Hitched to the Gunslinger by Michelle McLean

Chapter Seven

Gray sauntered across the street, pulled by a curiosity that overrode his instinct to stay the hell out of it.

He ignored the two women who trailed along behind him. A quick peek in the window didn’t show much except an empty office. A few scattered papers on the floor and the complete absence of any noise made him pretty sure that whoever had been there had gone. And left in a hurry. He twisted the knob.

“What are you doing?” Mercy said behind him, close enough he almost jumped.

“Damn it, woman, I’m going to tie a bell around your neck.”

She merely grinned at him until his own lips threatened to pull into a responding smile. He turned back to the window.

“I wanted to see if the sheriff was in,” he said, though that wasn’t entirely the truth.

“Martha saw him leave in a hurry in the dead of night.”

His eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”

Martha nodded. “With most of what he owned, or so it looked like.”

“Hmm.” He tried the knob again. Locked.

“Maybe we should break the window,” Mercy suggested.

Gray almost snorted. Been in his company three days and already she was starting to act like a criminal.

“I can pick the lock,” a female voice said behind them.

The two other women with him jumped and turned with muffled shrieks. Gray straightened up and looked at the newcomer, pretending his stomach wasn’t in his throat.

Make that newcomers. While he’d been peeking through the window, the doctor, four women, and another man who, if his clothes meant anything, was the town preacher had snuck up on him. Looks like he’d decided to retire just as all his instincts were leaving him. Good thing, given his hearing had clearly gone.

“Where did they all come from?” Gray asked, his brow furrowing.

Mercy looked behind them, her own brows raised in surprise, and then shrugged. “I guess they wanted to see to what we were up to.”

Gray blew out a breath, and she shrugged. “Small town,” she said. “Hard to get away with much here.”

That was an understatement. The buxom redhead who’d boasted of lock-picking skills was dressed in a very expensive emerald-green gown, crowned with a hat covered in black feathers and rhinestones, as she held up a hairpin. With her eyes and mouth painted in bold colors, rouge staining her otherwise flawless complexion, it wasn’t difficult to guess at her profession.

Gray stepped aside and gestured at the doorknob. “By all means.”

“Should we be doing this in broad daylight all crowded at the front door like this?” Mercy asked in a mock whisper.

Gray glanced down at her. “Since we’re doing this because the sheriff seems to have disappeared, I don’t think there’s much chance of us getting arrested. Besides, most of the town seems to be standing here with us, so there doesn’t seem much point in trying to be sneaky about it.”

“Good point,” Mercy said.

“Ta da!” the woman in green said, opening the door with a flourish and standing aside so Gray could enter.

“Much obliged,” he said.

She gave him a smile that would make most men blush, but Gray studiously ignored her. He’d already gotten himself tangled up with one woman in this town. He certainly didn’t need to double his trouble.

He slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way, though he was pretty sure they didn’t need to be so quiet. If he was a betting man, and he was, he’d put good money on the sheriff having run out of town. But a little caution never killed no one. Well, that wasn’t true. But it killed less.

He stopped just inside the door and Mercy bumped into him with a little oompf. He reached out to steady her at the same time the doc did, and Gray pinned him with a stare. Whatever the doc saw in his expression had him holding his hands up with a sheepish smile and taking a step back. Gray released Mercy and took a step back himself.

“Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t know we were stopping.”

“This would be much easier if I had a look alone.”

She frowned. “But I want to see, too. I’ve never snuck into someplace I shouldn’t be before.”

“You’re not really doing it now. Sneaking works a lot better if you’re quiet. And not tailed by half the town. In broad daylight.”

She rolled her eyes.

“But just in case someone is hidin’ out in here…” He held his finger to his lips.

Her eyes widened, either in anger at the reprimand or with the realization that she was being less than stealthy. He wasn’t sure which, but if it kept her mouth shut, he was good.

She held her finger to her lips and nodded, then turned to Martha, who was behind her, and repeated the gesture. Martha nodded and showed the doc, who was already showing four other women and the preacher.

Gray looked heavenward and released a sigh that would make Saint Peter himself weep. How in the absolute bowels of hell had he managed to get himself into this mess?

Back to the matter at hand. He took a few more steps into the office. His followers thankfully stayed at the door, with the exception of Mercy, whom he hadn’t expected to follow his orders in any case.

The office was deserted. There was nothing on or near the desk except for a few discarded papers. A rack on the wall that must have held the man’s rifle was empty. In fact, there wasn’t a sign anyone had been in there in days.

“Wow,” said Martha, who had braved a few more feet past the door. “He even took the kettle.” She pointed to the potbellied stove in the corner, where the kettle had presumably sat. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”

Gray riffled around the desk, then held up the sheriff’s badge he’d found in a drawer. “I’d call that a good guess,” he said, before dropping the badge back to the desk. He rubbed his hand on his shirt, his skin crawling at even that much contact with the law.

“Well, now what are we gonna do?” asked his extravagant lock picker. The three women who hovered near her were also dressed well, though not nearly so expensively, which led him to believe that Mercy had been correct. Mrs. DuVere, whom this had to be, obviously ran a more high-class parlor house for such a small town, but certainly not unheard of.

“The sheriff wasn’t much,” she said, “but he was better than nothing.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll just need to find a new sheriff,” said the preacher.

Mercy must’ve caught Gray’s questioning glance, because she said, “Reverend Samuel Donnelly, this is my fiancé, Gray Woodson. Gray, this is our minister, Reverend Donnelly.”

The preacher’s pale-red eyebrows rose at the word fiancé, but like the doc, he kept his opinions to himself and merely tipped his hat in Gray’s direction. Interesting town. Maybe they all had their own pasts and didn’t feel the need to judge anyone else. It was a nice change.

“Welcome to town, Mr. Woodson,” he said, only the slight hesitancy with how he said Gray’s last name betraying the fact that he probably knew exactly who Gray was.

Mrs. DuVere, however, had no such discretion. “‘Quick Shot’ Woodson?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips and giving him an appreciative glance up and down. “Well, look at that, girls. We’ve got a famous gunfighter in our midst.”

Gray’s eyes narrowed. “I trust that won’t be a problem.”

She aimed a brilliant smile at him. “None here. Right glad to have you. Might liven this place up a bit.”

He couldn’t help but smile back, at least halfway.

“Mrs. Hamilton Brewster DuVere,” she said by way of introduction. “And my girls, Maria, Pearl, and Hattie.”

Each of the women dropped a little curtsy, and Gray tipped his hat to them before turning back to the rest of the group, who all seemed to be looking to him for some direction. How he’d become leader of their odd little pack, he had no idea. And he didn’t like it one bit. He frowned and turned to the doc.

“Well, what do we do about all this?” Doc said.

Martha came back into the room, and Gray glanced at her in surprise. He hadn’t even noticed she’d disappeared up the outside staircase that led to the upper floor apartment. “There’s not much left up there. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

The preacher picked up a “wanted” poster from the floor and laid it back on the desk. “Looks like we need to find a new sheriff.”

The faces around him showed varying signs of dismay and discouragement. Gray leaned against the desk. “The man can’t have been such a saint as to inspire all this,” he said, waving his hand at them.

“Of course not,” Mercy said, though her brow remained furrowed.

“But,” Martha chimed in, “it took such a long time to find someone who’d take the job. We didn’t have a sheriff at all for years. If something happened, we’d have to take care of it ourselves and even then, we’d have to hold any prisoners until a sheriff from one of the neighboring towns could come collect them. And as you can imagine, that took a fair bit of time. So…no, the sheriff wasn’t much, and he certainly had his…issues,” she said, glancing at Mercy.

“But with him in town, there was at least some semblance of law and order,” the preacher filled in. “Even if it wasn’t ideal.”

Gray scratched at the stubble on his jaw but kept his opinions of law and order to himself.

The doc looked at him appraisingly, for long enough that Gray raised an eyebrow. “What?”

The doc flushed slightly at having been caught staring, and he glanced at the preacher, who gave him a little nod. Oh, this couldn’t be good.

“Well, the thought just occurred to me that, with you being new in town and, I presume…from what I’ve heard…newly retired from your…old profession…”

Gray nearly groaned. Very diplomatic.

The doc cleared his throat and continued. “Seeing as how we need a sheriff, and you certainly have the necessary skills, and, in a way, have the most experience with law enforcement…”

“From the wrong side of it,” Gray pointed out.

“True. The point stands, though.”

“What point?” Gray asked, knowing damn well what the man was getting at. But he was going to make him say it.

The tips of the doc’s ears turned pink, and he glanced at the preacher, who took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“The fact of the matter is that we need a new sheriff, and you are the most qualified candidate for the job,” he said in a rush.

Gray looked from the preacher to the doc to all the rest of the crowd, whose hesitant murmurs of agreement started gaining strength. He wasn’t sure if the feeling building in his gut was anger, panic, or sheer perplexment, but whatever it was, he only had one answer to give.

“No.”

He shoved away from the desk, marched through the group gathered in front of him, and headed straight for the wagon. Every time someone even opened their mouth, he repeated “No,” over and over again. Maybe if he said it enough times, they’d get the message.

It was lucky for Mercy she was right on his heels because he’d had no intention of slowing down. He wanted out of this town as fast as Mercy’s old horse could pull him. If he was smart, he’d bundle up Birdie and hightail it from her place as well.

He jumped into the wagon, scooping up the pie, which he thrust at Mercy as she scrambled into the seat next to him. He cracked the reins, and the wagon took off with a jolt, dumping her back into the seat. She glared at him.

“Well, that was rude.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I agree. Where do they get off, ambushing a man like that?”

Her forehead crinkled. “What? No. You were rude. Blurting out no like that and then running off. Not to mention nearly leaving me behind.”

“You were in the wagon before I left, so you were not almost left behind. And they were the ones crossin’ the line. All I was doin’ was a little snoopin’ around, and they had to go tryin’ to force a job on a man like that—and a lawman job to boot. It’s just plum wrong, is what it is. There I was, mindin’ my own business, and they gotta—”

“What? Offer you a respectable job with good wages?”

“Who the hell wants to be respectable?”

She opened her mouth to argue more and then just shook her head, rubbing at her temples like her head was fitful cracking.

For once, Gray understood how she felt.

Him? A lawman?

The whole town was more off-kilter than a one-legged dog in a horse race.

If he had any sense, he’d be packed and gone before dark. Well, after he ate the pie, at least.