Chapter 13

“The lines are down? Please, tell me you’re kidding with me.” Colt rested his elbows on the counter at the telegram office and leaned on them.

“I’m sorry, but we have men working on them as we speak. We should hear from them in about two weeks if all goes well,” Eli said, situating his visor on his forehead.

“Two-” Colt laid his forehead on the countertop and groaned. “I need a telegram to go through, Eli. You don’t know how much.”

“I gather it’s something to do with that woman, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything,” Eli said.

“I live a three days’ ride out. How are you going to let me know? Ride out there yourself?” Colt asked.

“Then just come back in two weeks or send one of those cowboys,” Eli suggested.

“It’s not that easy. Any cowboy that’s not busy will be building a house at that time. Who’s gonna break the news to Jessie?” Colt lifted his head.

He didn’t want her using that candlestick on him and meeting the same fate as that ruffian.

“You can leave a telegram with me and I can send it when the lines are repaired,” Eli offered.

Colt narrowed his eyes. It was bad enough that the town’s gossip generator happened to be the telegraph operator, but trusting him with something he didn’t care to have blabbed all over town made about as much sense as milking a bull.

Colt pursed his lips and found that he didn’t have a choice. He looked at the man, then out the window.

Lord, help us.

“Fine. Eli, if you even as much as utter a word from this telegram to anyone in the blame town, I’ll come back and make you pick your teeth with your own toenail ya hear?”

Eli grimaced, and Colt was tempted to make the same expression. He was never good at issuing threats.

Eli gave him a notepad and a pencil. Colt thought over the message he wanted to send. What was he to say to these people?

JESSIE STEELE FOUND IN PLATEAU ARIZONA STOP TAKEN CARE OF NEAR DOTTIE BELLE RANCH STOP COLT KIDD

Colt sighed and gave Eli the notepad.

“Where to?” Eli asked.

“Myrtleville, South Carolina,” Colt answered.

“That’s a long way, ain’t it?”

Colt nodded. “Sure is.”
An awful long way. Jessie’s leg might even be healed by the time her family arrived.

He hung his head and resisted the urge to groan. He was going to have to be around two women all alone in that house for at least two more weeks. Not to mention that he wanted to get Jessie out of his life as soon as possible. She made him… feel things. Caused emotions that he had buried two months ago to barely resurface, and he wanted them six feet under, where they belonged.

Lord, help me.

Maybe it wasn’t his fault at all. Maybe he wasn’t to blame for the feelings resurfacing. If might be her fault… it might be no one’s fault. He was a man, and she was pretty. It was a natural thing to be attracted, right?

Yet he’d seen pretty women all his life. They’d never affected him like Jessie had, with her long, copper-colored hair that fell in gentle waves, her soft green eyes, and delicate complexion. She probably hadn’t seen more than a week of direct sunlight in her life. That usually hinted to a prissy personality, but she had knocked a man out!

Jessie Steele was a walking contradiction.

An engaged walking contradiction at that.

Eli cleared his throat and Colt jolted back to reality.

“That’s a nickel a word,” Eli reminded.

*****

Jessie sighed at Colt’s words.

Two weeks? That was an awful long time to impose on the Kidd family.

“I can stay here in town and wait if you like. I can find a job somewhere and pay for a room at the hotel…”

“What in tarnation are you talking about?” Colt asked, looking more hurt than confused.

“I’d hate to impose on you and your grandmother any longer. It would be quite a job to keep me from your boss for a month more at the least,” Jessie explained from him.

“I’m not the kind of man to leave you to your own devices in a town like this. The fact that you’d think such a thing is shocking to me,” Colt shook his head.

Jessie put her head down. “I hate being a bother.”

“You’re not a bother. If anything, you’re a blessing. Granny will fuss over you now instead of me for the next few weeks.” A smile tugged at Colt’s lips.

Jessie sighed. “Are you sure this isn’t too much trouble for you?”

“I’m positive,” Colt’s words sounded as genuine as they could get.

Jessie smiled. “I won’t make you sorry, Colt. You, Doc, and your grandmother have shown me more kindness than I ever expected from people out here.”

“Well, the West isn’t all outlaws and bandits,” Colt grinned.

Jessie nodded. “I’m finding that out.”

*****

Colt helped Doc load the last of the wood into the back of the wagon and took off his gloves.

“We ain’t gonna have room for the girl,” Doc pointed out. “Especially not after all the stuff from the general store.”

Colt nodded and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Guess we’re all gonna have to fit in the front seat.”

He and Doc exchanged glances.

This was going to be interesting.

Yet somehow the thought of Jessie pressed up against his side didn’t hurt his feelings much. Sure, it would be awkward for the first little bit, but the three of them would get used to it and carry on as they normally would.

Colt exited the general store with the last of the supplies and squeezed the crate into the back of the wagon. They couldn’t fit a leaf in the back of the wagon with the extra space the wood and the house supplies took up. He sighed and ran his hand through his sweaty hair, having loaded the whole wagon by himself. He didn’t know where Doc had run off to, but it wasn’t very polite of him to leave Colt to do the heavy lifting.

“Well, that just about does it,” he told Jessie, who sat in the middle of the seat with her leg propped up on the front of the wagon.

She nodded. “Did we fit it all?”

“Barely,” Colt chuckled. “She better be grateful for all this.”

Jessie laughed, the sound echoing through the air and bringing stillness to the busy street - at least in Colt’s eyes. “If Bliss Slade is anything like you’ve described her to me,” she said, “I’m sure that you’ll be in her good graces for years to come.”

Colt pressed his lips into a thin line. He didn’t know whether to be happy about that or not.

“Well, are you two gonna gab all day or are we gonna hit the road? There’s only few hours of sunlight left,” Dow showed up out-of-the-blue and hopped up beside Jessie in the wagon.

“Where you been, Dawson?” Colt asked, not moving from his position on the ground at the back of the wagon.

“Doing things,” Doc answered shortly.

Colt rolled his eyes. “If you’ve gotten into any trouble, Dawson…”

“I didn’t. I just went to ask Silas when I was supposed to look for Miss Jessie’s leg to be healed. That’s all. He gave me a few other instructions, but I wanted to know the best way to care for the little lady,” Doc explained.

Colt didn’t buy it for a minute. He might have went down to the doctor’s office to get advice on the treatment of Jessie’s leg, but nothing could convince him that there wasn’t any sparring going on between the two.

Silas had never trusted Doc with the care of anything other than a minor scrape, let alone fixing the cowboy’s injuries. The two of them had probably had heated words over the idea.

Colt walked around to the front of the wagon and climbed up into the seat beside Jessie.

“Are you sure we got everything?” he asked.

Jessie nodded. “I know I did.”

Doc nodded along.

Colt gave the third nod and slapped the reins against the horses’ backs.

With that, they were off. Soon, they left Plateau in the distance and put fewer miles between them and the Dottie Belle.

*****

Myra ran down the streets of Myrtleville, dodging wagons and horses, ignoring the annoyed remarks of passersby. Her husband and son had returned home after only two days of leaving. Something was terribly wrong or terribly good.

She barged into the sheriff’s office and found her men in the room, discussing something with Sheriff Adam. Every eye turned to her.

“I heard that you had returned. Is there any news?” she asked.

“I’m doing everything I possibly can, Mrs. Steele. I can’t find any traces of Jessie anywhere beyond New Mexico,” Adam told her, pain shooting through his hazel eyes.

“You were only gone two days. That’s not nearly enough time to get to New Mexico,” Myra pointed out.

“Well, we’ve found something else, honey,” Jacob said, nearing her.

“S-Something else?”

“Maybe a clue. We’re not sure yet, so we’ll have to wait it out. Adam had a thought late last night,” Jacob turned to their future son-in-law.

“My father,” Adam continued. “She said something about going to find my father the day before she went missing.”

Myra thought hard. Why would Jessie want to do that?

“We had… we had words the night before she left. I didn’t think she would go this far, I honestly didn’t,” Adam ran a hand through his blonde hair.

“Why would she need to find your father?” Myra asked.

“You know how Pa is with her. She’s had him wrapped around her finger since we were kids. She more than likely wanted him to convince me of her ideas of the wedding,” Adam said.

Myra drew her eyebrows close together. That didn’t sound like her Jessie at all. No, Jessie was the one who hated confrontation, but when it came she didn’t back down. She would never lower herself to such a conniving state. She had been raised better than that.

“Something is bad wrong here, Adam,” Jake spoke up for the first time, crossing his arms over his chest. “It isn’t like my sister to just run off. She had to have more driving her than silly wedding plans.”

Adam sighed. “I’m grasping at straws here. We’re out of options. The men I sent are doing their best in New Mexico, but there’s no guarantee that anything will show up.”

“What are you saying?” Myra asked, feeling her heart beat harder.

“I’m saying that we… we might need to adjust our priorities,” Adam said.

Myra felt her ire flaring up. “Adjust priorities? Boy, this is my baby girl we’re talking about. There are no higher priorities!”

“I know that, but I have a town to run. I have a job to do. I can’t keep running out of my jurisdiction like this and leaving the town vulnerable.”

Myra couldn’t believe the words she was hearing. “Not even for your fiancé?”

“I love Jessie, Mrs. Steele, but I know when I’ve been beat,” Adam defended.

Myra turned around and simply walked out of the building before she really lost her temper. She must remain composed - the picture of elegance and grace. While she might appear calm on the outside, her insides were raging. She would likely have to ride out after her daughter herself if her husband or son didn’t convince Adam that the search wasn’t over.

Some fiancé. Some love that man had for Jessie. Before anyone got married once Jessie had safely returned to them, Sheriff Adam was just going to have to prove his worth to the Steele family all over again.

Hey guys! As you may have seen, I've decided not to include pictures. I feel like seeing the picture of the person can ruin the image in your mind for the rest of the book, and that's not what I want. Hope you guys concur! Love ya'll and let me know what you think of this chapter! Thanks