Lawman (31 page)

"I'd rather forget." A disgruntled
expression crossed her face. "You don't have to look so blasted
smug about it, agent Win—"

"Gabriel," he reminded. Abandoning thoughts
of laying her down on the hearth rug—at least for the moment—he
strode instead to the cluster of baggage nearby. He reached for an
opened satchel. "I saw some fruit you'd packed in here when I was
moving things aside for the washtub. I'll just—"

"No!"

He paused with his hand thrust between the
softness of a bit of clothing and the leather-bound hardness of a
book. "No, what? You said you were hungry. There's a solution to
that problem right here."

"I'm not hungry anymore," she blurted.

In obvious protest, her stomach rumbled.
Looking chagrined, Megan clapped her palm over top of it. "I'm
not," she added, less forcefully now.

What daftness was this? Most likely, she
didn't want him rooting amongst her things, Gabriel decided. On the
verge of withdrawing his hand, he felt his fingers touch the round,
dimpled surface of the orange he'd seen. He pulled it out and
flipped it into the air, then caught it.

Her eyes watched him perform the trick with
an eagerness—and a shadow of despair—he had never expected.
Stopping with the fruit held suspended toward her, he crossed the
short length of floor separating them. "I'll even peel it for you,
if you like."

"I don't like!" She made a grab for the
orange.

Puzzled, Gabriel held it back. "The kitchen
downstairs is closed. This is all there is to eat until
tomorrow—unless you plan to make a meal of the potted palm over
there, and have bath water to drink along with it."

Megan shook her head. Biting her lip, she
folded her hands in her lap along with her hairbrush. Given the
hunger in her eyes as she gazed up at him just then, he'd have
sworn she meant to make a meal out of
him
.

The idea had merit, the man in him
decided.

Stay away
, the Pinkerton operative in
him warned.

Plainly, the time for sensible thought had
passed, when both parts of him could no longer agree. Gabriel
hesitated. For the first time he could remember, he wanted to cast
aside reason and logic and truth, and hold beauty in his hands
instead. He wanted to use his vaunted instincts for something
besides winnowing out facts.

He wanted to make Megan happy.

Even if only for tonight, he wanted to see
her pleased. Satisfied. Lonely no longer. He'd lived too long with
that same emptiness inside him to wish it on her as well.

During all his long years as an operative,
he'd had nothing to hold close but the cold comfort of a case
well-completed. Now—tonight—Gabriel wanted free of secrets and
lies. He wanted a woman's arms around him instead.

And he wanted that woman to be Meg.

He hunkered down beside her, running his
fingers over the orange's cool-skinned surface. "It looks awfully
good to me. Ripe. Round. Sweet, I'll wager—with just enough tang to
make a man hungry for bite after bite." Gently, he tugged her hand
from her lap and pressed her fingers to join with his over the
fruit. "Just like you, Meg."

She looked up, startled. "Just like me? I
don't—" She licked her lips, and her gaze turned watchful instead.
"You're not making sense."

"This from a woman who's hungry one minute
and sated the next?" Gabriel grinned. "I make plenty of sense, once
you quit looking for an underside to everything I say."

With a murmured disagreement, she twisted
her fingers beneath his to pull away. With patience to spare now
that his mind was made up, he released her.

Megan stared at her freed hand in surprise.
"You let me go."

"I want you to come to me willingly, or not
at all."

Her head came up sharply. "Does that mean I
can leave?"

Hurt welled within him at her words. He
closed his eyes against it, briefly, then gazed at her again. "I
don't want you to leave."

"But I could if I chose to," she argued,
shrewd as he should have expected. "After all, you can't very well
keep me here with wanting."

"No," he agreed. Gabriel rolled the orange
from hand to hand, its weight cupped in his palms and briefly
caressed, then moved again. "But I hope it makes a difference to
you."

If it did, he couldn't tell. Megan's face
betrayed nothing of her feelings, beyond thoughtfulness. Her
indrawn breath might have signified surprise, agreement...or even
fury. In this, he had no Pinkerton techniques to show the way, no
past experience to lend its guidance. Nothing but instinct.

And need.

Gabriel edged sideways and held out the
orange. "Here."

"Thank you." Her fingers trembled as she
took it from his hand. Frowning down at it, Megan hesitated for a
moment, then asked, "Are you hungry? Because if you are, I suppose
I—"

"No." He shook his head and leaned closer,
smiling as he realized she hadn't moved away from his nearness.
"Thank you. But I'll not let a woman go hungry because I ate the
last piece of fruit."

"Oh, but if you're hungry," she protested,
"I could—"

"No." Carefully, he eased the hairbrush from
her slackened grasp and fitted its smooth handle in his fist. "I'm
hungrier for something a shade more...satisfying."

Still smiling, Gabriel seated himself behind
her. He stretched his legs forward, spreading them on either side
of her skirted hips so that his thighs straddled hers and his boot
heels pointed toward the fire. She jumped a little as his legs came
forward, and started to rise.

"No need for that," he murmured, settling
his hands on her shoulders. He rubbed softly, the hairbrush poking
from beneath his thumb, and waited for her skittishness to ease.
"I'm just looking for a little warmth. It was wicked cold outside
on that balcony waiting for your bath to be done."

"Oh."

Her voice sounded small. Regretful. He hoped
it would not sound the same when this night lay finished between
them.

"I didn't mean to make you cold, or hungry,"
Megan went on, half turning her head to look over her shoulder at
him. "I'm sorry, agent Win—"

"Gabriel." Lord, but he hungered for the
sound of his name on her lips. Holding back the need, he parted a
length of her shining dark hair and raised the hairbrush to smooth
it. "Tonight I'm just a man. Just Gabriel."

The hairbrush ended its course. He began
another stroke, delicately working the bristles past the silkiness
in his hands. In places, her hair had nearly dried already from the
heat of the fire.

Twisting at the waist, Megan reached behind
her for the hairbrush. "You don't have to do that! Gracious, I
don't know where my mind is at tonight."

He hoped it was on him. Giving her groping
fingers a squeeze, Gabriel settled himself more firmly behind her
and went on brushing. "I want to do it." He paused. "Will you let
me?"

Her stillness struck him. For the space of
more heartbeats than he cared to count, she neither moved nor
spoke. Then her shoulders began their slow rise and fall, moving
gently with each breath she took. With an almost imperceptible
movement, Megan nudged herself more closely into the vee of his
legs.

It was as much an assent as he was likely to
earn. Feeling gratified, Gabriel raised the hairbrush again.
Silence lay between them—but this time it was a comfortable quiet,
filled with the crackle of the brush through her hair, the
occasional popping spark from the fire, and the mingling of their
breaths. The herbal scent of whatever Megan had used on her hair
washed over him, a subtle reward as he worked through the rapidly
drying strands again and again.

The motion was beyond soothing. Gabriel
raised his arms slowly, enjoying it. Eventually, he worked free
every tangle, smoothed every rebellious wave into a silken,
straight mass. When he was done, her hair flowed long enough that
the ends of it flicked past his groin, slithering over him like
tiny lashes of fire...fire he'd unleashed on himself.

His imagination caught hold of the image. He
pictured Megan moving over him, pictured the soft length of her
hair cascading over his bare skin, and wanted to groan aloud at the
thought. Tightening his fingers on the hairbrush, Gabriel fought
the urge to hurl it aside and turn his wonderings to the reality
he'd dreamed of.

She could be a suspect, a witness, an
accomplice, he told himself for the hundredth time.

But now, suddenly, it mattered not at all.
Not when it came down to he and Megan alone together.

A sniff broke the peaceful silence between
them. Then another. With a pain as deep as any he'd ever felt,
Gabriel bent to turn her face to his...and saw that Megan wept.

His heart ached for her. Whispering her
name, he did cast aside the hairbrush—but it was to take her in his
arms and comfort her. Nothing more.

He didn't think he'd hurt her. Surely,
Gabriel knew, he hadn't brushed so hard as that. Why then, did she
cry now?

"I'm all right." As though in demonstration,
a lopsided smile touched her face when she lifted it toward him.
She sniffed harder, and raised her hand to dash away her tears.
"I'm sorry to turn all watery on you, Gabriel. I just couldn't help
myself."

She made as though to rise. He held her in
place with nothing more than a hand and a questioning look, but was
too worried over her tears to take pride in the accomplishment—or
in the fact that finally she had called him by his name.

"Really," she insisted, taking up the brush
from where it had fallen beside her. Staring at it, watching the
bristles bend and spring back beneath her moving thumb, she sucked
in a shuddering breath. "Thank you for helping me."

Gabriel boggled. "For helping you weep? I've
never heard more madness from you."

Concerned, he edged sideways atop the hearth
rug, then thumbed up her chin and examined her tearstained cheeks.
They bloomed pink beneath the signs of her sadness, as much a
contradiction as Megan herself. With a frown, he searched his mind
for whatever might pass for womanly logic in an instance like this
one, and came up with only one answer.

"Does this have something more to do with
that damned orange?" Gabriel asked suspiciously. "Because if it
does—"

Her chortle of laughter astonished him. "The
orange?" With patent disbelief, Megan shook her head. "No!"

Tenderly, she twisted enough that they sat
nearly chest to chest, her bent knees touching his leg. She cradled
his cheek in her hand. Her touch was like a benediction, proof that
he'd chosen wisely to stay with her. Gabriel felt humbled by it,
especially in the aftermath of her tears. How could she stroke him
so sweetly, when he'd just a few moments ago made her weep?

Her gaze searched his—measuring,
considering, constantly wary—and then, with a decisive air, she
lowered her hand.

"I didn't want to eat that orange," she said
quietly, "because I'd been saving it."

"Saving it." Was that the entire
explanation, or was there more to follow? Thoroughly off-balance,
Gabriel waited.

She nodded. "Yes, saving it. As a kind of
memento." Some emotion, either embarrassment or excitement or
something else, heightened the flush on her cheeks. "So I would
remember receiving it, and remember—"

Megan stopped, swallowed hard as though
gathering courage, and plunged onward: "So I would remember you.
You gave it to me, Gabriel, and I...I wanted to remember you."

All at once, Gabriel recalled riding down
that dusty street with Megan, thought of gifting her with the
orange from the fruit vendor they'd seen. They'd been no more than
avowed enemies then, and yet she'd found something in him worth
remembering. Worth saving. The sweetness of her confession poured
through him, leaving him awestruck with the depth of feeling it
aroused.

Her shoulders quivered. Silently, she gazed
at the orange held in her cupped hands, round and colorful against
the darkness of her spread skirts. As he watched, Megan rubbed her
thumbs gently over the fruit's surface. With a grace that was
beautiful to see, she shyly smiled up at him again.

"I—I know it's silly. It's only an orange,
after all, but I...it's just that a woman like me doesn't receive
so very many gifts, especially not from a man like you. I wanted to
remember it."

"Ahhhh, Meg." Gabriel swept a tear from her
cheek, felt her smile tremble and broaden beneath his hand, and
knew a savage need to give her all that he had...all that he ever
might become. For now, he only answered her smile with one of his
own, and then touched his lips to hers. "It's not silly to
remember. It's not. I'm glad you did."

He gave her a fierce look and thumbed away
the last tear he saw. "Though I can't be glad you wept over it.
'Twould be sadder if you never wanted to remember, I'd think, than
if you did."

"Oh, I wasn't crying over that!"

Sniffling, she accepted the handkerchief he
offered her, and gave him a look that set Gabriel akilter yet
again. Never, he decided, would he truly understand her. But he
looked forward to the challenge of trying to, all the same.

"You seemed so aggrieved at my poor orange,"
she went on, "that I figured I'd better tell you about it—else find
myself with a glass of juice for a keepsake instead."

They both smiled then, the mood lightened
between them. To their side, the fire still burned. The mantel
clock still measured out the moments between one touch and the
next...between one revelation and the next, and Gabriel was
reminded of their agreement to trade questions.

And truths.

But first, he had to know: "Then why did you
cry? I tried to be gentle with the hairbrush, but you have
seemingly a yard of long hair to my measly collar's length." He
paused as Megan touched the hair at his nape and tickled her
fingers inside the neck of his shirt, driven to shuddering at the
pleasure of having her fingers on his bare skin. "Did I hurt you
without knowing it?"