by Robin Gideon
Pamela was clearly shocked by his bluntness, and it took her a moment to compose herself. Then she shrugged, oblivious of how the gesture made her breasts move beneath the overwashed cotton shirt.
“It’s nothing against you personally,” she said finally. “I just don’t like rich people. They’re always looking down their noses at Jedediah and me. They cause all sorts of problems and do whatever they please, and the law doesn’t touch them. It’s nothing personal, but I think you and rich people like you simply cause more trouble than a person’s worth.”
“What would happen if you became rich? Would you hate yourself then?”
Pamela laughed, an easy, amused laugh that pleased Garrett enormously. Her rare laughter was a special pleasure he’d learned to savor because it was so delightfully spontaneous.
“Me? Now how would I get rich? No, that’s not likely at all.” She laughed again, poured a cup of coffee for herself, and then sat down at the table and faced Garrett. “Mr. Randolph, you are a funny man.”
“Call me Garrett. We’ve been on a first-name basis before.”
He looked at Pamela, wondering what she really thought of him. Did she hate him, or was it just anger toward wealthy people coming out in her? What if she never got over her prejudice against successful people? Would he always have to be the Midnight Phantom, just so he could be with Pamela without her resenting him? What if she thought of him for all time as a “funny man,” someone not to be taken seriously?
“Jedediah will be back soon if that’s what you’re wondering,” Pamela said. “He returned from a trip just a little while ago and headed off to the stream to clean up. He wants to go into town.” Pamela shook her head slowly, a fragment of a smile tickling her mouth. “He thinks I don’t know about the gal he’s got there. He can’t hide anything from me.”
“But can you hide what you do from him?”
Garrett watched Pamela’s cheeks color slightly. There was anger, fresh and new and spiteful, shining in her eyes as she looked at him. “I don’t see as how that’s any of your business, Mr. Lawyer.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “You lawyers mean something by everything.”
He was not a man given to apologizing needlessly or insincerely, but he said, “I am sorry, Pamela. I didn’t mean to offend you, and I hope you believe me when I say that.”
She looked at him in silence, weighing the truth and sincerity of his words. Finally, very slowly, the anger faded from her eyes. “Apology accepted, Garrett. I’ve had plenty of trouble with rich folks in the past. I just wanted you to know from the very beginning that you weren’t going to come here to my house and start telling me what to do.”
“I wouldn’t do that anywhere, certainly not in your own home.” Garrett sipped his coffee. It was delicious, though it didn’t please him nearly as much as the fact that Pamela’s attitude toward him had taken a marked turn toward the positive. “There’s a dance coming up in Whitetail Creek,” he commented.
“There’s always some dance or other coming up in Whitetail Creek,” she replied caustically. Her anger obviously wasn’t ever far from the surface.
“Yes, it seems so. Just the same, there’s a special dance coming up the sixteenth.” Garrett looked away briefly, thinking himself a silly fool for feeling so nervous. “Would you like to go to the dance with me? I would be honored if you would.”
Before Pamela could respond, a shout came from outside, followed immediately by the pounding of hooves.
“Garrett! Garrett, is that you?” Jedediah called out.
Randolph rose from his chair and went to the open doorway. Jedediah was just reining his horse to a dusty halt. His hair was wet, his face freshly shaven, his clothes clean.
“Hello, Jedediah,” Garrett said.
They clasped hands, and the smile Jedediah gave him was exuberant.
“It’s good to see you again. I’ve been on the hunt for the past three weeks.”
“Catch who you were looking for?”
“Yep. They won’t be robbing no more banks, neither.” Jedediah stepped into the cabin and kissed his sister on the cheek. “Thanks for keeping my friend company while I was gone,” he said to her.
“He wasn’t much trouble,” Pamela said. She rose and walked through the kitchen area toward the back of the cabin. “Good to see you again, Garrett,” she said before disappearing.
Garrett watched her retreating figure, wanting desperately to get an answer from her yet not wanting Jedediah to get involved. He knew how protective of her Pamela’s brother was, and he was healthily cautious of how Jedediah would react to learning of what he, in the guise of the Midnight Phantom, had done with Pamela.
The business with Jedediah was conducted, Garrett explaining that it really hadn’t been any trouble to ride to the cabin to deliver the bank draft to his client. Jedediah Bragg had little formal education, but he suspected there was something more behind this act than a business courtesy.
“Who’s the gal you’ve got in town?” Garrett asked. There was three fingers’ worth of fine Kentucky sour mash whiskey in his cup now instead of coffee.
Jedediah grinned. “Can’t understand at all what she sees in me, but she sees something. We’ve got to keep it all quiet though. You know what the folks in Whitetail Creek think of bounty hunters.”
“To tell you the truth, they don’t think much of lawyers, either.”
Jedediah grinned even more. “Maybe not. But mothers tell their daughters to marry a lawyer. They don’t tell them to run off and marry some bounty hunter, now, do they?”
They laughed again and raised their cups in a silent toast. Garrett decided he liked Jedediah more than he’d previously thought, and he hoped that whatever happened between himself and Pamela wouldn’t change his relationship with him.
“I don’t mean to rush you along…” Jedediah left the sentence unfinished.
“I’ve got to be running,” Garrett said, taking the hint, annoyed that he’d have to leave without getting the answer he wanted from Pamela. In truth, he wanted much more from her than just her consent to go to the dance with him, but that was an issue he hadn’t yet completely resolved.
An instinct told Garrett that he should be seen in public with Pamela. He couldn’t say why he felt this way. To balance their secret relationship, hidden in shadows and darkness, behind masks and separate identities? He just didn’t know. But he wanted the whole world to see him with Pamela Bragg at his side, and he was willing to move heaven and earth and thumb his nose at Whitetail Creek society to accomplish this feat.
Garrett and Jedediah shook hands once more.
“What’s your hurry? You seem jumpy as a cat.”
Jedediah grinned. “I bought a gold necklace for my sweetheart. The sooner I give her the necklace, the sooner I can find out if she’s just maybe thinking about marriage.”
“And you’d rather not have your sister adding her two cents worth.”
“She can complicate matters.”
“Garrett…”
Garrett turned quickly toward the sound. Pamela was standing at the edge of the cabin, leaning against it with apparent nonchalance, though the set of her mouth and the look in her jade-green eyes suggested she was not feeling casual.
“Hello,” he replied, suddenly unable to think of anything to say.
“I can’t go to the dance with you.”
His heart sank. “Why not? It’s just a dance.”
He saw the anger—that damnable anger always so near the surface with her—spring forth again. “It’s just another dance to you, Garrett, but not to me. I don’t have the fancy clothes to go to your kind of dance.”
Pamela turned and walked away, disappearing around the corner of the cabin. Garrett rushed after her, reaching out to take her arm. She pulled out of his grasp, spinning to face him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down into her lovely face, wanting to take her into his arms, knowing t
hat she’d fight him like a wildcat if he tried. “I didn’t understand. I just didn’t think—”
“That’s right,” Pamela cut in fiercely. “You just didn’t think.”
These weren’t easy words to swallow, not for a man who had graduated second in his law class and was considered by friends and enemies alike as extremely intelligent. But they were true.
“We don’t have to be enemies,” he said.
“Of course we do.” Pamela raised her hands in protest then brought them down to slap her thighs. “Don’t you understand anything at all? You’re a man, and I’m a woman; you’re rich, and I’m poor. Good Lord! We’re natural enemies!”
Now it was Garrett’s turn to shake his head slowly in disgust and to look sharply at Pamela. “We’re not natural enemies. What makes us enemies is your narrow sense of right and wrong, your bias.”
“Me? Biased? It’s your society that won’t accept me.”
“And you won’t accept me,” Garrett shot back, his anger rising. “The knife cuts both ways. You’re the monster you hate, railing against biases of others, then letting your own thoughtless resentments rule your life and dictate your actions.”
He turned on his heel, heading toward his horse before he said any more to the young woman who’d infuriated him so.
But she rushed after him, taking his arm and forcing him to face her. When he looked down at her, a rush went through Garrett. How lovely she was, faintly flushed, young, and vibrantly alive! Powerful memories came over him as he recalled the subtle expressions that had played across her face while they’d made love.
“I’m sorry,” Pamela said. “And believe me, I’m not very good at apologies.”
He acted without thinking. The sincerity in her voice made him forget their differences. He bent low and kissed her lips, softly at first and then with a bit more pressure, a little more desire. His arms wound around her waist, and he pulled her closer to once again feel the firm, tantalizing warmth of her breasts pressing against his chest. And when the tip of his tongue touched her lips and they parted just slightly to allow partial entrance, Garrett’s passion burst into flame within his heart.
Pamela was stunned that Garrett Randolph had kissed her. She closed her eyes…and at that moment, with her eyes closed, her body and her senses told her what her eyes had not seen. The society lawyer in the exquisitely fashionable charcoal-gray suit was also the enigmatic Midnight Phantom, who wore a Colt at his hip, a mask over his eyes, and a black cape to keep him hidden in shadow.
When the kiss finally ended, Pamela took a step away, a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. Garrett Randolph was the Midnight Phantom! Her head was spinning. Everything she’d ever thought she knew about humanity, about society, was now in question. Her eyes studied Garrett. This was the Midnight Phantom—the mysterious masked man she’d shared her passion with!
Jedediah stepped around the corner of the cabin, a strange look on his face. “What are you two doing over here? Garrett, I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“I’m just leaving,” he said coldly.
After kissing Pamela, he’d looked into her eyes, and the horror and shock he’d seen in their green depths was unmistakable. He didn’t choose to wait around to hear what she thought of him—it was written in that look. She was disgusted that he, a rich lawyer, had kissed her.
He rushed to his big white gelding and climbed into the saddle. “Jedediah, you stay out of trouble now,” he said, turning his horse around to ride off.
“Garrett, wait.” Pamela called out. She walked over and placed a hand lightly on the toe of Garrett’s boot as he sat in the saddle. She tried to smile up at him. “I’d go to the dance with you, but I just don’t have the proper clothes. And even if I did, those society types would never accept me. That’s the way it is. I’m sorry. I’d feel out of place.”
“Sure,” Garrett said. He wanted to ask Pamela how she could be brave enough to sneak into Jonathon Darwell’s bedroom to steal his money but not brave enough to go to a dance where some privileged young women might look down their noses at her.
Garrett rode off, wondering whether the differences that separated him from Pamela would always be as insurmountable as they now seemed.
As Garrett rode off in one direction, another rider was approaching from the south, his horse moving at an easy pace. Pamela welcomed the newcomer at first because he drew Jedediah’s attention away from her. She didn’t want her brother asking what she and Garrett had been talking about at the side of the cabin.
Her brother had never considered the possibility that she and the sophisticated lawyer, Garrett Randolph, might be kissing, that a man of Garrett’s wealth and style would be physically drawn to her. Jedediah had always been very protective of his younger sister, especially after the murders of their parents and siblings. Jedediah and Pamela being the only family left, they had developed a bond that had grown and strengthened over the years…though there was still much about her that he knew nothing of.
“What’s he doing here?” Jedediah murmured, squinting at the rider heading their way.
Pamela looked at the man. She could make out a figure, but it was still too far away to recognize.
“Who is it?” she asked finally, curiosity getting the better of her. Her brother’s superior eyesight annoyed her.
“Richard Darwell.”
Cold, raw fear jolted Pamela, painful as a bucket of ice water poured over her after a steaming bath.
He’s coming to have me arrested, she thought. She struggled against the impulse to rush into the cabin to retrieve her double-barreled shotgun. Jedediah had shortened the barrels on it with a hacksaw. It could stop man or beast within a range of thirty yards.
But if Richard Darwell was coming to arrest her, where was the sheriff? Richard certainly wouldn’t come alone, knowing how protective and dangerous Jedediah was.
“Are you all right?” her brother asked then. He’d been looking at his sister’s profile, watching the blood draining from her face.
“Me? Sure, I’m fine,” Pamela replied glibly. She stepped onto the porch, turning her back to her brother. “I haven’t got time to stand around here doing nothing. I’ll have some good jackrabbit stew going in no time.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be around long enough to eat. There’s something in town I’ve got to do.”
Pamela turned and grinned at her brother. “I’ll just bet there’s something in Whitetail Creek you’ve got to do, and I’ll be polite enough to not ask her name.”
She went inside, leaving her brother to meet Richard. She did not want a face-to-face meeting with any Darwell unless it was absolutely necessary, and since Richard was riding alone, his visit couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the break-in at the Darwell mansion.
Still, curiosity was killing her. From the kitchen, she could hear Richard and Jedediah talking in low tones on the porch. But what were they saying? Neither raised his voice, yet neither whispered, indicating that Richard wasn’t angry or trying to keep a secret.
So what was it all about?
From the cupboard, Pamela pulled out her brother’s bottle of homemade whiskey—the cheap stuff made by Jack Bowden, not the special Kentucky sipping whiskey—and two clean glasses. Though every cell in her body rebelled at the thought of pleasing any Darwell in any way, she stepped out onto the porch, a smile on her face.
“With all that talking, I thought you two might need something to wet your throats,” she said.
Richard Darwell put the stopper back into the gold, engraved flask that he and Jedediah had been passing back and forth and put it back into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“This may be a bit strong for your taste,” Jedediah said to Richard as he took the glass from Pamela. He waited until his sister had poured three fingers’ worth of whiskey into each glass before nodding his approval to her. “It’s not as smooth as what you’ve got in that flask.”
“I’m sure it’s got character,�
� Richard said before sipping the whiskey.
The liquor burned going down his throat, very nearly bringing tears to his eyes, but he kept his contempt for the harsh brew to himself. He couldn’t afford to insult Jedediah. The bounty hunter’s reputation with a gun was unequaled, and Richard needed Jedediah’s services to catch the Midnight Phantom.
Casting a sideways glance at Pamela, Richard was pleased with what he saw. He’d long thought she had the potential to be beautiful if only she’d make the effort. But how could any woman be beautiful when she insisted upon wearing blue denim trousers, like a man, and spent her time tending to cattle and riding the range? And no woman could expect to draw and hold Richard Darwell’s attention long enough for him to take her to bed if she insisted on wearing a Colt at her hip. It just wasn’t ladylike, and Richard liked the women he had sex with both docile and sluttish.
He wondered what she would look like without any clothes on. Dressed, she was a curvaceous tomboy, but without clothes, Pamela would be just another woman for him to have his fun with.
“A little more?” Jedediah asked, breaking into Richard’s reverie.
“What?” He looked at the bounty hunter uncomprehendingly. Mental images of a naked Pamela Bragg had really gripped him. “Oh, whiskey. No, no more for me, thanks.” When Pamela turned to go back into the cabin, Richard felt compelled to ask her to stay. Even with trousers on, she was someone special to look at. “Stick around, Pamela. Maybe you can offer your brother some advice on a proposition I’ve just presented to him.”
She stopped, a quizzical look on her face. Richard wondered if he could get her into bed, and what she’d be like once he got her there.
“You’ve been reading about the Midnight Phantom in the newspaper, haven’t you?” Jedediah asked. Pamela nodded. “Richard wants me to hunt him down. He’s offering ten thousand dollars if I can bring him in.”
“No questions asked. Just bring me his corpse, and the money’s all yours. Of course, you’ll have to prove that the body is really the Midnight Phantom’s,” Richard explained.
“Of course,” Jedediah replied. He thought of the bounty from Cold Ridge that had been so difficult to collect, but he’d heard no rumor that Jonathon Darwell was a man who didn’t pay his debts.