“Yeah?”
“Mr. Coyne? I came because I—I gotta know,” the boy stammered, his face the color of a broiled snapper.
Jim had never wanted to hit anyone as much as he did this boy. If it hadn’t been for him, Gilly wouldn’t have flown out of his life, ripping from him something that felt very like his soul. His lip lifted in a sneer. Mort didn’t back away, but Mrs. Osby scuttled back a few paces.
“Can I come in?” Mort gulped.
Jim eyed the lad with bleary contempt. “Sure. Why the hell not? No one else here.”
Mrs. Osby gasped.
“Why don’t you go tat an antimacassar, Mrs. Osby?”
“Well, I never!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s your problem,” he said, hearing a whisper of his stepmother’s scandalized reproach somewhere behind the haze of whiskey and for once not caring. Mrs. Osby fled in a whoosh of disapproving black cloth.
Mort skirted Jim, entering the room as though he were stepping around a dangerous animal and not simply a dangerous man. “She was Lightning Lil, wasn’t she?” he asked. “The woman posing as your wife.”
He sounded as excited as any reporter with a scoop. As Jim himself might have sounded in similar circumstances fifteen years ago. But fifteen years had taught him one thing: There was no story as important as Gilly’s smile.
“No.” Anger drained out of him, leaving only fatigue and emptiness. “It’s just like I said, Mort. I met Gilly in New York just before I got sent here. Love at first sight. Her family didn’t approve, so we married in secret. She came out”—he shrugged, tipped the whiskey bottle to his lips, and drained the final drops—“and didn’t like what she found. She left me.”
“Come on, you can tell me,” the kid urged. “She’s made a clean getaway. The federal marshal damn near broke my neck when he figured I’d called him here on a wild-goose chase. The whole town is laughing at me. It won’t matter what I say now, or what I write. No one will believe me. But I have to know, for my sake. You’re a reporter, you gotta understand what it’s like, having to know.”
He understood all too well. He wanted to know everything about Gilly, but now he’d never have his curiosity satisfied. He only knew he loved her. And there’d never be anything more. She’d made that clear without words, with tears in her eyes and a smile trembling on her lips, as five miles out of town he’d lifted her, passion-spent and wan, into that damn stagecoach.
“She wasn’t Lightning Lil, Mort,” he said. “She was laughter and wit and passion, but she wasn’t Lightning Lil. She’s gone. That’s all you or I or anyone has to know.”
“Sure,” the boy said in a truculent, unconvinced voice. “Just remember, it was you who said a great reporter should do anything for the story.”
“Screw your story!” His anger, like all of his emotions over the past week, boiled to the surface. He grabbed Mort’s shirtfront and dangled him one foot above the ground. “Screw the story, Mort. It’s just a story. This is my
life
.”
He dropped him, and the kid scrambled out of the room, rubbing his neck. Jim turned away, cursing himself for being such an asshole. He wandered to the window and flung it wide, drinking in the cold, dank night air that so matched his mood.
Outside, indigo shadows absorbed the features of the town. It was early yet, so no one was carousing too loudly. Only a few cowboys on the street, giggling like the fifteen-year-old virgins they undoubtedly were and counting their change in front of the Cattleman’s Saloon. They soon tallied their funds, entering the bar and leaving the street empty.
Jim would never have seen it otherwise. Just a slender, shadow detaching itself from the dark mouth of an alley and slipping noiselessly along the darkened shop windows in the mercantile end of town. The shape headed for the Calhouns’ house, moving cautiously. Alerted by the stealthy movement, Jim blew out the lantern and watched as the shape froze near the entrance to the estate.
There’s nothing for it, mister, Jim thought humorlessly. If you want to get to the Calhouns’ house you ’re going to have to pass beneath that stable-yard light.
The figure seemed to have drawn the same conclusion. Moving fast, light as a cat on its feet and just as smooth, the figure darted across the yard. Jim’s smile turned brittle, then savage. Long black hair sewn into that hatband, a gray-plaid flannel shirt, boy’s jeans.
No cast.
He was out the back door heading down the alley that ran parallel to the main street, fury pounding in his temples.
And from the way she’d moved, she’d never needed one.
*
Vance Calhoun was the last one. The last of the bastards who’d framed her father for stealing funds from the company he and his five “friends” had formed. The last who’d testified to her father’s guilt, smiled remorsefully, and walked out of that courtroom to build a career and a life and a future on the one they’d stolen from her father. Left her father to pay for their crime. Gilly’s mouth set with determination, the sick feeling of dread she always got just before committing herself to the actual act of robbery twisting her stomach into knots.
Get into the house, get into the safe, get out. And it would be over. Done. Her gaze was drawn once more, unwillingly, to Jim’s window. Maybe . . . She stopped herself. Not now.
She ran across the stable yard and vaulted lightly over the porch railing, landing noiselessly on one side of the French doors leading into the library.
It wouldn’t buy back her father’s years in jail, but it would compensate. That’s all she wanted now. She wasn’t seeking justice anymore; she just wanted the future that had been stolen from her father, her family. And she was going to get it, even though, too late, she realized she’d traded her own in return.
Soundlessly, she slipped into the library and moved swiftly to the fake volumes of books. She tilted the casing out and sure enough, there was the safe handle, right next to a little dial. Good. She liked dials.
She stripped off her gloves and closed her eyes as her fingertips rested lightly on the outermost perimeter of the dial. She rotated it. Each little click translated a tiny shiver through the sensitive pads of her index finger and thumb. Smooth, even clicks until . . . there, the more decisive click of a tumbler falling into place. Eyes still closed, she spun the dial in the other direction. It took less than a minute for her to open the safe.
Her breath came out in a low, soundless whistle. Apparently, old Vance Calhoun had been planning to invest heavily on his overseas trip, because inside, neat as roosting hens, lay thick, banded stacks of European bearer bonds. Several fortunes’ worth. The grin that started on her face died. As much money as it was, it wasn’t enough to purchase what she’d lost.
She withdrew the bag she had tucked in her waistband and opened it, filling it with every packet the safe contained. She pulled the drawstring together and was about to close the safe and replace the dummy set of books when an impulse seized her. Cocking her head to listen for sounds that the diners were finished and preparing to leave the table, she scribbled a quick note on a piece of paper.
Heard a U.S. marshal was here looking for me. Appears I was late for our date. A girl needs something to see her through her disappointment. Guess I’ll have to make do with your money.
Lightning Lil
She stuck it in the safe, leaving the metal door wide open. She swung the bag over her shoulder and fled out the French doors, heading for the alley across from Jim’s boardinghouse, where she’d left her horse. She’d caught a glimpse of Jim earlier as she stood in the shadows staring up at his window like a lovesick puppy, waiting for the sun to give up the last of its light. He’d looked rough, his silver-spackled curls tumbling over his forehead, his posture wearier than she’d remembered, as he looked out the upper window and studied the horizon. She’d wanted— “Oh!”
A strong arm snatched her around the waist in an unbreakable grip as a hand clamped over her mouth.
“Going somewhere, Gilly?” His voice in her ear was as cold as a February midnight and twice as dark. He spun her around, releasing her abruptly, as though he couldn’t stand to touch her any longer. “You set me up, didn’t you? Right from the start. You never were hit by any bullet. The cast was just a prop, isn’t that right? Even leaving that saddle behind was part of the set-up. You planned it that far back.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I was the dupe, the patsy. It was all a setup, a way of getting you close enough to Calhoun to figure out where he kept his money, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re smart as a whip, Gilly, I’ll give you that. I don’t know a man who could have planned it better.”
“But that was before I knew—No!” He’d turned and was striding away, eating up distance at a killing pace. She’d known, she’d seen it in the future, she’d told herself a hundred times that when he found out what she’d done, he’d feel betrayed and used. He would hate the sight of her.
So, he did.
But she couldn’t let him go thinking it had all been planned. That everything had gone her way. That she hadn’t suffered for her brilliant plan. She caught up with him at the mouth of the alley, grabbing his wrist and sinking her heels into the ground.
When he refused to turn, but just dragged her along, she pounded her fist against his back, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “I’m sorry I used you.”
He stopped then, and turned to look down at her. “It isn’t that you used me, Gilly. I can’t damn you for something you started before we’d even met.”
“You can’t?” she echoed incredulously.
“I was using you too. Remember? I was using you as a way out of here. My big story.” He shook his head. “But I let that notion go after I,” he broke off and then forced himself to meet her eyes, “realized I loved you.”
“Jim!”
“No.” He held her off with one arm. “You can’t have it both ways, Gilly. You were willing to sacrifice what we had for your own purposes. I wasn’t. That’s the bottom line.” Without a trace of discernible emotion, he watched the tears stream from her eyes. “But then, if you were willing to sacrifice it, maybe it wasn’t what I thought it was. It sure felt like it though.” He turned.
She stared at his broad back, watching her life, her future, her love, step farther away with each second. And she couldn’t do it. She ran after him, cutting in front, jamming her hands into his hard, flat belly.
“No! You listen, Jim Coyne. You’ve been hounding me for the truth for a week. Well, now, by God, you’re going to listen!”
“Hush!” He hauled her into his arms, pulling her head close into his broad shoulder, his own raised to scan the dark alley. “Do you wanna get caught?”
“I don’t care!”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Damn it, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I am a schoolteacher. I teach drama at a girls’ school. And all the rest of it—the land speculation company, my gun reputation, and everything—it was the truth. Seven years ago Vance Calhoun and four others framed my father for their own scheme of embezzling funds from a land speculation company they were partners in up near Kansas City. My father didn’t have anything to do with it, but the other men were all pillars of the community, with respected family names. My father was the outsider. No one believed him and he was convicted.” Though he still held her closely, it was with as much tenderness as a statue. His face was impassive. Doggedly she went on. “I’d visit my father in prison and watch first his spirit, then his health grow frail, and I’d go home and read in the paper about his old pals and their Midas touch with business.
“I didn’t want justice, Jim. I’d been in that court. I knew there was no chance, not even with a hundred witnesses for the defense, of that happening. I wanted recompense.”
She could see the interest kindle in his eyes, mistrustful but there. She gripped his arms, willing him to believe her.
“If my father was going to suffer for those men’s crimes, at least they weren’t going to feed on his corpse. If he was going to pay for the crime, he was going to at least enjoy the booty. I made my plans. I spent two years learning how to fire a gun, ride a horse. By the time I was ready to become Lightning Lil, the men who’d framed my father had spread out over the territory. I’ve spent half a decade finding them and making sure they don’t enjoy the money they stole.
“Calhoun’s the last one. I knew he lived here. I couldn’t believe it when I got here and discovered he was the bank’s president. Still, I didn’t think he’d keep his cash in any bank. Even his own. He never did trust banks. But I didn’t know where he kept his money. I couldn’t figure how to find out.”
“Yeah?” His tone was flat, unemotional.
“I kept seeing your ads. I thought I could trade, give you a story in exchange for proximity to Calhoun. I didn’t know ... I didn’t plan on claiming I was your wife.”
“Why didn’t you trust me?” His voice sounded as though it was wrenched unwillingly from deep within his chest.
“I wanted to, but you kept saying what we were doing was business. Even up to . . . that last night I didn’t know how you felt about me, and then, when I did, I was afraid once you found what I intended to do you’d make me stop. And I couldn’t. Not then. Not so close to the end. Don’t tell me you’d feel different.” She prayed, looking into the fine blue eyes that pinned her to the spot, studied her for what seemed an eternity. “I know you, Jim Coyne. You wouldn’t quit, not when the finish was so close.”
“So why are you still standing here? You wanted to make us both feel better before you go? A little salve for your conscience, a gratis for the lover?”
Who’d have thought his lovely voice could be so brittle, so cold.
“No. Because I was wrong. I can quit. I can turn away right now. I can just lay the money on Calhoun’s doorstep and leave. Because I want you more than I want to finish this. That’s why I’m still here.”
His brows snapped together, his gaze pierced hers as he realized the magnitude of her words. She was willing to give up the crusade for him. To give up this close to the end she’d set her sights on seven years ago.
“Because . . .?” His voice was faint.
“Because I love you.”