And so was she. She couldn’t stop those beads of apprehension that had now settled in her stomach, the knot of fear that was growing inside her.
Morgan felt as tightly drawn as the military drum that had once tattooed him into battle. He had just watched ghosts flit across Lorilee Braden’s face—nothing else could quite describe that look, that sudden moment of fear as she had stared at her brother, her golden, expressive eyes widening with apprehension. The emotion was palpable, her raw fear making jagged cuts in him.
And then he had watched Nick Braden soothe her, her head resting against his shoulder with such trust. Morgan had wanted to stand in his place, comforting her. God, how he had wanted to do that, and instead he had to watch, like the outsider, and the enemy, he was.
He turned and looked at Braden. His prisoner’s face seemed carved in stone now, the ease gone from it Their eyes met for a moment, and Morgan realized he had overestimated Nick Braden’s apparent acceptance of his captivity, his facade of good nature. Enmity gleamed in those eyes now. Enmity and challenge and promise.
You or me, Nick Braden was pledging silently.
Morgan understood for the first time that it was likely only one of them would survive this journey. Morgan also knew suddenly that despite his disadvantage, Nick Braden would be a formidable foe.
And Lori? Lori with the honey-brown hair and golden eyes and the passion simmering beneath those boy’s clothes. Lori, who obviously loved so deeply, if not wisely. What would happen to Lori?
If he killed Nick Braden, Lori would hate him.
He could allow Braden to escape.
He could, and he could never live with himself again. Nick Braden was a wanted murderer. Morgan was a servant of the law. If he bent now to personal feelings, his whole life would have been a lie. And Braden would be no better off. Not with a five-thousand-dollar reward on his head.
If only he could be sure that what he was doing was right.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Georgetown, one of Colorado’s largest towns, was brimming with activity. Its very size, Morgan hoped, would allow the three to fade into its busy streets. As Morgan and the Bradens saw the first buildings ahead, the Ranger stopped the horses and untied Lori’s hands. He was going to be conspicuous enough with one prisoner. He sure as hell didn’t want word getting out that he was also holding a woman prisoner. Word traveled fast out there, running from mining town to mining town.
He thought a warning in order, though. “You’re going to behave yourself, Miss Lori,” he said. “You are going to stay at my side every minute and do exactly as I tell you.”
“Why?” she asked defiantly.
“I want to attract as little attention as possible. You may want every goddamn bounty hunter in this state after your brother, but I don’t,” Morgan said impatiently.
She shrugged. “I don’t see any difference between you and a bounty hunter,” she said.
Morgan’s gut twisted. “He may make it alive to Texas with me.”
“And he might prefer a bullet to a noose,” she retorted.
“He might also prefer to keep you out of jail,” Morgan said, looking over at the object of their conversation.
Nick shifted in his saddle, his gaze going from Lori to Morgan. Unlike Morgan, Braden seldom wore his hat, and a lock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead. He looked amused. “You haven’t seemed interested in my ‘preferences’ to this point, Ranger.”
Morgan glared at the two. He didn’t like being baited, and they were both very good at that The girl, in particular, seemed to sense his weakness: his repugnance at being lumped with bounty hunters, his reluctance to cause her real harm. He gritted his teeth. “I meant what I said about preferring charges.”
“Given the choice between you and jail, I’ll take jail,” she said cuttingly.
“Then I’ll arrange it,” he said coldly, squashing the sudden ache that ran through him. “Unwanted attention or not”
“Lori.” Braden’s voice had hardened, and something indefinable flickered through his eyes as he turned in his saddle toward her. A warning? Morgan couldn’t tell.
Lori’s angry gaze left Morgan’s face.
“Do as he says. For me. Please.” Nick’s voice was suddenly cajoling.
“He’s a self-righteous, officious …” She paused, and Morgan knew she was searching for precisely the most insulting term.
“Bastard?” he offered helpfully. He kept remembering the way she had looked last night when she’d pushed Braden into the pool, the way her face had lit with laughter. Now her eyes were narrowed with pure malice.
“Snake,” she said. “A bastard can’t help being what he is.”
Morgan shrugged, surprised again at how well she aimed her arrows, and started to turn his horse back toward the road.
“Wait” Braden said.
Morgan hesitated.
“Can I talk to my sister a moment?”
“Go ahead.”
“Privately,” Braden said, gritting out the word between his teeth.
Morgan debated a moment then nodded. Hell, they could have whipped up a dozen plans last night while he slept He couldn’t stay awake every moment or listen to their every word. He moved several feet ahead, as far as the lead allowed, and sank down into his saddle, allowing some of his attention to focus on the golden hills. Another part of him, though, was alert to any unexpected movement. He was aware again of being the outsider, of being made to feel the villain.
And then Nick spoke. “She’ll do what you say, Morgan.”
For how long?
But Morgan didn’t express that thought Christ, if only there was a stage to Denver. He spurred his horse into a trot only too well aware that a stage probably still wouldn’t solve his problem. She would find a way to return to Braden. In some ways he knew it would be best to take her with them, so he could keep an eye on her. He could justify that, now that she had shot him.
But he quickly dismissed the idea. It would be sheer torture. He already felt like a horse with burrs planted under the saddle. He reacted to her as he’d never reacted to a woman before. Morgan had always been content with his solitary life, needing little more from a woman than a purchased night. He preferred to pay so there wouldn’t be any recriminations or attachments or expectations that he would give more than one night’s pleasure.
But Lorilee Braden was something else altogether. She was like a lovely wildcat. Beautiful and golden and elusive. She challenged him, taunted him as no one else had ever dared to do. She made him feel alive, by God, even when he knew she would probably kill him, given the opportunity. What kind of a fool did that make him?
He didn’t want to answer that. Instead he thought of what they needed. He wanted to stay there as short a time as possible. First, the stage office. Then supplies. Shirts. A change of clothes for Lori.
Morgan ignored the curious stares directed at him and his prisoner as they passed some fine homes, a bank, a telegraph office. He stopped at the stage office, dismounted, and tied their horses to a hitching post, before approaching Lori and offering her a hand down. Surprisingly, she took it.
He wondered what in the hell Braden had said to her.
He took her arm and entered the office, leaving Braden still in the saddle, his hands cuffed to his saddle horn, the horse secured to the hitching post.
The clerk inside looked up. “When is the next coach to Denver?”
“Nine in the morning.”
Morgan had hoped against hope there would be one tonight Or had he? He wasn’t sure, and that was the hell of it “One ticket for the lady.”
Lori’s eyes burned through him, but she said nothing.
“Can you suggest a hotel?”
“The best one is the Hotel de Paris. Even has bathtubs. Expensive, though,” he said, eyeing their dusty clothes with sudden doubt “And then there’s the Nugget,” he added with less enthusiasm.
Morgan hesitated as Lori’s golden eyes watched him. He finally nodded.
“Where’s the sheriff’s office?”
“In the courthouse. He ain’t there, though. Gone up to Denver to some lawman’s meeting.”
“Deputy?”
The clerk shrugged. “Don’t know about him.”
“Where’s the jail?”
“Behind the courthouse, down the street”
Morgan pulled a pouch from his pocket and paid for the stage ticket, then took her arm again. Braden was slumped in his saddle, his eyes half-closed. Morgan helped Lori back on her horse, then mounted his own and turned the horses toward the courthouse. He needed to get Braden bedded down in the jail for the night. Then Lori would be his only worry.
The courthouse was closed. He rode around to the stone jail behind it, the other two trailing him on the lead. Morgan swore in frustration as he read the rough writing on a note pinned to the solid wooden door. “Gone after hoss thieves. Deputy Smythe.” He hoped the man was a better lawman than speller. He turned around to where the others waited and mounted again.
“No one home?” Braden said with a taunting grin.
Morgan ignored the question. He could take them to a hotel or get the hell out of town, bed down in the woods as they had been. But he’d still not regained his full strength, and he was tired, so damnably tired. Even after the plunge in the hot spring this morning, an honest-to-God bath sounded real fine. But looking after two Bradens, particularly Lori, in a hotel?
They would be there for just a few hours. Until tomorrow morning.
The Nugget or the Hotel de Paris?
They had ridden by both. His usual choice would be the unpretentious Nugget. He’d never cared much for fancy. But from the clerk’s disdain he could assume there would be no baths. And probably no locks on the doors.
He didn’t want to admit it, but something else weighed his decision: the way Lori’s eyes had lit at the mention of the Hotel de Paris. He had been damned rough on her the past ten days. Red ridges circled her right wrist where he had handcuffed her nightly. She hadn’t complained, and that made him feel guilty.
He wondered whether the hotel would even accept him and his prisoners. He had the money. He spent damn little. His needs were few.
The Bradens were waiting on his decision. How many times had they done that? He knew how galling it was to Nick, and to independent Lori. He shifted in his saddle and eyed Braden speculatively, his gaze lowering to the handcuffed wrists. They seemed to freeze under his scrutiny. He took the key out of his pocket and leaned over, unlocking both sets of handcuffs and tucking them into his saddlebags, where he also kept the leg irons.
“You’ll stay in front of me,” he said, “and your sister alongside me. When we get to the hotel, you will dismount and go inside, again in front of me. Remember, I’m damn fast with a gun, and I’ll have my arm on Lori. You make a break for it, and I’ll make sure your sister goes to prison for that ambush.”
Without immediate comment Braden rubbed his wrists, first one and then the other. Then he stretched, slowly and deliberately. He finally acknowledged Morgan’s order with a slight smile. “You don’t want my word?”
Morgan looked at Lori. “I have something better.”
“You really are a bastard, Davis,” Braden said.
Morgan shrugged. “Get moving.”
“To the Nugget?”
Morgan smiled without humor. “I think we’ll go to the Paris.”
The hotel was as fine inside as it had looked from the exterior. Carrying his saddlebags over his shoulder, Morgan asked for two connecting rooms that fronted the street, ordered two baths immediately, and three steak dinners to be delivered to his room in an hour. He also asked whether someone was available to stable the horses and run a few errands.
Nothing seemed to fluster the clerk, not even their dusty clothes or Lori’s unconventional dress. He just kept nodding his head and repeating the words, “Yes, sir,” as if he were a parrot. A porter directed them to the second floor and grandly opened one door, then another, and unlocked a door connecting the two. Told which horses were theirs, he said he would bring the bedrolls “directly.”
Morgan tipped him generously, then asked if he could find a store open to buy two shirts and a ready-made dress. The porter sized up the three, nodded. Morgan gave him several bills, and the man grinned and left.
He turned around. Nick Braden was striding back and forth, obviously relieved to be free of restraints. He was staying a distance from Morgan, apparently trying not to give him reason to reattach them, and Morgan felt strangely reluctant to do so. Lori had disappeared into the other room, but Morgan could hear her moving around.
The Ranger went to the window, though he never turned his back on Braden. As he’d requested, the room fronted the main street. Dusk had fallen. There was still activity, but now most of it consisted of men going into the saloons on the street. He leaned against the window frame, where he could see both the street below and his still-prowling prisoner across the room. “Sit down,” he finally said.
Nick Braden hesitated a moment, obviously reluctant. His right hand rubbed his left wrist again. His gun hand, Morgan remembered. Braden was itching to use it, judging the distance, the wisdom of going for Morgan’s gun. Morgan’s own hand flexed suddenly, in that same odd way so like Nick Braden’s.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned Braden. Their eyes dueled, and he knew the man was considering risking all. Morgan’s hand went to the butt of his Colt.
Lori walked in from the other room. She stopped, her gaze going from one man to the other. She blinked a moment, as if in surprise, and then she looked at Nick. “No,” she said softly, and Morgan watched him slowly relax. That was the second time today she’d managed to defuse him.
After tomorrow she would be gone. And Morgan knew there would be a reckoning between them. He knew with growing certainty that Nick Braden had obeyed him until now because of his sister. That was one reason Morgan risked bringing them there. Braden wouldn’t do anything to hurt Lorilee. He had to admire the man for that.
A knock came on the door, and Lori opened it. Four men came in, each holding deep buckets of water for the bathtubs that sat in each room. All four went into the other room and poured the steaming contents into the bathtub. They disappeared back into the hall and returned with another load for the second bathtub.
Morgan watched Lori’s expression. She was guileless in her astonishment. He would have bet anything he had that she’d never been in a good hotel before. The one in Laramie had been satisfactory at best. No porters there. No baths. Lodgers had to go to the bathhouse if they wanted more than a bowl of wash water. He hadn’t been in too many fine ones himself, but enough to know you could get whatever you wanted. She was such a bewitching combination of deadly determination and innocence. He remembered her laughter last night. He wanted to hear it again before she left them.
He bowed and turned toward the other room, holding out his hand in invitation. “Miss Lori,” he said.
She hesitated, her eyes narrowing.
“A good-bye present,” he said lightly.
She stiffened. “I don’t accept presents from …”
“Snakes?” he reminded her, a sharp ache reaching into his abdomen.
She agreed by letting the word hang between them.
“Go ahead, Lori,” Braden said, stepping toward her and smiling. He, too, disturbed Morgan by his contradictions. The man was a murderer, Morgan knew. Yet Nick Braden was so damned considerate, so gentle, toward his sister. He’d never once used her to try to escape—and he could have many times.
He locked the door to his own room and then walked into Lori’s, securing the door there that led to the outside hall. He returned to his room through the connecting door, leaving it partly open, and walked to the window to look out. The street was lighted by the windows of the open saloons. He was used to looking for people, at people. He was used to memorizing faces, and he did so now.
He heard the connecting door close, and he strode over, openi
ng it slightly, not enough to see but sufficient to hear. He wondered whether he had been wise to permit her even that liberty, but he heard the creak of boards, then the splash of water, and more splashes.
Braden looked at him. “I want her on that stage too,” he said in a low voice.
“So you can come after me?”
“That’s one reason.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Braden.”
“That’s where we differ, then,” the other man said, staring directly at him.
“I thought you weren’t a killer,” Morgan taunted him this time, his doubts spurring him to say things he usually wouldn’t trouble to voice.
“Anyone can be made into one,” Braden said, his voice still low—but now it had a harsh bite to it. “You seem to be expert at that”
“You have one of two choices, Braden,” Morgan said, tired of the fencing, weary of the whole damned misbegotten situation. “You can use that bathtub or you can handcuff yourself to that bed while I take one. Either way, shut up.”
Nick Braden stared at him for a long moment, then began to discard his clothes as Morgan turned away and again stared into the street below.
The Ranger was in a strange mood, Nick thought as he closed his eyes and sank deep into the bath. The Texan had been as edgy as a trapped cougar all day. Until now Nick had thought the man had no weak points. He appeared to have little or no emotions at all, not even when Lori had ambushed him. He’d just continued to go about his business in the same efficient, impersonal way. In the ten days he’d been with him, this evening was the first time Morgan Davis had shown even the slightest inclination toward humanity, though Nick had to admit he’d never been purposely cruel. Just very, very cautious.
And he was still being cautious. Nick didn’t fool himself about that. Davis didn’t miss a damn thing, not the slightest movement. His hand was never far from his pistol, and despite the wound, Nick knew he was now probably as fast as he ever was. The fight at the cabin proved that. He’d thought with the Ranger’s wound he’d have a chance, even with the handcuffs. But the man didn’t appear to feel pain. Nor did he seem to tire as ordinary men did.
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