The angel raised her chin. “He isn’t feeling well.”
Daniel drifted to the front of the cell and slouched onto the forearms he draped over a horizontal bar. The familiar voice… Nectar, fresh from a hive.
Gracing Halverson with a shallow smile, the buxom beauty tipped her head toward the plate. “Chicken and dumplings for your prisoner’s supper.”
Steam rising from the lump meant to be his meal carried a whiff of old socks. Daniel’s thoughts churned right along with his stomach. High point of the day: bad vittles. Now, the lady… She was downright mouthwatering.
A grin plucked at his lips. He cocked his head. “Howdy there, sweet thing.”
Halverson’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up, Farrow. And wipe that filthy leer off your face.”
The lawdog could make a round trip to Hell before he’d stop admiring the view…or that honeyed voice. He passed a lingering gaze down every inch of flowered calico, over every ample curve, until he reached the toes of dainty shoes peeking from the hem. Then he moseyed back up until his stare collided with hers. Damn, that blue was a pretty color, like a clear Montana sky on a crisp winter morning.
He should’ve stayed up yonder. Texas was downright inhospitable.
Lips set in a prim line, the woman aimed those Montana blues square between his eyes without the slightest flinch.
He winked.
A hint of pink crept into the angel’s cheeks, but she gave no ground. A visual feast blessed with a wagonload of spunk.
His grin grew. After another glance at a bosom a man could get lost in for a week, he acknowledged her pluck with a dip of his chin.
The marshal growled like a coyote guarding a carcass. “Farrow…” He pert-near dragged the lady to the door and shoved the plate into her hands. “Take this on back with you, Mrs. Edmonds.” Daniel returned Halverson’s scathing over-the-shoulder glare with a shrug. “Feed the chow to your hounds. The animal in here doesn’t deserve to eat.”
No loss there. Food poisoning made for an unpleasant death.
He’d enjoy the dying, though, if the meal were seasoned with a dollop of the honey crossing the threshold.
As the jailhouse door slammed between him and the sway of curvaceous hips, Daniel sucked an appreciative breath through his teeth. “Mmm-mmm.”
Halverson whirled with a snarl. “That’s enough out of you. You’ll show some respect, or we’ll be dragging a battered corpse up the gallows steps.”
A laugh burst from Daniel’s throat. He ambled eight feet to the cell’s back wall and dropped onto the cot. “What’s the matter, Marshal?” Lying back, he stacked his palms beneath his head. “’Fraid I’ll charm her out from under you?”
“You won’t be charming anybody out of anything. By the time this town’s finished with you—”
“Bet you can hardly wait.”
“If it was up to me, we’d have stretched your neck already.”
Daniel snorted. “You know, Halverson, there’s something I’ve always wondered. How do folks avoid getting kicked when they pin a tin star on a jackass?”
A metallic clang caromed off the bars, and then a cup rolled across the floor with a pronounced limp. If Halverson dented much more tin, he’d be drinking coffee from his bare hands.
Unless he blew the top off his head first. Damn, that man knew some interesting words. Daniel had always reckoned he could hold his own in a cussing contest, but he couldn’t recall hearing some of the curses the marshal ground out almost under his breath. If Daniel got the gist, the lawdog was consigning him to the fiery pit a mite early. He could smell the brimstone from here.
He chuckled. May as well leave this life the same way he came in: hell for leather and no looking back.
But Injun Creek wouldn’t be the flaming gateway.
Halverson might want to hang on to some of that colorful language. He’d need the vocabulary when he found himself holding an empty rope.
Chapter Two
Winnie dipped a measure of stew from the stockpot, drew the spoonful to her lips…and gagged.
Old socks. No matter what she cooked, no what spices she added, the special of the day always smelled of old socks. In fact, a simmering batch of dirty woolens might produce a more pleasant bouquet.
What had possessed her to put her nose so close to the stew?
At least the meal wouldn’t go to waste. The stray dogs seemed to appreciate the aroma, and the drifter in the jail deserved worse than an olfactory assault. If the degenerate hadn’t been convicted of murder, he should hang for lechery.
Waving away the stew’s lingering odor, she cracked open the baking chamber’s door and peeked inside. The fragrance of yeast washed into the kitchen.
“That bread smells dee-licious, gal.” Henry doffed his top hat as he shambled in from the alley, dressed in the same tired smile he wore every morning…and the same frockcoat he’d worn for twenty years. “You got them cakes ready to go?”