Liz Ireland - Millie And The Fugitive

He looked away, feeling his face redden. His throat was suddenly dry, and he cleared it uncomfortably.

“What’s the matter?” Millie asked. “Are you sick?”

Ironically, anger over her dress seemed to have knocked the bashfulness clear out of her head, so that she stomped around, heedless of his gaping, as she whacked her dress against the trunk of a tree, hoping to flog some of the dirt off. Sam wished she’d go ahead and put the damn thing back on, already.

“No, I’m not sick,” he answered, getting to his feet. “We just need to push on.”

“You’re the one who’s wasted our time this morning,” Millie lectured him primly as her fists rested on her curvaceous hips. “You can’t blame me.”

No, he couldn’t. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t gotten that fool notion about Millie’s dress into his head, he could have gone on thinking about her as a... well, a troublesome hostage. A burden to be shed. But now he was going to be hard-pressed to look at her again without thinking of her as she appeared now, that camisole sticking to her collarbone and cleavage, her petticoats outlining her tiny waist, her hips and her shapely legs.

Damn. He trained his eyes away, on the spot where they’d left the horses. “All right. It’s my fault. Now hurry up and get your clothes on.”

She shot him an exasperated look. “First you want them off, now you want them on! And all the while you keep pointing that gun at met — How do you expect me to act efficiently under these circumstances?”

Patience, Sam told himself, turning away as he listened to her fuss over the scads of little buttons she had to contend with. The rippling pond mocked him now. If only there were time, he could use a therapeutic dunk in that cold water himself.

Tom McMillan, Chariton’s sheriff for going on twenty years, was well-known for being a man of few words, so when the few he chose to tell his hastily gathered but handpicked posse were shoot to kill, Horace Lively was sure the sheriff meant them.

Poor Millicent, his little princess, all alone with that brutal outlaw. And her so unused to the rough conditions she was probably being exposed to! How would she survive?

He swallowed, fighting back a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that had been there ever since the sheriff had come around with Millie’s bonnet, asking a lot of questions. But, of course, he’d begun to anticipate the worst when Millie wasn’t home for dinner that afternoon. Oh, he never should have quarreled with her! If only he could be sure she had survived thus far. He was an old man, had been through four years of battle during the War between the States, but he’d never faced anything so frightening as the prospect of losing his dear daughter.

He just had to stay calm, keep himself together, as he had been doing. Now if only he could convince Lloyd Boyd to comport himself in the same dignified way. Millie’s fiancé had completely fallen apart when he discovered she was missing. Even now he was fondling the little redbird on Millie’s bonnet, which he held in a white-knuckled grip.

“Shoot to kill?” Lloyd wailed, jumping up from where he was sitting on the wooden sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office. He looked beseechingly from Horace to the sheriff and then back again. “With Millicent nearby?”

“The sheriff knows what he’s doing, son,” Horace tried to explain. If only he could be certain of his own words.

Sheriff Tom continued instructing his men. “Now you all heard Ed and Toby’s story. Sam Winter is a shifty, brutal character, just like that brother of his, and apparently he’s a lot stronger than he looks. Any man who could overtake two lawmen on horseback while his hands are cuffed would have to be.” He eyed his red-faced deputies sternly.

The sheriff thought the incident of the escaped convict made a laughingstock of him and his deputies in the eyes of the community. There was talk of incompetence going around, though not about Tom. That man had a will of iron, everyone knew, and tended to be overzealous in pursuit of justice. Especially when it involved somebody he didn’t particularly like. And he very clearly disliked Sam Winter and his brother.

“Tom,” Horace said, stepping forward, “don’t forget Millicent is riding with the man. I don’t want Millicent hurt.”

“Oh, right,” Tom drawled for the benefit of the others. “Try not to hit the girl. Now we’re going to branch out in two groups....”

The perfunctory words failed to comfort Horace. As did the directions that followed. The trigger-happy sheriff was going to head the posse himself, and leave Ed and Toby in charge of Jesse Winter at the jail. Oh, Horace was glad that so many had turned out to join the search party, and he would be following the sheriff so that he could hear about events as they developed. Still, all the men in front of him seemed more interested in the prospect of catching the escaped criminal than ensuring the safety of his daughter.

All except Lloyd Boyd. And precious little good the hysterical young bank clerk was going to be in the search.

“Poor, poor Millie!” Lloyd wailed, combing his hands through his pale hair in a gesture of anguish. “Will we ever see her again, see her lovely face, hear her bright, tripping laughter?”

How a man could think so flowery in the midst of a crisis was beyond Horace’s understanding. “We’ll find her, Lloyd. Pull yourself together.”

“I know. I must be strong. For Millicent,” Lloyd said in an earnest attempt to tamp down his emotions. “But if there were only something more I could do!”

Lloyd’s hysteria, signaling as it did a genuine concern for Millie, touched Horace’s heart. He had been right to tell Millie that the young man would make a good match for her. Millie got engaged and disengaged with dizzying regularity—and Lloyd was an upstanding, sober young man. Or had been. Now he seemed to crumble before Horace’s eyes.

“You’re doing all you can by riding with McMillan’s posse, son,” Horace assured him. Then, looking at the young man’s red, anxious face, he added, “Just remember to stay out of the way.”

Unoffended, Lloyd nodded. “I’ll stay right with you, sir.”

Horace took a deep breath. Though it grated on his nerves, the boy’s hysteria was easier to stomach than the bloodthirstiness of the other men gathered.

More than his own deputies’ embarrassing loss of their prisoner, Sheriff Tom had used Millicent’s apparent kidnapping as a call to arms. But now that they were all assembled, no one seemed especially concerned about whether she was dead or alive. Except Lloyd.

And one other man. But Horace didn’t notice him, and neither had anyone else. He had disguised himself so that he could blend into the crowd as just another citizen, and was hanging back — but not too far back—listening and watching, examining the gray-haired, droopy-eyed colonel’s wary reaction to the sheriff’s directives.

Horace P. Lively was worried sick about his daughter. Anybody could see that—even a man who could barely see at all. The old gentleman was as despairing in his silence as the younger man next to him was in all his breast-beating grief. Lively didn’t think the sheriff was going to find his daughter.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t, the man thought. But the old codger was right about one thing. The sheriff didn’t give a flip about Millicent Lively. Just about Sam Winter.

The stranger saw things differently. Whether Sam Winter lived or died was of no importance to him. But Millicent Lively—now she was another matter entirely....

“I’m certain I’ll catch cold now after being wet the entire day,” Millie said crossly. She knew she was whining, but she couldn’t help it. She was bound to a tree trunk, and uncomfortable, and hungry again.

Wasn’t Sam Winter human? Didn’t he get hungry, or tired, or cold?

How would she know? she wondered in frustration. They had been riding side by side for two days now, and she knew as little about him tonight as when they’d left Chariton. His continued silence alarmed her. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t understand a person who didn’t talk—although that was puzzling—but, even stranger, that he seemed genuinely to want to say things to her. Otherwise, why would she have caught him watching her in that odd, almost pained way so often today?

Unless she looked funny. That was always a possibility, given that she’d dressed this morning so hurriedly, without a mirror, in a mud-caked frock. Even her normally perky, fashionably curled bangs drooped down to her eyebrows. But whose fault was that?

“Sam...”

He was leaned up against another tree, his long, lanky legs stretched out in front of him. “What?” he said, his voice annoyed and completely devoid of curiosity.

“Well, if you’re going to be that way about it, never mind,” she answered peevishly.

She heard a long sigh, then noticed that he sat up straighter. “What is it?” he asked, his tone only slightly more patient.

She sniffed proudly. “I only wanted to ask you if you thought I looked all right, but you don’t have to tell me.”

“Why? Are you sick?”

“No, I was just concerned with my appearance.” When he failed to say anything, she added, “You know...my physical appearance.”

“You look fine.”

“How would you know? You didn’t even glance at me!”

Reluctantly, he turned his head. She could see his gray eyes watching her across the darkness, with that same strange look in them that she had noticed so many times that day as they rode.

He really wasn’t unattractive, even though he was badly in need of a shave and generally scruffier than when she’d first seen him. His face was almost handsome, in a common sort of way. It had taken her a while to get used to his rough, sun-darkened skin. He was almost bronze, which provided a stark contrast to his other features, gray eyes and light brown hair.

The odd look in his eye she chalked up to the same discomfort she felt. “You know what your problem is?” she asked.

The question brought a sharp laugh. “I know what several of them are, Princess. There’s the fact that the law is after me, that my brother might hang. Oh, and there’s you to deal with—”

It annoyed her when he called her “Princess” now, especially when he said the word with such a sneer of derision. “You’re hungry,” she said, interrupting him. “What you need is some real food.”

“Too bad. We don’t have any, and we don’t have time to forage, either.”

“You’ll never make it far on an empty stomach,” Millie told him. “We need to stop in a town.”

“No,” he said flatly.

As far as Millie could tell, getting Sam to take her into a town was her only chance of escape. “Why not? I wouldn’t do anything stupid,” she promised, lying baldly. She’d pictured it so many times during their long ride — getting away from him, running like a crazed woman down a sparsely populated, dusty street of a strange town, flapping her arms and yelling about the madman who had abducted her. Her daydream always ended with Sam being caught by a mob of angry townspeople, which made her feel a little sad, but relieved. Sam had kidnapped her, after all.

Daddy was probably worried out of his mind. It nearly made her cry to think about it. Yet she couldn’t help wondering what was going on in Chariton—Sam’s escape must have created quite a stir. Just her luck. Something exciting finally happens in that dull little town, and she gets abducted!

Oh, well. She was sure her father was doing something on her behalf, which did make her the center of attention, even if she wasn’t there to enjoy it. Her best friend, Sally Hall, was probably going crazy with wanting to know what had happened to her. Alberta would be fretting, too. Oh, and Lloyd Boyd. Her situation would suit the misfit bank clerk’s love of drama.