The Sheriff (Historical Romance) Read Online Free PDF

exist.
    Travis ground his teeth at the possibility. He hoped to hell she was homely. Protecting a young, single woman from a townful of lonely, lusty miners would be anything but easy.
    Kate returned to the Eldorado, collected her belongings, paid her bill and trudged back to the ruined mansion. She deposited her things in the drawing room at the very front of the mansion. She looked around, sighed, then turned away. She’d see to making the room livable later.
    First things first.
    By noon she was back in town to visit the Federal Land Office. When she stepped down into the street, she encountered a dirty, drunken man weaving dizzily toward her. Kate shook her finger in his face and warned him off, threatening him within an inch of his life. The drunk anxiously backed away.
    Chin raised, Kate stepped past him and into the land office. Deed in hand, she introduced herself and handed the document to the balding clerk. He studiedit for only a minute. Then he looked up and shook his head pityingly.
    “Miss VanNam, I’m sorry you’ve traveled all this way for nothing.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You’re wasting your time,” he informed her. “All the placer gold is gone from the stream on your property. Has been for years now.”
    “Placer gold?” she repeated, having no idea what he meant.
    “Placer. The pebbles containing particles of gold that wash down the stream from the mountains. It’s all long since been panned and sold. There is no more.”
    “No, of course not,” she said. “I knew that. But the mine…”
    “Miss VanNam, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the Cavalry Blue has been abandoned for years. All boarded up. And with good reason. There has never been a single speck of gold brought out of that mine.”
    Kate said calmly, “I know.”
    “You do?” He frowned and scratched his gleaming pate.
    “Yes. I came up on the steamer from Golden Quest with Dr. Milton Ledet. He mentioned that the Cavalry Blue has never produced any gold.”
    The man nodded.
    Shoulders squared, Kate continued, “I informed the good doctor and now I’ll tell you. The gold obviously remains inside. I will bring it out.”
    Travis got his first glimpse of Kate VanNam at noontime.
    He was alone in the front office of the city jail, doing nothing. Leaning back in his chair, booted feet propped up on his desk, hands folded behind his head. He yawned and exhaled slowly, enjoying the peace and quiet that came all too infrequently in this wild mining community.
    He looked out the window at nothing in particular and his eyes immediately widened.
    He spotted her sunlit hair, shining as brightly as the gold she sought.
    Kate VanNam.
    He knew it was her.
    Travis swore under his breath. He was instantly reminded of another golden-haired Jezebel whose memory was still vivid after all these years.
    Travis scowled as Kate encountered the weaving, drunken Zeke Daniels, but his frown quickly turned into a grudging smile when the delicate young woman shook a finger in Zeke’s liquor-veined face and rebuked him.
    Zeke backed away as if he had encountered a bobcat.
    As the sheriff studied the woman, he noted that her gleaming golden hair was not her only attribute. She was tall and appealingly slender. Her lithe, willowy body was draped in a girlish blue-and-whitegingham dress with flounces and bows that made her look all too young and innocent. Her fine-boned face was exquisite, her ivory skin flawless. She was very pretty, very feminine, very desirable. She did not belong in Fortune, California.

Six
    M ap in hand, sunbonnet on her head, Kate went up into the mountains alone the very next morning and easily located the Cavalry Blue claim. The entrance was boarded up, just as she’d heard. She peered curiously through wide cracks in the weathered timber, foolishly hoping she might detect a vein of gold winking at her from deep inside the dark cavern.
    She saw nothing.
    It would take further exploration to uncover the treasure.