Only My Love (22 page)

No one in Madison was enterprising enough to start a town paper so most of the news that reached the community came from the telegrapher's office and was passed by word of mouth. It was inevitable that someone always got the story wrong and just as inevitable that no one really seemed to care. Occasionally papers were brought in from Stillwater. The most reliable news came from Denver's
Rocky Mountain News.

There were several accounts over a period of time about the robbery of No. 349. It was a chilling experience for Michael to read about her own death along with that of her colleagues. She was never identified by name, only as a passenger from the East, with no mention of her work for the
Chronicle.
She supposed she should have been thankful for the anonymity that protected her, yet mostly she was just angry that the reporter hadn't gotten the story right.

There was something else about the accounts that bothered her, but the only conclusion she could draw from it was so fantastic, and so at odds with what she had witnessed with her own eyes, that it couldn't have been true. Yet as time passed, the more credible the incredible seemed.

"You're frowning."

Michael didn't raise her head, only her eyes. She looked at Houston over the rims of her spectacles. His face was cast in shadow as he blocked sunlight from the window behind him. "Was I?" she asked. "I hadn't realized." She glanced around the saloon. Dee wasn't at the bar, but Kitty was sweeping off the stage, and Lottie was practicing a new piece at the piano.

Without waiting for an invitation, knowing better than to expect one, Houston pulled out a chair and seated himself next to Michael. He nudged one of the papers Michael had in front of her and skimmed it briefly. "Where did you get these?" he asked.

"Ethan gave them to me. He said there was nothing in them I couldn't read. Is there some problem with that?"

"No, no problem. I can't see why you'd want to though. Reporters never get their stories right. Worse, what they don't know they make up."

There was a shade of bitterness in his tone that Michael had never heard before. "Is that why you wanted all those reporters killed? Did you hate them personally or was it principle in general? The only good newspaperman is a dead one?"

Houston drew back slightly, surprised by her effrontery. His cold black eyes narrowed as the line between his brows deepened. "You don't know a thing about it," he said finally.

Michael had half suspected he would hit her. He looked as if he wanted to. "Tell me," she said quietly.

He considered it for a long moment. "Some other time."

"All right." She saw that she had surprised him again by not pressing the issue. She also had no doubt he would eventually tell her. Michael knew she might have to advance her questions and then retreat a half dozen more times between now and then, but in the end she would know something important about Nathaniel Houston. "Would you like some coffee?" she asked. "There's some fresh back in the kitchen. It's no trouble to get it."

"Let's both go back."

Michael hesitated. She looked around the saloon again wondering who might be in the kitchen. "I'm not sure..."

Houston leaned back in his chair. "You don't like being alone with me, do you?"

"I... I'm not... no, I don't like being alone with you."

"At least you're honest." He placed his large hand over her wrist, stood up, and pulled Michael to her feet. "C'mon. I can smell that coffee. Besides that, I have something for you."

Michael frowned, wondering what he meant. She began gathering up the papers.

Houston held her fast. "Leave them. They'll be safe right where they are."

Michael obeyed reluctantly.

In the kitchen she poured coffee for Houston and herself. "Have you had lunch?" she asked. "There's some cold chicken here somewhere."

"Sit down. You don't have to wait on me like I'm one of the customers."

"No, you're the owner."

"Which means I can get whatever I want when I want it." He pushed out a chair that was at a right angle to his.

Michael ignored it and chose one that was directly across from him. "You said you have something for me."

He smiled, reaching across the table to flick back a curl that had fallen against Michael's cheek. Even before he touched her he realized she was steeling herself not to flinch. He hoped that what he had for her would soften her view of him. "You're as greedy as Dee," he said.

The criticism stung. "I didn't mean—"

"I know." He withdrew his hand and flipped it over, palm up, showing her it was no longer empty. "I have this for you."

Michael stared at an ivory cameo framed in gold filigree, not quite believing what she was seeing. Slightly dazed, she lifted one hand to her ear as if something else might appear. Her hand dropped away slowly. "It's my brooch," she said. "The one you took on the train."

Houston nodded. He reached for her hand and dropped it in her palm, then folded her fingers around it. "I meant to have it as a memento of a rather remarkable encounter. It seems unnecessary with you here."

Tears pricked her eyes. Michael told herself that she shouldn't be grateful for receiving something that was hers in the first place. She told herself that she should give him the sharp edge of her tongue. "Thank you," she said quietly. She bent her head, blinking rapidly as she fiddled with the pin. She felt Houston's forefinger under her chin, forcing her to look up.

"Here," he said, taking the brooch from her shaking fingers. "Let me." He came around the table and fastened it to the center of her high collar. "This is what you were wearing on the train."

"Yes."

His dark eyes slid over her briefly. "It suits you."

Michael was very much afraid he meant to kiss her. She ducked her head quickly. He stood there a moment longer, looking down on her bent head while her heart beat madly with fear and uncertainty, then rounded the table and returned to his seat. Michael grasped for any conversational gambit. "I've been asking Ethan if I could venture out in the afternoons," she said, the words fairly rushing out. "Has he asked you about it?"

"He's mentioned it. Ethan's busy in the afternoon. Who would you go with?"

"Dee?"

"I don't think so. Not often anyway. She's tired of playing nursemaid to you."

"You could always let me go alone."

Half of Houston's mouth lifted in amusement. "I don't think so."

"Then one of the other girls?"

"They don't understand the importance of keeping you close and I'm not taking them into my confidence."

Michael's shoulders slumped a little. "Then there's no one."

"No one besides me, you mean." He folded his hands around his coffee cup, warming them.

"I wouldn't want to bother you."

"It's no bother. I make rounds every afternoon. Talk to the folks, make sure they know I'm around if they need me. I'm not a bad sheriff, Michael."

He really believed it, she realized. As if taking care of Madison somehow compensated for the fact that he robbed trains and murdered innocent people. It was such an appalling concept that Michael was struck dumb.

"This afternoon, for instance, I'm free to escort you."

"It's my turn to work the bar."

"I'll talk to Dee."

"I don't think-"

"Talk to Dee about what?" Detra asked. She was standing on the threshold of the kitchen, two ledgers in the crook of her arm.

"I'm taking Michael out for the afternoon. She's been cooped up in here too long."

"You're a fool, Houston. She means to go the first chance she has and you're playing into her hands." Dee put her ledgers on the table and poured herself a cup of coffee. "What's Ethan say about you sniffing after his wife's skirts?"

Michael set down her cup. It clattered in the saucer, nearly covering the small choked sound that came to her lips. "I'll be at the bar."

"Get your coat," Houston ordered. "We're leaving now. I'll wait for you at the bottom of the stairs."

Michael fled the room. When she was gone Houston turned to Dee. "Your jealousy isn't flattering any longer, Dee. It's boring. I suggest you do something about it." He left the kitchen.

Detra stared after her lover. "I intend to," she said softly. "I fully intend to."

* * *

Ethan was lying on his back on the floor, his head cradled in the palm of his hands. Except for the dim light from the stove and the lamp on the bedside table, the room was dark. Michael was sitting up in bed, recording the day's events in her diary. Ethan read it regularly, usually when she wasn't around, and thus far had found nothing objectionable in it.

"Are you almost done scribbling up there?" he asked. "I'd like to go to sleep."

"So?" Michael leaned over the edge of the bed. Her spectacles slipped down her nose. "Go to sleep."

"Can you write in the dark?"

"Of course not."

"Well, I can't sleep with the lamp burning."

"I'll hurry."

"Please." He listened to her scribbling a little while longer. He was getting used to the sound, he realized. It was part of their nighttime ritual, just like taking turns with the bath, making up his bed on the floor while she brushed out her hair, or keeping the fire in the stove from going out. "Are you writing about your outing with Houston?" he asked.

"I suppose Dee told you about that?"

"No, Houston did. He must have been feeling generous today. Taking you out
and
giving you that brooch."

"Did he tell you about the brooch?"

"No, he didn't have to. I saw it lying on the bureau and I remembered that Houston had kept that part of the bounty for himself."

"It was mine in the first place. He took it from me."

"And he gave it back?" Ethan made a soft whistling sound. "He really
does
want you." He heard Michael's pencil scratching stop momentarily as she felt the impact of his words. Inside, Ethan's stomach was roiling. Houston was stepping up his pursuit. Putting up a credible front of indifference, Ethan asked, "Where'd you go on your walk?"

"Just up one side of the street and down the other," she said, her words clipped.

"What did you talk about?"

Michael waved her notepad over the side of the bed so he could see it. "Would you like to read it now instead of waiting for morning when you think I'm sleeping?"

"Know about that, do you?"

"You're not so very clever."

He wondered if she knew that he emptied his gun every evening. He didn't ask. "I don't want to read it now." He had come to enjoy reading her observations over a cup of coffee in the morning. She was witty and astute and gave a good account of the things she saw. She was also a fine writer. "Tell me about it."

Michael laid the pad and pencil aside and felt herself relax just thinking about the afternoon. "We were only gone for an hour, perhaps not even that long. Oh, Ethan, you can't imagine... just breathing the air... It was...
liberating.
I would have gone mad being trapped here another day. Houston was charming, of course. He put on his best face. You know, the gentle, solicitous one where he appears genuinely interested in what a person has to say. He introduced me to some of the respectable women in town. They were courteous, more so because of Houston, I think. Once they realized I was one of Dee's girls they removed themselves rather quickly from the conversation."

"What did Houston do about that?"

"The same thing I did. Pretended not to notice." Michael rolled over and turned back the lamp. "It's been an odd experience here in Madison," she said. "I've been treated respectfully most of my life. Unless someone knows my family very well, my own morals are never questioned. Yet here, because so many people think you'll eventually tire of me, I'm touched without my permission and propositioned several times a day. I'm sought by married men and snubbed by married women. Houston wants me and Detra wants to kill me." She sighed. "It's not an arrangement I would have asked for myself."

Ethan stared at the ceiling. "Don't you think I know that?" he asked, more to himself than to Michael.

Michael scooted closer to the edge of the bed. "Houston took away the Denver papers you gave me," she said. "He was careful not to let me think he'd done it, but he got me out of the saloon and into the kitchen and when I returned to the table they were gone."

"One of the girls probably threw them away."

"I'm sure that's what happened. I'm just as sure Houston engineered it."

"Does it matter? You've read the accounts before."

"Why did you give me the papers, Ethan?"

His tone became impatient. "I thought you'd be interested, that's all."

Hardly all, Michael thought, if her suspicion was true. "It was kind of you." She heard him grunt softly, either in negation or acknowledgement, then he turned on his side away from her, signaling the end of the discussion. "Good night, Ethan."

"Night."

* * *

Ethan watched Michael slip out the door before he sat up and jerked on his trousers and boots. He didn't bother with a shirt and shrugged into his coat instead, taking just another few seconds to check his bureau drawer for the bullets. They were still there. Michael had left with his empty revolver.