Free Ana Seymour by A Family For Carter Jones Page B

“Papa, are you all right?” thenscooted around Jennie to grab Brad by the shoulder and spin him around. “Don’t be an idiot!” she barked.
    The delegation had reached the front stoop. Sheriff Hammond looked shamefaced and, in spite of the weapon in his arms, not the least bit fearsome. But the two women directly behind him, Mrs. Billingsley and Miss Potter, were skewering Kate with frightening stares.
    “Do your duty, Sheriff,” Mrs. Billingsley said coldly.
    “What’s this all about, Hammond?” Carter asked.
    The sheriff stammered for several seconds, but finally managed, “I’m serving these here papers, Counselor. Closing the place down. I’ve got an order from Judge Hickory. Says here ‘for immediate execution.’”
    Carter stepped around Jennie and reached out to take the crumpled paper the sheriff had pulled from his pocket. No one spoke as he began to read it silently, his expression hardening. Jennie’s breath stopped in her throat. Surely they couldn’t close them down just like that? They wouldn’t turn her silverheels out on the streets of the town in the middle of the night with nowhere else to go? It was a lucky thing that Carter was here tonight. He’d take care of it.
    She studied his face as he bent over the paper. The hard line of his jaw was dark with evening whiskers. She’d felt the barest touch of them when he’d kissed her. In spite of the circumstances, a smile played about her lips. She wondered what Mrs. Billingsleywould say if she knew that only an hour ago the town prosecutor had been kissing the older of those sinful Sheridan sisters. It almost made her want to giggle. Henrietta would explode when Carter told her that he was on the Sheridans’ side now.
    Carter looked over at her, his gray eyes stormy. Then he said, “The sheriff’s right. You men are going to have to get your gear together and head on out of here or the sheriff will have the right to seize this place and turn everyone out.”
    Jennie looked up at Carter in shock. Had she heard him correctly? What had happened to his promises to help them?
    “It just don’t seem fair,” Dennis Kelly was protesting. “Miss Jennie and Miss Kate need the money and we need the place to live.”
    Mrs. Billingsley poked her head around the sheriff and said, “I’m sure you’d all like to continue with whatever… arrangements you gentlemen have made with these… girls …but this is a decent part of town. And we decent folks aren’t going to put up with it.”
    “No, we’re not,” Miss Potter echoed.
    Behind her Lucinda Wentworth had the grace to look embarrassed under the withering glance of her son.
    Jennie heard Dorie’s gasp of indignation through the sound of blood rushing behind her own ears. She let go of Kate and took a step toward the women. She addressed them, totally ignoring Sheriff Hammond and his shotgun. “I don’t know how you can call yourself decent when you come here in the middle ofthe night to a house of bereavement and say vile things—”
    She broke off and whirled around as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dr. Millard straighten himself up from the whatnot, shove Dennis Kelly aside and take two surprisingly spry steps across the hall, just in time to catch a collapsing Kate.
    “Kate!” Lyle Wentworth yelled, helping the doctor as he bent with the weight of Kate’s unconscious form. Together the two men lowered her to the floor.
    “Lordy!” Brad Connors breathed, still holding his derringer pointed toward the sheriff.
    Jennie wailed and sank down next to Kate, her eyes on the doctor. “What’s happened?” she asked in a choked voice.
    Dr. Millard shook his head gently. “I’m not sure, child. Perhaps she’s just fainted. We need to get her to a bed.” With a minimum of words, he instructed the three miners and Lyle on how to lift Kate gently and bear her upstairs toward her room. “I may need your help, Dorie,” he told his daughter, and she turned to follow him up the