Lawman

by Lisa Plumley

  “How did you get here?” she asked Mose, crossing her arms to frown up at him with her best displeased-station-mistress glare. “I’m perfectly aware that agent McMarlin of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency—” Megan shot Gabriel a defiant look, letting him know that as far as she was concerned, the time for subterfuge was past. “—has been at the station since yesterday morning. I doubt very much that he would just let you traipse on out with the strongbox in your hands.”

  She looked toward Gabriel. “That’s mine, by the way. I’ll expect you to hand it over.”

  “In due time,” he replied. He addressed Mose. “Miss Megan is right. Agent McMarlin should have kept you at Kearney Station.”

  “Tom?” Eyes twinkling, Mose somehow managed to pack a world of disbelief into that one syllable. He waved his hand. “He’s plumb head over boots for old Addie. The two of them been spending all their time mooning over each other.”

  Megan’s mouth dropped open. “Addie? Tom and Addie?”

  “Yep.”

  “And Addie is a—a willing participant in this?”

  Mose grinned. “She’s even taken to wearing that pink bonnet with the geegaws on it you gave her last Christmas.”

  This was serious. “But—but Addie told me she was saving that hat for wearing when her own knight in shining armor arrived.”

  “I guess she found him,” Gabriel said, taking her arm.

  Too dumbstruck to protest, Megan let him guide her to the shade at the church plaza’s edge. She felt faintly woozy. Sternly, she told herself this would be a very poor time to swoon. There were things to be done. A strongbox to be recovered. A father to be saved. A dressmaker’s shop dream to be rescued.

  She leaned forlornly against San Agustín’s adobe face and stared up at Gabriel, remembering the poster in his pocket. A broken heart to get over.

  At least Addie had found someone to love. Agent McMarlin was a good man—when he wasn’t chasing a suspect. This way, Addie wouldn’t be left alone at the station when Megan moved to town and started up her dressmaker’s shop.

  If she ever started up her dressmaker’s shop.

  Just beyond her shady spot, Gabriel spoke in low tones to Mose. She strained to hear what they said, and caught little. Soon, the station hand turned away with a wave.

  Solemnly, Gabriel held his hand to her. “You should have told me you managed the station records yourself, sugar,” he said.

  His voice sounded inexplicably raw. Unutterably pain-filled. When his next words came, Megan finally understood why.

  “The fact that you do,” Gabriel went on, “and that you didn’t tell me…well, let’s just say my likeliest suspect is no longer your father. Meg, it’s you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  He might have known Megan would set him off-kilter somehow, Gabriel told himself as he pulled out a chair for her at one of the tables that filled the tiny restaurant she’d chosen. By rights, he should have been escorting her into one of the dank cells at Tucson’s jailhouse—not playing gentleman in a restaurant bordering the plaza.

  Nevertheless, here he was. Damnation, but his alliance with Megan Kearney had turned him soft-headed for certain. How else could he explain not arresting her on the spot, once Mose had confided her role at Kearney Station?

  Hell, no, Mose had said, surprise evident on his face. It ain’t Mr. Joseph who keeps the place running a’tall. Miss Megan’s been doing it all for years now, what with her papa gone to town so much.

  It had to have been she who handled the express shipment Gabriel had been hired to recover. It had to have been Megan who’d diverted the Tombstone mine foreman’s payroll in transit somehow, and had sent an empty box on its way instead.

  No wonder Kearney hadn’t expected pursuit by a Pinkerton man last night. He probably hadn’t dealt in station business since Megan was old enough to scrawl out figures and sums.

  He pictured Megan as she’d been at the Celestial Kitchen, sitting with her face upturned to her myriad cut-tin stars. I learned to count right in this chair, she’d said, squinting up at my stars until I’d summed up every one.

  Gabriel shoved away the image. Evidently, she’d been a fast learner. Fast enough to learn thievery only a short while later. All the facts pointed to that one, inescapable conclusion.

  Beside him, Megan seated herself in the chair he’d selected and primly folded her hands in her lap. Gabriel couldn’t see much beyond the top of her head. He tried to content himself with glaring down at her shining brown hair.

  He failed. How could he glare at a woman who had all-but turned him inside out with pleasure, just this morning?

  Filled with exasperation, his head churning with unwelcome thoughts, Gabriel plunked down the heavy strongbox. The table shuddered beneath its impact. Quick as a wink, Megan started to rise and reach for the box.

  This time, his glare succeeded. Gabriel clapped his hand on her shoulder and held her in place. “Stay put. I doubt the jailhouse has accommodations so luxurious as this for questioning suspects.”

  “I’m no more a suspect than my papa is!”

  He seated himself across from her. “You are. Unless you can convince me otherwise.”

  Her answering expression ripped through him. It bespoke exactly the kind of betrayal Gabriel felt right now. Had Megan been merely playacting all this time? Pretending to care for him, simply as a means to take him off the trail?

  The need to answer that question kept him in his chair, when he should have been hunting down a blade to pry open the strongbox’s measly lock. Inside the box, Gabriel expected to find all the station’s shipping manifests—including those for the express shipment in question. Megan’s signature on the document would pinpoint her as the thief as neatly as a signed confession.

  Gabriel fingered the lock. He stared at the battered wooden box it kept secure, and felt an unholy urge to burn the whole thing as it came.

  “I can’t convince you,” Megan said. Dry-eyed and proud, she motioned for the serving girl, ordered something, and then faced him again. “Not when you’re this cold. This disbelieving.”

  “Try me.” He sat back and folded his arms. Waiting.

  “Fine.” She turned her gaze from the images in the plaza and the goings-on beyond the thick-paned window next to their table. “I am innocent. I never saw the shipment you named.”

  Gabriel remained silent. She raised her eyebrows, and her hurt-filled expression seared through him.

  “Convinced?” Megan asked.

  “No.” Christ, but he wanted to be! Was it possible that another explanation lay beneath the ones he’d unearthed, just waiting to be recognized?

  “I didn’t think so.”

  The serving girl returned, bearing a squat, napkin-lined woven basket. She set it on the table next to the strongbox, curtsied to Megan, and was away.

  The aroma of chocolate wafted toward Gabriel. With a bittersweet sense of remembrance and despair, he recognized the precise brown squares in the basket.

  Fudge.

  Megan lifted a piece in trembling fingers, and held it toward him. “For old times’ sake?” she asked, gesturing with the candy. “Surely you can question me and sweeten your disposition at the same time.”

  “No.”

  Her eyes softened as she nudged the candy closer. “At least let me keep one memory secure,” she asked. “Please?”

  Hell. He frowned at the chocolate wobbling in front of his nose. Whoever had made the stuff obviously had poured in too much sugar. Doubtless that was what made his eyes sting and water. Gabriel didn’t know what else could make the damned fudge waver in his vision.

  He sniffed. Grabbed her wrist and reluctantly tugged the candy closer. The first bite melted on his tongue, leaving behind a grainy crunch of partly dissolved sugar. That single taste was enough to remind him of their shared fudge yesterday. Worse, it was enough to remind him of all he and Megan stood to lose because of his investigation.

  In a desperate bid not to show ho
w weak the remembrance made him, Gabriel folded his arms again. “It’s terrible.”

  A tear rolled down Megan’s cheek. He cursed whatever coldhearted fate had cleared his vision in time to see it.

  Gabriel leaned forward and took the candy from her hand, then held it toward her. “You’d better try some yourself, just to make sure.”

  Her lips opened on a sigh. Fighting back the feelings and memories her gesture called forth, he eased the fudge closer. Watched her nibble a taste…and wished it was his body her lips touched once more.

  Megan’s face puckered. “It is terrible!” She looked up just as he replaced the candy in its basket, amazement and relief writ upon her face. “I thought you were only saying that to be mean.”

  “Awww, Meg.” With equal amazement, Gabriel found himself reaching for her hands. He clasped their cold softness in his, rubbing back and forth to warm her, and tried to ignore the strongbox waiting beside their joined hands. “The last thing I want is to hurt you. Don’t you see? I need the truth. I’m a—”

  “—a listening kind of man?” she interrupted quietly. “So you’ve told me often enough. Do you know something, Gabriel? I don’t believe you.”

  She withdrew her hands, leaving him bereft. He stared at his empty fists in aggravating befuddlement, then lifted his gaze to hers. “You don’t believe me.”

  “No.”

  “Yet you’d believe your lying gambler of a father, who’d—”

  “My papa loves me!” she choked out, looking startled at the sudden tears that accompanied her declaration. Swiping them away fiercely, Megan went on, “Which is more than I can say for you!”

  Gabriel winced. I do love you, he wanted to say. But if last night had been the wrong time to voice his feelings, amidst lovemaking and tender words, then this afternoon would be even worse.

  “In the guise of love,” he said instead, “your father stole your savings. In the guise of love, he went on to wager his livelihood and your own on a game of chance. Do you know why he called for Mose to bring the strongbox to him?”

  “I—I—”

  “He needs the deed!” Gabriel banged the table top hard enough to rattle the strongbox and basket of fudge alike. “He’s gambling Kearney Station on tonight’s game. And your damned ‘belief’ is going to let it happen.”

  She straightened defiantly. “Not if I find him first.”

  With a strangled exclamation, he wrenched off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’ll have a damnable time doing that from a jail cell.”

  “No!”

  The word was a mere breath of sound. Yet somehow it had the impact of a fist. He looked up to see unshed tears gleaming in Megan’s eyes, and knew an unwelcome admiration that she had not yet let them fall. Likely, she wanted to present a brave face to her enemy.

  To him.

  “You wouldn’t!” Megan said. “Couldn’t. Not when—”

  “I should. I must.”

  Her fingers clutched his. “Please, Gabriel. If I’ve ever meant anything at all to you—” Her voice cracked. She blinked rapidly, and went on, “—then please don’t do this. I didn’t take that money! There must be some other explanation, something we haven’t thought of yet.”

  “There isn’t.” Hell, didn’t she think he wanted another way out of this, too? “I’ve looked.”

  Megan breathed deeply. “Maybe you should try listening instead. Listen with your heart, and tell me…do you believe in me, or not?”

  “Meg—”

  “Do you believe in me?”

  Gabriel wrenched his gaze from hers, unable to bear the hopefulness he saw in her eyes any longer. “My whole future is at stake. My livelihood, my reputation—”

  “My dreams,” she interrupted. Megan pressed her fist over her heart, as though desperate to protect the hopes for the future she held so closely inside. “My father, and my home. Do you think I stand to lose any less than you do?”

  He shook his head. “You’re asking me to risk everything on the kind of damned starry-eyed belief I’ve never had. Never will have.”

  “Maybe you have it already. How will you know if you don’t try?”

  “I know.”

  Gabriel gripped the table’s edge, struggling against the prickle of hope her words aroused. During their time together, Megan had seen more deeply inside him than anyone ever had. Was it possible she could be right? Possible he could change?

  “I know it the same way I knew no fudge could ever taste so wondrous to me as it did yesterday, with you,” he said harshly, staring into the basket of candy. “I know it because facts don’t change.”

  “People do.”

  He lifted his gaze to her naively encouraging one. “Did your father change?” Gabriel asked.

  She flinched at his bitter tone, then raised her chin. “He may, someday.”

  “My father didn’t. Not for my mother’s sake, or my sisters’, or mine. Face it, sugar. Believing isn’t enough.”

  For a long moment, Megan looked at him. Then, to his surprise, she pulled the basket of candy closer to her and peered inside it. She frowned.

  “The curious thing about this fudge,” she said slowly, poking at a piece as she spoke, “is how it could taste so awful compared with the batch we shared yesterday. Especially when the same woman made it.”

  He boggled at her sudden change in topic. “What?”

  Blithely, she went on. “I know for a fact Hattie McDaniel brings her fresh candy to be sold at this restaurant every morning.” With an overly innocent expression, Megan blinked up at him. “Isn’t that curious? What do you make of those facts, I wonder?”

  She’d guessed. Gabriel didn’t know how, or why, or when—but Megan had searched out the truth of his candy making at Hattie’s house. Her knowing smirk made it as plain as if she’d said the words.

  He lowered his head to his hands, groaning aloud. Would he never remain one step ahead of this woman?

  Her cheery voice edged past his cupped hands. “You seem to have a gift for sweets, Gabriel. When you leave the Pinkertons, perhaps you can open a confectioner’s shop. I’m sure you would excel at it. After all, you’re wonderful at most everything else.”

  Bedazzled, he spoke through his hands the question she’d led him so neatly to. “Everything except…?”

  “Well, except facing the truth about yourself, for one,” Megan said. She pried apart his fingers until he raised his head—to face her with what he knew was a dazed expression. “You think you’re fit only for detective work. But you have so much more inside you. I believe in you.”

  His eyes burned. Damn. He must have stuck his nose too close to the overly sugared fudge again, Gabriel reckoned. He cleared his throat and looked into her face.

  The unabashed love he saw there made his soul ache with longing.

  “Do you mean that?” he croaked.

  “It’s stubborn you are.” Megan brought her hand to his jaw, cradling him tenderly. “I’ve already told you, I only speak the truth.”

  Her imitation of his Irish brogue was awful. He couldn’t have cared less—not when so much of what he wanted lay behind her words.

  Briefly closing his eyes, Gabriel leaned into the softness of her caress. “I’ve always liked to make candy,” he confessed, surely shame-faced. “Especially fudge. Below one of the—the places my father used to visit, there lived an old woman. After seeing me waiting in the alleyway enough times—waiting to bring my father home—eventually she let me wait inside her house.”

  He leaned away from Megan, still remembering. “It always smelled like a giant cone of sugar, especially in the kitchen. I’d sit there at her rickety table, one ear cocked for the sound of my father stumbling downstairs, and listen to her rattle on about whatever she was cooking that day.”

  Megan smiled. “She taught you how to make candy?”

  He shot her a disgruntled glare and folded his arms. “If you’re going to keep giving me those spoony looks of yours, Miss Megan, then
this story is finished right now.”

  Instantly, she adopted a somber face.

  “At first, I told myself I only kept going there because it was a damn sight warmer than outside,” Gabriel said. “But when spring came, and then summer, I had to admit the truth.”

  “That you had a ferocious sweet tooth?”

  “No, you cheeky lass!” He couldn’t help the smile that leapt to his face. “That I liked candy-making. T’would be a miserable poor profession, to be sure, but—”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because—” At a loss for reason, Gabriel settled for bluster. “—because I say it would be.”

  Megan gave him a shrewd look. “You have no facts to support that conclusion.”

  “I—I—” Blazes, had she reduced him to stammering?

  “Folks in the Territory are about starved for something sweet. I’d say they’d pay good coin for a taste of that fudge you made yesterday.”

  Suspiciously, Gabriel searched her face for signs she was mocking him. He saw none. His own logic pointed him to the irrefutable conclusion.

  She had faith in his future. Even when he did not.

  Even while hers remained at risk.

  At the realization, tenderness engulfed him. He could not have picked a finer woman to fall in love with—nor a deeper hole to dig them both out of.

  “I might have a chance to test your theory someday, sugar,” Gabriel said. “But first there’s work to be done. And barely enough time to do it in.” He held his palm toward her. “Give me the strongbox key.”

  “What?” Her face paled. With trembling hands, Megan clutched her locket and stared up at him. “You don’t mean—”

  “Mose said you would have one, identical to your father’s. I need it to open the strongbox with.”

  “But why? Why? Oh, Gabriel…everything was so wonderful between us again, just moments ago. Can’t we leave this behind us?”