Lawman Page 15

  All the evidence he’d gathered indicated theft by someone at the station. Logic suggested the man who reportedly held the sole in-transit strongbox key, Joseph Kearney. Circumstance pointed plainly to the same man, who’d hot-footed it to Tucson with the money, just one step ahead of the Pinkerton men in pursuit. If Kearney’s sudden, unexplained absence from the station wasn’t a strong suggestion of guilt, Gabriel didn’t know what was.

  Like every other Pinkerton detective he knew, he based his cases on a combination of experience, intuition, and fact. The first two told him he was on the trail of the thief—the last demanded he find proof of it.

  When McMarlin left today to search the station, with luck he would turn up Joseph Kearney’s missing strongbox key—or the original shipment instructions from the Tombstone mine foreman. Those instructions had dictated that they be signed and included with the shipment as verification of transit. Their absence in the strongbox implicated Kearney as strongly as the foreman’s accusing letter to the Pinkertons had.

  Somewhere, the manifests existed to prove that the stolen money had passed through Kearney’s hands last. They would be easy to find, Gabriel would wager. Harder still would be finding the man himself, at least if yesterday’s battles proved typical.

  He wanted to get on with it. Filled with impatience, he looked toward the dining room’s entrance again…and found himself nigh spellbound by the sight that greeted him there. Megan Kearney, outfitted in some sort of frothy blue dress and another of her bauble-bedecked hats, caught sight of him at the same moment and strode purposefully toward his table.

  Her body, Gabriel realized as he watched, was every bit as contrary as the woman herself. Despite their buttoned-up confinement, her breasts bounced gently as she moved. Her hips swayed with an allure that should have been at odds with the stabbing progress her frilly parasol made at her side…but wasn’t.

  The vision in blue stopped at his table, bringing with her the mingled scents of rosewater, hotel-provided coconut soap, and a goodly dose of dress starch. Smiling with pleasure at her arrival—surely he’d gone daft to be doing such a thing—Gabriel absently traced his fingers along the folded creases in the wanted poster lying on the table before him.

  As though drawn there by his movements, Megan’s gaze fell upon it. “I see you like to begin your morning’s allotment of devious plotting straightaway, agent Winter,” she said. She smiled sweetly and seated herself beside him with mock companionability. “I hope it gives you indigestion.”

  If it did not, her quarrelsome morning mood likely would. Evidently, sleeping in irons didn’t agree with her—and she intended to let him know it. Why he should care what Megan thought of him, Gabriel didn’t know. All he knew was that he did—and he wanted it to stop.

  Slowly, deliberately, he rolled the wanted poster and tucked it inside his coat pocket. “I hope it leads me to your father. Or had you forgotten I have a job to do?”

  “A job?” She lifted her arched brows in mock surprise. “If tracking an innocent man like a beast, destroying his family and livelihood, and dragging his name through the mud constitutes work, then half the outlaws in this territory ought to consider themselves gainfully employed!”

  “I have no doubt they do. Some of the most industrious men I’ve known have been criminals.”

  “Hmmph. Perhaps their influence has rubbed off on you.”

  Gabriel smiled. “You consider me hard-working, then?”

  “No, dishonest.” Megan twisted sideways to stab the hooked end of her parasol over the back of her chair, then picked up her folded linen napkin. She whipped it open, all but polishing the end of his nose in the process.

  “I suppose it’s not terribly surprising,” she went on blithely. “A person can hardly be expected to spend all his time dealing with outlaws, and not become at least a little bit like them.”

  “I might say the same of you.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. Spoken aloud, the thought grew new roots. If Joseph Kearney were a criminal, could his daughter be innocent of that fact? “You said yourself that you and your father were close.”

  “Stop talking about him as though he were already gone!”

  He gave her a cat-and-mouse smile. “Isn’t he?”

  “No,” she said stubbornly. “He is not.”

  “Then you know where he is.” Gabriel leaned forward, urging her without words to come closer as well. He lowered his voice. “Give over, Megan. Let’s have this finished between us, and go on to finer things.”

  She looked away, as though fortifying herself against his words, his intimate tone, his cajolery. “I can’t imagine what you’re suggesting. And I don’t need you or anyone else to tell me what to do. I’m a woman fully matured—”

  “I can see that plain enough.”

  “—and I’ll do as I like. I don’t intend to rely upon anyone, agent Winter. Least of all you.”

  With her pronouncement finished, she raised her chin. Her spirited brown eyes dared him to oppose her. Without wanting to be, Gabriel found himself at once intrigued and aroused by her fighting spirit. No mealy mouthed miss was Megan Kearney. The man who won her heart—and her body—would have to fight to claim both for his prize.

  He’d also have to be daft as a post and lacking in both reason and self-preservation.

  Hiding his grin, he vowed to avoid all those hazards—and to win her cooperation in spite of it. Strong-willed though she was, Megan had it in her to compromise. He knew it after last night.

  Sensing her weakening, even if only a little, Gabriel pressed his advantage harder. “Tell me where to find Joseph. It’s the right thing to do—the thing I would do in your place.”

  Her expression turned truculent. “For my father’s sake, I’m glad your lack of loyalty is not contagious. I have faith, agent Winter, even if you do not.”

  Frustration welled within him. He’d never known anyone more damned immovable, more senselessly determined to shove starry-eyed belief where it didn’t belong. Didn’t she understand? Faith could waver. Faith could die. Faith could vanish in a moment. Facts never would.

  “No. What I do not have is more patience for lies,” he ground out. “Where is he?”

  “You can’t seriously imagine I would tell you.”

  Her killing glare ended their conversation abruptly. In an excellent imitation of a woman dining alone, Megan picked up the folded newspaper at the edge of their table and snapped it open.

  Brought short by her sudden withdrawal, Gabriel stared at the printed Arizona Citizen headlines facing him. The sight of them did nothing to improve his state of mind. The newspaper, the same one he’d seen before encountering Megan in the alleyway last night, only served to remind him of their meeting…and all that he’d said while he held her.

  Meg, Meg.

  He wanted to groan at the remembrance. What had possessed him? At the sound of her struggle with McMarlin, he’d been struck with a fear unlike anything he’d ever experienced. And at the feel of her warm, curved body in his arms, he’d been blasted with an emotion too uncontrollable to deny.

  Lust, he told himself. Nothing more. Most likely, Megan had felt it, too. It was the only explanation for the way she had lingered in his arms.

  Why else, when they were enemies?

  For an instant, when she’d accepted his comfort so eagerly, Gabriel had felt tall enough to snatch real stars from the sky. Proud enough to kneel at her feet to give them over. But reality had returned when she’d asked him to say again the endearment that had slipped from his lips.

  Meg, Meg.

  Damnation. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Not on a case. Not ever. And he swore now that it never would.

  Shaking his head, Gabriel stared across the table at Megan’s fingers clenched tightly against the Citizen. Doubtless she felt more comfortable behind several inches of newsprint and animosity than she had with only the easily shed clothes and honor that had stood between them last night.

&n
bsp; She slanted him a glance across the top of her newspaper. He’d had kinder looks from men in irons being dragged to jail. In no mood for more games, he scowled straight back.

  She sniffed and went back to her reading.

  Inexplicably, his mood softened toward her. His wariness, on the other hand, remained. If she’d held a knife at that moment, he had little doubt she’d use it—to escape from him, if nothing else. Grimacing, he slid her heavy silver butter knife from her place setting nearer to his. What had possessed him, to spend his time in Tucson with a she-devil like Megan Kearney?

  His case, Gabriel remembered, and issued her a level look. If he hoped to enlist her cooperation, he couldn’t go on tussling with her.

  He forced a stiff-feeling smile to his face. “In any case, sugar, the wait was worthwhile. You look beautiful.”

  “Hmmph.” She put down her newspaper in preparation for further battle and then tossed her head, making the doodads on her hat wobble. “You needn’t bother wasting your Irish blarney on me. Your flattery can hardly turn my head, now that I know what you’re really about, agent Winter.”

  “Gabriel,” he reminded her. “And I haven’t a speck of blarney in my nature.” He smiled at her obvious, open-mouthed skepticism. “It’s more than flattery when it’s true.”

  In the midst of reaching for the coffee pot, Megan paused. Only inches away from the gleaming silver handle, her fingers trembled—and beneath her hat’s gaudy brim, her brows snapped together. Whether because of flattery, truth, or something else, the lady was not as unaffected as she wanted to seem.

  Pressing his advantage, he said, “It’s true, Megan. You’re a rare sight to behold.”

  And a handful to reckon with.

  No sooner had he made the observation than she whisked her hands beneath the white linen tablecloth and folded them in her lap.

  “Stop. Just stop!” Megan raised her pleading gaze to his. “Save your sweet talk for someone more gullible than me. I’ll not believe a word of it.”

  To his shock, he saw that tears shimmered unshed in her eyes. They captured the light from the dining room’s crystal chandelier, splintering it with pain. In the moment before Megan looked down again, a kind of defiant hurt hardened her expression.

  Dumbfounded, unable to see her face clearly while she kept it downturned, Gabriel stared instead at the silk flowers and bows at the crown of her hat. He could have sooner named all the geegaws spread before him than he could have made sense of her reaction.

  How could it be that their sparring troubled her less than his compliments did?

  Her response confounded him. It was, like her, contrary above all—and nigh impossible to deal with.

  He’d wounded her somehow. He didn’t know how, or why, but all at once Gabriel wanted to steal the sadness from her soul. He yearned to replace it with something real and lasting and glad.

  The notion that he wanted nothing so much as to make Megan happy astonished him. It had to be some trick of their closeness yesterday—and all through the night, thanks to their shared handcuff bonds. It had to be some form of madness, specially spun by a woman set on deceiving her way past the Pinkertons and Gabriel alike.

  It felt like madness and more. But the tears in her eyes were real, and so was the unaccountable impulse he felt to wipe them away.

  Gabriel touched her chin, urging her face to turn toward his. “Why can’t you believe it? The evidence is here in my hands. I’d rather see your face frowning at me—” She wrinkled her nose with irritation. “—than any other face lit up with joy.”

  It was true, he realized. God help him. He wanted Megan Kearney, and no other woman would do. Though she hadn’t seemed precisely beautiful to him at first, now Gabriel couldn’t begin to remember why.

  Her eyes widened. He felt the renewed tremor in her fingers as she raised them to his wrist. Belatedly, he realized she was trying to wrest away his hand.

  He didn’t want to let her go.

  After a moment, she jerked her chin away. Blinking rapidly, she delivered the rebuke he should have expected…but hadn’t.

  “A lie for every occasion.” She smiled thinly. “How resourceful of you.”

  Remembrance struck him. Compared with her poisonous tongue, the kick in the shin she’d given him when they met had been nothing at all. She had more defenses than an army’s fort, and better weaponry than all the Pinkerton operatives combined.

  Too bad she hadn’t mustered those defenses for the sake of something—or someone—worthwhile. Admirable as it was, Megan’s continued support of her father was misguided as hell. She’d be better off to recognize it.

  And Gabriel would be better off to remember it.

  “Do you think I’d be a spinster,” she went on, “if I were really as attractive—”

  “—beautiful.”

  “—as you say? Everyone knows a man wants beauty and obedience in a wife, agent Winter, and I can muster neither. Not that I should care to,” she added quickly.

  Her moods changed with the swiftness of odds at a gambling table, and with just as little predictability. Typical of a woman…but maddening as hell. If he emerged from this case with his wits intact, Gabriel figured it would be a miracle. Still, he was willing to go along with her apparent lightheartedness—especially since she’d stopped crying—and to go on arguing in her favor.

  “Beauty and obedience? You possess at least one of those qualities in abundance.” Grinning, awash in a sense of relief he refused to consider more deeply, he filled her cup with coffee and replaced the silver pot in its place. “The other can be obtained easily enough.”

  “Conveniently said, for a man with shackles in his pocket.” Megan frowned into her cup, as though imagining it filled to brimming with arsenic along with the steaming Arbuckle’s he’d poured. She spooned in some sugar, then shrugged as she stirred. “With accoutrements like that, your success is assured.”

  “I plan for it to be. In all things.”

  “Not if I can help it.” She removed her spoon, then sipped her coffee and smiled. “Mmmm. That’s better, thank you. I never feel quite right until I’ve had my morning cup.”

  “Obviously.”

  She pulled a face at him over the rim, but with her next sip Megan’s expression turned downright pleasure-filled. The golden brown hue of her eyes mirrored her appreciation, as did the subtle blush warming her cheeks. Fascinated, Gabriel propped his elbow on the table’s edge, put his hand in his palm, and watched her.

  With tantalizing slowness, she licked her lips. “As for the other marriageable quality,” she went on, waving her fingers airily, “that can be managed, too. Quite successfully. In fact, I believe it’s worked its deception on you already.”

  “It has?”

  “Yes.” Looking self-satisfied, Megan settled into her chair and regarded him with a smirk. “Otherwise, you would never imagine me beautiful.”

  “I think I would.”

  She shook her head. “It’s only my skill that makes you believe such a thing.”

  “Your skill?” This ought to prove enlightening.

  “Yes. My skill at dressmaking. It’s the only possible explanation.” Her smirk widened into a prideful smile as she replaced her coffee cup in its saucer and then spread her arms high to the side, baring the lace-bedecked, high-buttoned bodice of her gown to his view. “I made this very gown, in fact, and altered my parasol to match.”

  “And your hat, as well?” Gabriel guessed.

  She nodded and touched her hat’s brim. “Yes, that too. I enjoy a bit of millinery now and again, but only as a sideline. For some reason, there’s not the same demand for my hats as there is for my dresses.”

  As though wondering over the reason, Megan frowned briefly. Gabriel decided he’d be better served not to point out that her hats would make fine playthings for parakeets, or for old ladies’ housecats. Instead, he kept his mouth shut.

  In truth, he was becoming almost fond of her ridiculous headgear, except for
the fact that it hid her hair—and oftentimes her face—from his view.

  He wondered what she’d look like with her dark hair unbound and free. Last night she’d refused to loosen her hair beyond the long plait she’d uncoiled one-handed from the back of her head, too filled with fury at his handcuffs to indulge Gabriel’s offer to unbraid it for her.

  Now, he looked at the knot of freshly bundled hair at her nape, and wondered what it would feel like to sift his hands through its glossy length. He imagined it would be soft and thick, long enough to spill across a man’s pillow, or caress his arms and chest while he held her close.

  Not that he’d fall prey again to such a dangerous, addle-headed move himself. Their nearness last night could never be repeated—especially while Megan was awake to recall it.

  “You sell your creations, then?” he asked, hoping to turn his thoughts in a new, less temptation-laden direction.

  To his surprise, she nodded. This dressmaking venture of hers was something Gabriel hadn’t learned of during his preliminary investigations. It would explain much about her headstrong nature, though, if she really were engaged in business for herself—unlikely as the notion seemed.

  “Yes, I do.” Her eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. “I have for some time now, although orders are a bit hard to come by when I spend all my days at the station. Ladies are a bit scarce there, as you recall.”

  He thought of the giant, taciturn station hand Mose, and all the men working in the yard behind him. “That’s true.” He poured more coffee, and sipped. “But you’re a grown woman, as you said. You should leave, and set up shop in town, where business is plentiful.”

  Her lips turned downward as she idly twisted her coffee cup in her hand, for all appearances piqued at being offered advice. Knowing Megan, she was.