Lawman (26 page)

Would she never stop
needing
so much
as she did?

Gabriel's gaze narrowed. In a move as
calculating as any she'd witnessed from him, he rose slowly to his
feet—and at the same time planted one big hand across Megan's
chest, holding her still on the fountain's wall. His touch seared
her, a handprint both unshakable and unwanted.

Beneath her dress, she felt her locket and
chain press into her skin, held there by his frightening
strength...and kept there with remarkable stealth. She doubted
anyone around them even knew something was amiss.

He bent. His hunter's intensity overwhelmed
her, quelling all other impressions of the man before her. His
dark-shadowed face loomed over hers, and for one crazy instant it
reminded her of the times Gabriel had kissed her.

"
Stay here
," he growled.

He turned toward the bonfire, stirring the
crisp autumn air as he abruptly released her. Megan lurched forward
and dragged on his arm.

"You did this apurpose!" she hissed. "You
brought me here to catch him.
You
knew he'd be here,
too."

His eyebrow raised. Something close to
admiration crossed his face, then vanished like the bonfire sparks
popping into the dusky sky behind him. "As did you."

He was guessing. She knew from the way he
paused, visibly caught between discovering what she might know—and
the possibility of ending his pursuit within moments. Nevertheless,
he'd figured it aright. Megan
had
known her father might
appear here.

The ladies at Hattie's house had confided as
much to her, during the long interval when Gabriel had disappeared
into the kitchen. She'd taken the opportunity to question them
about the frequent Faro games her papa entered into—as did many of
their men, husbands and fathers—and had discovered the gamblers'
meeting place and time.

Levin's Park, near the Sonoran players. At
bonfire's lighting.

She'd even heard tell of the signal they
used to know the men expected into the game—a domino, at least for
today, tossed repeatedly into the air and then captured.

Captured
. Megan shuddered at how
poorly she'd formed the thought. Her papa would
not
be
captured this night. Not if she could help it.

Perhaps she could delay the Pinkerton man.
She had to try.

Meeting his challenging stare, she released
her hold on Gabriel's arm. "I did know. What of it? Did you really
think I'd spend all afternoon gossiping, and not emerge with
something to show for it?"

With satisfaction, Megan saw the way his
mouth gaped in surprise. Somehow, she managed to force a chastising
sound past her fear-clotted throat. "You should know me better than
that by now, agent Winter."

For an instant, Gabriel stood stock-still.
Had she rendered him speechless? Motionless? Truly, that would be
even better, and it appeared a fact. For one long moment, he did
nothing more than stare at her, his look slowly turning from one of
bafflement to furious resolve.

"That I do," he finally said. "I do know you
and your conniving ways, Megan Kearney. It's the reason I'll not
stand here with you any longer."

Sensing the move he meant to make, she stuck
her foot out and prayed fiercely he would trip. Instead, as though
he had expected her tactic all along, Gabriel stepped neatly over
top of her outflung leg and headed again for the bonfire.

Megan wished she'd thought to kick him
instead. Sweet heavens! How could she stop him from capturing her
papa?

She flew after him, fear and need making her
stumble on clumsy feet until she managed to snag hold of the back
of his vest. Clutching a fistful of the fine worsted fabric, she
righted herself—and then pulled with all her strength.

He didn't even stop walking. Wildly, Megan
remembered the way Mose's challenging shove at Kearney Station had
been met with similar results. She had no chance of stopping the
Pinkerton man like this. Driven to desperation, she changed
strategies again.

Trotting along beside him, her hand clenched
on his clothes, she begged him in a hoarse, pleading whisper not to
capture her father. Asked him to let her bring her papa to him, to
let them straighten things out another time, another place. To
question her instead, if that was what it took.

Anything.

Suddenly, only a few paces from the
fountain, Gabriel halted. Unbalanced both by his stopping and the
twisted, raised cottonwood roots underfoot, Megan fell against his
shoulder. She felt herself turned hard and fast in his arms, saw
the mean angle of his jaw come into view, and raised her hands to
cup his face beseechingly between her palms.

The scratchy heat of his cheeks and jaw
burned at her fingertips. The determined set of his expression had
the power to hurt her even more. Raising herself on tiptoes, Megan
set forth her last heartfelt plea.

Somewhere inside him was the man who had
laughed with her. The man who had tenderly kissed her, and called
her beautiful. There had to be some way to reach him.

"You must believe me!" she cried. "Don't do
this thing, please. I swear to you he is innocent."

Gabriel's jaw hardened. She felt the muscles
clench beneath her hands, and knew a keen sense of desperation
unlike any she'd ever known. Her papa was slipping away from her,
and so were her chances at the future she'd hoped for. There had to
be something she could do!

"I need proof," Gabriel said harshly.

He looked over Megan's shoulder to the place
where the musicians played, the bonfire crackled...and Joseph
Kearney gathered with his companions to begin their night's
gambling—unaware of the Pinkerton agent who sought to capture him,
jail him, and in the process, ruin his good name.

He returned his hard stare to her. "Do you
have that?"

Her mind whirled, seeking something that
would satisfy him. She found nothing.

"Do
you
?" she asked. He would not
beat her at this. He would not. What entreaties could not gain her,
maybe logic would. "Do you have proof? If so, you've not shown it
to me."

He didn't reply. Hope flared within her—and
died on his next breath.

"I will have it," he said.

"You're bluffing!"

"I'm not a man given to make-believe,
remember?"

Megan remembered. Remembered all the time
they'd spent together at the
Celestial Kitchen
yesterday
evening, when he'd revealed to her his dislike for fairy tales,
even as a boy. Remembered how foolishly she had hoped that, with
just one glimpse of her China heaven stars, she might turn Gabriel
Winter less cynical and more believing.

She'd more likely find her sewing thread
wound on golden spools someday, or hear her mama's voice when she
next went home to Kearney Station.

Impossible things, all of them. And wishing
wasn't enough to make them real.

If it was, she'd have had her mama returned
to her long ago.

Gabriel closed his fingers around her wrists
in a warm, rough-callused grasp, plainly meaning to pull her hands
away. Megan's palms stilled against his face. Under any other
circumstances, his touch might have thrilled her. Now, it only
filled her with the fear that she had failed to move him...when she
so desperately needed to have succeeded.

"Please," she whispered.

He closed his eyes, as though in prayer or
fervent hope, and then opened them on a new resolve. "I will have
proof. Else end my days finding it.
I always bring in my
man
."

He dragged her hands from his face, inch by
slow inch. She felt herself losing their battle with every rasp of
his stubbled whiskers against her palms. By the time Gabriel
lowered her fisted hands to her sides, Megan felt truly beaten.

"Leave off," he said quietly. "Wait at the
fountain, and be there when I return. You'll only make this worse
for your father if you fight me."

"How can I not?"

Anguish dragged the protest from her
throat—but having voiced the words, she longed powerfully to call
them back. No appeal she could make would stop him. Why let Gabriel
Winter know she had ever hoped it might? Why give him the
satisfaction of knowing she'd begun to believe there was goodness
inside him?

He would not have the satisfaction of
realizing he had fooled her so easily.

Gabriel looked to the bonfire, ensuring the
four men still waited there. "I mean to question your father, not
kill him."

"I don't believe you."

When he turned to her again, his gaze
encompassed the whole of her somehow, dipping from the top of her
hat to the hems of her skirts in a sweep of disarming approval—and
damning reassurance.

"In this you can believe me."

"In this, you say?" Megan summoned all the
bravado she could. "Tell me then, agent Winter—under what
circumstances should I
not
believe you?"

He leaned away, visibly impatient. Visibly
making ready to set upon the capture he'd aimed for.

Near the bonfire, the man she'd spied
earlier as he'd tossed his tell-tale domino clapped his fellows on
the shoulders and made to walk away from the musicians. They were
leaving! All she needed was a little more time....

Gabriel frowned. "Don't believe me if I tell
you I'm giving up. It will never happen."

He turned toward the bonfire. Before he
could glimpse the gamblers leaving, Megan grabbed his arm. "Wait!
Don't take my father. Take...me."

He frowned, looking weary of her resistance.
"Megan—"

Frantically, she held out her hands, as
though to make ready for the irons he would clap on. "Take me! Do
it." There had to be a way to delay him still longer. She had only
to think of it. "I did it. I'm the one who took the money."

"You?"

He sounded disbelieving. Even so, he
wavered, and a moment's delay was all she needed. Megan seized upon
the opportunity Gabriel's hesitation offered.

"Yes, me. How else would I know my papa was
innocent, unless I also knew who was guilty?"

His mouth tightened. "I think you do know
who's guilty—else you wouldn't give such a struggle to protect him.
Wait here
."

At the end of his patience, he lowered his
hand to his gun belt and strode toward the bonfire. Beside it, the
Sonoran musicians picked up the tempo of their song, strumming
faster, harder, wilder. The music surged beyond the crowd, its
rhythm fast as Megan's pounding heartbeat.

What could she do now?

If she ran to her papa, surely his surprise
at seeing her in town would prevent his escape. And in any event,
he wouldn't leave if he believed she was in danger. The only way
was to form yet another diversion—if she could just act fast
enough.

Keeping her eyes on Gabriel's broad back as
he advanced through the fringes of the crowd, Megan stepped
sideways toward the fountain. Only a few more steps...one more.
There! Her skirts swirled against the cool stone wall, and beside
her the fountain waters trickled into the darkened pool.

She braced herself, then sucked in a deep,
courage-giving breath. She looked toward the scene at the bonfire
once more.
Run when you have the chance
, Megan commanded her
father silently.
Please run
.

She heaved herself over the knee-high stone
wall and into the fountain.

She landed with an impressive splash.
Shocking cold wetness struck her at the same time as her elbow and
hip banged onto the fountain's slick bottom. Shrieking in surprise
that wasn't half as feigned as she'd planned, Megan grabbed for
purchase and felt her fingers scrape against grit and slimy
stones.

Only as deep as bath water—but several
numbing degrees colder—the water swirled and sucked at her skirts.
Wetness penetrated her thin dress fabric in seconds. It plastered
against her legs, clinging to her limbs like an icy embrace. She
kicked it away, struggling to get to her feet.

Just as she'd hoped, musicale-goers gathered
around the fountain, talking and pointing. Hands reached toward
her. Something bobbed past on the churning waters...her hat, Megan
saw.

She let it float by, raising her hands to
swipe sodden strands of hair from her face, and squinted toward the
bonfire. Everyone there seemed suitably distracted by her 'fall'
into the fountain.

But had her papa escaped?

Fervently hoping he had, she scanned the
faces gathered beside the fire's arching, smoke-filtered light. She
couldn't see him. Perhaps, during the confusion she'd created, he
had successfully dodged agent Winter. At the thought, new optimism
fluttered to life within her. Maybe she had saved him after
all!

From within the crowd surrounding the
fountain, a familiar voice called her name. Two of the people
standing nearest the edge shuffled aside, and a man pushed his way
through. He extended his hand to help her climb from the fountain.
With a sinking heart, Megan recognized him.

"If you're here," she said, "then it's a
safe bet my papa is not. Where has he gone?"

Cursing the damnable female who had slowed
him down, Gabriel closed his hand atop one of the white pickets in
the Levin's Park fence and vaulted himself over it.

Hell.

Why had he let her delay him?

Anger spurred him onward, anger at Megan—and
at himself. Any other time, he would have had Pinkerton agents in
the field, ready to nab the man they sought should Gabriel fail for
any reason. This time, he'd been loath to bring on new operatives,
stupidly reluctant to share Megan's presence with anyone else.

Or to have anyone see how far afield he had
fallen because of her. He hadn't questioned her as fully as he
should have. Hadn't reported her work at Kearney Station. And
likely, Gabriel knew, he would not report the sudden, improbable
confession she'd made tonight, either.