“I haven’t been sleeping well since...”
She didn’t finish.
“Since what?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking, why it should matter to him.
When she spoke again, her sarcasm had vanished. “You don’t care about the truth,” she said, sounding as tired as he felt.
“Your version of the truth? No, I don’t. You’d say anything if you thought it’d keep you out of jail. Maybe do anything, too.” Lucas sat up on the edge of his cot, the air cool against the bare skin of his chest. “Is that how you got the good doctor feeling all mush-brained over you? I’ll bet your mama taught you a lot of tricks—”
“I am not my mother. I was never a whore.”
For the first time, he detected a hint of steel beneath that delicate, feminine surface.
“You shared a man’s bed for money,” he said coldly.
“Because it was better than...”
Again she didn’t finish.
He watched her in the mirror, saw her bury her face in the pillow. “Better than what, Antoinette?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t move.
After a long while, he thought she might’ve finally gone to sleep. Or decided to ignore him. He muttered a curse and lay back down. What did it matter whether she answered him or not?
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she said quietly, “since I lost the baby.”
He froze, startled by her words, by such an unexpected answer to the question he had asked before. Of course. How could he have forgotten about her miscarriage? That was why she hadn’t been able to...
Annoyed, he chastised himself for being so easily drawn into her web. His gaze fastened on the mirror. “God Almighty, you want me to believe you care about everything and everyone, don’t you? If your baby mattered to you so much, you wouldn’t have risked taking stagecoaches over the worst back roads in the West—”
“I didn’t know—”
“Did you even know who the father was?”
“James was the father of my baby.” Her voice rose sharply. “And I wanted that child with all my heart.”
Her heart? Lucas felt like he was going to be sick. “Now I know you’re lying, lady—because if the child you were carrying was my brother’s, he would’ve taken care of you. Both of you. My brother loved children. You should have seen the way his daughter and son cried at his funeral—”
“Don’t—”
“A nine-year-old girl and a thirteen-year-old boy.” He shot the words at her like bullets. “Sobbing for their daddy—”
“Please, don’t—”
“Two innocent children who’ll have to grow up without a father because of you. And you want me to believe you have a heart?”
“Stop it,” she pleaded, “stop it!”
Lucas thought it must be a trick of the moonlight, or some flaw in the mirror, because he swore he saw tears in her eyes.
Bright, silvery tears that slid down her cheek and into the dark tangle of her hair.
Tears of remorse for what she had done? Of sorrow for James’s children?
He would’ve called them crocodile tears, just part of her act, meant to make him believe her story that it had all been an accident.
Except that he was fairly sure she had no idea he was watching her.
“I know what I did,” she whispered brokenly, lifting trembling hands to her face. “God forgive me, I know what I did.”
Lucas stared at her, unable to speak as he watched her cry—so quietly it seemed she was trying to keep him from hearing, so hard that her slender body shook beneath the quilt.
Then he turned his back.
He wasn’t going to do this. Wasn’t going to look at her anymore, or talk to her—not when the two of them were alone together in the night. It felt too intimate.
He couldn’t let Antoinette Sutton seduce him with her wiles, or wring pity from him with her tears.
“God will have to forgive you, lady,” he said, his voice flat and cold. “Because I never will.”
~ ~ ~
Sleep, Lucas thought, shutting his eyes against the sunlight streaming in his window, was a wonderful thing. Maybe the best thing God had ever invented. Better than a morning spent trout fishing in a Montana river. Better than a thick steak and a beer at the end of a long day’s ride.
Or maybe it only seemed that way because he hadn’t been able to get any sleep.
He had lain awake the entire night. Thinking. About her.
The stiffness in his muscles made him groan as he sat up. When his feet hit the plush carpet on the floor, he slouched over and rested his elbows on his knees, blinking the dry, parched feeling from his eyes. He glanced toward the mirror.
His prisoner was sleeping peacefully.
He scowled in her direction. No woman had ever robbed him of a night’s rest before. And he had known his share of women over the years.
Beautiful women with kind hearts and tender hands, the kind most men would lose sleep over. Women who had helped him forget, for a moment, all the sunburned miles he rode and the guns aimed in his direction. That was all he ever asked of women, all he ever wanted—moments. An hour or two of physical bliss now and then.
If there was one thing he had never done, would never do, it was let himself get all fool-headed over a female. That sort of thing never turned out well, for either the man or the woman. Just look at poor Dunlap, abandoned by his pretty young bride.
Or James and Olivia, who had seemed so perfectly suited when they married.
Lucas shook his head, running a hand through his disheveled hair. Since he was awake, he might as well get up. Travis had said he’d be back this morning. And Lucas had plans for the day.
He had to return to the burned-down jail and get the cell door he had picked out last night, then install it between Antoinette’s room and the sitting room, since he couldn’t watch her every minute of every day. After that, he meant to keep busy. Explore the rest of the hotel. Round up a more comfortable bed, if one could be found. Maybe even get himself a shave, he thought, rubbing at his bearded jaw. And a bath and some clean clothes.
But the first thing he wanted, he thought as he stood, his stomach growling, was to secure himself some food. And some coffee. And some wood for the potbellied stove in the corner of his room. The temperature had dropped so low, he could practically see his breath.
He grabbed his gun belt from the floor beside his cot and buckled it on over his trousers, then pulled his .45 from beneath his pillow and holstered it, stepping toward the open doorway that led into Antoinette’s cell.
She lay huddled beneath the quilt, which was pulled up to her nose. She must be freezing—especially since he’d left her in there all night with no fire on the hearth and no clothes but her underthings.
Guilt gnawed at him for a second, but he forced it away. If Antoinette was suffering, it was her own damn fault. She was the one who had broken the law, not him.
And she’d better get used to hardship. The Missouri prison cell that would be her future home would be a lot less cushy than this one. A lot less.
Grumbling under his breath, he turned and picked up the woolen blankets he had kicked off during the night. Then he moved into her cell with silent, barefoot steps and draped the blankets over her. Carefully, so as not to wake her.
Purely out of concern for her health, he told himself adamantly. If anything happened to her, Holt and the others would take pleasure in having him brought up on charges in front of a judge.
For a moment, he lingered there, looking down at her. His plans for the day had included asking Miss Sutton a few questions. Starting with where she had hidden the murder weapon and the fifteen thousand dollars she had stolen from James’s safe. But his interrogation would have to wait. She was exhausted, and hurt, and she needed rest.
So that she could get well enough to travel, he thought as he turned on his heel and went out. That was his only concern.
He had no sooner picked up his shirt from where
he had dropped it on the floor last night than he heard a commotion at the hotel’s entrance. His hand on his Colt, he stepped to the door of the sitting room.
And found himself facing a gaggle of females—three of them, two full-grown and one younger, all carrying baskets and bundles. The aromas of fresh biscuits and fried apples and bacon wafted in with them, making Lucas’s mouth water as the three swept toward him. Their leader was the woman who had been wearing a purple ostrich-feather hat yesterday.
Today she wore a peach-colored dress, a blue hat festooned with ribbons, and a mutinous expression. “We’ve come to see Annie,” she declared.
“Well, come back later,” he told her in a low voice. “She’s sleeping.” When he glanced toward the cell, he realized it was too late. His prisoner was already awake.
Antoinette’s brow furrowed in puzzlement as she looked at the extra blankets that had materialized over her. With an expression of surprise, she lifted her gaze to his.
“Oh, poor dear!” The gaggle’s ringleader hustled into the sitting room, setting down the basket she carried. “Are you all right, lamb?”
“Wait a minute.” Lucas moved to block the open doorway of the cell before any of them could go any further. “I haven’t said you could—”
“What sort of rig is this he’s got fixed up here?” The blue-hatted woman frowned as she looked past him, squinting at the bars on the windows. She turned a glare on Lucas, looking like a mama snapping turtle protecting her nest. “He didn’t hurt you, did he, Annie?”
“No, Rebecca, I’m all right.”
Lucas belatedly started pulling on his shirt. “She’s perfectly fine, as you can see for yourself.” He shoved his arms into the sleeves, missing on the first try. He wasn’t used to having a feminine audience when he got dressed in the morning. “As for visiting, Rebecca—”
“You can call me Mrs. Greer.” She planted one hand on her prodigious hip and gestured at the other ladies in turn. “This is Mrs. Owens and Miss Lazarillo. We’ve brung Annie some food and necessities. Someone has to take care of her—”
“I will be taking care of her.” Lucas realized he had just buttoned his shirt in the wrong holes. “You intend to help her escape.”
“Surely, Marshal, you don’t think we could break through solid iron bars?” Mrs. Owens asked coolly.
Lucas recognized her as Holt’s nurse. She was about twenty-five, with the genteel look and mild voice of a Southern belle—and a sharp intelligence in her eyes. “I never thought she’d be able to fool people into trusting her, either, ma’am. But it seems I was wrong about that.” He glowered at them as he finally got his shirt buttoned up respectably. “I worked damned hard—sorry,” he amended with an apologetic glance at Miss Lazarillo, who only looked to be about sixteen. “I worked hard to find Antoinette Sutton, and I am not going to let her get away.”
Mrs. Greer squinted up at him. “If anything happens to this girl, you ornery critter—”
“This girl is an outlaw. And while she’s in my custody, she’ll be treated the same as any other outlaw. Nothing will happen to her. She’s my prisoner, my responsibility.”
A soft sound came from Antoinette’s cell. All of them turned.
“Annie?” Mrs. Owens asked worriedly. “Are you all right?”
Antoinette had closed her eyes again, one hand pressed to her ribs. “The... last of the... laudanum’s worn off.”
Lucas felt his gut knot up, seeing her in pain.
Stop it, he told himself. Stop feeling pity or anything else for her. It was probably another trick. The bunch of them had probably put their heads together last night and cooked up this whole thing. “I suppose you want the doctor?”
She shook her head on the pillow. “No, I... think I’d better keep... the two of you apart.”
Lucas arched one brow in surprise. “Probably smart,” he agreed. “Don’t count on him or any of these ladies helping you escape, Antoinette. Even if you could—which you can’t—I doubt you’d live long.”
“There’s no need to threaten her, Marshal.” Mrs. Owens glared at him.
“It’s not a threat, ma’am. Just passing along some information you folks may have been unaware of, up here in the mountains. There’s a five-thousand-dollar bounty on her head.”
“Five... thousand?” Antoinette gasped.
“Offered by my brother’s widow,” he informed her. “And it’s five thousand dead or alive. You might keep that in mind when you’re thinking about how much you want to get out of here. Every bounty hunter in ten states is looking for you. And some of them aren’t as nice as me.”
“You’re... telling me I’m... safer here, with you?”
Even in pain, Antoinette still had that hint of steel he had noticed last night. And a hint of sarcasm.
“Yeah,” he bit out. “You’re safer here, with me.”
“Well, the poor lamb has to eat,” Mrs. Greer insisted, picking up her basket.
“And I brought mi madre’s special ointment,” young Miss Lazarillo added, holding up a clay jar. “For her hurts.”
“I will take care of her,” Lucas insisted.
“Does that mean you intend to change her bandages?” Mrs. Owens asked.
“And help her wash and get dressed each day, too?” Miss Lazarillo inquired, her mouth forming a round, shocked “O.”
Lucas folded his arms, realizing they had a point. He already felt like he’d become too intimate with Antoinette. It was hard enough just talking to her, looking at her. The less physical contact he had with his prisoner, the better.
“All right,” he relented, “she can have visitors. But only one at a time—”
“But we all came to see her,” Mrs. Greer complained.
“My jail, my rules,” he said flatly. “If you can’t abide by them, the front door’s right there. One visitor at a time, no more than twice a day. And I’ll need to search any packages you bring in.” He took the basket from Mrs. Greer’s hands, lifting the hinged top to look inside.
The sight and scents of a pie pan full of hot griddle cakes covered with melted butter, of bacon and biscuits and fried apples and a jar of honey almost made him feel light-headed with hunger. “No sharp objects,” he said, hoping they couldn’t hear his stomach growling. “Nothing that she might use as a weapon.” He confiscated a knife and fork. And a biscuit.
“Annie wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Mrs. Greer frowned at him as he plundered her foodstuffs. “Or even a bigger, meaner sort of critter.”
“So you’ve told me.” He handed the basket over and bit into the biscuit. Which turned out to be a damned fine biscuit. And it didn’t have any files baked into it. He wolfed it down in two gulps, motioning for Mrs. Owens to give him the bundle of clothes she held.
He untied the fabric knotted around it and discovered that Antoinette’s friends had brought her some new undergarments and, thank God, more substantial clothes to wear: woolen skirts and plain blouses, a shawl, a flannel nightgown.
After handing the clothes back to Mrs. Owens, he tipped open the lid of the earthenware pot in Miss Lazarillo’s hands, wrinkling his nose at the fragrant, clear oil inside. “So which one of you is going to be this morning’s visitor?” he asked.
“Me,” Mrs. Greer said.
“Fine. I... uh...” Lucas turned toward her, feeling sheepish all of a sudden, like he was eight years old and facing his schoolmarm. “I’m also going to have to search you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Greer tilted her head to one side, looking like some fluttery, blue-headed bird. “But you just did.”
“I mean search your person, ma’am. For all I know, you could be concealing a pistol that you’re smuggling in for her.”
“Why... why you catawamptious coyote!” The lady blinked as if the idea had never occurred to her. The others both started chattering at once.
“Señora Greer would not do such a thing,” Miss Lazarillo said.
“How do I know that?” he asked.
“You are the mo
st suspicious man I ever met.” Mrs. Owens’s tone was icy.
“Goes with the job, ma’am.”
Mrs. Greer squinted at him—it was her fierce squint; he was already learning to tell them apart—then gave her basket to Mrs. Owens and raised her hands, a dramatic gesture of surrender accompanied by an equally dramatic sigh. “Very well then, Marshal, do your job.”
Lucas made it quick, checking her voluminous sleeves, and her hips, where any hidden pockets in her underskirts might be. After he patted her bustle, he decided to leave it at that. “Uh, you’re fine to go in, ma’am.”
She had turned red as a beet. “Well, of course I am!” she blustered, brushing at her gown as if to rid herself of his touch. “Land sakes, of all the... I have never...” She turned toward the door that led out to the hotel’s main room. “Travis Ballard! I thought I’d find you here!”
Travis had just entered the sitting room with a few sticks of firewood under his arm, which he dropped on the floor as he just about jumped out of his boots. “Mrs. Greer? What are you...”
The kid’s gaze landed on Miss Lazarillo, and he seemed to forget whatever else he was going to say. He flushed a shade of red that rivaled Mrs. Greer’s, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down twice before he managed to utter another word. “H-Howdy, Valentina.”
The Mexican girl lowered her lashes, smiling shyly. “Buenos días, Travis.”
Lucas hadn’t noticed before now, but the young lady was about the same age as his would-be deputy. And rather pretty.
Mrs. Greer stalked over and pointed an accusing finger at the boy. “Are you helpin’ this here varmint on purpose?”
“Varmint?” Travis blinked as if he had forgotten anyone else was in the room. “Who? I... uh...” He looked helplessly at Lucas.
“He’s working for me,” Lucas said to rescue the kid.
“Hmph. I thought as much.” Mrs. Greer promptly turned her back, giving Travis a cold shoulder. “Don’t you be bothered comin’ back to my store, boy. You’re fired!”
“What? Why? What did I do?” Travis looked stricken—and embarrassed to be fired right in front of Miss Lazarillo.
Mrs. Greer didn’t bother to explain. She hustled the other two ladies out with the efficiency of a field general directing troops, then gathered up all the items the women had brought. “So, Marshal McKenna, do you intend to let me in to see Annie or not?”
After Sundown Page 9
