Lawman (21 page)

"And your hat, as well?" Gabriel
guessed.

She nodded and touched her hat's brim. "Yes,
that too. I enjoy a bit of millinery now and again, but only as a
sideline. For some reason, there's not the same demand for my hats
as there is for my dresses."

As though wondering over the reason, Megan
frowned briefly. Gabriel decided he'd be better served
not
to point out that her hats would make fine playthings for
parakeets, or for old ladies' housecats. Instead, he kept his mouth
shut.

In truth, he was becoming almost fond of her
ridiculous headgear, except for the fact that it hid her hair—and
oftentimes her face—from his view.

He wondered what she'd look like with her
dark hair unbound and free. Last night she'd refused to loosen her
hair beyond the long plait she'd uncoiled one-handed from the back
of her head, too filled with fury at his handcuffs to indulge
Gabriel's offer to unbraid it for her.

Now, he looked at the knot of freshly
bundled hair at her nape, and wondered what it would feel like to
sift his hands through its glossy length. He imagined it would be
soft and thick, long enough to spill across a man's pillow, or
caress his arms and chest while he held her close.

Not that he'd fall prey again to such a
dangerous, addle-headed move himself. Their nearness last night
could never be repeated—especially while Megan was awake to recall
it.

"You sell your creations, then?" he asked,
hoping to turn his thoughts in a new, less temptation-laden
direction.

To his surprise, she nodded. This
dressmaking venture of hers was something Gabriel hadn't learned of
during his preliminary investigations. It would explain much about
her headstrong nature, though, if she really were engaged in
business for herself—unlikely as the notion seemed.

"Yes, I do." Her eyes gleamed with
enthusiasm. "I have for some time now, although orders are a bit
hard to come by when I spend all my days at the station. Ladies are
a bit scarce there, as you recall."

He thought of the giant, taciturn station
hand Mose, and all the men working in the yard behind him. "That's
true." He poured more coffee, and sipped. "But you're a grown
woman, as you said. You should leave, and set up shop in town,
where business is plentiful."

Her lips turned downward as she idly twisted
her coffee cup in her hand, for all appearances piqued at being
offered advice. Knowing Megan, she was.

"I intend to," she informed him archly.

"You do?" With interest, Gabriel leaned
forward.

"Certainly. Just as soon as I've—" She
paused, biting her lip in thought, then glanced up at him brightly.
"That is, once I've gathered the necessary funds."

"Funds?"

"Yes. It takes money to open a shop, agent
Winter. Surely someone so worldly as you knows that."

Abruptly, she fell silent—consumed, for all
appearances, with spooning exactly the correct quantity of sugar
into the new cup of coffee she'd poured. Curiously, Gabriel watched
her.

Megan was hiding something. Something new,
that he hadn't been aware of before. Suddenly, Gabriel felt sure of
it, and wanted to kick himself for not questioning her more closely
until now. Was it the location of the missing shipment of payroll?
Her father's whereabouts?

Her own guilt?

He didn't want to believe it. Could not
believe it. But the fact remained that, by her own admission, Megan
Kearney spent her days at the stage station. Could she really be as
uninvolved as he'd assumed with the station's business?

Unanswered questions filled his thoughts.
The approach of a uniformed hotel employee cut short Gabriel's
opportunity to have them said. With the burgeoning conversation
between him and Megan waylaid, he could only watch as the
white-aproned serving girl presented three plates laden with the
griddlecakes and maple syrup, breakfast buns, and toasted bread
with strawberry jam he'd ordered. Then, with a curtsy, the girl
left them to their meal.

Smiling, Megan gazed down at her plate. "I
see you have a bit of a sweet tooth. Do you suppose there's any
sugar left in the kitchens, after this?"

"I hope so." Gabriel grinned back at her.
Despite his new misgivings, the teasing, almost affectionate
expression she wore loosened something inside him that until now
he'd kept tightly held. "I'll probably want more later."

"You will?"

He nodded. Shaking her head with mock
disbelief, she speared a bite of griddlecake and tucked the
buttery, syrup-drenched morsel between her lips. Her tiny moan of
delight increased his appreciation of maple trees and griddles
tenfold.

"A man's appetite is a curious thing,
sugar," Gabriel acknowledged, watching her close her eyes in
apparent bliss as she chewed and swallowed. "Sometimes it won't be
satisfied with less than the sweetest thing within reach."

Not even if that sweetness could cost him
dearly
. Deeply aware that what he'd learned this morning placed
her squarely among his likeliest suspects, he kept his words
teasing...but they were nonetheless true. He did want her, in spite
of the ever-mounting reasons not to trust her.

Laughing, Megan eyed his overflowing plate.
"I do believe you're more insatiable than most."

"Perhaps." He let his gaze slip to her
breasts.
Definitely
. How she could hide such sweetness as
that behind those stiff-starched, prissy dresses of hers was beyond
his understanding.

He'd have dressed her in something softer
and paler, something more befitting the woman he glimpsed
underneath her defenses.

Something like bare skin, and little
else.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Megan munched on
a triangle of toast and smiled at him from across the table.
Apparently, she had a fondness for sweetness, too. He could hardly
believe she hadn't ordered fried eggs and bacon, just to be
contrary.

Needing time to think about all that she'd
said, Gabriel turned his attention to his meal. A thought nagged at
him, all through his first cinnamon bun and partway through his
first slice of toast. It wasn't until he reached for the dish of
extra jam the serving girl had left, and glimpsed the third filled
plate at the place setting to his side, that he realized what it
was.

He put down his fork and gazed pointedly at
Megan. "So," he asked, folding his hands, "what have you done with
McMarlin this time?"

Chapter Twelve

The bite of toast in Megan's mouth turned to
sawdust at Gabriel's question.

What have you done with McMarlin this
time
?

Dismay stopped her mouth in mid-chew.
Forcing herself to go on munching as cheerily as she could, lest
Gabriel guess how well he'd unbalanced her already this morning,
Megan pondered his question.

Doubtless, agent Winter believed she'd done
something terrible. Especially after last night. She still found it
hard to believe that she'd taken on a Pinkerton man in the midst of
a dark alley, even while scared out of her wits...and won.

She hoped last night's success boded well
for her efforts with Gabriel. Realistically, though, she realized
those hopes might be a trifle optimistic. The man seated across
from her seemed far stronger and faster—and measurably more
daunting—than his cigar-smoking cohort.

Even Mose hadn't been foolhardy enough to
challenge Gabriel Winter directly.

Slowing her chewing to buy time to think,
Megan tried to summon up a bit of the iron-shackled ire she'd come
downstairs to the dining room with. Being handcuffed to agent
Winter—being forced to
sleep
with him—should have been the
ultimate humiliation.

Instead, it had proved not half so arduous
as she'd feared. In truth, parts of her overnight confinement had
been surprisingly pleasurable...like waking up suffused with the
kind of warmth no rising sun alone could kindle, and finding
herself held close in Gabriel's strong, hard-muscled arms.

Her body fairly tingled at the memory...not
that she meant to reveal as much to him. The scoundrel deserved
whatever regrets she'd heaped upon him when she'd arrived at
breakfast, Megan assured herself. In fact, he deserved worse, just
for daring to serve up such an audacious smile to her when he'd
first spied her in the dining room doorway.

To be the recipient of such obvious
masculine favor, especially from a man like Gabriel, had thrilled
her to the tips of her poor spinster's toes. And beyond.

At least it had until she'd come to her
senses, and realized what a sham he must be trying to play on her
again.

Clearly, he meant to use every weapon at his
disposal to persuade her to give away her father's whereabouts.
That potent charm of his was just another of those weapons—not the
genuine fondness Megan sometimes found herself foolishly hoping
for. If only she could make herself remember it!

In all, though, for a man who would put an
innocent woman in chains, Gabriel had proved remarkably tender as a
sleeping companion. Despite the fact that his tall, lean body had
felt large enough to sprawl over the entire four-poster bed they'd
shared, he had gallantly made room for her on one side. He'd
fluffed up her pillow, offered to find extra quilts if she was cold
beneath the coverlet, brought her a glass of cool water from the
olla
in the corner.

Of course, she'd had to shuffle along behind
him while he did it, thanks to their shared handcuffs. But his
intentions had been kindhearted, at least.

In short, Gabriel had cared for her.

To assuage his guilty conscience
,
Megan reminded herself. After all, she wasn't his suspect. Her
father was! Perhaps he'd realized the questionable ethics of
all-but kidnapping a suspect's daughter, and meant to make amends
with her today.

If so, he was off to a mighty slow
start.

"Well?" he prompted, drawing his eyebrows
together.

She frowned at his demanding tone. He was
most certainly off to a slow start, if this was his way of mending
fences with a person.

Since time had done nothing to prepare her
for answering his question, Megan surrendered to the inevitable.
She swallowed her toast and gave him her bravest look.

"I believe agent McMarlin has left the
hotel," she said coolly. With interest, she noted the flush
creeping into Gabriel's lean cheeks. Yes, this ought to take his
mind off questioning her quite nicely, she figured. "Something
really ought to be done about him, don't you think so? The man is
far too lax in his duties."

"
Lax
?"

"Yes." Calmly cutting herself another bite
of the hotel kitchen's delicious pancakes—with hopes of reawakening
her rapidly failing appetite—Megan spared him a quick glance. She
hoped he hadn't noticed how her hands were trembling. "You must
agree, especially after this latest escapade of his."

Spoken through clenched teeth, his reply was
menacing. "Megan, I swear, if you've—"

"If I've what?" she interrupted quickly, not
at all sure she wanted to know the nature of his threat—or what he
suspected her of.

He scowled. She shrugged. As a woman who
routinely felled great Pinkerton detectives, she guessed she
oughtn't be surprised he'd grown wary of her. The notion gave her
an exciting—if short-lived—sense of power.

"If you've done something with McMarlin,
there'll be hell to pay this time," Gabriel said. "Damnation," he
muttered. "I never should have left the two of you alone
together."

Perhaps a further bit of diversion was in
order, Megan decided.

"Jealous, agent Winter?" she asked.

Disbelief shadowed his expression. "Jealous?
Of what?"

"Of agent McMarlin, of course." She sipped
her coffee. "I'll admit, he does receive a great deal of my
attention...at least, in between escapes, he does."

His level, all-too-comprehending look could
have nailed her to her chair. "You ditched him again."

"Ditched him? Hmmm." Pretending to think
about that, she bit into her cinnamon bun and savored its spicy
sweetness. "Well, I will admit that agent McMarlin may have
mistaken the knotted bed sheets I dangled from the balcony for an
escape route." She shrugged. "Who can say if he followed it or
not?"

An unintelligible sound of frustration
issued from her dining companion.

"Agent Winter, are you all right?" With a
great show of observation, she leaned forward. Gabriel's freshly
shaven jaw, clean scented dark hair, and handsome suit were all
just as she'd expected. The fearsome set to his expression was
not.

Trying not to lose her nerve in the face of
it, she nonchalantly raised her pancake-laden fork and said, "I
didn't know a man's eyes could bug out quite so fiercely as that.
You're quite remarkable."

His fingers tightened around the knife he'd
been using to spread glistening strawberry jam on a slice of toast.
Gabriel glanced from his knife to her throat—undoubtedly
entertaining visions of quieting her for good, the scoundrel. Then,
to Megan's astonishment, he laughed.

Great guffaws of amusement burst from his
lips. Louder even than the scrape of cutlery against china and
rattling of serving carts surrounding them, the sound of Gabriel's
laughter drew the attention of every dining room patron.

Nonplussed, Megan stared. What in heaven's
name did he find so funny? Perhaps he'd finally gone 'round the
bend, driven to lunacy by the demands of tracking criminals who
weren't—like her father—and needling their daughters—like her.

Retaining her composure in the face of his
hilarity wasn't easy. Her mention of the way she'd sidestepped
agent McMarlin had been meant to distract Gabriel from asking any
more questions about the money she intended to use for her
dressmaker's shop—not to position her as the subject of his joke.
She couldn't have him delving too deeply into her missing nest egg
money—or her reasons for believing her father might have taken it.
To be sure, Gabriel Winter would suspect her father still further
if he knew about Joseph's gambling habits.