The Lawman Meets His Bride

by Meagan Mckinney

  She set her grocery bags on the kitchen table, quickly refrigerating the perishables. Then she went to the bathroom door and tapped on it.

  “Quinn?”

  The water noise stopped. “Yeah?” He sounded stronger, more alert again.

  “What’s your trouser size? Is it 34 waist?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Just a hunch,” she called in to him. “Hang on a second.”

  She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thrown out—or at least given away—the clothes Doug had left behind. Maybe it was because she had too many closets for one person in her house. She left them hanging where they were, unable to deal with the intimate reminders of him. His clothes in particular were hard for her to face. After all, it was his pleasing exterior that fooled everyone, herself included.

  At any rate, it was silly to let Quinn put his dirty clothes back on, complete with bullet holes and bloodstains, when she had perfectly good stuff in his size. She even wondered at the symbolism of letting Quinn dress himself in Doug’s facade. Was she hoping she’d be able to dismiss Quinn more easily if he looked like the snake Doug had been? Or was she secretly hoping he’d be able to rise above the fine clothes and prove to be the man Doug wasn’t, and could never be?

  She selected a dark gray cashmere pullover and triple-pleat gabardine trousers, and even found a pair of Doug’s socks rolled up in one of her dresser drawers.

  She nudged the bathroom door open. Steam wafted into her face, carrying a vague odor of fresh-scrubbed male.

  “Here’s some stuff to wear,” she called in, eyes carefully averted.

  “Bring them on in,” he invited.

  “I’ll set them on the stand by the door,” she added, ignoring him. “Just put your laundry in the hamper. I’ll wash it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Constance made turkey sandwiches and a quick tossed salad while he finished showering and dressing. Her eyes widened in astonishment at the transformed man who limped into the kitchen.

  “I tried to keep your nice bandage dry,” he greeted her, taking a seat across from her at the kitchen table. “But it got soaked, so I took it off. The wound looks better. I covered it with a gauze pad.”

  She hardly heard him, his appearance so startled her.

  For a moment she regretted giving him the clothing. Even though Quinn looked nothing like Doug, except in build, seeing his clothing all fleshed out again made Doug literally materialize in her kitchen. The impression was vivid and unwelcome.

  She slid a plate of sandwiches toward him, averting her eyes.

  But he seemed to read the general drift of her thoughts.

  “Nice duds. They fit pretty well, too. My compliments to the gentleman’s taste. Or the lady who bought them for him.”

  “The shirt’s a little too tight in the shoulders,” she observed evasively.

  “Maybe you have some other sizes in the stockroom?” he taunted in an exaggeratedly innocent voice while he speared a cherry tomato with his fork.

  She felt heat wash into her face. “I’ll check my inventory later,” she promised coldly.

  It was difficult, sitting close to him, to feel anger for very long. Her dominant reaction to his nearness was a consuming sensory awareness of his maleness. Their fingers brushed when she handed him the cruet of vinegar-and-oil, and again her heart raced as unwelcomed illicit sparks arced between them.

  “Now that the house has been searched,” she told him, breaking the awkward silence between them, “it’d make more sense if you moved into the spare room. There’s no heat out in the garage, and the weather report says it’s going to get colder.”

  “Speaking of getting cold, I caught the news while you were gone. They’ve pushed the search story way down in priority. Maybe we could make it to Billings now?”

  She shook her head. “Helicopters were up in the mountains earlier. Just because the news gets bored with you doesn’t mean the law has.”

  Something in her voice seemed to interest him, and the close scrutiny he gave her disconcerted her.

  She stood up and carried their dishes to the sink, setting them on the drainboard. This allowed her to keep her back toward him. And keep the wall up between them.

  His voice grew serious. “No, it’s not just my ‘sexy eyes.’ You’re taking this risk for other reasons. You remind me of my favorite foster—”

  Quinn caught himself. His expression closed.

  “Of another woman I knew when I was just a kid. She was just like you. You guess something even before I mention it. How do you do that?”

  “I’m not a psychic, if that’s your point,” she assured him, sidestepping the trail he was following.

  “No. But you’ve figured out the same thing I have. Whoever’s following you isn’t interested in arresting me.”

  She said nothing. Her silence was passive confirmation of what he said.

  She didn’t hear him crossing the kitchen behind her. Suddenly she felt his breath, hot and moist, on the back of her neck. He still radiated shower warmth. Even the banal fragrance of shampoo and soap couldn’t hide the dark male scent of him.

  His strong arms encircled her waist.

  Her body responded to his touch with a slow, spreading warmth.

  “It’s not lust that drives you to help me,” he said low in her ear. “It’s idealism.”

  Her mind told her to fend off the sexual pass. But again her body rebelled, following its own agenda. Every single contact with him sparked with eroticism. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t discount lust altogether,” she said lightly, though in her soul she knew there was more.

  “A guy has to wonder about a woman like you.”

  His lips brushed her ear as he said this, and he pulled her tighter against him. She was suddenly very aware of his gender—excitedly, dangerously aware.

  “A guy has to wonder what?”

  “If that deep feeling goes into the bedroom with you, too,” he breathed, each word tickling her ear provocatively.

  This was the last stand for her feminine resistance. The distrust and hurt left by her experience with Doug flashed strong, throbbing like a knife cut.

  Deftly, she ducked sideways, freeing herself from his embrace.

  “In the bedroom?” she repeated, her tone bantering. “Of course it does.”

  “I’ll bet with that clear conscience of yours, you sleep like a baby.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. He met her gaze and held it. Quietly, she answered, “I used to.”

  He sobered at her words. Grimly, he ran his hand over his face in a gesture of exhaustion and ambivalence.

  Hoping to change the mood, she observed, “You’ve certainly gotten better. You ought to be able to walk to Billings in another day or two.”

  “Blame my wonderful nurse. She’s as talented as she is beautiful.” This time he caught her stare.

  She found it too much. She had to look away.

  “You’re Irish, all right, Quinn Loudon, and you’ve kissed the Blarney Stone,” she retorted in a soft voice.

  He stepped closer, and again her body defeated her will by refusing to move.

  “You’re the one who didn’t discount lust,” he murmured, his face lowering toward hers.

  Her lips parted for his, but the kiss never happened.

  Instead she heard gravel crunch under tires in the driveway. She went to the front window. Her heart turned over when she saw the gray sedan.

  Chapter 9

  “Quinn, my God! That’s the car that’s been following me.”

  Staying close to the shadowed walls, Quinn quickly moved enough to glance out through the front window as the driver emerged.

  Constance watched his jaw muscle bunch tight when he recognized the man.

  “It’s Ulrick,” he whispered to her. “He’s by himself. Play this one just like you did with the constable. You’re too disgusted with the whole thing to care, just go ahead and search—that’s
what you want to convey, got it?”

  “But then, I mean, what if he finds you?”

  “That’s his and my problem, not yours.”

  That dangerous, reckless glint was back in his eyes, in the defiant set of his features.

  Alarm prickled her nape.

  “Quinn, don’t do something cra—”

  “Quiet, girl! When trouble comes, one boss is enough. For now, just do what I say, and you can call me a sexist pig later.”

  As the doorbell chimed insistently, Quinn hurried down the hallway that led past a bathroom to her bedroom and the spare room.

  Her last view of him was his broad shoulders encased in the cashmere polo shirt. She had no opportunity to even see which room he chose to hide in. The chimes sounded again.

  With one deep breath, she swung open the door.

  “Good morning, Miss Adams. I trust you remember me?”

  As if she could easily forget his self-satisfied voice that grated on her nerves despite her apprehension.

  With arrogant presumption, Ulrick had already removed his topcoat and folded it over one arm. Again he wore a brown suit, sagging over sloped shoulders, with a light-blue shirt and a navy tie.

  “Of course I remember you, Mr. Ulrick. And how could I forget your car? It’s been in my rearview mirror since Saturday.”

  “Anytime you feel harassed,” he reminded her, “you need only call the police. That would occur to most women. Unless, of course, they had their own good reasons for being shy about calling the police.”

  “In a mental hospital, Mr. Ulrick, the sane people have keys on their belts so you can tell them from the inmates. However, it gets more complicated among…legal types. Badges and oaths of office don’t always mean much. It’s hard to tell the good cops from the bad cops.”

  An awkward pause ticked by after her comment. Cold air blew in past him, and she heard the furnace click on.

  “May I come in?” he finally asked her.

  She flipped the door open wide with careless indifference.

  He stepped inside and stopped in the living room, saying nothing.

  She made no move farther into the house and did not invite him to sit down. Nor would she after that exchange of venomous bites on the front porch.

  She recalled Quinn’s advice and seized the initiative. “You have my permission to search the place, Mr. Ulrick. Ray Lofton already searched it earlier, but go right ahead and, what’s the jargon, ‘toss’ the place. You obviously don’t trust me, or you wouldn’t be following me.”

  If he had come to search, however, he was in no hurry to begin.

  “It’s not so much you I don’t trust, Miss Adams. It’s Quinn Loudon. The man has an incredible ability to…manipulate others to his purpose. Especially women,” he added significantly.

  “Oh, I see. Loudon is an unscrupulous Don Giovanni, and you are only following me to protect my virtue.”

  She hadn’t intended to deliberately antagonize him. But her strong dislike for the man got the better of her.

  For a moment his sharp little fox-terrier face flushed pink with anger. Hazel had a phrase for men like him: all wood and no sap.

  “Scorn is easy, Miss Adams, when you don’t know all the facts. Loudon has a history of creating sympathy in women and then exploiting them for his purposes. Especially women who fit a particular psychological profile. A psychiatrist, who was on the staff at Child Protective Services in Albany, New York, spotted it when he was only fourteen.”

  Child Protective Services…

  She recalled Dolph Merriday speaking on the radio, his comment that both Quinn’s parents were career criminals.

  “Spotted what?” she asked, curiosity overcoming her skepticism.

  “His abnormal need to control women, a result of long periods of early-childhood abandonment by his parents, especially his mother. Both of his parents were drug addicts, you know. Loudon has since developed remarkable talent for recognizing a certain type of woman—and for literally enthralling them.”

  “Enthralling?” she repeated. “That’s rather Victorian, isn’t it? Does he bite their necks, too?”

  He ignored her barb and thrust one of his own. “He’s especially adept at gaining the trust of women who, practical and intelligent on the social surface, have a fatal weakness for placing trust in all the wrong people, romantically speaking.”

  You smirking bastard, she thought, doing a slow burn. You prying, meddling scoundrel. It was obvious he had pumped someone locally and learned about Doug. She was still fuming over his invasion of her private life when his next question hit her like a bucket of cold water.

  “Where is Loudon right now, Miss Adams?”

  Technically speaking, at that moment she really didn’t know exactly where he was.

  So she looked him boldly in the eye. “I don’t know,” she answered.

  “If you did know, would you tell me?”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “I already know that about you, Miss Adams. In fact, that’s my point. With his good looks and manners, Loudon can play a certain type of woman just like a piano. But need I remind you to look beyond the charm? Quinn Loudon fired on U.S. Marshals. He’s a killer.”

  Despite her aversion to Ulrick, some of his points did trouble her. She had met a few charming manipulators in her professional life, too, not just her love life, and Ulrick was right—solid credentials and polished manners were sometimes mere shields for crooks and con artists.

  “You act as if I’m defending him, Mr. Ulrick. I’m not. I just don’t understand your tactics. Such as following me around and even harassing my co-worker, Ginny Lavoy.”

  “I did not ‘harass’ her.”

  “Well, I think you did, and you’re harassing me, too. Isn’t it quite abnormal for a prosecutor to take such an…active role in a case? After all, I’m a witness and a victim here. Not the criminal.”

  “Who told you how a prosecutor should act?” he challenged.

  She laughed at his pomposity. “Nobody had to tell me. I’m not six years old. Mr. Ulrick, in the real-estate business one has to deal with lawyers all the time. And spend a surprising amount of time in court watching them work. The lawyers I’ve known rely on detectives, police or private, for this door-to-door stuff.”

  The entire time she spoke, Ulrick was staring past her at the drainboard. She followed his insectile gaze. Her stomach lurched.

  He saw two coffee cups, two saucers, two sandwich plates, two salad bowls.

  His accusing eyes cut back to her face. “There’s an old saying, ‘the cobbler should stick to his last.’ Frankly, Miss Adams, you are not qualified to make legal judgments.”

  Again, feeling her deep loathing for the man, she realized how much she wanted Quinn to be in the right, despite the terrible danger that would place her in. It didn’t mean she condoned all of his actions—right or wrong, there was still something reckless and dangerous about an attorney who could turn “gang buster” in a heartbeat and shoot up a courtroom to “get out of town.”

  “I’m not too uneducated to notice you aren’t recording this conversation today like you did on Saturday. That’s because your friend Mumford isn’t here, isn’t it? Because this visit wasn’t meant to be part of the official record, was it?”

  “I can assure you of one thing, Miss Adams. This is not ‘door-to-door’ stuff—you have police canvassing in mind when you say that. I’m not canvassing—yours is the only door I’ve come to.”

  “You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, if I don’t pretend to be flattered, Mr. Ulrick.”

  For the first time, his inspection lingered on her body, too.

  “Perhaps,” he suggested, his tone thick with innuendo, “you find Quinn Loudon desirable? But let me tell you, he’s a liar and a user. You’d do well to reassess your trust…and put it in someone who won’t abuse it…or you.”

  She stepped around him and returned to the door, opening it wide. “Get out,” she told him in a tone of controlled an
ger.

  He laughed, forcing it a little. But something in her manner did evidently intimidate him because he headed for the door.

  “I don’t think you’re harboring Loudon here—right now,” he qualified, giving the dishes another glance. “I talked to Ray Lofton, and I’m satisfied he searched well.”

  Good for you, Ray, she thought.

  “But I do think you’re actively aiding and abetting him somehow,” he added.

  He opened the door, and cold air licked at her like an icy tongue—the temperature was finally lowering to Montana norms.

  He turned and said, “I’ll warn you one last time, Miss Adams. In the eyes of the law, those who hold a candle for the devil are doing the devil’s work.”

  “If that were true,” she flung after him, “the law would have to arrest itself.”

  Despite her belief that Quinn was telling her the truth, Constance couldn’t completely discount everything Ulrick had said about the fugitive’s supposed talent at “manipulating women.” After all, she knew little about Quinn or his past.

  Doubts lingered, like an unsettling odor in the house, even after the prosecutor had left.

  She took care to avoid any potential for the physical intimacy they had begun to share before Ulrick’s arrival. More than ever she began to feel the urgency of her plight. She was hiding a man, in her home, who could not possibly escape from Mystery any time soon. And he was here by her choice, her own reckless actions, not his.

  Such thoughts, however, invariably recalled the sizzle each time his skin touched hers. And she knew that was the real danger she feared: the way the fire in his dark eyes struck answering flames within her.

  So she kept the kitchen table between them while she reported her conversation with Ulrick. She didn’t gloss over his remarks about “enthralling” and “manipulating” women.

  Quinn’s face seemed more resigned than angry, as if he expected nothing less from Ulrick.

  “Technically,” he told her, “Ulrick has the legal right to investigate, since he’s a sworn officer of the court holding jurisdiction. But you caught him dead to rights about the recorder—this was no official visit. I just hope you’ll remember the danger of pushing these guys too far. Ulrick has access to some thugs to do his dirt work. His kind always do.”