbow gave a sharp twinge, which he ignored. The wrangler tossed him the lead rope and Jericho led the mare in a circle around the ring. Maddie kept a death grip on the saddle horn, but she made quite a picture in her pouffy hat and yellow shirtwaist, even with a black-rimmed bullet hole in one sleeve.

She rode around him a dozen times. Every so often she freed one hand and leaned forward to tentatively pat the mare’s neck.

“Good girl. Good horse. My, you are beautiful. You look like a big dish of coffee ice cream with caramel sauce.”

Jericho laughed out loud. After her last circuit she drew back on the reins and the horse stopped. “How do I get down?”

He dropped the lead rope and strode toward her, intending to hold out his arms. Oh, damn, he remembered he didn’t have two arms. Instead, he reached up and slid his good hand around her waist.

“Bring your other leg over the saddle and then jump down.” He gave her a little tug.

She went pale, but she lifted her leg over the saddle. Her skirt kicked up, revealing a froth of petticoats, and when she slid off she stumbled hard against him. For just an instant he felt her soft breasts brush against his chest.

Lord in heaven.

“Oh, that was wonderful,” she cried. “Wonderful.”

Jericho groaned. He thought so, too, but it wasn’t the horse he admired. It was her.

Maddie practically danced out of the corral. “Such a beautiful animal. You simply cannot imagine how happy riding her makes me!”

Jericho blinked. “You’re that happy about a horse?”

“Oh, yes. I sense a kindred spirit in the animal.”

“That never happened before?”

“No. Never. As I said, Papa never let me visit his fancy riding stable. I’m going to call her Sundae.”

“Kinda odd to fall in love with a horse, Maddie.” He meant it as a joke, but her face immediately looked grave.

“All my life I have felt different. Alone. Even when I was married.” She gave a little half sob. “Then,” she said in a voice so low he could scarcely hear her, “it was even worse.”

Jericho nodded. He knew what she meant. In fact, he knew exactly what she meant, but he was sure surprised at her words. “Yeah, I can understand makin’ friends with a horse. Glad you enjoyed it.”

Well, yes and no, Jericho admitted. He found himself a mite irritated at her feelings for the animal. Almost as if he was...

Jealous? Of a horse? Get a grip, mister. This woman is not yours.

He’d never been a fool about a woman and he wasn’t about to start now, especially with this one. Ever since he’d lost his friend Little Bear, he’d kept his heart protected inside a safe, sturdy iron cage.

Maddie drifted to the fortune-teller’s tent, a red-and-gold India print with a hand-lettered sign pinned to one flap: Madame Sofia, Gypsy Fortune-Teller.

Maddie was already seated at the scarf-draped table across from the wrinkled old woman and was stretching out her palm.

He tried his darnedest not to listen, but one word sliced into his brain like a shard of glass. Chicago.

Maddie rose from the table, an odd look on her face. “Your turn, Jericho. Let Madame Sofia tell your fortune.”

“What for? I can pretty much see my life from here on out.” He’d be a good sheriff and he’d never get involved with a woman. At least, not until he was too old to care.

Maddie sped across the grass to his side. “I dare you.”

She tugged on his good arm.

Damn, she was more persuasive than he’d bargained for. Finally, shamed into it, he seated himself before the gypsy woman, slid his right arm out of the sling, and opened his hand, palm up. The old woman bent over it, stroking the lines with her gnarled forefinger. After a moment she looked up into his face.

“You have known great sorrow,” she said in her gravelly voice. Then she reached out and touched his face. “What comes will not be easy.”

“What won’t?” he said without thinking.

The gypsy smiled. “This.” She cut her gaze to where Maddie waited.

His face set, Jericho paid the gypsy and propelled Maddie away from the tent. Twenty yards further, he stopped with a jerk and gazed upward.

“What the hell is that?” He squinted to read the signboard. “Turkish Up-and-Down Wheel.”

Directly in back of the sign stood the strangest contraption he had ever seen, a grid of steel bars with a bucket-type seat at each end. A man in baggy pants and a pointed red hat cranked on a gearlike arrangement; as the bars turned, the seats rose up and then came slowly down.

“Oh, look! Could we...?”

“Could we what? Ride that thing? Probably break both our necks.”

“Oh, please? Just this once?” She sent him a pleading look.

Damn, she was sure hard to refuse. Jericho shrugged and moved into the ticket line. A few minutes later they were side by side in the cushioned tublike seats, and the wheel began to rotate with squeaks and groans. Their seat swung high above the carnival grounds.

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