Marshal and the Heiress (42 page)

Ben had hung his shingle in Denver six months ago, and he had a growing list of clients. He had just finished a trial that had proved very rewarding, winning back a mining claim for a man dispossessed by a large mining company. And he'd had a few other small successes, too. He wrote wills, checked claims, and represented only those defendants he believed in. He'd even saved one innocent man from hanging.

Diablo, now a struggling rancher in North Texas, had written to him. His first child had been born and named Ben. The gesture had been both unexpected and touching. Ben had held the letter in his hand for a long time before relinquishing it to a curious Lisbeth.

He'd never been so content. Though he couldn't save the whole world as he'd once wanted to do, perhaps he could help just a little bit of it.

And Lisbeth and Sarah Ann gave color and joy to everything he did. As did Annabelle with all her children, Henry who still looked after them all, and Peppermint, Shadow, and Bailey, and his old horse from his marshaling days. There were more animals now: chickens and pigs and an elderly mule that had been abandoned. A new refugee seemed to appear every day.

And Drew. Drew had come to America with them, had helped restore the dilapidated ranch they'd purchased. He would be leaving in a couple of days, though, and Ben would regret it. They had become good friends. Drew had finally told Lisbeth that they were brother and sister, and it was almost as if she'd known.

Now Drew planned to seek his own fortune. He wouldn't tell Ben or Lisbeth how or where, but Ben knew his brother-in-law was a chameleon who could fit in nearly everywhere.

Lisbeth returned from the kitchen. “The biscuits are burned,” she said happily enough, landing down on top of him. “Are you sure you aren't disappointed ye dinna marry Fiona?”

“Aye,” he answered. “I'll take you over biscuits any day.”

“Will you take two of us?” she asked with a twinkle in her eyes.

It took a moment for her meaning to register.

“Two?”

“Two,” she confirmed.

He seemed puzzled at first, then he grinned. “Ah, well, what's another mouth to feed?” And his lips spread into a wide smile.

“Think about a trip back to Scotland,” she said with an impish grin.

He had promised one every three years. Ben closed his eyes. Just remembering the logistics of the last trip made him tired. It had been no easy matter, and he didn't want to think about doing it again. Or maybe he did. It had been the finest trip he'd ever had, having married Lisbeth two days before they left in a double ceremony with Hugh and Barbara.

“I love you, little Scot,” he said.

Lisbeth touched his face with a gentleness that always humbled him. “Thank you,” she said, “for loving me.”

It was the other way around, but they could have argued that point for years. Instead, Ben kissed her slowly, still bewildered by the good fortune that had come his way.

Then they heard a bark. A very loud bark.

And a meow from under their bed.

They both grabbed for their clothes.

Ben and Lisbeth smiled at each other. The fam'bly was back.

And they were about to hear some news.

Turn the page to continue reading from the American/Scottish Novels

Chapter One

Near San Antonio, Texas

May 1870

Blinking back tears, Maris Gabrielle Parker ruthlessly hacked off sections of her hair just as she was attempting to hack off the terrible memories of the past week.

Don't think about them.

As if she could think about anything else.

Images replayed themselves in her head. The gunshots outside the theater where she'd finished performing. Her father's body jerking from a shot, then plunging toward her to take a second shot obviously meant for her.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she saw the tall lean gunman, face hidden by a hat whose silver band caught light from the hotel front, darting away as doors opened and people started pouring onto the street. She
did
want to keep seeing him, remembering him. She had plans for him. And for a man named Kingsley.

Her father's final words echoed in her mind. A warning? A deathbed confession? And the unexpected, stunning legacy he left behind. Perhaps that was the most tormenting of all.

She stared back into the cracked mirror on the wall of a mirror in a cheap room in Pickens, Texas, a small town forty miles southeast of San Antonio where her world had collapsed in one violent night.

A haunted face stared back at her. She saw little of the singer who had brought down the house at the San Antonio Palace a week earlier, who'd attracted swarms of unwanted admirers. Instead, her blue eyes looked lifeless, her cheeks thin and white, her lips incapable of a smile.

She was alone now. After spending an entire life with her actress mother and singer father, she was all alone.

And someone wanted her life as well as her father's. They may well try to rectify that unfortunate failure unless she acted first.

The killer, or killers, would be looking for a singer with waist long dark hair and flashy clothes. They would be looking for a readily recognizable woman.

They would not be looking for a grubby orphan lad.

She looked at the hair on the floor and then up at what was left of the long dark hair that had always been her best feature, and she caught a sob in her throat. That hair had disguised a number of imperfections, taking attention away from the too wide mouth and turned-up nose.

“Ah, you have the angel's own hair, just like your mother's,” her father had told her repeatedly. And she remembered her mother brushing it, telling her that a woman's hair was her glory.

Gabrielle bit her lip. Her father's voice was stilled, as were the fine hands that had danced so lightly over strings and keys. Tightening her fingers around the scissors, she started cutting again, tears falling silently and mixing with the strands of hair catching in her clothes or falling in desolate-looking piles at her feet.

She cut closer and closer to her scalp. Released of its weight, soft tendrils curled around her face, giving her a decidedly boyish look. Still, she would have to use a small amount of oil to keep it plastered to her head.

Remember the role, she told herself. Play the role. Nothing else matters.

To give herself courage, she hummed an old French lullaby. The sound was lonely, hollow, in the otherwise silent, stark hotel room. It needed harmony, but there was no one to hum along with her. She felt so alone, more alone than she'd ever been in her life.

When the last lock lay in the heap on the bare floor, she removed all her clothing. Opening a newspaper flat on the narrow bed, she laid her dress on it, along with the corset she'd been wearing under it, and her fine button-up shoes and silk stockings. She tied them together with a piece of string, planning to leave the bundle in a church pew. Perhaps the minister could make good use of them.

Then, sitting naked before the mirror, she opened her stage makeup box and began applying judicious amounts of dye. Enough to darken and roughen her fair complexion. Beginning at her hairline, she covered any patch of skin she thought might show, including the back of her neck, then went back and added a few strategic smudges of genuine dirt, which she'd collected for that purpose. The dye, she knew, would last for weeks without washing. She would take enough for another application. By that time she would have accomplished her task. One way or another.

Finally satisfied with the results, she picked up her petticoat and ripped into it strips, then used the strips to bind her breasts. Not that they were all that large, anyway. Her body was naturally slender, and its few curves would easily be hidden by the layers of clothes she planned to wear. Still, she was taking no chances on being discovered.

Her costume, purchased at the only mercantile in the small town where she'd left the stage, looked altogether too new. She would have to do something about that, she thought, as she put on the stiff clothing. Her hat, though, was perfect. She'd taken it from her father's trunk; it dated back to a melodrama in which she and her parents had performed. Her father had bought it off a drunken cowboy for two bits, and it was as disreputable as they came.

Pulling the hat down over her forehead, she grimaced at the smell still emanating from the sweat-band. Then she gathered her courage about her like a cloak and turned once more to face the mirror.

Enter Gabe Lewis.

Gone was Gabrielle Parker, beloved and protected daughter of James and Marian Parker. Daughter of a criminal, if she believed what her father had said in his last communication to her. And how could she not believe her father's own words?

The hurt returned. The deep anguish that her frantic activities had tried to bandage over. The anger. The thirst for justice and retribution.

Her hand reached out and clasped the letter that was never far from her, the letter and the newspaper article her father had left in his trunk for her. She'd been sent to that trunk by his last, dying words: “In the trunk … letter … explains it all …” Mustering the last of his strength, he'd clutched her arm, whispering, “The article. Kingsley. It's him. Davis. Danger for …” The words faded, then he made one more mammoth effort to speak. “Leave … Texas. Promise.”

She hadn't had a chance to make that promise, and she had no intentions of leaving Texas, especially after finding the letter her father had written and left alongside a newspaper article. It was, as much as anything, a confession as well as a warning. Undoubtedly the accompanying article had prompted him to write it. Sensing danger, perhaps even fearing for his life, he'd wanted her to know the truth. The letter was dated the day before he'd been shot, and he'd marked the envelope “to be opened upon my death.” She'd hadn't believed the contents at first, though she couldn't deny the handwriting was his.

He'd always been larger than life to her, his laughter hearty and his eyes twinkling. He'd been a loving husband, a wonderful father, and a man who would give his last dime to someone in need. It was impossible to reconcile her image of her father with the man his letter described. Impossible to believe he had been friends with the likes of the men he said he once rode with.

And yet, by her father's own admission, he'd committed acts that had forced him to leave Texas and that had kept him away for twenty-five years. Throughout that time, he'd harbored a terrible secret.

It was obvious to her, now, that James Parker had paid for the sins of his youth all his adult life. Finally, he'd paid for them with his death. Now, in her grief and anger—and her guilt that it had been she who had brought him back to Texas when he'd obviously not wanted to come—Gabrielle believed it was up to her to make sure her father's killer paid for his sins as well. Why, dear God, had she begged him to make this trip when the offer was made? Why?

But she had, and now he was dead, and the law could care less. She'd directly accused the man named by her father—a man named Kingsley—but the sheriff had laughed it off. Kirby Kingsley, he'd said, was a man of substance and power; he would not even approach the man about the charge, not on the word of an entertainer.

Gabrielle fingered the newspaper article and read the headline once more. Her hands shaking as she held the paper, she stared almost blindly at the headline, though she knew it by heart. KINGSLEY TO TAKE HERD NORTH.

The article, which included an artist's sketch of a man named Kirby Kingsley, was nearly a column long. Her eyes scanned the words without really reading them, but they were already burned into her mind. Given what she now knew, she had no doubt that the article had been the cause of her father's uncharacteristic, anxious state in the days before his death. For her, it was the cause of overwhelming guilt. She understood, now, why her father hadn't wanted to come west, and she wished, with utter futility, that he had rejected her pleas. If he had, he would still be alive. It was her fault that he was dead, and she was learning all too quickly that grief compounded by guilt was nearly unbearable.

She was left with one choice: if her father's murderer was to be brought to justice—and it was inconceivable to her that he would not be—she would have to deliver him herself. She had no idea how, but she knew she had to do
something.

The article, after so many readings, had provided her with the means. Kirby Kingsley was planning a cattle drive. Composed of cattle from many ranches in the central Texas area, it was reported to be one of the largest drives ever attempted. Kingsley would trail boss the herd from a point south of San Antonio to the railhead in Abilene. Drovers were being hired.

She would become one of those drovers.

She could do it. She knew she could. She had played enough male roles to know the swagger, to know exactly how to lower her voice and imitate the language of a cowhand. And although Gabe Lewis didn't look like much, she'd seen enough cowboys to know they came in all sizes, and many were as young as fourteen or fifteen. Children grew up fast in the west.