A Wanted Man

by Susan Kay Law

  He pressed the letter back in Mrs. Bossidy’s hands—she really had plump soft ones, he thought irrelevantly, and wondered why he’d noticed—and left her standing in the middle of the car.

  Erastus was still in bed, curled up on his side with his fists tucked under his chin like he was all of five years old.

  “Get up,” Hiram said, unceremoniously whacking the side of the bunk.

  “Wha—”

  “Miss Hamilton’s gone.”

  “Gone?” He sat up, pushing aside a pretty, flowery quilt that some woman he’d never mentioned must have made for him. The broad pegs of his hairy legs stuck out beneath the drooping edge of his nightshirt. “How can she be gone?”

  “Stole off with that damned Duncan.” He spun, leaving him to follow. “Or got stolen off by that damned Duncan.”

  Mrs. Bossidy was right where he’d left her, standing lost and motionless between a pile of crates that held canvases and the tower of trunks stuffed with the tiny fraction of Miss Hamilton’s wardrobe she’d considered adequate to the trip. Or rather, he thought, Mrs. Bossidy thought necessary; Miss Hamilton never seemed to care that much about her clothes.

  “Come on,” he snapped as he strode by.

  “Come on?” Lucy Bossidy knew she was reacting slowly, as if moving through syrup, trying to make sense of it all with a sluggish brain.

  Laura had been the center of her life for nearly fifteen years, filling a huge, gaping hole that she had thought forever destined to remain empty. Laura’s absence now set her adrift.

  She blinked at Hiram, trying to make it all come into focus. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know her things. You’ve got to go through them, tell me what they took with them. Maybe it’ll give me a few hints as to where they went.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face, trying to get her attention. “Come on, Mrs. Bossidy. I need you.”

  For a big, bumbling boy who’d always seemed to have far more muscles than brains, he certainly knew how to take command when the situation warranted. “And then?”

  “Then,” he said, “we go get Laura.”

  “Well?” Sam asked. “What do you think?”

  Laura stood back to approve her handiwork. She’d forbidden him to wear a hat and clipped his hair neat and short. It lightened his eyes, allowing the sunlight to reach them, warming the color to a rich, deep brown. She’d left a trim slash of sideburns that visually softened the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw, shaved the rest of his jaw ruthlessly and instructed him to keep it that way.

  “You must shave twice a day,” she reminded him. “It should appear as if you can’t muster up a good crop of whiskers.”

  He grimaced. “I don’t know what’s worse, the grooming or the clothes.”

  The pants were his own; they’d had no choice there. But she’d had him buff his beat-up old boots until they’d gleamed like new; at least the leather was good.

  The shirt she’d “borrowed” from Hiram because Sam didn’t own anything white. Even better, it hung loosely on him, like a boy playing dress-up in his father’s Sunday best, hiding the breadth of his shoulders, his power camouflaged beneath the loose, rippling swags of fabric.

  “Okay, walk,” she ordered him.

  He turned and clomped away.

  “No, no! Hunch your shoulders a little. And take shorter steps. You look too much like someone used to being in charge.”

  He tried. You had to give the man that. His shoulders rounded, and he turned his toes in, hobbling forward like a man on the far side of sixty.

  “Oh, forget it. You’re trying too hard. It shows.”

  He spun, frustration written clear across his face. “You, Miss Hamilton, are terribly bossy.”

  She mock-scowled at him. “Yes, and don’t you forget it.”

  “I’m ever obedient.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” This was going to be more of a challenge than she’d thought. Tangible power surrounded him and she was having a hard time getting him to hide it. “You’d better be,” she warned him.

  He strolled toward her. Prowled, in a way that made her breath catch in her chest.

  “Smile,” she ordered.

  “What?”

  “Smile.”

  He bared his teeth. “No, not like that. You look like a mad wolf. Give me something…benign.”

  He stopped a foot from her. He was every bit as handsome like this, all buffed and polished. Citified. A man her father might have approved of. Though she much preferred him the way she’d first seen him, real and rough and heart-poundingly compelling.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. “For doing this for me. You didn’t have to.”

  “Yes I did.” She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. Perhaps he would kiss her again. Maybe even a little bit more. It would be an appropriate token of his appreciation, wouldn’t it? Because she really did not think she could go through the rest of her life without, at least once, feeling again the way she’d felt when he kissed her: shivery, glorious, alive.

  Except wanting it, so badly, should be a clear, blaring warning in itself. She obviously could not have a small snippet of him without longing for more. If he kissed her again, she would only want another, and another. His kisses were addictive, intoxicating, more dangerous than opium. Because she knew full well he was only grateful to her, and that when he’d discovered what happened to his friend he’d deposit her safely back with Mrs. Bossidy and go on his way. On to another job, another smitten woman, and never think of her again.

  And she…she could hardly consider the men she might meet in the future as it was. She could not spend her life forever comparing other men to Sam. The more she knew of him, the more memories of him she had, the more likely she was to do so.

  No, better she keep their relationship carefully bounded. She would assist with his current project and be glad that she was able to do so. And then she would neatly pack the memory away, a girl’s cherished keepsake and nothing more, and get on with the rest of her life.

  “Will I do?” he asked, lifting his arms for her inspection, awaiting her judgment.

  She tilted her head, considering. She would have recognized him in a heartbeat. But her eye was accustomed to seeing the angles beneath a beard, the line of a body cloaked by loose clothing. Most people were not. Few tried.

  And the Silver Spur employees who’d attacked him previously were all men. That made a difference. Few women would forget Sam Duncan, but she doubted the men found him memorable, at least not in quite the same way.

  “Wait.” She dashed to her valise, rummaged through to the bottom, and came up with a couple of small silver pots, two brushes. “Don’t move.”

  “What the hell—”

  He backed away as if she brandished a sword instead of a brush.

  “Think of it as paint,” she said. “I’m very good with paint.”

  “But you don’t use—” He squinted, peering closely at her face. “Do you?”

  “Only when forced into it by my mother or Mrs. Bossidy. The rest of the time I don’t bother.” She approached him as if he were a nervous colt she expected to bolt. “Doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”

  She brushed a waft of pale powder over his face and he coughed, waving away the drift of white that clouded the air before his face.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But you simply look too…healthy.”

  He caught her hand. She felt his thumb against the inside of her wrist. Knew he could feel the hammertrip of her pulse there, that he would note the acceleration of her heart. “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  “Why don’t you bother?”

  She shrugged. “There doesn’t seem much point in it.” It didn’t interest her. “There was never anybody to impress.” And even if there were, she knew the limitations of cosmetics. Even at approaching fifty, her mother retained a pure and classic beauty composed of excellent bones and lovely skin and vivid coloring. Laura, however, favored her father. Oh, she was not ugly; she wa
s honest enough to realize that. But she also understood that all the cosmetics in the world would not make her something that she wasn’t.

  “You’re right,” he said.

  Her heart plummeted. Why had she, for even one second, thought it might be different? Oh, but she was allowing her fancies to run away with her sense. His thumb circled lightly, sending shivers of sensation down her arm.

  “Why would you ever paint up that face, when it obviously could not be improved on?”

  Her mouth fell open. “Sam?”

  Abruptly he dropped her wrist, disappointing her more than was wise. “Powder away,” he said. “I’ll be brave.”

  Chapter 13

  It took them most of a day to reach the gates of the Silver Spur. They approached as the sun dropped to the horizon, the sharp horizontal lines of the fence dark and crisp against the long grass, glowing gold in the fading sunlight. Farther back low, crumpled mountains climbed higher, a few swathed with wide bands of dark evergreens, most bare and brown.

  The day had been long for Laura, unused to extended hours in the saddle. He’d suggested once that they stop for the night but she, understanding how anxious he was, had refused. He looked over at her now, lines of exhaustion drooping on her face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have insisted we stop.”

  She straightened, more steel in that narrow back than anyone who looked at her would have expected. “I’m the boss, remember? I said no.”

  “We could have gone back to the cars. Thrown ourselves on Mrs. Bossidy’s mercy, explained the whole thing. Maybe she would have—”

  “You know better than that.”

  “But—”

  She scowled at him, more like Baron Hamilton’s haughty daughter looking down on the foolishness of normal mortals than he’d ever seen her, and he shut up. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You’re right.”

  “But of course.”

  The shadow of the huge gate that guarded the ranch fell across them. The letters were two feet high, black iron, topped with a spiked star. Two guards, rifles in hand, flanked the gate, awaiting their approach.

  “This is it,” he said. “Last chance to back out. I could find another way.”

  Find another way that almost ensures you’ll get beaten to a pulp, Laura thought. Or killed. “After I went through so much trouble to fix you up? I can’t wait to see how my handiwork’s received.”

  “Nice to know you’ve got such pride in your work.” If Sam were a better man, he would rope and tie her and drag her safely back to her guards. Maybe Crocker’s men assumed they’d chased him off for good, and he could sneak onto the ranch and investigate. Not nearly as well as he could in this guise, where he’d have freer access to the compound, but some. Probably not enough, he admitted, but he wouldn’t need her.

  But even if he were caught he could easily pretend he’d duped her, too, and she knew nothing of his quest. Plus the ever-present specter of her supremely powerful father was as much protection as any woman got.

  No, she’d be fine, and appeared to be rather enjoying the adventure.

  And, he admitted, he wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye to her yet. Which was the stupidest reason of all, but there it was just the same.

  “But of course,” she said. “Now get behind me like a good boy.”

  She tapped her heels against the side of her mount, which provoked no more response than a desultory switch of its scraggly gray tail. “Darn it.” She banged harder, prodding the disinterested horse into a lurching trot. “Yoo-hoo, there,” she called brightly, waving at the guards as she approached the gate. “I’m here!”

  He nudged Harry, the gelding he rode, after her, careful to stay appropriately behind her. Harry wasn’t half the horse that Max, the fine stallion he’d regretfully left at a boarding stable in Omaha, was, but Laura’s nag made Harry look like a potential Derby winner. The third horse, bundles of canvases strapped to its side, a pile of leather-bound luggage on its back, trailed reluctantly behind, as if its pride were damaged by being pressed into service as a packhorse.

  Laura glanced over her shoulder at him, which pitched her too far over to one side and made his heart stagger before she righted herself. Then she frowned. Don’t ride so well, she mouthed at him.

  Darn it. He snapped his back into a stiff line, so his rump banged against the saddle with each trot, an impact he felt all the way up his spine.

  “Hullo!”

  The guards kept looking at each other, then back at her, as if they didn’t know what to make of her. They were obviously not used to ladies bouncing up to the front gate of the Silver Spur, two horses and one “assistant” in tow.

  She trotted right up to the gate before she reined in her old mare. Much too close to the men with guns to his way of thinking. He halted his horse a few yards behind hers, his head down, shoulders hunched. But he felt the weight of the pistol he’d insisted on against his side beneath his jacket.

  “Open up,” she said, a regal tilt to her head as if it never occurred to her that they wouldn’t follow her orders. Finally, one of them sighed and ambled over to the gate, his rifle held crosswise in front of his body.

  “Ma’am? Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but we don’t allow sightseers at the Silver Spur.” He gestured with the rifle. “Now move along.”

  “Ma’am?” Her voice went high with offense. “That’s miss. Miss Laura Hamilton, and I’m expected.”

  “Miss Hamilton?” He sidled over to another guard and held a whispered conference. Then he dropped his gun to his side. “We didn’t expect you for another three days.”

  “I’m impatient.” Her laughter trilled, the giggle of an accomplished flirt who knew her foibles were enchanting and that she was allowed a wider latitude than most.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but it was our understanding that our engine was to bring your cars back on the next scheduled trip to the switching station.”

  “I got tired of waiting,” she said, an edge to her voice that any maid who served a mercurial mistress would recognize, and obey, immediately. “There was nothing to do out there.”

  Another whispered conference, while Sam slumped on his horse and hid his admiration. He didn’t know she had it in her to dissemble like an experienced sharper, playing the indulged heiress like she’d been born to the part. Well, she had, hadn’t she? He’d just never seen her use it before.

  “Wait here,” said the man who stood in front, apparently the one in charge. Big and burly and red-haired, he was hatless, very unusual in this country, and Sam was almost certain it was his oversized boot that had found its way into Sam’s rib cage.

  “Wait here? Oh dear. It’s been such a trying journey,” Laura waved her hand in its pretty lace glove in front of her face. “Can’t you just let us in?” Her tones were perfect, wheedling and sly and just a little miffed that men so obviously below her station weren’t immediately jumping to do her bidding. This was precisely the woman he’d assumed her to be before they’d met. It was more than a little unsettling to realize she could assume the role so well.

  If this had been the Laura Hamilton he’d met, he’d have no qualms about using her for entrée and never giving her a second thought.

  “Unless you think that we might be some”—she giggled—“danger to you.”

  Raw, angry red burned in the man’s cheeks, clashing with the brassy orange of his hair. “Sorry, miss, but Mr. Crocker’s instructions are very clear. No one’s allowed in without prior authorization. And we weren’t told to let you in today.”

  “Who are you, sir?” she demanded.

  “Red Monroe, ma’—miss.”

  She pouted prettily. “Surely you’re aware I’m expected? What difference does it make if it’s not precisely when and how I’d originally planned? You do know a girl reserves the right to change her mind, don’t you?”

  Red exchanged glances with his second-in-command. “Jonce, here, will ride back and get permission, miss.”

>   “How long do you think that will take?” Her voice quavered, as if she were going to burst into tears at any moment. Red gulped.

  “Only an hour each way,” he hurried to explain. “In the meantime, you can just rest up and—”

  “Out here?” she asked incredulously. “Unless you’ve some sort of a structure here that I can’t see that I can utilize as shelter, I’m afraid that simply won’t do. Because I do think this sun is on the verge of doing me in. I’m sure my daddy—you do know my daddy, right? Leland Hamilton? Of course you do—will be ever so grateful if you take proper care of me. He’s so good that way.”

  Sam coughed. He couldn’t help it. It was either that or burst out laughing.

  “And I’m certain,” she went on, “that Mr. Crocker would want you to let me in. He came to visit us once, you know. Though he did not like the cruise Daddy arranged. Not an ocean man, he said. I recall that quite clearly. Of course, he always remembered me after that. Sent me a present nearly every Christmas. Once it was a pair of cow horns as thick as my arms.” Her nose wrinkled. “It was very kind of him, I’m sure.”

  Red shot another glance at Jonce, who shrugged, clearly not inclined to be a party to the decision.

  Red bent to one side, peering around Laura. “Who’s that?”

  Dangerous situations were part and parcel of Sam’s life. He always faced them coolly, his breath steady, his heart calm. Mostly because he figured death had already had a good run at him, and any extra time he got from then on was a bonus. It was a good part of why he commanded such high fees.

  A man who cared too much what happened in any given confrontation, who worried too much about living, was a man who made mistakes.

  He’d rather have faced them flat out, guns drawn, than like this. The situation was mostly out of his control, too dependent on Laura’s charm—though she was doing a brilliant job—and the guard’s stupidity.

  He forced a smile, as wide and vacant as he could manage, and ignored the furious glances Laura was shooting his way, the frantic, furtive gestures intended to get him to hide behind her. But if they were going to recognize him, best to do it now and get it over with.