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It was the temporary sheriff’s deputy, Lyle Wentworth. Carter wasn’t particularly pleased to see him. Though they were both eligible young men in town, the two had not become friends. Carter found him overbearing and petulant. He’d seen Lyle kick back a chair and stomp out of the bar over a two-bit poker game. Of course, as the only son of the town banker and the pretentious Lucinda, Lyle had probably been raised to believe he was a cut above the rest of the world. Carter, on the other hand, had known at a young age that he’d better start climbing, because he was starting life at the bottom rung.
“Evening, Lyle,” he greeted his visitor.
“What in blazes are they trying to do to the Sheridan sisters?” Lyle asked without preamble.
Carter raised his eyebrows. The demanding tone was characteristic, but for the life of him he couldn’t think what interest Lyle Wentworth would have in the plight of the Sheridans. He leaned over his desk and put his hand down flat on the court order that he’d not served that morning. “The court says they can’t take in boarders in that location. They have to stop it or move to another house.”
“They don’t have any money to move. Or to survive if they can’t get that extra rent money. What are they supposed to live on with both their parents fresh in their graves?”
Carter let a stream of air out threw his nose, still mystified as to the motivation behind Lyle’s inquiry. “This order doesn’t concern itself with what they’re going to live on. It just states that the way things are, they’re in violation of the law.”
“It’s damned nonsense, fostered by a bunch of the town’s old biddies. The Sheridan sisters aren’t hurting a thing in that house.”
Carter slid his hand off the papers and grinned. “Well, according to the oldest Sheridan sister, the only way we’re going to get them out of there is to carry them out.”
Lyle’s scowl softened. “That sounds like Jennie, all right So you talked to them already?” At Carter’s nod, Lyle stiffened and asked, “Did you see Kate, too?”
“The younger one? No. Her sister said she was ill.”
Lyle’s head jerked up. “Ill? What’s wrong with her?”
The motive behind Lyle’s interest was becoming more apparent. It appeared he was smitten with one of the girls. Which one? he wondered. Carter was surprised to realize that he was very much hoping that it was not Jennie who held the rich young man’s interest, though she would be the most likely candidate. It would be tough for any man to be in love with Kate Sheridan under the current circumstances.
“What’s wrong with Kate?” Lyle insisted. The slight tremor in his voice gave Carter the answer to his question.
“I’m sorry, Lyle. Her sister didn’t elaborate. I assumed it had something to do with…” Carter hesitated. Surely Lyle knew about Kate Sheridan’s condition.
“With her having a baby,” Lyle finished for him, his voice tight.
“Yes.”
Lyle kicked the heel of his boot backward into the door frame, gouging the soft pinewood. “I don’t want them bothered, Jones,” he said. “Not by you nor by those old gossips who are trying to run them out of town.”
Carter pushed back his chair and looked up at the young man. After a moment he said, “I intend to see what I can do to straighten this out.”
Lyle nodded and spun on his heel to leave. Carter could hear the clatter of his fancy, high-heeled boots all the way down the stairs. This was an interesting development, he thought, since the way he understood it, one of the “old gossips” Wentworth had referred to was Lyle’s own mother. Carter wrinkled up his nose. Small-town politics. He had little patience for it. But if he had to put up with the foibles of the local denizens in order to proceed up that ladder he was determined to climb, he’d put aside his distaste.
And in the meantime, straightening things out meant that he’d have to pay another visit to Jennie Sheridan. Which was not such an unpleasant prospect.
Chapter Two (#ulink_ac755f57-828c-5125-a40a-9e74b1dc4c21)
By the time he’d washed down the last piece of the Continental’s totally flavorless meat with a third mug of beer, Carter was ready to admit that the prospect of a return engagement with Jennie Sheridan had him interested. Hell, it had him downright bothered. He’d planned on postponing the encounter until tomorrow, but with the pleasantly warm hum of beer singing inside him, he stood on the steps of the hotel wondering if he should change his mind and go immediately.
“Evening, Carter.” The gruff voice of Dr. Millard was unmistakable. It could be intimidating to someone who didn’t know the disposition of the town’s only doctor.
“Dr. Millard,” Carter acknowledged. “You out seeing a patient this time of night?”
“I came looking for you. I’m concerned about this campaign against Jennie and Kate Sheridan.”
Yet another champion for the beleaguered sisters. Carter smiled. It was beginning to look as if the two lovely orphans might cause a regular civil war in town.
“I was just about to head over there,” he told the doctor.
“To the Sheridan house?”
Carter nodded.
Dr. Millard looked up and down the street. Only a few evening stragglers were still out. “Now?”
Carter gave one of his self-assured nods. “I imagine those poor girls are quaking in their shoes wondering when the sheriff is going to show up to move them out of there.”
Dr. Millard looked doubtful. “Have you met Jennie?”
“Yup. This morning. She was…”
“She’s not exactly the quaking type,” the doctor interrupted.
“No. Perhaps not. But I imagine she’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve decided to help her and her sister out of this muddle.”
Dr. Millard looked amused. “I’m relieved to here it, Carter. Ah…just how do you plan to do that?”
Carter peered into darkening street and blinked to find it empty. “I don’t know. I’ll…file an appeal or something. Get the court order blocked. I can talk to Mrs. Billingsley and get her to forget the whole thing.”
“That’s about as likely as a blizzard in July.”
Carter gestured grandly. “Would you like to come with me?”
The doctor grinned. “My boy, I’d love to see Jennie’s face when you give her the good news that you’ve gallantly decided to ride to her rescue.”
“Well, come along then.”
Millard’s smile died. “I can’t. Kate’s been avoiding me since the beginning of her…problem. She refuses to see me, and I can’t go over there without her welcome. She’ll let me know when she’s ready for my help.”
“Hey, Doc. Haven’t you learned by your age that women don’t always know what they want Sometimes a man just has to step in and take over to keep them from making a mess of things.”
“Is that what you learned at that fancy Eastern school?”
“I learned it long before then. Give a woman a chance to argue and you’re sunk. If you want to help out Kate Sheridan, you should just march on over there and tell her so. Don’t let her get a word in edgewise.”
“And that’s the approach you intend to take with Jennie tonight?” he asked.
“Actually, it’s what they like,” Carter answered with a firm nod.
Dr. Millard made a click with his mouth. “Yup, I surely would like to see that.”
“Do you want to change your mind and come along?”
The doctor shook his head with a slow grin. “Nope. But you give Jennie my regards, you hear?” He turned to leave, and Carter could hear him chuckling all the way down the street.
* * *
“I thought I told you that you would need reinforcements when you came back here, Mr. Jones.”
Jennie Sheridan’s voice was even frostier than it had been that morning, but Carter was concentrating more on the way the neck of her maroon silk evening dress scooped out a circle of creamy white skin. The sight made the air stick in his throat. He’d tried to hold on to the idea that his interest in the Sheridan case was all in the name of justice and fair play. But standing here in the doorway looking at her, he had to admit that his motives were at a baser level.
Simply put, the diminutive, curvaceous Miss Sheridan made the blood race through his veins.
“I didn’t come to put you out of your home,” he said when he could trust himself to speak. “I came to offer my help.”
Jennie looked skeptical. “Your help?”
Carter looked up and down the darkened street. The new street lanterns had not yet been placed in this part of town. “Is it too late to invite me in?”
She bit her lower lip, drawing Carter’s eyes to her full mouth. “I guess not”
She looked down at his hands as if expecting to see the papers he’d brought earlier. He held them out, palms up. “No concealed weapons,” he said lightly.
The smile she returned was slight, but it was enough to restore the confidence that had slipped a notch when he’d felt the visceral effect of seeing her in that dress. She was, after all, a woman. And if there was one thing Carter had always been able to handle, at least since the time he’d graduated to long pants, it was women.
“I suppose you can come into the parlor for a few minutes,” she said, holding the door open for him to enter. “Our board…our guests are there playing cards.”
He followed her inside and placed his hat on the hall table. “And your sister…?” he asked as she started toward the curtained archway that evidently led to the parlor.
She whirled to face him. “What about my sister?”
He held up a peacemaking hand again. “I just wondered if I would meet her, too. I was talking earlier tonight with a friend of hers who seemed concerned about her welfare.”
“What friend?”
“Lyle Wentworth.”
Jennie made a face. “He used to be sweet on Kate.”
“Still is, if you ask me.”
Jennie ignored his comment as she led the way under the drapes into the cozy room where three men sat around a small round table covered with playing cards. A fire burned cheerily behind the grate of the painted brick fireplace. “Mr. Jones, I’d like you to meet Dennis Kelly, Brad Connors and Humphrey Smith.”
The men looked up from their game in acknowledgment of the introduction, but did not stand and offered no words of greeting. The one she’d called Mr. Kelly was a heavyset blonde with muttonchop whiskers. He said to Jennie, “Is he bothering you with those papers again, Miss Jennie?”
“Mr. Jones says he’s come here to help, Dennis,” she told him with a smile.
“Why can’t the town just leave these girls alone?” Kelly asked, turning his gaze on Carter. “Ain’t they got enough problems?” The other two men at the table nodded their agreement.
Still more defenders for the Sheridans, Carter noted. “That’s what I came to talk over with Miss Sheridan. I’d like to help her and her sister out of this dilemma.”
The three men didn’t reply, but sat staring at Jennie and Carter, making no move to resume their game. After a couple minutes of awkward silence, Jennie said, “Why don’t we go in the kitchen, Mr. Jones? I’ll pour you a glass of cider.”
Carter nodded and after a distracted “Nice to meet you” to the boarders, he followed her to the back of the house, relieved that he didn’t have to talk with her in front of such a partisan audience.
“So it’s the presence of those three men that’s causing all this ruckus?” he asked her as he sat on the stool she indicated.
She stood with her back to him, filling two glasses from a clay pitcher. “Yes. But, of course, they’re not the real reason.”
“They’re not?” She turned back and offered him one of the glasses. He took it, trying to keep his eyes off the way her slender white arm disappeared into a ruffle of maroon silk.
She perched on a stool on the opposite side of the table. “It’s Kate who’s the problem,” she said. “She’s going to have a baby.”
Carter was a little taken aback at her bluntness, but he recovered quickly, saying, “It’s not illegal to have a baby.”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it to talk to the people in this town. They’d just as soon lock her up and throw away the key.”
Carter knew a lot about bitterness, but it was hard to hear it coming from Jennie Sheridan’s beautiful lips. “I’ve met a passel of nice people in this town in the few months I’ve been here. I find it hard to believe they’re as vindictive as you say. In fact, besides Lyle Wentworth, I had another person offer support for you two today—Dr. Millard.”
Jennie’s expression softened. “Dr. Millard’s a good man. A lot of the people in town are. But then there are the ones like Henrietta Billingsley. I’d thought she was my mother’s friend. Now she comes around here and tries to blame Kate for my parents’ deaths.”
Jennie took a big swallow of cider and Carter could see that her hands were shaking. Unlike his own bitterness, which had been long-standing and coldly calculated, Jennie’s was raw, sharply edged with hurt. “I had heard that your parents died of the influenza last spring,” he said gently.
“They did. Kate’s condition had absolutely nothing to do with it—the very idea is absurd. They didn’t…know about it before they died. Kate didn’t even know then.”
“People say cruel things sometimes without thinking.”
“Oh, Henrietta thinks about them, all right. Then she goes ahead and says them, taking joy in the process.”
She held herself stiffly erect on the stool, and Carter had an almost uncontrollable impulse to walk around the table and pull her off the stool into his arms. He’d met the woman only today, but he was already feeling as if some invisible thread had wrapped itself around the two of them, tangling up her feelings with his own.
“You’ll have to learn to ignore her, then,” he said instead. “Just deal with the people who are worth your attention—people like Dr. Millard.”
His comment was rewarded with another half smile. “Yes, we do have some friends left.”
Carter started to extend his hand toward where hers rested on the table across from him but changed his mind. He had the feeling that Jennie Sheridan would have to be gentled more cautiously than a wild young mare. He withdrew his hand. “I’d like to be counted as one of those friends,” he said simply.
She smiled again, this time with a rueful twist to her mouth. “Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be shutting us down?”
“I’m an officer of the court, and there’s a court order shutting you down.”
The smile disappeared. “So there you have it,” she said softly.
“Which is why I spent a great portion of my afternoon going through law books trying to find a way out for you.”
He could see the sweep of her long lashes all the way across the table as she blinked in astonishment. “You did?”
He nodded. “I told you, I’d like to help.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Why?”
It was a logical question, he supposed, but he hadn’t expected it. And he had no idea what to answer. It didn’t seem that it would advance his case with her any to say, “Because you made my entire body come alive this morning when I saw you walking down the street toward me.” It was a woefully inadequate answer, even to himself.
“I don’t like injustices,” he said finally.
