Undercover Bride (23 page)

“Do you, by any chance, know Mr. Dinwiddie?”

“Who?”

“Oswald Dinwiddie. He’s a friend of Aunt Hetty’s.”

“Never heard of him.”

She decided to try another tactic. “I heard you and Garrett arguing that day in the shop.” She paused and waited for him to offer an explanation—something—but he said nothing.

“Do you mind if I ask what you were arguing about?”

“Why don’t you ask Thomas?”

“He’s not much of a talker,” she said, maintaining a conversational tone. “He doesn’t like to talk about the past.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you care what we were arguing about?”

“I hate to see family members at odds with one another.”

He leaned forward. “Any relationship Thomas and I had ended the day my sister died.”

“Is that what she would want?” Maggie asked.

“You know nothing about my sister,” he hissed.

“No, but you are her children’s uncle.” When he made no reply, she continued. “I saw you at school this morning. You’re not thinking of causing your niece and nephew harm, are you?”

He sat back. “Course not. I miss them is all. Thomas won’t let me see them.”

He sounded sincere, but there was something unsettling about his dark, flat eyes. It was like looking into two black holes.

“I feel I must warn you that if you cause any harm to the man I love—” The word
love
escaped before she could think about what she was saying. She coughed to clear her voice.

“—harm Garrett or his children, and you’ll have to deal with me.”

He gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I’m trembling in my boots.”

“You should be.”

Standing, he tossed a single coin on the table and walked away. She watched him leave the hotel dining room with a sense of impending doom.

M
aggie was hardly aware of her surroundings as she left the hotel. Her conversation with Rikker kept running through her head. Was he right about a third man being involved in the Whistle-Stop holdup?

Cotton professed not to know Dinwiddie, and she believed him. If she was right, that was the only true word the man had spoken. So if Dinwiddie wasn’t his partner, then who was?

She was so deep in thought she almost missed seeing Sheriff Summerhay drag Linc across the street by the ear.

Worried that the boy might have gotten into serious trouble, she picked up her pace and followed the two into the sheriff’s office. Linc, looking pale and close to tears, was emptying out his pockets.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

The sheriff looked none too pleased to see her. “Not that it’s any business of yours, but the boy’s a thief.”

She turned to Linc. “Is that true?”

Linc dumped a handful of penny candy and coins onto the desk and shook his head.

The sheriff pulled something out of his pocket and waved it in front of the boy’s face. “Then suppose you tell me where you got this?” It was a hundred-dollar bill. To Maggie he said, “Bought a bagful of candy with it.”

Maggie stared at the note in disbelief. It was the second bill to show up in little more than a week. What was going on?

The sheriff tucked the bill in his pocket. “If you don’t want to tell me now, you can sit in that cell over there till you do.”

“Wait,” Maggie said. “Let me talk to him.”

Summerhay looked about to object but then changed his mind. “All right, but make it quick.”

Maggie placed her hand on Linc’s shoulder and looked him square in the eye. “I won’t let anything happen to you, but you have to tell me the truth. Do you understand?” After getting a reluctant nod, she asked, “Where did you get the money?”

“I found it,” he muttered.

“Found it where?”

“Right there in front of the barbershop.”

She pulled her hand away. “By ‘in front of the barbershop,’ do you mean it was on the ground?”

Linc nodded. “I was inside selling my newspapers. When I walked outside, there it was. Like I said, right in front.”

“Do you know how it got there?”

Linc shook his head. “Nope.” She studied him, and he said, “Honest.”

She turned to the sheriff. “He’s telling the truth.”

Summerhay made a face. “The boy doesn’t know the truth from the backside of a mule.” He turned to Linc. “Sittin’ in jail for a while is bound to change your tune.”

Maggie’s temper flared. “He’s responsible for his grandmother’s care. Unless you wish to care for her yourself, I suggest you let him go.”

He glared at her. “The boy’s a thief.”

“His name is Linc, and he told you how he got the money.”

“And you believe him?”

“I do. So either you let him go, or you’ll have to put us both in jail because I’m not leaving without him.”

Okay, maybe giving the sheriff an ultimatum was not Maggie’s most brilliant idea, but who would have guessed he would have the gall to throw her in jail? And what was taking Rikker so long to come to her rescue? He kept his ear to the ground. Surely he must have heard about her arrest by now.

So far she’d spent three hours pacing the tiny cell back and forth while Linc alternated between sleeping and complaining of hunger. Finally the door of the sheriff’s office flew open. Much to her shock, Garrett, not Rikker, barreled inside, and he looked fit to be tied.

One glance at her behind bars and he whirled about to face Summerhay. “What is the meaning of this?”

The sheriff scowled from across the desk. “Your woman insists on putting her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“What are the charges against her?”

“I told you. Being a busybody.”

“If that was a crime, you’d have to arrest half the people in this town.”

The sheriff sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t like people questioning my judgment.”

Garrett placed his palms on the desk and leaned over. “And I don’t like you throwing your weight around… especially since you’re up for reelection. Either release her or you’ll have to deal with my lawyer.”

Glowering, the sheriff rose and pulled the keys off the wall. Muttering beneath his breath, he unlocked the steel jail door.

Maggie motioned to Linc, and the boy walked out of the cell ahead of her. The sheriff started to protest, but one look at Garrett changed his mind.

S
uppose you tell me what that was all about,” Garrett said once they reached the privacy of his shop. He’d turned the sign in the window to read C
LOSED
. Linc had already taken off, and it was just the two of them.

She quickly explained about the hundred-dollar bill. “I think Linc was telling the truth.” She studied him. “So where do you suppose the money came from?”

He looked as mystified as she was. Of course that could be an act, but somehow she didn’t think so.

“Search me,” he said. He then surprised her by laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“You should have seen the indignant look on your face when I walked into the sheriff’s office.”

“It’s not every day that one is thrown into jail,” she said. It was the first time she’d been in jail for at least six months. “You looked pretty incensed yourself.”

He studied her. “Is this what married life will be like?” he asked. “You getting into trouble and me coming to the rescue?” Glints of humor sparkled in his eyes.

“It could be the other way around.”

“You think
I
need rescuing?” he asked.

“Do you?” she asked.

His hands slipped up her arms, and she felt an unwelcomed surge of want and need, and more than anything, excitement. “Not anymore,” he whispered.

The brush of his lips against hers made her senses spin. Leaning into him, she absorbed his manly essence before pulling away.

“The ch—children,” she stammered. “I—I don’t want to be late picking them up.” Before he could respond, she whirled about and dashed out the door.

The next day, Maggie glanced at the calendar on the kitchen wall. Only two weeks left until June 15. How quickly time flew! Fourteen days. The clock was ticking.

Rikker’s theory about three robbers was possible but didn’t explain why suddenly the stolen money had begun to surface. Working at the bank Dinwiddie had to know that large bills would attract attention, so his involvement in spreading them around made no sense. Cotton wasn’t even in town for the school fund-raiser, so that omitted him. That left Garrett.

Did he think that giving the money away anonymously offered protection? Was it possible that he just wanted to rid himself of the money and be done with it?

The thought nearly crushed her. No matter how much she wanted to believe in Garrett’s innocence, things always pointed back to him.

Garrett’s voice floated from the other room, startling her out of her reverie. “Toby, Elise, in the wagon, or you’ll be late for school.”

His footsteps echoed behind her. He laid something that looked like a legal document on the kitchen table. “Some papers for you to sign,” he said.

She ran her hands down the front of her apron. “Papers?”

“I had my lawyer draw up a new deed with your name on it. Should anything happen to me…”

She stared at him, speechless. Was that what he was doing at the lawyer’s office?

He chuckled. “Don’t look so alarmed. Just a precaution. You never know what the future holds, and I want to make sure you and the children are taken care of.”

“I…” She cleared her voice. “I don’t feel comfortable signing anything until after we’re married.”

He frowned, and his eyes sharpened. “Yesterday… in the shop. I didn’t alarm you, did I?”

She held herself still. Alarm her? No. What he did was confuse her. He kept peeling away her defenses, and that scared her. It made her feel vulnerable and want things that a hard-nosed detective could never have.

Hiding her rampaging emotions behind a calm demeanor, she shook her head. “It was late, and I was worried about the children,” she said. The words—the lie—left a bad aftertaste. In a couple of short weeks this would all be over, and he would know the truth. Everyone would.

His gaze latched onto her lips as if he regretted the disrupted kiss as much as she did. “I’ll leave the papers on the table. You can sign them when you’re ready.”

Grateful that he didn’t press her, she forced a smile. “Thank you.”

“I’ve got a delivery to make this morning. I’ll drop the children off on the way.”

He studied her a moment before turning. “Toby, Elise, hurry!”

A flurry of activity followed as the children grabbed schoolbooks, gave her quick hugs, and followed their father through the house and out the door.

All at once it was silent and the walls seemed to close in around her. Maggie picked the document up from the table. Rikker expressed concern about Garrett leaving town after ascertaining his children were in good hands. His willingness to put her name on the deed led her to believe that perhaps Rikker was right. Maybe that had been the plan all along.

Less than two hours later, Maggie pounded on the door of Rikker’s hotel room with both fists. They’d agreed that she was not to visit him in his hotel room, but this was an emergency, and she had taken care to make sure that no one had spotted her.