Lawman (40 page)

"Yep."

"And Addie is a—a willing participant in
this?"

Mose grinned. "She's even taken to wearing
that pink bonnet with the gee-gaws on it you gave her last
Christmas."

This
was
serious. "But—but Addie told
me she was saving that hat for wearing when her own knight in
shining armor arrived."

"I guess she found him," Gabriel said,
taking her arm.

Too dumbstruck to protest, Megan let him
guide her to the shade at the church
plaza's
edge. She felt
faintly woozy. Sternly, she told herself this would be a very poor
time to swoon. There were things to be done. A strongbox to be
recovered. A father to be saved. A dressmaker's shop dream to be
rescued.

She leaned forlornly against
San
Agustín's
adobe face and stared up at Gabriel, remembering the
poster in his pocket.
A broken heart to get over
.

At least Addie had found someone to love.
Agent McMarlin was a good man—when he wasn't chasing a suspect.
This way, Addie wouldn't be left alone at the station when Megan
moved to town and started up her dressmaker's shop.

If she ever started up her dressmaker's
shop.

Just beyond her shady spot, Gabriel spoke in
low tones to Mose. She strained to hear what they said, and caught
little. Soon, the station hand turned away with a wave.

Solemnly, Gabriel held his hand to her. "You
should have told me you managed the station records yourself,
sugar," he said.

His voice sounded inexplicably raw.
Unutterably pain-filled. When his next words came, Megan finally
understood why.

"The fact that you do," Gabriel went on,
"and that you didn't tell me...well, let's just say my likeliest
suspect is no longer your father. Meg, it's you."

Chapter Twenty-One

He might have known Megan would set him
off-kilter somehow, Gabriel told himself as he pulled out a chair
for her at one of the tables that filled the tiny restaurant she'd
chosen. By rights, he should have been escorting her into one of
the dank cells at Tucson's jailhouse—not playing gentleman in a
restaurant bordering the
plaza
.

Nevertheless, here he was. Damnation, but
his alliance with Megan Kearney had turned him soft-headed for
certain. How else could he explain not arresting her on the spot,
once Mose had confided her role at Kearney Station?

Hell, no,
Mose had said, surprise
evident on his face.
It ain't Mr. Joseph who keeps the place
running a'tall. Miss Megan's been doing it all for years now, what
with her papa gone to town so much
.

It had to have been she who handled the
express shipment Gabriel had been hired to recover. It had to have
been Megan who'd diverted the Tombstone mine foreman's payroll in
transit somehow, and had sent an empty box on its way instead.

No wonder Kearney hadn't expected pursuit by
a Pinkerton man last night. He probably hadn't dealt in station
business since Megan was old enough to scrawl out figures and
sums.

He pictured Megan as she'd been at the
Celestial Kitchen
, sitting with her face upturned to her
myriad cut-tin stars.
I learned to count right in this
chair
, she'd said,
squinting up at my stars until I'd summed
up every one
.

Gabriel shoved away the image. Evidently,
she'd been a fast learner. Fast enough to learn thievery only a
short while later. All the facts pointed to that one, inescapable
conclusion.

Beside him, Megan seated herself in the
chair he'd selected and primly folded her hands in her lap. Gabriel
couldn't see much beyond the top of her head. He tried to content
himself with glaring down at her shining brown hair.

He failed. How could he glare at a woman who
had all-but turned him inside out with pleasure, just this
morning?

Filled with exasperation, his head churning
with unwelcome thoughts, Gabriel plunked down the heavy strongbox.
The table shuddered beneath its impact. Quick as a wink, Megan
started to rise and reach for the box.

This time, his glare succeeded. Gabriel
clapped his hand on her shoulder and held her in place. "Stay put.
I doubt the jailhouse has accommodations so luxurious as this for
questioning suspects."

"I'm no more a suspect than my papa is!"

He seated himself across from her. "You are.
Unless you can convince me otherwise."

Her answering expression ripped through him.
It bespoke exactly the kind of betrayal Gabriel felt right now. Had
Megan been merely playacting all this time? Pretending to care for
him, simply as a means to take him off the trail?

The need to answer that question kept him in
his chair, when he should have been hunting down a blade to pry
open the strongbox's measly lock. Inside the box, Gabriel expected
to find all the station's shipping manifests—including those for
the express shipment in question. Megan's signature on the document
would pinpoint her as the thief as neatly as a signed
confession.

Gabriel fingered the lock. He stared at the
battered wooden box it kept secure, and felt an unholy urge to burn
the whole thing as it came.

"I can't convince you," Megan said. Dry-eyed
and proud, she motioned for the serving girl, ordered something,
and then faced him again. "Not when you're this cold. This
disbelieving."

"Try me." He sat back and folded his arms.
Waiting.

"Fine." She turned her gaze from the images
in the
plaza
and the goings-on beyond the thick-paned window
next to their table. "I am innocent. I never saw the shipment you
named."

Gabriel remained silent. She raised her
eyebrows, and her hurt-filled expression seared through him.

"Convinced?" Megan asked.

"No." Christ, but he wanted to be! Was it
possible that another explanation lay beneath the ones he'd
unearthed, just waiting to be recognized?

"I didn't think so."

The serving girl returned, bearing a squat,
napkin-lined woven basket. She set it on the table next to the
strongbox, curtsied to Megan, and was away.

The aroma of chocolate wafted toward
Gabriel. With a bittersweet sense of remembrance and despair, he
recognized the precise brown squares in the basket.

Fudge.

Megan lifted a piece in trembling fingers,
and held it toward him. "For old times' sake?" she asked, gesturing
with the candy. "Surely you can question me and sweeten your
disposition at the same time."

"No."

Her eyes softened as she nudged the candy
closer. "At least let me keep one memory secure," she asked.
"Please?"

Hell. He frowned at the chocolate wobbling
in front of his nose. Whoever had made the stuff obviously had
poured in too much sugar. Doubtless that was what made his eyes
sting and water. Gabriel didn't know what else could make the
damned fudge waver in his vision.

He sniffed. Grabbed her wrist and
reluctantly tugged the candy closer. The first bite melted on his
tongue, leaving behind a grainy crunch of partly dissolved sugar.
That single taste was enough to remind him of their shared fudge
yesterday. Worse, it was enough to remind him of all he and Megan
stood to lose because of his investigation.

In a desperate bid not to show how weak the
remembrance made him, Gabriel folded his arms again. "It's
terrible."

A tear rolled down Megan's cheek. He cursed
whatever cold-hearted fate had cleared his vision in time to see
it.

Gabriel leaned forward and took the candy
from her hand, then held it toward her. "You'd better try some
yourself, just to make sure."

Her lips opened on a sigh. Fighting back the
feelings and memories her gesture called forth, he eased the fudge
closer. Watched her nibble a taste...and wished it was his body her
lips touched once more.

Megan's face puckered. "It
is
terrible!" She looked up just as he replaced the candy in its
basket, amazement and relief writ upon her face. "I thought you
were only saying that to be mean."

"Awww, Meg." With equal amazement, Gabriel
found himself reaching for her hands. He clasped their cold
softness in his, rubbing back and forth to warm her, and tried to
ignore the strongbox waiting beside their joined hands. "The last
thing I want is to hurt you. Don't you see? I need the truth. I'm
a—"

"—a listening kind of man?" she interrupted
quietly. "So you've told me often enough. Do you know something,
Gabriel? I don't believe you."

She withdrew her hands, leaving him bereft.
He stared at his empty fists in aggravating befuddlement, then
lifted his gaze to hers. "You don't believe me."

"No."

"Yet you'd believe your lying gambler of a
father, who'd—"

"My papa loves me!" she choked out, looking
startled at the sudden tears that accompanied her declaration.
Swiping them away fiercely, Megan went on, "Which is more than I
can say for you!"

Gabriel winced.
I do love you
, he
wanted to say. But if last night had been the wrong time to voice
his feelings, amidst lovemaking and tender words, then this
afternoon would be even worse.

"In the guise of love," he said instead,
"your father stole your savings. In the guise of love, he went on
to wager his livelihood and your own on a game of chance. Do you
know why he called for Mose to bring the strongbox to him?"

"I—I—"

"He needs the deed!" Gabriel banged the
table top hard enough to rattle the strongbox and basket of fudge
alike. "He's gambling Kearney Station on tonight's game. And your
damned 'belief' is going to let it happen."

She straightened defiantly. "Not if I find
him first."

With a strangled exclamation, he wrenched
off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. "You'll have a
damnable time doing that from a jail cell."

"No!"

The word was a mere breath of sound. Yet
somehow it had the impact of a fist. He looked up to see unshed
tears gleaming in Megan's eyes, and knew an unwelcome admiration
that she had not yet let them fall. Likely, she wanted to present a
brave face to her enemy.

To him.

"You wouldn't!" Megan said. "Couldn't. Not
when—"

"I should. I must."

Her fingers clutched his. "Please, Gabriel.
If I've ever meant anything at all to you—" Her voice cracked. She
blinked rapidly, and went on, "—then please don't do this. I didn't
take that money! There must be some other explanation, something we
haven't thought of yet."

"There isn't." Hell, didn't she think he
wanted another way out of this, too? "I've looked."

Megan breathed deeply. "Maybe you should try
listening instead. Listen with your heart, and tell me...do you
believe in me, or not?"

"Meg—"

"
Do you believe in me
?"

Gabriel wrenched his gaze from hers, unable
to bear the hopefulness he saw in her eyes any longer. "My whole
future is at stake. My livelihood, my reputation—"

"My dreams," she interrupted. Megan pressed
her fist over her heart, as though desperate to protect the hopes
for the future she held so closely inside. "My father, and my home.
Do you think I stand to lose any less than you do?"

He shook his head. "You're asking me to risk
everything on the kind of damned starry-eyed belief I've never had.
Never will have."

"Maybe you have it already. How will you
know if you don't try?"

"I know."

Gabriel gripped the table's edge, struggling
against the prickle of hope her words aroused. During their time
together, Megan had seen more deeply inside him than anyone ever
had. Was it possible she could be right? Possible he could
change?

"I know it the same way I knew no fudge
could ever taste so wondrous to me as it did yesterday, with you,"
he said harshly, staring into the basket of candy. "I know it
because facts don't change."

"People do."

He lifted his gaze to her naively
encouraging one. "Did your father change?" Gabriel asked.

She flinched at his bitter tone, then raised
her chin. "He may, someday."

"My father didn't. Not for my mother's sake,
or my sisters', or mine. Face it, sugar. Believing isn't
enough."

For a long moment, Megan looked at him.
Then, to his surprise, she pulled the basket of candy closer to her
and peered inside it. She frowned.

"The curious thing about this fudge," she
said slowly, poking at a piece as she spoke, "is how it could taste
so awful compared with the batch we shared yesterday. Especially
when the same woman made it."

He boggled at her sudden change in topic.
"What?"

Blithely, she went on. "I know for a fact
Hattie McDaniel brings her fresh candy to be sold at this
restaurant every morning." With an overly innocent expression,
Megan blinked up at him. "Isn't that curious? What do you make of
those
facts, I wonder?"

She'd guessed
. Gabriel didn't know
how, or why, or when—but Megan had searched out the truth of his
candy making at Hattie's house. Her knowing smirk made it as plain
as if she'd said the words.

He lowered his head to his hands, groaning
aloud. Would he never remain one step ahead of this woman?

Her cheery voice edged past his cupped
hands. "You seem to have a gift for sweets, Gabriel. When you leave
the Pinkertons, perhaps you can open a confectioner's shop. I'm
sure you would excel at it. After all, you're wonderful at most
everything else."

Bedazzled, he spoke through his hands the
question she'd led him so neatly to. "Everything except...?"

"Well, except facing the truth about
yourself, for one," Megan said. She pried apart his fingers until
he raised his head—to face her with what he knew was a dazed
expression. "You think you're fit only for detective work. But you
have so much more inside you. I believe in you."