As soon as she was well enough, she had insisted on helping out around the store in return for her bed and board. Mrs. Greer had admonished her for being “prideful and stubborn,” but accepted, admitting that she had been struggling to keep this place open by herself. Her husband had passed away last spring, and they’d had no children. With her eyesight so poor, the mail was the chore she dreaded the most, so it was the chore Annie had claimed first.
“Mrs. Smith?”
Annie looked up from sorting letters to see a prospector known as Big Horace standing in front of her. Dirt obscured his features, he had a length of rope slung over one shoulder, and the sour smell of whiskey and sweat came off his clothes—strong enough to make the other people at the counter give him a wide berth.
“Yes?” she asked politely. The mountain of a man with a scar on his face had given her quite a fright the first time she saw him, but Rebecca had explained that he was harmless. Some of the miners only came in from their diggings now and again, and they got a bit rough around the edges.
“Ma’am, I think you’re...” Big Horace took off his hat. “Why, you’re huckleberry above a persimmon, ma’am, and I’d be right peart were you to join me tonight for some chicken fixin’s over t’ Kearney’s, if you’re not still feelin’ poorly.”
Annie blinked up at him, unable to make sense of what he’d just said.
Mrs. Greer appeared at her elbow. “Horace, what are you doing staring at Mrs. Smith like that? She’s a lady, not a gingerbread pudding on a Christmas platter.” She gave him a playful poke in the belly before she turned to Annie. “I’ll manage the rest, lamb. You’re still looking a might pale, and it’s too warm in here.” Mrs. Greer scooped up one fat stack of letters. “Since Doc Holt ain’t come in to pick up his mail yet, maybe you could take it to him.”
Annie met the older woman’s squinty gaze and thought of arguing. But she had yet to meet the person who could win an argument with Rebecca Greer. “All right.”
“Good. Then you come straight back here and take a rest, like I said before.”
Annie nodded, almost smiling, thinking that Mrs. Greer sounded very much like a mother.
Except that her own mama had never sounded like that.
The thought brought a sharp sting to her eyes. Annie quickly took off her apron, picked up Dr. Holt’s mail, and stepped around the counter.
“Ann, before you go...”
Annie turned back. “Yes?”
Mrs. Greer had an uncertain, hopeful look. “I’ve been meaning to ask... you said you had kin in Montana Territory, and I know Doc Holt said you’ll be well enough to travel in another week or so...”
For the first time since Annie had met her, Mrs. Greer seemed at a loss for words, fidgeting with a charm on one of the bracelets she wore.
“By the horn spoons,” she continued at last, “if you want to get there before spring, you’ll have to go soon, before the snow flies. But if...” She hesitated again, and her voice became quiet. “Lord knows this town ain’t got much to offer anymore, but if you could think of staying on, I’d surely appreciate it. Most everyone who needs work has left, and Travis ain’t much help, and I... I just can’t manage this place on my own. I could pay you a few dollars, to go with the room upstairs and meals.”
Annie couldn’t speak for a moment, her voice stolen by surprise. Not because the idea was outlandish.
But because it was tempting. People accepted her here, treated her like an equal. Maybe she did belong here, where so many folks were left over or left behind, like bits of gravel in a prospector’s pan after all the gold had been sifted away.
A life in Eminence wouldn’t be anything like the leisurely, indulged life she had known the past three years, filled with rich clothes, rich food, rich trappings. But it would be a life.
“I...” She reached toward Mrs. Greer, only to knock a small glass jar of cinnamon sticks off the counter. It crashed to the floor.
Annie cursed, then realized how unladylike it sounded. “I’m sorry. Mrs. Greer, I’m so sorry.” Annie started picking up shards of glass. “I... it wouldn’t... you don’t want someone like me around,” she finished lamely. “Believe me, you don’t.”
“That’s not true,” the older woman argued. “I like you, Ann Smith. And I don’t like many folks.” She knelt beside Annie with a whisk broom. “You go on now. Go on and think about it. I’ll clean this up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Greer—”
“Rebecca,” the older woman corrected.
Annie met her gaze, feeling as broken as the glass on the floor. “Rebecca,” she said quietly.
She scooped up Dr. Holt’s mail from the counter and left. Her steps echoed on the wooden planks outside, beneath the fading afternoon sun, and she thought she finally understood why God had brought her here and spared her life.
To punish her. Surround her with everything she’d dreamed of in the most secret places in her heart since she was a little girl. Respect. Friends. A home. A real home.
Everything she could never have.
As she crossed the street, her gaze on the dust, something made her glance up. Maybe a shift in the wind. The sound of a door creaking as it swung open. A strand of her unruly hair blowing into her eyes. She wasn’t sure.
But that was when she saw him. Watching her.
A stranger. He stood in front of one of the saloons, directly ahead of her, almost hidden by the darkness and shadows beneath its balcony. Silent and still. In the shifting afternoon light, she got only an impression of a tall, lean figure standing alone. But her heart started beating harder. She didn’t know why, couldn’t even tell what had drawn her attention to him, what made her so certain he was staring at her.
But some instinct lifted the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Even as she looked right at him, she could glimpse no more than an outline of broad shoulders. A western hat tilted low over his eyes. A pistol holstered on his hip.
And all at once, the fear that she had thought burned away by sorrow came rushing back in a flood. She almost stopped in her tracks, almost turned around, but forced herself to keep walking. Steadily, casually.
He didn’t move. Didn’t seem especially threatening. Wasn’t nearly as big and frightening as Big Horace.
She tried to breathe evenly, calm herself. He was probably just another miner who’d come in from his claim after weeks away from civilization. Was probably staring at her because he hadn’t seen a woman in a long time. Or maybe he was a traveler passing through, newly arrived on the stage and drunk from his visit to the saloon.
He stepped down from the saloon’s porch and started across the street. Directly toward her.
And the way he moved wasn’t drunken or casual, but slow and purposeful. And Annie knew right then that there was something different about this man.
Something dangerous.
Her heart thudded a hard stroke. A single panicked thought rioted through her mind.
She’d been found.
All the breath seemed to leave her lungs. She had thought she no longer cared about being captured—but she’d been wrong.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. She lowered her gaze and remembered the letters in her hand. Started leafing through them as she walked. Told herself she looked like any ordinary homesteader who’d just come from collecting the weekly mail. She tried to hum but couldn’t remember a single tune.
She could hear his footsteps now as he came closer, the sound heavier than she would’ve thought for a man who seemed so lanky. Muscle, some part of her brain supplied. Every lean inch of him must be pure muscle.
An uneasy fluttering sensation filled her belly. Dear God, what should she do? Think, damn it.
Annie lifted her head and nodded politely and said a cheerful, “Good afternoon.”
Without saying a word, he reached up to touch the brim of his hat. His fingers were long and tanned, his face as lean and spare as the rest of him, his jaw stubbled by a dark beard, his mouth bracketed by deep lines. He h
ad black hair that curled below his collar.
And clear, green-gold eyes that fastened on her with an intensity that made her legs feel weak.
Cowboy, she thought desperately as they passed almost shoulder to shoulder. Maybe he was a cowboy. He was dressed like one, had the rough, hard look of a man who’d spent his life on the range. And cowboys were reputed to be men of long stares and few words.
But what would a cowhand be doing so far from the cattle trails?
It seemed to take her forever to reach Dr. Holt’s house on the corner. Her hand trembled as she knocked on the front door, barely aware of the sound over the rising buzz that filled her head. There was no reply. A tingling feeling began between her shoulder blades.
Like she was about to be shot in the back.
Unable to stop herself, she nervously glanced behind her. The dark stranger stood in front of the general store.
Watching her.
She forced a smile.
He didn’t return it.
Annie knocked on Dr. Holt’s door again, her heart hammering now. Open the door. Open it. Please, Dr. Holt, open the door!
~ ~ ~
It couldn’t be her.
That wan, demure little creature dressed in faded calico couldn’t possibly be Antoinette Sutton. Lucas stood on the board sidewalk in front of the general store, staring at her, and told himself he’d gone without sleep for too long. He’d been on the hunt so many weeks—talking to stagecoach drivers and passengers, going in circles, losing her trail and picking it up again—that he was ready to pounce on an innocent homesteader.
From what Olivia had told him, he expected his brother’s killer to be a brazen, lusty, bold figure of a female who would just as soon curse him and spit in his eye as look at him.
This elfin lady who’d emerged from the general store with a handful of mail looked so pale and slender, it seemed a good breeze could knock her down. She matched part of the physical description everyone in St. Charles had given him—dark-haired and brown-eyed and pretty enough to make any man look twice. But she seemed too... small.
When he passed her on the street, her manner had been polite, her voice soft, and she barely came up to his chin. He didn’t even know why he was still staring at her.
The door she was knocking on finally opened, and a man greeted her warmly and ushered her inside the whitewashed, two-story house.
Obviously some friend or kin, Lucas thought sourly. Perfect. He had just wasted five minutes glaring at an innocent homesteader. Another pointless end to another useless day.
Even if Antoinette Sutton had been dropped off in this dusty nothing of a town suffering from “female trouble,” as he’d been told, she was probably long gone. He doubted this was the kind of place she would loll about for very long.
And the sooner he put Eminence behind him, Lucas decided, the better. He usually got his best information in saloons, but the barkeeps here had proven annoyingly discreet, responding to his questions with shrugs and long, silent stares.
“Can I be a help to you, mister?”
Lucas turned to find a bright-eyed kid of about sixteen standing on the boardwalk beside him, chewing on a striped peppermint stick.
“Name’s Travis. Travis Ballard.” The boy extended his hand, palm up. “Saw you standing out here a spell and figured you might need directions. Or information. I know all there is to know ’bout this town. You want anything, I’m your man.” He waggled his fingers encouragingly. “I can show you where to get a good shave and a bath. You need a room for the night, I’ll take you to the best place. And we still got a couple of decent whores left in town.”
Lucas arched one eyebrow and started fishing in his pocket for a coin. “I’m only interested in one woman.”
The kid laughed. “Well that’s good, ’cause I think they charge extra if you want ’em both at once—”
“A woman by the name of Smith.” Lucas pressed a half-dollar into Travis’s palm. “Mrs. Ann Smith.”
The boy fell silent for a moment, pocketing the money. “You don’t say.”
A wariness had come into the kid’s eyes and voice, a subtle shift that told Lucas a great deal.
By hell, maybe she was still here. He ruthlessly subdued the hope that surged through him. “I’m down from Montana Territory,” he continued smoothly, tossing out a potentially useful detail he had gleaned from one Corporal Easton of Fort Collins.
Travis seemed to relax a bit, nodding. “You her kin, then?”
“Yeah.” Lucas felt his stomach turn at the very idea—and felt his pulse pick up as he sensed he was closing in on his quarry at last. “Distant relation.”
“That explains it, then.”
“What?”
The boy glanced across the street, looking directly at the house where the pretty brown-eyed elf had disappeared, then pointed.
“Why she didn’t seem to recognize you.”
Lucas choked out a vicious curse. Damn the little bitch, she had fooled him. He was already running, drawing his pistol.
But before he was halfway across the street, he saw a dappled mare light out from behind the house and take off at a gallop—its rider’s skirts and long hair streaming behind her on the wind.
Chapter 3
The dappled mare’s hooves pounded the earth, clods of dirt and grass flying. The rocky landscape whirled past in a dizzying blur of green and gray. Annie clung to the reins with one hand, the horse’s mane with the other. Her pulse roared in her ears as she fled blindly into the sun’s fading light. The wind tore at her hair, at her clothes. She barely felt its cold fingers.
Panic had already turned her to ice. After she had stepped into Dr. Holt’s house, she had looked out the front window—and saw the black-haired stranger talking with Travis. Saw the boy point right at her. Knew that her first terrified guess had been correct.
She had been found. By a lawman, a bounty hunter—she didn’t know which. Didn’t want to find out. She had run for the back door, shouting to Dr. Holt that there was trouble and she needed his horse.
The little mare seemed to fly over the meadows, leaping over every rock and branch in her path. Annie’s whole body felt bruised and jolted and she wished there had been time to saddle the animal. Wished she remembered better from childhood how to ride bareback. She clung desperately to the mare’s neck and glanced behind her again.
Oh, God, he was getting closer! Minutes ago, she had dared hope that she’d lost him. That she’d had enough of a head start. But now he was gaining ground. She could see his black hair and the bay color of the horse he rode.
And the metallic flash of a pistol in his hand.
A terrified cry rose in her throat but Annie choked it back. Faced forward. Tried to make sense of the jouncing landscape in front of her. There, to the north. She tugged hard on the reins, turning the mare. Heading up the mountainside. Toward the pines and aspens blanketing the uneven slopes.
It was almost dusk. If she could reach that forest, maybe she could lose him in the darkness. It was her only chance. She loosened her grip on the reins. The mare stretched out her neck and galloped headlong for the woods.
They splashed across a creek. Barely lost speed as they raced up a hill and down the other side. Annie could already see the gold of the aspen leaves. Felt desperation and hope surge inside her. They raced up another steep rise. Reached the crest.
And suddenly the ground fell away sharply from beneath the horse’s hooves.
The mare whinnied, pawing at empty air as they plunged forward.
And tumbled straight down.
~ ~ ~
Lucas swore as his quarry disappeared in the distance. Vanished as if she had dropped right off the mountain.
Where the hell did she go? Fury shot through him. Not this time, damn it. He dug his heels into the bay gelding’s sides, kept his Peacemaker drawn and ready. He wouldn’t let Antoinette Sutton slip through his fingers again. Wouldn’t fall for another of her tricks.
All dre
ssed up in calico and innocence. He felt sick at the way she’d duped him with her disguise. Made him think that such a sweet face and gentle smile and big brown eyes couldn’t belong to a coldhearted killer. She’d played him for a fool.
He kept his gaze fastened on the place where she had vanished. Blocked out everything else. As the bay galloped toward the trees, Lucas felt a familiar, icy cool slide through his veins—a sensation that always overcame him when he neared the end of a long, grueling hunt. It made him all the more aware of the heavy pistol in his hand, powder and steel ready to ignite and explode.
In some remote part of his brain, he noticed the peacefulness of the meadows around him, thought it strange that this was where his search for his brother’s murderer would end. And it would end. Today. Now. She might be tricky, but the dappled horse she had stolen was no match for the bigger, faster gelding he had taken from the livery.
And she was no match for him.
It was almost too easy to follow the swath cut through the tall grass. He rode within yards of the spot where she had disappeared—and yanked the bay to a sudden, rearing halt.
He studied the crest of the steep rise, his eyes narrowing as an obvious explanation for Antoinette’s disappearance hit him.
She might have one last bit of treachery up her calico sleeve. Maybe the direction of her headlong flight hadn’t been random at all—maybe she had led him here on purpose.
This would make a perfect spot to bushwhack him from below as he came galloping over the top. She could very well be armed. Could’ve been carrying a pistol in her skirts all along.
Lucas dismounted, dropping quietly to the ground, holding his Colt ready. He hadn’t survived eight years in the Federal Marshals’ service by making careless mistakes. He slapped the bay on its lathered flank and sent it trotting back down the way they had come.
Then he crouched low and silently crept toward the top.
The clouds high overhead played with the vanishing sun, made its light shifting and deceptive, bright rays and black shadows dueling over the green landscape. The wind moving through the grass sounded unnaturally loud, his own breathing even louder.
After Sundown Page 4
