Lawman

by Lisa Plumley

  “Please,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes, as though in prayer or fervent hope, and then opened them on a new resolve. “I will have proof. Else end my days finding it. I always bring in my man.”

  He dragged her hands from his face, inch by slow inch. She felt herself losing their battle with every rasp of his stubbled whiskers against her palms. By the time Gabriel lowered her fisted hands to her sides, Megan felt truly beaten.

  “Leave off,” he said quietly. “Wait at the fountain, and be there when I return. You’ll only make this worse for your father if you fight me.”

  “How can I not?”

  Anguish dragged the protest from her throat—but having voiced the words, she longed powerfully to call them back. No appeal she could make would stop him. Why let Gabriel Winter know she had ever hoped it might? Why give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d begun to believe there was goodness inside him?

  He would not have the satisfaction of realizing he had fooled her so easily.

  Gabriel looked to the bonfire, ensuring the four men still waited there. “I mean to question your father, not kill him.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  When he turned to her again, his gaze encompassed the whole of her somehow, dipping from the top of her hat to the hems of her skirts in a sweep of disarming approval—and damning reassurance.

  “In this you can believe me.”

  “In this, you say?” Megan summoned all the bravado she could. “Tell me then, agent Winter—under what circumstances should I not believe you?”

  He leaned away, visibly impatient. Visibly making ready to set upon the capture he’d aimed for.

  Near the bonfire, the man she’d spied earlier as he’d tossed his telltale domino clapped his fellows on the shoulders and made to walk away from the musicians. They were leaving! All she needed was a little more time….

  Gabriel frowned. “Don’t believe me if I tell you I’m giving up. It will never happen.”

  He turned toward the bonfire. Before he could glimpse the gamblers leaving, Megan grabbed his arm. “Wait! Don’t take my father. Take…me.”

  He frowned, looking weary of her resistance. “Megan—”

  Frantically, she held out her hands, as though to make ready for the irons he would clap on. “Take me! Do it.” There had to be a way to delay him still longer. She had only to think of it. “I did it. I’m the one who took the money.”

  “You?”

  He sounded disbelieving. Even so, he wavered, and a moment’s delay was all she needed. Megan seized upon the opportunity Gabriel’s hesitation offered.

  “Yes, me. How else would I know my papa was innocent, unless I also knew who was guilty?”

  His mouth tightened. “I think you do know who’s guilty—else you wouldn’t give such a struggle to protect him. Wait here.”

  At the end of his patience, he lowered his hand to his gun belt and strode toward the bonfire. Beside it, the Sonoran musicians picked up the tempo of their song, strumming faster, harder, wilder. The music surged beyond the crowd, its rhythm fast as Megan’s pounding heartbeat.

  What could she do now?

  If she ran to her papa, surely his surprise at seeing her in town would prevent his escape. And in any event, he wouldn’t leave if he believed she was in danger. The only way was to form yet another diversion—if she could just act fast enough.

  Keeping her eyes on Gabriel’s broad back as he advanced through the fringes of the crowd, Megan stepped sideways toward the fountain. Only a few more steps…one more. There! Her skirts swirled against the cool stone wall, and beside her the fountain waters trickled into the darkened pool.

  She braced herself, then sucked in a deep, courage-giving breath. She looked toward the scene at the bonfire once more. Run when you have the chance, Megan commanded her father silently. Please run.

  She heaved herself over the knee-high stone wall and into the fountain.

  She landed with an impressive splash. Shocking cold wetness struck her at the same time as her elbow and hip banged onto the fountain’s slick bottom. Shrieking in surprise that wasn’t half as feigned as she’d planned, Megan grabbed for purchase and felt her fingers scrape against grit and slimy stones.

  Only as deep as bath water—but several numbing degrees colder—the water swirled and sucked at her skirts. Wetness penetrated her thin dress fabric in seconds. It plastered against her legs, clinging to her limbs like an icy embrace. She kicked it away, struggling to get to her feet.

  Just as she’d hoped, musicale-goers gathered around the fountain, talking and pointing. Hands reached toward her. Something bobbed past on the churning waters…her hat, Megan saw.

  She let it float by, raising her hands to swipe sodden strands of hair from her face, and squinted toward the bonfire. Everyone there seemed suitably distracted by her ‘fall’ into the fountain.

  But had her papa escaped?

  Fervently hoping he had, she scanned the faces gathered beside the fire’s arching, smoke-filtered light. She couldn’t see him. Perhaps, during the confusion she’d created, he had successfully dodged agent Winter. At the thought, new optimism fluttered to life within her. Maybe she had saved him after all!

  From within the crowd surrounding the fountain, a familiar voice called her name. Two of the people standing nearest the edge shuffled aside, and a man pushed his way through. He extended his hand to help her climb from the fountain. With a sinking heart, Megan recognized him.

  “If you’re here,” she said, “then it’s a safe bet my papa is not. Where has he gone?”

  Cursing the damnable female who had slowed him down, Gabriel closed his hand atop one of the white pickets in the Levin’s Park fence and vaulted himself over it.

  Hell.

  Why had he let her delay him?

  Anger spurred him onward, anger at Megan—and at himself. Any other time, he would have had Pinkerton agents in the field, ready to nab the man they sought should Gabriel fail for any reason. This time, he’d been loath to bring on new operatives, stupidly reluctant to share Megan’s presence with anyone else.

  Or to have anyone see how far afield he had fallen because of her. He hadn’t questioned her as fully as he should have. Hadn’t reported her work at Kearney Station. And likely, Gabriel knew, he would not report the sudden, improbable confession she’d made tonight, either.

  I did it. I’m the one who took the money.

  He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

  But he could not ignore it. Eventually, he’d have to confront Megan with her supposed declaration of guilt, and find the truth for himself.

  Fury squeezed his chest. Weaving between the few townspeople strolling the pathway, Gabriel increased his speed. Fallen leaves and twigs crunched beneath his boots, and the music and lights of Levin’s Park flashed past.

  Only a short distance ahead, Joseph Kearney ran full-chisel beneath the cottonwood trees bordering the outside edges of the park. His footfalls pounded, and his labored breathing broke through the relative quiet that had blanketed the presidio with the coming of nightfall. Each one of the man’s harsh breaths served both as an aid to Gabriel’s search—and as a prick to his conscience.

  What if Megan had been right? Christ, it sounded as though Kearney’s lungs were ready to explode with the effort of the chase. What if he were hunting down an innocent old man, Gabriel wondered suddenly—a man too unskilled to defend himself against the likes of a Pinkerton agent and too weak to run freely?

  Good, the trained, hunt-weary part of him responded. Then it will be finished quickly.

  Ahead, Kearney switched paths and ducked down an alleyway parallel to the park. Behind him, Gabriel slipped free his gun from its creased leather holster. Slowing slightly, wary of an ambush, he followed.

  His footsteps, only faintly muffled by the unpaved dirt pathway, echoed hollowly from the pale adobe walls of the building nearest him. He quieted his breathing and concentrated on the sound
s around him, listening hard above the thudding of his chase-quickened heartbeat. He heard nothing.

  Gabriel edged into the alleyway. His gaze swept the bare rear sides of the shops and homes backed against the murky passage, followed the alleyway’s shadows clear to the far side.

  It was empty. No Kearney, no slamming doors, no scuffle of footsteps fleeing into the streets beyond.

  Disbelief rocked him. Kearney had escaped?

  It couldn’t be true. Gabriel had been only a few paces behind him. Hearing the ruckus Megan had raised at the fountain, pausing to see that she was unhurt, had slowed him a bit—but surely not by this much. Not by so much that Joseph Kearney could have outrun him.

  Nevertheless, the more thorough search he performed next turned up nothing. He couldn’t imagine how the man had finagled an escape. Obviously, Kearney had more in common with his wily, scheming daughter than Gabriel had thought.

  Dispirited and wrathy, he made his way back to Levin’s Park. The fountain came into view, partly haloed with bonfire smoke and surrounded by clumps of musicale-goers. Several held glasses of Levin’s ale in hand, and the yeasty scent of the brew lent a tang to the air. Nearby, the bonfire still crackled, throwing sparks to the starry sky and illuminating the faces of those gathered round the fountain.

  None of those faces, Gabriel saw, seemed to belong to Megan Kearney.

  Damnation. She had escaped him again, this time with his own wrongly directed investigation as the means to take flight. If he’d assigned a Pinkerton man to watch her, she’d never have been able to escape…nor could she have endangered his case in the process.

  What lead was he to follow now, when he’d neglected all else for the sake of keeping close to Megan—and she had vanished from sight?

  He pulled his hat low on his brow and moved closer. The least he could do was retrieve his suit coat—and maybe the fudge she had given him, too, Gabriel reckoned with an ill-timed grin—and be rightly clothed for the rest of his search. He spied the low stone wall where he and Megan had sat together, recognized the set of the mortared stones that marked their place…and saw that his things had disappeared, too.

  The cheeky lass had taken his clothes—and his candy, to boot!

  Scarcely believing his eyes, Gabriel looked again. The same bare stone wall met his gaze. He ambled nearer, struck with unlikely hilarity at the notion of Megan Kearney spiriting away his suit coat and the bundle of fudge. Doubtless, she’d done it simply because she could. Simply to punctuate the fact that she’d bested a Pinkerton man, and now had the trophies to prove it.

  He felt a sudden, ironic affinity with McMarlin—and the lump on his head the she-devil of Tucson had left him with. Now wonder his mentor had boarded the stage so quickly this morning. Gabriel could hardly blame him.

  At least Tom had been fully dressed at the time.

  Standing in his shirtsleeves and vest, he thrust his hands into his pants pockets and looked toward the fountain for the last time. In the water, something lumpy and bedraggled floated past. He recognized it, and leaned forward to snatch it from the pool’s surface.

  In his hand, Megan’s monstrosity of a hat streamed rivulets onto the leaves and dirt underfoot. He turned it ‘round, mindful of the pride she’d so often displayed in her millinery skills, and examined the hat’s crumpled brim. Next he brushed his fingers over the empty spots along the crown—spots that should have been festooned with fabric blossoms and flowing lengths of colored ribbon, and instead held only a few sewn-on blooms and a single straggling hank of blue grosgrain.

  Frowning, Gabriel feathered the bonnet’s sodden plume, remembering the jaunty way it had shaded her face earlier. Megan had been prouder of this headgear than she’d been of her sire. All at once, it seemed unlikely she’d leave it behind.

  Not if she could help doing so.

  He clenched his fingers on her hat brim, gripped with an unreasonable urge to smooth out its soaked, dirty creases and make it fine again…gripped with an unquenchable need to be sure Megan was safe.

  In spite of his having left her alone.

  Staring at the limp dyed ostrich feather hanging crookedly against his forearm, Gabriel thought of the way she had been thrust headlong into the search for her father. Hers was a dangerous involvement, especially if Megan knew as much about the workings of Kearney Station as he’d begun to suspect.

  Had one of Joseph Kearney’s cronies spied Megan at the fountain and taken her away?

  It happened at times that the criminals he pursued used their families for shelter or barter. He had reckoned before that Kearney might try the same, but Gabriel hadn’t expected the man to try anything so dire this early in the pursuit.

  Had his detective abilities grown so impaired that his judgment was now as faulty as his hold on his suit coat had been?

  It was possible. He recalled again his progress toward the bonfire to nab Joseph Kearney, remembered the moment when, only a few steps distant from being captured, the man had looked up. He’d stared Gabriel fully in the face, had darted his gaze to Gabriel’s ready gun belt…and had not so much as blinked.

  The splash had come next. Kearney’s head had turned toward the sound, and Gabriel had been sure he’d seen dawning recognition on the man’s face when he’d spotted Megan in the fountain amidst the crowd. Then—only then—he had fled.

  It made no sense. Why would a guilty man stand unflinchingly in the path of an armed Pinkerton agent…yet run without hesitation at the sight of his only daughter?

  As though he’d conjured them with his thoughts, the familiar scents of coconut soap, dress starch, and damp fabric reached Gabriel at the same moment as did the realization he was no longer alone. The sound of a feminine, vaguely husky voice confirmed it.

  “You must be looking for this,” Megan said.

  He looked up to see her standing beside him, offering over the waxed-paper-wrapped bundle of fudge. At the sight of her, relief swept through him, powerful enough to constrict his throat with its intensity. He cared less for his case, Gabriel realized in that moment, than he did for the woman watching him so solemnly now.

  “No,” he said, forcing the word past his aching throat. He closed his hand over the candy she offered and lowered it much as he’d done before, unable to stop the grin that sprang to his face. “I was looking for you.”

  If he’d expected his admission to draw some starry-eyed reaction from her…it did not. Instead, Megan’s eyebrows dipped, betraying her confusion. In the startled silence that followed, he saw her experiences had left more than her hat in a bedraggled state.

  She stood at his shoulder, looking impossibly small as she huddled beneath an oversized garment clutched together one-handed at her throat. It was his lost suit coat, Gabriel realized, pleased beyond measure to see her shielded in his stolen clothes.

  Her hair, half-unwound from its knot, hung in brown tendrils to her shoulders and collarbone. It clung in damp strands to her neck, lending her a vulnerable quality he felt sure Megan would have denied in an instant. Without her customary headwear, she seemed smaller. More feminine. And, typically, unreservedly determined. Within the frame of her hair, her pale face stared defiantly back at him.

  He grinned anew. Lord, but he was happy to see her safe.

  Shuddering, Megan scowled beneath his perusal. “I don’t know what you’re looking so spoony over, agent Winter. Itttt—” She paused, tightening her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. “It’s obvious you’ve returned empty-handed, so why you should have that silly, happy look on your face is beyond my understanding.”

  She sniffed, rubbing her finger over her reddening nose. The motion stirred her hair as well, sending a tiny splatter of water drops pinging toward Gabriel’s chin. She hadn’t even managed to dry completely from her dunking in the fountain.

  “It’s not beyond my understanding,” he said. It was ridiculous, giddy relief that had him smiling so, though he half-suspected she’d kick him in the shin again—or do something else quit
e like it—if he told Megan as much. He doubted she would greet the news gladly.

  Truth be told, neither did he. This came dangerously close to a caring Gabriel didn’t want to feel. He had no room for it. No need for it.

  All the same, a new besotted grin rose to his lips. Fiercely, he quashed it. She was a troublesome female—and possibly, a suspect in his case. He had to stay clear.

  In defiance, Megan snatched her battered, dripping hat from his hand. “If you’re quite finished with this cryptic nonsense of yours, I’d like to go d-d-d-dry off now.”

  “Why haven’t you?” Gabriel asked. “I know you know the way back to the Cosmopolitan. Or perhaps you had your heart set on being escorted there by me, and didn’t want—”

  “Bosh.” She frowned again, pulling her clothes tighter against her throat. “I didn’t go myself because you have the room key.”

  She said it as though possessing the key were a crime of the highest order—or at least the height of thoughtlessness.

  He grinned. “Lacking the key never stopped you before,” he pointed out, thinking of her midnight rovings after himself, and poor McMarlin.

  That coaxed a small, mischievous smile from her. “Yes. Well. I didn’t feel quite up to scaling that wall and climbing up the balcony tonight, agent Winter,” she said, teeth chattering over the ending of his name. “I decided It was best to wait for you.”

  To keep an eye on him, Gabriel would wager. So she would know it if he came close to her father again, and could prepare herself for yet another insane defense for Kearney’s sake.

  A frost-tinged evening breeze swept through the park, setting the cottonwood leaves aflutter. Beset with visible shivers, Megan clamped her chattering teeth more tightly together and stared at him expectantly, not even bothering to examine her ruined hat.

  Gabriel frowned. Something was seriously amiss when a woman like Megan was disinterested in fashion.

  “Still, I was surprised to find you here,” he remarked, taking her elbow in hand to guide her away from the fountain’s edge. Beneath his fingers, her sleeve felt like so much icy armor, with none of the warmth he’d grown accustomed to feeling when he touched Megan. “When your father ran away, I thought you would, too.”