Her stomach felt as if she’d just swallowed an entire handful of jumping beans, but she forced her feet to move. He wasn’t going to conveniently disappear, and like it or not, she had to deal with him. As she neared the glass, she took measure of his person. To her frightened gaze, his chest looked at least a yard wide, an illusion she felt sure was enhanced by the saddlebags that he carried over one shoulder. She felt diminished by him. Disengaging the deadbolt with trembling fingers, she cracked the door to peer out at him. He straightened, forcing her gaze upward in order to maintain eye contact. His chiseled features were cast into shadow by the brim of his leather hat. The faint scent of bay rum drifted to her on the chill air.
“The judge and marshal have agreed to see us in ten minutes at the marshal’s office. I would have given you more warning, but I had to fetch my saddlebags.”
Brianna clenched her hand on the doorknob. “I told you, I cannot afford to miss any more time today. Do you have cotton in your ears?”
His even white teeth flashed in a slow grin. He leaned his right arm against the doorframe, forcing the portal to open wider despite her attempts to brace against his weight. “No cotton in my ears, but I do have money in my pocket. I’ll reimburse you for the lost wages.”
“I don’t want your money, Mr. Paxton, if that’s even your real name! I want nothing to do with you, period!”
He didn’t budge, making it impossible for her to close the door. “You should have made that call seven years ago, darlin’.”
Rage surged through Brianna so hotly she felt the burn at the back of her throat. She yearned to stomp on his foot to make him back away from the opening. “I can’t leave right now. Daphne is doing a recitation at the church hall this evening. When she awakens from her nap, I must get her ready and make sure she arrives there on time.”
“This meeting won’t take long—thirty minutes, maybe, an hour at the most—and I can help get Daphne ready for the recital.”
Brianna glared up at him. “The program starts at seven, sir! It is now shortly after five.”
“I said I would help get her ready.”
“No!” she cried. “I refuse to allow you to interfere with my work schedule twice, and you will not so much as touch my daughter again, you low-account reprobate.”
He actually chuckled. “A low-account reprobate? My, my, I’m flat moving up in the world.”
Ever since Moira’s death, Brianna had struggled, day in and day out, to be a mirror image of her sister—sweet, well-mannered, and difficult to rile, a lady of the first cut who was fit to be Daphne’s mother. But right then, seeing David Paxton’s smirk, she wanted to toss all that aside and give way to her true nature, which was volatile and Irish to the bone. This man would have the surprise of his life if she socked him in the eye with all her might and then slammed the door on his foot.
But, no. She couldn’t allow him to attend that meeting alone. Then the judge and marshal would hear only his side of the story.
Brianna stepped back from the doorway. “Very well. Have it your way. I shall inform Miss Martin of my forthcoming absence and get my shawl.”
Paxton pushed into the shop and closed the door behind him so softly that the bell failed to tinkle. “While you do that, I’ll collect our daughter.”
“My daughter.”
Grinning again, he hooked a thumb under the saddlebag strap on his shoulder and nudged up the brim of his hat with his other hand. She wasn’t surprised that he had failed to remove the grimy, sweat-rimmed thing. Men of his ilk knew nothing of how to comport themselves in society or how to show deference to a lady. The nuns had warned her about his kind. This miscreant could smile all he liked. She wasn’t fooled.
“There’s no need to interrupt her nap,” she told him. “The shop is closed. I can lock up as we leave. We should let her sleep.”
Paxton swept by Brianna as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ll not be leaving my child with that sharp-tongued shrew. If I’m careful not to jostle her, she shouldn’t wake up. When we get to the marshal’s office, I’ll put her on the bench just inside the door. She’ll be comfortable enough there.”
Brianna wanted to attack him from behind as he bent over her daughter. Instead, she clung to the tattered threads of her self-control, assured herself that the judge and marshal would take her word over his, and stepped to Abigail’s apartment door. With a quick knock, she summoned her employer, explained as briefly as possible that she would be gone for a half hour, and then listened to the woman rant about her leaving for the second time that day.
“I expect a certain amount of production, Mrs. Paxton. You’ve accomplished very little during this shift.”
Brianna opened her mouth to defend herself, but then she remembered the mistake she’d made on Mrs. Pauder’s dress. It was true that she had accomplished little. “Today has been a deviation from the norm. I will do better on the morrow.”
“I shall hold you to it,” the proprietress snapped. “Otherwise I will be reviewing the other applications for this position, madam, and you shall be replaced.”
Chapter Five
S
unlight was giving way to gloaming as Brianna exited the dress shop behind David Paxton. Cradling Daphne in his arms, he paused while Brianna turned to lock the door and then fell into step beside him as they angled across the street. The first smells of the supper hour drifted on the cold breeze. Normally, Brianna experienced a yearning sadness at this time, wishing that she and Daphne could end each day together at a nicely set table, sharing a hearty meal that had been lovingly prepared. But tonight she was far too distracted and filled with anxiety to covet cheerful window curtains or a warm, aromatic kitchen. Instead she was acutely aware of the man who loomed beside her. He had a loose-hipped stride that he shortened considerably to accommodate hers. His spurs chinked with every step. Each time the sleeve of his duster brushed her elbow, she nearly parted company with her skin. She didn’t dare think about that book and the awful suspicions that had formed in her mind. She was afraid she’d go to pieces right there in the street. She wanted to snatch the sleeping child from his arms and run as fast as she could. But that would be beyond stupid. To get Daphne safely away, she needed to hire a horse.
As Brianna stepped up onto the opposite boardwalk, Paxton shifted Daphne into the curve of one arm and caught hold of Brianna’s left hand, drawing her to a halt as he examined her wedding band. With an arch of his burnished brows, he said, “I don’t recall putting that on your finger, so I’m guessing I didn’t.”
Brianna’s legs felt like stumps, and invisible weights seemed to have settled on her shoulders. She saw nothing to be gained by wasting her energy on yet another exchange. As it was, she was sounding like a phonograph stylus stuck in a groove.
With a jerk of his head, he indicated the door of the marshal’s office. “Before we go in, you need to understand that I know this is my daughter, and I won’t be leaving Glory Ridge without her. You can choose not to go with us. That’s your decision to make. But I’m not about to let Daphne live like this, sometimes eating food you find in trash barrels. My daughter deserves better, and I intend to see that she gets it.”
A sizzling retort leaped into Brianna’s mind, but it died en route to her tongue. He couldn’t know about her taking food from trash barrels unless Daphne had told him, and Brianna wouldn’t call her child a liar when it was the truth. She’d sunk pretty low over time. No man had put that ring on her finger. Paxton was not her real surname. Daphne wasn’t even her child. But she still had standards, lines she refused to cross.
She tugged her hand from Paxton’s grasp. The touch of his hard fingers had seared her skin like a brand. Searching his clear blue eyes, she saw no sympathy, only grim resolve, and she knew in that moment that he meant to do precisely what he said: establish his paternity of Daphne and then abscond with her.
Brianna would never allow that to happen. Never.
With Brianna scurrying to keep up, David opened the door
and carried Daphne into Marshal Bingham’s dingy office. A lighted lantern hung from a ceiling hook in one corner. The place contained only one barred cell, appointed with two narrow cots, both presently empty. The lawman, a paunchy fellow with brown hair and eyes whom David had guessed earlier to be about fifty, sat across the battered desk from a gentleman David presumed to be Judge Afton. At least a decade older than the marshal, with a bald pate ringed by nearly white hair, he wore a shabby black serge suit flecked with dandruff across the shoulders. Pipe smoked wreathed his head and drifted away from him in layers of misty gray that hovered in the room like thick winter fog.
David set his jaw when he saw that the two men were playing poker. A small pile of coins and silver certificates lay between them. A half-empty jug of whiskey sat off to one side, and both men nursed tall drinks, the deep amber of the liquor indicating that they were downing the stuff straight. David carefully deposited the sleeping Daphne on the bench just inside the door, put his saddlebags beside her, and strode over to the desk. These men were well into their cups even though it was only half past five. If anyone in his office had pulled this stunt, he would have been out of a job as fast as David could yank the badge off his shirt. David was no puritan, but he never drank while on duty. Apparently Bingham had no underlings to take over while he imbibed—or Glory Ridge was so small that little trouble ever occurred. Given the tight, defensive look on Brianna’s face, David figured that tonight would be an exception. She’d go down fighting, no quarter asked—or given. Damn, but he had to admire that about her. He appreciated courage and grit, even when they came wrapped in an infuriating package.
Afton glanced up and flashed a bleary smile. “You must be Mr. Paxton.”
David extended a hand. “Correct. And I’m guessing you are Judge Afton.”
The older man put down his cards and set his pipe in a green dish caked with a thick layer of ash to give David a limp, clammy handshake. Then he belched and grinned again as he grabbed a gavel at his elbow and rapped the desk with a sharp report. The sound momentarily awakened Daphne. From the corner of his eye, David saw Brianna hurry over to soothe the little girl back to sleep.
“That’s me, the Honorable Judge Afton, at your service, and as you can see, I’ve come prepared to give you audience and make a ruling.” He lowered the gavel to pick up a brass stamp from atop a smeared and dented tin box that David guessed contained an inkpad. “I can’t quite recall what your problem is, but if you’ll hold on a minute, I will allow you to refresh my memory.” He gathered his cards, glanced at the marshal, and slapped a dollar onto the ante pile. “I call, Barton. I think you’re bluffing.”
Glancing over the judge’s shoulder, David saw that he held two pairs, sevens over deuces. In David’s opinion, it was an okay hand, but not good enough to warrant such a large bet. Marshal Bingham anted up and showed his hand, and the magistrate swore, not even bothering to lower his voice as he barked the obscenity. “Three of a kind? You’ve become quite the cardsharp since we played last Friday, my friend.”
The marshal took a large gulp of whiskey before raking in the cash. “I’ve also become a mite richer, Daniel. Read ’em and weep.”
David was about to take both men to task for agreeing to meet with him and Brianna when they’d clearly planned to play cards and get wet to the gills. Judging by their conversation, Friday was their poker night. Before he could get a word out, though, he changed his mind, deciding that he might use this situation to his own advantage. He motioned to Brianna.
“Now that you’ve played out the hand,” David said to the judge, “I hope you’ll take a break from the game to give me and this lady your full attention.”
The judge rocked back in his chair, tried to focus on Brianna, and blinked, clearly beset by blurry vision. Had the man gotten this drunk in only a few minutes or had he been tipping the jug all afternoon? “Good eventide, Mrs. Paxton. How are you faring?”
Brianna stepped forward. “I’m extremely distressed at the moment, Your Honor. This man has shown up out of the blue claiming to be my daughter’s father, and I assure you, he is not.”
The judge blinked again and rubbed the bridge of his bulbous nose. “He’s not?”
“No, Your Honor, he’s definitely not. I’ve never seen him before in my life!”
The judge tugged on the front of his jacket, his double chin canting off to one side as he tipped his head. “That, madam, doesn’t make a lick of sense. If you’ve never seen the fellow before, how the hell did you wind up married to him?”
It definitely didn’t make any sense, David thought. Score one for him. He’d keep his mouth shut and let her hang herself. Brianna launched into a feverish recitation of her harebrained tale about there being another David Paxton in Denver. “My husband is a miner there, Your Honor, not the marshal of some little town!”
The judge frowned. “No real mining takes place in Denver these days, young woman. What’s he mining for? Fool’s gold? Are you sure this husband of yours prospects there?”
Brianna paled and clasped her hands, her stance rigid. “I’ve received recent correspondence from him, Your Honor, and as before, the letter came from Denver.”
The judge held out a hand. “Fine. Let me see it, please.”
Brianna’s green eyes sparked fire at the question. “My word on the matter should be good enough!”
“So you can’t produce one of the letters?” David inquired.
“I threw all of them away!” she cried.
The judge took another swig of whiskey and glanced longingly at the abandoned playing cards. “My good woman, you’ve lived here in Glory Ridge for—what?—six years. You’ve always gone by the name Mrs. David Paxton. If you can’t produce a letter from this other husband you claim to have, can you at least present marriage documents to prove he exists?”
For the second time that day, Brianna felt as if the floor had vanished from beneath her feet. She grabbed at the edge of the desk to keep her balance, jerking away as Paxton reached for her elbow. That rattlesnake! She couldn’t comprehend that the judge and the marshal were questioning her word. Scratching at her thoughts like a chicken for remnants of grain, she said, “I had marriage documents, Your Honor, but when I left Mr. Ricker’s employ, they were lost during the move.”
Slurring his words slightly, the judge said, “I must make decisions based upon the evidence brought before me, Mrs. Paxton.” He fixed a glassy gaze on David, who was quickly becoming the bane of Brianna’s existence. “Apparently, Mrs. Paxton has no evidence to verify her story, Mr. Paxton.”
Marshal Bingham muttered a curse under his breath, and then said, “‘Mrs. Paxton’ and ‘Mr. Paxton,’ and the two of them aren’t married? This is too confusing by half.”
Brianna wanted to kick the man. “Perhaps part of your confusion is caused by overindulgence in spirits, Marshal.” She returned her gaze to the judge. “And this isn’t a story I’ve dreamed up!” She lifted her hands. “Why in heaven’s name would I lie about such a thing?” She jabbed a finger in Paxton’s direction. “I’ve never clapped eyes on this man in my life, I tell you! He is not my husband, and he is definitely not my daughter’s father.”
The judge motioned for silence. “You wouldn’t be the first woman to find herself in an unhappy marriage and try to solve the problem by running off. If that is indeed the case, it is your misfortune that your husband has found you. I sympathize greatly with your dilemma, ma’am, but the law is the law. You shouldn’t have fled with the child.”
“I didn’t flee with the child!” Brianna heard her voice going shrill. She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to compose herself. “You’re making snap judgments, based upon the fact that I’ve lost my marriage documents and lacked the foresight to save my husband’s letters. I mean no disrespect, Your Honor, but why is the burden of proof being placed on me? I haven’t heard you ask Mr. Paxton what evidence he can produce to verify his story.”
The judge arched an eyebrow. “That’s true, M
r. Paxton.” His paunch jerked with another burp, which he unsuccessfully attempted to squelch by swallowing. “Have you any evidence to present?”
Marshal Bingham interrupted to say, “So far, he hasn’t told us his side. She’s done most of the talking.”
Brianna wanted nothing more than to tell the lawman to shut his mouth. “As well it should be,” she said instead. “As the judge pointed out, I’ve lived here for nearly six years, and my reputation is above reproach. This man is a complete stranger. You’ve no reason to believe a word he says.” Brianna dragged in another breath and blurted on the exhale, “In fact, I have reason to believe he may be a lawless miscreant from Deadwood, South Dakota, bent on absconding with my daughter so he can sell her to some wealthy old Mexican across the border! Blondes sell for very high prices, and little girls Daphne’s age are in high demand!”
Bingham snorted with laughter and rocked on his chair, so incautious with the shift of his weight that he nearly went over backward. He planted a hand against the rear wall to catch himself. Over Judge Afton’s wheezing mirth, the marshal managed to say, “Dear God, woman, you’ve obviously been reading that trash my wife so dearly loves! I saw the book about slave trading. It’s a bunch of stuff and nonsense. Deadwood is a tamed community now. Crimes are still committed there, of course, but the place is no longer solely a hideaway for lowlife scoundrels wanted by the law.”
Brianna bent closer to bore the marshal with her gaze. “I’ve read the book, sir. It’s a recent publication. I am sure the author must be required by his publisher to keep his facts straight. Criminals are still absconding with girls and selling them into slavery in Mexico. And I am convinced that is this man’s plan. I don’t think his name’s David Paxton at all, and I don’t think he’s a lawman. He could have stolen that badge. How can you take his word over mine?” She flung a hand at the man under discussion. “Just look at him. What respectable lawman dresses like a—like a roughrider?”