Her Lone Protector (Historical Western Romance)

by Pam Crooks

  Gina would swear on her father’s grave that Mrs. Sortino could see right through a wood slab.

  “Miss Briganti!”

  Her heart dropped to her toes.

  “I want to talk to you, missy.”

  She halted. Turned. Felt Creed move closer to her side.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Sortino,” she said.

  The door opened wider, and the woman lumbered out. Gina heard she had once been married to a mouse of an Italian. She took his name and his money and ran the tenement like a dictator, but no one ever knew what happened to the poor man. She was as big as a bear, gruff as one, too, and Gina admitted to being a little afraid of her.

  “Heard about the fire,” Mrs. Sortino said. Always, she smelled sour from stale garlic and yesterday’s sweat. She wore her authority over her tenants like a thorny crown. “You made it out, I see.”

  “Yes.”

  Beneath bushy eyebrows flecked with gray, her sharp eyes shot to Creed, back to Gina. “Where’s your mother?”

  Gina’s heart squeezed. “She—she is still missing.”

  “That so? Sorry to hear it.”

  Gina didn’t know if the words of sympathy were genuine. She sounded as gruff as ever saying them. “It is terrible—not knowing.”

  “Now the factory’s going to be closed a spell, ain’t it?” Again, she gave Creed one of her shrewd, grizzly bear looks.

  “Yes, but I do not know for how long. I am sorry, Mrs. Sortino. Mass starts in only a few minutes. We are in a hurry.”

  “You know the rent’ll be due the first of the month, same as always. If you won’t be able to meet your obligation without your mother to help you, I’ll need to know it right now.”

  Gina refused to think of where she would go if she had no money for rent. “I understand.”

  “Another thing.”

  She braced herself…

  “There will be no men spending the night if you ain’t married. And I know you’re not. It’s grounds for your eviction if it happens again.”

  “Eviction? Now, now, Mrs. Sortino.” Creed spoke in a lazy drawl Gina had not heard from him before. He draped his arm casually over her shoulders, mortifying her with his recklessness. “I was just spending a little time with my favorite girl, that’s all.”

  “Rules is rules, and she knows it.”

  “Hell of a day she had yesterday.”

  “It don’t matter.”

  As big as Mrs. Sortino was, Creed was bigger. The old bear had to look up at him to defy him. Gina wished she could disappear into a crack in the floor.

  Creed sighed. “You’re right. You have to forgive me.” Magically, a folded bill appeared between two lean fingers. “Let’s just forget this talk about eviction, shall we? In case I decide I want to stay with her again.”

  Mrs. Sortino snatched the bill into her grimy paw. “There could be worse things, I reckon. Just don’t be tellin’ all the other tenants. I ain’t runnin’ a brothel around here.”

  A brothel! Gina’s eyes widened. But before she could manage to defend herself, Creed took her elbow and hustled her toward the door.

  Before going through it, he turned back again.

  “In case you decide to come looking for more of where that came from, you can be damn sure the city building inspector isn’t going to like hearing how you refuse to put lighting in the stairwells. Isn’t safe for the tenants, you know.” His fingers lifted in a cocky salute. “Good day, Mrs. Sortino.”

  Leaving the woman sputtering after him, he whisked Gina outside into the bright, crisp morning air.

  Gina frowned up at him in disapproval. “You should not pay her so much money. She does not deserve it.”

  “I’ve learned all lowlifes think the same,” he said roughly.

  “And now she thinks the worst of me.”

  “As long as she gets her money on the first of the month, she’ll leave you alone.”

  In that, perhaps, the bribe would succeed, and some of Gina’s disapproval faded. “Well, you are very brave with her. I cannot be so bold.” He guided her toward his horse, still tethered at the curb. “But do not think you can stay with me again tonight. You cannot.”

  He glanced over at her. A corner of his mouth lifted. “What if I like the idea of being a kept man by you?”

  Did he tease her with the words she’d used to chastise him just this morning? Or did he mean his own? Before she could decide, his attention shifted from her and caught on something else.

  Graham Dooling waited in a shiny runabout carriage parked next to the palomino. Dressed in a dark suit and freshly starched white shirt, he looked too important to be on this dusty street with its crowded tenements. A sharp mingling of hope and fear burst inside her that he brought news about Mama.

  “’Morning, Graham,” Creed said.

  “Good morning, sir. I took a chance you might have accompanied Miss Briganti home last night. When I saw your horse, I figured you were still here.”

  “I’m taking her to church.”

  “I see.” His compassionate gaze swung to Gina. “I’ve been most concerned about you. Any word about your mother?”

  Her hopes fell. Clearly, he had none, either.

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “My sympathies, ma’am.”

  “We’ll make another trip to the infirmary and the police station in case she’s been found,” Creed said, untying the reins. “After church. We’re late as it is.”

  The man took the hint. “Perhaps I can drive Miss Briganti in the buggy, sir. It’d be more comfortable for her, certainly.”

  Creed cast Gina an inquiring glance, and she nodded a bit uncertainly. When had she ridden in a carriage as nice as this?

  “We go to St. Philomena Church, six blocks away,” she said.

  “We’ll be there shortly. Do you mind if we talk along the way, Mr. Sherman?”

  Creed and Gina exchanged a glance. Whatever the man needed to discuss must be important for him to seek Creed out. In their short acquaintance, she discovered Graham Dooling was not a frivolous man. He took everything he did with utmost seriousness and efficiency.

  And his reason for being here must mean trouble.

  Creed rode his horse on the driver’s side of the runabout. “I’m listening, Graham.”

  “I’m sure you’re aware, sir, that anarchism is sweeping the world. We live in an industrial age, and America is at the forefront. Our cities are changing like never before. Unfortunately, the anarchists are resisting the trend, and their numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. A secret group of them is active right here in Los Angeles.”

  “That is what the Sokolovs are,” Gina said.

  Creed and Graham swiveled toward her.

  “What?” they demanded in unison.

  “I remember. It is what Sebastian said. Anarchists.”

  “Who are the Sokolovs?” Graham asked.

  “Two brothers,” Creed said.

  “Nikolai and Alex,” Gina added.

  “She saw them set the fire last night at the factory,” Creed finished.

  “What?” Graham’s head whipped back and forth between them.

  “It is true,” she said, somber.

  Creed doubted Graham swore often, but he did so now, with relish.

  “The name is Russian?” Graham said, apparently recovered enough to think the news through.

  “Yes,” she said. “Nikolai is very big, very arrogant. His brother, younger, not so big.”

  “How does Sebastian know they’re anarchists?” Creed asked.

  “They ask him to come to one of their meetings.”

  “When?”

  “They want him last night. Before the fire, at least.”

  Suspicion coiled through him. “Is he one of them?”

  “No.” She appeared offended that Creed would ask. “Sebastian tells me he does not want to go.”

  The carriage pulled up in front of the church, and their conversation had to end. Her dark-eyed gaze
took in the congestion of horses and buggies on the street, and her expression turned sad.

  “Many of the seamstresses who work at Premier belong to St. Philomena,” she said in a hushed voice. “Their families come to pray for them. For all of us.” Both Creed and Graham moved to help her down, but in her hurry, she was out of the rig before they could. “Thank you, Mr. Dooling, for taking me.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  Her glance met Creed’s.

  “I’ll wait,” he said before she could tell him goodbye, or thanks, or anything else to send him on his way. She should know by now he wasn’t going to leave her.

  She nodded once, then pivoted toward the church.

  “Gina,” he called.

  She turned back.

  “Say a few for me, too, will you?”

  Her expression softened. “The Madonna listens.”

  His gaze lingered over her until she slipped between the heavy doors and was gone. He’d committed his share of sins over the years and envied the faith that seemed to run deep in her. It was good she had an inside track to heaven. He hoped it would give her peace in the end. She’d need all the prayers she could offer up to get through the worry about her mother.

  Creed sighed and delved into his shirt pocket for a rolled cigarette, but the memory of breathing in all that thick smoke in the factory dropped into his brain. Made him want to cough all over again. He grimaced and put the thing away.

  He hooked a knee over his saddle horn instead and contemplated the man beside him. From the grim expression on Graham’s face, something troubled him, and it went beyond his concern over the rising wave of anarchism.

  “So, why are you really here, Graham?”

  The Secret Service agent swept a discreet glance around him, as if to assure himself no one would overhear.

  “It’s in regard to the matter we discussed yesterday,” he said. “Outside my sister’s shop.”

  The intelligence the Secret Service had received about President McKinley, that his life might be in danger.

  Unease kicked through Creed. “What about it?”

  “His itinerary has been finalized. He’ll be arriving in two days by train. Washington has notified us just this morning.”

  Creed stared.

  Two days.

  “I’m sure you understand, sir, the importance of making it absolutely, positively, safe for him to visit.”

  He knew, all right. In America, a man didn’t come any more important than the president. And Creed had been proud to serve one for the past six years.

  But, hell, two days.

  Only yesterday, Creed had planned to be gone by then. Gone somewhere far away…

  “There’s more, sir. Washington has ordered the excursion be kept top secret. His wife is an invalid, and her health is of great concern to him. Her doctors felt that a quiet holiday in the California air would be beneficial.”

  “Almost impossible to keep news like this from reaching the public.”

  “My fears exactly, sir. The anarchists strongly oppose his authority in our government. They despise all this country stands for. Once they learn he’s coming, his life will truly be in danger. As will his wife’s.”

  Creed’s grim glance slid down the street, to a row of glass-front offices. Sunlight touched on bold block lettering on one window in particular. He squinted, reading the words.

  Western Union.

  An easy ride away.

  He could be there.

  In minutes.

  He thought of President McKinley. And patriotism. He thought of Nikolai and Alex, two men whose ideals clashed with everything Creed had ever believed in, stood for or fought about. He thought of the horrible fire in the Premier Shirtwaist Company factory, the pain and destruction and the lives who had been hurt, and the Sokolovs’ heartless part in all of it.

  But most of all, he thought of Gina.

  He wasn’t going to send that wire to his friend, Jeb Carson, in the War Department. Not for a good long while yet.

  He had a hell of a fight on his hands, right here in America.

  The first stirrings of excitement, the ardent need for justice, took root inside him. Six years of fighting, learned in the halls at West Point, then perfected behind enemy lines in war-torn lands, had taught him the need for it. The importance. He’d sweated and bled, suffered and feared, for his country.

  For freedom.

  He was prepared to die for it.

  He’d learned to survive because of it.

  He could do nothing else but protect the president of the United States and avenge Gina’s mother at the same time.

  “General William Carson assured me you’d know what to do,” Graham said, watching him.

  “He did, did he?”

  “He said you were one of the best soldiers he’s ever known. His son, Jeb, too. Both of you, the best.”

  Creed grunted. Jeb would be safe from the fighting out there in Washington. He was probably home right now, in his kitchen, having breakfast with his new wife and son.

  “You’ll help then, sir?” Graham asked, hope obvious.

  Living the good life. A life Creed had once hoped for with Mary Catherine.

  Then, Gina Briganti burst into his world. And everything changed.

  He straightened in the saddle, his mind dallying over the image of her in his mind—dark-eyed, olive-skinned, blood-warming, beautiful.

  “The Sokolovs need arresting, don’t they?” Creed asked. “The president needs protecting. Guess I’ll do what I can to get both jobs done.”

  Graham blew out a breath. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We’re a long way from throwing the brothers and their kind behind bars.”

  “Any idea how we’ll go about doing that?”

  His mind sifted through what little he knew. And came up with Gina, his one link to the Sokolovs.

  Once Mass was over, with her help, they’d find her friend Sebastian and ask him a few questions.

  Chapter Nine

  Gina shouldn’t have tolerated Creed’s stubborn insistence to wait for her until after the Mass ended, but in truth, she was glad he did. So much sadness from the families of the factory workers. Not enough hope. And, oh, the despair…

  She left the church weepy and not as strong as she should have been. Seeing Creed outside, knowing he would be there, well, once again she didn’t feel so alone.

  The discussion he’d been having with Graham Dooling ended when she joined them. Maybe it was his concern for her, showing in the amber depths of his eyes. Or the way he kept watching her, as if to assure himself she would be all right. She understood his need to find the Sokolovs. But why Mr. Dooling needed Creed’s help to find the secretive anarchists left her perplexed. Who was he that he had the skill? The courage?

  Still, she’d been honored when Creed asked for her help to locate Sebastian. Her friend would do his best to answer the questions Creed needed to ask. She’d been only too happy to help in this small way.

  But she asked that he take her to the Los Angeles Infirmary first, just in case someone had found Mama and brought her there. What if the good nursing nuns hadn’t known to contact Gina to let her know?

  Creed had been quick to agree, and she made the brief trip in Mr. Dooling’s buggy. He departed from there, leaving Creed and Gina at the infirmary’s entrance, with a promise that he would be in contact again soon.

  Now that they were here, Gina was too nervous to go inside. She was afraid of what she would learn, that there was no news. Or bad news. What if her visione was wrong? That it’d been just a strange dream?

  “Best to go in and get it over with,” Creed said in his low voice.

  She could not look at him. “Yes.”

  “Been hell for you not knowing.”

  “It has not been easy, no.”

  “I’ll go with you. You know that.”

  Her head lifted then, and her gaze met his. His loyalty left her bemused and grateful. She’
d known him only a short while, and yet… was he this honorable with all the troubled women he met?

  “Gina! Bella Gina!”

  She whirled at the sound of Sebastian’s voice. He strode through the infirmary doors with his arms outstretched, and she went right into them.

  “Oh, Sebastian! I do not expect to find you here!” she exclaimed against his coat.

  He released her, lowered his head and kissed both her cheeks. “I have been worried about you. Louisa, too. Have you heard anything?”

  She drew back. “No. That is why we come. I hope someone finds her and—”

  She halted at his crestfallen expression.

  “She is not here, Gina. I come to visit many people from Premier, the other cutters, my assistants… I want to visit Louisa, too. And when I ask if she is here, they tell me no. Everyone is identified. They do not have a Louisa Briganti anywhere.”

  Gina pressed her fingers to her lips. “Oh, Sebastian.”

  “The firemen, the police, they would have brought her here if they found her. It is the closest place.”

  Her eyes closed, the worry, the grief, unbearable. “Yes.”

  He gently touched her cheek. “The fire is out now. They are cleaning out everything that was burned. I have been told that Mr. Silverstein wants to reopen the factory as soon as possible.” He hesitated. “If Louisa is there, they will find her.”

  Fierce denial shot through her at what he implied, and she jerked back. “She is not there, Sebastian! If she is, I know it here—” she thumped her fist against her chest “—deep in my heart. I have a visione. She is somewhere, and she is still alive! I know it!”

  He made a pitying sound and shook his head slowly.

  “Gina,” he whispered, his black eyes sad.

  And oh, she didn’t want his pity or his sadness. In that moment, she hated him for it, and she blinked furiously to keep tears from falling.

  “If there is anything I can do,” he murmured, reaching for her again.

  “There is,” Creed said.

  Sebastian froze, and his gaze shot toward Creed before jumping back to Gina. His expression darkened. “You are with him again, eh?”

  “Yes,” she said, refusing to justify herself.