After Sundown (27 page)

Lucas felt his gut knot up. He had spent most of his adult life in the flatlands—Indian Territory, the Red River—had only passed through the Rockies a couple of times. He didn’t know enough about this part of the mountains to know if they were telling him the truth.

But he remembered how grateful he’d been to set eyes on Eminence tonight—after just two days of getting to know these passes firsthand. Even with a skilled guide, they’d been lucky to make it through alive. He wouldn’t want to count on that kind of luck a second time.

Still, he wasn’t about to just accept that he and Annie were stuck here until spring. “This stuff could melt in a few days or a week, and we could get out of here.”

“February or March,” Mrs. Greer told him with an irritated sigh. “Ask anyone who’s spent a few winters at this here altitude.”

Lucas looked at her. “If that’s true, I suppose it means no mail until then, either?”

She shook her head. “Might be one last mule train that’ll try and make it through, but probably not.”

“So I can’t even send a letter to my men, or a letter home to explain.” He clenched his jaw. “My family and my deputies won’t know what the hell happened to me.”

His gaze settled on Annie.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly as she looked up at him.

“It’s not your fault.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended.

Holt came to stand between them. “McKenna, you want to join me in my office and let me stitch up that dent the bullet left in your head?” he asked with an annoyed expression. “I doubt a nasty infection will make you any more pleasant to be around.”

Lucas eyed the instruments in the doctor’s hands. “It’s just a scratch, Doc. Not sure I want you coming at me with any sharp objects.” He motioned to Annie. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on, McKenna. At least let me make sure she’s all right before you lock her up again,” Holt said. “She’s been through a hell of a lot.”

Lucas hesitated.

“Marshal.” Annie clenched her hands in her lap. “I may still be your prisoner, but you don’t need to watch me every minute. I can’t get out of Eminence at the moment.”

Lucas glanced from her to her friends, and realized that much was true. At least for now, the passes were closed. She couldn’t go anywhere tonight.

And maybe not for the next three months.

“Fine.” Lucas headed for the front door. “When you’re done, you know where you’ll find me.”

~ ~ ~

An hour later, when Lucas stepped into the darkened front room of Dunlap’s hotel, he noticed two things.

First, a light was burning in the suite at the back.

And second, the place felt different. Maybe it was the cold weather, the ice on the windows, the moon shining through and casting everything in a silvery glow.

Or maybe it was that
he
felt different. Every time he’d walked into his makeshift jail before, he’d been filled with a sense of purpose. Driven by the need to see swift, sure justice done to his brother’s murderer.

And now it was gone.

The fury, the determination, the need for retribution. Gone.

He walked toward the suite and entered the sitting room, dropping his saddlebags on a chair.

Annie stood at the open door of her cell, her face pale and her eyes wide. “God Almighty, you scared me,” she said, releasing a wavering breath. “I didn’t know who was walking in here.”

“Didn’t realize I needed to announce myself.”

She frowned at him. “Your footsteps didn’t sound...” She cut herself off, turned back into her room. “It brought back a memory of the bounty hunter, that’s all. I wasn’t sure where you had gone off to.”

“Went to see Travis.” He followed her into the cell, which was illuminated by a lantern sitting on the table beside her bed. She still wore the men’s clothes Lily Breckenridge had given her: two shirts and trousers that were too big on her, rolled up at the cuffs, cinched at her waist with a belt.

The pants hung loosely on her, but they also revealed more of her legs than any skirt. For a moment, Lucas couldn’t take his gaze from her, finding every step she took somehow provocative.

Desire hit him so hard and fast, his heart and stomach did an odd somersault. He couldn’t catch his breath.

God help him, how could just looking at her make him
ache
, make so many conflicting feelings crowd together inside him?

He glanced away, forcing himself to remember what was important: his duty, his family. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that. Not again.

When he blinked to steady himself, he finally noticed what she was doing: She had an open satchel sitting on a chair next to the chest of drawers.

“Is Travis all right?” she asked, stuffing clothes from one of the drawers into the bag.

“Just fine. What, exactly, are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

“I just came to get my things—”

“To go where?”

“Rebecca’s. I’m going to stay at Rebecca’s and help out in the store like I used to. Since I’m going to be here all winter, I have to earn my own way somehow. I can’t keep living off my friends’ charity.”

Lucas frowned, though he couldn’t help admiring her stubborn pride. And her willingness to work hard. Some women would be perfectly happy to sit back and let others cater to them.

But Annie wasn’t like some women. She wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever met.

Ever.

“And did you think of maybe clearing this with me?” he asked sharply.

She turned toward him with an irritated look. “Don’t tell me you were planning to keep me locked up all winter?”

His eyes burned into hers, and he didn’t reply. At the moment, all he could think of was that he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to taste her, feel her body melt against his, hear that husky sound she made when he touched...

No, damn it.

It didn’t matter what he wanted.

Or what he felt.

“Antoinette, nothing has changed,” he said, trying to sound cool and controlled even as his gaze traced over her features, noticing every small detail: her skin like satin in the lamplight, the tendrils of hair that framed her face, her lashes thick as the black silk fringe on a surrey.

And the hurt in her dark eyes.

He turned his back. “And I’m not sure yet that we’re going to
be
here all winter.”

“And when do you think you’ll be sure? Another week? A month?”

“When I know, I’ll let you know.”

“Am I supposed to stay in this cell until then?”

“Am I supposed to just let you walk out of here?”

“It doesn’t make
sense
, Marshal! I can’t leave town. You might not believe what everyone keeps saying, but I do.” She resumed her packing. “You can’t keep me here all winter.”

“Legally, I can.”
I have to
.

She slammed the drawer shut and gave him an exasperated look. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you would be difficult about this?”

“You’re still in my custody—”

“And you’re still taking me back to Missouri. So I can stand trial. And probably spend the rest of my life in prison.”

He gestured angrily to the snow beyond her barred windows. “That just might be a moot question until next spring.”

He didn’t say the rest.

That part of him hoped the damned passes stayed closed, was grateful for the snow.

“If it’s a moot question until next spring,” she said, “there’s no reason to keep me in a cell all winter.”

Lucas stared at the rug, heard her close the last drawer and snap the satchel shut.

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I haven’t said you could go, Antoinette.”

“Marshal,” she said, her voice brittle, as if it might break. As if she might break. “For once,
I
am making a decision.”

She started to walk out.

“There’s still the matter of a five-thousand-dollar bounty on your head,” he said tightly. “Or have you already forgotten that nice gentleman who took you out of here a few days ago? You want to risk bringing someone like him—or worse—into Mrs. Greer’s place?”

That stopped her. As he had known it would.

She turned in the doorway. He could see her thinking it over, knew she wouldn’t do anything that might put her friend at risk.

“If nobody can get
out
of Eminence through those passes,” she said, “I doubt anybody could get in, either.”

“There’s a lot of nasty SOBs in the West who’d risk more than frostbite for the chance at five thousand dollars,” Lucas pointed out. “And there might already
be
another bounty hunter or two in town. How long do you think that first one was prowling around before he made his move?” He nodded toward the sitting room. “And five minutes ago, you thought
I
was someone dangerous coming in here.”

Annie glanced from the barred windows to the door, and shivered.

Lucas moved to stand beside her. “You’re staying here,” he told her more gently, “where I can keep an eye on you.”

As he took the satchel out of her hands, she regarded him with a look of frustration and annoyance. And tears shone in her eyes.

Lucas felt like he’d just taken a double load of buckshot in the gut. All day, he had been trying to convince himself that he could subdue these unfamiliar, unwanted feelings she stirred in him.

But seeing her this way, seeing her almost in tears because of what he was doing, tore that idea to shreds. Because it tore him to shreds.

“Consider it protective custody,” he said gruffly. “Anyone else tries to kidnap you or hurt you, they’re going to have to go through me first.”

He intended to keep her safe.

And he intended to keep in mind that she was his prisoner—because that was the only way he was going to make it through the winter days ahead.

And the winter nights.

~ ~ ~

The prospector slipped into the dark alley behind the abandoned mercantile, his boots crunching in the snow. Despite the frigid air, sweat soaked through his shirt and the patched woolen coat he wore. Twice, he paused to glance back over his shoulder.

Just when it seemed like a feller could get a break, everything had to go and take a turn for the worse. He’d been nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers all night.

It wasn’t twelve-thirty yet, but his friend was already waiting, a cigarette in his teeth, the tip glowing red in the darkness.

“You heard yet?” the prospector whispered as he sidled up next to him. “He’s
staying
.”

“Hyup.”

“All winter.”

“Hyup.”

The prospector glared at him in the moonlight. “You were gonna take care of him,” he hissed. “What happened to your ripsnortin’ plan?”

“Couldn’t get at ’im before.” His friend blew a smoke ring that hung suspended in the air for a second. “Has to look like an accident, ’member?”

The prospector grumbled a curse, but knew it was true. From the day the damned marshal first showed up in town, he hardly ever left his jail for long—and with womenfolk going in and out, and that Ballard kid there all the time, things had been dicey. They couldn’t just walk in and shoot him.

“Well, Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, we got to do something. Can’t even go to Fairfax’s no more—I just about pissed myself when he came in like he done, in the middle of the day.”

“Yeah, and you made sure to make a nice fast getaway. So now he’ll think you had a reason. Sees us again, he’s likely to take a good
long
look—and remember our faces from all them wanted posters. Like our ‘last big job’ that was s’posed to let us retire. Union Pacific ain’t gonna rest until they string us up for stealin’ that payroll and killin’ them two station masters—”

“Then we just have to do like we planned. Get rid of him ’afore we get locked up. But it’s gotta be real sneaky like. Somethin’ that can’t be pinned on us. Somethin’ where there ain’t no witnesses.” The prospector started thinking. “Avalanche maybe. Or a cave-in, if we could get him out to one of them empty old mine shafts—”

“Be best if we wasn’t around when it happened,” his friend drawled. “That’s sorta important for the ‘can’t be pinned on us’ part.”

The prospector scratched at his beard. “Give my last good tooth for a rattler or a gila monster long ’bout now.”

“How many rattlers or gila monsters you ever seen in these parts? In the
winter
?”

“Well, I don’t hear
you
coming up with nothing.” The prospector hit his friend in the arm. “So far you been about as useless as a wart on a pretty gal’s bottom. What ideas you got?”

“None yet. But I’ll think of somethin’.” He ground out the cigarette beneath his boot. “That lawman ain’t gonna live long enough to see springtime.”

A
half-dozen townsfolk gathered around the potbellied stove in the middle of the general store, all chatting and laughing while some of their children played jacks on the sawdust-covered floor. With December snows holding the mountains captive, nobody had much to do in Eminence. Most of the prospectors wintered in town, some with their wives, staying at nearby cabins or the various boardinghouses while they waited for the first touch of spring to work their claims again. Folks mainly spent their time visiting with friends and neighbors rarely seen in busier seasons.

Annie leaned on the counter, frowning as she sketched out an idea for a Christmas window display. She tried to find pleasure in the familiar smells of spices, tobacco, and coffee that filled the air around her, and in the genial buzz of conversation from the homesteaders and miners.

But none of it lifted her spirits. Not even the small measure of freedom she’d been granted the past few days.

During the first two weeks after she and Lucas had returned to Eminence, he had kept her securely in the jail, like before. Then he had grudgingly accepted the fact that they were, indeed, stuck here for the winter—after talking to people in town, and several prospectors who’d lived in the area most of their lives, and even riding out to study the passes himself.

Finally, after much grumbling, he had relented a week ago and allowed her to start working at Rebecca’s during the day—though he’d made it clear that she was still expected to return every evening by dusk. He had let her out of the
cell
, but not out of
jail
.

Once he’d unlocked her cell door, he had moved into a room down the hall, giving her the suite all to herself. The two of them had mostly kept their distance since then—and barely managed to be civil to each other. Like they were strangers.

But they weren’t strangers.

Not since that day in the dugout, when she had told him everything, and he had held her so tenderly, whispered her name...

Kissed her...

Annie shut her eyes, trying to forget—and instead remembering every vivid detail.

The ravishing heat of his mouth... his hands on her bare skin... his touch as he stroked her intimately... the weight of his body against hers... the silky heat and hardness of him inside her...

Blinking, she had to press her palms against the countertop to steady herself, feeling flushed and breathless. God help her, she was trembling. And she had dropped her pen on the floor. Frowning, she picked it up and returned her attention to her sketch.

She had promised herself that she would put that reckless, foolish day behind her. That she wouldn’t let her thoughts get all addled again—or her heart get broken. Lucas had made it clear that his duty and the law mattered more to him than anything. That he didn’t care about her.

He had risked his life to save hers, but only because he was seeing to the welfare of his prisoner.

A prisoner he intended to return to Missouri at the first opportunity, and hand over to the authorities.

His cold words still echoed through her memory.

Nothing has changed.

The sound of someone clearing her throat made Annie glance up and straighten.

Mrs. Kearney stood on the other side of the counter. She drew herself up to her full, imposing height, looking rather like a beady-eyed crow in her black dress, black bonnet, and black cape, a purse trimmed in jet beads clutched in front of her. “Where is Rebecca?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Annie put her sketch pad away. “Rebecca’s busy this morning.”

“I see. And when do you expect her to return?” As she spoke, Mrs. Kearney allowed her spectacles to slide down her long nose, looking at Annie with an expression of distaste as if she were a half-clad dancing girl who belonged in a cheap burlesque show.

Annie looked down, her hands wringing the white apron she wore over her dress of checked green gingham. All at once, she felt like sinking down behind the counter.

It had taken her only a few days to settle back into the life of the town—but it wasn’t quite like it had been before. This time, everyone knew the truth about who she was and what she had done before she arrived in Eminence. During the past week, she’d been surprised by the way many townsfolk had accepted her presence among them.

And she hadn’t been surprised that others—like Mrs. Kearney—had made it clear they would no longer shop in Rebecca’s store when Annie was there. They didn’t want to be waited on by someone like her. A wanted criminal. The daughter of a whore.

A woman who had spent three years as a rich man’s mistress.

Annie kept her eyes downcast. “Rebecca will be busy in the storeroom most of the day.”

Since it was Saturday, she and Rebecca had both arrived at six in the morning, to greet the homesteaders who came in once a week to trade their surplus eggs and butter, or a cured ham from their smokehouse, or some fresh-plucked chickens for goods they needed. Folks had harvested their gardens and butchered their animals in the fall, so everyone’s fruit cellars were filled with cured meats and preserved fruits and vegetables.

The last mule train of the season hadn’t been able to get through, but the people of Eminence had more than enough provisions to last the winter.

Rising so early had brought on one of Rebecca’s headaches, and she had decided to work in the darkened back room, organizing the foodstuffs and making an inventory list, rather than in the lamplit brightness of the store.

Mrs. Kearney pulled on her black knitted gloves. “Perhaps I’ll come back another day,” she said in a voice that was even frostier than the temperature outside.

“I’d be happy to help you,” Annie offered.

“You?” The woman sounded offended by the very idea. “I hardly want someone like
you
touching food that I’ll be serving my guests.”

Her tone made Annie flinch, flooding her with memories of St. Charles. All her life, people like this had made her feel worthless. Annie had long ago gotten in the habit of stepping aside when she saw them coming, keeping her gaze lowered, getting out of their way to avoid the whispers and name-calling.

But this wasn’t St. Charles.

And she wasn’t willing to just step out of the way anymore.

Slowly, she lifted her head and met Mrs. Kearney’s disapproving stare. “Whatever it is you need, ma’am,” Annie said politely, “I can help you with it. Tomorrow’s Sunday, so we’ll be closed, but if you’d rather wait until Monday...”

Mrs. Kearney pursed her lips—which, judging from the deep lines around her mouth, she did often. “Indeed, I believe I will.” With a sniff, she turned and stalked away.

Before she could reach the door, it opened to admit Lucas and Travis, along with a blast of wintry wind.

“Marshal.” Mrs. Kearney planted herself in his path, gesturing toward Annie with her black purse. “Isn’t our town council paying you to keep our streets
safe
from people like this...
woman
? She’s a known criminal. I really don’t think she should be walking around free. And she certainly shouldn’t be near these children—”

“She’s hardly a danger to them, ma’am.” Lucas took off his hat and gloves.

“But she is not at all the sort of person who... who...”

“Ma’am, she’s been working here for a week, and so far she hasn’t committed one single crime.” From his expression and his tone, he seemed to be in another of his thorny moods. “Now, she starts shooting up the town, or robs the bank, or disturbs the peace in any way, you be sure and let me know.”

“Well, I... hmph!” With a swirl of her black cloak, Mrs. Kearney left.

Travis flattened himself against the counter as she swept past him and out the door. Then he chuckled, shaking his head. “That old bat Kearney always looks like she just swallowed a gulp of hair tonic.”

Annie regarded Lucas in surprise as he walked toward her. “Thank you,” she said, “for defending me.”

“Just doing my duty to keep things peaceful around here.” He jammed his gloves into the pockets of his drover’s coat, tossed his hat on the counter, and headed for the stove in the center of the store, where he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot she kept brewing for customers.

Earlier this week, Lucas had visited Mr. Hazelgreen and accepted the town council’s offer of a job, since his money wouldn’t hold out all winter. Each day—morning, afternoon, and evening—he and Travis had been making the rounds of the various shops and buildings in town.

The rest of his time, Lucas spent here, keeping an eye on her and keeping watch over her. Though so far, no more bounty hunters had appeared.

Travis pilfered a brown-and-white-striped horehound stick from a candy jar as he came toward the back counter. “We had a real eventful patrol this morning.” He leaned his elbows on the counter, grinning broadly as he gave her all the news. “Chased a stray dog that got loose from a homesteader. Then a lady complained that her neighbor ain’t cleaned the fall leaves off his chimney yet—we got a town ordinance against blocked chimneys. Fire hazard. Had to explain it to the feller—”

“And then Cyrus Hazelgreen asked us to chip the icicles off the eaves of his bank,” Lucas said as he joined them, “because he considered them a threat to the safety of the citizenry.” Sighing, he took a drink from his coffee. He seemed bored to distraction by the same events Travis considered so exciting.

Then again, the boy seemed to find
everything
exciting, now that he wore a badge. The star bearing the words EMINENCE, COLO. above the words DEPUTY MARSHAL had him walking around like he was ten feet tall—even though it had been cut from the bottom of a coffee tin and the lettering was just painted on.

Lucas had given him the badge the day he himself became town marshal, officially swearing Travis in as a deputy. He’d wanted to honor the boy for being injured in the line of duty.

But true to his taciturn nature, Lucas hadn’t mentioned it to her. Travis had been the one who related the story proudly, the first day he appeared in the store at Lucas’s side.

“Travis,” Annie said, wiping her hands on her apron, “Rebecca asked if I would send you back to the storeroom when you get a chance. She’s got some heavy barrels that need to be moved, if you could help.”

“Aw, Miss Sutton.” Travis polished his badge with a corner of his shirt. “I’m a lawman now—”

“He’ll be glad to.” Lucas shrugged when the boy frowned at him. “Like I said, kid, it ain’t all showdowns and shoot-outs. You signed on to serve the people of this town. Go on back.”

Travis sighed in protest, but followed his boss’s orders and ambled off toward the storeroom.

Lucas leaned on the counter toward Annie and set his coffee cup down, the steam from the dark brew rising between them.

She tensed. For three weeks, they hadn’t even touched, had come no closer to each other than the distance of this countertop. But every time he was near, her heart beat a little faster and an unsettling warmth shimmered through her.

Annie fought to ignore the feeling, irritated that she had so little control over her response to the man. She couldn’t even help noticing how handsome he looked today, wearing a black vest and a simple white shirt beneath his drover’s coat, the fabric straining over his broad chest. The colors set off his tanned skin and dark hair, and the silver of the badge he always wore lately.

“Didn’t hear you leave this morning,” he said finally, with a hint of annoyance. “You were already gone when I woke up.”

“It’s Saturday. I had to be here at six.” She couldn’t take her gaze from his hands, watching him slowly stroke his thumb back and forth along the rim of his cup—an absent gesture that for some reason brought an uncomfortable, fluttery sensation to her stomach. “I didn’t see a reason to bother you at the crack of dawn. Besides, I thought you decided to leave the cell unlocked so I could come and go—”

“I said you could help out at the store. I didn’t say you could just come and go without a word to me.”

Annie bit back a frustrated sigh. They stood there for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes, the hum of conversation and children’s laughter filling the store around them. She caught the scent of the soap he had used to shave this morning, woodsy and warm and...

She turned away to open a display case full of spice tins, deciding that they needed to be rearranged. She was
not
going to let Lucas upset her. The man was truly impossible. Unyielding. Unreasonable.

“Speaking of coming and going,” he said, “on my way out this morning, I tripped on a woolen runner by the front desk. Never noticed it before—just like the table and chairs that suddenly appeared in the front room yesterday. And the food and pots in the kitchen—”

“I want to start making my own meals.” She set a handful of spice tins on the counter. “There’s no reason for others to keep cooking for me when I’m perfectly capable of cooking for myself. And there wasn’t a table to eat at, so Rebecca found one in one of the abandoned buildings—”

“Along with the rug in front of the fireplace, and the settee with the embroidered pillows, and the curtains?” He scowled at her. “Curtains. With lace on them. It’s like a troop of magical elves has been visiting every day, decorating my jail.”