But she was headed straight for Mr. Pritchard. “What are you doing? Why are you tied up?” She turned to the deputy. “Do you know who he is? He used to own the auction house before Isaac Ballentine. He’s the seed salesman now. You aren’t supposed to tie him up.”
“He broke the law. That’s all I’m interested in.” The deputy kept plodding that tired pony toward the jailhouse, his face as set as granite.
Break the law? Mr. Pritchard? Betsy brushed off the dead grass clinging to the bound man’s sleeve. “What’s he talking about?”
“This young man doesn’t understand. I was on official business, authorized by the leader.”
Authorized? He had to be talking about official Bald Knobber business. “No, no, no.” Betsy jogged a couple of steps to come even to the deputy’s side. “You arrested him? Well, you don’t understand.” Then over her shoulder she said, “Forgive him, Mr. Pritchard. He’ll let you go just as soon—”
“I’m not letting him go. He was threatening one of our citizens.”
“Only Bo,” Pritchard said.
Betsy waved her hand. “Oh, Bo? Was he raiding Caesar’s traps again? Yeah, Bo don’t care. He didn’t tell you to arrest Mr. Pritchard, did he?”
“I don’t expect a man who’s being threatened to press charges. I’m the one responsible for his arrest.”
Of all the pigheaded . . . “No, really, you don’t understand.” Betsy danced to stand in front of him, but now that the road had widened at town, Deputy Puckett maneuvered the horse around her. “This isn’t right,” Betsy sang. “The thing that you should do . . . this isn’t it.”
They’d reached the jail. Deputy Puckett dismounted and untied Mr. Pritchard from the saddle. Mr. Pritchard bristled as the deputy opened the door and dragged him inside like a dog on a leash.
“You’re going to regret this,” he said as he passed.
Betsy clapped her hand to her forehead. “What in the world made you think this was a good idea?”
The jail cell clanged closed after Mr. Pritchard passed through. With a huff, he settled on the cot and began untying his own bonds. Deputy Puckett took a seat at the desk and lit a lamp.
Betsy bent at the waist and rested her elbows on his desk as he opened a ledger. Trying her dead-level best to be persuasive, she scooted her face as close to his as she dared. “What I was trying to tell you,” she whispered, “is that the Bald Knobbers have taken an oath. You can’t take one of them without messing with all of them. This idea of arresting Mr. Pritchard, you might want to rethink it.”
He looked up, and his gray eyes caught and held her in a gaze that made her heart feel bigger. Her mouth went dry at the proximity of him. The ends of her fingers tingled. He really was as handsome as she remembered. The way his eyes shone so bright through dark lashes, making you certain that he was thinking of nothing else in the world but you. If she could get the way he made her feel into words, every paper in the country would run her stories.
But then his perfect lips moved and said, “You are the most bothersome woman I’ve ever come across,” which pretty much ruined the moment. Closing the ledger, he rose and took two steps toward the jail cell before spinning to her again. “I take that back. You are the second most bothersome woman I’ve ever come across. Please, for the love of Pete, don’t make being number one your aim.”
Betsy didn’t like being second place at anything. Mr. Pritchard’s mouth twitched, appearing a sight more amused than a man facing incarceration had a right to be.
“I’m trying to save you from making a big mistake.” Now she was speaking to Eduardo’s back. “You’re new, so they might cut you some slack, but arresting Mr. Pritchard for bringing his nephew into line won’t be your finest moment.”
But he’d stopped listening to her and said, “Mr. Pritchard, I hold stock with the wisdom of the natives, so I reckon you might be able to help me with my problem here. I have to interview you before I decide whether or not to release you to your own cognizance, but I cannot conduct an interview with a hostile third party present. Do you have any idea how I might go about ridding the premises of this nuisance without further alienating the populace?”
Betsy’s mouth dropped open. He was talking about her. And making it harder and harder for her to keep the Dashing Deputy image untarnished in her mind.
Mr. Pritchard rubbed his formerly bound wrists. “The populace knows Betsy. Anything short of physical harm, and they’d be mostly forgiving.”
“Mr. Pritchard!” she gasped.
“That’s what I figured.” Deputy Puckett marched to the door and held it open. “Thank you for your concern, Miss Huckabee, but right now the biggest obstacle to my success happens to be your own charming self. If you’d allow me to finish my job, then I’d be happy to review with you why citizens are not allowed to threaten other citizens, even if they do happen to be kin.”
“It’s not the kin part that worries me. It’s that mask you have on your desk. That means more than blood ties to the men—”