“I’m Coalie.” The boy stepped forward and tugged on the tail of David’s shirt, gesturing toward the commotion down the street. A group of townspeople, bundled up in quilts and heavy winter coats, stood outside the largest saloon in town.
“You gotta come. They’re takin’ her away.” Coalie tugged again, harder.
“Who?”
‘Tessa.”
David took a step back. He didn’t know anyone named Tessa.
Coalie shook his head, gripping David’s shirt with surprising force. “Hurry!”
“Just let me get my coat.” David reached back through the open door and grabbed his sheepskin jacket from the peg. “Who’s…” He turned. Coalie was running down the street toward the saloon. “Who’s Tessa?” David shrugged into his jacket. He slammed the door of the office behind him. There was only one way to find out. He sprinted after the little boy.
“What’s going on?” David asked, pushing his way toward the front of the crowd a few minutes later. He could see Coalie edging closer and closer to the entrance of the Satin Slipper.
“There’s been a murder,” someone answered. “A stabbing or some such. In one of the girls’ rooms. Caught her red-handed.”
“Look!” someone else called. “They’re bringing her out!”
The doors of the Satin Slipper Saloon swung wide. Several men stepped outside onto the sidewalk. In the center of the group stood Deputy Harris, a young woman held close to his side. Dressed in the gaudy costume of a Satin Slipper girl, she stood out: the only woman in a group of men, her bright blue dress eerie in the distorted light of pre-dawn morning.
A knot of anger tightened David’s stomach as he watched the faces of the men and women in the crowd. The townspeople milled about, circling the front entrance of the saloon, surrounding the woman like vultures over a carcass. David frowned, lines of concern etching his face. The lawmen had brought her out of the warmth of the saloon into the bitter cold without so much as a blanket around her. The flimsy sleeveless dress she wore was no protection against the frigid Wyoming weather. It left her neck and arms uncovered, exposed to the leers of the men, the wide-eyed stares of curiosity seekers, the cold. David gritted his teeth. The deputy must have arrested her and dragged her from her room before she even had time to find her shoes. Her stocking feet were bare against the frozen wooden planks. David’s disgust mounted. She faced exposure and the danger of frostbite in addition to the gossip and speculation of the townspeople while Peaceable’s deputies, in thick coats and sheepskin jackets, huddled together on the sidewalk, talking.
Although she was possibly a criminal, David admired her quiet dignity. She didn’t shiver or cry or beg for mercy. She simply waited, the center of attention but apart from it. Facing the curious onlookers, she searched the crowd.
Coalie slipped from his hiding place behind a post and rushed toward her. “Tessa!” He moved past her guards and flung his arms around her waist, pressing his head against her skirts. Lifting her bound wrists, Tessa looped them over Coalie’s head, hugging him close. She pressed a kiss on the top of his blond head.
“Tessa,” Coalie panted, “I brung help.” He let go of her long enough to point to David Alexander.
Tessa looked up and found David, meeting his gaze.
Her eyes were blue, David realized, as blue as the dress she wore. She was gazing at him with an intensity that surprised him. Yet her face revealed nothing except a glimmer of her intense relief at finding Coalie.
As David watched her, witnessing the joy and satisfaction on her face as she held the boy in her arms, he doubted Tessa was capable of committing a crime. She didn’t look like a criminal.
And she certainly didn’t look like a murderess.
In that moment he decided to take the case.
Deputy Harris obviously didn’t like his prisoner holding on to the boy. He raised her arms while one of the other deputies motioned for Coalie to move. Looking up at Tessa, Coalie hesitated for a moment, then stepped away from her. Tears sparkled in his big green eyes. He brushed at them with the back of one hand before he darted into the street. Head down, apparently embarrassed by his display of emotion, Coalie tripped over his feet and fell on his stomach in the street.
“Coalie!” Tessa tugged against the deputy’s greater weight, trying to break free.
David jerked in reaction. Without stopping to think, he elbowed his way through the people blocking his path. He reached Coalie’s side only moments after another man pulled the boy to his feet.
David looked at the other man, surprise mirrored on his face as he recognized a friend he hadn’t seen in years. The morning’s events had taken another dreamlike turn. “Kincaid?”
“Shhh.” With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, the man met David’s gaze. David understood the warning. It was universal. Any man who’d ever been a spy knew that look meant back off. Reaching out, David took Coalie’s hand and pulled the boy to his side.
Kincaid faded into the crush of people.
David bent down and brushed the dirt and slush from Coalie’s clothes. “Are you okay?”
“You gotta help Tessa.” Coalie leaned toward the saloon girl, pulling against David’s hand as he called her name. “Tessa!”
She turned, managing a half-smile, apparently for Coalie’s benefit. “I’m all right. Everything will be fine.”
“Wait!” David shouted to the deputy. “You can’t take her to jail.”