“I’ll be back,” she promised, then ran downstairs. Two men—deadly enemies—wounded and within a few hundred feet of each other. She and Archie had been foolish to think they could keep them from finding out about each other.
She also knew who Archie would protect if a decision had to be made.
The door to the marshal’s room was still closed. She heard nothing inside. Maybe he had fallen, too. Maybe that’s what Mac heard. But the fact he had heard something meant she needed to investigate.
She ran her fingers through her damp hair, then located the key to the room. She took the Colt from her holster and fitted the key in the lock. Then she opened the door, slamming it against the inside wall in case he’d somehow gotten loose from the handcuffs and stood behind the door. The marshal was sitting up. A broken chair lay beside the bed. Half of one of its legs was on the sheets next to his book. The bedpost was slightly bent but still intact. The cuff of the irons was still locked to it, and the other remained secure around the marshal’s right wrist.
She immediately knew what had happened. The marshal had managed to break the chair and tried to use one of its legs to bend the iron post. Or maybe he’d planned to hide it under the sheet and use it as a weapon. She should have known he wouldn’t give up easily.
“Throw that chair leg to the other side of the room,” she said.
He shrugged and obeyed. “I heard a noise upstairs,” he said, a question in his eyes. Then his gaze fixed on her wrist. “You’re bleeding.”
She looked down. She’d been in such a hurry she hadn’t noticed—or felt—the cut on her hand. She must have gotten it while handling the broken pieces of the pitcher.
It wasn’t that deep, but when she turned she saw drops of blood leading from the door. She felt it now. A sting. And the blood was warm. A glance told her it was only a surface cut.
“Let me see it,” he ordered.
She didn’t move.
“I can’t escape,” he said with sudden exasperation. “I won’t hurt you.”
She resisted. He would use any advantage. She knew that as well as she knew the sun would rise on the morrow.
“I can take care of it,” she said curtly, unsettled at how much she wanted to hold out her hand to him and have him care for it. She went outside and washed the small wound under the water pump. There were still strips of cloth on the table that Archie had left. She quickly tied one around the cut, then returned to the marshal’s room.
She couldn’t stay long, not with Mac awake upstairs, but she took the time to refill the metal pitcher of water and place it near him. “Looks like you went to war with the room.”
“I was bored.”
“Sleep would have been more beneficial,” she said drily. “Or the book.”
“I heard a crash above,” he repeated.
“That was Archie,” she said curtly.
“Was he hurt?”
“No.” It was only a partial lie. Archie hadn’t been hurt.
“He should be more careful.”
“Like you?” she shot back.
“Like me,” he confirmed, that half smile appearing again. “I thought you might return quicker if you thought I was up to mischief.”
A shiver ran down her back. The noise had aroused his curiosity, and she wasn’t sure he believed her explanation.
“I could use a shave,” he said, touching the bristles on his face with his free hand.
She was excruciatingly aware of that. The new beard gave him an even more compelling look that was more than a little unsettling.
“I think you could use those leg irons in your saddlebags, instead,” she retorted. “Maybe that would keep you still enough to heal.”
He smiled slightly. Damn him. It was as if he saw inside her. All the tumbling emotions and conflicting battles. Why did he always make her feel uncertain? Unsettled? “I’m glad you care,” he said finally.
“I don’t,” she protested. “Well, maybe I do, but only because I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death. Or crippling. Doesn’t matter who. I would feel the same about any critter.”
“You would?”
“Even more so,” she said, lifting her chin in battle. She hated the smile that was spreading to his eyes. She hated it, and yet it was…riveting. She needed to leave. Now…while she still could. His effect on her was too powerful.
“Afraid I’ll kiss you again, Miss Sam?”
He was baiting her, and she realized that he had studied her, looking for a tactic that might work for him. And he’d succeeded, dammit. She was tempted to move closer to him. She wondered how it would feel to rub her hand over his face, to soap it, then use the razor across it. She had shaved Mac on occasion and had offered to shave Archie’s beard. She suspected shaving the marshal would be something entirely different.
“I’m not afraid of anything, Marshal.”
“Jared,” he reminded her as if he had been reading her mind. It annoyed her. “Then what about the shave?”
“I might cut you.”
“I’ll take that chance,” he said, stretching out, his body tightening under the cover.
Her stomach twisted into a hot knot. She took a steadying breath. She wasn’t going to let him bait her. He was enjoying it too much. It was giving him a measure of revenge.
She approached and kicked the pieces of wood away from the bed, then picked them up. “Archie…” She stopped herself. If Archie had walked in here, no telling what he would do.
She didn’t like lying to Archie, even by omission. She didn’t like the marshal for making her do it. But she kept remembering Archie’s words. Kill him. Death didn’t mean that much to Archie. She’d heard his war stories. She knew he’d killed as well as healed. She thought he probably did both with the same calm expertise.
“You’re a fool,” she said.
“You didn’t answer my question about a shave.”
“It wasn’t worth an answer, but if you really want one, no.”
“What about a deck of cards, then?” he persisted as she moved toward the door.
She turned around.
“You play poker.” It was as much question as statement.
“Some,” she replied.
“What about a game?”
“What stakes?” she replied recklessly.
“Well, you have everything of mine,” he said. “I don’t even have clothes to barter with, except this shirt, and these long johns.”
She refused to recognize the insinuation in his words. “We’re not thieves,” she said. “There’s always your horse, your saddle, the coins in that pouch in your saddlebags.” She hoped her voice was as relaxed and challenging as his own.
“Ah, you like big stakes, then?”
“Why play otherwise?” She needed to leave. Archie would be here any minute. And she should check on Mac again.
“What do you have to offer me?” he said lazily. “You know all my worldly belongings. What about Miss Sam’s?”
“Just plain Sam will do,” she corrected, just as he had corrected her.
“Doesn’t exactly fit,” he said, one bushy eyebrow raised. “Not the plain part, anyway.” He paused, letting his words echo in the dim room. “What about letting me see you in a dress?”
She’d expected something different. Something like letting him go.
“I don’t have a dress,” she lied. She did have one but it was buried at the bottom of a trunk.
“That’s just a pure damn shame,” he said.
“Another choice?” she asked, hoping her voice wasn’t trembling as much as her legs were. Why couldn’t he be as old as Archie?
He gave her a speculative look. “What about eggs and bacon?”
“Unfortunately our last chicken ran into a coyote,” she said. “Try again.”
“Another kiss? To start.”
Blood rushed to her face again, and her heart skipped a beat. Hell’s bells, but she wished that didn’t happen. She usually knew how to control he
r reactions, but this new rush of awareness went straight to her cheeks. She didn’t know how to hold it in check, or the other feelings that tormented her body.
“Let’s go back to you,” she said. “We don’t need another horse, and I don’t want your money.” She paused. “If I win, you forget about Mac.”
“Now, I would need equal collateral,” he replied. “How about you telling me where he is if I win?”
“Not bloody likely.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What about information?” he offered.
She looked at him skeptically. “I told you I wouldn’t talk about Mac.”
“Yourself. I want to know more about you.” His eyes were hooded.
“Why?”
“You intrigue me.”
Probably in all the wrong ways. But still her heart tripped dangerously. She wanted to know more about him, too. The more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to know what lay behind those inscrutable eyes. “I’ll take information, as well,” she said. She felt confident about her skills. During winter months, Reese taught her everything he knew about poker, and last spring had taken her on one of his gambling trips. She’d been dressed as a lad, binding her breasts, and every player had thought her easy pickings, only to discover their pockets emptying. Reese had said she was a natural.
She still played with Archie, Reese and Mac, sometimes all of them at one time, and she could hold her own.
At least the marshal was no longer asking about the noise he’d heard above. She needed to keep it that way.
Her eyes went to his hand, resting beside his head. If the chain bothered him, it didn’t show. But then she’d already learned that he seldom revealed any true emotion.
She wanted information she could use to bargain, maybe use against him. And he wanted the same. The challenge was irresistible, even though there were dangers. Not the least of which was her growing attraction to him. Hell’s blazes, more than that. What she felt was raw, naked desire. Even worse, she was beginning to like him. Maybe even…no, not possible. Not possible at all.
Her gaze met his, but she averted her eyes before he spun more magic. Before she succumbed to it again.
10
JARED’S GAZE FOLLOWED her as she left the room. He’d expected more reaction to the broken chair. But then she’d surprised him from the moment she’d confronted him in the street.
He’d challenged her to a poker game as a last-minute ploy to keep her from leaving. He told himself the longer she stayed, the more he would learn. But the truth was he didn’t want her to leave.
She lit the room with her very presence. She was such an appealing combination of grit and earnestness and loyalty that he ached in the area where his heart was located. He found himself missing her immensely when she was gone, and it had nothing to do with his damn leg.
Her wistfulness tied his stomach in knots. And her surprised response to his kiss had made his body stiff with want. That it did so despite the pain in his leg was nothing less than miraculous. He recalled when she came into his room, her hair and clothes wet and her hand dripping with blood. She’d been totally unconscious of both, worrying instead about him and, in truth, what he’d been up to.
He’d never met a woman so completely unaware of her appearance. Especially one as pretty as Sam. And she was pretty, even charming in a gamine way. But it was her innocence that struck him so strongly. He didn’t want her hurt, and yet he didn’t see any way of ending this without doing exactly that.
Thornton was a murderer, a cold-blooded killer, and Jared had no intention of letting the man’s crimes go unpunished. It would go against everything he was and had been for the past ten years. He’d given the law his life and what was left of his heart. He never killed when he could avoid it. He seldom judged the men he chased, only brought them back for trial. Twice he’d proved an accused man innocent. He seldom let personal feelings interfere with duty.
But Thornton was different. He’d been Jared’s crusade. The last thing he could do for his wife and sister-in-law.
Sam was just a momentary distraction. And it would be better for her if Thornton was gone. There was so much out in the world for her. He’d already noted in her an unquenchable curiosity, an interest in almost everything.
Restless, he glanced down at his book. He was three-quarters through Les Misérables, a novel he’d picked up in Denver. Books were good traveling companions, something to quell the loneliness of a campfire at sundown.
He picked it up. A tale of a convict’s redemption and a prison guard who hounded him. It struck him as a particularly unwise choice at the moment. But Thornton wasn’t wanted for stealing a piece of bread to feed a hungry family, and he—Jared—wasn’t Inspector Javert, intent on hounding him for one mistake.
He put the book down.
It occurred to him—and not for the first time—that he didn’t know Sam’s last name. Both she and Archie had avoided mentioning it. He understood why. She could be arrested and sent to prison for shooting a U.S. Marshal. No doubt Javert would have made sure of that.
Sam might not be a killer, but Archie Smith didn’t seem to have such scruples, especially if he thought Jared was a threat to her.
That he could do nothing at the moment was as agonizing as the wound. He was a restless man by nature. He’d harnessed his restlessness when he’d married Sarah, but the fact that he went to war and left her in the care of his brother was proof he hadn’t completely adapted to life as a farmer.
When he’d gazed at those graves, he’d sworn he would get the murdering sons of bitches. After he’d accomplished that goal, he went after other murderers, a mission that was strengthened when Emma was killed in the stagecoach robbery.
Killed by Cal Thornton.
The search for killers, most especially Thornton, became his reason for living, the only way he could lessen the guilt he felt for not protecting his wife and child. He hadn’t kept them safe, but, by God, he would protect other families, other women and children.
And that meant bringing Thornton to justice.
He closed his eyes. Tried to think of Sarah when they were first married, of her ready smile. Instead it curled up into Sam’s challenging one.
He closed his eyes and pulled against the chain until it cut into his wrist. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to be reminded he was a prisoner, not a suitor.
Remember Sarah.
She’d made it clear from the beginning what she wanted. A family to care for. A big family. From the moment he’d carried her over the threshold of the house he’d built for her, she’d tried to be the best wife in Kansas.
He tried to remember what he’d been like before the war. Before his family had been brutally murdered. He couldn’t. They were two different people. He couldn’t recall when he’d last really laughed. When he’d felt a moment of happiness.
Oh, he took pleasure in a sunny day, a crisp wind, or a field of wildflowers. He even took momentary physical pleasure with a woman. But actual happiness? He didn’t know what the word meant any longer.
So why had he felt tugs of…bemusement whenever he engaged in a battle of wits with Samantha? Why did he look forward to each encounter when she was part of everything he’d fought against these past ten years? His heart certainly wasn’t involved. It couldn’t be, and yet it seemed to beat more erratically when she was with him.
He’d just been too long without a woman, he told himself. Nothing else. Especially when she was devoted to the man who epitomized everything he hated.
SAMANTHA COULDN’T WAIT for Archie any longer.
She went back upstairs. She would get Mac into that bed, no matter what it took. Then she would go out and look for Archie and Burley. The marshal would be safe enough.
Dawg was still lying next to Mac, safeguarding him just as she’d asked.
Though Dawg was gentle with her, he could be fierce when protecting his family and his territory. He had scars from an encounter with a bear that had threatened her, and he�
��d almost killed a miner who’d attacked her. That was why she’d been so startled with the way he’d given his approval to the marshal. Dawg hadn’t sensed danger, and he usually did.
She tried not to think of the marshal, of the amusement in his eyes as he suggested a card game, or the knowledge that she was tempted. More than tempted.
Mac was awake, trying to get up on his own. She should have known he would, and returned quicker rather than loitering with the marshal. She’d been afraid of hurting Mac even more by trying to lift him.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll help. We can do it together.”
He ignored her offer. “Archie isn’t here?”
“No.”
“What’s going…on, Sam?” he asked. His gaze bored into her with the same intensity the marshal’s had. “Something…sure as hell is. I know when you two are hiding something.”
She couldn’t lie. He knew her too well.
“Let me get you in bed first.”
“No.” The word was sharp and belied the paleness of his face. “I want to hear it…now.”
She wanted to tell him about the marshal, but she feared he would try to go downstairs to confront the man. She reverted back to what she’d said before. “I’m just worried about that rancher.”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “I’m not letting you get involved in this. You and Archie leave. Find Reese. He can bring some help. I’ll stay in the mine.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Go,” he said. “If you…give a damn about me, you’ll go….”
She sat down next to him and put his good hand in hers. “You’ve known me most of my life. You really think I could ever be happy, knowing I left you behind?” She looked him straight in the eye. “Would you leave me?”
It was a question he didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. And they both knew it.
“Come on,” she said, her heart breaking to see him so helpless. “Let’s get you back on the bed. The more strength you gain, the better we’ll all be.” He took her hand with his good one and got to his knees, then she put an arm around him and with a huge effort lifted him to the edge of the bed. He fell back on the mattress, and she lifted his feet up then sat down herself. Her breath came fast. Mac was a big man, and he was a lot weaker than the marshal.
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