Shotgun Bride by Linda Lael Miller

for a palaver, for a start. And it wouldn’t do any harm to swear in a couple of deputies, either. Talk to Sam Fee. He’s a good man in need of a place to take a stand, and he’ll see reason if you tell him none of you burned his place.”
    Kade was skeptical, but he didn’t see any harm in having a word with Fee. Seeing how Lewis was fading, he simply nodded and got to his feet, ready to leave him to take his rest. Becky swept in just as he was about to reach for the doorknob, his hat in his free hand.
    “I’ll arrange that meeting,” Kade promised in parting. If he had to, he’d hog-tie Angus and Rafe, Holt and Jeb, and drag them onto common ground one by one, behind his horse.
    “What on earth have you been up to?” Becky demanded of Kade in a whisper. She was carrying a tray with a covered plate, a cup, and a small china pot of fresh coffee. “My kitchen is full of women wanting to bake pies, throw them out, and start over, and Sister Mandy asked me if I had a pair of britches she could borrow— britches, mind you—for a horse race with you.”
    Given the serious turn of recent events, Kade supposed he shouldn’t be bothering with things like pie-baking contests and horse races with would-be nuns, but a man needed some diversion. Besides, if the mail-order brides were busy in the kitchen, they’d be out of his hair for a while. He’d have a good time judging the pies, but it seemed best not to think too far beyond that point. “Is Rafe around?” he asked, letting Becky’s questions pass unanswered.
    She gave him a narrow look as she set the tray on John’s bedside table. “He said he had some business at the bank,” she said. “Then he planned to head back out to the ranch.”
    “Thanks,” Kade said, and departed.
    There was no sign of Mandy when he descended the stairs, or of Emmeline, either. He’d talk to her later. He put his hat back on as he crossed the lobby and made his way down to the corner and across to the Cattleman’s Bank.
    Rafe was just on the other side of that establishment’s frosted-glass door when Kade opened it, and he did not look like a happy man.
    Kade frowned. “Don’t tell me. You meant to rob the place, and they’re fresh out of cash.”
    Rafe didn’t smile. “There was a big payment due for those cattle we sold the army last fall,” he said, joining Kade out on the sidewalk and keeping his voice low, “and it hasn’t arrived.”
    Kade felt a cold spot form in the pit of his belly. He’d been born and raised on a cattle ranch, and he knew that a clog in the cash flow could bring an operation down in short order, even a large and long-established one like the Triple M. “Maybe it’s coming in on the stage.”
    Rafe gave Kade’s badge a contemptuous glance. “We’re talking about almost fifty thousand dollars in currency and federal gold, Marshal,” he said, still talking quietlike and putting a fine edge on Kade’s job title. “They promised us a cavalry escort.”
    “I never heard a word about this,” Kade complained, jerking off his hat and then slapping it on again. “Why is that, since the last time I looked, I was still a member of this family?”
    “Nobody knew it but Pa and me,” Rafe replied, as if it were all right for the two of them to keep something that important to themselves. “Should have been here yesterday.”
    Kade muttered a curse. “Now what?”
    “Now Jeb and I and some of the men go out looking for those cavalrymen. And our money.”
    “I’m going with you,” Kade said.
    Rafe poked him square in the center of his badge. “You’ve got a job to do right here. Try to keep a lid on this hellhole until we get back.”

Chapter 18
     
     
    C onfident that she would win the race against Kade, and thus win the shotgun, Mandy laid her money on the counter of the mercantile, lifted her chin, and looked Minnie, the proprietor and town gossip, straight in the eye. “I want to buy shells for that shotgun in the window.” Now