When The Heart Beckons (5 page)

Annabel had been able to think of little
besides the danger Brett was in throughout each stage of her
journey. Terrified that this gunfighter, Red Cobb, would find Brett
before she did, she had tossed and turned in tormented anxiety each
night in her Pullman car, and when she had left the train for the
stagecoach leg of the trip, she had stared out the window for long
tense hours, willing the moments to pass more quickly so that she
could reach Brett in time.

There was another reason for urgency, she
knew, something contained at the very end of Mr. Stevenson’s
report. But as her reflections turned to this additional troubling
aspect of the case, the stagecoach driver interrupted her
thoughts.

“You’ll want to stay at the Copper Nugget
Hotel right over there beside the mercantile.” He spat a runny
tobacco wad into the street. “The other hotel ain’t fit for a lady.
You sure about stopping here, miss, ‘stead of going on to Winslow
with the others? Justice is a rough little town.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll be fine, Mr. Perkins. Why,
Justice looks perfectly charming to me,” Annabel murmured as two
men crashed through the glass windows of the Thunderbolt Saloon and
fought in the street, rolling atop one another, arms and legs
flailing.

“I have business here, you see.” Annabel
shrugged her slender shoulders and flashed him a reassuring smile.
“So right now Justice is the only place I want to be.”

He tipped his hat to her respectfully. If he
had any questions regarding what business a pretty and
proper-speaking young woman in a serviceable gray twill traveling
suit and matching bonnet had in a bleak little town like Justice,
he kept them to himself. But he gave his head a shake as he
clambered back up onto the box. He’d long ago given up trying to
figure out most easterners and all women.

The air shimmered with late afternoon heat
as Annabel approached the hotel. She felt hot and sticky with
perspiration beneath her dark gown, and longed for a bath. Though
her hair was still pinned firmly in its tight chignon, she felt the
faint sheen of travel dust filming her cheeks and neck. How good it
would be to soak in lavender-scented water, to scrub her hair with
fragrant suds, to rinse away the grime of travel. Perhaps after she
had checked into the hotel and asked a few questions about Brett,
she would have a bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep.

She struggled to subdue the weariness that
tugged at her as she trudged up the steps. Fortunately, the only
baggage she had to carry was her carpetbag. It contained everything
she expected to need on her travels—everything except the small,
pearl-handled derringer she had purchased in Denver and which she
kept tucked discreetly inside her reticule.

But in her opinion, the most important
possessions stuffed inside the carpetbag were the small photograph
of Brett which Mr. McCallum had provided Mr. Stevenson, and the
thick file about the case, the entire contents of which Annabel had
by now nearly committed to memory. There was also an amber necklet
that had belonged to her mother, along with matching teardrop
earbobs, and her aunt Gertie’s worn old diary. Annabel had never
read the diary, but she treasured it, for along with a fine old
lace handkerchief, it was all she had left of that stout,
warm-hearted lady since she had passed on three years ago. Aunt
Gertie had been her only family since she was nine, and sometimes
at night in her bed at the boardinghouse Annabel’s eyes would fill
with lonely tears for the aunt who had taken her in when she was
orphaned and given her a safe and loving home. And she would swear
that now and then when the wind whirled in through the shutters of
her window she could still hear Gertie O’Flannery’s crackling voice
crooning the old Irish ballads she’d loved so well.

But as Annabel entered the lobby of the
Copper Nugget, she was not thinking of the past, of her happy
childhood in the great house on Maplegrove Street, but of the
future, of finding Brett and extricating him from whatever
difficulty he was in. A small bell tinkled overhead as she crossed
the threshold, and both the bespectacled clerk and the dark,
broad-shouldered man standing before him at the hotel desk glanced
around briefly to see who had entered.

The clerk noted her with benign interest,
blinking and pushing his spectacles farther up the bridge of his
nose. But it was the tall, dark-haired man’s reaction that gave
Annabel pause.

There was something swift and dangerous
about the way he turned to look at her the instant that bell
sounded, reacting like a man trained to expect and deal with sudden
trouble. She actually felt a stab of fear as his penetrating black
eyes flicked over her like a whip. She’d never seen such ruthless
eyes. He wore black, all black—except for a pale blue silk bandana
knotted loosely at his throat. Snug-fitting black trousers,
gleaming black boots, black silk shirt, black Stetson—and a black
gun belt slung low at his hips, where two black pistols rested
against powerful thighs. Even his eyes were the same deep onyx, she
noted with something of a shock. They glinted like coals, and their
calculating ruthlessness, added to the fact that they were set
within a hard-jawed, arrogantly handsome face, disconcerted her so
much that the carpetbag slipped from her aching fingers and clumped
loudly to the floor.

But after that first glimpse when he
ascertained that she was only a harmless woman, the man turned
away, dismissing her. He hunched his massive shoulders forward and
shifted his attention back to the clerk, who began once again
poring over his registration book.

“Ye-es, here it is. He was here for three
nights. Nice young man.” The clerk’s voice quavered a little. “At
least, he
seemed
quite nice ... one never can tell, you
know ...”

“Who was he friendly with in town?”

“Friendly, sir?”

The dark-haired man placed one large fist on
the desk top. “Did he bring a saloon girl up to his room?” he
inquired, his deceptively soft voice taut with impatience. “Did he
gamble with anyone local? Did you see him in the dining room with
anyone?”

The clerk licked his lips. He peered at his
questioner with something more than obsequiousness: from Annabel’s
angle he looked positively frightened.

She edged closer, curious, wanting to
hear.

“Well?” the big man demanded harshly.

The clerk swallowed several times before
speaking again. “No, sir, I didn’t see him with anyone—leastways,
not that I can recall,” he squeaked. Then his eyes lit with sudden
relief. “Oh, yes, there was one fellow. The blacksmith—Will
Chatham. That young fellow bought Will dinner one night—they sat
right over there, yessir, they did. Will’s livery is down at the
end of Main Street, if you ...”

But the big man had already muttered a low
“Thanks,” and turned quickly away, wheeling right into Annabel with
such force that she was knocked backward. With lightning-like
reflexes his arms shot out and gripped her, preventing her from
falling.

“Where in hell did you come from?” he
demanded, scowling in irritation.

Caught off guard and distracted by the
overwhelming strength of those massive corded arms, Annabel blurted
out the first words that sprang to mind. “From St. Louis,” she
blathered, and immediately felt absurd.

A vivid blush heated her cheeks. To cover
her error, she added with an acid tang, “A city where gentlemen
take care to avoid crashing into ladies with whom they are not
acquainted.”

But the handsome giant was not crushed by
her setdown in the least. He had the audacity to grin, a mocking,
distinctly unpleasant grin that set Annabel’s teeth on edge. “Do
they crash into ladies with whom they
are
acquainted,
ma’am?” he asked with the soft menacing purr of a tiger, and as he
spoke, Annabel felt his fingers tighten like rawhide bonds around
her flesh.

She opened her mouth to reply indignantly,
but for a moment no words came out for it was dawning upon her that
she was caught in the grip of the most intimidating-looking man she
had ever seen, a man as strapping as Hercules, and as rude as a
bear, a man clearly not about to release her until he was good and
ready.

Fear and fascination tingled through her.
Some of the investigators at the Stevenson Agency were hard-looking
characters, men with toughness and experience who knew how to track
down and apprehend dangerous criminals, but in terms of danger,
none of them could compare to the aura of deadly menace that
emanated from the man before her.

Hercules would be a fitting name for him,
she decided. Yet for all his brawny muscularity, she had noted a
litheness as well as strength in his movements. He was undeniably,
magnetically attractive, if one liked dangerous men, which Annabel
assured herself thankfully that she did not. Those unrelenting
black eyes of his made her shiver. And it was
not
a
comfortable feeling, not in the least.

He must be a gunslinger or a bounty
hunter
, she thought, staring up at him in dazed silence.
Beneath his hat, his features were rugged and stern. A hard mouth,
an aggressively jutting jaw that suggested both tenaciousness and
strength, a straight, no-nonsense nose. Perhaps most significantly,
there was the keen, glinting intelligence in his eyes, an
intelligence which would make him a formidable adversary. All the
harsh planes and angles on his face somehow combined into a
compellingly handsome countenance, but his was a rough, deadly
beauty, formidable as a boulder carved of granite.

Handsome or not, dangerous or not, she could
hardly stand here like a ninny and allow him to imprison her like
this. Since it didn’t appear that the intimidated clerk was going
to come to her aid, she had better extricate herself.

“Kindly let me go,” she requested in the
coolest, haughtiest tone she could muster. “I am certain you have
much better things to do with your time than to engage in
nonsensical conversation, and so, sir, do I.”

His mouth twisted into a cold smile so
derisive it could only be interpreted as a sneer. “Damned right
about that, lady.” He released her, gave one mocking doff of his
hat, and strode past. The next moment he was gone through the door
without a backward glance, letting it slam insultingly behind
him.

“Who was that man?”

The clerk’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his
scrawny throat as he leaned toward her, his narrow string tie
dangling against his limp white shirt and jacket. “That was Roy
Steele, ma’am. The gunfighter. You don’t want to get in his way.
He’s on someone’s trail.”

“Obviously. Why?”

The young man, thin and prissy in his dusty
dark suit, shook his head warningly. “Don’t know, and don’t care.
You shouldn’t either, ma’am. He’s dangerous—there’s no one deadlier
with a gun, not even Red Cobb or Wyatt Earp. And Steele has a real
mean temper. I sure wouldn’t want to be in Mr. Brett McCallum’s
shoes right now for all the silver in Nevada. That nice young
greenhorn is as good as dead.”

“Did you say
Brett McCallum
?” Dread
tore through her. “Is that who Steele was asking about?”

“Yes, ma’am, but ...”

“I’ll be back shortly. Watch my bag, if you
please.”

She darted outside just in time to see the
gunslinger striding up Main Street, no doubt toward the livery. She
followed, moving nimbly behind him at a discreet distance, her
skirts and reticule gathered in one hand.
Dear Lord
, she
thought, watching the smooth purposeful grace of his stride.
It
looks like Brett has two gunfighters after him: first someone named
Red Cobb, and now this horrible Mr. Steele
. She couldn’t help
the apprehension tightening her lungs. From all she had seen and
heard, this Roy Steele was not a man to take lightly ...

At one point he paused and glanced back and
Annabel had the uneasy feeling that he sensed he was being
followed, but she quickly stopped and peered into the window of the
feed store, behaving as if the sacks and barrels inside contained
the most fascinating goods she could ever hope to see. After a
moment, she casually glanced over her shoulder and noticed that
Steele had disappeared.

Dodging past a dandified gambler in a richly
ornamented silver vest, who looked far too prosperous for this grim
godforsaken little town, she headed for the blacksmith’s stable and
crept around to the back. Sure enough, there was a door. And it was
open.

Annabel slipped inside, moving as quietly as
a mouse beneath snow. It was dark inside and smelled strongly of
horses, manure, and saddle leather, but after a moment her eyes
adjusted to the dimness and she saw the horse stalls with a few
animals feeding inside, and saddles, tacks, and various tools
hanging above the benches that lined the walls.

Up front she could hear voices. She inched
forward as her eyes slowly adapted to the dimness, taking care not
to let the floor squeak beneath her feet.

“What in tarnation do you want with him?” a
young man’s voice demanded angrily, but Annabel could hear the
uneasiness beneath his outward belligerence. She edged closer to
the door.

“Reckon that’s my business, Chatham,” Roy
Steele replied in a hard tone. “Answer my question.”

“Well, I reckon anything Mr. McCallum said
to me that night we had dinner was my business,” the blacksmith
shot back. “Now get out of my place.”

“How do you know Brett McCallum?”

The blacksmith was silent for a moment
before answering. “My pa used to be foreman in his father’s flour
mill in St. Louis years ago. We met once or twice when we were
kids—and he recognized me when he was passing through town. I sold
him a horse. He bought me dinner. That’s all I know.”

“Where’d he head when he left Justice?”

“Can’t tell you that. Don’t believe he
mentioned it.”