The Lawman's Surrender: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 2 Read Free Page B

she had obviously expected to see Susannah unkempt and in rags, not well-groomed and garbed in a clean dress of pink dimity.
    “Susannah, my dear, how are you?” she trilled in insincere tones. “This whole ordeal must be simply dreadful for you!”
    “Anne, how nice of you to come,” Susannah replied, not meaning a word of it. “How is everyone at the Silver Dollar?”
    “Everything is quite disorganized.” Anne gestured with her hands as she spoke, her accent one of upper class snobbery though Susannah knew she had been born a sharecropper’s daughter in Kansas. “Brick’s brother is coming to take charge soon, and then everything should get back to normal.” She sent Susannah a sly glance. “Of course, it won’t be the same without you performing.”
    Susannah gave Anne a sugar-sweet smile. “I’m certain you’ll get along without me.”
    “I suppose we’ll have to,” Anne replied, patting her stylish raven curls. “After all, it wouldn’t do to have Brick Caldwell’s murderer performing in his opera house.”
    “I didn’t do it, Anne,” Susannah said, dropping the polite facade. “Not that you care. I’m sure you just came here to rub my nose in the fact that you’re probably going to be the new star of the Silver Dollar.”
    “I am going to be the new star. And you, Susannah Calhoun, are going to be hanged for murder.”
    At the glee in the woman’s voice, Susannah raised her eyebrows and said coolly, “Why, Anne, if I didn’t know you had spent that night bouncing on Mayor Rafferty’s mattress, I’d swear that you killed Brick just to get me out of the way.”
    Anne’s ivory cheeks turned crimson, and her eyes narrowed in fury. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
    Susannah laughed. “Anne, everyone knows about you and Mayor Rafferty. And he’s how much older than you? Thirty years? Thirty-five?” She scanned the woman from head to toes. “Then again, maybe twenty.”
    “You think you’re so much better than everyone else,” Anne hissed. “Well, it looks like you finally got your just desserts, doesn’t it?”
    “When you pinch your face up like that, Anne,” Susannah replied blandly, “it makes you look more like Mayor Rafferty’s mother, not his mistress.”
    With a sound of fury, Anne turned and stormed from the jailhouse, shoving past a tall man who was entering the sheriff’s office. He nimbly side-stepped the furious woman, then turned to face Susannah. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized Jedidiah Brown’s familiar lop-sided grin.
    “You do have a way with people,” he drawled.
    Susannah closed her eyes, then opened them again. No, he wasn’t a figment of her imagination. He was there in the flesh—all six-foot-plus of lean, ain’t-I-charming, devastating male.
    She wished she had a gun.
    Jedidiah got a real bad feeling from the gleam in Susannah’s lovely blue eyes. From the look on her face, he was probably lucky that she was unarmed and behind bars.
    “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
    “Your family’s worried about you,” he replied, approaching her cell. “And I hear you need an escort to Denver. I called in a few favors and managed to get myself the assignment.”
    Susannah propped her hands on her hips. “I knew I shouldn’t have wired home. I suppose I’m lucky Sarah didn’t come tearing up here in her condition.”
    “Instead they sent me.” He almost laughed at the sour expression that crossed her face. “Your family trusts me. You might consider doing the same.”
    “Trust is usually earned, Marshal. And with the tab you’re running, you’re already way behind.”
    “I’ll catch up.” He studied her accommodations with raised eyebrows. The plain cot had been topped with a luxuriously thick mattress, complete with pillows and a ruffled coverlet. Makeshift curtains hung from the window, and a vase of wildflowers stood on the small washstand next to a silver-backed brush and mirror set.
    She followed