by Pam Crooks
The young man gaped at the bills in his palm. “Perhaps you misunderstood me, sir. This is far too much—”
“Do not insult my generosity,” Alexandre snapped.
The protruding ears reddened. “No, sir. Forgive me, sir.”
Alexandre pivoted toward the coatrack. The barber hastened to remove Alexandre’s scarf from the hook and help him shrug into his fashionable wool overcoat.
Alexandre took great pleasure in the courtesies the man extended toward him. How long had it been since he’d been treated like this? As if he was a man of great importance? Appreciated and respected?
Too long. Much too long.
A small smile on his lips, Alexandre murmured his thanks, donned the stylish beaver hat the barber handed him and stepped out the door. After the warmth of the barbershop, the brisk air invigorated him and refreshed his mood.
He paused on the boardwalk. A black-velvet-shrouded hearse rumbled past, and he took care to avoid the slush thrown from the wheels. He paid little mind to the lone carriage processing behind it, or to the man and woman inside. He thought only of enjoying the comforts the finest hotel in Great Falls had to offer.
Before he could head there, the shop’s door opened again, and the barber rushed out. “You forgot your… things, sir.”
Alexandre halted.
He eyed the bundle the man held with distaste.
“Shall I discard them for you?” the young man asked discreetly.
“Yes.”
“Certainly.” He turned to go back inside again.
“On second thought, no.” Alexandre spoke firmly. “I’ll take them, after all.”
“If you’re sure. It would be no trouble.”
“Give my clothes to me.”
Their stench sickened Alexandre. After Carl had stupidly ridden out and revealed the whereabouts of their hideout to Jack Hollister and Mick Vasco, Alexandre didn’t dare return. Instead he’d been forced to spend the night in some farmer’s barn, and he could still smell excrement from the pigs who had kept him warm.
Uncaring of the mud soiling his new shoes, he strode resolutely toward the nearest blacksmith shop and went inside. He ignored the sweating, beefy-armed apprentice hammering a sheet of thick metal and headed straight for the massive brick fireplace.
He threw the bundle into the roiling fire and watched his clothes burn. The fringed jacket and flat-brimmed hat. His filthy trousers and threadbare shirt and worn-out boots. All of them, gone.
Alexandre refused to be Boone ever again.
Smiling and efficient, Camille handed dinner menus to the six people Grace had come to trust most. A mixed bag of friends and lawmen who came together in a private meeting room at Margaret’s Eatery to share information on the stolen money investigation. A gathering that included Mick and Allie, Paris Gibson and the private investigator he’d hired—a fortyish stockily-built agent known as Kerrigan—Police Chief George Huys, and of course, the one man who had wrapped himself snugly around her heart and wouldn’t let go.
Jack. Grace had never known anyone more honorable or loyal, more driven to right the wrongs committed against the innocent, no one more willing to lay down his life to enact the justice that meant so much to him.
Yes, she’d seen the cold side of him. The lawman side, fearless and hard and capable of killing, with no regrets from what had to be done.
But she’d seen the tender side of him, too—as a hot-blooded and persuasive lover. Merciful saints, the man could make a woman feel deliciously female.
She trusted him with her life.
Grace couldn’t be more sure of how wrong she was in wanting to kill him. How he’d ever manage to forgive her she couldn’t fathom, but Grace would spend every day of her life living with the regret from what she’d almost done.
In a mute and humble apology, she reached beneath the table and rested her hand over his denim-clad thigh. An apology she needed to express, if only by her need to touch him. Though he was engaged in conversation with George on his other side, Jack’s hand moved to cover hers, as if it didn’t matter what he did or who he talked with, he remained as aware of her as she was of him.
His warmth and strength revealed themselves in that simple way of touching her, and she twined her fingers with his, capturing the work-roughened feel of his skin more fully against the smoothness of her own.
His clasp tightened briefly in acknowledgment. Funny how satisfied that little gesture made her feel, and she contentedly returned her attention to her dinner menu.
She feared her rumbling stomach would announce its hunger to the far corners of Margaret’s Eatery if she didn’t fill it soon. Her eyes narrowed over the restaurant’s meal selections, to the letters that twisted and flipped on the paper, demanding her full and undivided concentration to put them right again in her mind.
“Please accept my condolences on your brother’s passing, Grace,” Camille said quietly, bending near to fill her cup with steaming coffee.
Grace’s finger kept her place on the menu. She’d not seen Jack’s mother since yesterday morning, when they stocked the kitchen with firewood to bake their pies and Nut Cake. Was she thinking of how her husband’s circumstances had been eerily similar to Carl’s, that both men had been felled by her son’s hand?
“Half-brother,” Grace murmured with a small smile. “But thank you.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you.”
She sighed, and they exchanged a commiserating glance. “It was unfortunate, wasn’t it?”
Though neither of them said so, both men suffered the same fate by the folly of their own choosing. From the crimes they committed to their rash decision to confront the lawman who was sworn to bring them in.
Instead, Camille patted Grace’s shoulder in sympathy.
“Yes, very unfortunate,” she said. “I’ll be right back to take your dinner order.”
She moved on to fill Mick’s and Allie’s cups, too, striking Grace with the courage she showed and the example she provided, moving on with her life and leaving her husband’s mistakes behind her.
Grace admired her, for it was something Grace must do as well. Carl’s and her mother’s decisions, right or wrong, had nothing to do with her. They never had.
“Doing okay?” Jack murmured.
His darkened eyes revealed his concern. With his Stetson propped on the corner of his chair, he wore his hair finger-combed back. Burnished-gold stubble roughened his cheeks and jaw, and Grace couldn’t help remembering how that imperfectly handsome face had looked last night, shadowed in firelight while he made long, slow, incredible love to her.
“I’m fine,” she said, unable to quell the attraction for him twirling through her belly.
“Been a tough morning for you.” He lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to her knuckle, as if they were the only two people in the room. “You look tired.”
She lowered her lashes and took no offense. “I’m afraid I had precious little sleep last night, thanks to you.”
She kept her voice hushed, her provocative words meant for him alone. His low chuckle revealed he took full blame for the malady.
“I meant Carl, sweet,” he said.
After a brief service, they’d buried him in a far, mostly neglected section of the cemetery devoted to drifters and those who died afoul of the law. Though she suspected Jack felt her half-brother deserved little more than having his body rolled in canvas and dropped into a shallow grave, Grace had arranged for a simple pine casket and the dignity of being transported by hearse for his burial.
She did it as much for him as her mother, who had indeed been buried with her boots on and wrapped in that damnable canvas, without family to mourn her and only a plain wooden headboard bearing her name.
“You two done deciding what to have for dinner yet?” Mick demanded good-naturedly. “The rest of us are growing half-starved waiting for you.”
Grace’s attention scrambled off Jack. Cheeks warming, she sat a little taller and d
iscovered six pairs of amused eyes over her, including Camille’s, who stood waiting with them, her notepad in her hand. How long had they been watching Jack and Grace talking in near whispers, sitting as close as lovers?
All their attention left Grace flustered and her eyes unable to focus on the menu’s words, let alone discern them. Fearing she’d turned the thing upside down at some point, she switched it back and forth, her panic building that she’d long since forgotten the restaurant’s offerings, that she needed time, far too much time to reread the list and make up her mind.
Until Jack calmly righted the menu again and tapped his finger against a blurred line of words. “I’m having the sirloin steak. You get a potato with it and plenty of gravy.”
“The macaroni and cheese is very good here, too, Grace,” Allie said, her blue eyes soft with understanding.
“I say go for the meat loaf.” Mick grinned.
Even the police chief smiled. “I’m a skillet hash man myself.”
“There’s chili, Grace, and roast beef. Don’t forget Camille makes the best pies in the city if you’re wanting dessert,” Paris added with a wink.
“Well, my goodness,” Grace said, overwhelmed.
Jack slid an arm over the back of her chair and eased back in his own, the gesture as protective as it was relaxed. “How about we order her the macaroni and cheese, Mom? I think she’ll like it.”
“I do, too. Good choice.” Camille finished her jotting and stuffed the pad into her apron pocket. “I’ll bring your dinners right out.”
She hurried past the black drape cordoning the room off from the rest of the restaurant, and Grace’s mortification faded. That easy, that quick, the situation was over, and not once had someone raised an eyebrow or acted in a condescending manner over her inability to comprehend the menu.
Thanks to Jack. They’d simply followed his lead and taken her slowness in stride. If anyone suspected her word blindness, they didn’t show it. They didn’t pity her. They didn’t mock her.
Indeed, they’d already become engrossed in conversation with one another, leaving her filled with a bevy of emotions, not the least of them being a strong need to throw her arms around Jack and pepper his rugged face with grateful kisses.
Which she couldn’t do, of course. Not here. She settled for snuggling a little closer to him. His arm tightened and kept her there, making her wish he’d always be with her, saving her when she had trouble saving herself.
After Camille made several trips from the kitchen, Paris arranged papers around his plate. “Shall we get started? I’m afraid the news Kerrigan and I have to share on Charles Renner is disappointing in that we’ve been unable to secure any means of arrest.”
The private investigator appeared grim. “Unfortunately, after his interrogation by the Minneapolis police, he’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared!” Grace exclaimed, shocked.
“Into thin air, I’m afraid.”
Jack swore. A round of dismay rippled around the table.
Paris turned toward Allie. “But thanks to Jenny, we have some good news to report.”
Grace recalled the petite woman of mixed ethnicity who’d been Allie’s nanny since she started school. Jenny had been the one to lock Allie’s trunk and the only person who could’ve known how the stolen money ended up inside. Suspicion pointed to her possible involvement in the embezzling scheme, but Grace always knew how Jenny loved Allie like her own daughter. It never seemed plausible the woman would want to hurt Allie in any way.
“She’s signed for us a sworn statement stating Charles gave her a sealed envelope on the day you left for Montana.” Paris appeared pleased.
Allie’s jaw dropped. “She did?”
“Yes. He called it a small gift for you to enjoy once you arrived west, in light of the scandal and upset you were going through with the Literary Aid Society. He made Jenny promise not to mention him or she’d spoil the surprise.”
“It was a surprise, all right,” Mick muttered.
Paris concurred. “In your haste to leave Minneapolis, Jenny simply tossed the envelope into the trunk and closed it up.”
“I’d only left the house for a short time to arrange for a driver,” Allie said with a perplexed shake of her blond head. “Less than a half hour. He came during that time?”
“Precisely then, according to Jenny.”
“Sounds as if he’d been watching Allie.” Mick’s expression revealed his disgust. “He planted the money in her trunk by way of the one woman she trusted most.”
“Yes. Jenny’s information is proof that Charles had stolen the library’s money and tried to implicate Allie for it.”
“You believe her?” Jack’s gaze bounced between father and daughter.
“I do.” Allie nodded gravely. “She would never betray me.”
“Jenny has suffered untold guilt for her part in Allie’s troubles,” Paris added. “If she hadn’t dropped that envelope of money into the trunk, Allie wouldn’t have been robbed.”
Camille returned with the last of their dinners and slid them in front of Grace and Jack.
“I’m sorry, Jack. Forgive me for interrupting.” She looked troubled. “But two men in the dining room just stopped me to ask if Grace was here. I told them she was, and they asked to see her.”
Jack’s gaze sharpened. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before, but they’re fashionable and very courteous.” Camille’s glance slid toward the drape, carefully closed as if she tried to protect Grace in that small way. “Something about them didn’t feel right, though. There’s a certain, well, arrogance about them.”
Jack slanted the police chief a look. “Grace is new in town. She doesn’t know anybody, arrogant or otherwise.”
As if a sudden thought dawned, he swung his glance toward her.
“Except Boone,” they said together.
“It’s not Boone.” Camille shook her head.
“I don’t want her talking to them, whoever they are.” Jack was solemn serious.
His mother hesitated. “I told them she’s not feeling well, so they left. No questions asked.”
Jack’s brow arched in surprise. “That easy?”
“Yes.” She nodded quickly.
“Smart thinking.”
“Was it?” She turned her apologetic glance toward Grace. “I hope I wasn’t too presumptuous.”
“You weren’t.” The police chief shook his head. “Until we know what’s afoot, it’s too dangerous to expose Grace to someone she’s not expecting. If they were acquaintances of hers, they would’ve sent word of their arrival.”
The truth in the lawman’s logic chilled her. Grace couldn’t fathom who the two men might be. She had no family in this part of the country, and all her friends lived hundreds of miles away in Minnesota.
No one she knew would come to Montana to see her.
No one she trusted.
She was safe, Grace told herself. Except for Paris and Allie, Jack and the others were armed. If the two strangers had even the most remote of illicit intentions, they were badly outnumbered by the men in this room.
Still, the way Jack diverted his glance into a slow perusal around the perimeter of the private dining area unnerved her. The backup plan he formulated in his mind, she knew. A means of escape if they must.
She had no idea how they’d manage it. Their quarters contained no door and only a small window. Grace doubted she could climb through the narrow opening under the best of circumstances, let alone Jack. The only way out remained through the back of the kitchen and the front of the restaurant.
Either way, they were sitting ducks.
As if he’d come to the same conclusion, Jack swung a hard glance toward his mother. “Didn’t happen to get their names, did you?”
“Sorry, no. I didn’t ask, and they didn’t offer. They just expressed concern for Grace and said they’d be in contact with her later.”
“Damn.” Jack didn’t loo
k pleased.
“They were very nice.” Camille sighed. “In fact, now I’m thinking I shouldn’t have been so suspicious. It seems unfair to them.”
“And maybe they have an ulterior motive. Grace hasn’t exactly had an easy time of it since she got here.” Jack stabbed his sizzling steak with his fork, as if it contained all his frustrations. “We have to be careful. Each one of us. Until that money is found and the guilty parties are in custody, we can’t trust anyone.”
“For now, at least, it seems the threat has passed. Let’s continue on with our meeting, shall we?” Paris returned to his notes with the focus of a man accustomed to seeing his commitments through. “The sooner we can finish, the sooner we can return to solving the case. I’m confident the information we’ve gleaned on Charles will help us accomplish that.”
“I’ll be right back with more coffee for all of you.” Camille pivoted toward the black drape.
But at the sound erupting on the other side, she froze.
Everyone’s heads swung toward the drape, too.
Rumbles from the dinner patrons, Grace realized with growing alarm. An odd and unexpected rise of noise that warned of something amiss. Something none of them could see but knew shouldn’t be happening.
Something terribly wrong.
Camille dashed past the partition. Jack bolted to his feet with an abruptness that clattered his chair, but before Grace could follow, before any of them could, his mother screamed and toppled back into the room with a violence that nearly ripped the drape from its rod, shoved to the floor by the two men forcing their way inside.
Neckerchiefs covered their faces, goggles shielded their eyes, their tall, well-dressed bodies demonized by the angry swirls of smoke shrouding them from the bombs they gripped in their fists. One after another, they hurled the bombs into the room, filling the air with an acrid sting, coloring the place grayish-white.
Chairs crashed to the floor. Savage oaths and terrified screams. Jack went for his gun. Mick, too, Kerrigan and George, but by some unspoken command, no one fired, no one dared. Not in air too thick, too stinging, the danger of one of them being accidentally hit too great….