An Unexpected Groom Read online

  “But I can do it! You’d be there with me, at the window. All I’d be doing is going in and getting the ledgers. No one will be there. I’ll be safe. I can help, I know I can. Please let me help you.” Why was she trying to convince him to allow her to commit a crime?

  Jesse stared at her as if he was considering it, abruptly shaking his head after a few seconds. “No, this is... why am I even thinking about this? No. Absolutely not.”

  “Please? I really do want to help.” She was hazy on why, but she did.

  Huffing out a breath, he looked away and closed his eyes. She waited as he sat silently.

  “What if something goes wrong?” he said after a while, opening his eyes and looking at her. “What if something happens to you?”

  “What could go wrong? It’ll be dark, no one will see. I’ll be in and out in no time.” She stood and moved around the table to sit in the chair beside him, taking his hand again and holding it in both of hers. “Something’s happening to me, Jesse. A week ago I wouldn’t have even considered the vaguest possibility of doing anything remotely like this, but now I want to. I feel like, for the first time in my life, I can do anything I want. And I like that feeling. Please don’t take that away from me. Please let me do this. Let me help you.”

  Gazing into her eyes, he released a long sigh. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

  She grinned and bounced in her seat a little. She seemed to be turning into Lizzy. “Can we do it tonight?”

  Chuckling, he shook his head. “It’ll have to be tomorrow. I have to make sure the window is unlatched before I leave work so you can get in.” His smile changed to a frown. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”

  She wondered how long she could legitimately keep holding his hand. “Oh yes. Very much.” She was excited about the prospect of doing something that would horrify her parents. What was happening to her?

  “I have just one more question though,” he said, his expression serious. “May I keep holding your hand while we eat?”

  She raised one hand to cover her giggle. “I think that would be acceptable.”

  Chapter 11

  Jesse wished his legs worked properly so he could pace. He needed to pace, or at least do something to work off his nervous energy.

  How had he let Louisa talk him into this? It was insane. There were so many ways it could go wrong. He should never have listened to her.

  But when she’d held his hand and looked into his face, pleading with those beautiful blue eyes that made his heart thump in his chest, he would have said yes to anything she asked.

  And now here he was, lurking in the shadows outside the Jones’ house, waiting for the woman he hoped to marry to join him in committing a crime.

  He’d finally lost his mind. It was the only explanation.

  Movement just visible in the light of the three-quarter moon caught his eye from the side of the house and a figure slipped into view, moving on silent feet through the garden and hurrying to him outside the fence.

  Louisa was wearing a long, dark cloak and he glimpsed her smiling face beneath her hood.

  “I sneaked out my bedroom window!” she whispered, her eyes shining with excitement. “I’ve never sneaked out before. It was so thrilling! I even used some pillows and clothes to make a shape beneath my bedcovers that looks like I’m still there sleeping, in case anyone checks. Not that anyone would check, but just in case.”

  He had to stop himself from laughing at her enthusiasm. “If sneaking out is exciting, how are you going to feel breaking into a bank?”

  She rubbed her hands together. “Let’s go find out.”

  It being eleven at night most of the townsfolk were at home in bed, although light still spilled from the doors of the saloon some way along the main road from the bank, accompanied by drunken laughter and a slightly out of tune piano. Jesse and Louisa kept to the shadows, staying on the back streets and hugging the sides of buildings as far as possible, only venturing into the open to cross the main street to reach the bank.

  Jesse led the way around the side of the brick building to the window he’d left unlatched, hoping no one had discovered it and fastened it again after he’d left. He didn’t dare pray it was still unlocked. He wasn’t entirely certain God would approve of the whole breaking in thing, as good as his intentions were. If it wasn’t the right thing to do, he trusted God would have guided someone to lock the window earlier.

  He unlocked the barred gate covering the window with the key he’d taken from the bank that day. Slipping the knife he’d brought through the crack he’d carefully left between the window and its frame, he felt for the latch. When it flicked fully open he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  “All right, remember everything I told you,” he whispered to Louisa. “Just go along the corridor inside and Vernon’s office is the first door you’ll reach on the left. There will be a lamp on his desk. The light shouldn’t be seen from the road, but keep it low anyway. The ledgers...”

  “I know, I know,” she whispered back. “We’ve gone over it several times, I know what to do.” She touched her fingertips to his face. “Stop worrying.”

  His voice fled at her touch and it was a couple of seconds before it returned. “I can’t help worrying. You don’t have to do this. We can just go home...”

  “I’m going in and that’s final,” she said with a smile, unfastening her cloak. “Would you hold this for me? I don’t want it to catch on anything.”

  She shrugged off the cloak and handed it to Jesse and his jaw dropped. Even in the low light he could see the gown she wore underneath, her shoulders bare and the shimmering fabric hugging her narrow waist and skimming over her hips.

  “Why are you wearing an evening dress?” He needed to ask, even though he couldn’t find a single reason to object.

  “It’s the only dark coloured dress I have. It’s meant to have a bustle underneath so it’s a bit long, but only at the back.”

  He swallowed. Why was his mouth so dry? “Uh, could... could I possibly see it in the light one day?” He really wanted to see it properly.

  She gave him a smile that would have made his knees weak, if he could stand. “I’m sure I can arrange that.”

  For a moment he forgot why they were there, until she slid the window up and began gathering her skirt in around her. At a flash of stocking he looked away, focusing his attention on the main street along the alley and trying not to think about what else he might see if he looked back.

  After a few seconds of rustling she whispered, “I’m in.”

  He looked round to see her standing on the other side of the window. Seeing her inside where he couldn’t reach her if she needed him nudged his anxiety up to a whole new level.

  “Please be careful,” he begged, gripping the windowsill and fighting the urge to reach in and pull her back out.

  She laid her hands over his and smiled. “I’ll be just fine. I won’t be long.”

  And with that she turned and hurried away from him into the darkness, leaving him silently panicking outside.

  ~ ~ ~

  Louisa felt her way along the corridor in the darkness, brushing her left hand along the wall to guide her and fervently hoping she didn’t touch any spiders.

  Her heart raced and she was certain if it hadn’t been so dark she would have seen her hands shaking. She hadn’t wanted Jesse to know, but she was afraid. And yet the excitement of adventure also shivered through her.

  She’d never done anything remotely like this before. She was always the good girl, following her parents’ will in everything.

  Quiet, obedient, trustworthy.

  Bored.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to do bad things or hurt people, but deep down she’d always held a spark of adventurousness, locked away where it couldn’t inspire inappropriate longings. Until she’d arrived in Green Hill Creek and met Jesse Johnson, a man who made her want to live life now rather than wait for it to happen. And
somehow he’d known it, even before they met. Even before she knew herself.

  The more time she spent with him, the closer all those suppressed desires came to the surface. It was both terrifying and thrilling at once and it made her do foolhardy things like breaking into a bank to help him investigate a possible crime.

  But it also gave her an excitement and anticipation she couldn’t ever remember feeling before. If it was only for two weeks that couldn’t be bad, could it?

  Her hand touched the doorframe and she felt for the handle, relieved to find the door unlocked as Jesse said it would be. She pushed the door open and slipped through the gap, closing it behind her to minimise any light escaping into the corridor.

  By the small amount of light filtering in from the moon she went straight to the large desk in the centre of the room and opened the lamp, lighting it with the matches she’d brought and turning the flame down low.

  She blinked in the light, waiting for her eyes to adjust as she got her first proper look at the room. She saw the cabinet Jesse had told her about in the corner, the lamplight shimmering over its polished mahogany doors. She moved around the desk and opened the top drawer, scanning the contents for the keys Jesse had said would be there. They weren’t hard to find.

  She found it strange that Mr Vernon would lock a cabinet and then leave the keys for it right there in the room, but Jesse said he always was overly confident about the security of his bank. Shrugging, she took them from the drawer. It was a good thing for them.

  She took the ledgers Jesse wanted for the past three months from the cabinet, rearranged the rest so they didn’t look like any were missing, then found the file where the loan agreements were kept. They were in date order so she took all of those from the past three months. The more Jesse had to work with, the better chance he’d be able to find out what was going on. And the more proof he’d have.

  She closed and locked the cabinet, replaced the keys in the drawer, and looked around the room to check everything was as she’d found it.

  “Who’s back there? This is Deputy Marshal Fielding. Come out with your hands in the air.”

  Louisa froze at the sound of the voice outside.

  Heart thudding, she rushed to turn off the lamp and hurried to the door, opening it a fraction to listen.

  Jesse’s wheelchair was moving away from the window. “I can either come out or put my hands in the air, Eric,” he said, a jocularity to his voice she knew he wasn’t feeling, “but I can’t do both at the same time.”

  She slipped into the corridor and silently closed the door to the office. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept back to the window. Jesse had closed the bars, but the window itself was still open.

  “Jesse.” The deputy sounded relieved. “What were you doing back there?”

  “Couldn’t sleep so I came out for a walk,” Jesse replied. “Or a roll, more accurately. I heard a sound and thought I should check, it being where I work and all. Can’t imagine Mr Vernon would be too pleased to learn there’d been a robbery at his bank and I didn’t throw myself into the line of fire to save it.”

  Louisa marvelled at the way he managed to sound relaxed while she was panicking.

  Deputy Fielding chuckled. “I’ve had bosses like that. But you shouldn’t be going down dark alleys on your own at night, especially unarmed. I think Mr Vernon would rather keep you than the money.”

  “You don’t know Mr Vernon well, do you?”

  The deputy laughed again.

  “Anyway,” Jesse said, “the dangerous outlaw turned out to be a racoon, so I think we’re all safe.”

  “I’ll go and check anyway,” Deputy Fielding said, “just to make sure you didn’t miss anything in the dark.”

  Setting the ledgers on the floor, Louisa reached up for the window and tugged it down, torn between needing to close it as quickly as possible and not wanting to make any noise.

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Jesse said. “There’s nothing back there, I’m sure.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  The alley outside lightened, the sound of footsteps approaching.

  Louisa pulled at the window, desperately praying for it to be silent.

  The light grew.

  I’m going to be seen! Please don’t let me be seen.

  The window finally reached the sill and she fastened the latch and threw herself into the corner beneath it. Light flared at the window above her, illuminating the corridor.

  She pressed herself into the wall, holding her breath. Several excruciating seconds passed.

  And then the light moved away.

  Louisa breathed out.

  After fifteen seconds or so, the lamp and footsteps passed the window again, not stopping this time but carrying on to the street.

  “It’s all clear,” the deputy’s muffled voice said. “Probably best if you head home though. There’s only one of me and I can’t cover the whole town. I love this place, but not everyone who comes through has our best interests at heart.”

  “Will do, Eric,” Jesse said. “And thanks.”

  Louisa waited a full ten minutes before she dared to open the window a crack. Hearing nothing, she pushed it up just wide enough to squeeze through, pushed the bars open, and climbed outside, tugging her dress after her and closing the window. She couldn’t lock it, but Jesse would take care of that in the morning when he arrived for work.

  Right now, she just wanted to get back to where she was safe. She’d had enough excitement for the night.

  From the mouth of the alley she saw Jesse in the shadow of a building across the street. He waved when he saw her. She peered up and down the street and, seeing no sign of Deputy Fielding or anyone else, ran across and into the darkness where Jesse waited for her. He looked immensely relieved. She was so happy to be with him again it was all she could do to not throw herself into his lap. Instead she handed him the ledgers and loan agreements.

  He grasped her hand and smiled up at her, mouthing silently, “Thank you.”

  For reasons that had nothing to do with fear, her heart leapt.

  He handed her cloak back to her and she shrugged it on, following him away from the main street. When they were a good distance from the busier part of town, he turned in the direction of the Jones’ house.

  “I’ll walk you home and then get to work on these...”

  “May I come with you?”

  His eyebrows reached for his hairline.

  “Just for a little while?” she said. “The truth is, I’m far too wide awake to go to bed and I really want to know what you find in those ledgers.” She also wasn’t ready to leave Jesse for the night.

  He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s so late and if anyone knew we were alone in my house during the night...”

  “No one will know. I won’t stay long, I promise.” She felt a little like a child begging to be allowed to stay up late, but if that was what it took, she’d do it.

  He sighed. “All right, just for a little while. But you have to promise to keep your hands to yourself.”

  She clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

  He nodded once, lips twitching with a smile, and started in the direction of his house. “See that you do. I have my reputation to think of, you know.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Jesse hung his jacket on a hook by the door and carried on into the parlour, pulling the curtains tightly closed before lighting the lamps.

  “Would you like anything to drink?” he said, turning to face Louisa.

  “A glass of water would be nice, thank you.”

  For a few moments all he could do was stare. She’d removed her cloak, giving him a proper view of her evening gown. He’d thought she looked beautiful in the dark. In the light, she took his breath away.

  She lifted the skirt a little and twirled in a circle. “So does the dress live up to expectations? I didn’t wear the bustle because I’d never have got throu
gh the window in that ridiculous thing. Mother insisted I needed the latest fashion for my only ball gown, but I hate bustles. They’re so impractical, and a nightmare to sit down in. You have to perch on the edge of the chair. It’s ridiculous.” She gasped, her hand going to her mouth as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to, although he couldn’t think what that might have been. “I mean, I have other gowns, but this was the latest.”

  “You look stunning,” he said, sure he’d never meant anything more in his life.

  She lowered her hand to reveal a shy, beautiful smile playing on her lips. “Thank you.”

  He had to remind himself he had work to do. “I’ll just go and get you that water.”

  When he returned, Louisa was at his desk. “I’ve put all the agreements into the corresponding pages by date,” she said, sliding a final piece of paper between the pages of one of the ledgers, “so you have them all in the right place. I hope that’s all right.”

  He wheeled up to the desk and placed the glass down, amazed at how much she’d done in the short time he’d been gone. “You should come and work at the bank. I can’t believe you did all this so fast.”

  She picked up the water and carried it to the settee, settling onto one end. “It wasn’t so difficult. There are only twenty-three loans.”

  He flicked through one of the ledgers. “Yes it was. I was gone less than two minutes. You have an amazing eye for detail.”

  She shrugged one shoulder and took a sip from the glass.

  He closed the ledger. “You do know how smart you are, don’t you?”

  She gave a small sigh and looked at her hands. “Mother always says a lady plays down her own talents in favour of a man’s.”

  He almost laughed, until he realised she was being serious. “Well with all respect to your mother, I think that’s nonsense.”

  Surprise swept onto her face and he hurried to continue before she got the idea he was insulting her mother, even though he couldn’t understand why any parent would want to stifle their child’s development in that way. Especially an amazing woman like Louisa.