Dance With A Gunfighter (3 page)

"Of course I do." She smoothed the skirt of her
yellow dress. "But there’s no one I wish to dance with." Her chin
went up even higher to show him how little the dance mattered to her. She
walked a few steps away, hoping that would make it clear to this pesky stranger
that any conversation with him was ended.

McLowry watched her go, and only when her back was turned
did he allow the grin he had been fighting for the past few minutes, ever since
she had first raised that small, defiant chin in a gesture of complete bravado.
From the time she had struck the match and it lit up a gamin-like face with
huge dark eyes, a bow-shaped mouth and a straight nose dusted with freckles, he
had seen she was far too young and innocent for him. Still, he couldn’t help
but wonder what she was doing out here and what had her so obviously upset.

He had figured it out now. He recognized the symptoms, and
remembered enough of his own awkwardness as a youth to grasp the real story
here. He had bet anything the right boy hadn’t asked her to dance, or maybe
nobody had danced with her. He could see where boys her age might ignore this
girl.

She was pretty in an offbeat way. Her wide, brown eyes
were warm and friendly, eyes that carried her feelings right up front where the
world could see them. He guessed she was only fourteen, fifteen or so. Her body
was slender, but he could discern a budding woman’s figure. She carried herself
with a bold, sassy assurance that probably scared the boys she knew half to
death. Young men usually thought delicate, doll-like creatures were the only
girls worth pursuing. They had a lot to learn.

He had learned plenty about women and other equally
dangerous things in his twenty-three, or so, years. He had stopped counting a
long time ago. With all he had seen and done in life, he felt he should be
about a hundred.

He took out his tobacco and began to build a cigarette.
"What’s your name?" he asked.

"Gabe."

"Gabe?" He couldn’t stop the grin this time.
"I can’t see calling a girl by a boy’s name."

"Nobody’s asked you to."

Well, that put him in his place all right. "That’s
true."

"My full name’s Gabriella," she announced.

"That’s pretty." He lit his cigarette.

Her mouth tightened. "I gave a fat lip to the last
person who called me by it."

"I’ll keep that in mind,
Gabe
," he
replied with great seriousness.

Slowly, her mouth spread into a grin.

Fiddlers began playing a fast-paced quadrille. She
clutched one elbow and turned toward the music, a wistful expression flickering
across her face before she faced him once more. "Do you have a name?"
she asked.

"This week it’s Jess McLowry."

One eyebrow rose. "And next?"

"Depends on how much trouble Jess McLowry gets
into."

He watched her initial incredulity turn into amusement as she
gave him a sidelong glance, one that would have been flirtatious if it were
given by a woman a little older, a little more experienced. "I see."
Her voice was almost a whisper and sounded suddenly knowing in a way that
jarred him.

She was at that age where girls are an odd mixture of
child and woman, and changed from one to the other quicker than the colors
change in a desert sunset.

McLowry tore his gaze from her and looked up at the clear
night sky. He had been at a mining camp on his last job. Clearly, he had spent
too long there if a slip of a girl like this could give him pause.

The moon was full tonight and the stars bright. Night fell
suddenly in the desert. One minute the mountains and rocks were orange, gold
and red, and the next, the sun was gone and starlight turned the land a
glistening silver. People said desert nights could drive a man a little crazy.
McLowry figured maybe they were right.

He gazed in the direction of the music, then dropped the
cigarette and crushed it with his heel. It was time to head for the dance and
find himself a full-fledged, no-doubt-about-it woman, instead of wasting time
with this saucy-mouthed kid.

"Go ahead," Gabe said. "I don’t need a
chaperone."

His eyes snapped back at her. Had he heard right?
Chaperone? Up until now, he had always prided himself as being a reason for a
young lady’s chaperone--not as being one. The thought gave him a chill, as if
he had been poked in the gut by the finger of Old Age.

He cleared his throat and turned to leave, but as he did,
he noticed the yellow hair ribbon lying in the dust. She had tried to make
herself look pretty for these pudding heads, and ended up standing alone by the
stables. He stared at it a little too long before he glanced back at her--at
her firm chin and the defiant flare of her nostrils, at the hint of hurt and
loneliness in her eyes. Hell, she wasn’t his problem. He straightened his
Stetson. What did he know or care about young girls anyway?

The expression on her face as she gazed toward the dance
captured him. She wore the look of the outsider--the one who longed to be
included, but was too awkward, or too poor, or had spent too much time on the
wrong side of the law, to ever be accepted. He knew all about that feeling.

For some foolish reason he didn’t want this girl to see
herself that way. He didn’t want her to face that kind of isolation.

"Gabe," he said, sure he had lost his mind,
"would you walk back to the dance with me?"

Her eyes widened with astonishment. "What?"

He held out his hand. "May I escort you to the
dance?"

She stared at his slender, fine-boned hand--not the hand
of a working man or a cowboy. Temptation flickered across her face, but also
hesitation. "You’re just playing with me," she said finally.

He smiled, thinking about her tender age. "Not
likely."

Cautiously, she reached her hand toward his. He took hold
of it and could almost feel her let go of the breath she had held. The smile
she gave him dazzled, and he felt himself rocked by its force.

He stood absolutely still as he held her soft, slim hand
in his. He couldn’t remember the last time a young, innocent girl held his
hand. Her open, good-natured trust in him as she stepped closer touched
something deep within him. Something he had thought had died many, many years
before.

Using the manners he had been taught in another time,
another world, he shifted her hand to the crook of his arm and escorted her
down Main Street to the dance as if she were an elegant lady, and he, a most
proper gentleman.

Chapter 2

Gabe arrived at the entrance of the dance area holding the
stranger’s arm. Mrs. Zilpher gawked, her mouth open and her eyes nearly popping
out of their sockets. Gabe looked away, only to notice a number of other women
staring in her direction. All their attention, though, was riveted on the man
at her side.

She glanced up at him then, seeing him better now in the
lantern light. There was something angular and wary about him...yet with an
arresting quality that intrigued. His face was thin, his nose finely chiseled
and his cheekbones narrow and refined, not coarse and heavy like most of the
men around here. But it was his clothes that separated him the most from the
cowpunchers and ranchers Gabe knew.

A cream-colored shirt that looked like it was made out of
silk, a shiny black vest that hung open, and close-fitting black trousers gave
him the crisp, polished look of a gambler or--she remembered his tied-down
holster--a gunfighter.

Her breath came a little faster, and she pulled her hand
from his arm as if he were made of fire. Her pa had warned her about men like
him. They were drifters and no good, leaving broken hearts and destroyed lives
in their wake. Were she to listen to her pa’s advice, she would get away from
him fast. But then, he had given her no cause to do that. Quite the opposite,
in fact.

He faced her. His eyes were the pale blue of the hot
desert sky, a color she loved. Although his hair and brows were fair, his
lashes were dark and long. She dropped her gaze, suddenly feeling peculiar
about noticing a man’s eyelashes.

As he stepped up to the table to check his hat and gun
belt, she found herself peeking at him again. He was handsome, she had to
admit, even though he had laughed at her and he was kind of old. He even looked
older than her brother Henry, who was already nineteen.

Such nerve, though, to have teased her about beaus and
about kissing them! At the thought, her gaze leaped to his lips, his mustache.
Quickly, she averted her eyes again, her face burning. None of the boys she
knew had a mustache yet.

Only a couple of whiskers sprouted from Johnny Anderson’s
chin.

When the stranger faced her once more, her heart began to
beat so hard she was sure he could hear it. She expected him to say good-bye
now. After all, he had only said he would escort her here. She had been a thousand
times a fool to return, to let everyone notice that she was with him, only to
have him walk away from her without a single dance.

It would be less mortifying if
she
were to walk
away from
him
. She should leave now, right now.

Instead, she just stood there, feeling conspicuous and
awkward. She tried to find the words to tell him she was leaving, but they
didn’t want to form.

The fiddlers started up a rollicking schottische. With
hoots and shouts, couples hurried onto the dance floor. She stood stock-still
and watched them go.

He leaned close, his shoulder pressing against hers. She
nearly jumped out of her skin at his nearness. "Might I have the pleasure
of this dance?"

She felt the blood rush to her face.
Maht ah have the
playshah of this dance?
She didn’t think she had ever heard words so sweet.
She searched his eyes for signs of embarrassment, for any indication he was
asking solely because he felt some god-awful obligation to her. His gaze was
friendly, encouraging. She took a deep breath and from heaven-only knew where,
she found the power to nod.

He took her hand and led her toward the dancers. Facing
her, he placed one hand on her waist, and held out the other. Her arm was
leaden and her legs felt like custard as she lifted one hand to his shoulder
and settled the other in his grasp. His fingers gently closed on hers.

Now, close to him, she found she couldn’t tear her gaze
from his face. He looked nothing like other men she had been around. At home,
there was a book she treasured above all others. It had been her mother’s, and
it told glorious tales of handsome, elegant Greek and Roman gods leaving Mt.
Olympus to toy with the hearts of humans on earth. She wondered if one of them
might have landed right here in Jackson City.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She knew she could dance well, having been the unwilling
partner to her brothers who had practiced with her until they got up nerve
enough to ask a "real" girl to dance. Her problem was simply that she
had never danced with anyone other than family. She took an unsteady breath,
feeling more as if she were facing a gallows than a two-step.
"Ready."

"Let’s go," he said, then winked and spun her
around and around into the whirl of other dances. Concentrating intently, she
matched him, step for step.

"Not bad," he said. She glanced up at him in
surprise and pleasure at his words, and smiled.

The music sped up and so did McLowry. He used to dance
schottisches at family picnics and parties at neighboring plantations when he
was a little boy. It was a dance for young people and joyous times. He could
recall spinning round and round, while tilting back and forth, trying not to
get his feet tangled up with his partner’s and trying not to crash into some
other couple, yet at the same time laughing so hard it was inevitable something
would go amiss. Even as a boy, he was a hell-raiser, and it was a hell-raising
dance, which was why he didn’t mind when his mother would make him dance it
with a cousin or with his little sis.

With each fancy step and turn he made, this young girl was
with him. It had been years since he had danced with such a good partner, one
attuned to his steps and, to his surprise, able to keep up with every one of
them. Soon, he found himself caught up in her laughter, joining in as they
whirled, astonished that his good deed in asking an awkward young girl to dance
was actually fun. Fun...he scarcely remembered the meaning of the word. Looking
at her face and hearing her laughter brought back those days of his youth when
the world was bright and the future full of hope. He let himself remember and
pretend, for just the few moments of this dance, that he was home again.

Then the tune ended. He dropped his hands and stepped
back, away from her. He thanked her and was ready to escort her from the dance
floor when he noticed that the fiddlers had begun a waltz and that the other
couples had, without a break, continued to dance. It seemed the custom here was
to continue the set with the same partner.

He looked back at the girl. He could see her uncertainty
about what to do next, but he noticed her quick, wistful glance at the other
couples, the slight squaring of her narrow shoulders as she waited for him to
stop their dance here, in mid-set. He knew that would be an embarrassment to
her, but he really hadn’t come here to spend his time dancing with a too-young
wisp of a girl.

He touched his string tie. "Well," he said.

She rubbed her palms against her skirt. "Well,"
she responded.

He couldn’t just abandon her, though. What the hell.
Giving an uncomfortable glance at the people around him, he took her in his
arms again, holding her far from him. If anyone laughed at him for dancing with
this child, that person wouldn’t laugh for long. They began their dance.

Their steps carried them to the edge of the dance area.
McLowry felt the warm gaze of the girl. Freshness and purity shone in her,
purity untouched by bitterness and disappointment, untouched by the harsh
realities of life. Her future would be a happy one with a brood of kids and a
loving husband. She smiled shyly, and even in the dim lights he could see the
blush on her cheeks as her big, brown eyes peered up at him.