Page 20 of Taming Lady Temperance

She might have oversold things just a bit, but where was the harm? Mrs. Hanover needed a friend tonight, and Noreen needed a distraction from her deteriorating relationship with her mother. What possible trouble could two spinsters and a grandmother get into?

“You have nothing to worry about,” she said with a broad smile as James tucked her note into his pocket. “Everything will be fine.”

Chapter

10

Everything was most assuredly not fine. Feminine chatter echoed through the jailhouse, bringing a frown to the face of James’s companion.

“I thought you only locked up one woman, Paxton.” Sheriff Adair brushed past James and pounded up the stairs to see for himself. James dogged his heels, trying to think of an adequate explanation for what they would find, but since he wasn’t precisely sure what that would be, he had little to offer.

The sheriff reached the top of the stairs, then turned to glare down at James. “Why’s the parson’s daughter behind bars? She don’t exactly strike me as the criminal type.”

Noreen jumped out of the chair she’d positioned outside Mrs. Hanover’s cell and spun to face them.

“Sheriff Adair. You’re back.”

“Observant of you to notice.” Adair used a thumb to push the brim of his hat higher on his forehead as he strode forward and took in the scene. “Was riding in to see my family before heading out to Fort Griffin to track down a lead on the rustlers I’m chasin’ when I ran into Paxton coming back from the Hanover place. He told me about the shooting. Didn’t tell me we’d turned the jail into a henhouse.”

The sheriff shot an irritated glance over his shoulder, and James mentally winced. His ignorance of the goings on in his own building didn’t exactly portray him in the best light. As he struggled to formulate a response that didn’t make him sound completely thickheaded, Noreen addressed Adair. A frightening prospect, since one never knew what might come out of her mouth when addressing a male authority.

“Now, Sheriff, you should be commending Deputy Paxton, not taking him to task. He’s handled a delicate situation with great diplomacy. Not only did he provide privacy for Mrs. Hanover in an otherwise inhospitable space, but he personally delivered her grandchildren into the care of their uncle. He also arranged for Miss Cowan and me to keep Mrs. Hanover company until he returned, knowing, as he did, how worried she would be for the welfare of her charges until he reported back.”

Actually, he hadn’t really given that much thought, but now that he considered the notion and saw Edna’s questioning gaze raking his face for an answer to that very question, he recognized the truth of the situation.

He dipped his chin toward the woman seated near the table with a pile of mending in her lap—mending that hadn’t been there before he’d left. “Tom and Lionel are safely delivered, ma’am, as is your wagon and all your chickens. I explained the situation to Elijah, and he said he’d see you bright and early Saturday morning.”

Mrs. Hanover nodded. “Thank you, Deputy.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

Well, his argument with Elijah hadn’t been too pleasurable, what with the man yelling at him for putting his mama behind bars for breaking a bit of glass. She wasn’t a criminal, for pity’s sake. It had been an accident. James didn’t blame the man for being upset. He’d be fighting mad, too, if the situation had been reversed and his mama was the one behind bars. Still, he hated being made to feel like a villain when he was enforcing the law.

“Ain’t you that temperance woman who’s always stirrin’ up trouble at the saloon?” Sheriff Adair scratched at his beard as he narrowed his eyes at Noreen.

Her smile flattened, and a spark of ire lit her gaze, sending warning bells gonging in James’s head.

“Observant of you to notice.” Noreen shot back the sheriff’s earlier words in blatant challenge.

He stiffened. “You hankerin’ for a cell of your own, young lady?”

“You would imprison me unjustly?”

Gads! This was going downhill fast. “Noreen,” he murmured from behind her, “I don’t think—”

A book slammed, drawing everyone’s attention. Jane Cowan rose from her chair inside the cell—a chair that looked suspiciously like the ones in his office. She offered a tremulous smile as she clutched a copy of Little Women to her chest and took a single step toward the door. The locked door, he was happy to note. Wouldn’t do for his prisoner to be dawdling about in an unsecured cell.

“Sheriff Adair,” she said, “you must be tired after your long ride. Let me cut you a slice of my mama’s peach pie. I know it’s one of your favorites.”

Jane smiled shyly as she tucked her book under her arm and reached for the half-empty pie tin sitting on the table next to Mrs. Hanover. Holding the pie in front of her to give Sheriff Adair an unimpeded view, she approached the bars.

“Mama sent it with me when she heard about Mrs. Hanover’s incarceration. It is our Christian duty to minister to those in prison, yet it’s not proper for a woman to tend to a male prisoner’s needs. So when Mama learned of a female in the jailhouse, she encouraged me to come and support Miss O’Sullivan’s ministry to the less fortunate.”

Noreen pressed close to James’s side and slid something into his hand. The key to the cell. He took the hint and moved forward to unlock the door and let Miss Cowan out.

“Jesus himself said that when we feed the hungry and visit those in prison, we are ministering unto him.” Jane stepped out of the cell, and Noreen moved forward to take the book from under her friend’s arm. The table knife balancing on the edge of the pie tin rattled louder the closer she came to the sheriff. “I’m sure you don’t mean to oppose such a charitable endeavor.” She held the pie out toward him, strategically positioning it just below his nose. “Do you?”

Sheriff Adair frowned at Miss Cowan, but his gaze soon shifted to the pie, and his jaw clenched. The sheriff did love his pie, and the parson’s wife had won a blue ribbon at the Albany Independence Day picnic for her peach pie last year. If James recalled correctly, Sheriff Adair had served as one of the judges, making this particular dessert the perfect weapon to wield in an attempt to win the sheriff’s favor. Apparently, the unassuming Miss Cowan possessed a rather cunning mind.