He paced away again, this time to stand in the open doorway. The sky was filled with stars, like diamonds on a jeweler’s black velvet cloth. The moon was half-full, the other half faintly visible, like a shadow. It was hard to believe that something so terrible was happening on such a beautiful night. It was a night for lovers, just enough chill in the air for a man to put his arm around his girl under the pretense of keeping her warm.
Yeah, a night for lovers. Too bad he and Becky weren’t going out somewhere, maybe to a restaurant or a theater. He’d like that.
Instead, he was taking her into an alley on the Barbary Coast. If it weren’t so awful, it would be appropriately funny. They were about as opposite as the Barbary Coast and Nob Hill, he mused, not for the first time.
He sucked in a slow breath to calm his nerves. His heart pounded heavily in his chest, and his fingers curled and uncurled in a nervous gesture. Yes, he was nervous. The famous Luke Scanlin was downright scared.
He’d faced outlaws and Indians, robbers and range wars, but this was different. All those other times, nothing had mattered. He’d had nothing to lose but his life, which he’d always figured wasn’t worth much anyway. He’d had no family who’d miss him or mourn. Hell, he’d barely had enough money to get himself buried, whenever that necessity arose.
He leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and settled his battered old Stetson a little lower on his forehead.
All evening he’d hardly been able to keep his thoughts on the business at hand. His mind had been on that revelation of hers. She’d said she had loved him. All those years ago, Rebecca had loved him.
He shook his head in disbelief. He could have had it all. This could have been his.
He made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. Not this, he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the mansion spread out behind him. But he could have had Rebecca. Maybe they would have had a child, a son.
Becky’s child. That thought settled gently in his mind. He’d like that—like that a lot.
He wanted her. He had realized after that first kiss that he had always wanted her, had come back to claim her. But was it too late?
Abruptly he lifted away from the doorframe. He had work to do, a child to bring home, and a woman—his woman—to protect.
His arm brushed against the gun securely tucked in the shoulder holster under his jacket. He adjusted it to a more comfortable position.
A glance at the clock on the mantel in the parlor showed it was twenty to nine. He’d already been to the stables and had another horse saddled for her. He stopped pacing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Becky—”
He broke off when he spotted her on the top step. She was dressed in a black split skirt that brushed the tops of her riding boots. The ebony buttons down the front were unfastened, revealing the split in the skirt. She wore another of those high-necked blouses, this one in a navy blue print. Her hair was down, tied back with a ribbon.
She looked a little pale, dark smudges obvious under her eyes. Her usually sensuous mouth was drawn into a thin line. She was tired, and more than a little afraid, he knew, and he remembered her tremulous voice when she’d admitted that weakness to him.
He wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her, to tell her that he would bring her son home. She could trust him. She could believe in him. Sadly, he knew now that he’d destroyed her trust once before. But times had changed, and so had he. He was going to regain her trust, and then her love.
First, he was going to get that boy back.
Ruth was hot on Rebecca’s heels. “Now be careful. Don’t take any chances.” She shook her finger in admonition.
“I won’t.” Rebecca pulled on her black kid gloves.
Ruth was still talking as they joined Luke near the door.
He picked up the shotgun he had propped beside the mirrored hall tree.
“Get Andrew and get the blazes out of there.”
“I will,” Rebecca said.
She raked Luke with an appraising stare that focused mostly on the arsenal he had with him. “Is that necessary?”
“Yes, and this isn’t up for discussion.”
She shook her head and gave Ruth a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Rebecca,” Ruth said as they started out the door, “bring our boy back. I—” She broke off and swiped briskly at the tears in her eyes. “When you see him, tell him I love him.”
They hugged again. Then, abruptly, Rebecca pulled back. “I know, Ruth. I’ll tell him. No one is going to take your grandson away from you.” She turned and went out the front door.
Luke followed and motioned toward the waiting horses. “More manageable, less conspicuous,” he said at her questioning glance.
“All right.”
He gave her a leg up.
“Sidesaddles.” He said it like a curse, then swung up onto his horse. The gelding pawed and pranced sideways, seeming to sense the tensions of his rider.
The night was oddly still and empty. No traffic, no pedestrians. A quiet residential neighborhood.
On the Barbary Coast, however, it was the shank of the evening, and things were just heating up, so to speak.
Rebecca stared in obvious amazement at the gaudy buildings that lined both sides of Pacific Street. Men gathered on street corners to drink openly, leer, and make comments that were lewd enough to make her blush.
Half-naked women leaned out of second-story windows, yoo-hooing to Luke and any other man who’d give them notice. In the bay beyond, two dozen ships, sails rolled and tied, bobbed in the harbor, while moonlight glistened on the moving water, making it look silver-bright.
The distinct smell of salt water and cheap whiskey irritated her nostrils. Somewhere close, there was an alley where she’d hand over money and ride home with her son.
She tried to focus on the street ahead, though she watched Luke out of the corner of her eye. He looked dark and powerful and more like an outlaw than a marshal. She saw a muscle flex in his jaw and knew he was tense, nervous about this exchange.
But she was confident. Yes, she understood there was the potential for danger. After all, those involved were ruthless enough to take her child. Still, they had asked for money, which she’d brought. They wanted the money, and she wanted her child.
It’ll be fine. She said the words over and over in her mind, like a litany. Needing to hold on to the thought and the promise.
“We’re almost there,” Luke’s voice startled her, and she jumped, instinctively tightening her grip on the reins. The horse sidestepped in response, and she steadied the mare with a pat.
A drunk staggered into their path and, frightened, she reined in sharply. The cowboy wandered away, seemingly not even realizing they were there.
It was with a shaky smile of relief that she cut a glance in Luke’s direction. But he wasn’t looking at her. His expression was cold, harder than granite, and his hand rested conspicuously on his gun.
Just as quickly, she saw him relax, saw his hand move down to rest lightly on his wool-clad thigh.
“Here.” He gestured with his head, never looking at her.
Luke nudged his horse in front of her, and both horses stopped at the gnarled hitching rail in front of the So Different gambling hall. Men milled around on the boardwalk, and the sound of distinctly feminine laughter carried outside over the sound of a reed organ.
Tying his horse, he came around to help Rebecca. His hands closed around her waist, and he felt the stiff bone stays of her corset beneath her blouse. As he lifted her down, her hands naturally rested on the tops of his shoulders, and he could feel the tightening of her fingers for that instant she was suspended in the air.
Instinctively their gazes sought each other. Black eyes locked with royal blue as she slid down the front of him. It was a simple motion, not uncommon, yet for them it was highly provocative, and each of them tensed with sudden awareness.
Lost in the sensation, the closeness, Luke hesitated, his hands tightening
perceptibly at the longing that surged through him.
As though she sensed his awareness, her lips parted, the words she’d meant to say unspoken as she lost herself in the depths of his bottomless black eyes. Her breath came in shallow gulps, and she thought she saw his head dip when—
“Hey, lady!”
That quickly, the spell was broken, and Luke released her, stepping back. Rebecca fussed with straightening her blouse.
“Hey, lady!” a young sailor carefully enunciated from his place near the batwing saloon doors. His face mottled red, his blond hair sticking out in haphazard directions, he staggered toward them, catching himself on the porch post with an elbow. “You wanna dwink?” He waved a half-full bottle of Kendall’s whiskey in her direction.
Luke was making a show of tying up the horses. Not because they needed to be tied, but because he was trying to get his breathing back to something close to normal. So he only spared the man a quick appraisal. “Drunk and working on being disorderly,” he told Rebecca, then told the sailor, “No, she doesn’t.”
Rebecca didn’t feel quite as confident as Luke about dealing with an inebriated man and, though he did seem frightfully young and was unarmed, she edged a little closer to Luke.
Luke wasn’t worried about the sailor as much as what was waiting for them in that alley about twenty feet away. “He’s just feeling his oats.”
Luke took the money from the saddlebags, where he’d put it earlier. It was hard to believe that ten thousand dollars could make such a small package. Men worked their whole lives for this much money, and here it was all tied up in a nice little parcel.
“Let’s go. The alley is over here.” He remembered the locale from his trip earlier today, and was glad now that he’d done a little scouting around, even if it had cost him yet another argument with Becky.
Giving the sailor a wide berth, he escorted Rebecca onto the walkway. But the sailor was evidently determined not to take no for an answer. He cut across their path, waving the bottle under Rebecca’s nose this time.
“Come on, ‘oney,” he slurred, taking a long swallow of the caramel-colored liquid, a small trickle dribbling down his chin. He grinned, then wiped the top of the bottle on his blue woolen sleeve with an unsteady flourish.
“‘ave a taste.” He shoved the bottle in her direction, his hand slamming into her breast.
“No!” she screamed, more disgusted than fearful.
Faster than she could blink, Luke grabbed two fistfuls of the man’s shirt and, in one motion, slammed him up against the wall. The bottle crashed to the ground, the glass breaking with a sharp clink and the remaining liquid running between the cracks in the walkway.
That was when she realized Luke’s gun was jammed tight under the sailor’s chin. Good Lord, she hadn’t even seen him draw. The look on his face was hangman-cold, and sent an icy shiver up her spine.
“‘ey,” the sailor mumbled, trying to move and seeming confused about why he couldn’t.
When the man touched Becky, rage had exploded red-hot in Luke’s brain, and he took it out on this unwary victim.
“The lady is with me.” Luke shook the man, whose reddened eyes widened in surprise. “Don’t touch her. No one touches her.”
The sailor’s head bobbed up and down like a rag doll’s.
“Luke,” Rebecca begged, pulling uselessly on his arm, “don’t hurt him. He didn’t mean anything. He just scared me.”
Luke’s eyes were sharp with fury. “Don’t you think I know he scared you?” He shook the man again. “Did he hurt you?” He slammed the squirming sailor against the wall with a head-banging thud that made him groan.
A crowd had gathered. Miners, cowboys, saloon girls, all staring at her, at them. Embarrassment replaced fear in Rebecca.
Someone offered three-to-one odds on the “cowboy”—Luke, she supposed. Oh, God, this was awful.
“Luke.” She tugged on his elbow, harder this time. “I’m fine.”
Brows knitted in anger, he glared at the sailor, then back to her again. He studied her through narrowed eyes, seemingly unaware of the crowd. Then, without a word and in one motion, he released the sailor, turned, took her by the arm and escorted her away, as though he hadn’t nearly killed the man.
A chill ran down her spine as she stepped out to keep pace with him. Her boot heels scraped on the uneven boardwalk.
“Luke, you almost killed him.”
“If he hurt you—if anyone hurt you—I would kill them.” This close she could see that his breathing was rapid and his eyes were hard as obsidian, and she knew, without a doubt, that he meant every word he said.
Luke Scanlin was a man capable of great tenderness, and now she knew he was a man capable of equally great rage. A man capable of making his own law. Scanlin’s law.
That frightened her more than anything, for what would he do if he knew the whole truth?
Taking a step, freeing herself from his grasp, she forced herself to be calm, as calm as possible when everything and everyone she cared about was at stake.
When he halted, she said, “Is this the alley?”
“Yes.” He eyed her sternly. “I wish you’d change your mind and let me do this. It’s not too late to—”
She shook her head. “I’m going.”
He thumbed back his hat. “Okay.” Luke glanced around. Satisfied that no one was paying them any mind, he said, “I want you to do everything I say.” He pulled her out of the way of a group of cowboys who were strolling by.
“Agreed,” she said firmly, determined to get on with this, determined not to let the terror that was fast pushing her heart rate to something equal to a stampede, get the best of her.
“Stay close and stay behind me. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“If there’s any trouble—” he bent to look her straight in the eye “—any trouble,” he repeated, as though to force the words into her mind, “then I want you to run like hell. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about Andrew. Just run. Do you understand me?”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?” She shook her head in denial. “I’ve done as they demanded. They’ll be satisfied to take the money and leave, won’t they?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced toward the alley, which resembled the opening of some monster’s mouth in a yawn. “I’m going to do my best to get him back, but you’ve got to know that anyone who would take a child isn’t...well... It’s not like we’re dealing with honorable men here.”
Her stomach drew in tight. She didn’t like the direction of his thoughts. “But they said—”
He cut in, obviously annoyed. “I know what they said. I’m telling you to let me handle this. Do everything I say, when I say—and not before—and maybe we’ll all get out of this alive.”
“This has to work.” Rebecca’s voice cracked. “I have to get Andrew back. He’s so small, and he’ll be so afraid without me.”
This time Luke didn’t hesitate to pull her into his comforting embrace, and he was pleased when she let him. He felt her body tremble, and he rubbed his hand up and down her back in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. Then, putting her away from him slightly, he gave her a little smile. “It’ll probably go fine. I tend to worry too much,” he lied, smoothly trying to calm her, and praying that she’d remember his instructions.
She looked so forlorn, so vulnerable, that he couldn’t help brushing her cheek with his knuckles. He lightly kissed her forehead, some small part of him thinking it might be for the last time. “You ready?”
She nodded and said a silent prayer. Please, God, help us save Andrew.
“Remember what I said.” It was an order, gently given.
They stepped off the walk and turned into the alley.
Chapter Ten
Rebecca squinted, trying to make her eyes focus in the sudden darkness. Shapes and shadows mingled and merged, making all indiscernible. The only light was the moon, partially obscured by the rooftops.
Anxi
ety sent her heart pounding in her chest, so loud she was certain Luke could hear it. Her breath came in shallow gulps.
Andrew was out there somewhere. Desperately she scanned the long, narrow confines of the alley, searching for the familiar silhouette of a small boy—her boy. Wishing, hoping, that she’d see him, hold him in her arms again as she silently pledged to ask his forgiveness for somehow failing to keep him safe, and promised that she’d never ever let go of him again.
But she didn’t see Andrew, or anyone else, and dread coiled inside, snaking up her spine. Instinctively her hand sought Luke’s, touching his back, feeling the smooth cotton of his shirt. He seemed to know what she needed, and he reached back without a word, his work-roughened fingers closing around hers in a blessedly reassuring gesture.
Behind his back, Luke transferred her hand to his other one, freeing his gun hand. He was prepared for trouble.
He moved ahead slowly, each step carefully measured, testing the trash-littered ground before putting his weight fully on his foot.
They were out there somewhere. Waiting. He could feel it, prickling over his skin like electricity before a storm. One sound, one misplaced step, could reveal his position—and Rebecca’s.
No matter what happened, he’d protect her—with his life, if necessary. Muscles tensed along the tops of his shoulders and down his back. His eyes strained to peer into the shifting shadows created by the buildings and the debris stacked along the raw wood walls. He listened for every sound. Eight years of survival had taught him well. He hoped like hell it was enough.
The alley was still. This guy, whoever he was, had known exactly which one to choose. The muffled sound of a piano carried through the plank walls of the Boar’s Head.
Rebecca stumbled slightly, and he tightened his grip on her hand. She responded in kind, as a way of letting him know that she was all right. He felt her close, felt the heels of his boots brush against the hem of her skirt. That was fine. The closer the better. Less chance of someone singling her out.
One step. Then another. Then another. He walked Indian-soft on the hard-packed earth, feeling it slippery beneath his feet, though from what he didn’t want to know. The smell was stale whiskey and rotting garbage and the acrid scent of an outhouse.
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