Chapter 1
Alexandra strode down the boardwalk with a purpose. A small black ink smudge marred her tan cheek as shoulder length raven hair bounced around her stern expression. The fury burned inside her, deeper than the time the Southerners had tried to burn her office to the ground. "And I'll be damned if some two-bit, no where town of a Marshal is gonna put a stop to me now," she said, fire dancing in her intensely gray eyes.
In her arms she carried what was left of her shipment of paper suitable for printing with. She had waited nearly two weeks for the paper to arrive, having to send for it in Chicago. And now, the whole batch was ruined. "He will pay for this."
Ace, as she was not so affectionately known by, pushed the door open with such force, it clattered roughly against the stone wall of the small jail, the glass rattling in its frame. "I demand an explanation for this Marshal," she said, throwing the small ink stained and shredded pile of papers at him. "I thought you were supposed to protect people from this sort of defilement."
Ace stood with her hands planted firmly on her hips, her lips pursed tightly together. Several stray strands of raven hair hung loosely against her forehead as she taped her foot impatiently on the floor. She watched as US Marshal Sam Cain drew a curious smile across his handsome features and her fury grew ten fold. "And just what do you find so damn amusing MARSHAL?" she said, her words enforcing the title she obviously felt he didn't deserve.
Sam casually plucked at the shards of paper that covered his lap. "Tsk, tsk," he said, shaking his head. Cocking his right eyebrow, he regarded Ace with a dangerous stare. "I warned you ACE," he said, returning her sarcasm with a matched note of disapproval. "People don't take kindly to an outsider trying to come in and stir up trouble. Especially someone with your reputation Miss Tyson."
Alex was use to this by now; had to be in her line of work. People didn't like the truth, feared it. She had been in the newspaper business for as long as she could remember. Her father and her grandfather both had owned and operated newspapers. She had grown up with the same sense for the truth; the same desire to share information. She had met all kinds in her twenty-seven years of life, but never had she met someone so blatant about their dislike for her or her profession. Marshal Cain was as infuriating as he was handsome.
"Marshal, you can't stop me from finding the truth. It's around here. I can see it in the faces of the people that walk sheepishly down the streets, eyes diverting to the ground when someone notices. They are hiding something; you are hiding something, and I will find out," she said, turning on her heels so quickly that she nearly tumbled backwards over the small gate that divided the jail floor. But with the grace of a Bulshoi ballerina, she swept herself out the door and back down the boardwalk, mumbling to herself as she went.
The smile faded from Sam's face as Ace stormed out of the jail. "Dammit," he mumbled under his breath. He had tried everything to sway the new young editor to take her paper to Fenton or some other town, but it seemed only to make her more insistent on staying. He thought the latest vandalism would be just enough to push her over the edge, but again, she proved him wrong.
"Dammit," he said again, moving swiftly across the jail floor and standing in the doorway. He could see her still storming down the boardwalk, her shoulders forward as if she were a charging bull. Sam closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply on the lilac perfume that lingered in the air where she had been. "Dammit Alex," he muttered again, returning his grave gaze back to the path of her retreat. "I'll make you leave here if it's the last thing I do."
Hearing Jackson McKray's deep gravely voice echoing through his mind, he knew that if he didn't, McKray would. "And this has to go according to plan," he said, the weight of the whole mess he had gotten himself into sitting heavily on his shoulders. "For everyone's sake."
Chapter 2
“Listen McKray,” Sam said, his hands resting on his hips. Oh how he hated that man, and yet...... ‘Well,’ he thought to himself in disgust as he watched the dirty, fat man stuffing his mouth full of soup beans and bread. ‘I just have to make sure we pull this off.’
“What? Listen to what? Will you hurry up,” he grumbled, small bits of bread falling from his mouth and leaving a trail down his stained shirt. “I done told you what your part is. You that stupid that I need to go over it again?” McKray looked up from his plate of gruel, a snarl on his mangy face. He looked Sam up and down, before shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Oh, how Sam hated that man.
“Just do it. Make sure that bitch keeps her nose out of it too. I’m ‘bout tired of her. Ain’t bad enough she damn near ‘pears to be following me, but she’s there every damn time I turn around.” Sam watched as a filthy smirk slowly spread across Jackson’s face. With one eyebrow raised, he chuckled to himself. “I sure would like me some of that though.”
Sam had tuned Jackson out after he started carrying on, but was brought out of his thoughts by the pure calculation he heard in the psychotic man’s voice. “Have some of what?”
Jackson looked at Sam as if he’d grown two heads. “What the hell you think?” he guffed, smacking the man that sat next to him on the back as he howled in laughter. “Asking me what I want?” Jackson could see that Sam was about to reply and he frankly didn’t care what the Marshal had to say. ‘Too bad I need him at all,’ Jackson thought to himself as shoveled in another mouth full of beans. “Jus’ git me the gold schedule,” he said, dismissing Sam with a wave of his hand.
Sam was fuming; his heart racing with anger. “Fat, stupid little son-of-a-bitc.....” he mumbled under his breath, his fists clenched at his sides. Every time he got around McKray, he had to remind himself why he was doing any of it, but it always came to him loud and clear.....the money, plain and simple.
Slamming the door behind him, Sam crossed the porch quickly and mounted his horse. The quicker he could distance himself from McKray’s ranch, the better. He couldn’t risk someone seeing him leave that miserable place. Besides which, he had better things to do than waste any more of his time with that poor excuse for a human.
As he kicked his horse into a full gallop, images of Alexandra drifted into his mind while McKray’s words filled his head.....”get me some of that.” It wasn’t bad enough that he had so much else to contend with. Now, he had to keep an eye on Alex. “Dammit Ace. Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?” he grumbled to himself as the ranch faded into the scenery behind him.
He had done everything he could think of to get her to leave town. He had sent back her paper and ink shipments, trashed her office, stolen her horse....even resorted to threatening letters, which he had hated more than anything he had ever done. But it didn’t matter, Alex was not going to leave no matter what he did. She was as determined and infuriating as she was beautiful.
But time was running out. Ace was getting too close, and that was dangerous.....for everyone involved. Jackson McKray was just crazy enough to follow through with his threats, and Sam was sickened at the prospect of Ace falling into McKray’s hands. “Dammit Alex, I’ll get you out even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
As the cool night air danced lightly on his exposed arms and face, a thought hit him like a bolt of lighting. He had been going about it all wrong. “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” or so his mother had always said. Smiling for the first time since Jackson McKray had ambushed him in the alley beside the jail, Sam finally had a plan.
The lamp light danced around the small office as the wind blew gently through a hairline crack in the front window. Alex pulled on the square ink template with all her might. “You stupid piece of SHIT!!!” she screamed, her frustration finally getting the better of her. In complete exasperation, she slammed her palm against the printing press lever as she growled through clenched teeth.
It had been three days since the latest theft and vandalism of her newspaper office. Luckily, she had been able to get a shipment from a nearby town who’s newspaper office went out of business.
“Why the hell am I doing this to myself?” she mumbled out loud, her own voice startling herself in the stillness of the darkening evening. Alex had come so close to leaving so many times, knowing fully well that she was neither needed nor wanted in the small town of Sweetwater. She had even packed up her meager belongings once and sat for several hours, staring at the floor trying to decide if she could go through with it.
But in the end, she had chosen to stand her ground as she had always done her whole life. “And not Jackson McKray, Virgil Cyrus, or even Marshal Cain is gonna scare me away,” she had said with such conviction that she knew her father would have been proud. “I will find out what’s going on. Whether these people want to know or not, they are gonna,” she pledged, blowing at a single strand of loose black hair as it tickled her eye.
But she also knew that she was treading on very dangerous ground. Marshal Cain knew that she was on to his little extracurricular activities that included one Jackson McKray. She had even seen them together on several occasions. But what she couldn’t understand was why.
Sam Cain was a perfect gentleman from the moment she had met him, so charming and handsome. He had helped her get the newspaper office set up and even helped her to get her first issue ready for print. Then one afternoon when they had been sitting in the office, enjoying a nice light lunch of cheese sandwiches and tea, they ended up on the subject of why Alex had moved so much.
After several moments of banter, Jackson’s name came up. Alex instantly saw the change in Sam’s demeanor. He grew quiet and guarded, watching her with distrust. She had explained that the road of a journalist is to follow the news and for the time being, most of the news came out of Jackson McKray.
Alex had been writing stories on Jackson since her father was murdered. Deep down, she knew that McKray was responsible, but even with her extraordinary skills of finding the details in everything, McKray still could never be linked to the murder with anything concrete. The only thing that Alex had to go on was a gut instinct, which was something that had never, ever steered her wrong in her entire life.
Ever since that afternoon, Sam had changed, becoming brusque and contemptible. At first, Alex was hurt and confused beyond anything she had ever known before. But that instinct for the truth was stronger and as such, took precedence to all else. Avoiding him when she could, Alex began to watch Sam and on several occasions had seen him with Jackson’s right hand man, Virgil.
Now, she was more determined to expose the depth of corruption that involved not only one of the most heartless, criminals of her time, but also the local law enforcement. “Sam doesn’t know what he’s getting into,” she spoke softly to the empty office as she gently pulled on the ink template. With complete control of her strength, Alex slid the jammed template from its place of imprisonment.
A proud smile spread across her youthful features. Setting the template aside, Alex wiped her forehead on the back of her arm. The stresses and frustrations of the day slipped gradually away. “What good does it do to hold it?” she asked the empty office, her ink stained hands running along the front of her apron as she tried to remove the majority of the ink.
Looking out the big front window of the Sweetwater Gazette office, Alex sighed as the last of the day’s light was wiped from the sky. “Oh hell,” she whispered as she pulled the apron off of her small waist and plunged her filthy hands into the cool basin water. Layer after layer of black stains marred her long, slender fingers, but Alex didn’t much mind it. It was like battle scars to her, just a mark of the trade.
Slipping gracefully into the warm, brown jacket that had been her father’s many years ago, Alex reached into her pocket to make sure that her knife was still in it’s proper place. She felt her muscles relax and a sigh escape her lips as she ran her fingertips over the cool steel blade. A smile broke on her tired features as she remembered the day Buck had given it to her. ‘What a sweet boy he is,’ she thought to herself as she pulled the office door to, double checking the lock before heading through the darkened alley to the small stairwell that lead to her apartment.
Despite his harsh words, his involvement in the troubles that she had been having, his association with Jackson McKray....despite everything, Alex couldn’t help thinking about the handsome sheriff as she climbed the narrow steps. Those blue eyes that, when he was mad, rivaled hers in their gray/silver appearance, his soft smile that reached all the way to the corner of his eyes, that tall lanky form and the casual way he stood with all his weight on one leg, the other pushed to the side......she couldn’t help thinking of them all. And even though, she knew hell would freeze over first before she would ever give Sam Cain a chance to be with her, she couldn’t help but think of him and smile.
He watched from the dark cover that enclosed the alleyway as Alex mounted her stairs. Even with the bulk of the coat she wore that nearly swallowed her whole, Sam marvelled at her sheer beauty. So many things she did, reminded him of his first wife, Jenny. He loved the way she tilted her head to one side when she was making a decision on something important. The way she would wind a strand of her hair around her finger, brushing the end of the curl against her front lip driving him insane with desire.
“But now is not the time for that,” he told himself sternly, trying to focus his mind on the task at hand. As Alex closed the door to her apartment and the world outside of it, Sam sighed in a mixture of fear and relief. He would just have to lay in wait until the moment arose. “I just hope this works.”
To be continued.........
