A Wanted Man

by Susan Kay Law

  “Last chance,” he said.

  Was there really a choice? If she had one, it was buried low and deep beneath the need that crackled inside her, raced along nerve endings. He was hard beneath her, completely unyielding, and she lifted and fell with each breath he took, a rhythm that thrummed inside her belly, her heart, found its way lower.

  “No chance at all,” she murmured, lowering her mouth toward his.

  Almost there. A breath away. One more fraction of an inch until…

  He rolled her off the bed, shoving her away, setting her on her feet, where she wavered, disoriented and disappointed.

  “What—”

  “Hush.” He plopped back into the bed, yanking the pile of covers up to his neck, and slammed his eyes shut.

  The door banged open. Bodies jostled through—one, two, three.

  Peel and Hoxie stood on either end of the bed, arms outstretched, their guns carefully aimed, faces determined—they would not take Sam’s skills too lightly this time. They were three feet from the bed, far enough that he could not simply reach out and snatch their weapons, and the two of them were separated by enough space that he could not attack them both at once. Hoxie’s hand shook.

  “Easy there, Erastus,” Sam said. “Those things tend to go off when you jiggle ’em around like that.”

  Hoxie swallowed hard, narrowing his eyes. “Shut up.”

  Sam lifted his brows in surprise. “So what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Mrs. Bossidy hovered in the doorway, peering into the darkened room.

  “Laura! What are you doing here?”

  “I—” She shot a guilty glance at Sam, uncertain whether she was more unhappy about being caught or being interrupted. Darn, darn, darn. “You were all gone so long,” she said slowly, letting the implication that they’d been remiss in their duties hover in the air. “I thought, if Mr. Duncan truly were as ill as Mr. Hoxie implied, we shouldn’t be leaving him alone.”

  “Move away from the bed,” she ordered.

  “Excuse me, I—”

  “Move away,” she said, with enough heat that Laura obeyed automatically. The tiny chamber was hopelessly crowded with four people in it. Laura bumped up against the far wall and stayed there, confused, curious.

  “Afraid I’m gonna grab her and use her as a shield?” Sam asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t need a shield.”

  Laura finally recovered enough to speak. “What are you all doing?”

  “Laura.” Mrs. Bossidy took her hand. “Laura, my dear, he’s not who you believe him to be.”

  “Look.” He started to sit up. The covers fell away again, exposing enough impressive musculature to make Mrs. Bossidy’s eyes go wide.

  “Don’t move,” Hiram ordered.

  Laura couldn’t look away. Now there is a painting, she thought, a gorgeous bare-chested man in a mussed bed, hair tousled, eyes sleepy, so blatantly sexual that men would drag their women from museums rather than let them view it.

  She tried to read his expression. Over the days, she’d learned to discern what little hints he gave: a slight tension in the corners of his mouth, a darkening of his eyes, a fractional deepening of the furrow between his brows. But nothing betrayed his emotions at that moment, his expression wiped completely clean. He was still beautiful—nothing could mute that. But the vitality that set him apart was absent, the intensity in his eyes shuttered, as if he’d distanced himself from her, stealing back whatever fragment of himself he’d shared with her.

  “Sam?” she asked, taking a half step toward him.

  “No.” Mrs. Bossidy’s voice cracked through the room. “Laura, your father didn’t hire him.”

  “What?” It whooshed out of her, hope and shock and disbelief, leaving her limp and confused.

  “We cabled your father when we stopped in Bear River City. He didn’t hire anyone.”

  Her gaze slid around the room, touching them each in turn—Hiram, so furious he looked as if his head might pop off; Mr. Hoxie, wounded and uncertain; Mrs. Bossidy, protective as a mother bear. And Sam, as remote from her as though he’d been painted by an artist with no feel for the medium, distant and detached.

  “Sam.”

  She didn’t know what she wanted him to say. That Mrs. Bossidy lied? That Sam had?

  “It was…closed,” she said numbly. “The stationmaster said the telegraph office was closed.”

  “They opened it for me,” Mrs. Bossidy said.

  Say something. But what could he say that would make any difference? Her father hadn’t hired him. He’d lied to her all along.

  “What did you want from me?” she asked him.

  Stupid question. She knew perfectly well what he wanted from her.

  Money. Of course it was money. What else could it be?

  She remembered the kisses, sweet as summer, as intoxicating as the first time she’d been allowed out of the sickroom and she’d stepped out on the terrace and the ocean overwhelmed her, the waves crashing, the briny air flooding her senses.

  Oh, he’d reeled her in so easily. No mere loan or large investment for him. He would have had her in love with him within weeks. She’d been halfway there already. And for the man who married Baron Hamilton’s daughter…“You wouldn’t have gotten any. Any of my father’s money, I mean. He would have made sure of it.”

  “It’s not what you—”

  “I told you to shut up!” Hoxie shouted.

  Sam shook his head slightly. His mouth lifted in a painful impersonation of a smile.

  And then he dived for the open window. Through the open window, headfirst, fast as a falcon plummeting after its prey.

  “Hey!” Caught by surprise, the men reacted a beat late.

  Laura was faster. She knew what he was capable of.

  But by the time she reached the window, he was gone.

  “Not much out here, is there?” Mrs. Bossidy said.

  The train from Silver Creek to Ogden had dropped them off at the tiny station three miles from town—they called it a station, but it was in truth little more than a large storage shed—where another line of tracks speared off toward the Silver Spur mines.

  “We should have stayed in Silver Creek longer,” she went on. “Now we have to sit here for three days.”

  Laura glanced up from her sketch pad. They’d had supper an hour earlier; a simple one, as it always was when they weren’t in a town or hitched to a train, something about which Hiram complained incessantly until Mrs. Bossidy shushed him. He was of the opinion that they should have brought their own chef on the trip, at which point Mrs. Bossidy opined that they traveled with one too many people for her taste as it was.

  They’d set up a table and chairs outside and ate in the lowering sun. Low mountains rimmed the narrow valley that the rail bed spiked through. Beyond the shed—simple, tin-roofed, the lumber gray with age—there was simply nothing else, not even a few trees. Scrubby brush struggled for life, giving way to tufts of prickly grass. Now and then a hawk wheeled overhead. Once a lone rabbit flashed by in a panic. Deep blue evening settled over the land. No lights flickered in the distance. If there was another person within miles, there was no sign of them.

  “I like it out here,” Laura said. The quiet, empty spaces matched her mood better than the smug bustle of Silver Creek. And she, who’d been so pleased with every new acquaintance, had finally met her fill. If one more cheerful, friendly, helpful person interrupted the work she was struggling enough with as it was…well, at least she wouldn’t be interrupted in the asylum.

  Her work was going terribly. Not going at all, in fact, despite her best effort. The blank page, glowing yellow from the lamplight, accused her.

  She couldn’t work up the necessary passion for her subject. Oh, the land was magnificent. She realized it intellectually, understood that it would make a wonderful subject for a panorama. But she was tired of painting mountains and trees, rivers and towns.

  But that wasn’t the only problem, an
d she knew it.

  It was because he was gone.

  A day without him. One endless day, and already the trip had lost its luster.

  She couldn’t let him strip her of something that had meant so much to her. But she didn’t know how to regain her pleasure in the journey.

  Tomorrow, she decided. She’d give herself one day to wallow in misery, then she’d just have to get over him. He wasn’t worth more than a day.

  She flipped the sketchbook shut and stood. “I’m going to bed.”

  Her brow puckered in consternation, Mrs. Bossidy looked up from the scarf she’d been working on for three days. Considering she’d managed all of three inches, Laura figured she might produce a scarf in time for Christmas. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

  She balled up her project. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, stay.”

  “Laura.” She paused, debating for a moment, then plunged in. “You’re better off without him.”

  “Mrs. Bossidy…” She didn’t want to discuss this with her. Well-meant, sympathetic platitudes about the temporary nature of first crushes were the last thing she wanted to hear.

  “Even if he was what he seemed,” Mrs. Bossidy continued, “even if he hadn’t lied, you’d still be better off without him.”

  “I was never with him.”

  His face swam above her, a soft, cloudy, heated dream. There was gentle concern in his eyes…concern for her? And she was so happy to see emotion there that she smiled.

  His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She reached up and touched his cheek; lean, prickly with beard, and it felt so real…

  It was real. He was real.

  Laura blinked and struggled to sit.

  “Easy now,” he said, one arm firm around her back as he helped her up. “Your head’s gonna be muddled for a while.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Nowhere, really.”

  She swiveled her head carefully until she was certain it would remain properly attached. She sat on a blanket on the ground. A thin sliver of moonlight ghosted the landscape with gray light: rocky ground, clumps of sagebrush, clusters of wheatgrass. A horse—one of her horses—was tethered a few feet away.

  “You stole one of my horses?”

  “Borrowed it.”

  Her muddled brain cleared in stages, like fog thinning in uneven patches over a marsh. She was angry at him. She knew it, felt it burn in her belly, but couldn’t locate the reason at first.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  And then the memories crashed back on her. She lurched from his grip, skittering back across the blanket until her hands hit bare ground, rocks biting into her palms.

  He let her go, just remained crouched on the blanket. “Watch out,” he said. “There could be scorpions out there. Rattlers. And it’s dark.”

  She’d gone to sleep in her bed and awoken outside. They could be anywhere. Miles away from the train from the look of it. Miles away from anyone that might save her. Try as she might, she couldn’t put this together with him, couldn’t be as worried as she obviously should be. “You…kidnapped me?”

  “If you want to be technical about it,” he said calmly.

  Chapter 11

  Laura scanned the area, trying to pick out a path, somewhere to run or hide, or anything that could serve as a weapon against him.

  “You can yell, but there’s no one to hear you,” he warned her. “And you can run, but you know I can catch you. You can try the horse, but I’m betting you don’t know which direction to go. All in all you’re best off if you simply stay put, hear me out, and wait for me to take you back.”

  Over the years she’d imagined what she might do if she were abducted. Fight back, certainly, or try to escape. Something other than meekly accept her fate. But he laid out her options so reasonably. And it was Sam. The darkness cloaked him, leaving only the deep glitter of his eyes, the flash of teeth as he spoke.

  “Laura, if I meant to do you real harm, I could have done it weeks ago easily enough.”

  True. But still…“Where are Hiram and Mr. Hoxie? Mrs. Bossidy?”

  “Still sleeping comfortably in their beds, I imagine.” He shook his head. “If I’d been in charge, I would have made certain someone was on guard at all times, but that’s just me. Heavy sleepers, all of them.”

  “They protected me just fine until you came along,” she protested, deeply offended.

  “Evidently nobody tried very hard to get to you before.”

  She touched her fingertips to her temple, willing her brain to function. “I don’t remember…I went to sleep. I woke up here. How did I not wake up when you took me from the train car?”

  He winced. “Chloroform.”

  “You chloroformed me?”

  “It seemed simplest. I didn’t want to knock you out. Didn’t much like the idea of gagging you either.” He shrugged. “Didn’t want you struggling and waking up those clowns. Someone could get shot. Might’ve even been me.”

  She shook her head. “I still don’t…how much do you want?”

  “Want?”

  “Yes,” she said, briskly businesslike. “I have some resources, of course. But that’s all that’s available. It will do you no good to compromise me. My father long ago made it clear that he would not force me into marriage in such circumstances.”

  “Would I have to force you?”

  “It wouldn’t matter,” she hedged, avoiding the question. “Even if there’s no force, he told me in no uncertain terms years ago that he would not settle a fortune upon my marriage unless he approves it first.”

  “I don’t want to marry you.”

  She would not let that hurt. “Why, then?”

  “I told you. I needed to talk you.” Guilt, untimely and unfamiliar, nagged at Sam. He’d chosen the most expedient solution. He’d gone over his plan a dozen times and hadn’t come up with a better one.

  One of the reasons for his success as a hired gun had been his ability to ignore extraneous twinges of conscience and go for the simplest and quickest solution. He wasn’t going to allow whatever inconvenient…sympathy he’d developed for her to get in the way of doing what needed to be done. And yet…damn.

  She wrapped her arms around her knees, curling up like a child in front of the fire. Her hair was braided and pinned back simply, leaving the pure lines of her face clear and unadorned. “Why didn’t you talk to me, then? Why all this?”

  “They weren’t going to let me say anything. Not then. And I didn’t want to…there was no reason for them to know. They didn’t need to know.”

  “Still—” She wanted to protest. Wanted to hold on to the anger and the offense. And didn’t want to be touched by the fact that he’d trusted her with his story when he trusted no one else.

  But it did no good to ignore the truth when she heard it. “A bit extreme, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t have that much time to waste,” Sam said.

  “All right.” She nodded, then dropped her chin to her knees. Her nightgown was white and simple, far plainer than the beautiful and elaborate clothes she wore each day. Somehow it suited her better, Sam decided. Her clothes were always so extraordinary you noticed them first. In this waft of thin white, you noticed her.

  But he’d always noticed her, hadn’t he?

  “Talk,” she ordered him.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Then you’d best get started.”

  Start. Where to start? He’d been so busy plotting how to get her away from her guards that he’d spent no time planning how he’d explain everything. Even now, he’d rather go to her, scoop her up in his arms, and continue what they’d begun in his bed.

  He’d stood over her bed, the chloroformed rag in his hand and contemplated what he would do, how she’d slip deeper into sleep, and it had taken an act of will stronger than surviving prison to force his hand ov
er her mouth. When he lifted her into his arms—light, limp, the soft curve of her hip bumping his belly, the narrow width of her back—he’d swallowed hard and nearly tucked her safely back into her bed instead of quietly slipping out the door with her.

  And then on the horse—getting on had been a trick, flopping her awkwardly across the back in a way he knew she’d never forgive him for if she ever discovered it. She’d rocked in his arms with each step of the horse, that sweet floral scent—he didn’t know flowers, was it lilac or rose or orange blossoms?—drifting up and clouding his senses, so much so that he’d almost ridden farther than he’d planned because she felt so natural in his arms.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  He’d never said it out loud, he realized. Not once. It clogged in his throat, as painful as a bone splinter. “I was in Andersonville.”

  “What?” Laura lifted her head in surprise. She’d heard tales of the place, stories her parents had tried to hide from her. She’d been too young to know of them then, of course, but there’d been a story in the paper, interviews with the tragically few survivors of the notorious Confederate prison.

  Sympathy swelled. She cursed the night. What would she find now, if she could see more of his eyes than an expressionless gleam? Would she see the truth?

  But he’d lied to her, she remembered. He’d drugged her. This could be calculated as well, a skillful play on her sympathy. “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

  “I’m getting to that.” The grim line of his mouth softened. Recently it happened more often around her, frequently enough that it no longer surprised her. It still pleased her. Even now, when nothing about him should please her.

  “I told you I was in the army.” It had been stupid to lie about his age to join up, he realized now. But his older brother, Tom, whom he’d idolized from the first, had marched off in search of glory, and he always did everything Tom did.

  Except die.

  “I was captured two months later.”

  “Sam.”

  Her voice carried a whisper of sadness, a richness of sympathy that drew forth a fresh burn of memory. Was that why he’d never told anyone before? Because it was easier to ignore when you never spoke of it? Pretend it hadn’t happened?