Free The Sheriff's Sweetheart by Laurie Kingery Page B

widened and she laid down the bare drumstick on her plate. “What is it?”
    â€œAbout me,” he said, watching her. Would what he was about to tell her please her and make them closer, or would she become distrustful of him?
    â€œAre you…are you an outlaw? A wanted man?” She held herself very still, he saw, as if she were afraid of the answer.
    â€œNo,” he said, “no, of course not.” He laughed as she let out the breath she had been holding. “Did you really think that’s what I was going to tell you?”
    She smiled a little nervously. “No, I certainly hoped it wasn’t. I would have been shocked, of course! But when Sarah’s fiancé—her former fiancé, that is—finally returned a few months ago—she hadn’t seen Jesse Holt since he’d gone away to the war, you see—he’d become an outlaw, and he kidnapped Sarah, and Nick and Nolan and the posse had to track them down, and Jesse was killed. Poor Sarah—it was awful!”
    â€œAnd you thought I might be a man on the run,” he concluded. “I’m sorry, Prissy—I didn’t mean to frighten you for a single second.” He was a man on the run, though—from Kendall Raney and his henchmen.
    â€œAre you…are you married? ” Her voice was a shaky whisper. “Did you leave a wife behind somewhere?”
    He couldn’t stop the hoot of laughter that burst out of him and seemed to bounce off the twisted tree limbs hanging above them. “No, Prissy! No, I’m not married, or promised, or anything like that.”
    â€œThen what could it be?” she asked, her blue eyes puzzled in the sun-dappled shade. “If you’re not in trouble with the law, or married…”
    â€œI don’t mean to make you play a guessing game,” he said, contrite over the worry that furrowed the lovely brow framed by her strawberry-blond curls. “Here’s my confession—I didn’t come to Simpson Creek for the sheriff job.”
    â€œY-you didn’t? Then why—”
    â€œI came to meet you.”
    Her jaw dropped.
    All he could do now was hope for the best.
    Â 
    Prissy couldn’t believe her ears. “You came to meet me, ” she repeated. “Not to be the sheriff? Are you saying you saw the advertisement we ladies put in the newspapers?”
    He grinned. “Yes, ma’am. But of course, I had no idea that ‘Miss Priscilla Gilmore of Post Office Box 17’ was going to be the loveliest lady in Simpson Creek. I’m just surprised that no one’s snapped you up before, at least once the Spinsters’ Club began—I meant, the Society for the Promotion of Marriage.”
    â€œThat’s all right, you can call it the Spinsters’ Club—everyone does,” Prissy said, unsure of exactly how to respond to his compliment.
    â€œIt’s the truth. You’re a very pretty girl, Prissy. And very sweet.”
    She suddenly remembered his words when he’d met her papa, Nick, and her. “But you told Papa you came to apply for the sheriff’s job,” she said.
    He looked down. “Yes, and I’m ashamed of that fib,” he told her quietly. “I’ll confess it to him someday and ask his pardon.” He raised his head again and, taking her hand, gazed at her. “But Prissy, I knew I had to have some sort of employment while we became acquainted. What kind of man would I be if I just took a room at the hotel and spent the livelong day courting you? Your papa wouldn’t let a man like that within ten miles of his precious daughter,” he told her. “Nor should he.”
    She thought about it a moment. It was true enough that all of the men who’d come to town to meet the spinsters had taken jobs of one sort or another—Nick had hired on as a cowhand on the Matthews ranch, Nolan became the town doctor, Ed Markison was a bank teller and