Lawman

by Lisa Plumley

  He gave her a fierce look and thumbed away the last tear he saw. “Though I can’t be glad you wept over it. ‘Twould be sadder if you never wanted to remember, I’d think, than if you did.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t crying over that!”

  Sniffling, she accepted the handkerchief he offered her, and gave him a look that set Gabriel akilter yet again. Never, he decided, would he truly understand her. But he looked forward to the challenge of trying to, all the same.

  “You seemed so aggrieved at my poor orange,” she went on, “that I figured I’d better tell you about it—else find myself with a glass of juice for a keepsake instead.”

  They both smiled then, the mood lightened between them. To their side, the fire still burned. The mantel clock still measured out the moments between one touch and the next…between one revelation and the next, and Gabriel was reminded of their agreement to trade questions.

  And truths.

  But first, he had to know: “Then why did you cry? I tried to be gentle with the hairbrush, but you have seemingly a yard of long hair to my measly collar’s length.” He paused as Megan touched the hair at his nape and tickled her fingers inside the neck of his shirt, driven to shuddering at the pleasure of having her fingers on his bare skin. “Did I hurt you without knowing it?”

  “Oh, Gabriel. No more than it hurts me to know what I’ve missed,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper as she withdrew her fingers. “No more than that.”

  A wistful expression crossed her face. Then she looked more closely at him—doubtless seeing the confusion he felt—and assumed a brisker pose, instead. “You didn’t hurt me when you brushed my hair. It felt wonderful, and so, so….”

  “So right.”

  She smiled, nodding. “Yes, so very right. You have quite a way with a hairbrush, I must say.”

  Gabriel thought of his mother and sisters, recalled finding the three of them at home always brushing and putting up their hair—their main distraction at the times when he’d gone searching to bring his father home again—and remained silent. In all of his boyhood memories, his mother’s bedroom was a cocoon of warmth and gilt mirrors and smiling faces…a haven that necessity had sent him from, time and again.

  He pushed the memories aside. His father was gone, his mother remarried, his sisters grown—as was he. A man now, and still damnably unable to keep the past buried.

  Turning his focus relentlessly to Megan, he said, “The trick is all in the wanting to. I wanted to do that for you. Truth be told, it’s no hardship to brush your hair. I’d do it every day, if you’d let me.”

  He drew in a breath, surprised at the depth of longing he felt at the notion of staying with her, day after day. Trying to turn it aside, Gabriel shrugged.

  “Time passes more slowly when I’m touching you,” he said simply.

  Megan sighed. “I wish time would stop altogether.”

  She looked at him, then pushed suddenly to her feet and carried the hairbrush and orange to her baggage. Kneeling, she placed everything back inside the closest satchel, then fastened it closed. Megan’s hair fell forward over her face, hiding her expression, and for an instant, Gabriel feared she’d retreated from him again.

  He would never have the answer he wanted. Never have her as close as they’d been just now.

  Never be able—some hidden, ruthless part of him thought—to use the new easiness between them as a means to gather more evidence for his case.

  Twisting his mouth in disgust, Gabriel got to his feet. Had he lived so long in his cynical Pinkerton’s world that he’d become incapable of kindness? Incapable of acting as a man, rather than an agent, for even one night?

  The possibility sickened him. Too real to be cast aside, but too terrible to freely act upon, his instincts and training bore down on him. They urged him to question Megan more closely, to use the faith she’d shown in him and end his searching now. To act as ruthlessly as her father had, in turning away from her at the fountain.

  To end the war between his heart and his mind, and get on with the future he’d dreamed of, planned for, needed, for so long.

  Pulled from his thoughts by the muffled sound of Megan’s bare feet padding toward him across the wooden floor, Gabriel looked up. She moved toward him with a feminine strength and undisguised grace that were as much a part of her—and as much beloved by him—as were her smile, her face, her heart. From somewhere inside him, Gabriel found the strength to fight his operative’s urgings just a little longer.

  Megan stopped before him. “I want to thank you,” she said, laying her hands warm over his chest, “for all you’ve done for me tonight. Coming back for me—” Her voice tightened, fraught with a hoarse kind of urgency that baffled him, then strengthened. “—bringing me here, making sure I was warm and dry and safe.”

  Safe. Was she safe with him, Gabriel wondered? Could she ever be safe, so long as he had Pinkerton honor between them and a pile of questions to divide them? Saying nothing, he nevertheless put his arms around her shoulders and drew her closer. For one, aching moment, he buried his face in her hair and drew in the clean herbal scent that would linger in his memories forever.

  “And for brushing my hair, too.” She smiled, faintly. “When you drew that brush through my hair tonight, time ran backward for me.”

  The declaration was so like her, that Gabriel couldn’t help but grin. “Backward, sugar? I’m a man, not a magician.”

  She grinned back. “I’d say that depends on who you’re asking. I’ve felt some downright magical things since you turned up in the Territory.”

  So had he. But it would be beyond ridiculous to admit it, especially when he couldn’t yet trust it himself. Instead, he squeezed her a shade tighter, loving the way Megan came willingly against him now.

  “Backward,” she said, laying her head against his chest, “because it’s the first time in years anyone has brushed my hair for me.”

  Her sigh rippled across his shirt sleeve and faded into the hushed quiet beyond. Even the fire seemed to slow its biting progress through the wood, as though anticipating what might come next. Gabriel stroked her hair, content to listen to the sound of her voice. Content to stay close.

  The golden, flower-filled image of his mother’s bedroom returned to him. If Megan had grown up in his household, she would doubtless have had her hair brushed morning, noon, and night. He smiled.

  “What about your mother?” Gabriel asked. “Surely she—”

  “Brushed my hair?” Megan interrupted, pulling away with a falsely bright expression. “Oh, she did. She did. With a tortoiseshell hairbrush almost exactly like mine, in fact.”

  She moved rapidly across the hearth rug, picked up the poker and jabbed viciously at the embers beneath the slowly dying fire. The flames leapt into life, illuminating her closed-off expression.

  “She stopped when I was seven.”

  The same year Megan had wished for the stars from her China heaven, Gabriel remembered. The same year she had seen them delivered at Joseph Kearney’s hand.

  “Why did she stop?” Gabriel asked. He sensed that much lay beneath the question, and the answer. The key to his case? Or to capturing Megan’s heart?

  Which would he rather have?

  Over her shoulder, she gave him a glance he recognized. His glance, Gabriel realized with a quick chill—the same hardened, faithless glance he’d used on her so often.

  “She couldn’t very well brush my hair,” Megan said, replacing the fireplace poker with elaborate care. “Not when—”

  She stopped, her expression turning from bleak to painfully shrewd. “Well, you know so much about me, agent Winter—”

  His heart ached at her return to the formality he’d hoped they’d left behind them. Heedless, Megan continued:

  “—that I’m sure you must know this, as well. Come closer, lawman,” she invited. “Let me hear what happened from you, instead.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  From her place beside the fire h
e’d laid for her, Megan watched Gabriel Winter struggle for a response. His eyebrows raised in silent question. He took a booted step, another, and then stopped to aim an assessing glance in her direction.

  “I’d rather hear it from you,” he said.

  Why hadn’t he taken the opportunity to taunt her with it? To heap on false pity, like everyone else had, and gleefully speculate upon what had caused her mother’s flight?

  Perhaps because he knew what lay at fault, just as Megan did. Could his investigations have uncovered so much?

  Gabriel gazed at her expectantly, as though waiting for her to confirm the conclusions he’d reached for himself—especially after having spent days in her company. Stubbornly, she remained silent. No one in her life had ever loosed from her lips the true reasons for her mother’s leaving. No one. The Pinkerton man should be no different.

  Yet, somehow, he was.

  Somehow, she sensed he might understand.

  Wariness too longstanding made her stay tight-fisted with the truth—at least for a little longer. “Why hear it from me?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest. “When I might taint the facts you prize so well with feelings and beliefs and faith?”

  Or a lack of it.

  Gabriel’s wide shoulders lifted, inviting her to watch the play of muscle and sinew that showed beneath his plain white shirt. For a powerfully built man, he had touched her with remarkable gentleness earlier. Brushed her hair with a skillful hand. Stroked away her tears with something tantalizingly close to love in his face.

  Megan looked away. Doubtless, she had baffled him with her sudden contrariness over her mother. For him, his question had been about hair brushing. For her, it had roused so much more.

  Tears threatened again, tightening her throat. Who would have thought she could have missed a simple touch so much? The rasp of the brush gliding through her hair had called forth a million memories…all of them turned bittersweet.

  As though it were yesterday, she had remembered the feel of her mother’s practiced, nimble fingers parting and brushing her hair. Slowly, Megan’s memories had all flowed together somehow, Gabriel’s patient touch merging with that remembered one, and both had combined to turn back the years. Like alchemy, the scent of the rosemary rinse in her hair had transformed itself into Emmaline Kearney’s violet perfume. Megan had felt a girl again, being made pretty beneath her mother’s care.

  You’ll want to look your nicest when he gets here, she’d said on that long-ago day. Hold still now, Meggie-mine. There isn’t much time.

  The muted sound of Gabriel’s voice dissolved her memories like sugar in water. Megan blinked and focused, willing herself to feel a woman again—strong and capable and nearly self-sufficient—instead of a girl in pigtails, with too many freckles, too many questions…and not enough of the things that mattered.

  “I’m thinking there may be more than plain facts to this,” Gabriel said, his face solemn in the pooled wash of the lamplight and fire’s glow. “And I’m thinking that I want to hear it from you.”

  “Then you do know what happened.”

  He nodded. With her chin raised, Megan watched him come closer. Oh, but she wanted him to take her in his arms again. Wanted him to hold her close and speak her name in his wonderful husky brogue, to kiss her hair and never let her go. Maybe if Gabriel hugged her tightly enough, she’d be able to absorb just a little of his strength. Just a smidgen of his surety. Right now, awash in her old fears and with the future so uncertain, she needed both so much.

  “I know the facts,” he agreed quietly. “But not the rest.”

  To her astonishment, Gabriel stopped a short distance from her and tugged off one of his boots. Balancing on one leg, he likewise pulled off the other, then dropped both to the polished floor with an uncaring clunk. He came nearer.

  She backed up, staring agog at his discarded boots. “What are you doing?”

  More importantly, what did he plan to shed next?

  “I’m putting us on more equal ground,” Gabriel said.

  His gaze flicked to her bare toes peeping from beneath her skirts. With a few quick motions, he’d removed his knit half hose as well. Giving her a determined look, he wadded them in his fist and hurled them over his shoulder. Sweet heavens! Was the man about to disrobe completely in an effort to make her talk?

  An anticipatory shiver coursed through her, wholly inappropriate…and wildly exciting, all the same.

  Megan lifted her gaze from the careless pile of boots and men’s hosiery Gabriel had made, pretending not to care one whit for his concessions to equality. “I don’t see how being equally barefoot is supposed to help matters any. You still have the advantage over me.”

  “Advantage?” His gaze darkened. With a leisurely, powerful movement, Gabriel clasped both her hands in his. He raised them, looking long into her eyes, and kissed her fingertips one by one. “So long as you remain yourself, Meg, you have all the advantage over me.”

  His murmured words flowed over her, creating a feeling inside her that was nearly as intoxicating as the caress of his lips on her sensitive fingertips. His shadowed beard chafed faintly over the base of her thumb as he angled his head sideways and set to work on her other hand. Megan quivered, wanting this feeling to go on endlessly.

  Wanting to run from it, too.

  “You—you flatter me,” she stammered. Truly, it would be wiser to withdraw her hands from his and put safe distance between them. But the knowledge that his attentions would likely not continue once Gabriel learned the truth of her kept Megan exactly where she was. “You can’t mean—”

  “I only speak the truth.” Another kiss found the tip of her little finger, then a tender nibble. “You lay bare all that I am, Meg. Don’t turn your back without seeing what you revealed.”

  The ache inside her intensified, quickened as surely as her heartbeat. She stared raptly at Gabriel’s bowed head, watching the color deepen faintly in his cheeks, gauging for herself the truth of all he’d said. It was more than could be believed.

  But oh, how she wanted to!

  Her voice trembled when she spoke, although she endeavored to sound calm, even lighthearted. “Being exposed from the ankles downward hardly qualifies as—”

  “Don’t.” He squeezed her hands, giving her a midnight version of his charmer’s smile. “This time you can’t hide behind that sharp-tongued talk of yours. I won’t have it. Not so long as I’m waiting for an answer from you. Not when you hold the truth so close. You have the advantage, Meg. Tell me what happened with your mother.”

  It was some Pinkerton’s trick. It had to be. And yet… Gabriel seemed so sure, so sincere. His gaze held steady on hers, as did his grasp on her hands. But a lifetime of keeping to herself urged Megan to pull away.

  “Not like this,” she said.

  “Then how?”

  He watched her withdraw her hands and step back, his expression filled with watchful regret. Because she’d gone away from his arms? Or because she hadn’t yet confided in him?

  “I can’t think with your hands on me,” she murmured, turning her back to him while she stared at the fire’s glowing embers. “I can’t think with you kissing me, and saying such things to me!”

  “Then I’ll say nothing.” Gabriel’s voice rumbled toward her, surrounding her with its beloved depth and warmth and, amazingly, its affection. “As for the rest…if you don’t want me touching you, you’ll have to leave me. Leave this room, if you choose to, and I won’t follow. But if you stay, I can’t promise not to touch you. I can’t stop.”

  Awestruck, shaky, Megan faced him. “Do you mean that?”

  A rare, wonderful smile lit his face. “It’s stubborn you are, Meg. I’ve already told you that I always speak the truth.”

  Her resistance weakened, melted partway beneath the beautiful sincerity of Gabriel’s smile. For as long as she could remember, Megan had envisioned the moment when just such an expression might be directed at her. Her imagination, blossoming with the
help of all her French novels and the tales Addie told her of fair maidens and the knights who loved them, had conjured up many versions of it.

  None had filled her heart the way Gabriel’s did now.

  Even as it gladdened her, it piqued her curiosity about the man who had given it. She knew so little about him.

  “If I remember aright,” Megan said, “I still have two questions to claim.” Thoughtfully, she folded her arms and cupped her elbows in her palms, tapping her fingers against her arm while she decided how best to phrase them. “And you have two truths to give. I’ll tell you about my mother—after you tell me this: How did you come to be a Pinkerton agent?”

  The fierce angles of his face hardened beneath a shock—and a reluctance to speak—that was obvious. Shoving his hand through his dark hair, Gabriel walked to the fireplace and sat on his haunches beside the stack of mesquite logs piled there. Like a man with nothing but leisure, he took his time over choosing one for the fire.

  “We have a bargain,” she reminded, hurt that he was still so unwilling to confide in her. “Two questions, remember?”

  “I didn’t expect them to be about me.”

  “Perhaps the next one won’t be.”

  “Fair enough.” Keeping his face turned toward the fire, Gabriel peeled away a strip of thin mesquite bark. He snapped off a dried twig, and turned it between his fingers as he spoke.

  “I came to be a Pinkerton agent because I was good at it, plain and simple,” he said. “I worked my first case when I was sixteen, and signed on as a field operative four years later.”

  Megan waited. She imagined Gabriel Winter as a youth, with his same dark hair and cocky smile. He’d possessed that same sense of bravado all young men seemed to, she felt sure—and the beginnings of the solid, implacable presence that was so much a part of him now. He’d probably been not quite so tall, not quite so muscular, but determined all the same. She pictured a leaner, rangier Gabriel, saddling up to ride proudly with the Pinkertons for the first time, and smiled over the image.

  “Wasn’t your family worried about you?” she asked. “Sixteen seems awfully young.”