Authors: Sandra Chastain
Callahan pressed his eye to the crack. He caught hold of a splinter of wood and stripped it out, widening the opening so that he got a clear view of the men milling around outside. He’d known most of them for three
years, and he’d trusted them. They were desperate now or they wouldn’t believe that he and Ben had stolen their money. Desperation made men crazy. He should know. For a time after the war, when he understood how much his family had lost, he’d been crazy too. Nobody knew about that, except Josie. Not even Ben.
A shout drew his attention, and he saw a man carrying a torch walk into the middle of the street. “I say we string the son of a bitch up!” the stranger yelled.
Another man appeared with a rope in his hand. “I’m for it!”
He wasn’t one of the ranchers whose money had been stolen. But there was something familiar about him. Then Callahan knew. Perryman’s messenger. Jerome. Stirring up the town seemed to be Perryman’s purpose. If he managed to get Callahan hung, he would pull off his thieving scheme. He’d keep the money and foreclose on the ranches he’d financed. And not even Josie could stop him.
The crowd noise grew. Things were about to get ugly. And Callahan had had more than one run-in with ugly crowds. Some people went to jail. Some people died.
Callahan hit his hand against the wall. “Spencer, get me out of here!”
At that moment Will Spencer appeared in the doorway of the hotel across the street, with Josie right behind him. “Now, wait a minute, men,” Spencer said. “Let’s not do anything foolish.”
“Foolish? Is it foolish to protect what’s yours?” a man carrying a torch demanded. “Winter’s coming. We have no supplies, no cattle, and no way to pay our mortgages.” His voice rang out and other men joined him. They were disgruntled and angry, waving their torches in the air.
“How do you figure killing Callahan is going to solve that?” Spencer asked, chewing on a piece of straw as he leaned against the post supporting the roof over the hotel sidewalk.
“It’d make his lying brother come back here,” Jerome said, egging them on.
“How’s that?” Will asked quietly. “If Callahan is already dead, why would Ben come back?”
“ ’Cause he ain’t brave, that’s why.”
The voices grew angrier, frustration feeding the illogical arguments of Perryman’s man.
Josie disappeared into the hotel and returned moments later, holding something in her hand. “Gentlemen!” she called out several times before she lifted a small pistol and shot over their heads.
One bullet lodged in the livery wall about six inches from Callahan’s shoulder.
“Hellfire, woman.” Callahan jumped back from the crack. “You may be a fine lawyer, but you’re no marksman. You damn near shot me.”
The crowd quieted.
“Well, well, lookee, lookee,” someone in the mob called out. “What do we have here—Callahan’s woman. She’s standing behind her man.”
“Callahan’s attorney,” Josie corrected. “Some of you may not know me. I’m Josie Miller. Dan and Dr. Annie’s daughter. I think I have a way to straighten this out.”
Disagreement rumbled through the crowd, but they were willing to listen.
“You need five thousand dollars to pay for your cattle. If you had the cattle, would you have enough income to settle your debts?”
A swell of agreement seemed to rise. Then one rancher
said, “Maybe. But now that I think ’bout it, if Perryman’s figuring on foreclosing, the cattle might not be enough, at least not soon enough.”
“If you had the cattle and enough money to make your next mortgage payment, would you have a chance?”
Callahan couldn’t see where she was going, but she had their attention now.
“All right, I have a proposition for you. I’m organizing the Sharpsburg Cattleman’s Association. Each of you will own shares in it according to the amount of money you contributed to the cattle fund. I will buy those shares
and
advance you enough money to make your next mortgage payment.”
There was a stunned silence. “So what’s in it for you, Miss Miller?” one of the ranchers asked.
“Sims Callahan is my client. He did not steal your money, but since we have been unable to find out who did, I’ll make restitution. When the missing funds are found, I will be reimbursed. When your herds prosper, you can repay the remainder of your loan. If they don’t, I’ve just gambled and lost. Fair enough?”
“She’s up to something,” one of the men called out.
“I’m trying to save you!” she shouted. “I’m sending a telegram to my banker in New York for the money for the cattle and a little extra to pay the notes. The funds will be transferred to Laramie within a few days. The bank in Laramie will send the money to Sharpsburg.”
“Why would you do this?” one of the ranchers asked.
“Don’t trust her,” Perryman’s lackey called out. “It’s some kind of a trick.”
“No trick. I’m doing this because …” She took one look at the stance of the men—hands on their weapons, eyes narrowed—and knew they wouldn’t believe her, no
matter who she was. “Because …” She faltered and began again. “Because Sims Callahan and I plan to be married. I would prefer that my husband not be in jail.”
A loud guffaw exploded in the crowd like a gunshot.
“Well, you sure have a peculiar way of treating the man you’re gonna marry. A woman wouldn’t ordinarily turn her husband in to the law—unless she was scared he was about to run out on her.”
“Yeah!” someone agreed. “Looks like Callahan will get the Miller fortune and our money, too. If she wants him, maybe we’d better listen.”
The men milled around for awhile, talking among themselves, then dropped their torches. “When do we get the cash?”
“You can come for it in a couple of days. I’ll see Mr. Perryman before I leave town and make arrangements to take care of the mortgage payments.”
Callahan heard her, but he didn’t believe it. Their acceptance came too easily. He never really believed that she’d turned him in to keep him around. Was her reputation as a lawyer important enough to her for her to bail him out with marriage? No way he’d have any part of that. This was one Miller woman who had to learn she didn’t run the outfit. She could talk her way around most men; she’d just done that. But he’d be damned before he let her talk him into marriage. When he got ready to marry—if he ever did—he’d be the one to decide.
The door to his cell opened and Josie stepped inside.
“Josie!” he roared as someone closed the door and dropped the timber in place behind her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, blinking in the sudden brightness of her lantern.
She set it on the floor by the door. “Buying us time until we find Ben and the missing money.”
“From what I heard it sounded more like you’re buying
me
!”
“Relax, Callahan. I know you don’t care about me—as a wife, that is. You don’t have to marry me.”
“You don’t know what I have to do—what I want. Hell, I don’t know what I want. You’ve got me so turned inside out that I feel like a snake with a half-shed skin.”
She took another step closer. “Well, I’m ready to talk about this when you are. But unless you want Perryman to hear our plans, I think you’d better lower your voice.”
“I will not lower my voice. If I want to yell, I damn well will!”
She was as calm as a cucumber, but he was so full of pure frustration that he couldn’t deal with Josie, not when all he could think about was where and how they’d spent the afternoon.
“Let’s talk, Callahan,” she said in a controlled voice.
He looked at the ground, pressed his lips together, and looked back at Josie before he finally spoke. “After all that conversation you just had out there in the street, I’d think you ought to be ready to be quiet.”
“Well, I could stand a few minutes of … silence.” She let out a little sigh.
He could feel her breath.
“Unless there’s something else you’d rather do,” she added tentatively.
What he wanted to do was throttle her. What he did was reach out and pull her into his arms. “You’re the most aggravating woman I’ve ever known.”
His mouth covered hers, kissing her ruthlessly for seconds. Then he let her go, groaned, and said, “Is that what you wanted? Every time we disagree, I end up kissing you and you get your way.”
“And so do you,” she said softly.
“Damn it, woman. You get inside a man’s mind and you don’t even know you’ve done it, plying your soft woman’s ways to get what you want. You rush out and do things without asking or even stopping to think what the consequences may be.”
“Do I?”
“You know damn well you do.”
His mouth was only inches away from her lips but he’d stopped kissing her. She shivered.
I don’t know any soft woman ways.
Callahan was wrong. She was very different from women like her mother. She always considered the consequences and made her choice. And her choice was to reach up and pull Callahan’s face down so that she could kiss him again. But this time he held himself stiff, refusing to return her kiss until she slid her tongue into his mouth.
Then he growled and met her thrust for thrust.
She moaned, smiled, and stepped back. “What consequences don’t I consider?” she asked.
His breath was as tight as hers. “Don’t you understand? You could be arrested, Josie.”
“For what? You kidnapped me, forced me to accompany you to your ranch, to get you into the bank. As far as the ranchers are concerned, I’m the innocent bystander here.”
“Only until they find out you can’t come up with the money you promised.”
She wondered if Will listened from behind the stable wall. “But I
can
pay for the cattle, and I think I can meet all the mortgage payments, too. I’ll have to find out for sure, but what I don’t have, I’ll get.”
“And how do you plan to do that? Dan and Dr. Annie may be wealthy, but they aren’t likely to finance your
little peccadillo with an outlaw, and I don’t think fifty-cent legal fees add up to much.”
“Callahan, I have money—my own money.”
“Considering what I know about your life of crime as a child, dare I ask where you got it?”
“I earned it myself, in New York.”
There was a long silence. “And it didn’t come from being a lawyer, did it?”
“No. From investments. I started with a hundred dollar birthday gift from my grandfathers. They taught me how to invest it. They’re gamblers, both of them, and I did a lot of gambling on the market, too. Found out I was as good at picking the stocks that would double in value as I was at picking locks. I made a lot of money, Callahan. Money I intended to use to help people, to help women like Ellie go to school and learn how to take care of themselves.”
“And now you’re going to use it to pay back the money I’m supposed to have stolen? I won’t let you do that.”
“
Estoppel
,” she snapped.
“
Estoppel?
What’s that?”
“That’s Latin legal talk for saying you can’t stop me, or close enough.”
Callahan glared at her, emotion feeding his anger once more. “Josie Miller, this is a good example of what I was talking about. You’re like an avalanche just rolling over everything in your path. I don’t understand about the law, and I don’t trust it. Don’t you understand, I have to do this? I have to get out of here and find that money and the missing jewelry. Or did you intend to replace that too?”
Josie turned away, crossing her arms over her chest as if to stave off a chill. Callahan was a force to be reckoned with. She’d seen enough of his anger to fear him if he
really let go. He was like the storm that came the night she saw the ghost horse, all power and danger. Then his anger changed into something else that filled the space between them with sheer desire.
She had to be careful, lest she push them both too far. Taking a deep breath, she tried to regain control of her emotions so that her words would calm him. “You just gave me an idea. Tell me what the jewelry looks like.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to tell you just yet, not until I get it all worked out in my mind. Please, Callahan”—she reached out and touched his hand—“we have to work on your defense. Let’s not argue. We’re liable to be interrupted any minute. Just tell me.”
He looked away, his brows furrowed in the lamplight, his eyes wide. Josie waited. Lubina had called him a devil; maybe she’d been right. The shadows beneath his eyes reminded her of how near he’d come to death. Now he was locked up again for a crime he didn’t commit and in danger of being hung. She could understand his frustration.
“Trust me, Callahan. I need to know what the jewelry looks like.”
“I don’t really know what the other ranchers had, I never looked. Ben handled that. But one of the pieces was my mother’s cameo. It belonged to her mother, and it was the only thing she managed to hold onto during the war. My father sold everything else. I don’t know what it looked like. It was just a cameo, with little pearls around the outer edge, I think.”
“That’s enough. When I see it, I’ll know.” She could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.
“When you see it? You aren’t going to break into Perryman’s safe, are you?”
“If I have to, but that’s not what I have in mind.”
Josie had a mischievous glimmer in her eyes. “Ellie says that Mr. Perryman is giving a party, and I’ve decided to attend.”
The Oregon Territory Trading Post was just that, a rustic building dating back to the time of the French trappers and traders. The proprietor carried supplies and provided a corral holding a few horses, a tent that doubled as a washhouse, and sleeping quarters for the stagecoach that still ran twice a week.
Rachel rode past the post, beyond the stagecoach office. She climbed down from her horse, led him to the water trough, and looped his reins over a fence post at the corner of the corral. Hanging back, she waited until Brother Joshua, his scout, and the committeemen representing the rest of the wagon train entered the post, then she walked toward the door. There was no way she could inquire about missing men without being overheard. But she’d promised Jacob, and she didn’t take her promises lightly.
Then she saw the thing she’d dreaded. Posted on the stagecoach wall was a flyer.