by Jill Gregory
Cobb was pleased with the cigarillo, and with his own little plan. This job would be over right soon now, and he’d managed to figure out how to give himself a fine little bonus. Just the thought of it, and of that pretty red-haired investigator, put him in the mood to celebrate.
* * *
Pearly lavender dusk limned the distant mountaintops as Annabel made her way back to the hotel. Her mind spun with various questions and possibilities. Who in the world was this Lucas Johnson, and why had he hired Red Cobb to kill Brett?
At least she had been able to alert Mr. Stevenson so that he could investigate Johnson—and inform Ross McCallum what she’d discovered. It wasn’t a bad piece of work, but she didn’t have time to congratulate herself. She was too busy wondering if Cobb had already left for Prescott, or if he was waiting until morning. The latter notion chilled her to the bone. At all costs she must keep Roy Steele from crossing paths with Cobb tonight. If she had indeed succeeded in throwing Cobb off Brett’s trail, there might never be occasion for the two men to meet. They’d never have to find out who was faster, who would remain standing, breathing, while the other one died in the street. She and Steele would locate Brett while Cobb was on a wild-goose chase in Prescott, and by the time the gunfighter realized what had happened they could all be headed out of New Mexico, and she and Brett could be on their way home—with Red Cobb too far behind to catch them.
“Been waiting for you. Where’ve you been?”
Annabel stared guiltily at Roy Steele as he rose from the single chair in the lobby to greet her. Dear Lord, he looked handsome. She was struck once again by the rugged charisma of his good looks, by a powerfully virile masculine beauty that had much less to do with perfect, even features than it had to do with iron strength and hard experience. A combination of competence and tough resourcefulness was reflected in the rough, handsome planes of his face. Why, it burned right out of his onyx eyes, seeming to graze her with a lightning-bolt slash of fire. Clad in a. light blue linen shirt and dark trousers which accentuated his powerful physique, with his gun belt as always slung low across his lean hips, he looked arrogantly nonchalant, but ready for anything—even a duel with Red Cobb. She quaked beneath his piercing eyes, convinced that Steele could see straight through to her soul if he wanted to, and that was most disconcerting, especially under the circumstances.
“I ... I was ... just ...”
He frowned as the bright flush stole into her cheeks. You were just up to no good, he decided for himself, and wondered what the hell she’d been doing now.
You’ve got a real sneaky side to you, Miss Annabel Brannigan, which I don’t much like. In fact he hated it because it meant he couldn’t trust her. And he’d had his trust betrayed enough in the past to last a lifetime. But he did like the way she looked in that dress. Sweet, fresh, lovely as a mountain flower, and she smelled like flowers too. Lilacs, maybe ...
He jerked himself back from the pleasant stupor of her looks and scent. The lady was about to tell him a lie, a whopper. He knew by the way she was moistening her lips ...
“I had a sudden urge to buy myself a bonnet to match this dress.” There was that winning smile and that pretty shrug of those slender shoulders of hers. “The one I had was quite crushed in my carpetbag—I believe Aunt Gertie’s diary was pressed down upon it, and the flowers were ruined. Brett does love me in bonnets with ribbons and flowers.”
“So where is it?” he asked, just for the hell of it.
“What?”
“The bonnet.”
“Oh. I couldn’t find one.” She rushed on. “There isn’t a millinery in town ...” She prayed this was true. “And the mercantile had nothing like what I had in mind—you know how sometimes one pictures a certain item and nothing else will do ...”
“Right.” He took her arm. “Let’s eat.”
“Oh, no, we can’t.”
There were a half a dozen people eating in the Last Chance dining room, and the smell of boiled ham and roast venison and some kind of rich soup filled the air with an aroma which made her stomach ache. She was famished, and no doubt Steele was too. It had been considerate of him to wait for her, and he had cleaned himself up immaculately, too, she noted, eyeing his fresh shave and neatly brushed black hair, and the shine on his boots, but if they ate down here in the dining room, Red Cobb just might walk in that door for his evening meal, and then all of her careful plans would be ruined. And Roy Steele would surely end up outside in the street, facing Cobb, going for his gun ...
She grabbed his shirtfront. “I must talk to you. Alone. Privately. In my room.”
He studied the voluptuous curve of her parted lips. She was so close to him that the lilac scent of her filled his nostrils with sweetness. “Ahuh. Can’t it wait until after supper?”
“No, it can’t. It’s urgent, Steele. Private. We’ll order a tray sent up and eat there.” Her eyes lit and glowed more gray than green as she offered forth this suggestion. “Wait here. I’ll arrange everything.”
And she put a hand to his arm for just a moment before sliding past him and approaching a waitress on her way to the kitchen. The warmth of her fingers tingled even after she’d left his side. It amazed him how she could be stubborn and irritating one moment, and irresistibly charming the next. A dangerously persuasive, utterly bewitching woman if ever he’d met one. He watched her talk the waitress into honoring her unusual request, saw her nod and smile and press a gold piece into the woman’s palm, and was amazed that the sight of her sashaying back toward him made his heartbeat race. What was Annabel Brannigan up to now?
Only one way to find out, he reasoned. He followed her up the stairs and waited until he was inside her room before speaking.
When the door was shut behind him, he leaned against it.
“Now, then.”
“Yes?” She was hurriedly stuffing items back into that damned carpetbag of hers. He got another glimpse of lace drawers, a glance at a silk stocking, saw that diary of her aunt’s, and then she zipped the whole damned thing up and pushed it under the bed. But he noticed that a photograph of Brett had been set in a prominent position on the maple bureau.
For a moment, his gaze rested on the face of that dark-haired, grinning young man.
Then he shifted his attention back to Annabel. “What’s this all about?” He shook his head. “You’re acting loco, even for you.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. Steele, what a charming thing to say.” She chuckled saucily at him and he fought the urge to seize her in his arms and kiss that adorable mouth which seemed to mock and beckon him all at the same time.
“Talk, Miss Brannigan.”
The glow in her eyes deepened with amusement, turning them suddenly more green than gray. “Why, Mr. Steele, can’t you call me Annabel on a regular basis even after all this time?” she murmured. “We are now so well acquainted that it seems positively absurd for you to avoid my given name.”
“You’re stalling!”
“I am not.”
“Why supper up here? What is so private, so personal that you have to talk to me alone right now, right here?”
Relentless, obstinate man! Annabel turned away so he wouldn’t see her desperation as she fumbled for something plausible to placate him. Her thoughts whirled, selecting and discarding several possibilities all in the space of a moment. The next thing she knew Steele’s hands were on her shoulders, turning her to face him so that she was forced to look directly up into his eyes. Time was up.
“Talk,” he said again, ominously, but this time, unlike that time in Lily’s room, his words didn’t fill her with fear. It was as if a mask had dropped away and the Roy Steele that everyone else saw was no longer the one she saw when she looked into his eyes; she saw beneath the cold facade, the merciless curl of his lip, and knew that the man before her would not harm a hair on her head. The world outside this room might cower at the sight of the deadly gunslinger Roy Steele, but she only felt a strangely warm affection flowing like molten honey th
rough her veins. She wanted to reach up and stroke his cheek and laugh into his beautiful, darkly glinting eyes.
“Well ...” she began and took a breath.
“Go on.”
“I ...”
A knock sounded at the door.
“The food!” Laughing, she darted out from his grasp like a deer under a thicket and pulled open the door. “My, doesn’t everything look delicious.”
He had to admit that it did. There was beef stew and potatoes, fried chicken and venison in thick gravy, along with big plump biscuits swimming in butter. Steele pulled two little chairs up to the small table beneath the window as Annabel poured steaming coffee into cups.
It was hard to believe a slender female could put away so much food. He watched incredulously as she took her third helping, her enjoyment of the hearty meal obvious. He wondered suddenly if she would throw herself into lovemaking with the same gusto as she threw herself into her repast. There was a sensual warmth and earthiness about her which, layered upon her pert femininity and that curious blend of stubbornness and charm, made him want to taste her everywhere, her silky peach skin, her delectable mouth, the delicate pulse beating at her throat. She was lightness and musk, sweetness and steel. And being alone in this tiny room with her, in clear sight of that damned bed, was doing strange things to his thinking, not to mention certain parts of his body.
He took ahold of his coffee cup and gulped at the strong black liquid, burning his throat. But it helped him to remember who he was and all of the reasons why Annabel Brannigan was off limits to him.
And it would help even more to turn his thoughts onto another subject, to get down to business. He set down his fork. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve been up to while you were gallivanting around looking for bonnets?” He watched her pause in the act of helping herself to another biscuit, and her eyes focused alertly on him with the cool appraising intelligence he was beginning to know.
“Of course. Does this mean you plan to tell me?” She set the biscuit down on her plate untouched and waited for him to answer.
Steele hesitated. This would upset her. Hell, it upset him. But she had a right to know. “Seeing as it concerns you, I reckon I should,” he said quietly. “We’re setting out at first light for New Mexico.” He leaned back in the chair and went on quickly, keeping his tone steady and impersonal. “Seems the woman Brett was traveling with lives on a ranch there, south of Magdalena. Her name’s Conchita Rivers. According to one of the bartenders here in town, Brett was in the place getting drunk not too long ago, and talking about some trouble the lady’s been having with a big cattle company that wants to run her off her property. It seems he answered an advertisement to work for her; he’s going to be fighting off the outfit that wants to get rid of her.”
Annabel had gone very still, and the color ebbed from her cheeks. She said nothing, just sat there while her coffee grew cold, watching him with those wide, vivid eyes.
Steele stood up, pushed back his chair, and stalked to the window that overlooked the narrow main street of Silver Junction.
“They were headed to the lady’s ranch when they passed through town,” he said grimly, watching the nearly deserted, dusky street. “The bartender said they were looking for some more men to back them up in the fight. Didn’t sound like they found many.”
Annabel felt ill. She jumped up from the table and tossed her napkin down beside her plate. “Brett is risking his life for this woman? Why? How can he hope to help her?” She pressed trembling fingers to her temples and shook her head. “He’s a good shot, but he’s no match for a gang of hired gunmen. He’ll be killed!”
“Maybe that’s what he wants.”
“What are you talking about?”
He reached her in two quick strides, and put a hand beneath her chin, tilting her head up. “When a man chooses a fight like this one, he’s either desperate for money ...”
“Which he’s not.”
“... or he’s a fool, doing it out of a sense of honor or maybe love ...”
He paused, as if waiting for her to refute this, but Annabel said nothing. It was possible Brett was in love with this woman, she reflected miserably. The idea filled her with hopelessness.
“Or,” Steele continued grimly, “he’s looking to die.”
Dazed, she shook her head. “Brett doesn’t want to die. He has so much to live for. I know there was some kind of a problem with his father, but surely that wasn’t enough to make him do something so foolhardy.”
“You’re certain you have no hint what happened between them?”
“I wish I did,” she muttered.
“Strange that he wouldn’t have come to you and talked over whatever was bothering him, or even have let you know he was leaving town for a while.”
She flushed beneath his intent gaze. “Well, he ... didn’t.”
“What kind of a man runs out on his fiancée?”
The condemnation in his tone cut her to the quick. Brett was the most decent, honorable, gentlemanly man she’d ever known. He didn’t deserve to have Roy Steele think he was a weakling who ran out on the woman he was going to marry. Tell him, a voice inside Annabel shouted. Tell him the truth ... that Brett is not your fiancée, that yes, you love him, but you were hired to find him. Brett didn’t run out on you at all, he simply ran away, like his brother. Tell Roy Steele right now and set everything to rights.
“There’s something you should know.”
“Yeah. I’d like to know why you hustled me up here so quickly. And where you really were while I was out scouting information.” The cloud that had come over her expression when he’d talked about Brett, and about the woman from New Mexico, stabbed him clear through. It made him angry. Angry at Brett and at her—and at himself. His armor went up instinctively, and he reacted by roughening his voice and his attitude.
“You’re holding back on me, Annabel, and I don’t like it. You’ve stalled long enough.”
Her mouth fell open. “That’s twice now that you’ve called me Annabel.”
“What?” He scowled. “What if I did? That’s not the point. The point is ...”
“The point is, if you’d stop talking long enough I could explain something to you. It’s about Brett ... and me ... you see ...”
But suddenly he couldn’t bear to hear her sing Brett’s praises, couldn’t stomach the idea of hearing about her undying love, and the devotion that had always existed between the two of them. He turned away. “It’s none of my business.”
“Yes, it is.” Annabel grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back. He allowed himself to be pulled toward her. “Listen to me,” she blurted out. “And don’t interrupt. I think you should know that ...”
But doubt, and the piercing look in his eyes, halted her in mid-sentence. What if he gets angry that I lied to him about being Brett’s fiancée? What if he’s furious that I’m working for Ross McCallum to find Brett? He didn’t sound overly fond of the man or the way he’s made his fortune. What if he decides to leave me here and find Brett alone?
He would do it, too, Annabel realized, remembering how implacable Roy Steele could be. After all, if I’m not betrothed to Brett, I have no claim on him, and Steele could easily try to dump me here and go off alone to save Brett’s life. Of course, I’d try to follow him, and he’d get even madder, and we’d be right back where we started.
Don’t chance telling him now, something inside of her warned. You’re too close. And he’s too unpredictable. He’s finally accepted that the two of you are partners of a sort, but if he finds out that you’ve been lying about your connection to Brett, he might turn his back on you faster than you can blink.
“I’m getting mighty tired of these games, Annabel. If you have something to say, just go ahead and say it.”
“I ...” She took a gulp of air and hurried on, retreating from the larger truth at the last moment, hoping he’d settle for the smaller one. “I lied to you.”
“About what?”
“I wasn’t really shopping for a bonnet.”
“Never figured you were,” he said dryly.
“I was sending a telegraph message back to St. Louis—I had to let Mr. McCallum know I was getting close,” she rushed on, blushing only a little, for this was basically the truth. “And ... there’s something else ... something important. I saw Red Cobb in town tonight.”
“You what? Where?”
“At the telegraph office.”
“And you’re just telling me now?”
She sidestepped this comment and explained about the message she’d overheard from the clerk, and her own idea to divert Cobb’s search to Prescott.
Steele raked a hand through his hair. “So Cobb was hired by an hombre named Lucas Johnson? In St. Louis?” He shook his head, puzzled, then quickly fixed her with a hard stare. “Why in hell didn’t you find me and let me take care of him once and for all?” he demanded.
He seemed so frustrated and bewildered she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I wanted to protect you,” she mumbled.
Struck dumb by this explanation, he was silent for nearly a full minute. “From Cobb?” he asked disbelievingly. “Sweetheart, you are loco ...”
“No! I knew exactly what I was doing! If you’d known Cobb was here in town, you’d have fought him, and it would have ended in bloodshed and death ... possibly your death ...”
Her voice cracked and trailed off. Steele stared at her as if she had just sprouted wings and flown around the room. “Why should you care?” he asked slowly.
She drew in a ragged breath and tried to sound offhand. “Well, perhaps because Cobb would then have a clear path to killing Brett.”
“That’s all?”
“And you did save my life ... more than once. I guess I owe you something ...”
“Owe me ... so you feel gratitude toward me, is that it? Well, don’t.”
Something oddly bitter beneath his cool tone made her heart turn over. And suddenly she sensed a terrible pain in him, and it anguished her as strongly as if it were her own. She clutched his arms and pulled him closer and he let himself be pulled.