McCrory's Lady (10 page)

      
Her father's eyes. Maggie swallowed the lump in her throat. “Eden, I can't—”

      
“Let's discuss this in private, if you don't mind,” Colin said. The whole place was filling up with sleepy-eyed whores and Mexican servants, even a smattering of local shopkeepers on their way to work. Herding the two women ahead of him, he followed them upstairs, past Fletcher and into Maggie's private apartment, the scene of last night's debacle.

      
Maggie seated Eden on the settee, then poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the pier table. Both women looked at Colin expectantly, Eden with imploring hope in her eyes, Maggie with angry contempt, damned if she would make this any easier for him.

      
As he paced, he finished fastening the last buttons of his shirt. He'd run out half dressed when he heard Eden's scream.

      
“Could we please have some coffee?” he asked Maggie. “I need to talk to my daughter alone if you don't mind.”

      
Nodding silently at Colin, she smiled at Eden. “I'll be back in a few minutes.”

      
When the door closed behind her, Colin resumed pacing. “Eden...I know Maggie's been kind to you, but—”

      
“She understands, Father, the way only another woman can. A woman who's been through...what I have. I know the respectable women in Prescott would shun her if they knew about her past—but what do you think they're going to do to me?”

      
“You're not like her, Eden.”

      
“Yes! Yes, I am like her, only Maggie's honest and above board about what she used to do. Now, she wants to start over—and she could—if you'd help her. She's beautiful and well educated. She looks and acts like more of a lady than any of those women in Prescott you've kept company with over the years—not to mention that she's a whole lot smarter.”

      
God, she was matchmaking! “Everyone will treat you decently when we get home. You don't need her, Eden. You have a fiancé who loves you.

      
She shook her head in desperation, wishing she had the courage to tell him the truth. “No, everyone won't. I'm ruined and I'll never marry Edward Stanley. Even if he were willing, his mother would put a stop to it after the gossip starts up—and it will. I'll be alone. I'll have no one who understands without Maggie.”

      
He sighed in frustration. “Eden, we can't just keep her at Crown Verde like a...a paid companion. She'd refuse.”

      
“And I wouldn't blame her, especially after she's given up everything here and left Mr. Fletcher. I've watched the two of you together. I think you find her attractive, don't you?”

      
She looked at him with eyes now wiser and more sophisticated than her tender years should ever have allowed.

      
Colin swore silently, unable to deny it. “Yes, I find her attractive.”
For a whore
. But he couldn't say that to Eden—not in her present vulnerable condition. And he was afraid she was right about the scandal once he brought her home. If word of her abduction ever got out, it did not bear thinking about.

      
Eden pursued her small victory relentlessly now. “So, I was right. And, even though she won't admit it after the way you treated her last night, Maggie's attracted to you, too.”

      
He cast a surprised look her way, irritated with her woman-of-the-world demeanor. “Presently, I rather doubt that,” he replied dryly.

      
“You're both being mule-headed fools—but I bet Maggie would see some sense if you'd start to treat her right.”

      
Guilt for his nasty, wounding words last night came back to smite him anew. He did owe her an apology. “I can offer my apologies to her, Eden, but that won't change anything. She can't just come to live with us.”

      
“She could if you married her,” Eden said triumphantly.

      
He blanched. “She told you,” he accused in a low deadly voice.

      
“Told me what?” Eden asked, clearly baffled.

      
Colin sighed and folded his long body into Maggie's ridiculously delicate slipper chair. “Before she'd take us to where Lazlo was holding you, she made me a deal—marriage in return for her help.” That should disillusion Eden about the marvelous Miss Maggie Worthington!

      
“And you agreed—then welshed, after you'd given your word?”

      
Maggie’s very words, making it sound as if she were the aggrieved party! “No! I mean, well, I offered her a very sizable cash settlement in return for breaking the agreement.”

      
“Of course, she refused.”

      
“Of course,” he snapped.

      
Now her eyes were doleful. And silently accusing. “She doesn't want your money, Father. There's something between you. And if you leave her behind now, we'll all lose—you, Maggie...and me.”

      
“You really want this, even knowing that she tried to blackmail me into marriage? That she runs a whorehouse?” He leaned forward in the chair, his eyes locked with hers.

      
“Maggie's had to struggle to survive, but she risked her life riding into that canyon with you. If she forced your hand that way, well, it only proves my point. She does feel something for you.”

      
Colin looked at the mulish set of her jaw, yet saw beyond that to the haunted, almost feverish longing in her eyes. He had played his last ace—and lost. Maggie chose that exact moment to return, carrying a tray laden with coffee and freshly baked bread.

Chapter Five

      
Maggie surveyed their faces, his in rigid profile, Eden's turning to smile at her like a daisy reaching toward the sun. “If I've interrupted, I'll leave,” she said, setting down the tray on the tea table in front of her settee.

      
“No. Please stay,” Eden replied. “Father and I have said all that we should to each other. Now, I think it's time the two of you talked.” With that she swept past Maggie and out of the room.

      
Maggie poured a cup of thick black coffee and handed it to Colin, knowing from the time spent camping along the trail that he drank it without cream or sugar. She stirred a dollop of cream into hers and sipped in silence.

      
Colin took a manful swallow of the scalding liquid, then clutched the cup in both hands and regarded her over the rim with troubled amber eyes. “I owe you an apology.”

      
She set her cup daintily on the table. “Did Eden force you to say that?”

      
Her expression seemed faintly amused and it irritated him. “No, she did not. I was angry last night and I let my temper get the better of me.” And he was letting it get the better of him again. Maggie Worthington had that effect on him. When she said nothing, he took another swallow of coffee and added, “I told her about our bargain.”

      
Her eyes clouded now. She had not meant for Eden to become involved in their private little war. “Eden's been hurt enough already, Colin. I'm sorry I had a part in her further disillusionment.”
You did not need to tell her about it.

      
“She thinks we should get married,” he said flatly.

      
“What?” That was the last reaction she expected. “I—I would have thought she'd feel crushed by my bargain with you. That she'd never want to speak to me again.”

      
Colin laughed mirthlessly. “Quite the contrary. She thinks you a paragon for refusing my bribe.”

      
“I never meant to use her, Colin. You must believe that.” There was entreaty in her voice, but she knew he did not believe her.

      
“What's done is done. You were right. She needs you right now, not me.” He stood up and walked over to the window, rubbing the back of his neck with long brown fingers. Then, he turned to face her and asked, “Will you come with us? At least as far as Tucson? Maybe by then...”

      
She could see the father's love in his eyes, shining forth so strong. She could also see despair and fear, never for himself, but for Eden.

      
“You may be the only friend she has left if word of her abduction gets out,” he added.

      
Maggie nodded. “She would be ostracized. Have you given any thought to a story? Some explanation for almost a month's disappearance?”

      
He shrugged helplessly. “Only my housekeeper and foreman know—and Blake, but I trust him.”

      
“So do I. He'd never do anything to harm Eden,” she said, remembering the way the half-breed's eyes sought out Eden's pale blonde beauty and the restive way she seemed to be responding to him, perhaps a good omen. “Could you say she'd been visiting relatives back East or in California?”

      
He shook his head. “I have no family in the country and my wife's people are all dead now. No one would believe that...” His voice trailed away.

      
“I'll go back with you and Eden.”

* * * *

      
Preparations for the long ride back to Crown Verde took an extra day. With two women in the party, Colin decided to hire on two extra guns. The quiet older man was Fulhensio Rosa, a Mexican pistolero with a ready smile and an enormous waxed mustache. The other, an Anglo from somewhere in the South, was named Beau Price. Fletcher had secured him through mutual friends. For some reason, Maggie took an intense dislike to him, although she had never met him before Bart introduced them.

      
Well provisioned and armed to the teeth, the small party was ready to set out at dawn. Maggie lagged behind in the Silver Eagle, looking at the garish nude over the bar and the gaudy fixtures with their crude kerosene chimneys suspended from the ceiling. So many years of her past were tied up in this place.

      
“What lies ahead for you, Megs? Did you and McCrory patch it up? Are you really going to get all boring and respectable now?” Bart Fletcher walked down the steps slowly, clad in a robe of quilted satin, carrying a cup of coffee resting delicately in its saucer. He raised the cup in mock salute to her and sipped, then set it down on top of the flat newel post.

      
“You never get up before noon, Bart. I'm honored,” Maggie said fondly, choosing not to answer his questions about Colin.

      
He smiled. “It was a trial...but then so is losing you. I could scarcely let you ride out of my life without a last farewell.” Taking her hand in his, he raised it to his lips and kissed, first the back of it, then her open palm, holding it against his bearded cheek.

      
That was how Colin saw them as he walked through the doorway. “It's past time to ride, Sassenach,” he said.

      
Bart released her hand, feeling the quick snatching movement of her arm pulling back at the sound of McCrory's voice.

      
“So that's the way it's to be,” he whispered softly to Maggie. “Don't let him hurt you, Megs.”

      
To Colin he said nothing, just stared with the ice blue eyes that had unnerved many a poker player in a high-stakes game over the years. The Scot returned his look through shrewd, hostile eyes. They nodded to each other in understanding.

      
“Good-bye, Bart. Take care of yourself,” Maggie said. “I'll never forget you and I'll always be grateful.”

      
“
Hasta luego
, Megs,” he replied. He waited until she was almost out the door, then called after her cheerily, “I'm selling the Eagle. Who knows? Maybe, I'll turn up in Arizona one of these days myself…”

      
Colin grimaced but said nothing as Maggie walked beside him to where the others were waiting. He would always believe the worst about her and Bart. Sighing to herself, she admitted that her former partner had not exactly helped matters since meeting Colin McCrory. Odd that she had the feeling he had known Colin before, perhaps a long time ago; but the Scot gave no indication of ever having seen Bart before she introduced them.

      
Looking excited if a bit nervous, Eden smiled at Maggie, who positioned her horse beside the girl's mount as they rode out of San Luís. The streets were deserted save for a few stray dogs whose yipping broke the silence of dawn. The small cavalcade wended its way down the long, narrow street as the purple shadows of dawn shortened and golden light broke over the horizon. Maggie Worthington never looked back.

* * * *

      
The late afternoon heat pounded down on them relentlessly, bouncing back off the pale, parched earth like light reflected from a mirror. An occasional gust of dusty wind would relieve the oppression, drying the sweat to their sticky skin, providing fleeting illusions of the cool that would only come with sundown.

      
Maggie and Eden rode together, talking about the past and the future, getting to know one another. Maggie explained her mixed emotions about leaving Bart, and Eden described her life growing up on Crown Verde. Neither of them broached the broken marriage bargain between Maggie and Colin.

      
“It sounds as if you had a wonderful childhood on that big ranch. Eileen O’Banyon must really rule the roost—even if your father and Riefe Cates did spoil you,” Maggie said teasingly at one point.

      
Eden smiled as she rubbed her neck with a wet kerchief. “Everyone always jumps when Eileen cracks the whip, even Edward, but he's always been used to a woman running his life.” She stopped suddenly and glanced over at Maggie.