by Lisa Plumley
Gabriel’s face neared, handsome and intent and perfectly level with hers. His gaze slipped to her lips, caught and held. His look was a caress, an invitation, a demand she yield still further.
He wanted to kiss her, she realized.
Heaven help her, but she wanted him to do it.
“Please come closer?” he guessed.
“Please, please…” she whispered again, seeking a rational finish to the words and finding none. Her mind filled with thoughts of the way he’d held her before, of the way his arms and hands and mouth had felt on hers, and Megan knew she was lost.
“Please kiss you?” he asked.
“Please, just please!” she blurted, her voice a shaky murmur that had somehow slipped beyond her power to restrain it. “Oh, I’ve never…I need—”
“I need this.”
He brought his mouth down on hers, stealing her thoughts along with her will to resist. Megan opened readily to him, feeling the delicious heat of his lips against hers, the incredible swirl of his tongue stroking hers, the boundless welcome of the way he kept her close. Still, it wasn’t enough. Gabriel wound the lapels in his hands to bring her nearer and nearer, then deepened the kiss anew.
They fit together like magic. Like a union meant to be. And just this once, just for now, Megan allowed herself to believe. Gabriel’s words flitted through her mind, and her heart echoed them inside her.
I need this. I need this.
She needed this too, and more. Needed the hard, steady grasp of his hands pulling her close. Needed the warm contact of her bosom against his chest and her arms wound at his neck. Willfully, she ignored the warnings still whispering at the edges of her thoughts, and heeded her body’s commands instead. She cupped his nape in her hand, feeling his hair brush soft against her bent fingers, and gave herself fully to the kiss.
Gabriel moaned. The sound of his pleasure thrilled her. It endowed her with the courage to open her lips to him still wider, to let her hands rove even further. She tunneled them through his hair, sifting the silken strands through her fingers. She stroked the lean raspy stretch of his jaw, marveling that it owed its hard angles to the intensity with which he kissed her. Could it be true that she had aroused such passion in a man?
Emboldened at the notion, Megan pushed herself into his waiting arms. In reward, Gabriel spread apart her suit coat’s lapels. He urged it over her shoulders, still kissing her, and pushed the coat into a wadded lump at her hips. She heard it slither across the sofa’s smooth surface, felt it fall to the floor beside her foot. For the first time in her life, Megan cared nothing for fashion or clothing or for paying heed to anything beyond what was happening between her and the man who held her so fiercely.
“Ahhh, Megan. Meg,” he murmured as he ended the kiss at last. His lips moved against hers as he spoke, his brogue deep and exciting and husky with emotion. “You feel so good, so soft. So right.”
Only in your arms, she wanted to say. For truly, the rest of the world looked less kindly upon the spinster Megan Kearney than Gabriel did right now. But she’d rather have died than reveal how little cared-for she really was, so she only walked her fingertips down his shirtfront, spread her hands over his wide, strong chest, and stared in wonder at the man before her.
“It’s beautiful you are to me,” he went on, giving her a faint smile. “Beautiful like never before.”
His eyes darkened as he gazed over her face, her dress, her hair. She trembled under his regard. No man had looked at her this way, awestruck and marveling. No one, that is, save Gabriel.
His smile widened, remarkable in its similarity to the spoony expression he’d worn when she’d stepped beside him at the fountain. As though needing to touch her without stopping, he raised his hand and tucked a bit of hair behind her ear.
“You’re still shivering,” he said, examining her with newly concerned eyes. He stroked his hand over her forehead, pushing back some tendrils there. “Have you taken a chill after all? I thought you’d be warmer by now.”
She was warmer. Warmer and colder at once. Because although his words, his gestures, seemed tender to be sure, Megan found she could not believe them. As soon as his fingers touched her pitiful, mud-splotched hair, she knew his concern—and his pretty, blarney-filled compliments—for the lies they were.
How beautiful could she be to anyone, with her soggy dress wrinkled and ripped at her elbow, her Medusa’s hairstyle, and her face most certainly smudged with fountain grit? The way she looked now, it was impossible he would find her attractive. Just as she’d suspected, the warnings she’d stupidly let herself ignore had held exactly the advice she should have heeded.
Awareness of her situation returned to her in a swift, pain-filled breath. She leaned away, unable to think with the musky warm scent of his skin all around her—unable to react to anything else so long as Gabriel’s hands touched her skin. Mindless of the damp clothes she still needed to shed, Megan clasped her arms protectively around her middle.
She stared at him, at his charming liar’s smile and his rugged hunter’s face, and suddenly knew the truth of it.
“You pity me!” she cried, and it was as though the words came wrenched from her throat past the agony they caused. “You pity me, and that’s why you—”
“No!”
Gabriel gaped at her. If not for the hurt inside her, Megan might have believed his disbelief was genuine, so credible was his imitation of it.
For a man who said he hated subterfuge, the Pinkerton man seemed to excel at it, all the same. But then, why not? He had fooled the ladies in town today into believing him a mannequin, of all things. She’d seen it with her own eyes. The fact that now his lie worked against her rather than for her should not have made it any less false.
Gabriel stared fixedly down at his hands, as though seeking an answer there—or expecting to find their traitorous grasp still held fast on her body. When he recognized their emptiness, he reached to hold her once more. Luckily, Megan held enough safeguards on her heart that she whisked her hands away before he reached her.
“No!” he said again, seeming to recover himself—and to gather the beginnings of an anger she didn’t want to witness, much less to have caused.
“Why should I pity you? Better yet, why should I kneel here—” He indicated his position on his knees with a bewildered sweep of his arms, for all appearances surprised to find himself settled so before her. “—with a woman I pity? Christ, Megan! Do I look like a man who would do this without reason?”
“You do have reasons!”
He didn’t move, only stared at her with eyes gone cold. At her accusation? She couldn’t bear to simply sit and find out. Megan shoved herself up from the sofa and went past the snapping fire to the dressing screen in the corner. Behind its protection, she began unbuttoning her ruined dress with clumsy, anger-stiffened fingers.
Why was she so gullible where Gabriel was concerned?
“What reasons?” he asked.
His voice had lost none of its bewilderment. None of its hard-edged anger, either. She stuck her head over the top of the painted Chinese screen to see his expression, and was greeted with the sight of Gabriel Winter coming closer. Hunting her, and the answers he wanted.
“What reasons?” she echoed, her fingers moving rapidly, unthinkingly, down her buttons. “For one, you—you want my cooperation!”
He stopped. Centered his attention on her face—no, her lips, she realized with something akin to panic—and raised his eyebrow.
“I had your cooperation, sugar,” Gabriel said. “You came into my arms like you were born to be there.”
She had. She knew it. But drat the man for smiling so silkily over her failings! Megan pulled her arms from her sleeves, trying to summon a worthy response, then pushed her gritty, dampened dress to her feet and stepped out of it.
Lifting her chin, she said, “For another, you want me to believe you’re a decent man. You want me to trust you. You said so yourself!”
“I am a decent man.”
A lie. It had to be. If Gabriel Winter were right, then what was she to believe about her father? Confused—and hating it—she wadded up her discarded dress and hurled it at him.
“Here’s what I think of your decency!”
With one big hand, he caught the fabric bundle in midair, and tossed it to the sofa. Then he came closer.
“I didn’t say you should trust me,” Gabriel pointed out, “although you could, if you’d give up your damned prickly defenses long enough. I said you needed someone to trust.”
Oh, but she wanted that, too! When he’d said it before, on the way to their hotel, Megan had been tempted sorely to confide in him. To ask the Pinkerton man for help in tracking her father, on the chance that everything could be cleared straightaway—and she would have her dressmaker’s shop money secured that much faster. Fortunately, she had restrained herself then. But how much longer could she do so?
Megan bit her lip. “Who do you trust, Gabriel?”
“Me?”
Finally, she’d found the words, the subject, to keep him at bay. He stopped, only a few feet away from the screen.
“Yes, you.” Afraid of what she might find if she looked into his careless charmer’s eyes again, she kept her head down as she spoke. By now, she’d discarded all but a few of her underthings. Balancing in the midst of wrinkled petticoat piles, Megan unhooked her garters and began rolling down her dark stockings. Her voice muffled, she went on: “You grew up without fairy tales. Spend your days working far from any home you’ve ever mentioned. And so far as I can tell, you have no belief in stars or China heavens or the prospect of innocence. Is it possible you have ignored your own advice?”
His gaze, pensive at first and then increasingly keen with interest, flew to the twin stockings she flung over the top of the screen. She knew a moment’s regret for having tossed about her clothes like a common woman from Maiden Lane—doubtless the kind Gabriel Winter was most used to. But it had been his bullheaded insistence that had trapped them both in the same shared hotel room in the first place.
She reckoned he could just deal with the consequences.
He swallowed hard, then gave her a questioning look. “My advice?”
“Yes.” Feeling herself on the brink of regaining her composure, Megan propped her bare arms atop the screen and looked at him. “It might do you good to confide in someone.”
“I suppose you hope such a confidant might be you?”
She might have guessed he would try using her own reasoning against her. It didn’t matter. She would not be defeated.
“Certainly, me.” Megan batted her eyelashes, then widened her eyes in a blatant attempt to seem as trustworthy as possible. “Why not?”
Another of his glib smiles foretold a new twist—else gave away his skepticism at her obviously assumed trustworthiness.
“But you did not confide in me,” he said.
“You’re right. And if I did?” To hide her growing interest in the notion, Megan ducked her head and set to work unhooking her corset. She sucked in her breath, parted the last steel fastener, and dropped the garment to the floor with a sigh of relief. “If I did confide in you?”
“You wouldn’t.” Gabriel touched one of her castoff stockings, and smiled faintly. “I have a feeling I’ve already come as close to you tonight as I ever will.”
Was that longing she heard in his voice? Surely not, not from a man who only pitied her. And that could not be an answering need she felt in herself, Megan vowed. She would simply not allow it.
“Perhaps.” From behind the screen she shrugged, then absently ran her hands down her white lawn chemise and drawers in an attempt to discern if they truly had remained as dry as they felt. “Or perhaps we might come still closer—”
“Closer?”
“—with a bit of confiding, of course.”
She looked up, and gasped to find him practically nose-to-nose to her. When had he moved so near? And why?
“Those are dangerous words, for a woman who’s dressed so temptingly as you.” Gabriel arched his eyebrow, and wrapped his hands around the screen top, as though preparing to peer over it. “Or should I say, as undressed as you are?”
Megan rapped away his knuckles. She must have gone mad, to be conducting a discussion with him while only partly dressed. Buying time until she could get herself outfitted in a new dress, she nervously backed up, then gave him a look designed to keep him at a safe distance. The same withering glance always worked wonders on the station hands back home, even when they’d imbibed too much Old Orchard and came looking for advanced pay or favors from the boss’s spinster daughter.
Oddly enough, it did not have the same effect on Gabriel. He didn’t even blink. He did smile, though, in an especially knowing way. Why ever was he looking that way? She couldn’t spare more time to wonder. Instead, Megan smiled self-consciously and groped for another gown to change into.
“I propose a trade,” she said.
“I’m interested.”
He looked it, too, she thought, glancing up as she pawed through the things draped over top of the screen. Good. Perhaps she had him nearly hooked.
Where was that dress? She’d been sure she’d left her calico from last night draped over the screen someplace. Frowning, Megan resumed her search.
“What shall we trade?” Gabriel went on.
“Truths,” she answered, deliberately strengthening her voice. “I’ll answer one question of yours—any question you name—and in return, you’ll answer one of mine. Truthfully.”
He clapped his hand over his heart. “You wound me. I’m always truthful.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “It’s poor form to promise the truth with a lie on your lips.”
Gabriel laughed. “Meg, we are two of a kind.”
Meg, Meg. How she loved it when he called her that. Hearing the nickname slip from his lips when he’d kissed her had made her feel so cherished, so beloved, so…no. She couldn’t think about that now. There was more at stake here than a stolen kiss and the need that had coaxed it into being.
“Then do we have a deal?” she asked.
“No.” He shook his head, pressing his lips together in thought. “I want three questions.”
“Three? No!”
One was risky enough, Megan figured. In truth, though, the risk to her seemed small. She’d had almost a whole lifetime of fending off curious questions—about her mama, her papa’s gambling, her reasons for not marrying. She doubted the Pinkerton man could claim the same.
“One question,” she insisted.
“Hmmm.” On the other side of the screen, Gabriel hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and appeared to consider her proposition. Then he bent and scooped something from the floor.
In his hand, she glimpsed something blue and sprigged with flowers. Something of fabric and lace, with a long row of pearl buttons. Something that looked suspiciously like the calico gown she’d been searching for.
The blasted man had found her dress on the wrong side of the screen!
“Two questions,” he bargained, “answered truthfully. Any two questions.”
“Give me my dress!” Rising on tiptoes, Megan reached for it—and missed. She sighed and gave him an ire-filled look. “This trade was my idea. You can’t just barge in and dictate terms to me.”
“I can’t?” He smiled and flung her dress casually over his shoulder, holding it in place with a crooked thumb. “Watch me. Two questions, Megan. Say yes.”
Curiosity got the better of her—that, and the need to have her dress back. “Fine!” she snapped. “But I ask the first question.”
With all the assurance she’d come to expect from him, he nodded. That very assurance made her want to think up the most dastardly, the most revealing, the most embarrassingly personal question she could.
“Very well,” Gabriel said. “Ask me anything.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ask me anything.
Gab
riel thought over the foolhardy challenge he’d issued to Megan, and for the tenth time that night he regretted it. The woman meant to make him squirm. He was sure of it now. So far, she’d delayed her questioning for the sake of a hastily called bath, a change of clothes, and the gathering of a hairbrush from her bulging baggage. Now, from her seated position before the fire, she turned her wily, clean-scrubbed face to his and made ready to delay him yet again.
“Perhaps a bite to eat first?” she suggested. Beneath her pink, freckled cheeks, her lips pursed in apparent thoughtfulness. “I would hate to have you keel over with hunger in the midst of my first question.”
Seated on the sofa only a short distance away, he stared levelly back at her. His fingers paused in the path he’d been absently rubbing along her discarded dress, then Gabriel rose. With satisfaction, he noted the way her gaze followed his movement.
He stopped a few inches from the rug that sheltered her rounded, calico-clad bottom and bare feet from the pinewood floor.
“Do I look underfed to you?” he asked.
Her lonesome brown eyes widened. The hairbrush went slack in her fist. Mutely, she shook her head—and then touched him with her gaze yet again. He felt her attention like a hot caress, everyplace she gifted him with a glance…on his mouth, his shoulders, his chest, and brazenly lower. Her deepening blush said more than Megan’s silent denial allowed.
She liked the way he looked. The appreciation in her eyes told him so, and Gabriel found himself gladdened by her response. He drank it in like a good Napa Valley Merlot from back home, savoring the richness of her reaction along with its bite.
Mmmmm.
Just as with the wine, the aftereffects of loving Megan might be enough to bring him low. But that was for tomorrow, Gabriel vowed. That was for the time when they’d return to the presidio surrounding them, the time when he would resume his Pinkerton work and all it entailed. Tonight belonged to him and Megan alone.