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“All the ladies,” she clarified. “At least the ones who were in attendance at today’s Ladies Only Day.”
“I knew that was a bad idea. If the men had been there, the gang would have been soundly overruled.” He scratched his chin, aware that he was beginning to sound truculent. He softened his tone. “You still haven’t told me what you were doing wearing the dress you were supposed to wear to our wedding. I have fond memories of you trying it on and letting me button those tiny little buttons.”
He had taken his sweet time doing so, enjoying touching her and looking down at her bare shoulders. She was the smoothest, softest thing he’d ever seen.
“The ladies were trying to convince me that it was a good idea to marry you,” Liberty said. “I had a weak moment.”
“Ouch.”
“No! I didn’t mean that. I meant that I allowed them to coerce me into trying it on.” She put a hand on his arm. “Duke, it wasn’t you as much as it was me, really and truly.”
“You spend too much time around women, listening to them gripe about their men,” he said gruffly, “and it scared you.”
“No, frankly just the thought of marrying you spooked me.” She sighed. “You can’t blame them. I had my own doubts.”
“I’m not so terrible,” he complained.
She turned away. “You’ll be wonderful for the right woman.”
“You are the right woman!” he roared. “Or at least you would be if you’d act right.”
“Duke,” she said, “we’d end up like the Carmines.”
“Only you’d be the one running off. Even Mrs. Carmine said I’m stalwart.” He was proud of that. “By the way, you still look good enough to eat in that dress. It always reminds me of a big, fluffy piece of Ms. Pansy’s divinity when I see you in it.”
“Ugh. I’m not sure that’s what it was supposed to evoke.”
“I like dessert, so the dress was perfect, in my opinion.”
“There he is,” Liberty said, pointing.
Duke slowed the truck as he saw the old man sitting propped against a tree, watching ducks fly overhead. His rifle was on the ground next to him but the elderly man didn’t have a hand on it. He appeared to be watching the wedge of ducks as they flew, perfectly content to enjoy the silence and the heat of the day. “He doesn’t look ready to go home.”
“You tell him,” Liberty said. “I’m not in a position to tell someone they should return home.”
“You got that right,” Duke said, “and I might remind you, based on the popular opinion of my stalwartness, you should tell your lady friends that their idea to write Zach and Pepper into the ballot hurt my feelings.”
Liberty laughed. Then she saw the seriousness of his face as he parked the truck. “Did it really?”
“Yes, damn it.” He switched off the engine, keeping an eye on Mr. Carmine. “How would you feel if you knew all your townfolk that you’d sworn to serve and protect were always conspiring against you?”
“It’s not actually against you,” Liberty said, but Duke waved her comforting words aside.
“Sure it is. They’ve got some bee in their bonnets over something. Like I haven’t given in to them enough. They wanted to change the name of the town to reflect the Dutch ancestry of the settlers, so I agreed. They wanted to change the name of a perfectly good establishment to make it more of a tourist attraction, and I agreed to that, with great reservation. Now they’re trying to run me out by writing in my siblings’ names—one of whom hasn’t been here in a year—with their little wizened hands. Judases!” He frowned. “Or would that be Jezebels?”
“Oh, gosh.” Liberty got out of the truck. “Duke, come on. We’ve got a job to do.”
He got out, his heart heavy. What was the matter with all the females in his world? Clearly none of them cared that he was so easy to get along with.
It wasn’t fair.
“Hello, Mr. Carmine,” he said.
“Howdy, Sheriff,” Bug said, not surprised to see him at all. “Nice day, isn’t it?” He nodded to Liberty. “Glad to see you back in town, girl.”
Liberty sat next to him. She picked up his bottle, which looked empty and probably had been for some time. From her jeans pocket, she pulled out a package of spearmint gum, and they each had a piece. Duke raised an eyebrow, watching this silent communication.
“Mrs. Carmine is wondering about you,” Duke said.
Bug looked back at the sky as if searching for the ducks he’d been watching before. But they were long gone and only small white clouds trailed across the blue in cumulus strings. Bug’s gaze came to rest on Duke. “How’s your jail, Sheriff?”
“It’s a jail,” Duke said. “And occupied,” he continued quickly, in case Bug was looking for a place to stay. “Mr. Parsons is still in residence.”
Bug nodded. “Marriage is a jail, and I’m still in residence, too.”
Liberty shot a worried glance at Duke. He remained silent. Maybe his powers of communication weren’t quite what he’d thought they’d been.
Liberty stood, putting her hand out to Mr. Carmine. After a moment, Bug took her hand and lifted himself to his feet, giving all appearances of using Liberty’s strength as emotional support. Duke watched as the two of them headed to the truck. Bug silently settled himself into the back seat of the double cab. Liberty nodded at him, telling him they were ready to go, so he got behind the wheel and drove back to the ranch house.
Mrs. Carmine came out onto the porch, her face lit with a gentle smile. Bug got out of the truck, and walked toward the house, where he was enveloped in a big hug he seemed happy to return. The two of them went inside the house arm in arm and closed the front door.
Duke blinked. Checking the back seat, he saw Bug’s shotgun and empty whiskey bottle.
“He won’t need the gun ’til next time,” Liberty said. “Why don’t you just keep it with you at the jail for now? He’ll come get it soon enough.”
He didn’t understand any of what had just happened. But Liberty seemed to, and he was happy to take her suggestion. “What happens now?”
She shrugged. “Now Mrs. Carmine ignores that he went away because she loves him, and he ignores the fact that he’s unhappy because it’s not her fault.”
What a prison. A curse, maybe. Like something out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. Duke plucked at the steering wheel. Maybe Liberty was on to something where they were concerned, though he was hard-pressed to admit it.
Still, he didn’t want her to ever think marriage to him was a jail, though Mr. Parsons seemed to like his own prison well enough. “Ye gods, you people are hard to live with,” he said, and Liberty looked at him.
“So?” she asked. “Your conclusion?”
“That you’re right,” he said slowly. “There really is no happy ending.”
“I think not,” Liberty said, “which is a very scary thought.”
“Damn,” Duke said. “I need to get home and feed my dog.” He started the engine, glad to have an excuse to hurry back to town.
“I thought Mr. Parsons took care of Molly-Jimbo.”
“He feeds her peanuts as a snack,” Duke said righteously. “I want to make certain I head him off at the pass.”
“Does she like the peanuts?”
“Molly likes anything that comes from a human hand.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Liberty asked.
“I don’t like it. A dog should eat dry dog food.”
Liberty raised a brow. “Duke, do you ever bend the rules?”
“No,” Duke said, surprised. “If I did, I wouldn’t be sheriff, would I? At least not a very good one.”
Liberty turned her head to look out the opposite window. “I suppose not.”
They rode in silence until they reached the town square.
“Please drop me off at the Tulips Saloon,” Liberty said.
“It should be closed. No one will be there.”
“I have a key,” Liberty said.
“A key?”
“Yes. Of course. I am one of the co-owners of the saloon,” she said. “Along with Pansy and Helen and a few others, as you very well know. It was our gift to ourselves, a woman-owned business.”
“And a questionable one at that,” Duke grumbled, griping because he knew full-well that the ladies had been catching tourists who came to town with their stained-glass-decorated monument to femininity and womanhood. “I just thought that perhaps since you’d left town, maybe you’d given up your key.”
She looked at him for a long moment, long enough to make his heart shrivel. God, how he wanted to kiss her again, kiss her the way they used to kiss, without worry or hurry or anything more than intense pleasure on their minds.
“I guess you were the only person who thought I’d never come back,” Liberty finally said. She got out of the truck and closed the door, not looking back. The door to the saloon opened for her, and Helen and Pansy peered out at him before snatching Liberty inside and slamming the door.
Heaven only knew how he’d become the villain.
Chapter Three
Duke was proud of three things in his life: his family, his job and his reputation. He loved his sister, Pepper, and his brother, Zach, so it hurt that they might be part of the blue-haired angels’ plan to oust him from the vocation of which he was most proud. All of this directly impacted his reputation, which was bad enough. The root cause of the problem, he realized, was the woman he loved.
He had a plan for dealing with Liberty Wentworth-who-should-be-Forrester-by-now. A taste of her own medicine was what she needed. If he could straighten her bent ways, then all the rest of the crooked line that had become his life would return to being straight-as-an-arrow predictable as the road to the Forrester homestead, on which he was now driving with his traitorous brother.
“Maybe,” Zach said, watching Duke glare out the windshield, “you should talk to the ladies. They’ll have insights into your female issues.”
Duke pinned him with the glare. “Zach, do not violate the bachelor code.”
“Is there one?”
“Hell, yes. Bachelors only commiserate with each other. They never, ever side with the enemy.”
“Since when are women the enemy? I like them,” Zach said. “I’ve got two dates this weekend.”
“I’ve got the Tulips Saloon Gang banded together against me with their dolly faces and their innocently spindly frames. I need backup, please, so don’t give me any more advice like that. It just doesn’t help.”
“Spindly?” Zach repeated with a laugh.
“Yes,” Duke said, “how can anyone put up a good fight against such frail and fragile creatures?”
Zach shook his head.
“And I want to know how much a part of their newest plot you are,” Duke said indignantly. “And don’t act like it’s news to you, because they’ve already told me about The Plot.”
His brother grinned. “We just think you might need a vacation, Duke. Of the honeymoon variety. Take some time off. Start a family.”
“Did I ask anyone’s advice?” Duke abruptly braked to a stop in front of the house, sending up clouds of dust. He turned to face his brother for dramatic impact so Zach would know he’d really stepped over the line this time. “I don’t want to start a family, thank you. And I like my job a lot. It’s never boring.” He thought about that for a moment. “In fact, it’s downright exciting, a cross between Peyton Place and Petticoat Junction.”
Zach slapped him on the back. “It was Pepper’s idea.”
Duke gestured toward the old house. “Pepper doesn’t even live here!”
“Actually, she does now,” Zach said, pointing to an upstairs window where their little sister waved at them with something that looked vaguely like a butterfly net.
“Did she come home to hunt insects?” Duke asked.
“I believe that was a Victoria’s Secret undergarment,” Zach said, amused. “Not that I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“Why would she wave that out the window?”
Zach laughed. “Because she’s crazy and it was what she was holding at the time we pulled up. She’s unpacking her suitcase, dummy. How ’bout you go give her a proper brotherly greeting and act like you’re happy she’s back after all these years?”
“But selfishly, I’m not,” Duke said, following Zach, though he knew in his heart he was glad. “If the only reason she’s come home is to conspire and plot—”
“Duke, everybody conspires and plots with Helen and Pansy and the rest of them. Even you do. So let it go.”
Duke didn’t like that, but there was a bit of truth to the comment, so he did what he wanted to do, which was take the stairs three at a time and grab his sister in a bear hug. “I’m so glad you’re home,” he said. “You can cook my dinner.”
Pepper laughed and gave him a smart kick in the shin. “No deal. You are cooking mine. I’m the weary traveler.”
She looked anything but weary. “You were gone too long,” he told her.
“I was here for your wedding,” she said. “February wasn’t that long ago.”
He frowned at her. “I meant…you know what? You’re as bad as Zach. You just want to argue!”
She put her arm through his. “I like arguing with you. Your face gets all red. And you make such an easy target because you have so many opinions.”
He shook his head, liking how she linked her arm through his and led him down the stairs. Sometimes Liberty was soft with him like this, too, and he always melted for women who knew how to work him. Not that that was particularly a good thing. A man had to watch women who plotted against him. Even his dog knew he was a softie.
“Please tell me you didn’t return to run for my office.”
“I didn’t, although something was mentioned to me about it, I will admit,” Pepper said. “But I have bigger things in mind.”
“Great,” Duke said. “Tulips needs fresh blood.
Where are you going?”
