Lawman (34 page)

"Demanded the best." She'd meant to say it
as a question. But even as the words left her mouth, Megan realized
she had no such uncertainties about the Pinkerton man's competence.
Indeed, that was what made him such a formidable foe.

"Yes. And I mean to see that the best gets
delivered."

"Will you tell me your client's name?" she
asked. "I believe I have a right to know which of our express
customers leveled such an accusation against my father."

"No. I cannot."

He meant he would not. "Not even if I claim
it as my second question? Not even if I demand the truth you
promised?"

Gabriel's lips tightened. "Are you claiming
it?"

Suddenly weary of battling with him, Megan
shook her head. She focused her senses on the feel of his hand on
hers, still stroking, and on the warmth of his strong body beside
hers, still protectively near, and briefly closed her eyes. How she
wanted to lay aside their differences, and explore all that sat
right between them instead!

"I'll not use my final question so
carelessly," she said. "Not when there's still every chance I'll
find my papa in time."

Drat those gambler friends of her father's,
for putting Joseph Kearney, and herself, in danger now! Not even
the one man who had hauled her from the fountain earlier—a Tucson
blacksmith she'd recognized as one of her papa's long-time Faro
partners—had been willing to tell her the secret location of their
game. Nor had he heeded her pleas to reveal the secret signal for
tomorrow's match.

Instead, he'd merely melted into the crowd
once he'd seen her safely pulled free. The last Megan had seen of
him was his broad back, disappearing toward the Faro game in which
her papa might already have lost her entire nest egg money.

At the thought of her hard-earned savings
being lost in such a way, increasing urgency filled her. Maybe this
task really was too big to be taken on alone, just as Addie had
said. Maybe she did need help, Megan thought. The kind of help a
man like Gabriel Winter could easily provide.

"Find your father in time for what?" Gabriel
asked. "It's not as though his guilt will turn real with the next
full moon. All wishful thoughts aside, the facts will not
change."

And neither will the time I have
magically lengthen itself
.

Suddenly decisive, Megan looked into his
face. "When you arrived at Kearney Station, I was on my way to
town, remember?"

He nodded. With a bemused smile, he traced a
path upward from her gold locket to its chain, then around the edge
of her dress's neckline. "Have I kept you from some woman's errand?
Shopping for lace or shoes or a dozen new hats? You'll need one
after tonight."

She shifted her gaze to the pathetic clump
of fabric and notions on the bureau near the balcony doors. Once
her favorite bonnet, it was now a ruined testament to the desperate
measures she would take to save her papa.

"Not precisely a woman's errand."

"Mmmmm. Go on," Gabriel said. "I'm
listening."

But he wasn't. Not really. Megan's breath
caught as two of his fingers edged beneath the neckline of her
dress, then skimmed along its calico width. Gabriel's knuckles
grazed the bare skin at her throat and began working lower once
more. She slapped her hand over his and held him still, the better
to speak before she lost her wits to wanting him...and her will to
act as she'd decided was best.

"A daughter's errand, instead," she went on,
her voice far shakier than she liked. Because of what she was about
to reveal? Or simply because of his touch?

She couldn't risk her new resolve to wonder.
"Even before you arrived, I was going to find my father. He has
something I need, something I
must
have before the train
east leaves tomorrow night."

Gabriel looked up, eyes narrowed. "You're
headed east?"

"No." Megan saw his expression ease, and
knew a quick, sharp anger because of it. A part of him still
considered her a likely suspect in his case, she realized, and
wanted to keep her near if she was. "But my future is headed east
on that train tomorrow, unless I find a way to stop it."

"Your father is headed east?"

"No!" A frustrated sound burst helplessly
from her. "For pity's sake, Gabriel. Am I nothing but a scheming
suspect's daughter to you?"

Leaning forward, he shook his head and
raised his hand to cradle her jaw. Gabriel brought her closer. His
lips touched her mouth, her cheek, her ear...then came his
murmuring, husky voice. "You're far more than that to me. If you
weren't I'd be on the streets right now, hunting down that damned
Faro game until every color in the Territory looked brighter than a
dream."

His confession startled her. The feel of his
mouth against her neck excited her. The possibility that maybe,
just maybe, she had finally found someone to safely trust did both.
The thrill of discovery mingled with the terror of confiding in
someone for the first time. Megan quaked with the enormity of all
that Gabriel might mean.

And all that he might come to mean, to
her.

But for now, she needed to concentrate on a
future that waited more closely than Gabriel Winter did. "Jedediah
and Prudie Webster are getting on that train tomorrow," Megan said,
"and if I haven't given them what I promised by then, I'll lose my
best chance at a future I've worked for—dreamed of—for years
now."

Staring into the fire, she told him quickly
of her arrangement to buy the Webster's mercantile store for her
own—and of the temporary extension she'd arranged with them before
completing the deal. When she'd finished, Gabriel wore an
expression that looked remarkably near amazement.

"I might have known you'd finagle a deal
like that, rather than let them beat you," he said, sounding
impressed—and as though he fought back a grin. "I'd like to have
seen old Prudie's face when you did it."

Megan did grin. "It wasn't half so fine as
the sight of her face when she saw
you
together with
me
. I'll cherish that memory for as long as I live."

Suddenly she wished it could be more than a
memory. Wished that so much did not lay still between them. Wished
that Gabriel could simply be the man Megan felt powerfully drawn
to—instead of the man whose presence alone demanded constant
wariness.

But wishes weren't enough. One look at
Gabriel's face as he considered all she'd confided in him was
enough to tell her that. With a surge of foreboding, she watched as
he folded his arms and glanced sideways at her.

"What remains to complete the deal?" he
asked. "A re-written purchase agreement-your excuse for delaying
the sale—and what else? There must be a reason you haven't told me
till now."

Chapter Eighteen

Gabriel watched Megan fidget with her
necklace, her fingers twisting its locket and chain as she
formulated an answer to his question. He felt her reluctance as
keenly as he had felt her trembling response to his kisses
earlier...but in this, he could not muster the same patience. He
wanted to see this case to fruition. Have done with it once and for
all.

Know what the daughter of his suspect kept
hidden.

"Is this the first question of your two?"
Megan bargained. "Because if it is, as we agreed upon—"

"Yes. If you wish." Whatever would take the
haunted expression from her face. Whatever would bring the
differences between them into the open the soonest.

Frowning, as though determined to think
logically past his obvious impatience, Megan said, "There is a
reason I haven't told you this until now."

She kept her head high, her chin raised in
that ever-present defensive posture of hers...but her sad brown
eyes begged him to understand all she was about to reveal.

"I couldn't complete the deal with the
Websters. I still can't. The nest egg money I'd saved to buy my
dressmaker's shop with is here in Tucson, but I don't know where.
And I have only one more day to find it."

That explained her reason for confiding in
him. With a single day remaining to finish her purchase of the shop
she wanted, doubtless Megan was becoming desperate.

With a no-good knuck of a father like hers,
Gabriel couldn't blame her.

"Your father took it," he said. He wished it
were a guess. He knew it wasn't.

Tightly clasping her locket between shaky
palms, Megan nodded. "It's not the first time he's done so. When
papa finds my savings he takes it, all the while believing he's
doing me a favor."

"It seems cockeyed belief runs rampant in
your family."

She gave him a searing look. "Only as much
as a desperate need for belief runs in yours."

Gabriel winced. Her assessment rang with
truth. But now, more than ever, he wished it did not. Gazing back
at her, he couldn't help the wonderings that sprang to mind at the
sight of Megan's stiff, proud posture. She looked ready to fly at
him like a Fury. He had little doubt she would, at the least
provocation, if the offense was directed at those she stayed loyal
to.

What would it be like to be faced with the
mounting evidence of a father's betrayal, as she was, and still
come to his defense? What would it be like to know he was wrong,
and still aid him?

Which of those had Megan practiced—and was
practicing still?

"Sometimes he wins with the money, and
doubles my share," she went on. "Sometimes papa merely brings back
the same amount. Doubtless there have been times when I didn't
realize it was missing at all."

"Doubtless there have been times when he
returned nothing."

"Yes." She pushed to her feet and paced
beyond the firelight's reach, to a shadowy corner of the room. "I'm
afraid this might be one of those times."

To Gabriel, her fear seemed entirely
reasonable—and entirely unnecessary. On chilly bare feet he rose as
well, driven by a need to stay close to her. That need pushed at
him, as intense as the anger that had begun to pulse within him at
her first mention of Joseph Kearney's thievery. What kind of man
would steal from his own daughter?

The kind of man who would turn and run
from her as well
, Gabriel realized. He hadn't thought it was
possible to dislike Kearney more than he did. Now, he knew it
was.

Megan—trusting, loving, quick-witted enough
to keep a man at arm's length or bring him near with just a few
well-said words—seemed helpless in the face of her father's
maneuverings. She deserved better. She deserved the truth. She
deserved a means to put aside Kearney's failings, and get on with a
life of her own.

In all his operative's dealings, Gabriel had
seen many men like Kearney—men who would cast aside their family
and friends for the tumble of dice or the slick whisper of cards
being dealt. Hell. He'd grown up with his scrawny boy's arm slung
around a man who abandoned all he had for the numbing sweetness of
a lighted opium pipe. Gabriel held close no illusions about the
goodness of humanity...or of family.

But that didn't mean he wanted to see Meg's
belief destroyed.

He stopped just behind her at the partly
opened balcony doors. In the semi-darkness there, the lace curtains
trembled as Megan sifted her fingers through them. Watching her,
Gabriel felt his belly tighten, growing taut with the desire to
feel those fingers on his bare skin instead.

Her touch looked delicate, shaky. Gabriel
longed to restore the steadiness to Megan's touch, and to her
smile—but before he could, she needed to face the truth.

"And if he does lose it?" he asked. "What
then, Meg, if the money for your shop is gambled away before you
can stop your father?"

Her fingers plucked the lace into twin
knots. Her voice was a broken whisper. "I don't know."

"What if he's stolen your chance at a
future? What then?"

Megan's shoulders rose beneath a shuddering
breath. "I don't know."

Resolute, Gabriel hardened his words with a
relentlessness that experience had taught him would gain results
quickly. Harder still was ignoring the tear he glimpsed falling
onto her outstretched hands.

"What will you do," he continued, dragging
his gaze away from the single drop that glistened in the moonlight
shafting between the doors, "when Joseph is taken for his crimes,
and you're left alone?"

"I don't know. But I do know he is
innocent!"

With a vicious yank, Megan parted the glass
doors wider. Cool, earth-scented air rushed inside to ruffle her
skirts. It tossed her hair into wild silken strands, and scrubbed
her anguished face with the late-night chill. Washed in the
moonlight's shimmer, she stepped onto the balcony.

Gabriel watched her swipe fresh tears from
her eyes, and cursed himself for the man who had brought them.

"Perhaps he is innocent," he said, following
her outside. He brought his hands to her shoulders, wanting to wrap
his arms fully around her instead...but knowing too well how
unwelcome his embrace would be now. "But you are innocent to be
certain!"

Her shoulders lowered, then rose as she
grasped the iron balcony rail and gazed over the city. "Am I?"

Even so quietly voiced as it was, Megan's
question ripped through him. Did she mean to make a confession?

Did he care if she did?

Putting aside his damnable thoughts, Gabriel
bent his head. He rested his chin on her shoulder and looked over
the shadowed rooftops and snaking streets spread before them.
Somewhere out there, his quarry awaited. Somewhere out there,
Pinkerton operatives were trailing Joseph Kearney and the express
shipment they'd been dispatched to find.

But Gabriel had no desire to be with
them.

"Am I innocent?" Megan leaned back slightly,
her long hair spreading over his shoulder like a dark caress, and
aimed her question toward the starry skies above them. "You don't
believe I am."