Lawman (12 page)

"I don't believe you do," he said.

"Have a mind to hold you back?" Megan did
her best to give him a steely look. "Gracious, agent Winter, you do
flatter yourself. What do you think I've been trying to do these
past few minutes, except get out from beneath you?"

His gaze challenged her—but it was the
unexpected sweetness of his smile that jolted her heart.

"I can't say what you've been trying to do.
Only what you've done. We're closer than before, thanks to all your
squirming."

He was right, drat him. As though his words
had made that fact truer than ever, as though they'd brought her
fully alive at last, Megan's senses grew inexplicably keener.

Around her, the air filled with Gabriel's
scent and her own, with the fragrances of rose water and tobacco
and lingering traces of the tangy
amole
soap the maids used
to launder the hotel linens. The coverlet took on a cloud softness
she hadn't noticed before. The fine-spun wool of his suit sleeves
rubbed over her bare wrists, and the fabric's tender abrasion only
heightened all else.

She heard her own indrawn breath, and felt
his chest rise against her in turn. On the fireplace mantel, the
clock ticked off the moments between seeing and feeling, between
awareness and whatever action their nearness would give rise to.
Was this what it meant to be ravished, after all? If so....

If so, she could never succumb. Especially
not while Gabriel Winter was her enemy. Biting her lip, Megan tried
to sink into the warmth of the coverlet beneath her and escape in
that way. As she'd expected, though, his body only settled more
firmly on hers.

"Not that I'm complaining," he went on. "To
my mind, lying still doesn't have much place in bed." Now his smile
seemed surpassingly devilish, given the circumstances. "Are you
hoping to see the worst—and the best—of me? You will, if you keep
wiggling like that."

Panicked, Megan squirmed harder to release
herself. This predicament had all the makings of a French-novel
heroine's ruination! Despite her comments to Addie, she was in no
way prepared to step between those scandalous pages herself. With a
strength born of need—and hopes of dislodging Gabriel's hold long
enough to scramble from beneath him—she thrust her hips toward the
high, pressed-tin ceiling.

The sound that rumbled from his throat was
something between a masculine moan and a half-formed plea. It froze
her in place.

"If you know that's true, then let me go!"
she cried. Had he no sense at all? If her nearness pained him
enough to cause the throaty, needful groan he'd just given, then
why did he want to continue it?

"Let you go?"

With the practiced expertise of a man
accustomed to evaluating all that came near, Gabriel took in the
sight of her lying beneath him. His perusal felt soft and warm as a
caress, but his flinty gaze told another story. One that mingled
with the past he'd only alluded to?

"Damnation," he muttered. Briefly, his eyes
flickered closed, then opened again on another curse. "If I had the
brains of a jackass, I would."

Sensing an opening she might use, Megan
stilled her restless squirming. "Do it then. Let me go," she urged.
"You don't need me for finding my father. You have those other
agents, all over the hotel, to—"

"Ahh, but I do. I do need you."

I do need you
. Gabriel was the first
person she'd ever heard say so. Sadly, he only wanted her as bait
to capture her father. However sugared his words might be, she
couldn't afford to forget that fact.

"Pshaw, agent Winter. You said yourself
you've tracked dozens of men. Whatever could you need me for?"

"For finding the truth," he said bluntly.
"For finding the facts you don't want to face any more than...hell.
I never should have left you here alone."

"Finding the truth? You don't believe it
when it's staring you in the face. You want me for serving as your
bed pillow, more likely."

Her nod indicated their ignoble sprawl atop
the groaning rope-sprung mattress. Gabriel's demeanor
brightened.

"Would you?"

She narrowed her gaze and added as much ice
to her voice as she could. "No. And if you'll remember correctly, I
asked
you to leave me here for a few moments alone."

It was the least time she'd needed to
prepare herself for him—and for facing the gossipy, mean-spirited
women in town, too. Dealing with them was nothing Megan looked
forward to.

"Leaving you alone is something I won't be
doing again," Gabriel said. "From here on, we're bound as true as
convicts strung hand and foot."

"A prediction?"

"A promise."

She wanted to shiver. Doubtless, he meant
again that he wouldn't hesitate to lock her up, if it served his
case to do so. But if that was so, why did untold regret linger
behind Gabriel's eyes? And did that self-recrimination, so evident
in the lines bracketing his mouth and brow, owe its cause to his
worry over failing at his case? Or to his interest in ensuring her
safety from the balcony plunge he thought so likely?

"Despite what you think," Megan said,
addressing the last at the first, "when you did leave me alone, I
wasn't about to leap to a tragic end from the balcony. My father is
innocent. How can I make you believe it?"

His gaze slanted darkly over her, then
settled on her mouth. "You can't."

A sigh escaped her. She'd never met anyone
more resolutely determined to bypass faith for facts. Facts might
change at any moment. Faith never would. Couldn't he see that?

Squinting, Megan peered up at him. She
couldn't hold back a teasing smile as she said, "Up close, you seem
less decrepit and aged than I hoped at first sight."
Maybe then,
he would have been easier to deter
. "Tell me, then—how did you
come to be so cynical?"

"Cynical?"

As though he weren't listening at all but to
parrot her words, Gabriel went on staring at her mouth. She felt
his fingers smooth away a few wayward strands of hair from her
forehead, and wanted to close her eyes beneath the good feelings
his gesture aroused in her. His touch was fair bewitching...and she
had no defenses against it save one.

Conversation.

"Yes, cynical. Jaded and world-weary, tired
of—"

His smile touched her next. "I know what it
means."

She tsk-tsked. "You're too young to be so
cynical, agent Winter."

"Gabriel," he reminded her. "And I'm too
experienced not to be."

His was the saddest admission she'd ever
heard. Her heart ached at the thought of all he must have seen and
done while working to bring in Pinkerton's most sought-after
bandits. He would be bringing all that terrible knowledge to bear
on his hunt for her father, Megan knew, and her heart ached doubly
for that.

Alone, her father stood no chance against a
man such as Gabriel. But maybe with her on his side, helping to
clear his name with the time that remained, Joseph Kearney would
have a chance. Perhaps even a good one.

Summoning her courage, she asked, "Do you
think that might ever change?"

Pain flickered in his eyes, then died. "If I
did, sugar, I couldn't rightly be called a cynic, now could I?"

"I suppose not. But there's always hope,
isn't there?"

He smiled outright, and his hand delved
beneath her hair to cradle the nape of her neck. Slowly, Gabriel
leaned closer, bringing the full impact of his Irish eyes and
teasing grin still nearer. His hair brushed her cheek. His face
eased sideways, beyond her vision.

His breath whispered past her ear. "Hope for
you, most surely."

Tenderly, he pressed a kiss to her ear.
Megan jerked with surprise. Her smooth jet earbobs jangled against
her neck, their soft impact greater than the force of his
lips...but far less arresting.

"Lord, you taste sweet." He uncoupled her
earbob from its place and kissed her again, this time in the
sensitive indentation left by her jewelry. "So sweet."

Her heart turned over. Goosebumps sped clear
to her toes; she felt them prickle everywhere, despite the warmth
of the room and her many layers of clothes. Gabriel swept his
fingers upward from her neck, tugged gently. Near her other ear
came a tumbling sound, like the muted clatter of dice cupped in a
gambler's palm.

Her other earbob joined the first. With more
care than she would have expected from a man so large, he leaned
across the dipping mattress to drop her jewelry safely onto the
bedside table.

Concentrate
, Megan ordered herself.
His movement gave her just the opportunity she needed. However her
stomach whirled at the feel of his warm lips against her skin, she
couldn't wantonly lie there and hope for more.

Nor could she let his whispered endearments
erase all the words he'd said just before. They confirmed what she
believed of him. They gave Megan one more hope to cling to in her
battle against him.

Could she turn Gabriel Winter less cynical?
Make some bit of belief squeeze its way past his walled heart and
mind? If she could, perhaps he'd believe the truth about her
father, as well.

She had to try.

In a flurry of petticoats and brown woolen
skirts, Megan seized her one opportunity to scoot from beneath the
Pinkerton man's shadow. Breathless—thanks only to the blasted,
too-small waistline she'd sewn into her new dress, she felt
sure—she scrambled on hands and knees to the far edge of the
bed.

"You could be sweet, too," she announced
boldly. "With the correct sort of teaching."

Gabriel noticed she'd slipped away.
Blithely, he reclined across the center of the rumpled coverlet,
just beyond the place where she sat with her skirts arrayed atop
her bent knees. He rolled onto his side and propped his head in his
hand, seeming unconcerned with the fact that she'd escaped him.

Which showed exactly what sort of ravisher
he'd
turned out to be, Megan supposed with a surge of
unwelcome disappointment.

His eyebrows raised. "What sort of teaching
is that?"

Feeling unreasonably piqued, she rose and
felt with her toes for the bed's step stool. Once she'd found it,
she stepped from the bed and assumed what she hoped would seem a
detached, professorial pose. If Gabriel respected facts more than
feelings, by God, she would present her feelings as facts and beat
him at his own game.

He watched her feet touch the colorfully
embroidered rug, and disappointment crossed his face. "Never mind.
There's nothing either of us can learn with you all the way down
there, sugar."

Frowning past whatever nonsense he meant
with that remark, Megan said, "I'll do the teaching here. And I'll
have you know, I've discerned exactly what you need."

With satisfaction, she noticed the interest
return to his expression. "You have?"

"Yes. And if you'll take my hand, I'll show
you precisely what I mean."

Chapter Eight

"This is
not
exactly what I needed,"
Gabriel said.

And it was so far from what he'd hoped Megan
meant about teaching him what he needed—
teaching him
sweetness
—as to be almost laughable. Smiling despite that fact,
he paused at the window of the simple yellow-painted adobe building
she had led him to.

"Yes, it is," she said. "It is what you
need. Or at least, a part of it."

Making a noncommittal sound, he cupped his
hands at his temples and peered inside the window. All he managed
to catch were glimpses of people moving amongst tablecloth-covered
tables and chairs, flickering lamplight, and an assortment of
statuary before she tugged him toward the door.

He frowned—in confusion, he told himself,
not disappointment. Never that. "I hate to tell you your own city,
but we could have eaten all the way across town and saved ourselves
some shoe leather. Those steaks at the Congress Hall saloon smelled
mighty fine to me when we passed by there."

"And so did the
tamales
the ladies
were selling in the
plaza
when we passed through there,"
Megan said, grinning. "I know, you told me. But nothing else is
quite like this. Trust me."

Trust her? Not likely. Not as long as she
insisted on shouting her father's innocence to anyone who'd stand
still. But in a matter so small as this, Gabriel guessed he'd have
to. After all, if his sisters and mother were any indication, women
were prone to fancies like this excursion across town. Once they
took a certain notion into their heads, nothing else would
satisfy.

He and Megan passed beneath a fancy-lettered
sign naming the place as
Hop Kee's Celestial Restaurant
.
Nearing the unlikely seeming red lacquered door, he reached past
his companion's shoulder, dodged a low-lying feather from her
smorgasbord of a hat, and pushed the door open.

"Allow me." Holding the door ajar, he doffed
his own, less-embellished headgear and motioned her inside.

"Why, thank you kindly, sir." Her smile
flashed. "And to think I'd begun having doubts about your status as
a gentleman, after all that passed between us at the hotel."

At her words, Gabriel felt again the sweet,
curved warmth of her body beneath him on the mattress, inhaled
again the scents of roses and sunshine that surrounded her. Her
nearness alone had the power to set his senses afire, he'd
discovered. Only pure grit—and the knowledge that they were enemies
still—had kept him from deliberately kindling a similar heat within
Megan.

"A sliver of sunshine couldn't have passed
between us, sugar. We were too close together for that."

She paused on the threshold and looked
backward at him. "That's what I mean. It was hardly gentlemanly of
you."

Neither were the thoughts he found himself
entertaining right now. The sensual pucker and release of her lips
was worthy of several moments' contemplation in itself, as was the
enticing swell of her breasts, only a few breaths distant from his
outstretched arm. Were her curves due to feminine trickery, like a
soiled dove's padded combinations and rouged cheeks? Or were they
genuine?