Lawman

by Lisa Plumley

  This time, she came. “When you brushed my hair earlier,” she began, “it called to mind the last time my mama did the same for me. Remember what I told you?”

  Gabriel kissed the top of her head, wrapping his arms securely around her. “The tortoiseshell hairbrush. I remember. It was only today that you said it, sugar. Do you think I’m a feeble old man, to have forgotten it already?”

  Her smile filled her voice. “Not feeble.”

  “Just old?” With a mock growl, he nuzzled her neck. “I’ll show you how young I can feel, when you’ve finished your story.”

  Sighing, Megan went on. “On that last day, mama took more care than ever. Even though it wasn’t a church day, she pinned up my hair with rags the night before. My papa wondered about that, let me tell you—” Almost proudly, she relayed her father’s confusion over middle-of-the-week primping. “—but mama told him I was old enough to learn hairstyling, and he should leave us be.”

  “My nieces wore their hair braided like ropes at the sides of their head until they were out of short skirts,” Gabriel said. “I’m not surprised he was suspicious.”

  “Neither am I, looking back on it now. But at the time, I hated it. I thought surely he would change mama’s mind, and she would leave me be.”

  “She did not.”

  “No.” Shaking her head, Megan left his arms and paced to the balcony’s other side, then ran her fingers along the rail. She glanced back at him. “At least not until the next day. It wasn’t until M—Mr. Bowen arrived—”

  “The drummer?”

  With a curt nod, she acknowledged the truth of the story Gabriel had gleaned from his Pinkerton sources. Emmaline Kearney had met with a traveling salesman on that long-ago day. And if Megan were to be believed, she’d done it with her daughter in tow.

  “—with his piled-up wagon that I realized why mama had gotten me all gussied up. I waited in the zaguán between the station house and the kitchens for the longest time while they talked in the office. When she finally came to get me, I was clean as a person just out of the washtub—hair ribbons in place, and not a speck of dirt on me.”

  Gabriel pictured Megan as a girl, small and determined as she waited beneath the adobe archways. “That’s no mean feat for a child,” he said. “How did you do it?”

  Megan shrugged. “I wanted to play. I remember watching a lizard run up and down the zaguán wall right beside me—just scuttling along in the sun like they do—and I wanted to pick him up and play with him so much.”

  She hugged her arms over her chest and stared at the stone underfoot, motionless but for the steady stroke of her thumbs on her elbows. Her position called to mind the way she’d looked when he’d first questioned her at Kearney Station. Defensive. Thoughtful. Filled with patience.

  At a terrible price.

  She looked up. Upon realizing where his gaze was directed, Megan unfolded her arms with a self-conscious gesture, and a vague smile crossed her face.

  “But I didn’t. I kept still much like this, I suppose. Just waited until mama came for me. One look at her face was all I needed to know it was something important.” Her gaze turned faraway. “One look at that sharper’s face was all I needed to know what his answer would be.”

  “Megan—”

  Her shoulders stiffened. “It wasn’t my mama’s fault. It wasn’t!” Megan protested. “She pleaded with him to take me, too. Threatened not to go along if I couldn’t come with them. Their voices never got loud enough to carry into the station yard, but I heard most of what she said, Gabriel. She tried to take me.”

  How Megan could find anything defensible in her mother’s actions, Gabriel didn’t know. He stared in amazement, picturing the heartless Emmaline and her lover…and the little, rag-curled girl who had watched them drive away in a drummer’s painted wagon and leave her behind. It was beyond cruel.

  And crueler still was Megan’s belief that she’d somehow deserved it all.

  Dry-eyed now, she gazed into his face. A moment later, he felt her thumb nudge the corner of his mouth, then the upward sweep of her palm on his cheek.

  “Don’t look so sad,” she said. “It’s in the past now.”

  But it wasn’t. Not so long as Megan believed in it. If he left her with nothing else, Gabriel swore in that instant, he would leave her with the belief that she deserved to be treated finely and well.

  “They were fools, Megan. Fools. And I’ll not hear you say different.” Filled with the memory of all they’d shared, he tilted her face upward in his hands and gave her his fiercest look. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll have you believe it.”

  “You’re sweet to say so.”

  Her tremulous smile told him he might as well have been speaking to the stars overhead. She didn’t believe him.

  “But I was a troublesome child,” Megan went on, waving her hand dismissively. “Curious. Talking too much. Always getting ‘round my punishments. It’s no wonder that—”

  “No.”

  “—they didn’t want me. I’m lacking, somehow. I must be. I’ve learned to live with that.”

  The indifference in her voice was thin as a sharper’s promises. It hurt him to hear it.

  “Listen to me,” Gabriel said, mimicking the way she’d all-but shoved her beliefs at him earlier that night. He rested his forehead gently against hers, willing Megan to hear the truth. “All you lack is a decent family. Nothing more.”

  “No,” she whispered, pulling away.

  He held fast. Pushed back the hair that had fallen against her cheeks and pulled her still closer. “It’s true.”

  She brought her head up, her expression filled with the same fire and determination he admired in her.

  “You weren’t there,” she said. “In this, you don’t have all the facts you love so well. There’s no use pretending you do.”

  “Maybe not.” Gabriel kissed her forehead. He rubbed his hands in slow circles over her back, feeling her muscles gradually lose their stiffness beneath his caress. “But in this I may have more information than you credit me with.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing you should sound so damned suspicious about.” Teasingly, he lowered his hand to give her rounded bottom a swat. “When will you begin trusting me?”

  Megan smoothed her skirts behind her and gave him a quelling look. “Never, so long as you keep that up!”

  “Soon, I’ll wager.” He looked at her seriously. “Do you know what your mother’s profession was before she married your father?”

  At once, her skirts assumed far less importance in Megan’s thoughts. Her fingers stilled within the fabric. “If you’re about to tell me something horrible, like my mama was a soiled dove in the city someplace, then you might as well save your breath.”

  “It’s not that.”

  Her chin came up at a proud angle. “My papa would never love a fallen woman. He doesn’t even visit them now.”

  Gabriel thought it best not to mention the things he’d heard at Doña Carlotta’s house. “No. But he might have loved an actress. And he did.”

  Patent disbelief filled her expression. Her mouth opened, awakening in him a wild urge to close it with a kiss…one deep, long, and loving enough to clear her thoughts of all else save pleasure.

  “He did not!” she cried, astonishment evident in her face.

  Nodding, Gabriel said, “He did. Emmaline Kearney—née Chevalier—was an actress on the Denver stage when your father met her on a prospecting trip. According to my reports, they met and married within a week, and came back to the Arizona Territory together. Within a year, Kearney had founded Kearney station along the Tucson-Tombstone line, and had a flourishing business on his hands.”

  “Hmmph.” She quirked her lips. “Evidently, not flourishing enough for my mama.”

  “Evidently not,” Gabriel agreed, wanting to applaud Megan’s newfound spirit. Although she’d seemed bewildered and bemused in turns when he’d told her all he’d uncovered about h
er family, now she just looked ready to believe.

  “You didn’t know?” he asked.

  “My mama never talked about her past.” Her gaze turned contemplative, then brightened with a new sense of relief. “I guess this explains how she knew so much about styling my hair.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “And it explains why she couldn’t stay at the station. There was no audience to be had. No footlights or handbills to say how adored she was.”

  “No applause,” Megan whispered.

  “She must have needed those things.” Gabriel ran his hands down her sides, feeling the warm feminine curves hidden beneath calico and lace. At her waist, he used his hands to draw her nearer. “To give up so much for the sake of them.”

  “Do you—”

  “Don’t ask me if I mean it.” With a low rumble of warning, he kissed her, then gazed at her upturned face. “I do.”

  Her smile was beautiful to behold. “Do you know what this means?” Megan wrapped her arms around his waist, looking almost giddy with what she’d learned. “Maybe it wasn’t me, wasn’t my fault all those years ago. Maybe my mama just needed a different kind of life to be happy.”

  “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t.” Gabriel smiled back at her, loving the feel of her arms around him. “And as for those beaus of yours…well, that’s just a few dozen men I won’t have to deal with before I claim you for my own.”

  Her laughter rang out. “Luckily for you.”

  “And you.” He grinned still wider. “And Mose. I suspect he gave himself a full-time job of keeping anyone wearing britches and boots clear away from you. I do believe you have yourself a protector. Getting from him to you when I arrived at the station was like tunneling through a hunk of adobe with a spoon.”

  Megan’s eyes widened. “He didn’t.”

  “He did.”

  “And you came for me anyway.” Sighing, she gazed up at him with a bemused look. “Just like a fairytale knight in shining armor. Just like Addie always said.”

  Gabriel winked. “I’ll slay your dragons, sugar. All you have to do is believe.”

  “I believe you stole my words of wisdom. That’s what I believe.” She smiled anew over his pretended innocence and hugged him tighter, burying her face in his shirtfront. “But I don’t mind. Right now, I’m so happy I could kiss a blasted dragon and not care a whit.”

  “Meg.” He put his hand to her chin and lifted her head. “To hell with dragons. I’d rather you kissed me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Kissed you?” Swallowing hard, Megan stared into Gabriel’s dark-shadowed face. His was as bold an invitation as she was likely ever to receive from a man. But did she dare take it?

  Above the hard line of his jaw, Gabriel’s lips curved with amusement. Probably, he’d guessed at the source of her hesitation, she figured…and didn’t care. After all the revelations he’d unwrapped for her tonight—after all the caring he’d shown for her tonight—there wasn’t much she could find lacking in Gabriel Winter at this moment.

  But there was plenty she found to desire.

  Plenty she found to love.

  The appreciative gleam in his eyes, for one. The warm, muscular strength of his body beneath her hands for another. And, most of all, the big, gentle heart he’d hidden so deftly beneath facts and findings and a water-spotted white dress shirt, for a third.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Megan let her gaze wander over the broad male shoulders his shirt enclosed. She followed the uneven line of his collar to his partly opened button placket, and savored the glimpse of tanned skin and curly dark hairs that showed between its edges. Mercy, but he was a fine-looking man!

  And, tonight, he was hers.

  “I believe all knights are owed a boon when they’ve made their ladies happy,” she said lightly, raising her fingers to his shirt’s wrinkled percale sleeves. The fabric felt soft as a smile. “And you’ve done that with room to spare.”

  Trembling with anticipation, she closed her eyes briefly and prayed for courage. Then Megan rose on tiptoes, watching Gabriel’s face edge nearer and nearer into her vision. Her knees wobbled, forcing her to tighten her hold on his shirt for leverage. She felt her bosom slide slowly up and over his chest, caught his intoxicating scent of soap and man…tasted pleasure as her lips touched his.

  It should have felt like every other kiss they’d shared this night.

  It did not.

  It felt even better.

  Bravely, Megan kissed him again. She sensed the leashed patience in Gabriel’s body, felt his heart pound beneath her questing, curious hands. He wanted her still! And she—however wicked it might be—she wanted him, as well.

  His lips were warm and firm against hers, yielding just enough to set her senses aflame. Doing her best to recall his example, she tentatively opened her mouth. She eased her tongue forward, licked his mouth, nudged at the seam of his lips until he opened to meet her.

  Her reward was a kiss as wild as it was tender. Gabriel’s hand spanned the back of her head, holding her to him as he returned every loving stroke of her tongue. As a teacher, he excelled, Megan thought crazily. Practicing something so wonderful as this would be no hardship at all.

  As though in demonstration, he deepened the kiss. Eager to give him all the feelings that tugged at her heart, Megan responded with enthusiasm. Nothing had ever felt so incredible as the caress of his mouth, his hands. Nothing had ever felt so right.

  “Oh, Gabriel,” she whispered when she’d pulled away. “Thank you.”

  His eyebrows rose. “For a kiss?”

  “For…for everything.” She felt heat rise in her cheeks, and made herself say the rest in spite of it. “And for the kiss.”

  His smile promised more of the same. “Truly, my lady, the pleasure was mine.”

  He executed a cavalier’s bow, then lifted his dark head. His gaze roamed over her in the moonlight, touching her face, her bodice, and her skirts in turn. Somehow, Megan had the feeling he saw more than ordinary calico. She sensed instead that he imagined all that lay beneath the fabric and lace, saw through to the woman inside her. And approved wholeheartedly. The naked interest in his gaze thrilled her as deeply as did his words.

  The pleasure was mine.

  “The pleasure was yours, you say?” She wound her arms around his neck, playing with the thick dark hair at his nape. A cool breeze sifted through the strands, calling her attention to the warmth of the skin she touched. Gabriel’s eyes turned smoky at her touch, and from somewhere deep inside her, Megan found the courage to add, “Then I insist you share it with me.”

  “Gladly.”

  He rasped the word, moments before his head descended once more. His mouth met hers. His steady hands tangled in her hair, stroking it back from her face with gestures as comforting as they were exciting. Bliss. It was bliss to be held by him this way…and to touch him, in return.

  She caressed the hard muscled contours of his back, bunching his shirt by fistfuls. Feeling nigh swept away, Megan moaned beneath his kiss. A need for their joining to go on forever welled within her, fierce and exciting in its intensity. Wicked, wanton, reckless—compared with the wonderful joy of being in Gabriel’s arms, they were words without meaning. Caution was for another night. Tonight, she wanted to give him everything she could.

  She wanted to give him love, and feel loved in return.

  Megan edged closer, and their bare feet touched. She gazed down at his toes, and was reminded of the astonishing moment when Gabriel had yanked off his boots and hose and come toward her in their room. When she lifted her head, she saw that he stared downward, too.

  Doubtless remembering as well.

  “I’ve been thinking on your quest for equality between us,” she said. Emboldened by the fond smile that came to his lips, Megan raised her hands to the neckline of her gown and slipped her fingers round till she came to the first pearl button. Keeping her gaze on Gabriel, she worked the button free. “I’ve decided the notion has merit.”
>
  “Mmmm. Yes.”

  His murmured response was all the encouragement she needed—that and the telltale hunger in his eyes. Raptly, he watched her work free the next button. Only one more remained, and they would be equally unfastened.

  “Nearly equal,” she said. Her fingers trembled as she slipped the third pearly fastener through its place. “There!”

  “Beautiful,” Gabriel whispered.

  And in that moment, she believed it was true.

  His fingers touched her throat, then slid sensuously downward. They passed over her locket and chain, then delved with aching slowness between the halves of her calico bodice. Awash with yearning, she felt his knuckles caress the swell of her bosom. He traced the unbuttoned edge of her dress, then slipped his fingers inside to touch the place where her heartbeat fluttered.

  Undiluted pleasure followed. Megan held her breath, suspended by yearning and need and undeniable curiosity, as Gabriel gradually flattened his hand. The sensation of skin against skin, of her softness pressed close against his hands’ work-roughened strength, felt amazingly good. Lost in it, savoring it, she let her eyes drift closed.

  Gabriel’s voice merged with the velvety darkness. “I claim the final question of our trade,” he said. “Before I lose the wits to ask it at all.”

  Her eyes opened. What could he possibly want to know so badly, that he’d ask it now—of all times?

  Trying to ignore the persistent thud of her heartbeat against his palm, she looked at him. Dear God, don’t ask me something about papa, Megan prayed. Don’t sour this moment with Pinkerton instincts and suspicion. But what else could it be?

  “All—all right,” she said, proud of how calmly she spoke her assent. “What is your question?”

  He gazed into her eyes. Slowly, he moved his hand lower against her bare skin. When he cupped her breast in his palm, all conscious thought fled in an instant, chased by shivers of pure delight. It felt as though her body was made to fit in his hand this way, as though every part of her loved being next to him.

  Gabriel must have felt it, too. He threw back his head, exposing the taut column of his neck, and swallowed hard. When next he looked at her, his green eyes shone fiercely in the moonlight.