Free Secondhand Bride by Linda Lael Miller

the woman with her small hands.
    Jack retrieved the derringer, dropped it into his coat pocket, and scrambled up into the driver’s seat, in search of the strongbox. He broke the lock with the butt of his.44, lifted the lid, and congratulated himself for taking the trouble. There must have been a couple of thousand dollars in there, neatly stacked and tied with string. He cast a contemptuous glance at the lying driver, dead for his sins, shoved it all into his pockets, and whistled for his horse. The animal drew up alongside the stage, and he eased himself into the saddle.
    The little girl looked up at him, her small face streaked with tears, her eyes defiant. The woman was bleeding from the throat, staring sightlessly at the sky.
    Jack tugged at the brim of his hat. “You tell your papa, when you see him, that he owes me a favor,” he said.
    She jutted out her obstinate little chin. “What for?” she demanded.
    “Not killing you,” he answered. With that, he rode off into the night, wondering if he was doing the right thing, leaving a witness to tell the tale. He almost turned back, at one point, but in the end he decided against it. If the cold didn’t finish the kid off, the cougars would.
    He was miles away before he remembered that he hadn’t checked under the stagecoach seat for a gun.
    Maybe she had a chance after all.

11
     
     
    U nable to face the long ride back to the ranch, Jeb spent the night at the Arizona Hotel, though, regrettably, not in Chloe’s bed, and he didn’t sleep well. He was on the way to the livery stable, to collect his horse and go home, when he ran into Sam Fee, the marshal.
    “Sam,” he said, with a cordial nod. He would have gone on past, but for the look of consternation on the lawman’s face. “Something wrong?”
    “Stagecoach didn’t come in yesterday afternoon,” Sam said. “I figured they were just running late, but they should have been here by now.”
    Jeb felt a pinch in the pit of his belly. “You heading out to find them?”
    Sam was already moving toward the stables. “Yup,” he said. “I reckon I’d better. Could be they threw a wheel or ran into some other kind of trouble.”
    “I’ll ride with you,” Jeb said, matching his stride to Sam’s.
    “Obliged,” Sam said. There’d been some trouble between him and the McKettricks, specifically Rafe, when Gig Curry burned the Fee homestead to the ground and left the Triple M brand on a tree for a kind of calling card, but that was behind them now.
    They were a couple of hours south of town when they found the coach and team of six fretful horses just off the trail, and there were two bodies on the ground.
    Jeb cursed and jumped down from the saddle, with Sam only a step behind him. He crouched beside the woman, but he knew before he touched her that there would be no pulse. She’d been shot through the throat, and the ground was awash in blood.
    Sam, in the meantime, squatted by the driver. “Dead,” he said.
    “Son of a bitch,” Jeb muttered, and just as he was about to stand up, he spotted the barrel of a pistol, probably a Colt .45, gleaming in the window of the coach.
    “Don’t you try anything,” a small voice warned. “I’ll shoot you dead if you do.”
    Jeb squinted, hardly trusting his eyes. The speaker was a little girl, wearing a calico bonnet, and he figured she meant business.
    He put his hands out from his sides. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “Sam here is the marshal. We’re not going to hurt you.”
    “You might be an outlaw,” the kid insisted. Her eyes were big with fear and red-rimmed from crying, but she was a brave one, for sure, and meant to stand her ground.
    “Sam,” Jeb said easily, “let her see your badge.”
    Sam stepped into view, the nickel star gleaming on his coat. “He’s telling the truth, child,” he said, in his taciturn way. “Put down that gun, now, before you hurt yourself.”
    She took her time deciding the matter, but she finally