by Jill Gregory
The air shimmered with late afternoon heat as Annabel approached the hotel. She felt hot and sticky with perspiration beneath her dark gown, and longed for a bath. Though her hair was still pinned firmly in its tight chignon, she felt the faint sheen of travel dust filming her cheeks and neck. How good it would be to soak in lavender-scented water, to scrub her hair with fragrant suds, to rinse away the grime of travel. Perhaps after she had checked into the hotel and asked a few questions about Brett, she would have a bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep.
She struggled to subdue the weariness that tugged at her as she trudged up the steps. Fortunately, the only baggage she had to carry was her carpetbag. It contained everything she expected to need on her travels—everything except the small, pearl-handled derringer she had purchased in Denver and which she kept tucked discreetly inside her reticule.
But in her opinion, the most important possessions stuffed inside the carpetbag were the small photograph of Brett which Mr. McCallum had provided Mr. Stevenson, and the thick file about the case, the entire contents of which Annabel had by now nearly committed to memory. There was also an amber necklet that had belonged to her mother, along with matching teardrop earbobs, and her aunt Gertie’s worn old diary. Annabel had never read the diary, but she treasured it, for along with a fine old lace handkerchief, it was all she had left of that stout, warm-hearted lady since she had passed on three years ago. Aunt Gertie had been her only family since she was nine, and sometimes at night in her bed at the boardinghouse Annabel’s eyes would fill with lonely tears for the aunt who had taken her in when she was orphaned and given her a safe and loving home. And she would swear that now and then when the wind whirled in through the shutters of her window she could still hear Gertie O’Flannery’s crackling voice crooning the old Irish ballads she’d loved so well.
But as Annabel entered the lobby of the Copper Nugget, she was not thinking of the past, of her happy childhood in the great house on Maplegrove Street, but of the future, of finding Brett and extricating him from whatever difficulty he was in. A small bell tinkled overhead as she crossed the threshold, and both the bespectacled clerk and the dark, broad-shouldered man standing before him at the hotel desk glanced around briefly to see who had entered.
The clerk noted her with benign interest, blinking and pushing his spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose. But it was the tall, dark-haired man’s reaction that gave Annabel pause.
There was something swift and dangerous about the way he turned to look at her the instant that bell sounded, reacting like a man trained to expect and deal with sudden trouble. She actually felt a stab of fear as his penetrating black eyes flicked over her like a whip. She’d never seen such ruthless eyes. He wore black, all black—except for a pale blue silk bandana knotted loosely at his throat. Snug-fitting black trousers, gleaming black boots, black silk shirt, black Stetson—and a black gun belt slung low at his hips, where two black pistols rested against powerful thighs. Even his eyes were the same deep onyx, she noted with something of a shock. They glinted like coals, and their calculating ruthlessness, added to the fact that they were set within a hard-jawed, arrogantly handsome face, disconcerted her so much that the carpetbag slipped from her aching fingers and clumped loudly to the floor.
But after that first glimpse when he ascertained that she was only a harmless woman, the man turned away, dismissing her. He hunched his massive shoulders forward and shifted his attention back to the clerk, who began once again poring over his registration book.
“Ye-es, here it is. He was here for three nights. Nice young man.” The clerk’s voice quavered a little. “At least, he seemed quite nice ... one never can tell, you know ...”
“Who was he friendly with in town?”
“Friendly, sir?”
The dark-haired man placed one large fist on the desk top. “Did he bring a saloon girl up to his room?” he inquired, his deceptively soft voice taut with impatience. “Did he gamble with anyone local? Did you see him in the dining room with anyone?”
The clerk licked his lips. He peered at his questioner with something more than obsequiousness: from Annabel’s angle he looked positively frightened.
She edged closer, curious, wanting to hear.
“Well?” the big man demanded harshly.
The clerk swallowed several times before speaking again. “No, sir, I didn’t see him with anyone—leastways, not that I can recall,” he squeaked. Then his eyes lit with sudden relief. “Oh, yes, there was one fellow. The blacksmith—Will Chatham. That young fellow bought Will dinner one night—they sat right over there, yessir, they did. Will’s livery is down at the end of Main Street, if you ...”
But the big man had already muttered a low “Thanks,” and turned quickly away, wheeling right into Annabel with such force that she was knocked backward. With lightning-like reflexes his arms shot out and gripped her, preventing her from falling.
“Where in hell did you come from?” he demanded, scowling in irritation.
Caught off guard and distracted by the overwhelming strength of those massive corded arms, Annabel blurted out the first words that sprang to mind. “From St. Louis,” she blathered, and immediately felt absurd.
A vivid blush heated her cheeks. To cover her error, she added with an acid tang, “A city where gentlemen take care to avoid crashing into ladies with whom they are not acquainted.”
But the handsome giant was not crushed by her setdown in the least. He had the audacity to grin, a mocking, distinctly unpleasant grin that set Annabel’s teeth on edge. “Do they crash into ladies with whom they are acquainted, ma’am?” he asked with the soft menacing purr of a tiger, and as he spoke, Annabel felt his fingers tighten like rawhide bonds around her flesh.
She opened her mouth to reply indignantly, but for a moment no words came out for it was dawning upon her that she was caught in the grip of the most intimidating-looking man she had ever seen, a man as strapping as Hercules, and as rude as a bear, a man clearly not about to release her until he was good and ready.
Fear and fascination tingled through her. Some of the investigators at the Stevenson Agency were hard-looking characters, men with toughness and experience who knew how to track down and apprehend dangerous criminals, but in terms of danger, none of them could compare to the aura of deadly menace that emanated from the man before her.
Hercules would be a fitting name for him, she decided. Yet for all his brawny muscularity, she had noted a litheness as well as strength in his movements. He was undeniably, magnetically attractive, if one liked dangerous men, which Annabel assured herself thankfully that she did not. Those unrelenting black eyes of his made her shiver. And it was not a comfortable feeling, not in the least.
He must be a gunslinger or a bounty hunter, she thought, staring up at him in dazed silence. Beneath his hat, his features were rugged and stern. A hard mouth, an aggressively jutting jaw that suggested both tenaciousness and strength, a straight, no-nonsense nose. Perhaps most significantly, there was the keen, glinting intelligence in his eyes, an intelligence which would make him a formidable adversary. All the harsh planes and angles on his face somehow combined into a compellingly handsome countenance, but his was a rough, deadly beauty, formidable as a boulder carved of granite.
Handsome or not, dangerous or not, she could hardly stand here like a ninny and allow him to imprison her like this. Since it didn’t appear that the intimidated clerk was going to come to her aid, she had better extricate herself.
“Kindly let me go,” she requested in the coolest, haughtiest tone she could muster. “I am certain you have much better things to do with your time than to engage in nonsensical conversation, and so, sir, do I.”
His mouth twisted into a cold smile so derisive it could only be interpreted as a sneer. “Damned right about that, lady.” He released her, gave one mocking doff of his hat, and strode past. The next moment he was gone through the door without a backward glance, letting it slam insultingly behind h
im.
“Who was that man?”
The clerk’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat as he leaned toward her, his narrow string tie dangling against his limp white shirt and jacket. “That was Roy Steele, ma’am. The gunfighter. You don’t want to get in his way. He’s on someone’s trail.”
“Obviously. Why?”
The young man, thin and prissy in his dusty dark suit, shook his head warningly. “Don’t know, and don’t care. You shouldn’t either, ma’am. He’s dangerous—there’s no one deadlier with a gun, not even Red Cobb or Wyatt Earp. And Steele has a real mean temper. I sure wouldn’t want to be in Mr. Brett McCallum’s shoes right now for all the silver in Nevada. That nice young greenhorn is as good as dead.”
“Did you say Brett McCallum?” Dread tore through her. “Is that who Steele was asking about?”
“Yes, ma’am, but ...”
“I’ll be back shortly. Watch my bag, if you please.”
She darted outside just in time to see the gunslinger striding up Main Street, no doubt toward the livery. She followed, moving nimbly behind him at a discreet distance, her skirts and reticule gathered in one hand. Dear Lord, she thought, watching the smooth purposeful grace of his stride. It looks like Brett has two gunfighters after him: first someone named Red Cobb, and now this horrible Mr. Steele. She couldn’t help the apprehension tightening her lungs. From all she had seen and heard, this Roy Steele was not a man to take lightly ...
At one point he paused and glanced back and Annabel had the uneasy feeling that he sensed he was being followed, but she quickly stopped and peered into the window of the feed store, behaving as if the sacks and barrels inside contained the most fascinating goods she could ever hope to see. After a moment, she casually glanced over her shoulder and noticed that Steele had disappeared.
Dodging past a dandified gambler in a richly ornamented silver vest, who looked far too prosperous for this grim godforsaken little town, she headed for the blacksmith’s stable and crept around to the back. Sure enough, there was a door. And it was open.
Annabel slipped inside, moving as quietly as a mouse beneath snow. It was dark inside and smelled strongly of horses, manure, and saddle leather, but after a moment her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she saw the horse stalls with a few animals feeding inside, and saddles, tacks, and various tools hanging above the benches that lined the walls.
Up front she could hear voices. She inched forward as her eyes slowly adapted to the dimness, taking care not to let the floor squeak beneath her feet.
“What in tarnation do you want with him?” a young man’s voice demanded angrily, but Annabel could hear the uneasiness beneath his outward belligerence. She edged closer to the door.
“Reckon that’s my business, Chatham,” Roy Steele replied in a hard tone. “Answer my question.”
“Well, I reckon anything Mr. McCallum said to me that night we had dinner was my business,” the blacksmith shot back. “Now get out of my place.”
“How do you know Brett McCallum?”
The blacksmith was silent for a moment before answering. “My pa used to be foreman in his father’s flour mill in St. Louis years ago. We met once or twice when we were kids—and he recognized me when he was passing through town. I sold him a horse. He bought me dinner. That’s all I know.”
“Where’d he head when he left Justice?”
“Can’t tell you that. Don’t believe he mentioned it.”
Annabel heard a sudden sharp hiss of breath.
“Maybe this will trigger a memory,” Steele said softly. And peering around the corner of the horse stalls, Annabel saw that Steele was now pointing his gun at the blacksmith’s head. “I’m going to count to three.”
“You’re bluffing!”
“One ...”
“What ... what do you want with him?”
“Two ...”
“Steele, damn you, no!”
“Three ...”
“He headed for Eagle Gulch!”
Steele nodded. “What kind of horse did he buy?”
“What? Oh.” In the pale orange glow of the twin kerosene lanterns hanging on the wall, Annabel saw the young blacksmith grimace. Sweat glistened on his round, fleshy face. “A sorrel gelding,” he muttered in frustration. “Good stock.”
Steele holstered the gun in one swift, fluid movement. “Much obliged. But there’s one more thing. Don’t tell anyone else where McCallum has gone.”
Chatham shook his head in bewilderment. “You mean someone else is tracking him besides you?”
“Could be. So if anyone asks—anyone—give a false answer, my friend, or I’ll come back and kill you myself before you even know I’m there.”
“I won’t ... say a word,” the blacksmith croaked.
Steele, after regarding him intently for a moment, turned on his heel and stalked from the stable.
Annabel waited, pressing back against the stall. She heard the blacksmith return to work, swearing under his breath, and then she eased her way to the rear door and out once more into the quickly falling dusk.
But as she rounded the corner of the building, heading back toward the hotel, she suddenly collided with a rock-hard wall of sheer male muscle looming directly before her.
“Ma’am.” The harshness of Roy Steele’s voice raised gooseflesh on her arms. She tried to answer in kind.
“Mr. Steele.”
“You know my name.”
For the second time since she’d met him, Annabel felt the hot blush warming her cheeks, but she recovered smoothly. “Why, yes, the clerk at the hotel mentioned it. May I pass, please?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Mr. Steele ...”
“You’re not going anywhere until you answer a question. Why are you following me?”
“Following you? Mr. Steele, you obviously have an exaggerated sense of your power over women. I assure you I am not ...”
“You are.”
She shook her head and let a light laugh trill from her lips. “Well. If you aren’t the vainest man I’ve ever met. Merely because I happen to find myself in the same vicinity as you twice in one day—to my own regret, I assure you ...”
Icy fury clamped down over his implacable features. “Stop prattling. Answer my question or I’ll ...”
“You’ll what? Shoot me? Oh, heavens, I am quite shaking in my boots!”
Annabel was amazed at her own audacity. Truth be told, she was shaking in her boots; her knees rattled quite humiliatingly beneath her serviceable traveling skirt. But she kept her face schooled into an expression of outraged scorn. If there was one thing she hated, it was a bully, and Roy Steele was nothing but a bully, she assured herself.
A bully who looked as if he would like to wring her neck. He reached out one hand and for an agonizing second Annabel thought he was really going to choke her, but he only gripped her by the shoulder. “If you weren’t following me, lady, what the hell are you doing in this alley? A little while ago, I saw you behind me on Main Street, pretending to look in a shop window.”
“You’re quite mad, Mr. Steele. Quite mad. And if you don’t let me go this very instant ...”
“Steele! Freeze!”
A voice like hell’s own thunder roared through the alley. Annabel and Steele both spun toward it.
Annabel’s eyes widened at the sight before her. Good God, not one, but two vicious-looking gunmen glared at them from less than twenty feet away.
They must be outlaws—or gunfighters, Annabel guessed, fighting back a rush of faintness. Her heart was banging against the wall of her chest like an Indian war drum. She’d never seen such dirty, unkempt, savage-looking men.
Unshaven, their faces pockmarked and tough as buffalo hide beneath their stringy brown hair, they looked like the type of men who would as soon wring a cat’s neck as pet it. They both wore long greasy yellow dusters over dirt-stained pants and cracked boots that were torn and splattered with mud. One man was taller than the other, with even tinier, beadier
eyes. Annabel noted in alarm that his gun was drawn and pointed straight at Roy Steele. The other man had a long mustache and a scar looping from his cheek down across his pointed chin. They bore a startling resemblance to each other: the same long gangly build, the same flat, squashed noses, the same aura of evil radiating from them, right down to the expression of leering hatred on their faces.
“Who are they?” she whispered to Steele, swallowing past the lump of fear in her throat.
“The Hart brothers. Outlaws. Reckon they mean to kill me.”
“In that case, I think I’ll be going,” she murmured, but as she took one tentative step away from him, the taller gunman fired off a shot that scattered pebbles near her feet.
“Don’t neither of you move none!” he ordered. His brother spat into the dirt and grinned at Steele.
“Steele, you son of a bitch, I’m gonna blow your damned head off.”
“Or else I will!” his brother vowed.
The gunfighter answered with a cool laugh. “You reckon so, Les?”
Annabel could scarcely believe her ears. There was no mistaking the icy nonchalance in Steele’s voice. Peeking over at him, she saw that there was no fear on his face. Not a trace of it. Only a sneer of contempt. She drew in a deep breath though her lungs were tight with fear. Glancing at the other two men, her heart sank. The hatred on their faces had hardened with his cool words and arrogant demeanor. Steele, she thought and it was almost a prayer breathed in the late afternoon stillness, you’d better be good. Damned good.
Chapter 4
“You kin wipe that smug look off your face, Steele, ‘cause we got you now, and you know it,” Mustache crowed with glee. “You knew we’d get you for killing Jesse. Wal, your time has come. You’re going to hell where you belong.”
Steele kept his gaze riveted on the men, but spoke to Annabel in a calm, offhand tone. “I’d get out of here if I were you.”
“H-how do you suggest I do that?”
“Run.”
Run. Run away and leave him there to face these cutthroats alone. Well, why not? He certainly seemed able to take care of himself, and he was hardly her concern. Yet Annabel hated the idea of dashing away like a scared rabbit before these two ugly lumps of vermin. “I never run, Mr. Steele,” she murmured, her gaze fixed warily on the Hart brothers all the while. “It’s so undignified ...”