The Heart's Pursuit Read online

  He nodded.

  “Matlock Mercantile,” she added.

  He nodded again, still without comment.

  She lifted her chin. “Our store was robbed week before last, and the money in the safe was taken—the money my father intended to use to make the final mortgage payment that is due next week.”

  “I see.” He swiveled his chair around and rose, then walked to his office door. “John,” he called to his clerk, “bring me the Matlock file. Matlock Mercantile, Twin Springs.” He faced her again. “May I inquire why you are here instead of your father?”

  She hesitated before answering. “My father is a proud man, Mr. Owens.”

  “In other words, he doesn’t know you’ve come to see me.”

  Desperation overwhelmed her practiced calm as she leaned forward in her chair. “It’s my fault the store was robbed.”

  “Your fault?” He returned to his chair behind the desk.

  “Yes. The man . . . the man who robbed us was—” Oh, how hard it was to admit to a stranger. “He was my fiancé.”

  The bank manager’s brows arched as his eyes widened, but he said nothing. His clerk entered the office and laid the requested file on the banker’s desk.

  “Excuse me a moment, Miss Matlock.” Jess Owens slid his glasses up his nose and opened the file. Thoughtfully he studied the papers inside the folder, a frown beginning to crease his forehead.

  “Mr. Owens.” Silver gripped the edge of the desk. “Please don’t take their home or business. My father has worked hard for everything he has. He’s poured his life into that store and into the community. If you could give him some additional time, I know he will make good on the debt.” She didn’t know anything of the kind, but she said it anyway.

  “Miss Matlock, there is a legal due date on the note. The final payment was a full third of the amount borrowed. A considerable sum.” He put down the file and removed his glasses. “To overlook it wouldn’t be fair to the bank’s depositors. It’s quite a large sum of money.”

  The breath caught in her chest. “How much?”

  He shook his head.

  She took hold of the gold locket hanging around her neck. “Would this cover the amount? That’s a real diamond, Mr. Owens. The necklace belonged to my great-grandmother, so it’s quite old.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Matlock. I cannot divulge the details of your father’s loan. I can guess that your necklace wouldn’t be worth more than 10 percent of the sum owed.”

  Silver felt the color drain from her face. Her father’s debt must be at least several thousand dollars. She hadn’t dreamed it could be so much. It might as well be ten million. Tears flooded her eyes, and she blinked to keep them from falling.

  The banker cleared his throat. “Perhaps I could grant a brief extension. Say, ninety days?”

  “Ninety days,” she repeated in a whisper, grasping at hope.

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  She drew herself up. “Thank you, Mr. Owens. We’ll have the money for you in ninety days. I promise.”

  Silver sat with her younger stepsister in the small parlor of the Downing home, sipping a cup of tea and enjoying the quiet while her two young nephews slept.

  They’d spoken of numerous things since her arrival—her brother-in-law, Dan Downing’s, apprenticeship with a veterinarian, the mischief her nephew Fredrick got into since he’d begun walking, the relief her stepsister, Rose, felt now that two-month-old Harry was sleeping through the night—but they couldn’t avoid discussing Silver’s disastrous wedding day forever.

  “How is Mother?” Rose asked. “Is she . . . is she doing any better since we left Twin Springs?”

  “She’s taken to her bed. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for so poorly choosing a fiancé.”

  “Oh, Silver.”

  “It’s all right.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not sure I can forgive myself either.”

  “You couldn’t have known Mr. Cassidy would . . . leave you at the altar.”

  “Couldn’t I?” Silver wasn’t so sure. When she thought back over the weeks of their courtship, she couldn’t deny there had been signs of Bob’s true nature. Thoughtless comments that could sting. Flirtations with other women that he brushed off as meaningless. A seeming obsession with money. Her father’s money in particular.

  “Well, I’m glad you came for a visit,” Rose continued. “We’ll do all sorts of things to take your mind off of him while you’re in Denver.”

  “I didn’t come here to be entertained.”

  Rose tilted her head in silent inquiry.

  “Papa could lose the store . . . and the house.”

  “What?”

  “There are mortgages on both of them. Apparently the store hasn’t been doing as well as it used to when Twin Springs was growing rapidly. Papa had that land out by Copper Creek, and he sold it, meaning to use the proceeds to pay off the notes, which are coming due. Only the money was in the safe.”

  “Oh no.” Rose covered her mouth.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Doesn’t Sheriff Cooper hold out any hope of finding Mr. Cassidy?”

  “He thinks he’s long gone from the Denver area. They’ll keep looking, of course, but he wasn’t very encouraging. There’s so little to go on, and no real evidence Bob was involved in the theft. Miss Harris—you remember the dressmaker?—swears she saw him leaving town the night before.”

  “Whatever will Papa do if he loses the store? And Mother. She’ll never forgive—” Rose broke off suddenly.

  Silver understood anyway. “I know. She’ll never forgive me.” She drew in a deep breath. “Before coming here this morning, I went to see the banker. He’s agreed to give Papa another ninety days to raise the money.”

  “Will that be enough time? If Dan and I had anything extra, we would—”

  Silver gave her stepsister a sad smile. “I know you would. But Dan’s only an apprentice, and you have two babies to support. Father would never ask you to help. This is my fault. I’m the one who has to help recover what was taken.”

  That night, Silver lay sleepless in a bed in her sister and brother-in-law’s home. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her racing thoughts.

  This was her fault. She was the one who had made Bob Cassidy a part of her family, even before the wedding could take place. She was the one who’d convinced her father to give Bob—a newcomer to Twin Springs—a job in the mercantile. She was the one who had taught him all the inner workings of the business and showed him how to tally the day’s receipts. It was she who had told him her father took his deposits to the bank in Denver every other week because of a long-running dispute with the Twin Springs bank manager.

  Was that when Bob had decided to steal the money in the safe? Or had he made that decision only after he decided to leave her at the altar?

  Her cheeks grew hot as the sting of mortification returned. She’d waited for Bob at the church for more than an hour on her wedding day—along with her father, stepmother, stepsister, brother-in-law, nephews, and all of their guests. They’d waited and waited and waited. She’d heard the whispers, seen the pity in the townspeople’s eyes.

  How she hated Bob for humiliating her that way. He’d played her for a fool, then compounded it by stealing from her parents. She couldn’t let him get away with it. She had to find him and get back their money. She had to save her father from financial destruction.

  She remembered him, then, that man who’d stood beside his horse outside the Mountain Rose Saloon. She’d been running from the church, angry and embarrassed, shamed and disgraced, hating the tears that streaked her cheeks. Then she’d looked up and there he’d stood, a stranger, tall and rugged beneath a dusty brown hat.

  And he’d smirked at her!

  “We going or not, bounty?”

  As the words replayed in her memory, she sat up in bed. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? A bounty hunter. If the sheriff hadn’t enough deputies or enou
gh cause to look for Bob Cassidy, she could hire someone to do it for her. Who better than someone who tracked down criminals for the reward?

  She fingered the locket at her throat. It was all she had. It wasn’t enough to pay off the mortgage, but it was surely worth enough to hire a bounty hunter. She would do so first thing tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jared leaned back in the chair and let his gaze move over the customers in the restaurant. His mood was black, and it didn’t help to think about his lack of funds. According to the sheriff, Rick Cooper, problems with the paperwork would delay collection of the reward for Lute Peterson for at least a couple more weeks, maybe longer. The waiting was driving Jared crazy. He wasn’t used to staying in one place very long.

  He rubbed the old wound in his shoulder. Whenever he became frustrated or angry, the pain returned, reminding him why he wasn’t at home in Kentucky, reminding him why he lived the kind of life he did. It wasn’t what he’d been born to. It was a life thrust upon him by the acts of an evil man, a life Jared couldn’t change until he obtained justice.

  With the scrape of wood against wood, he pushed back his chair, rose, and dropped the coins for his meal beside his empty plate. Then he left the restaurant and strode along the boardwalk toward the sheriff’s office.

  The morning air was crisp, a light wind blowing down from the snowcapped mountains to the west. But spring was coming to the mile-high city of Denver. He hoped he wouldn’t be around, cooling his heels, when it arrived.

  At the sheriff’s office, he pushed open the door to the front entry. Through another doorway he could see Rick Cooper seated behind his desk, a woman in a blue dress standing before him, her back to Jared.

  “It’s a bad idea, Miss Matlock.” Rick shook his head.

  “But, Sheriff Cooper, you said yourself you haven’t enough deputies. Why shouldn’t I hire someone to do what you’re unable to do?”

  Her voice told Jared this Miss Matlock was young, but lack of years hadn’t made her timid. She spoke with firmness, and she stood straight, her shoulders level, her head held high.

  Rick continued, “The type of men who do this sort of work are more often than not hardly better than the criminals they seek.”

  Jared moved to the office doorway, then stopped and waited to be noticed.

  The woman answered Rick. “I don’t care as long as they do what they’re hired to do.”

  Jared cleared his throat, announcing his presence. Rick leaned to the side to peer around the young woman, and Jared gave a quick nod of greeting.

  Then Miss Matlock turned, and Jared found himself looking into a pair of familiar gray eyes. He would have known her anywhere. The angry bride from Twin Springs, only without tears this time. He’d thought her pretty the first time he’d seen her. Now he realized pretty was an inadequate description. Striking seemed a more appropriate word.

  He knew the moment she recognized him too. Her face paled, then flushed with what he supposed was embarrassment.

  Rick stood. “Morning, Newman.”

  “Cooper.”

  Something in Rick’s expression changed. A slight widening of the eyes, followed by the hint of a smile. He held Jared’s gaze a moment, then motioned him into the room before looking back to the woman between them.

  Why did Jared have the feeling he was stepping into a well-set trap?

  “Miss Matlock,” the sheriff said, “may I introduce Jared Newman? He’s someone I could recommend to you.”

  Miss Matlock had regained her composure. “How do you do, Mr. Newman.” Her tone was frosty. He supposed he couldn’t blame her, given the last time they’d seen each other.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss.” He bent the brim of his hat.

  Unflinching, her eyes continued to study him. All sign of her embarrassment had disappeared. No simpering female, this one. He saw grit and determination in her gaze. He found the look appealing.

  “You’re a bounty hunter?” she asked.

  “That’s what some call what I do.”

  “Are you looking for employment?”

  He glanced at Cooper, wondering how he should respond. The sheriff shrugged.

  “The sheriff seems to think you could find someone for me, Mr. Newman.”

  “You don’t say. And who would that be?”

  Her shoulders squared. “I need you to find my . . . my fiancé.” She shook her head. “My former fiancé.”

  Was this some sort of joke? Chase down the man who’d jilted her? He hadn’t been reduced to that kind of work, had he? At least with real criminals he could feel he’d accomplished something for the greater good when he turned them over to the law.

  Something in his expression must have conveyed his thoughts. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s imperative I find him soon, Mr. Newman. Will you help me? I . . . I’m offering a reward.”

  “Miss Matlock,” Rick interrupted before Jared could answer, “why don’t you go back to your sister’s and let me discuss the matter with Mr. Newman?”

  “But I—”

  “Go along, Miss Matlock. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  She looked between the two men, pink rising in her cheeks for the second time since Jared’s arrival. “Very well. I’ll be at my sister’s. You know the address.”

  Rick nodded.

  Jared stepped to the side. Miss Matlock avoided his eyes as she moved past him. He waited until she exited to the street before speaking. “Cooper, I don’t hunt down missing bridegrooms.”

  “There’s more to it than that. Miss Matlock believes the man she was to marry stole money and jewelry from her parents before he left town. A considerable sum.”

  “That’s adding insult to injury, but I still don’t—”

  “If you’re looking to collect a reward, that’s all I’ve got to offer you right now. Otherwise I guess you can wait around for the paperwork to get straightened out on Peterson.”

  Jared swallowed the oath rising in his throat.

  “Look. You’d be helping me out. She’s determined to find this guy, and I’m afraid she might get herself into trouble if left to her own devices. She just might get robbed a second time. Or something worse.”

  Jared thought of his sister. Katrina had been like Miss Matlock. Not in appearance. His sister had been fair—straight blonde hair and blue eyes—while Miss Matlock had an olive complexion and curly black hair. But Katrina had had a stubborn streak a mile long. When she’d determined she wanted something, nothing had been able to stop her until she obtained it. He suspected Miss Matlock was much the same. Rick was right. She would probably get herself into trouble without his help.

  “What’s she offering?” he asked, fearing any attempts to refuse this job would fail, and both men knew it.

  “We didn’t get to that part.”

  Twin Springs’ leading family. That’s what the bartender had called the Matlocks. Reason to assume the reward could be substantial. It couldn’t hurt to look into it.

  “Think of it as a favor to me,” the sheriff added for good measure.

  Silver paced the length of the Downing parlor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Each time she arrived at the fireplace, she looked at the clock on the mantel, noting the passage of time. Two hours. It had been two hours since she’d left the sheriff’s office. Why hadn’t Rick Cooper come?

  He just wanted to get rid of me.

  She’d failed. Her beloved father would lose his store and the family home. Her stepmother would never forgive Silver. Never.

  What am I to do? What am I—

  A knock at the door stopped her midpace. “I’ll get it, Rose,” she called up the stairs. A moment later she yanked open the door, hoping beyond hope to find Sheriff Cooper standing on the front porch.

  It wasn’t the sheriff. It was the bounty hunter—tall and lanky, a close-trimmed mustache riding his upper lip, the shadow of a beard framing his sun-bronzed skin, a gun belt fastened low on his waist, the holsters strapped to his thigh. Jare
d Newman exuded confidence, power, and . . . and danger.

  “The type of men who do this sort of work are more often than not hardly better than the criminals they seek.”

  A chill ran up her spine as she remembered the sheriff’s warning.

  “Miss Matlock.” He bent the brim of his dusty hat. “May I speak with you?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. Yes, of course. Please come in, Mr. Newman.” She stepped back, opening the door wide.

  He moved inside.

  The breath caught in her chest as he turned on his heel to face her again. There was something disconcerting about the way he looked at her. As if he could read her thoughts. And although he couldn’t be more than a half dozen years older than she, his penetrating gaze seemed ancient, as if it had seen all the troubles of the world firsthand.

  “The type of men who do this sort of work are more often than not hardly better than the criminals they seek.”

  He swept the hat from his head. “So, you want to find your fiancé.”

  “Yes.”

  “Still want to marry him?”

  “No.”

  A smile crossed his mouth. There and then gone.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d found humor in her distress, and her dislike of him returned. She wished she could send him on his way. But she couldn’t. For now, he was her only hope. “Bob Cassidy’s a thief, and I want back what he took from my parents.”

  “The sheriff tells me there’s no arrest warrant for him.”

  Wringing her hands, Silver walked into the parlor. “We have no proof it was Bob who broke into the safe. There’s conflicting information about when he left Twin Springs.” She spun around. “But I know he did it.”

  “And you’re offering a reward.”

  “For the return of our property, yes. I want to see Bob brought to justice.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “How much of a reward?”

  “A hundred dollars.” To Silver, the amount was a veritable fortune. But if Jared Newman was able to return the money and jewelry that had been stolen, it would be worth every penny.

  He didn’t react to the offer in the slightest. He simply watched her with that intense gaze of his.