The Marshal and Mrs. O'Malley Read online

  Flat on his back on the examination table, Fletcher tried to focus on a small black spider crawling across the white ceiling instead of the stabbing pain in his right thigh. Nothing against Doc Green, but the man seemed to be using a knitting needle to stitch him up instead of a surgeon’s needle.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Dr. Green said, pulling the needle through the bloody mess on Fletcher’s thigh. “Bullet barely even grazed the muscle. This should heal in no time. It’s your head wound that worries me. I want to keep you here overnight.”

  Fletcher grit his teeth. Some city marshal he was— shot in the leg and collapsing like a schoolgirl, right into Zeb’s glass display case. Dead to the world before he even hit the floor. “Thanks for the concern, Doc, but that’s not necessary.”

  “You were out cold when they brought you in, Marshal. Even with guns going off like the Fourth of July, you didn’t flinch.”

  What else had he missed? Fletcher wondered as he covered his eyes with one hand and sighed, trying not to wince when the doctor pierced the wound again with that aggravating needle. For all Fletcher knew, the kid in Zeb’s store tonight might have killed ten men on his way out of town.

  The doctor tied the thread and began to dress the wound. Fletcher’s head throbbed where he’d knocked himself out, but it was his leg that ached and burned the most, even though he tried to withstand it.

  It could have been a lot worse, he supposed. He’d seen other men shot before, and most times they didn’t live to see the dawn, so in that way, the doc was right. Fletcher should count himself lucky.

  Just then, the door opened. Startled, Fletcher leaned up on one elbow to see Deputy Anderson hurrying inside with a woman in his arms, looking like an anxious groom carrying his bride over the threshold on his wedding night. But this woman was no bride. She lay lifeless like a rag doll in the deputy’s arms.

  “Another casualty, Doc,” Anderson said. “It’s Mrs. O’Malley. I found her in the privy behind Zimmerman’s. She must have gotten in the way of a stray bullet.”

  Dr. Green quickly cleared off another examination table. “Set her down here.”

  Anderson laid her on the table and her face tilted away from Fletcher. He saw the disorderly twist of honey-colored hair at the back of her head, then his gaze fell to the accompanying blood stain on her shoulder.

  This was what happened when men didn’t respect the law. Innocent, law-abiding folks got hurt, and if they weren’t lucky, they got killed, too. He hoped this poor woman wouldn’t be one of the unlucky ones.

  Her long skirts fell over the side and touched the floor like a fancy tablecloth. Fletcher noticed with some interest that she wore men’s work boots.

  The doctor searched for a pulse at her neck. “Was she conscious when you found her?”

  “Yes, but she fainted straight away.”

  Doc began to unbutton her bloody bodice.

  Wanting to do something to help, Fletcher tried to sit up but felt suddenly nauseous and dizzy. He dropped back down and watched the ceiling spin over his head.

  The deputy approached. “Marshal! Thank the Lord! I heard you were shot in the head.”

  “No, just the leg,” he answered.

  “What’s this, then?” Anderson asked, pointing at the bloodstained dressing around Fletcher’s head.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “He knocked himself out on the corner of Zeb’s jewelry case,” Doc answered.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Anderson said. “Your first showdown in Dodge and you didn’t even get to see how it ended.”

  Fletcher ignored Anderson’s teasing tone. “Did anyone catch the guy?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Who’s the woman?”

  Anderson walked around the table, watching Doc examine the wound. “Josephine O’Malley. Her husband was killed about six months ago by some horse thieves. Right in his own barn.”

  Fletcher shifted uncomfortably. “Did anyone ever catch them?”

  Anderson shook his head. “No witnesses.”

  Fletcher glanced at Mrs. O’Malley, her arm hanging limply over the side of the table. “Where was she?”

  “In the house, I reckon. Now, she keeps to herself. A bit of a recluse. Doesn’t even let her kid come to town. She lives out on her ranch with a bunch of cowhands and that causes a lot of talk in town, if you know what I mean.”

  The doctor glanced at Anderson with disapproval, then began unfastening the woman’s corset. “Deputy, you’ll have to wait outside.”

  Anderson left the office and closed the door behind him. The doctor gathered his instruments.

  “Need any help, Doc?” Fletcher asked.

  “No. But I suggest you look the other way if you’re feeling queasy.”

  Fletcher lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling, searching for the little spider who had distracted him last time, but as luck would have it, he was gone. So Fletcher turned his attention to the bookshelf, but reading the spines of all those medical books made his head pound harder than a steel mallet, so he resigned himself to staring at the empty ceiling again.

  If he could’ve relaxed, he would have been fine, but all he could think of was the woman beside him, her delicate skin being sliced open, all because of a smalltime thief who didn’t seem old enough to use a razor.

  Fletcher touched the blood-soaked dressing on his forehead and tried to fight his anger. He’d taken this job to try to stop the killing, to uphold the law, to be strong where his father had been weak. A fine job he’d done tonight. Gunfire in the streets and innocent people shot down.

  The woman moaned and Fletcher couldn’t help but turn to look. The doctor stood over her with a bloody scalpel in his hand. He set it down and began digging around with another instrument. Fletcher felt ill, but at the same time, he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  The doctor soon began to work with a needle he held in a clamp.

  The woman groggily turned her head, and at last, Fletcher saw her profile—her tiny upturned nose and her moist, full lips the color of a pale red rose. Her long, delicate lashes were swept down upon her cheeks, and she moaned again in a delirious stupor that seemed almost sexual to Fletcher, who immediately chastised himself for thinking such a thing. The doctor quickly reached for a bottle, tipped it over a white cloth and pressed it to her face. Within seconds, her head fell limp toward Fletcher. The moaning stopped and the doctor went back to work.

  Seeing her face for the first time, Fletcher took note of how pale she looked, albeit tanned. Obviously she possessed an unfashionable preference for sunshine. And her tiny, rough hands told him she had not abandoned her husband’s chores after he died. Fletcher couldn’t help but feel sympathetic toward her for all she must have endured.

  Dr. Green cleared his throat. Fletcher looked up at him and saw the perspiration dotting his forehead. “You okay, Doc?”

  He nodded. “I’ve never seen such a close call. If the bullet had gone in any lower—and I’m talking the width of a thread—she would have bled to death.”

  The wound in Fletcher’s leg throbbed as he leaned up on one elbow. “Will she be all right?”

  “I hope so. There’s always the risk of infection, but like I said, she was lucky.”

  Fletcher’s blood burned at the thought of her suffering. It was so damned unnecessary.

  He would catch the man responsible for this, he swore to himself. He would see him brought to justice in front of everyone in a court of law, and he would show this town that—where their new marshal was concerned—the law was the law.

  He wondered if Mrs. O’Malley would remember what had happened to her. Fletcher closed his eyes and decided to be there when she woke to ask her that very question. If this woman survived, she would see justice.

  He would give her his word on it.

  Consciousness bloomed slowly, as if from an empty, black abyss. Jo heard the murmur of voices, but could only lie immobile, trying to awaken her mind from its dazed stupor, all the while becoming
more and more aware of a throbbing ache in her shoulder. She had to concentrate to force her heavy eyelids open.

  Where was she? she wondered, trying to sit up. In someone’s bed, no doubt, but whose? Nothing seemed familiar. Her sleepy gaze darted from the blue gingham curtains on the window to the unpainted pine washstand, then across the small room to a kerosene lamp flickering atop a tall chest of drawers.

  She heard the voices again. They spoke quietly, probably in the next room if her ears were working properly. What had happened? Was Zeb still alive? And what about the lawman? Had she killed him?

  Good Lord, she hoped not.

  She began to sit up, but even the slightest movement gave way to her broken body’s protest. She let out a low groan, squeezed her eyes shut and touched her injured shoulder.

  “Land’s sakes,” she whispered, feeling the large dressing over her wound. Someone had tended to her and put her in a borrowed nightdress. Was she in the doctor’s clinic?

  Her ears suddenly tuned to footsteps and a man’s voice just outside her door. Perhaps someone was coming to arrest her. Perhaps the world now knew that a vengeful heart had lived inside the breast of a desperate widow. What if a lynch mob was forming outside. What would she do?

  Telling herself these fears were irrational at this point, Jo watched nervously as the brass knob turned. The white-painted door squeaked open and Dr. Green walked in. Jo let out a tightly held breath and prepared herself for whatever fate held in store.

  “Mrs. O’Malley, you’re awake,” he said, closing the door with a light click behind him.

  Jo wet her dry lips and tried to bring the approaching doctor into focus. She had to gather her thoughts, carefully plan her responses. Was it too much to hope that her identity had not been discovered? “Yes, I…what happened?”

  Dr. Green approached the bed, his black sleeve stained with blood. Was it her blood? she wondered, worrying not just about her own wounds, but about whoever else might have been hurt because of what she had done.

  “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the doctor said.

  Jo paused, contemplating before she spoke. “Who brought me here?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Dr. Green cupped his fingers around her wrist and took her pulse, which was probably thumping faster than he could count. “You were shot. Deputy Anderson found you in the necessary behind Zimmerman’s.” He glared down at her, and Jo thought she saw suspicion in his brown eyes. “Do you remember?”

  “I…I’m not sure.”

  The doctor looked closely into both her eyes, pulling each of her lower lids down with his thumb. “You were lucky. The bullet went straight through without too much damage. I closed the wound and it should heal just fine. I want to keep you here, though, for at least a day or two to watch for infection.”

  Jo barely heard a word the doctor was saying. All she could think of was how lucky she was to be alive, and what Leo would have done if he’d had to bury another parent.

  “I’ve already sent word out to your ranch. Your son will want to see you, I reckon.”

  Jo smiled weakly at him. “Thank you.”

  How was she going to explain this to Leo? she wondered. She was supposed to have been running errands when all of this happened.

  As the doctor turned to leave, Jo thought again of the lawman she had gunned down in Zeb’s store. A mental picture of him, sprawled out on his back and bleeding onto the plank floor, made her heart wrench. “Wait, please, Doctor. Was anyone hurt tonight?”

  “Besides you? Why, yes. The new marshal took a bullet.”

  “He’s not dead, is he?”

  At that moment, a knock sounded. Dr. Green crossed the room and opened the door.

  Jo suddenly found herself staring in stunned silence at the man she thought she’d killed. Her heart did a quick pitter-pat, then her mind was struck numb by the strangeness of it all—how she could be so plagued by him one moment, then so happy to see him the next.

  “Why don’t you ask Marshal Collins yourself?” Dr. Green suggested.

  Leaning heavily on a cane, the marshal limped like a Civil War veteran into the room. A white, bloodstained bandage was wrapped around his head. He wore black wool trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a dark brown vest, no hat, and his light chestnut-colored hair spilled in rippling waves onto his broad shoulders.

  “Ask me what?” he drawled good-naturedly.

  Jo couldn’t find words to reply. She was too busy trying to keep herself from spilling out her relief in a gigantic wave of apologies and confessions and useless reparations, all of which would land her in the county jail.

  The marshal glanced questioningly at the doctor.

  “She wants to know if you’re dead,” Dr. Green answered.

  The marshal’s lips parted with a grin that revealed straight white teeth and deep dimples around his mouth, and his eyes sparkled flirtatiously. “There are days, ma’am, when I think I might be. Thankfully, this ain’t one of ’em.”

  The two gentlemen shared a chuckle, but all Jo could respond to was the charming, congenial glint in the lawman’s eyes—so different from the threatening glare he’d produced in Zeb’s store when he first burst through the doors.

  When the moment of humor passed, however, the marshal looked at Jo and his smile faded. She swallowed nervously, not wanting to think of all the things he could say to her at this moment, all the accusations she deserved to hear.

  He limped a little closer, his cane tapping twice on the floor. “Are you well enough to speak with me, Mrs. O’Malley? Or would you prefer I come back later?”

  She would have to face this man at some point, she knew. She might as well get it over with now and try to learn as much as she could about the situation. Jo tried to speak with a steady voice. “I believe I could manage it. Please, sit down.”

  He took a seat in the corner rocker, wincing subtly when he bent his knee. The doctor stood just inside the door.

  “I’m very sorry about what happened to you,” the marshal said, leaning his elbow on the armrest. “I can’t help feeling responsible.”

  Knowing it was the most absurd thing for him to say—considering it was she who had shot him in the leg—Jo waited in silence for him to continue.

  “As luck would have it, today was my first day on the job. It was my intent when I walked in on that holdup to disarm the man who shot you.”

  The marshal still believed the outlaw was a man….

  “You must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he continued. “Where were you, exactly?”

  “I was in the privy.”

  Marshal Collins stared at her intently. “But there were no bullet holes in the privy walls, I’m told.”

  “I mean, when they found me,” she added.

  “I’m aware of that much. I was here when Deputy Anderson brought you in.”

  So much had happened while she was unconscious. She was groping for an explanation in the dark with both hands tied behind her back. “What happened to you?” she asked, stalling. “Were you badly hurt?”

  “Thank you for your concern, ma’am, but I’m fine.”

  Dr. Green interrupted. “Rumors are going around that he was shot in the head and laid out cold as a wagon tire. But as you can see, he hasn’t hung up his holster yet.”

  Marshal Collins shot the doctor a rankled glance, then looked back at Jo. “I was wounded, is all.”

  Jo gestured to the bandage on his head. “What happened there?”

  “It’s nothing serious—”

  “He fainted,” Dr. Green said.

  The marshal shook his head. “I didn’t faint, ma’am. I took a bullet in the leg and cracked my skull on the counter when I went down.”

  “The bullet just grazed him, actually,” the doctor added.

  “If you don’t mind, Doc, I’m trying to interrogate a witness.”

  Witness. Jo felt some of the weigh
t lift from her shoulders.

  The marshal looked back at Jo, his expression sobering. “I’ll have to ask you again. Where were you when you were shot?”

  Jo did her best to answer sensibly. “I was late in running my errands today and I was on my way to the privy before heading home.”

  “A lady like yourself shouldn’t be walking the streets alone after dark. In the future you might want to be more careful.”

  “A woman like me doesn’t have the means to be careful, Marshal. I’m raising a son and running my late husband’s ranch. If I need supplies, I get them. I don’t pay much mind to whether it’s the sun or the moon lighting my way.”

  Something unreadable flickered in the marshal’s eyes as he digested her reply. He hesitated a moment, staring, before steering the subject back to where he wanted it. “Did you see the man who shot you?”

  “I didn’t see him. I only heard gunfire, stopped to look in the direction I thought it was coming from, then felt the bullet strike. I have no idea where it came from, or who shot me. Then I ran to the privy and locked the door. I was quite frightened.”

  “Of course you were.” He narrowed his eyes and his inquisitive gaze routed some of Jo’s resolve. “Would you excuse us for a moment, Doc? I have some questions of a private nature, and I’m sure Mrs. O’Malley would want her answers kept private as well.”

  She felt a rush of anxiety. What would this private conversation be about?

  Jo nodded her consent at the doctor.

  “I’ll be right outside the door if you need me,” he said. “But you go easy on her, Marshal. She’s in a delicate state.”

  As soon as the doctor walked out, the pain in Jo’s shoulder grew worse, if that was possible, but she tried to ignore it. She had to keep the situation in focus. Her future depended on the marshal’s questions and what she might learn from them. She had to protect Leo from his father’s killer, and if that meant skirting the law until she had a chance to meet Zeb again, then so be it. The most important thing now was to lead this marshal away from her masquerade.

  He leaned forward in his chair and the muscles in his sun-bronzed forearms tensed, then relaxed, distracting her from everything. Accordingly, Jo tried instead to concentrate on his voice, but that wasn’t much better. His slow drawl had the same calming effect it had had in Zeb’s store when he’d told her to lower her weapons.