Free The Lawman's Surrender: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 2 by Debra Mullins

you’ll be moving on.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Then you’d best get going, Marshal,” she said in a falsely bright tone. “The sooner you get your man, the sooner you can be on your way.”
    “In a hurry to see the back of me, princess?”
    “In a hurry to get out from behind these bars,” she corrected. “Go on, Marshal. I’ll still be here when you get back.”
    “You’d better be.” He tugged his hat low over his eyes, and with a last, warning look, he strode away.
     
     
    The sun was well on its way to setting when Susannah left the jailhouse.
    She knew Jedidiah would want to kill her when he discovered that she’d run off, but she really didn’t have a choice.
    Over the course of the day, a buzz of growing unrest had escalated among the townspeople. Several times, Sheriff Jones had stepped outside to calm what was turning into an angry mob of upset husbands who objected to having a black widow killer in their midst.
    There had been a lull in the protesting around suppertime, as all the stalwart husbands of the town went home to fill their bellies at their wives’ tables. Susannah’s own stomach had started to growl when Sheriff Jones came back into the cell area, followed by a petite woman carrying a dinner tray, whom he introduced as Mrs. Molly Pruitt.
    The sheriff unlocked the cell door, allowing the diminutive woman to enter the cell. Mrs. Pruitt had smiled at Susannah, reminding her of a doe with her big brown eyes and delicate stature, and placed the covered tray on the small table next to the bed. Then, when the sheriff’s back was turned, the sweet lady pulled a napkin away from the tray, grabbed the piece of pipe she had hidden there, and hit Sheriff Jones on the back of the head with it.
    Susannah had watched in stunned amazement as the lawman dropped like a stone.
    Mrs. Pruitt grabbed the sheriff’s gun and pointed it at Susannah. “It would be better if you came along quietly,” she said in a small, whispery voice.
    “I agree,” Susannah said, and walked out of the cell ahead of Mrs. Pruitt.
    And so it was that Susannah found herself in the cellar of Pruitt’s Bed and Feed, a combination boarding house and restaurant only two doors down from the sheriff’s office.
    Mrs. Pruitt urged her into the cellar, lit a lamp, and closed the door, shutting out the sunlight. Then with a squeak of disgust, she dropped the gun to the earthen floor.
    “I hate guns,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
    Susannah gaped at the woman.
    “Well, I do,” Mrs. Pruitt insisted, obviously reading Susannah’s puzzlement in her face. “They’re so noisy and dangerous! I do so hate violence.”
    Susannah felt as if she’d stepped into some bizarre dream. “But I saw you hit Sheriff Jones in the head with a pipe!”
    Mrs. Pruitt twisted her slender fingers. “Well, he wouldn’t have let me take you out of there otherwise,” she reasoned. “Though I suppose I could have asked.”
    “No, I think you read the situation correctly.” Susannah sat down on a pile of flour sacks. “Might I also mention that you led me here at gun point?”
    “Oh, that was for your protection,” the woman responded. “This way they can’t say that you broke out of jail—not if I forced you to go!”
    There was a convoluted logic there that Susannah had to acknowledge. “Why don’t you tell me why you went through so much trouble?”
    “I need your help,” Mrs. Pruitt said. She glanced around as if expecting someone to leap from behind the stores piled around them.
    “My help? What for?” The only help Susannah felt capable of providing was fashion advice, though that couldn’t be what the woman referred to—even though her baggy gray gown was two sizes too big for her small frame.
    “I want you to kill my husband,” Mrs. Pruitt replied.
    Susannah stared at the woman, noting the desperation in those doe-like eyes that seemed too big for her pale, delicate face. Molly Pruitt was serious—and Susannah was in big