Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic) (37 page)

He knew he was being unreasonable, even dictatorial,
but he simply couldn’t understand why Pamela, just once,
couldn’t behave like any other woman he’d known.

“Just leave fighting Jonathon Darwell up to me, and
there’ll be nothing for us to argue about,” he added.

“Why not leave it up to me?” Pamela shot back, crossing
her arms over her chest, her stance and expression as in
tractable as her mood.
“
I’ve
never had a gun pointed
square at my back, and that’s something
you
can’t say.”

“We’re not going to argue about this,” Garrett said after a long pause. Couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut and
simply do what she was told?

“You’re right; we’re not,” Pamela replied, kicking the door
shut.

Alone in her house, she gritted her teeth, angry that Garrett should suddenly find it impossible to think of her
as a competent person able to take care of herself. Why
couldn’t he see how much he needed her when it was so
obvious?

Their argument had cast a dark pall over the day, which
had begun so spectacularly.

Chapter Seventeen

Jedediah knelt beside the carcass, feeling a cold, dead emptiness inside himself that he could not explain. The
horse had been Pamela’s mare, Daisy. Though little more than
the skeleton was left now that the coyotes and buzzards
had picked the bones clean, Jedediah recognized the oddly
stripped hooves that had been peculiar to Pamela’s mare.
Then, too, he recognized the renailed left hind shoe,
which Pamela had fixed herself in a marginally successful
effort to save money rather than take Daisy to a blacksmith
in Whitetail Creek.

The surprise wasn’t in finding the carcass. Pamela had told
him roughly where the mare had gone down. The awful
wound from the heavy-caliber bullet ending the noble
mare’s suffering was plain enough to see, despite the pre
dation of scavengers.

What made no sense at all, what put the first tickle of
surprise and doubt in Jedediah’s mind, was the condition
of the mare’s legs. Not one of them was broken. The ani
mal had obviously needed to be put out of its misery, but
not
because of a broken leg, which had been Pamela’s expla
nation for the tragic incident…or was that her excuse?

Jedediah looked in all directions, seeing the endless prairie
in all its stark splendor. A beautiful sight, certainly, if one
had an appreciation for such beauty. Pamela did, but was
that reason enough for her to ride way out here?

He had the eerie sense he’d been lied to. What
skewed the equation for Jedediah was the belief that some
one who
should
be telling the truth—someone with every
thing to gain and nothing to lose by the truth—was the
one telling the lies.

But why?

He eased into the saddle and rode away slowly, in no
hurry to return home to Pamela or to ride into Whitetail Creek to
report to Richard Darwell.

* * * *

Pamela didn’t trust anything anymore. Jedediah had been looking very strangely at her, and occasionally she wondered what his thoughts were. Did he suspect Garrett was
the Midnight Phantom? No evidence had been left behind anywhere to lead her brother to Garrett Randolph, the respected
attorney. Still, Pamela was uneasy.

Perhaps Jedediah suspected she and Garrett had become
lovers, but usually if he had questions regarding her rela
tionship with a man, he confronted her with them. His
style was to attack problems head-on and work toward an
immediate answer. Now, instead of being direct, he was
even more silent than usual, and in the two days that had
passed since his return from Juniper Junction, he hadn’t once
gone to see his sweetheart in Whitetail Creek.

Thoughts of Garrett flooded Pamela’s waking hours. She
tried to banish them from her thoughts, but she could not. She first remembered t
he tender times, when she was in his arms and they were
talking quietly, then vividly clear
images of their lovemaking followed. Frequently, she
would find herself blushing, and though she was
certain it was wicked of her, she let herself replay these passionate scenes repeatedly in her mind.

She wanted Garrett. She loved him with all her heart and
soul, though there were things about him that she did not like very much. Such as his attitude toward her effective
ness against Jonathon Darwell. When had Garrett become so certain that she was a hindrance to their cause?

Could his attitude have changed because they’d become
lovers?

Pamela dismissed this notion. They had very nearly become lovers on that very first night when the Midnight Phantom had saved her from capture. And later, when the
two of them had attacked Darwell Cattle Outpost #3, he hadn’t found
her presence at his side so terribly disconcerting.

Perhaps she was something more than just another lover now.

This thought brought a smile to Pamela’s lips as she continued brushing down the mare “loaned” to her by Paul
Randolph and not yet returned because Garrett had insisted
she keep the animal.

Was Garrett falling in love with her? He hadn’t said as much, but then, he seldom said everything that was on
his mind. As a result, Pamela had learned to prod and pry in
her attempts to find out what it was he was thinking, what
was in his heart.

But if he loved her, as she hoped he did, then why hadn’t
he come to her? Two days ago she’d kicked the door shut
on him, but two days was plenty of time for a man to realize he was being a pigheaded fool. Now Garrett should apologize so that he and Pamela could again make
love and then get on with their lives and their private war
against Jonathon Darwell.

Pamela played the fantasy over and over in her mind. She
pictured clearly the look on Garrett’s face as he swung out
of the saddle. His grin was sheepish, even boyish, and it devastated
Pamela’s anger, melting the ice in her heart. He would apolo
gize, saying he’d finally realized what a damned fool he
was being, and she would take him by the hand, tell him
she forgave him, and then lead him into her bedroom where they would make glorious love all night long.

Except Garrett never rode up, never grinned sheepishly,
never said he’d realized the error of his ways.

“You’re a damned stubborn fool, Phantom,” she whispered, running the currycomb along the gelding’s flanks.

She remembered the exciting times, when she hadn’t yet learned who the man behind the mask was, yet was making love to him. He’d been so patient with her then at that oasis, concerned for her comfort, for her pleasure,
aware that she was a virgin and needed much tenderness.
And, oh, how he had made her senses sing.

Far off, she heard a horse neighing. Her heart leaped
in the hope that Garrett had at last come to her. But emerg
ing from the trees in the distance was Jedediah, and Pamela’s heart sank. There were times when she wished her brother
wasn’t around. If she couldn’t have Garrett with her, then
she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, her dreams and
memories.

It’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself,
Pamela decided with determination.
I’m taking charge of my own life. I can’t change Garrett any more than I can become the rich society woman he wants me to be.

* * * *

Jonathon Darwell leaned back on the sofa in his office
and stared out the window. He puffed slowly, contempla
tively, on his pipe. The rich, fragrant Virginia tobacco
never failed to soothe him, and his lips curled into a smile
.

He had put all his energy into thinking about how to
apprehend the Midnight Phantom. His other business enter
prises were now neglected so he could concentrate on that
man who prevented him from sleeping at night.

The seeds of a solution had taken root and grown slowly. He’d even considered one thought lunacy when it had first hit him.

Who is my worst enemy?
he asked himself. The answer
to that one was simple—Garrett Randolph. But would Garrett,
a lawyer and outspoken advocate for increased law enforcement in the territory, actually break the law?

Randolph had certainly worked to the benefit of the downtrodden, but Darwell knew something else about him,
something kept from the journalists who so often devoted
space and ink to praising him.

Garrett Randolph was a man who enjoyed the ladies, and
every politician knew that indiscretion—even a man’s—was a death sentence to a political career. The fact that Garrett had continued with his affairs proved to Jonathon
Darwell, as he sat in the dark puffing slowly at his pipe, that
certain human factors drove him. Garrett was not the po
litical machine he presented himself as. He had a darker,
hidden side that flaunted convention.

Would he go so far as to become the Midnight Phantom?

Jonathon had no doubt that Garrett matched him, hatred for hatred. In fact, Jonathon highly suspected Garrett’s
hatred burned hotter than his own, primarily because
Garrett had more often than not failed to stop Darwell whenever they’d clashed in a courtroom over one of Jonathon’s
business ventures. Could Garrett’s frustration be driving him to acts of criminality?

A crooked smile played over Jonathon Darwell’s lips as he bit down on the stem of his pipe.

Randolph could be the Midnight Phantom. Jonathon hoped he
was. If he was operating outside the law, then he had the
potential for being
way
outside it. This dent in the “knight’s” armor could be helpful since Jonathon Darwell
desperately wanted Garrett in his pocket, accepting bribes
and taking orders.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm his thinking. He was jumping to conclusions, assuming immediately that
a single errant thought was the truth, when in fact it might
be nothing more substantial than wishful thinking.

Just the same, if Garrett was the Midnight Phantom, that
might explain a few things, like how the Phantom always
seemed to know exactly where to be and how to strike with the most damage at Darwell’s enterprises.

* * * *

“What you need two horses for, Mr. Randolph?” the ranch hand asked, saddling up Garrett’s mount and placing
a bridle on the second one.

“I want to test their stamina,” Garrett replied, his voice
low, his explanation lame.

“Never seen you show any interest in either of these horses before, Mr. Randolph. Geez, we got plenty of fine
riding stock on this ranch without you having to ride horses that haven’t been—”

“I’m really in quite a hurry,” Garrett said, wishing now that he’d simply saddled his own horse.

The ranch hand, though an excellent man with the horses, was much too talkative, insisting on many more answers than Garrett was willing to give.

Beneath his left arm was the blanket roll, bulging slightly with the things he’d placed in it earlier. He consciously forced himself to relax his grip on the roll, not wanting to draw any more attention to it than he already had.

“You’re sure there ain’t nothin’ I can do for you, Mr. Randolph?” the ranch hand asked. “Any man that needs
two horses with him probably needs a second man riding
at his side.”

“I appreciate the offer, but that really won’t be neces
sary. I want to ride hard, to get my thoughts clear,” Garrett
explained.

Completely confused, the ranch hand squinted his eyes.
Garrett suspected that never in his life had this cowboy
needed time alone to think through a business proposition.

From the corner of his eye, Garrett saw Juan stepping
out of the ranch house. Garrett stuck his boot in the stirrup
and swung up into the saddle. With night coming on, he didn’t want Juan, or anyone else, slowing him down or giving him more work to do before he could leave.