Emmy (Gold Rush Brides Book 2) by Cassie Hayes

a crying woman, and here was the prettiest one he’d ever laid eyes on weeping openly. Her big blue eyes were looking up at him and tears plopped right out of them onto her pale pink cheeks. She batted them away with the longest eyelashes God had ever seen fit to attach to a human.
    “Please, Sheriff. You have to understand. I have no more money for the hotel and I don’t know anyone else in town. I was hornswaggled into marrying a…a murderer, and I must get the marriage annulled if I want to protect my reputation. And quite honestly, Sheriff, that’s all I have left. I have no family, no friends and no money. If I can at least maintain my good name, perhaps opportunities will present themselves. Regardless of what you may think of me, I can’t be the wife of a murderer. I can’t.”
    Her voice cracked and faltered on her final words, and she broke down into great heaving sobs. Before he knew it was happening, Mason found himself gathering her up in his arms and pressing her face to his chest, smoothing her hair. His deputies stared in amazement at their leader but all he could do was shrug at them.
    Emmy sniffed and pulled back, her hands on his chest and her shimmering eyes gazing up at him. Her vulnerability was intoxicating. It’d been far too long since a woman had looked at him that way, like he was her hero. He hated to admit that he missed it.
    “So you’ll take me with you?” she whispered, her gaze pleading.
    Part of him wanted to say yes, to never let her out of his sight again. But then he saw something other than tears shimmering in her eyes. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it sent a cold shiver of suspicion down his spine.
    Gently pushing her away from him, he tipped his hat and said, “I’m sorry, miss, but the answer is no.”
    His suspicions were confirmed when Emmy’s tears dried up and her pleading gaze turned to daggers of hate.  
    “No!” she yelled, stomping her foot like a four-year-old who didn’t get her way. “How am I supposed to get this paper signed? You take it and make him sign it before arresting him!”
    Mason wasn’t about to take on the burden of carrying around her annulment papers, and he certainly wasn’t going to make it a priority to get Kirby to sign before arresting — or, more likely, killing — him.
    “Well, miss, quite frankly, you’re just gonna have to wait till we bring ol’ Roy in. ‘Course a man like that, it’s a toss up whether he makes it back here alive. “
    “And where do you suggest I stay until you return?”  
    She crossed her arms tightly and huffed at him. Boy, did she know exactly how to irk him! Luckily, he had a feeling he knew how to irk her right back.
    “You’re more than welcome to sleep in one of our empty cells until such a time as it’s occupied by a proper tenant. Hopefully one that shares your new last name.”
    He wasn’t proud of his little jab, but it shut her up and let him mount his horse in peace. Rallying his deputies behind him, he halted his horse abreast of Emmy, who was scowling at something off in the distance.
    “Good luck to you, Miss Gibson,” he said, and then rode off in search of her new husband.
    ~ * ~ * ~
    Emmy didn’t so much as glance at the sheriff as he rode out of town, but instead stared blindly toward the end of the street. She was in a fine pickle now and no one would help her out of it.  
    She was reminded of her final days in New York, when she’d lost all hope and had almost resigned herself to a miserable fate. When she found a copy of The Nuptial News , it was like she’d been drowning and God threw her a life preserver ring. Only it turned out the life preserver was made of lead, and now it was dragging her down even deeper.
    She’d never had to take care of herself before — her father and many would-be suitors had provided all she’d ever wanted her entire life — and her first attempt at taking the reins had failed miserably. Perhaps she wasn’t cut out for it. Perhaps