After Sundown (28 page)

“I didn’t do it to annoy you,” she said in exasperation. “The room was just so empty, with nothing but a scaffolding in it. I thought it might be nice to make it a little more comfortable—”

“A jail isn’t supposed to be comfortable. And a jail is no place for embroidered pillows. Or lace.” A glint of suspicion came into his eyes. “And what, exactly, does a settee have to do with cooking or eating meals?”

“I... well...” Annie hesitated, toying with a small tin of cloves in her hand, then decided it was time to confess. In a fit of pique a couple of days ago, she had planned a small act of rebellion. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so I don’t have to work... and Katja Gottfried stopped by the store to invite me to a card party at her house—”

“No.”

“I knew you would say that. I told her I wasn’t allowed to leave the jail, so Katja suggested... she thought maybe...” Annie hurried to explain. “It would just be for a couple of hours, and we won’t bother you. You’ll probably be out patrolling with Travis. She’s going to bring tea and cakes, and a few of her friends are coming over—”

“No.” He shook his head. “They’re not.”

“But it would just be—”

“Antoinette, the answer is no.”

Annie shut the door of the display case a bit too sharply. “Of course. You’re right. What was I thinking? You never know where an afternoon tea might lead. A knitting bee. A box supper. All sorts of notorious activities.”

He shook his head at her sarcasm. “No card parties. No bees. And no more decorating the jail.” He picked up his coffee cup and started to turn away.

“Part of me actually thought you might understand,” she said, anger and hurt making her voice shake. “How much I’ve always wanted to have friends, to be invited to things like card parties.”

Their gazes met, his expression unreadable.

Annie looked down at the counter. “But it probably just seems silly to you,” she finished softly.

He didn’t reply for a moment.

“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” he said a bit more gently.

“Then why?” she asked in frustration, lifting her head.

“I have... obligations.” He seemed to struggle to say the word. “I can’t just forget them because I have...”

He stopped, as if unwilling—or unable—to explain further. An awkward silence fell between them. Then Lucas muttered an oath and turned away.

One of the prospectors waved him over to the potbellied stove. “Marshal, you want to get beat at checkers again?”

Lucas took off his coat, looking grateful for the distraction. “Depends, Ritter. We playing for pinto beans or real money today?”

One of the farmers surrendered a seat next to the cracker barrel, where the men had their own territory staked out, with comfortable chairs borrowed from one of the town’s abandoned buildings, a spittoon nearby, and a large tin of chewing tobacco to share.

Annie shook her head, not even sure why she kept arguing with her jailer.

His reasons for his actions were always the same: his duty and the law. Right and wrong.

Nothing’s changed.

He seemed determined to drive that point home at every opportunity—as if she needed reminders that she was still in custody. As if a day went by that she didn’t dread what was going to happen when he took her back to Missouri to face a judge... and a lifetime behind bars.

Her spirits even lower than before, Annie returned to her work. She was helping Rebecca organize the store into departments—grocery items on one side, dry goods in another, chewing tobacco and cigarettes in their own section, toys on a low shelf where they would appeal to children.

Rebecca knew where every last thing was in the shop, down to the smallest tea leaf and sewing needle, but with her eyesight so poor, she sometimes had to struggle and search among the disorderly jumble to find a particular item for a customer. Annie wanted to make things easier for everyone.

Especially since she wouldn’t always be here to help.

Only until spring.

~ ~ ~

Steam fogged the front windows of the darkened hotel as Lucas prowled the main room in the middle of the night, barefoot, dressed only in his black trousers. Annie was asleep in her suite.

He knew because her light had gone out an hour ago. He knew that because he kept glancing at the closed door of the sitting room now and then as he walked past, back and forth.

Like he had been doing almost every night.

God Almighty, he had hoped that moving to a separate room down the hall would help. He had hoped that staying out of her suite, not locking her cell door, not even
touching
her would help.

But he still found himself lying in bed after dark, listening to the pounding of his own heartbeat.

She was still his last thought every night and his first thought every morning.

He glanced at her door again. Since their argument in the general store this morning, she hadn’t spoke one word to him. Had shut herself in her suite after supper. The sitting room door might even be locked... though he hadn’t checked to
see
if it was.

The urge to walk over and try the knob was so strong it made his hand shake.

He forced himself to turn around. During the day, he managed to find enough distractions to keep his mind occupied and keep her at arm’s length.

But at night, when the two of them were alone together...

Lucas stalked over to the empty fireplace, and sat on the camelback settee in front of it. The braided rug felt scratchy beneath his feet. He slumped back and picked up the lacy needlepoint pillow from one corner of the couch.

He lifted the pillow toward him, could catch the faint, summery scent of meadow herbs, the scent of her hair.

This evening, just after sundown, he’d returned from his last patrol with Travis to find that she’d fallen asleep here, curled up in front of the fire, a book in her hand.

And he’d sat down and just looked at her for the longest time, feeling like he did now. All tangled up inside.

Feeling like hell because she seemed so alone, and he’d denied her permission for a card party tomorrow.

Lucas dropped the pillow as if it burned his fingers. If he felt like hell about ruining Annie’s afternoon tea, how was he going to feel when he handed her over to the constables in St. Charles?

He stood up and started pacing again.

Women were trouble. No question about it.
Trouble
. Something Lucas usually tried to avoid. A federal marshal had enough of it in his life without going out and finding himself more. Like by getting all mixed up with a woman.

Especially a woman who was in his custody. A woman he
never
should have allowed himself to hold in his arms, or kiss.

Or take to bed.

Every drop of his blood heated at the memory that had made his nights restless for three weeks now: the two of them together. The feel of her naked skin against his, the soft perfection of her in his arms.

The sweet pressure of her body holding him so tight, deep inside her.

His throat went dry.

She was his prisoner.

But she wasn’t guilty of the crime she was charged with.

She had been his brother’s mistress for three years.

Even those words no longer held the firepower they once had.

Lucas walked to the front windows, looked out through the curtains at the snowy street. He flattened his palm against the cold window and refocused his eyes, looking at his own reflection in the glass.

He thought of his family, waiting back in St. Charles. Thought of his sisters, Callie and Eden and Faith. And Olivia. Her children. All depending on him. Waiting for him to deliver them justice. How could he betray their trust in him?

But for the first time in his life, he found himself wondering about the meaning of the word
justice
.

Annie wasn’t a murderer. Was it right to turn her over to a court that would sentence her to life in prison? Was that justice?

He closed his eyes, his fingers curling into a fist. More and more, it was becoming important to him to keep
Annie
safe. To protect her.

Her whole life, people had been turning their backs on her when she needed them—her father, her brother, even her own mother.

And James.

Lucas swallowed hard, opening his eyes. It was perhaps the sharpest irony of all that he’d started to see in Annie the goodness and generosity and caring he’d always attributed to James.

And come to believe that James had committed the sort of callous, cold, selfish act that Lucas had once believed Annie capable of.

He still wasn’t able to understand how James could have treated her so badly, a woman as soft and gentle as Annie. And their unborn child.

She deserved better.

Just as she deserved better than what a judge and jury would do to her back in Missouri.

Staring into the night sky, Lucas turned the question over and over in his mind, the one he had never had to ask in all his years as a federal marshal.

What was the right thing to do?

“T
here comes a gal I used to know, swing her once and let her go! Swing your partner ’afore you trade, grab ’em back and promenade!”

Townsfolk wearing denim and homespun, work boots and sturdy leather shoes whooped and hollered as they danced to the raucous music of a fiddle, a banjo, and a squeeze-box accordion. Their feet thumped the floor planking hard enough to knock dust off the rafters and make bits of straw drift down from the hayloft overhead.

The grange hall had been decorated with evergreen boughs, garlands of cranberries, strings of popcorn. Angels and stars cut from pieces of tin glimmered in the light of oil lanterns hooked on every beam and cross-brace. A huge wreath hung on the front door, which kept opening to admit blasts of snow and icy wind, and yet another family that had braved the drifts to arrive by sleigh or on horseback.

The town’s annual Christmas dance, held on the third Saturday in December, was apparently the social event of the season. Lucas stood in an out-of-the-way corner, leaning back against the wall with his boots crossed at the ankle, his arms over his chest. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the festivities, staring silently out at the crowd.

“Sir?” Travis was standing next to him. “What do you think I should do?”

“About what?” Lucas asked absently.

“About Valentina,” the kid said with a hint of frustration. “Sir, ain’t you heard a word I been saying? I thought her pa might be willin’ to let me keep company with her, now that I’m a lawman and all, but he still don’t like me much. And Val says he’s been talkin’ about arrangin’ a
marriage
for her next summer, to some highfalutin’ feller out in California who don’t even
know
her.” Travis’s voice became bleak. “
I
known her since we was both tadpoles.”

Lucas rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He was the last man in Colorado who should be offering advice on how to deal with woman problems.

He still hadn’t found any answers to his own.

He’d been doing his damndest to avoid thinking about what was going to happen a few weeks from now when the passes cleared. What
had
to happen. Because it wasn’t in his power to change it.

Once they reached St. Charles, he would try to talk to the judge, make him understand the facts. Maybe his word offered on Annie’s behalf would be enough to protect her. Maybe he could...

He ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do. All he knew was that he had to keep Annie in custody until they returned to Missouri. But he wouldn’t abandon her, like everyone else in her life had done when she was in a desperate situation. She needed help.

She needed him.

“Marshal?”

Lucas glanced at his young deputy. “Sorry, kid.” He tried to think of something helpful to say. “Shouldn’t you, uh, talk to your pa about this?”

“Already did,” Travis said with a forlorn expression. “Pa says I should just stop tormentin’ myself over her, ’cause she’s gonna be leavin’ and there ain’t nothin’ I can do about it.”

Lucas grimaced. “Sounds like good advice, Travis.” He shifted his attention back to the crowd.

It looked like most of the town’s population had turned out tonight—more than a hundred people, which meant there wasn’t even enough room for all of them to dance at the same time.

Everyone took turns on the floor, visiting with friends and neighbors in between, or carting their sleepy children off to doze in the hayloft overhead, where they were watched by giggling girls who weren’t quite old enough yet for dancing.

Men outnumbered women about four to one in Eminence, which made for some odd pairings of miners and farmers on the dance floor. A trio of grizzled prospectors played the music, while four others served up food and drink from laden tables at the back of the hall. The wizened old coot serving as the caller looked to be about seventy, but seemed to have been blessed with amazingly strong lungs.

“How will you swap, and how’ll you trade, this pretty gal for that old maid! Chase the possum, chase the ’coon, chase that pretty gal ’round the room!”

“But, Marshal, how am I s’posed to just forget Valentina?” Travis grumbled. “When she’s around, I can’t hardly
see
straight. Just lookin’ at her makes me feel all funny inside. And when she ain’t around, she’s all I think about. Can’t even sleep. Been pacin’ so much, my ma kicked me out of the house the other night.”

Lucas blinked, realizing that Travis had just described every one of the symptoms he himself had been suffering. “Maybe you should, uh, talk to Doc Holt. Might be some kind of... influenza or something going around town.”

“I ain’t sick, Marshal. I
love
her—”

“Evening to you, Marshal.” Morgan O’Donnell approached them, looking dapper in a fancy dark-green suit, his aristocratic drawl just loud enough to be heard over the music. “Haven’t seen you on the floor yet.”

Lucas greeted him with a nod, glad for an excuse to change the subject. “I’m here on duty. Making sure everything stays peaceful.”

“Ah, I do seem to recall this event ending in a drunken brawl one year, when some cad spiked the punch.” O’Donnell flashed a mischievous grin that brought out the dimples beside his mustache. “And what about you, young Travis?”

“Not much for dancing,” Travis said sullenly.

“On that, we are agreed.” O’Donnell settled against the wall beside Lucas. “My talents most definitely lie elsewhere.” He tipped his hat to a passing blonde, his grin widening. “Hoping I might get the opportunity to prove as much tonight.”

Lucas slanted him a look. All the single men in town complained that Eminence suffered from two problems: a lack of unmarried ladies, and Morgan O’Donnell.

Apparently, the gambler set his sights on just about every pretty, available female in town, and managed to charm many of them into forgetting that other men existed in Eminence.

And with Indigo and Ivy long gone, the town’s last bawdy house stood empty—and male tempers were getting noticeably shorter as winter wore on. Lucas had had to break up three fistfights in as many days this week. He was surprised guns hadn’t been drawn. Yet.

No question about it, women were trouble, he thought, his mouth curving downward, his gaze on the scuffed toes of his boots. It was damned unfair, the suffering that the female of the species could inflict, purely by walking around existing.

O’Donnell had his full attention on the crowd, or rather, the ladies in the crowd. “Married. Married. Too old. Spoken for. Hates me. Too... hmmm, yes, too young. Pity.”

“You three critters just gonna hold up the walls all night?”

Lucas glanced up as Rebecca Greer approached them on her way to the food tables, carrying a platter taken from some folks who had just arrived. “Start eatin’ at least,” she admonished as she breezed on past toward the back of the hall. “We got Injun pudding. We got sweet-potato casserole. We got raspberry punch.” She smiled at Lucas.

Lucas gave her a puzzled look as she bustled on by. Rebecca Greer had grown more friendly toward him lately, and he wasn’t sure what accounted for the change.

He also wasn’t sure which he preferred: her previous hostility or this new, almost motherly mood.

As O’Donnell continued studying the crowd, he released a melancholy sigh. “I do wish Miss Ivy had stayed in town. Never thought I’d be glad for such a damned cold winter.”

Lucas had to agree with that. He’d taken up a new habit of long walks outside at night.

He was surprised he hadn’t run into Travis.

The three of them stood there in morose silence, watching the noisy festivities.

Then O’Donnell surreptitiously produced a flask from inside his silk vest, casting a sidelong look at the punch bowl, his grin reappearing.

“Try it,” Lucas drawled, “and I’ll have to arrest you.”

“You are no fun at all, Marshal.”

“So I’ve been told.”

They glanced toward the door as it opened again and another group came dashing in, mostly hidden beneath bonnets and woolen shawls and capes. Lucas recognized Annie among them, and his heart gave an odd, doubled beat.

He had a sworn duty to keep her in custody until they returned to Missouri... but no law said that he had to make her miserable all winter. So he’d been trying to make things a little easier for her, in small ways.

It had started when he’d relented and allowed her to have that Sunday card party. Which had somehow led to a weekly Sunday knitting bee in his jail.

And when she had mentioned that she wanted to join her friends tonight at the Christmas dance... hell, he hadn’t been able to say no to that, either.

Didn’t have to mean anything.

He just couldn’t see a reason to deny her a few simple things that would make her happy for a while. Especially when everything else he did caused her so much hurt.

He remained where he was, watching as she handed her coat and gloves to someone who came forward to take them, and shook the snow from her long hair. She looked around, talking with the ladies who accompanied her.

And then she saw him. Their eyes met across the crowded room.

Even from here, he could see the happiness shining in her expression. In her smile.

He nodded in acknowledgment and looked away, trying to resist the warm sensation unfurling through his chest.

 “Ain’t that...” Travis glanced at Lucas in surprise. “Why, that’s Miss Sutton.”

“Yes, it is,” Lucas said curtly. “Didn’t see the harm in it.”

“Sir, you don’t have to explain to me. It
is
Christmastime.” Travis returned his gaze to the womenfolk. “That’s Val over there with her.” He released a besotted sigh. “And I don’t see Mr. Lazarillo nowheres. Do you think it would be all right if I—”

“Go.”

The kid didn’t ask twice. He made a beeline across the room.

“Ah, women,” O’Donnell said in an appreciative tone. “God love ’em.” He gave Lucas a curious look. “Should you ever wish to unburden your conscience, Marshal, about anything at all...”

“What’s that supposed to mean, O’Donnell?”

“Nothing, Marshal. Not a thing.” The younger man shrugged, grinning. “Please excuse me.” He tucked his flask into his vest, his attention on a plump redhead who had just walked past.

Lucas watched him go, his own gaze drawn back to Annie. She was chatting with Katja Gottfried, Valentina, and a few other ladies. They must have loaned her the outfit she wore: a chambray skirt that matched the dark color of the evergreen boughs, with a pair of western-style boots, and a white blouse that had long sleeves and ruffles at the high neck. Her hair had been swept back from her face in a simple style, woven with red and green ribbons that tangled through her long curls.

Lucas had to remind himself to blink, feeling it again—that strange tingling in his chest that kept hitting him every time he looked at her.

He also realized that he wasn’t the only man in the room who had noticed her. Several fellows had glanced her way—including a few who had been spending, in his opinion, too much time in the general store.

All at once, he felt a compelling urge to go over there and stand at her side, but he fought it. He might have decided to let her enjoy the dance with her friends, but he wasn’t about to share the evening with her himself. He didn’t intend to go near her. Lucas forced his gaze elsewhere.

The music changed as the dance-caller and squeezebox player took a rest, both moseying off to the back of the hall to wet their whistles. The fiddler and banjo player slowed things down a bit, striking up an old-fashioned waltz that had been popular during the war.

As the fiddler began playing the sentimental tune, most of the men in the crowd headed off toward the food tables.

Lucas watched Travis escorting Valentina onto the dance floor, and saw O’Donnell address the redhead he had followed, bowing gallantly.

But the girl shook her head, said something that made the gambler straighten with a jerk. A moment later, another fellow offered his hand, and she accepted.

Lucas almost winced for poor O’Donnell. Shot down clean, like a bottle off the back fence.

But before he had the chance to feel much sympathy for O’Donnell, he noticed three men converging on Annie—two of them glancing Lucas’s way somewhat nervously.

He glowered at them. One stopped, apparently reconsidered, and changed direction.

But the other two didn’t.

The idea of either of them touching her, holding her close...

Before he knew what he was doing, Lucas straightened and stepped away from the wall.

She was already flanked by them, talking with them, when he approached and cut the conversation short. “Evening, gentlemen.”

The two would-be dance partners fell silent. One man actually went a little pale.

Lucas realized that his greeting had come out as sharp and cold as a bullet from the .45 holstered on his hip.

“Good evening, Marshal,” Annie said hesitantly, her dark eyes uncertain, as if she were afraid that he might have changed his mind and decided to march her back to the jail.

Lucas glanced down at her. How did he always manage to say or do the wrong thing around Annie? He hadn’t meant to upset her. Hadn’t had a plan at all when he walked over here.