the spectacle! She wondered if Ben Kearney had spread the word about town just to make the challenge harder for her. Would he stoop so low?
He would, she decided. She recalled the satisfied grin on his lips when he sauntered out of the sheriff’s office in that maddening, unsettling walk of his. That snake! She’d lambaste him the first chance she got. She’d blister him with words he’d never forget. She’d—
She’d learn to ride a horse, that’s what she’d do! That would show him. She wasn’t going to let Ben Kearney have the last word. Even in jeans and torture-chamber boots, she was still a Whittaker.
And a Whittaker, she reminded herself with a little half sob of fear, never gave up.
Ben eased his back against the split-rail fence around the stable corral and crossed one boot over the other. Satisfied with the private arrangement he’d made with liveryman and blacksmith Dan Gustafsen, he inhaled deeply.
He’d known Gus from his army days in Dakota Territory after the war. The big, quiet Norwegian had fought for the Union, but when hostilities had finally ceased, Gus had set politics aside. When Ben met him in Dakota, he found he could deal with him man-to-man. Both had been officers; both had been wounded. Gus wore a black patch over one eye.
“Pick a horse that’s not mean,” Ben had requested. “Just not too tired, if you take my meaning.” From the looks of the skittish bay dancing at the end of Gus’s rope, the stable owner had indeed taken Ben’s meaning. The horse was a beauty—sixteen, maybe even seventeen hands, a gelding with intelligent eyes and a precise, proud gait.
And, Ben could see at a glance, definitely not tired. He watched Gus pull the cinch tight, then give him a surreptitious nod. Even though he trusted Gus’s judgment, Ben’s gut tightened into a hard knot.
Townspeople began to gather along the perimeter of the fence. Ben nodded to Doc Bartel and the short, nervous undertaker, Zed Marsh, the physician’s constant companion. He tipped his hat to Addie Rice and, a few yards beyond the seamstress, acknowledged two of the girls from Charlie’s Red Fox Saloon. Addie must have closed her dressmaker’s shop to witness the fun. Ben surmised the girls from Charlie’s were losing money, too.
Silas Appleby heaved his rangy form onto the fence next to Ben and hooked his boot heels over the lower rail. “I hear that newspaper lady’s a looker,” he remarked. “Since I’m in town, I thought I’d just as well check out the rumors.”
“You’re practically a married man, Si,” Ben reminded him.
“Hell, Ben, can’t hurt to look!” Appleby jammed a cigarette between his lips and flicked a match against his thumbnail.
Otto Frieder picked his way through a gaggle of young boys in various sizes and shapes and settled on Ben’s other side. A frown worried his shiny forehead. “You think Miss Jessamyn be all right, Sheriff?”
Ben fought a momentary pang of guilt at Otto’s question. He trusted Gus’s horse savvy. Jessamyn wouldn’t get hurt—not seriously, anyway. Just enough to bruise her backside a bit and open her eyes to the fact that she wasn’t riding into the hills with him tomorrow. Or any other day, for that matter. From what he had observed, hearsay had always been plenty good for most newspaper editors. Why should she be any different?
Because she’s Thad Whittaker’s daughter, that’s why. Hearsay was never good enough for Thad; that was probably what got him killed.
“She’ll be all right, Otto,” Ben assured the stocky storekeeper. “I’d worry more about the horse if I were you. Miss Whittaker finds it difficult to take no for an answer.”
Silas chuckled. “Looks to me like that gelding might have the same trouble!”
Ben watched Gus turn away toward a commotion at the far end of the corral yard, then glance back to catch Ben’s gaze. The skin around the wrangler’s one good eye crinkled in amusement.
Jessamyn crawled through an opening in the fence and sidled stiff-legged toward Ben, her backside hugging the fence so closely he could have sworn she’d pick up splinters on her rear.
“Sheriff Kearney?” Her words came out in a throaty whisper. “Is—is that the horse?”
“It is. Ready to mount up?”
Jessamyn licked her lips. “Isn’t it awfully big?” She kept her gaze riveted on the animal in the center of the corral yard.
Ben shrugged. “Some are, some aren’t. This one’s about normal.” For some reason, an unexpected pang of sympathy stabbedinto his chest. She looked terrified.
“I want you to know, Mr. Kearney,” she said in that same breathy whisper, “that I am not f-frightened in the least.” Again she ran her tongue over her lips. “Not even a little b-bit.”
She poked her chin into the air and visibly straightened her spine. “But if I—or rather, when I live through this, you p-puffed-up, know-it-all snake in the grass, I’m going to make your life so m-miserable you’d wish you were back in that Union prison in Illinois!”
She stomped away toward Gus.
Silas guffawed. “Puffed up? Why, imagine that!” He slapped Ben on the shoulder. “’Makes you sound like one of Ella’s banty roosters. My, that little eastern lady has got some spit and vinegar!” Chuckling, he settled back to watch.
Spit and vinegar wasn’t all she had, Ben noted, watching Jessamyn’s jeans stretch tight over her derriere as she marched up to Gus. The wide black belt pulled the toolarge waistband snug around her middle, and the long sleeves of the red plaid shirt were folded back twice at the cuffs. She looked like a kid masquerading as her big brother.
A scared kid. A twinge wrenched his gut. Her bravado didn’t fool him for a second. He’d seen that same look on new recruits’ faces before their first battle. They fought— and died—because they were ordered to. Jessamyn didn’t have to do this, he told himself. She didn’t have to, but she wasn’t backing out In fact, at this moment she was about as unflinching as any soldier he’d ever commanded in the field. Her courage touched him in some way, as if a finger had been laid upon his heart.
Jessamyn looked up at the tall man holding the towering horse. He tipped his hat with his free hand and smiled down at her. “Daniel Gustafsen, ma’am. Everybody calls me Gus.”
“What’s the horse’s name?”
He hesitated. “Dancer Jack.”
Jessamyn nodded. “Gus, are all those people along the fence here to…to watch me try to—watch me ride this horse?”
Gus’s one blue eye softened. “Yes, ma’am, ‘fraid so. They all come out like grasshoppers on an August morning whenever a tenderfoot like yourself climbs up on a horse the first time. It’s kinda like entertainment for them. The Greenhorn Follies, they call it.”
“Entertainment!” She shut her eyes. She could almost hear the imagined roar of bloodthirsty Romans in her ears.
“Sure am
