The Sheriff

“You know how to use that thing?”

Kate VanNam swallowed hard as she raised the revolver. “Certainly,” she lied. “I’m an excellent—”

Before Kate could finish her sentence, Sheriff Travis McCloud had taken the gun away from her and then pulled her up against him. “Never aim a weapon unless you mean to fire it. You hear me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Damn it to hell, I knew it.”

“Knew what?” she asked, intensely aware that his slim hips and long legs were pressed flush against hers. She could feel the heat radiating from him, making her own body warm.

“That you’d be trouble. You are trouble. You’ll cause trouble. For yourself. For me.”

“That’s a lot of trouble, Sheriff.”

“Too much trouble,” he said, releasing her before he placed the revolver on the sofa bed. “Why don’t you pack up and leave before somebody gets hurt?”

“I am staying in Fortune, and if you don’t like it I’d suggest you stay out of my sight.”

Both annoyed and amused by Kate’s determination, Travis raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, Miss VanNam, but if I catch you anywhere near a saloon or out on the streets after dark, you’re going to jail.”

“Fair enough, Sheriff,” Kate said. “And if I catch you anywhere near this house after dark, I’ll be forced to shoot you.”

DUCHESS FOR A DAY

CHIEFTAIN

NAUGHTY MARIETTA

THE SCANDALOUS MISS HOWARD

THE SEDUCTION OF ELLEN

THE COUNTESS MISBEHAVES

WANTING YOU

The Sheriff

Nan Ryan

For my fellow classmates with whom I graduated dear old Bryson High on that warm Texas night all those summers ago.

Fannie Ainsworth

Rollins Bilby

Vernon Crager

John Denning

Joe Gillespie

Jerry Graybill

Shirley Harrison

Joyce King

LaRue Matlock

Imogene McNear

Bobby Mitchell

Glenda Odom

Delores Shook

Dorothy Sims

Malvin Teague

Betty Lou Wells

Colleen Wolfe

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Prologue

In a candlelit hotel room on San Francisco’s rowdy Barbary Coast, a handsome man lay on his back upon the bed.

He was naked.

So was the woman astride him.

The pair were making hot, eager love.

They had been at each other from the minute they rushed into the room, locked the door and hurriedly began stripping off their clothes.

Now the lusty pair moved together in a frenzied mating. The voluptuous woman’s heavy breasts bounced and swayed with her rapid movements. She gripped the man’s ribs and murmured his name repeatedly.

A blue officer’s campaign cap bobbed atop the woman’s head. A captain’s uniform was draped over a bedpost.

And atop the bureau, a pair of golden spurs gleamed on freshly polished black boots.

In minutes, the pair climaxed.

Immediately after the loving, the man anxiously asked, “Did he die?”

“Yes,” the woman replied breathlessly, doffing the campaign hat and brushing back her long dark hair to reveal a blue trinity tattoo on the side of her neck.

He nodded. “Did you get the assay?”

“Yes, I did,” she confirmed.

“Did the doctor or nurse see you?”

“No one saw me,” she assured and leaned down to kiss his doubts away. On the Embarcadero below, drunken miners shouted and fired their guns in the air.

One

Boston, Massachusetts

March 1855

A cold winter afternoon, in a sparsely furnished room in Boston’s South End, twenty-two-year-old Kate VanNam read to her elderly, hard-of-hearing uncle. Nelson VanNam was a gentle, caring, life-long bachelor, who had raised Kate and her older brother, Gregory, after their parents had perished in a fire at sea a dozen years earlier.

For a short time, he had been a successful and prosperous businessman who had provided well for his niece and nephew. But in 1849, an unexpected reversal of fortune had changed all that. The once prominent VanNams had fallen on hard times. The grand Chestnut Street mansion in Beacon Hill had been lost, along with the VanNam fortune.

When the fortune disappeared, so did Gregory VanNam. The senior VanNam was now in failing health and eternally grateful to his sweet-natured niece for selflessly tending him.

On this bitter January day, the two sat as close to the fire in the grate as was safe, blankets draped over their knees. As Kate read to her uncle—shouted, actually—she heard a loud knock on the door.

Kate lowered her well-worn copy of the Dickens novel Oliver Twist, and gave her uncle a questioning look. He shrugged his thin shoulders. Kate laid the book aside.

“I’ll see who it is. Stay right where you are,” she said to her uncle.

Nelson nodded.

Kate opened the door. A uniformed messenger stood shivering on the steps. He handed her a sealed envelope on which only her name was written in neat script. She started to speak, but the youth who delivered the message had already turned and left.

Puzzled, Kate closed the door and returned to the fire and her uncle. She held out the envelope to him.

Squinting, he read what was written. “It’s addressed to you, my dear. Open it.”

Kate tore open the end of the sealed envelope and slipped out the folded velum paper. After reading the brief message quickly, she explained to her uncle that it was a summons for her to come to the law offices of J. J. Clement, the attorney who, like his father before him, had always represented the VanNam family.

“Why on earth would Clement want to see me?” Kate mused aloud, as she handed the message to her uncle.

“I have no idea, child,” he stated, reading the missive. “But I’m sure it can wait. No need for you to…”

He stopped speaking, shook his white head and began to smile. The curious Kate was already reaching for her heavy woolen cape hanging on the coat tree beside the front door.

Swirling it around her slender shoulders, she said, “It’s time for your afternoon nap, Uncle Nelson. While you rest I’ll walk to the law offices and see what this is all about.” She smiled at him as she buttoned the cape beneath her chin and drew the hood up over her gleaming golden hair. “I will be back within the hour, the mystery solved.”

Nelson VanNam knew it would do no good to argue that it was far too cold for Kate to be walking to the attorney’s office. His pretty niece, while as kind and caring as a ministering angel, was also a decisive, strong-willed young woman who discharged duties and met challenges with an immediacy that was admirable, if at times somewhat annoying.

The old man smiled fondly as Kate waved goodbye and stepped out into the cold. He sighed, folded his hands in his blanketed lap and gazed into the fire, recalling the first night the ten-year-old Kate had spent in his home.

“No, Uncle Nelson.” She had set him straight when he’d offered to leave her door ajar at bedtime. “Please close it. I do not fear the dark, sir.”

Nelson VanNam was warmed by the memory. He had learned in the years since that the dauntless Kate was not afraid of much.

His smile abruptly fled. He was afraid for her. What, he wondered worriedly, would become of his dear sweet Kate once he was gone?

Teeth chattering, shoulders hunched, Kate briskly walked the eight blocks to the law offices of J. J. Clement. Hurrying across the narrow cobblestone street, she dashed up the steps of the two-story redbrick building and entered the wide central corridor.

Sweeping the hood off her head and smoothing her hair, she knocked politely before entering the attorney’s private chambers. A warming fire blazed in a large hearth.

“Why, there you are already, Miss VanNam,” said J. J. Clement, rising from his chair. “I had no idea you’d come in this afternoon. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to one of two straight-backed chairs pulled up before his desk.

Kate frowned as she sat down. “Your message summoned me, Mr. Clement, did it not?”

The attorney smiled. “So it did. Your prompt response is admirable, but I hope you didn’t freeze on your long walk.” He sat back down across from her. “It was thoughtless of me to have you come in. I should have paid you a visit at your—”

“Never mind that.” Kate waved her hand. “What’s this all about?”

The attorney smiled at the impatient young woman. He leaned toward his desk, picked up a legal document and informed Kate, “My dear, I believe I’ve a bit of good news.”

“You do?” She shrugged out of her heavy cape. Unlike the drafty rooms of home, this handsomely appointed office was comfortably warm. “For me?”

“Indeed. The firm has been informed that Mrs. Arielle VanNam Colfax—Nelson’s aged aunt and therefore your great-aunt—has passed away in San Francisco. She has left all that was hers to you.”

Stunned, Kate said, “Why? I didn’t know her. Never corresponded. I never even met her, so why…?”

“The elderly widow had no children. With the exception of Nelson, you are her next of kin. You and your brother, Gregory. However, Arielle made no provision for Gregory. Now, to tell the truth, I don’t know if you’ve inherited anything of real value. The old lady was quite secretive.” The attorney shrugged.

Kate nodded.

“However—” he shoved a printed handbill across the polished desk “—as you probably know, a great deal of gold has been brought out of the Sierra Nevadas of California in the last five years.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about the gold rush. Who hasn’t?”

J. J. Clement said, “You have fallen heir to a house of sorts. I understand it has not been lived in for the past five years. And there is a claim to a California gold mine that may or may not be worthless.” He handed Kate a map indicating the mine’s location.

“The house? It’s in the mountains of California?”

“Yes, the house and the mine are both high up in the Sierra Nevadas in a mining camp called Fortune,” said the attorney. “I’ve no idea what Fortune, California, is like, but I would imagine it’s one of those primitive tent cities populated by hardscrabble miners hoping to strike it rich.” He shook his head.

“But if my great-aunt built a house there, then surely—”

Interrupting, he said, “As I told you, Kate, it has been abandoned for years. Obviously, your great-aunt deserted the house and the camp for a good reason.”

“I suppose so,” Kate grudgingly conceded.

“Child,” said the kindly attorney, “I’m aware of your financial woes. Your uncle has been a friend as well as a client for many years. I’d like to be of help.”

Lips parted, Kate stared at him. “That’s very kind, Mr. Clement.”

“Tell you what, I’ll have our California agent, Harry Conlin, take the claim and the property off your hands and—”

“No,” she interrupted. “It is not for sale. I’ll just hold on to it for the time being.”

She rose to leave, fastening her cape under her chin. J. J. Clement came to his feet.

Kate said, “When I lose my dear uncle Nelson, there’ll be nothing holding me here. Who knows?” She picked up the printed handbill. “I might just head West.”

Two

Kate hurried home with the plat map and the will rolled up and tucked under her arm. She could hardly wait to show both to her uncle Nelson. No doubt he would be as surprised as she that a woman whom Kate had never met had left everything to her.

She smiled as she envisioned her uncle putting on his spectacles and studying the documents while she knelt beside his easy chair and stretched her hands out to the warmth of the small fire.

Nose cold, cheeks red, Kate reached the rented rooms and hurried inside, calling her uncle’s name.

“Uncle Nelson, you are not going to believe this!” she exclaimed loudly as she removed her woolen cape, hung it on the coat tree and rushed across the room toward his chair. Mildly annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to turn around when she’d come in, she continued, “My great-aunt—that mysterious lady you have told me about, Mrs. Arielle VanNam Colfax—has passed away out in San Francisco and left me a…I have her will here and…and…” Kate stopped speaking.

She was beginning to frown when she reached Uncle Nelson’s chair and the old man still had not responded.

“Uncle, what is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, and gently touched his shoulder. He fell forward in his chair. Kate immediately dropped the documents and sank to her knees before him, grabbing hold of his upper arms. “You’re ill,” she said, “that’s it. You’re not feeling well. I’ll just run and get Dr. Barnes and he’ll fix you right up. You’ll be good as new and…no…No, Uncle Nelson, no!” Kate murmured, not wanting to believe that the kind man who had been mother and father, friend and protector, was dead. Gently, she leaned him back in his chair and closed his sightless eyes as tears filled her own.

When finally she dried her eyes, she saw that her uncle was clutching a piece of neatly folded bond paper in his right hand. She carefully removed the document and laid it aside without looking at it.

Long minutes passed while she sat on the floor with her forehead on her uncle’s knee. Finally, eyes red from weeping, Kate rose to her feet, took a deep breath, and immediately went about the unpleasant task of seeing to it that her beloved relative was taken to the undertaker’s parlor around the corner.

Afterward, when she returned home alone, Kate paced the chilly room, wondering how she could possibly give her uncle the kind of funeral he deserved. She had no money. And she had too much pride to ask for help from her uncle’s few close friends.

Despairing, Kate sat down in her uncle’s chair and leaned her head back. The fire in the grate had died. It was cold in the room. She shivered and rubbed her arms. It seemed she could never get warm.

Kate turned to look for the blanket she’d had earlier, and suddenly noticed the folded sheet of heavy bond stationery her uncle had been clutching when she’d found him.

She reached for it and carefully unfolded it.

She read and reread the message. In his neat, distinctive hand, Nelson VanNam had told his niece where the last of his cash was hidden, along with a pearl-handled Navy Colt pistol he treasured.

Kate refolded the letter and put it in the pocket of her dress. She went into the tiny alcove where her uncle had slept, and removed a battered tin box from beneath a loose floorboard at the foot of his bed. When she opened the box, Kate’s eyes widened. The heavy pistol rested atop neat stacks of cash.

Kate hurried to the dining table and placed the box there. She lifted out the pearl-handled Colt revolver and gently laid it down. Then she took the stacks of bills from the box and carefully counted them.

Immediately, Kate felt as if an unbearably heavy load had been lifted from her shoulders. There was more than enough money to give her uncle a proper burial.

And to get her all the way to Fortune, California.

“You simply cannot do this,” warned Kate’s best friend, Alexandra Wharton. “A woman does not go alone across the country from Boston to California. It isn’t safe. No telling what might happen to you.”

“I’m not going across the country, Alex,” Kate said, and affectionately hugged the frowning Alexandra.

The two women had been friends since the days both had attended the Willingham Academy, an expensive private school for young ladies where they had learned the difference between a lemon fork and an oyster fork and how to converse in French. While Alexandra still enjoyed a privileged life with wealthy parents, she continued to count Kate as her best friend and an equal in every way.

“But, Kate,” Alexandra said now, “California is on the other side of America. You will have to travel across the country.”

“No, I won’t,” Kate merrily corrected. “I’m going by ship!”

“Oh, you know very well what I mean,” scolded Alexandra.

“Yes, of course I do. Ah, Alex, don’t look so grim. No terrible fate will befall me.” Kate pulled back and smiled reassuringly at her friend.

“You don’t know that to be true. Even if you travel by ship, the horn is treacherous and—”

Interrupting, Kate shook her head and said, “Did you know that the route via Cape Horn is a journey of thirteen thousand nautical miles and takes four to eight months to complete?”

“Well, there you have it. You can’t possibly—”

“I’m not going via the horn. I’m taking the shortcut across the Isthmus of Panama.” Kate snapped her fingers. “Nothing to it! I’ll be in California in no time at all.”

Alexandra frowned. “Even so, it’s uncivilized out there, Kate. There are bandits and Indians and…”

“I appreciate your concern and I will miss you terribly, but this could be my golden chance, don’t you see? Maybe there’s actually gold in the mine my great-aunt has left me. Wouldn’t that be something? And maybe the house is a solid, well-built mansion where I’ll be warm for once in my life.”

Continuing to frown, Alexandra said, “I’ve told you a dozen times you can come to live with us. Father and Mother would welcome you and—”

“It’s a kind offer and I’m truly grateful to you and your parents. But I cannot accept. My mind’s made up. You know how I love the idea of embarking on a great new adventure. I am going to California to seek my fortune!”

“What about Samuel? Will you just leave him behind with no regrets?”

Kate shook her head. Alexandra was referring to Sam Bradford, a fine young man who had shown an unflagging interest in courting Kate. But the attraction was not mutual. While Kate genuinely respected Sam and realized he had a bright future ahead in his father’s flourishing ship brokerage firm, she was not interested in him romantically. Nor was she interested in anyone else. While Alexandra dreamed of marriage and children, Kate yearned for excitement and travel.

She laughed now and said, “Tell the truth, Alex. Wouldn’t you like to console Sam in my absence?”

Alexandra flushed guiltily, then smiled. “I can’t deny that I find Sam incredibly appealing.” She frowned again. “But it’s you he likes, not me.”

“So he thinks. But I predict that a week—two at the most—after I’m gone, Samuel T. Bradford will come calling on you.”

Alexandra’s eyes sparkled. “You really think so?”

Kate laughed. “I do, yes. And in a year or so, I’ll expect a wedding invitation.” Her well-arched eyebrows lifted.

“Where shall I send it?”

“Soon as I’m settled, I’ll write,” promised Kate. Then, with a sly grin, she affected brittle, privileged, lady-of-the-manner diction, and teased, “My dear Miss Wharton, I shall see to it my personal secretary drops you a note with the return address of my California mansion.”

Both young women laughed and hugged once more.

At the Boston harbor, on the bitter cold morning of March 27, 1855, the two young women hugged again.

But neither laughed.

“I’ll miss you so,” said a teary-eyed Alexandra.

“And I you,” Kate replied, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat.

She turned away and hurried up the gangway of the clipper ship Star of Gold.

Three

May 1, 1855

San Francisco, California

“Conlin. Harry Conlin, California representative for Clement and Clement.” A smiling, expensively dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair stepped forward to meet Kate when she disembarked at the busy harbor early on that May morning. “From J.J.’s description, you must be Miss Kate VanNam, heir to Mrs. Arielle VanNam Colfax’s estate.”

Kate shook his offered hand. “Yes, sir, I am Kate VanNam. Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Conlin.”

“Welcome to San Francisco,” he said with a friendly smile, “port of entry and financial center for the mining camps of the mother lode. Here, let me take that.”

Harry Conlin quickly relieved Kate of her heavy valise. He took her arm and guided her through the swarms of merchants, shippers and passengers packing the Vallejo Street wharf. Dodging handcarts and wagons, coaches and cabs, Conlin and Kate carefully threaded their way through the crowd.

When they reached the berth where the steam packet Lady Luck was moored, Harry Conlin explained, “Miss VanNam, I’ve engaged a stateroom for you on board.”

“No, Mr. Conlin, I won’t be needing a stateroom for such a short journey. I’ll just—”

Interrupting, he said, “Miss VanNam, Fortune is a hundred and fifty miles from San Francisco.”

Kate frowned, disappointed. “That far? I thought surely I’d be there this by afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. I know you must be terribly exhausted. Perhaps you’d prefer to spend the night here in San Francisco and leave tomorrow or the next day?”

“No, I’m quite anxious to reach Fortune.”

“Very well. You’ll spend a couple of nights on the Lady Luck before reaching the river settlement of Golden Quest and transferring to a much smaller steamer for the shorter trip to Fortune.” Kate nodded, trying to smile. Conlin ushered her up the gangway.

Once on board, Harry Conlin said, “Now, tell me about your long journey from Boston. Was it terribly harrowing?”

“Not at all,” Kate replied and meant it. “It was an unforgettable adventure.” Though weaker than when she had set out, Kate had lost none of her enthusiasm. “I can’t imagine why anyone would complain about such an incredible experience.”

“No seasickness, no ocean storms?”

“Well, I was a bit seasick, but only for a day or two. And there were a couple of storms with high winds that pitched the ship around, but I wasn’t all that frightened.” She smiled then and declared, “It took us only eleven days—with an overnight call in Havana—to reach the Caribbean port city of Aspinwall. There all the passengers disembarked and we were transferred to open-air railcars for the forty-eight miles across the isthmus to Panama. There, we embarked on the Sonora and steamed north for fifteen days. And here we are!”