by Lisa Plumley
Before she could decide, he turned. Briskly, he surveyed the room, and his gaze lit on the two satchels and parasol she’d stacked in one corner of the station office in preparation for her travels to Tucson. He nodded toward them.
“You’ll be wanting to bring those, I’d imagine. We’ll leave in an hour.”
“Leave? But I…no!”
His mocking smile caught her off-guard. “Don’t make me waste time drawing up matching father-and-daughter wanted posters, sugar.”
Shock glued her feet to the floorboards. “You’re arresting me?”
Gabriel’s eyebrows raised. “Not yet. Trusting someone isn’t a crime. Just foolhardy.”
He pulled down his hat and reached for the doorknob, keeping one hand on the gun belt beneath his fine suit as though expecting her to make some desperate, doomed attempt to escape him. Megan knew better.
She’d elude him later, if necessary—when the odds were better suited to her favor.
“That’s why I’m not trusting you,” he went on, “I’m telling you. You’re going with me to find your father. And, if need be, you’re going to help me do it. Ought to be no better bait to a devoted father than a daughter in need, wouldn’t you say?”
Perhaps—for any father but her own. As Mrs. Webster had so cruelly pointed out earlier, Joseph Kearney didn’t quite measure up to the ideal of a doting papa.
“I’d say you’re a beast!”
“No, a realist.” He had the audacity to wink. “Although the two might look the same to you, just at the moment. You’ll come ‘round in the end, I’ll wager.”
“And turn out like you? Sweet heaven, I hope not.”
He shrugged. “Beyond the first prick, it’s kinder to see things the way they really are.”
With a powerful sweep of his arm, he opened the door. The sounds of the latest stage pulling away in the distance, men working, and birdsong from the pair of cactus wrens nesting nearby rushed inside on a choking drift of dust and autumn sunlight.
In the midst of it all, Gabriel Winter stood on the threshold with his back to her and his arms folded, as though deciding which outbuilding to search first, which station hand to begin the questioning with. His whole manner bespoke authority.
And Megan understood a threat when she saw one.
“You can’t really expect me to help you!” she cried. “I’m the last person who’d want to see you bring in my father.”
“That’s why I’m not leaving you here.”
Unreasonable, unexpected tears came to her eyes. She’d always managed to bring folks around to her way of thinking, especially when it mattered. With the Websters. The station hands. Her papa. Addie. What was so different about Gabriel Winter? How, when she most needed to out-reason, out-talk, and out-maneuver a Pinkerton man, had she suddenly lost her ability to do it?
Addie’s words came heartbreakingly to mind. You’d better take care, she’d said. That fancy talk won’t always work on folks.
Blast it, it could and it would. Megan wasn’t beaten yet.
“I’m not leaving you unguarded,” Gabriel said, facing her at last, “to run and warn your father the minute I ride beyond sight of the station.”
He laughed, with an uncommon lack of humor, and passed his hand wearily over his face. “Or should I say, the minute I turn my back on you. You’re a wily one, sugar.”
“Only when I need to be.” Like she’d need to be in order to keep an eye on him, while he tried to trap her poor papa. “Only when my back’s up against a wall, like it is now.”
This time his laughter was genuine. “You backed yourself into that wall, if I remember aright. I only kept you company beside it.”
That he had done—and more. The memory of her body arching away from the wall as his arms pulled her closer brought new heat to Megan’s cheeks…and strengthened her resolve. Gabriel might have the upper hand for the moment, but she’d managed somehow to lead him in the direction she’d set at least once before. She could do it again.
Amazingly, a part of her almost looked forward to the challenge.
“Be that as it may,” she told him coolly, mimicking his crossed-arm pose, “things have a way of changing quickly here in the Territory. As a city man, of course—from Chicago, didn’t you say?—I don’t expect you’d know about something like that. You’ll see soon enough, I suppose.”
“I suppose I will. I have no trouble seeing what’s right in front of me.”
As though in demonstration, Gabriel’s shuttered gaze lowered to her bosom. Gradually, his attention moved to her waist and hips, which he leisurely examined before raising his gaze to meet hers again. She should have been shocked by such an intimate appraisal. She was shocked. But it wasn’t because of his improper behavior. It was because of the frank appreciation in his gaze that followed it.
“Exactly what do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.
He smiled into her eyes. “I should think that would be obvious enough, even to someone like you.”
Someone like her? What was that supposed to mean? Bewildered, affronted—and more than a little embarrassed to be the subject of such intense scrutiny—Megan drew up her shoulders and faced him straight-on.
“Well!” she said in her snootiest tone, copied directly from the ladies in town, “I hadn’t figured you for a dressmaking connoisseur, agent Winter, but—”
“I wasn’t looking at your dress.”
In the face of his outright lie, her composure deserted her. “Yes, you were. I saw you!”
Gabriel’s smile widened. “Whenever possible, I prefer to work from the facts. Your dress is all that stands between them and me.”
Just as she realized what he’d meant, he stepped into the sunlight of the stage station yard and turned to her. “I’d hate to draw up that wanted poster wrong, darlin’.” He tipped his hat. “We ride out in less than an hour.”
Chapter Six
She’s likely the daughter of a thief, Gabriel reminded himself as he rode beside Megan Kearney into the dusty streets of Tucson late that afternoon. And far too wily to be trusted.
Not that he’d been tempted to trust her. At least not beyond the first moment she’d batted those sad brown eyes at him and invited him to a necktie party on his own behalf, just for suggesting he’d like to do business with a pretty woman. If that hadn’t been warning enough of her true nature, the moment she’d aimed a firearm at the lapels of his favorite suit would have been.
Plain as the saddle beneath him, Megan Kearney was desperate to prove her no-good, gone-missing father innocent. However unworthy the damned knuck was. And in Gabriel’s estimation, dangerous usually rode in on desperate, sooner or later. He meant to be ready when it closed in on the woman beside him.
Until then, he’d stick as tight to her side as the twin satchels and frilly parasol she’d insisted on lashing to her sidesaddle for the trip to town. They bounced as she rode, flopping up and down in concert with the close-curved brown bustle on her dress. For a woman reportedly raised in the west, Gabriel noticed, Megan rode remarkably poorly.
In an effort to accommodate her, he slowed his horse to a walk as they neared the center of the presidio. Here, wood and water vendors filled the streets, driving their goods-laden mules between freight wagons and pedestrians as they plied their wares in English and Spanish and occasional Chinese.
Speaking loudly to be heard amidst their singsong calls and the rattle of a stage passing nearby, he turned to his unwilling companion and asked, “How long have you lived in the Territory?”
From beneath the wide straw brim of her geegaw-bedecked hat, she gave him a surly look. “Long enough to know that innocent men don’t always go free around these parts, especially once word gets around and vigilante justice takes up the case.”
As a punch to his sense of integrity, her reply found its mark. Nevertheless, he kept his voice calm. She’d realize the truth soon enough—if she hadn’t begun to already. Facts didn’t lie.
“A long
while, then,” he said mildly.
“It’s only seemed so since this morning.”
Gabriel frowned and guided his horse past a group of Indian women carrying earthen ollas toward the center of town. Several cowboys rode past, spewing dust from their horses’ hooves. On either side of the packed-dirt main street, whitewashed adobe shops and saloons squatted side-by-side, almost identical in their flat roofs and peeled-log ramadas. Given the warm autumn weather, the meager shade they cast felt welcome as a cold drink of well water.
Even so, the shadows they rode through weren’t half as cooling as the chilly demeanor of a woman who thought she’d been wronged. He cast a sideways glance at the daughter of his likeliest suspect, and all but shivered at her schoolmarm’s posture and tight-lipped survey of the people and buildings surrounding them. She didn’t want to be here.
Especially with him.
That made them even, Gabriel figured. He didn’t want to need her here. But he did. And until the case was solved, he’d have to make the best of it. After nightfall, he’d track down McMarlin and send him to follow up on the search of Kearney station he’d been forced to postpone. In the meantime, he’d have to do his damnedest to thaw out Miss Megan Kearney.
He searched his mind for a neutral topic of conversation, something he could use to take some of the starch out of her expression. Once he’d found one, Gabriel turned his most charming smile in her direction.
“A woman like you must have several beaus here in town,” he remarked. “If I stop to kiss you again—” He snagged her mare’s reins in his hand and halted their progress beneath the shelter of a newspaper office’s ramada. “—will someone be riding out from behind one of these sun-baked buildings to avenge your honor?”
Her startled gaze met his. As though sensing her unease, her horse skittered sideways, forcing him to draw the animal closer—along with its rider.
Turning her face quickly away, Megan raised her chin. He doubted she realized the provocative way the gesture lengthened the vulnerable column of her neck. Or the way it loosened the prissy, high-buttoned collar of her dress. Or the way it revealed the telltale flicker of her pulse beating wildly at her throat.
Gabriel did. And vowed to remember.
“Avenge my honor? Only if I’m lucky,” she said. A hint of pink stained her cheeks as she added, “If I’m exceptionally fortunate, one of them will challenge you to a duel—”
“Ahh. You’re a romantic, then?”
“—and win.”
Undoubtedly pleased with the notion of her Pinkerton captor gunned down in the midst of the busy street surrounding them, Megan snatched back her mount’s reins and started forward again.
In the bustle of Tucson’s main thoroughfare, it would be easy to lose sight of her. In all likelihood, that was what she’d intended, and with his wounded male pride for an excuse, to boot. He’d say one thing for her—she possessed resourcefulness to spare.
Intrigued far more than he felt willing to admit, Gabriel followed her. He wended his way past ladies out for a stroll in white dresses, sombrero-wearing men, solitary riders, and enough buckboard wagons to clog the streets, keeping Megan’s ramrod-stiff, brown wool-covered back in his line of sight until he drew up beside her horse once more.
Casually, he rested his hands atop his saddle horn, clasping the reins loosely as he glanced at her. “You’ve a cruel mouth on you, Megan Kearney. Did no one ever tell you you’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?”
She seemed unsurprised to find him beside her again. “Actually, I’ve caught more pests than I ever wanted. My trouble is getting rid of them afterward.” Giving him a pointed glance, she sat even straighter in her saddle. “No matter what I do, they just keep buzzing around me.”
“I’m wounded.” He adopted a hound dog-sad expression to prove it.
She shrugged. Heartless to the end…except when backed up against a wall with amusement in her eyes and her body trembling in his arms. Memories—unwanted memories—of the soft, tentative touch of her lips chased away his notions of teasing her further.
“Wounded and wrong,” Gabriel went on. “To my recollection, sugar, your mouth wasn’t cruel at all.”
Her flush deepened. “I’ll be sure to remedy that next time.”
“I’m glad to hear there’ll be one.”
With surprise, he realized it was true. He wanted to kiss her, long and often. Fast and hard. Sweet and slowly. Her fiery defense of her family hinted at a passion she could hardly deny. Could he unleash it in other, less dangerous ways?
“One what?” she asked.
“A next time to find out if that mouth of yours is as honeyed as I remember.”
“Oh!” With gloved hands, Megan twisted her mare’s reins tighter. She nibbled her lower lip, her teeth white in a face gone deep pink with embarrassment. “Well. I’ll have you know, agent Winter, that my mouth is most certainly not…not… what you said.”
Her sudden shyness was as endearing as it was unexpected. Would he never understand the twists and turns of this woman’s mind?
Gabriel grinned. “A bite might serve to convince me.”
Watching the play of her lips and teeth, bedeviled by the memory of her freely given kiss, he thought about it some more and changed his mind. “But then again, it might have exactly the opposite effect. Would you care to try it out when we reach our hotel, darlin’?”
Her head jerked upward. A magnificent feat, Gabriel reckoned, considering the probable weight of her hat.
“Perhaps,” she said archly, “if it’s a kiss goodbye.”
A quick, hunted expression crossed her face. Even as he wondered at its cause, it vanished. In its place, somehow Megan mustered the necessary vinegar to deliver him a thin, wholly counterfeit smile.
“Do you have any other questions for me, agent Winter, or shall we agree to behave like the enemies we are?”
If they did, he’d never learn anything from her about the running of Kearney station, the station hands who worked there…or her father’s suspicious absence. Somehow, he’d have to cajole her into cooperating with him. Or, at the least, he’d have to convince her not to deliberately sabotage his robbery investigation.
A fool’s errand, to be sure.
He’d be better served to continue his investigation as planned, and track Joseph Kearney as quickly as possible. But he couldn’t leave a wild card like Megan unaccounted for while he did.
Somehow, he’d have to keep her beside him, use what she knew, and bring her father to justice in the end—just as he’d been hired to do. His livelihood, and his reputation, depended on it.
Winter brings in the right man at the right time.
He smiled at her. “I’d rather not be your enemy, sugar.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” She spurred her horse harder.
Gabriel followed, frowning in thought. The way to charm Miss Megan evidently wasn’t tied to either flattery or hints at her sought-after status. Unusual, compared with most of the ladies he knew. Given what he’d learned of her so far, he shouldn’t have been surprised at that. But it left him at a loss as to what to try next. A gesture of goodwill?
They neared the Cosmopolitan, the two-storied, balconied hotel of adobe and wood where he’d planned to headquarter both his fellow Pinkerton agents in the field and his search for the thief he sought. He’d booked a room there while fresh from the train. It would be simple enough, he reckoned, to engage an additional room for his prickly feminine guest.
And simpler still to have her share his.
Too bad she’d never agree. Shoving that enticing thought from his mind, Gabriel spied a fruit vendor on the street corner nearest them, and brought his horse around in that direction instead. As long as the two of them were the unabashed enemies she’d claimed, he’d sooner goad her into cold-blooded murder than he would persuade her into something so warmhearted as sharing his room.
Regardless of how much they’d enjoy the latter.
<
br /> With a wry grin for the thought, Gabriel stopped beside the fruit vendor’s wooden cart and examined the melons, oranges, and lemons piled atop it. With a quizzical look, his companion stopped, too.
“And as a matter of fact,” he told her, “I do have one more question for you.”
Bending from his saddle, he exchanged a coin for one of the man’s vibrant oranges. With that accomplished, he straightened and held the fruit toward Megan. “Would you mind so very much calling me Gabriel?” he asked softly.
Her eyebrows raised. In the silence that fell between them, she looked from the orange in his hand to his face. Something akin to regret filled her expression.
“Why?”
“Why?” Puzzled, he kept his hand extended toward her. Had she no liking for gifts, either? “Because you say ‘agent Winter’ as though my name is something you’d like to scrape from your shoe. I’d rather you call me Gabriel.”
“Oh.” She frowned and looked downward, consumed, for all appearances, with an overriding interest in the drape of her skirt over her bent knee. Drawing an unsteady breath, she pleated the folds of fabric in her gloved hands, but made no move to accept his gift…or to honor his request.
It seemed she would mind calling him by his given name.
Very much.
Damned stubborn female.
The awkwardness between them grew, and the orange in Gabriel’s palm felt heavier with each passing moment. Giving it to her had been a stupid idea in a day filled to brimming with several just like it.
Maybe he’d lost his knack for detective work. Sure as hell, he’d lost his taste for the plain meanness it often called for. After years of living on the road, days like this—and obstacles like Megan Kearney—made him long for nothing more than laying down the life he’d known as an agent and starting over someplace new.
But he’d be damned if he’d start over with a losing record.
He had to solve this case. The sooner the better.
“Perhaps ‘agent Go-To-The-Devil’ would be more to your liking then?” Gabriel conjured a smile to hide the ridiculous feeling of caring what she called him, and how she did it, at all. He tossed the orange into the air, caught it, and repeated the motion. “‘Course, something a shade less heated might be more befitting a lady’s sensibilities. Agent Chowderhead, agent Halfwit…am I getting close to something you might agree with, Miss Kearney?”