And quiet. Somehow too quiet.
“Of course, Marshal.” Katja, who had been sitting on the bed, gathered up her things. “You keep practicing that stitch, Annie.” She touched Annie’s arm and caught her attention, holding her gaze for a long moment, her blue eyes filled with reassurance. “Remember what I told you.”
She clearly wasn’t talking about needlework, but about all she had said and shared this morning. About hope and mercy and forgiveness.
Annie nodded. She would try.
Katja smiled, looking hopeful herself as she picked up the basket of breakfast dishes. “I’ll see you again later. If that’s acceptable, of course,” she added politely as she walked past Lucas.
“Fine.” He didn’t give her a glance.
Annie felt very much alone as her friend left. Lucas didn’t move, standing there, regarding her with that odd expression. She caught a hint of straight, white teeth. He looked almost... wolfish.
Her stomach did a little flip and she forgot about the ball of wool in her hand. It slipped from her fingers and tumbled off the bed—one end still attached to the hook in her hand—and unraveled as it rolled across the floor.
It hit the toe of Lucas’s boot.
He bent down and picked it up. “And what is this?” he asked, his voice a slow, soft drawl.
“Katja—Mrs. Gottfried was teaching me how to crochet.”
He studied the ball of yarn as if it were something foreign. Then he started winding up the loose end, moving closer to her inch by inch. “How nice.”
Annie’s pulse suddenly seemed very loud in her ears. “I doubt a crochet hook could be used as any kind of weapon.” She held up the short wooden stick with a stubby curve on one end. “It isn’t dangerous.”
“Doesn’t appear to be.”
A strange thought flashed through her mind—that she knew how a fish felt as it was being reeled in.
“I have to pass the time somehow,” she said nervously, not sure why she felt the need to fill the silence with words.
“Yes, I suppose you do.” He kept moving closer as he wound the yarn, his gaze traveling over her—boldly, directly. The way he always looked at her.
Annie felt her breath catch and her ribs throbbed in protest. She thought she had gotten used to men staring at her back in St. Charles. Had always ignored it. But somehow when Lucas did it, it made her feel...
Flushed and warm all over. Her face. Her fingertips. Everywhere.
She pretended to study the uneven rows of crochet she had been working. He came closer until he stood right beside her. Close enough that his scent surrounded her—a musky, clean scent of leather and the outdoors and the mountain air.
He dropped the ball of yarn in her lap.
She kept waiting for him to say something. He didn’t. Didn’t speak. Didn’t move away. When she glanced up, she saw him looking at her intently.
Or rather, at her clothes. She didn’t understand why her pin-tucked blouse and plain brown skirt would hold such interest. They were the same garments she had been wearing when he left earlier. The only thing different about her was that Katja had braided her hair, which now hung down her back in a loose plait.
His eyes seemed to be focused on her high collar, on the buttons at her throat.
Then he leaned closer and grabbed the long chain that bound her right wrist to the bed, unlocking the handcuff. “They can dress you up like a proper lady, Antoinette.” His voice was rough, his eyes stormy. “Make you look like a proper lady. Teach you how to do needlework like a proper lady. But that doesn’t change what you are.” He dropped the manacles on the floor and straightened. “What you are inside. Where it counts.”
Annie rubbed at her wrist, thinking that was almost the same thing Katja had told her—though her friend hadn’t meant it the same way at all.
For once, she resisted the urge to shrink from Lucas’s glare. She didn’t understand what had suddenly made him so angry. “And you think you know what I am.”
She said it as a challenge.
And regretted it a second later.
Because he reached down and touched her. Tilted her chin up with one hand. Her heart seemed to stop. All at once she was aware that she no longer heard the sound of a harmonica in the outer room. Lucas must’ve sent Travis on some errand.
Which meant the two of them were alone.
“Yeah, I know exactly what you are.” His voice was low and husky. He ran his fingers along her jawline, slowly. “And you’re not proper, and you’re no lady.”
Annie couldn’t reply, couldn’t even think. Not with him stroking her that way. God help her, she must be what he thought: a woman without virtue. Fallen. Ruined. A respectable lady wouldn’t melt this way at the merest brush of his fingertips. Wouldn’t shiver when he looked at her like that.
Or stare at his mouth.
Or like the feel of him touching her.
He leaned down, and Annie knew then that no matter how Katja tried to convince her otherwise, she would never be a lady.
Because she didn’t protest. Didn’t even try to pull away.
“How good are you, Antoinette?” he murmured, his mouth close to hers. “I’ll bet you’re damn good. Is that how you kept my brother wrapped around your finger for three years?”
For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her.
She must be losing her mind. He was taunting her. Tormenting her. She jerked her head away, hoping he couldn’t tell how she was trembling and breathless. Her body’s wanton reactions to his touch only proved he was right to have such a low opinion of her.
How could she respond this way to a man who despised her? “You... you made up your mind about me before you even met me.”
“Yeah.” He straightened, looking cool and unaffected by what had just happened. He turned his back, reaching into his coat. “And it seems I was right.”
He tossed something onto the bed.
Annie flinched, stared at the object, for a moment didn’t even know what it was.
Then she gasped, dragging air into her lungs, ignoring the pain that shot through her body. The physical agony from her ribs couldn’t match the far deeper hurt in her heart. “Where did you find that?”
“You know where I found it,” he snapped, turning to pierce her with a hard stare. “Right where you hid it. With your devoted Mrs. Greer indisposed, I—”
“Invaded her home and pawed through my personal things?” She glared at him, incensed.
“Decided to search for evidence. Judges and juries are rather fond of evidence.”
Annie’s side ached and hurt as she stretched one hand toward the box—then she hesitated and got off the bed, moving away from it. Then she reached for the box again. “You had no right—”
“I have every right.”
He stopped her, his hand closing on her wrist.
Their gazes locked. He held her there for a second, his fingers so strong and hard and hot against her skin, Annie felt like she was being branded. Once more she had the unsettling sensation that he was going to pull her against him, seal his mouth over hers, and...
“Where’s the key?” he grated out.
“I don’t... have it.” Her voice was halting, wavering.
“Where’d you hide it?” He released her arm.
“That box doesn’t contain anything that would interest a jury—”
“If you want to do this the hard way, that’s fine with me.” He grabbed the box.
“No!” Though every movement wracked her, she tried to stop him. “Don’t—”
It was too late. He stalked over to the door of her cell—and smashed the edge of the box against the iron bars.
The wood splintered, the hinges broke, and the contents fell across the rug.
Annie shut her eyes, covering her mouth with one hand to hold back a sob.
“What...?” Lucas demanded in a tone of disbelief. “What the hell is this?”
Annie shook her head, lifting her lashes slowly,
reluctantly, aching with a pain that filled her heart until she thought it would shatter like that precious little box. The contents lay strewn across the carpet, stark white against the deep red and green.
A bib, a tiny knit cap, an ivory rattle, and a lacy pair of booties.
“I told you,” she whispered. “I told you there was nothing in that box that would interest a jury.”
“I don’t understand.” He looked and sounded utterly bewildered.
“They’re just some things I bought for the baby,” she choked out, slowly walking over to them and sinking to her knees, not caring about the agony in her side. “For my baby. Just a few...” She couldn’t speak anymore.
He dropped the jagged pieces of the box onto the rug. “Where’s the goddamn gun, Antoinette? And the fifteen thousand you stole?”
“I don’t know what happened to the gun.” She ran one fingertip over the tiny knit cap, afraid to touch it, unable to resist. “I told you, it was an accident. I was terrified and the gun fell and I ran—”
“And the money? Are you going to tell me you took that by accident?”
“I only wanted the money for my baby. So I could raise my child somewhere safe and give him a good home, a good life...” Tears spilled over her lashes. “I spent some on a black dress and a wedding ring and...” She gestured to the baby items. “I-I saw these in a shop window, next to the stage depot in Independence, in this pretty little box, and I... wanted them. But after...”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to see them anymore.” She picked up one of the booties. “But I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.”
He stood there. Just stood there and didn’t say another word. Like he didn’t feel anything. Like he was as cold and remote as the mountain peaks outside her barred window.
“And what did you do with the rest of the money?” he demanded.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. “I gave it away.”
He remained frozen for a moment. Then he blinked, once. Slowly. “Gave it away,” he echoed, shaking his head. “You gave away almost fifteen thousand dollars.”
“After I lost the baby I didn’t care about the money anymore! I didn’t care what happened to the money... or... or to me.”
“And who do you claim has it now?” he asked sarcastically. “Mrs. Greer? Your precious Dr. Holt?”
Slowly, she stood up, facing him, still clutching the tiny bootie in her fingers. “I sent it to an orphanage in Denver that I read about in the paper. Anonymously. I wanted to...” She wiped furiously at her eyes. “It couldn’t help my child, so I wanted it to help someone’s child. A child who had nothing... and no one.”
He folded his arms. “You really expect me to believe all this, don’t you?”
“I don’t care what you believe anymore!” She turned away, every part of her ablaze with pain. “It’s true what they say about you in those articles.” She gestured to the box of newspaper clippings on the floor of his room. “You are ruthless. Heartless!”
“I’m surprised you know how to read.”
“So you thought I was stupid as well as a slut?”
“No, I think you’re smart, Antoinette. I think you missed your calling. You should’ve been an actress. You would’ve been a big hit on the stage. Very convincing.” His voice dropped to a low, dangerous tone. “Except that I know for a fact you’re a mur—”
“You’re the one who’s a murderer. A cold-blooded killer, according to those newspapers. I suppose you think it makes a difference that you wear a badge—”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
“I’m not going by what I read. I’m judging by what I saw, with my own eyes.”
Their gazes met and held. Those glittering green depths smoldered, darkening.
“You were going to kill me,” she accused. “Out on that hillside when you found me. You were going to shoot me.”
“And I didn’t. So why do you believe a bunch of greedy halfwits who call themselves journalists?”
“You’ve judged me by reputation alone. By what people told you about me. People who didn’t even know me at all, who would never speak two words to me. You’ve taken everything they said as gospel truth.”
“Because they were good people,” he shot back. “Not thieves and criminals—”
“Is that how you see the whole world? Good and bad?” She couldn’t catch her breath, pressed a hand against her aching ribs. “And which category do you fall into, Marshal?”
He moved to her—suddenly, swiftly. Startled, she backed away. Came up against the wall. He closed in and she could see the gold flecks in his green eyes, feel the heat radiating from him.
Feel his body against hers.
“You really don’t want an answer to that,” he growled.
With that he turned on his heel and stalked out, slamming her cell door and locking it. Annie couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
Because every inch of her was tingling, burning.
As if he’d just been branded on her soul.
Chapter 7
A raw, biting wind tugged at Lucas’s coat, making it flap noisily as he stood on the hillside beneath a tree, near a picket fence. Raindrops spattered his hat and his face, while tumbling leaves blew past him in a wet parade of shiny yellow and brown. It had been raining for most of the past week. Gray clouds lumbered across the late afternoon sky like a ghostly herd of buffalo.
But the damp weather wasn’t the only reason for his discomfort as he stood there, one gloved hand resting on his holstered Colt, the other clenched at his side.
Stood there staring at the small pine cross. At the two words carved into it.
Baby Smith.
A muscle worked in his jaw. He wasn’t sure what he was doing here, what he hoped to accomplish. He and Antoinette hadn’t spoken much since their argument last week—but she had made one request, now that her ankle was healing up and she was able to walk more easily.
She had asked to come here, claiming that she had visited the grave every day, before he arrived in town.
He had refused, of course. It was obviously a trick. A scheme. A lie. The easier it was for her to walk, the easier it would be to try and escape. He wasn’t about to let her out of her cell, not for any reason.
So he stood there, alone, not knowing why he had ventured outside in a cold rain, why he had climbed all the way up here.
He kept hoping he would find proof of her guilt. Evidence. Something he could hold in front of a judge and jury to show them she was a liar, a murderer.
Instead, he kept finding proof of something else.
Even here.
Rain dripped from the brim of his hat, splashing his boots as he gazed down at the tiny grave. He couldn’t help noticing that the grass to one side was worn bare... as if someone had indeed spent a lot of time curled up on the damp ground, beside this small mound of earth. And a handful of wilted flowers was strewn nearby, scattered by the wind.
Even as he resisted, an image flashed into his head. The image that had haunted him for a week now: Antoinette crumpled on the floor of her cell, crying silent tears over a bib and a tiny hat and a rattle, a lacy bootie clutched tightly in her hand.
He crouched down, resting his elbows on his knees. Baby Smith. Her child.
And maybe, if she was telling the truth, James’s child.
Which would make this poor, lost innocent Lucas’s nephew or niece.
The thought made his heart feel strange. He took off one of his gloves and reached out to the mound of earth. It was cold. So cold and isolated, out here in the rain. He brushed away a few fallen leaves, not sure why he felt compelled to tend the little grave.
All he knew was that, despite his best efforts to deny it, he believed Antoinette on one point.
She had cared about her baby.
Miss Antoinette Sutton—daughter
of a whore, mistress, thief, murderer—had truly wanted this child. Maybe even... loved this child.
He lifted his face to the leaden sky, wishing the rain could wash that certainty away. It confused the hell out of him. She confused the hell out of him. To think that she might actually have a heart, to hold even that one small, charitable thought about Antoinette was more than he wanted. More than he could stand.
Because it felt like a betrayal of his brother.
Lucas shut his eyes and shook his head in denial. He wiped stinging rain from his face. Yanked his glove back on. A few days ago, he’d spent an entire morning writing to every orphanage listed in the Denver paper, seeking to discredit Antoinette’s ridiculous claim that she had donated the stolen money. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t receive any replies for at least another week, mail delivery being what it was in the mountains.
He had probably wasted his time and postage. She had probably sent the money to a bank in Denver under an assumed name. Or maybe one of her friends was holding it for her. Or maybe...
Or maybe she was telling the truth.
Lucas stepped back from the little cross, then abruptly turned and walked toward the cemetery gate. None of this made any sense—and none of it made any difference.
Even if Antoinette had cared about her baby, even if she was telling the truth about the missing fifteen thousand, it didn’t make her any less guilty of killing James.
She had taken the life of a gentle, kind, generous man. A husband. A father.
A brother.
Lucas latched the cemetery gate behind him and headed down the hill, hunching his shoulders against the bitter wind that blew down from the north. It would be better, he decided, if he stopped looking for evidence he wouldn’t find, stopped asking questions that had no answers. Stopped driving himself crazy.
Antoinette’s fate wasn’t for him to decide. A judge and jury would put her on trial and determine her punishment.
And since she was healing quickly, it wouldn’t be long before she’d be well enough to travel. A few more days and they could leave for Missouri.
The sooner, the better.
After Sundown Page 12