Gregory, Jill

by Warm Stranger Cold Night

  Maura waited, too, waited for him to continue his terrible tale. And all the while her brain whirled frantically. A false bottom in the enamel box. Diamonds—and death. Death had been stalking her ever since she'd left the Duncan Hotel and inadvertently taken the diamonds with her.

  "There was a gunfight in the street a short time later. I'm obliged to your husband for initiating it. But when he killed that one-eyed man—I was there in the shadows. Because Justine had come downstairs just before and wandered outside. I followed her. I saw my opportunity the moment I realized that Quinn Lassiter and Black Jack Gannon were about to fire at one another in the street. Guns are not my weapon of choice," he explained with a smile, "but in this case, it was too perfect to resist. I shot Justine from the shadows at the same moment that the other men fired. No doubt your husband thought that either his bullet or Gannon's struck her."

  He chuckled and the madness shone clearly in his eyes. Little pinpricks of light leapt and danced in them.

  "Lassiter went to her straightaway," he mused. "Bent down, stood up, walked away. She still wore the necklace when he left her—I could see it glittering in the snow. But then I heard the law coming down the street barely before the echo of the gunfire had died away, and I knew I had to clear out of there. I figured I could reclaim the necklace later. Everyone knew she was my woman—and that diamond trinket had cost me a fortune. I had every right to take it back and no one would have questioned me.

  Ellers took a step closer and Maura felt her skin prickle. Terror kept her frozen, her eyes glued in horror to his face.

  "But someone got to her before the law did. Sometime after Lassiter went to her, and before the law got there and took over, someone came and lifted the necklace from her throat. It took me weeks of asking questions and checking on everyone's whereabouts before I found someone who could tell me what happened—some sniveling weaselly drunk who'd been vomiting his guts in the alley and had seen the gunfight and had seen two men steal the necklace from a dead woman lying in the street. He didn't know their names"—Ellers sighed—"but he thought he'd heard earlier that they were brothers. So I had to find out who they were and where they were from. It took me some time. But I did it."

  His face tightened suddenly with rage. "Only to get to Knotsville and find out that the fools had cut the diamonds from the necklace, put them in a damned box, and lost them!" he snarled.

  "I don't have them." Maura fought waves of ice-cold panic as he riveted those terrifying glassy eyes upon her. "I didn't know about the diamonds when I took the box—it was a keepsake, that's all. It held some b-buttons. I never saw any diamonds."

  "When it comes to diamonds," the gambler said softly, "people lie. No one likes to give up diamonds. Your brothers didn't want to. But by the time I finished with them, they would have told me anything. They didn't have them. So you must. And you'll tell me too by the time I'm done."

  His hand flashed down and Maura for one heart-stopping moment thought he was going for his gun. But it was a knife that glittered in his hand.

  "Tell me where the diamonds are," he said quite pleasantly, and then lunged at her.

  Maura jumped aside, her scream rising high into the rafters of the cabin. There was no time to think, only to react, and she did the only thing she could do—she grabbed the soup pot and hurled the simmering contents in his face.

  She ran for the door, his howl filling her ears. When she yanked the door open, it was her turn to shriek again. A man blocked the doorway, and only in the next paralyzing instant did she realize that it was Quinn.

  Then everything happened in a blur. Quinn drew his gun and fired over her shoulder. An instant later the knife thwacked into the frame of the door, vibrating against the wood with a low, murderous hum only a scant five inches from Maura's head.

  "What the hell?" Quinn yanked her outside even as she instinctively peered back over her shoulder. All she had time to see was Ellers thudding against the floor before Quinn pushed her away from the door of the cabin.

  "Wait here."

  She clung to the wall, trembling, knowing she couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. It seemed an eternity as all of Ellers's words tumbled again through her head, but actually it was only a matter of seconds before Quinn returned. He pulled her against him and wrapped strong arms around her shuddering body.

  "He's dead. Whoever the hell he is," he muttered grimly. With a sigh, he studied her. "Are you hurt?"

  "N-no. But he killed Judd and Homer. And that woman in Hatchett." She saw his gaze sharpen, his glance flick toward the cabin and back. "It wasn't you, Quinn. It wasn't your fault. He shot her. He's after diamonds from her necklace. But I don't have them—I never saw them, I swear—"

  "Maura. Shhh. Take it easy." He ran a soothing hand down her back, and then cupped her chin between his fingers. He didn't understand what the hell she was talking about, but he saw she was on the verge of hysteria or collapse.

  "It's all right, sweetheart." Gently, he brushed a kiss across her forehead.

  Maura felt her tension ease the moment his lips touched her skin. A huge shudder escaped her and she dug her fingers into the reassuring solidness of his shoulders. In the darkness he looked so tall, so calm and wonderfully reassuring, that her breathing began to slow and the thickness in her throat eased.

  But then her eyes clouded over again. "Oh, Quinn, I threw the soup." A sob racked her. "It was your d-dinner. After all you did today, I knew you'd be s-starving and I threw it in his f-face!"

  "Smart going, Mrs. Lassiter." He stroked a hand along her cheek. "I wasn't hungry anyway."

  "You're just saying that to make me feel better!"

  "Well, yes, I figure that's my job as your husband," he conceded slowly. He was gazing so deeply into her eyes that Maura's heart did several somersaults and her brain went completely blank for a moment.

  "And then there's the d-diamonds," she gurgled when she recovered and panic over a new topic raced through her. "I swear I don't know anything about them—I never saw—"

  "Shhh. Do you think I give a damn about the diamonds? About anything, except the fact that you're safe?"

  His words penetrated the mire of panic into which she'd fallen. She drew in a deep, slow breath and searched his face.

  Tenderness and concern lit his normally cool gray eyes. His powerful arms held her so close, she could feel the pounding of his heart as it beat in steady rhythm with hers.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that there was a dead man in her kitchen, but it didn't matter anymore now than a speck on the moon.

  "You and the baby. You're all that matter to me," Quinn told her hoarsely.

  "You're all that matters to me—to us," she heard herself whispering before she could stop the raw, honest words.

  "I don't know why the hell it took me this long to realize something so plain." Quinn touched her hair, slid his fingers through the wild curls with a gentleness that made Maura shiver. "Or maybe I did realize it," he went on roughly, "but just couldn't admit it—even to myself. But when I almost lost you today, when the Campbells had you up on Skull Rock—" The words broke from him fiercely. "I love you, Maura Jane Lassiter. I love you more than anything, more than life itself."

  "More than... freedom?" she asked in a voice that shook. She dreaded the answer at the same time that she needed it. "More than the open sky... the open road?"

  "I'm going to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much more," he said.

  "And if someone offers you...a gun-fighting job?" Maura held her breath. "What will you say?"

  "Not interested." He traced her lips with a gentle finger. "There's no place else on earth I'd rather be than right here with you," he vowed before his mouth swept down on hers with a fierce, commanding possessiveness that swept every doubt from her soul.

  Joy and incredulity surged through Maura. Love. Quinn's love.

  The one thing she'd thought she'd never have.

  "Say it again," she breathed. "Oh, pleas
e, Quinn, say it again."

  "I love you, Maura. I'll always love you. And if you think you're ever getting rid of me, forget it. Our business agreement is canceled. Like it or not, you're stuck with me on Sage Creek for good."

  With a cry of happiness, she threw her arms tight around his neck.

  "I'm going to hold you to that, Quinn Lassiter," she promised. Joy rose like a bird in her heart, flying, flying. "For the rest of our lives."

  Chapter 35

  It was only October, but the Wyoming air held a hint of snow the day that Maura Lassiter gave birth to her first child. It was a crisp, gorgeous morning and the land surrounding Sage Creek Ranch was aflame with autumn's colors. Birds warbled outside the window when Maura first sank in realization upon her bed, and by the time Quinn was sent for—and Doc Perkins was fetched from Hope—the sun was glinting off the creek, sailing toward a cool, glorious afternoon.

  After that, word spread quickly, and by the time Maura's pains became more and more intense, and beads of sweat poured down her pallid face, the cabin was abuzz with friends and neighbors stopping in, offering help, and just plain curious to see the legendary gunfighter Quinn Lassiter pacing the floors in a state of thunderous panic.

  "Here. Drink this." Jim Tyler, who had ridden over from his north pasture, pushed a glass of whiskey into Quinn's hand. He watched with amusement as the renowned gunfighter downed it in one gulp and then rubbed his hands blearily over his face.

  A muffled scream from behind the closed door of the bedroom had Quinn spinning toward the sound. He started forward, but Jim and Lucky Johnson each grabbed an arm and held him back.

  "Don't go in there no matter what happens," Jim warned. "Women are not in a mood to be civil to their menfolk at a time like this. Trust me on this."

  Quinn felt sweat sheening his face, beading on his neck beneath his plaid woolen work shirt. "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?"

  "Finish working on that there porch you started. It's almost finished, isn't it?" Jim glanced over toward the doorway, where a long, graceful porch extended from one end of the cabin to the other, with three wide steps leading down to the yard. Only the railing had yet to be completed—it ran halfway across.

  "The hammering will drown out Maura's screams. By the time you're done, the whole thing will be over."

  Over. Quinn reached for one more glass of whiskey. "I can't wait for it to be over," he muttered thickly, and the other men in the room all chuckled.

  He saw nothing funny about it. Maura was in there, in pain—in a hell of a lot of pain, from what he could tell— and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. He was responsible for what she was going through, and he couldn't even help her, much less put an end to it.

  Helplessness made his head pound. He hadn't felt so out of control since he was a boy and...

  But he blocked those thoughts, those memories of his mother's suffering. That had been man-made, man- inflicted suffering—for cruel reasons—and it had ended in death. He reminded himself that what Maura was experiencing now was natural and life-giving, and would end in a beautiful new life.

  A child. A wondrous child born of his flesh, his blood—and hers. A child who would share this home and this ranch and this wide, glorious land with them and who would make their happiness complete.

  He couldn't wait to see him—or her—and to see Maura, to know she was all right.

  "How much longer?" He blocked Serena Walsh's path as she hurried toward the bedroom with an armload of clean linen.

  "Doc Perkins thinks it could be within the next hour or two. He says—"

  She broke off at the stunned expression on his ashen face. "Now, now, Quinn, take it easy," she soothed, though her eyes were bright with amusement. "I've seen you face down cold-blooded killers with a smile, and here you are ready to drop at my feet. You do love her to pieces, Quinn, don't you?" she said softly.

  "She's everything to me," he said simply.

  Serena read the emotion in the eyes of this man who had seen so much of life's roughness, violence, and ugliness, who for all the time she had known him had shut himself off from feelings, from involvement with any other human being, and survived it. And she marveled that someone who had been so scarred, who had wrapped himself in such a hard and impenetrable shell, could feel so much and so deeply.

  A tinge of envy crept over her. Maybe one day, if she was lucky, she too would find what Quinn had. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and nodded at him. "She'll be fine."

  "Is that what the doc says?"

  A shadow of worry flickered over her face and she replied, trying to sound casual: "The doc is a bit concerned about her being so small and narrow-hipped, of course, but he says she ought to do just fine. She's strong, you know. And she has a will of iron. She tamed you, didn't she?"

  "I've got to see her." Desperately he headed for the bedroom, and not one of the people gathered in the cabin dared stand in his way.

  Maura cried out, squeezing her eyes shut in agony as pain ripped through her.

  "Almost over, honey, you just keep on going," Edna Weaver said briskly, placing a cool cloth on the girl's sweating brow.

  Doc Perkins, at the foot of the bed, turned as the door burst open. "Mr. Lassiter," he began, "this is not a very good idea—"

  But the gunfighter had already reached his wife's bedside. Maura looked tiny and vulnerable as a child in the big oak bed he'd had shipped all the way from St. Louis. He touched her cheek, and she winced.

  "Quinn—are you all right? You look terrible... ahhh..."

  "Maura!" Good Lord. Quinn's chest was so tight, he was sure it would explode. As Maura's scream echoed through the sunny bedroom where golden light poured in between puffs of airy white curtains, icy sweat broke out on his brow.

  "Isn't there something you can do for her?" he demanded of the doctor, and at that moment, pudgy little Doc Perkins didn't know who appeared in worse condition—his patient or her gray-faced husband, who looked as if someone was tearing up his insides.

  But before he could reply, Edna Weaver tapped the gunfighter smartly on the shoulder. "Yes, sir, there is."

  Briskly, Edna took Quinn by the arm and began steering him toward the door. "You can leave her be."

  Alice Tyler spoke from the bureau, where she was calmly laying out towels beside a pot of steaming water. "Maura doesn't want to have to worry about you at a time like this, Quinn," she put in gently. "And if you faint dead away, which I don't mind telling you is what Jim did with our firstborn, you're going to be more in the way than helpful."

  "True enough." Edna yanked open the door. "Let the poor girl attend to her own business. Run along and get drunk like Seth did when our three children were born. Go on now."

  "Her business? What do you mean 'her business'? It's my business too!" he argued frantically, but as he glanced back over his shoulder at the pain contorting Maura's face, his courage crumpled.

  "I n-need to work on the porch," he said between clenched teeth.

  Serena, who had followed him in, gave him a push through the door. "Good idea, Quinn, honey. You work on the porch."

  "I love you, Maura," he flung over his shoulder, but she was already squeezing her eyes shut yet again and bracing herself for another scream, and he fled before it could pierce his ears and his heart.

  He heard it, however, as the door banged closed behind him.

  Quinn rushed to find his hammer.

  Maura sank back against the pillows, barely hearing the soothing words of Alice Tyler or the bracing ones of both Serena and Edna. She readied herself for the next volley of pain, and reminded herself that this torture would all be worthwhile when she held her baby in her arms. That moment would be a miracle, and she awaited it eagerly, clinging to her goal with all that she had left of strength and of hope.

  But she was vaguely aware, even as she drew each ragged breath, that there was another miracle taking place right in this room besides the birth of her child. The bond of friendship tha
t had drawn these three women—Serena, Edna, and Alice—to her side throughout all this, that was a miracle too.

  So much had happened since those terrible spring days when violence had touched all the citizens of Hope. Hope itself had flourished—with the threat from the Campbells gone, the town was growing bigger, bolder, and more prosperous than ever. Several new families, including relatives or friends of those already residing there, had come to settle, and new businesses had been added by the month. There was actually a new mill now, and a bakery and a freight company. There was a shooting gallery, as well—and Serena had opened a tearoom in the parlor of her boardinghouse.

  But not only the town had flourished.

  The Hope Sewing Circle was more lively and industrious than ever. After Edna and Alice learned that Serena had given Maura her derringer, they had reconsidered their opinion of her and decided to invite her to join the circle.

  "I know it's because of what you said to them at the May Day dance," Serena told Maura afterward. She had driven out to the ranch to return the jewel box Ellers had given her. The federal marshal had finally arrived to take charge, and had informed her that the box had been stolen from Maura Lassiter.

  "I heard you speak up for me with those prissies. And I appreciate it. You're what I call a true lady," she drawled. "Quinn—"

  She'd broken off, then squared her shoulders. "Quinn is a damn lucky man. And don't you think he doesn't know it."

  "So are you going to join?" Maura had wanted to know. "I do hope you will," she'd added, and meant it.

  "Maybe I will and maybe I won't." Serena had hunched a taffeta-gowned shoulder. "But if they think I'm going to give up smoking cigars in my parlor with my gentlemen boarders, they've got another think coming!"

  As it happened, she had joined the circle and she hadn't given up cigars. But no one censured her for it-the other women even seemed impressed with Serena's outrageousness. She often said and did things they could only imagine doing. At any rate, they followed Maura's lead and accepted her for what she was—a hardworking woman who had made her own way in a challenging world—and a fine seamstress to boot.