Julia: Bride of New York (Amercan Mail-Order Bride 11) by Callie Hutton

report to the jailhouse tomorrow morning.”
    “Are you still going to arrest me?”
    “We’ll discuss that in the morning.” He reached for the doorknob and began to close the door. “Go take care of yourself, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
     
     
    From force of habit, Fletcher made the Full Bucket his final stop for the evening. The saloon was busier than normal. Several tables held poker players, and every other table in the room held men doing some serious drinking. Fletcher wove his way through the tables and headed to the bar. He waved at Mackinaw. “Whiskey.”
    The manager nodded and poured the liquid into a shot glass and placed it in front of him. “How ya doing tonight, Sheriff?”
    “No complaints.” He looked out at the crowd. “Seems like you’re doing a good business tonight.”
    “Yeah. Payday for a few farms and ranches in the area.”
    “I guess it’s hard with Julia out of work tonight.”
    Mackinaw furrowed his brows. “Julia? What do you mean?” He looked over the busy room. “She’s here somewhere.”
    Fletcher choked on his drink. “She’s here? She was injured this morning.”
    The manager shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. She looked okay to me.” He turned away to pour a beer for another man at the bar.
    His blood pumping, Fletcher took a closer look at the crowd. Sure enough, a woman dressed in the red satin outfit of the Full Bucket turned, her eyes meeting his. Julia smiled, and he stormed toward her. Her eyes grew wide as he got closer.
    She placed her hand on her heart. “What?”
    “What are you doing here?”
    She gave him a questioning look. “I work here. I thought we already established that a few days ago.”
    “Have you already forgotten you were injured this morning?”
    “Oh, that. One of the girls gave me some face paint to cover the bruise.” She tilted her chin. “Look. You can’t see anything.”
    Fletcher rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “You should have given yourself a night off. You can’t tell me your jaw doesn’t hurt.”
    She shrugged. “A bit. But I can’t afford to miss work. Now if you will excuse me, I have customers wanting their drinks.”
    He opened his mouth to speak when behind him the sound of a table hitting the floor and poker chips scattering drew their attention. A man backed up and plowed into Fletcher, who grabbed another table to keep from falling.
    “Get away,” he shouted to Julia.
    She stood like a statue, staring at the two men throwing punches at each other. Fletcher grabbed for one of them and missed. Three others dove into the melee, crashing into another table, splitting it in half. Fletcher pulled a chair from a man just before he was about to crash it onto another one’s head.
    What the hell was going on? He’d had his fill of fights today. The men at the outer tables shouted instructions and encouragement to the men fist fighting. Since Fletcher didn’t recognize a lot of them, they must have been the farm workers in town for the night.
    Remembering Julia was once again in danger, he swung around just as a man fell at her feet. “Julia, go behind the bar,” he shouted. He grabbed her by the elbow. “Move!”
     
    Spurred into action, Julia backed away from the two men rolling around the floor in front of her and scurried behind the bar just as Fletcher pulled out his gun and shot into the air. After receiving one final punch, the man closest to him collapsed on a table, breaking it in half. The others froze, some of them with arms in place ready to connect with another man’s face.
    Silence fell over the room. “Now I want all of you to settle down. I don’t know what started this whole thing and don’t care, either. But right now Mackinaw here will be taking names, and you’ll all be required to split the cost of the damages this little brawl caused. If any of you have a problem with that, I’ll be happy to escort you to the jail where you can wait for the circuit judge to come