Lawman (3 page)

He jerked his head toward the cluster of
buildings behind them, and Gabriel's gaze followed the motion. A
stagecoach rattled in as they watched, spewing dust in its wake,
and was quickly met by several of the station hands. Their
Spanish-accented speech drifted toward the ridge, but the words
were too faint to make out.

"I always start at the beginning. And that's
it." He glanced at McMarlin. "You got a better idea?"

"Hell, yes," he answered with a good-natured
grin, pulling a flask from his coat pocket. "Me and Old Orchard
here'll watch your back while you're gone. Better head out,
boy-o."

"Don't get too cozy," Gabriel said, going to
retrieve his horse. "This won't take long."

The chase was on.

How two people had become so perfectly
cantankerous in exactly the same ways, Megan couldn't imagine. But
somehow, Jedediah and Mrs. Webster had managed it.

So far, she'd been forced to haggle with
them over the selling price of their mercantile store, the precise
boundaries specified in the alleyway rights, and the disposition of
the dry goods and supplies already in inventory. Mrs. Webster
clearly meant to second-guess every accord Megan had reached with
her husband in their earlier meetings—this, in a voice so shrill,
her teeth ached from listening to it after the first few
minutes.

If this was what was meant by wedded bliss,
Megan had never been plumb-happier to be a spinster.

Sighing as she listened to the Websters
recite their latest demand, she reached for one of the
cinnamon-sugar covered
buñuelos
from the basketful Addie had
prepared. A glance from Mrs. Webster halted her hand halfway
there.

A lady didn't gobble up the refreshments
meant for her guests, Megan reminded herself, and raised the basket
toward them, instead. "Are you sure you wouldn't like some
buñuelos
? Our station cook makes the best in the
Territory."

"No, thank you," Mrs. Webster said, glancing
meaningfully at the snug fit of Megan's new dress. "Although we can
certainly see that
you
approve of such...rustic fare, my
dear."

Megan felt her face heat. Before she could
say anything, Jedediah spoke up, too.

"Now, now, Prudie," he told his wife. "It's
not as though Miss Kearney needs to keep her figure to attract a
husband—not at her advanced years." He winked and gave the basket a
little shove in Megan's direction. "You go on ahead and indulge
yourself."

The basket wobbled in her hand. She gritted
her teeth and made herself smile calmly at them as she set it onto
the scarred oak station desk.

"As it happens, I'm only twenty-eight
advanced years," she informed them.
And at least half of those
years have been spent negotiating with you
. It certainly felt
like it. "Still young enough to appreciate the latest fashions—"
Megan aimed an especially syrupy smile at Mrs. Webster. "—and old
enough to understand what it really means to bind yourself to a
spouse—" Another smile for Jedediah. "—
forever
."

The Websters sighed and looked at their
feet, separately chagrined—but united in the way they both slumped
in their seats on the other side of her father's heavy
stationmaster's desk.

Feeling a bit cheered, Megan sat straighter
and picked up a pencil. "Now, about this provision for the living
space behind the mercantile—" she began, going on to press for
slightly improved terms than those she'd originally agreed
on...plus the complimentary addition of some handsomely glazed
Mexican pottery she'd admired in their mercantile.

"I think you'll agree," she finished, "that
such an...indication of goodwill is warranted here."

"I suppose," Jedediah said doubtfully.

"Very well," Mrs. Webster snapped.
"Your—your good nature warrant is, of course, an indication here.
Do you take us for greenhorns, fresh from the train?"

"Of course not." Megan frowned thoughtfully
at the much re-written purchase agreement on the desk, the document
that would deed her Jedediah's Tucson mercantile—soon to become
her
longed-for dressmaker's shop. "But there is still the
small matter of the abutment with Mr. Meyer's establishment and its
influence on the deed to be assessed. I'm sure—"

A blurred motion in the office doorway
caught her eye. Addie's head appeared, vehemently shaking 'no' as
she pantomimed reading a book. She licked her finger and turned a
pretend page, then shook her head again.

Doing her best to glare her away, Megan
pulled the deed agreement closer and wrote in the addition of the
pottery and the improved living space terms. "I—I'm sure we can
easily come to terms with that, though," she finished
awkwardly.

Shoot, Addie had done it to her again. She'd
lost the direction of her thoughts regarding the abutment when
she'd seen her warning. Now it was too late to let her original
indignation carry her into further negotiations.

Smiling smugly, Addie pantomimed closing a
book and ducked out of the doorway. Megan frowned after her.
Don't talk like a book, indeed
! How was she supposed to cope
with people like the Websters, if all she could do was smile and
curtsey and show off her bustle?

It was ridiculous to behave as though she
hadn't a thought in her head beyond ribbons and recipes. If that
was what it took to capture a husband, no wonder she'd never gotten
herself one!

Aside from living in the middle of nowhere
with a bunch of station hands for company and a father who spent
more time at the gambling table than the dinner table, she amended.
If not for Addie and the much-thumbed copies of
Godey's
brought to her by the Kearney stagecoach drivers from the Fort
Lowell officers' wives, she wouldn't have had any feminine
influences at all.

Across the desk, the Websters put their
heads together and whispered. She took advantage of the opportunity
to review the deed agreement one last time, then cleared her
throat.

"It looks as though everything is in order,"
she said when they looked up. "Shall we sign?"

She plucked a fountain pen from its holder
and held it toward Jedediah. He stared at it as though she'd
suggested he eat it, rather than simply sign his name with it.
Then, slowly, he leaned forward and reached for it.

Mrs. Webster jabbed him with her elbow. With
a sheepish expression, he lowered his hand again.

"Ahh, we'll need to view the reimbursement
before signing, Miss Kearney."

"Reimbursement?"

"The cash," Mrs. Webster clarified.

"I see."

She'd hoped to secure a cashier's check with
the money at the telegraph office in Tucson before completing their
transaction. Having a record of the money that changed hands would
be best. After all, the entire contents of her nest egg were at
risk. But as difficult as this meeting had been to arrange, and as
difficult as the Websters had been to deal with, all Megan wanted
to do was get it over with. A signed, witnessed receipt would have
to do.

"The funds aren't a problem, are they?"
Jedediah asked. "I know it's not quite in a lady's nature to deal
with great sums of money."

Megan thought back on the years she'd been
drawing wages as her father's bookkeeper and part-time, uncertified
station manager. What did that make her, if not a lady handling
great sums of money? It was fortunate she and her father had kept
her financial acumen to themselves—otherwise, folks might have
expected her to start wearing britches, or something equally
ridiculous.

"Or perhaps you'd like to wait until your
father can be present himself, to guide you?" Mrs. Webster
suggested. "I've always taken my dear father's advice, right down
to the question of whom I'd marry."

That explained a great deal
.
Suppressing a shudder at the notion of enduring a similar fate,
Megan opened the desk drawer to her left and withdrew a stack of
leather-bound ledgers. Their familiar, earthy scent did much to
reassure her. This was her element, she reminded herself, and her
home. She wouldn't allow mean-hearted people like the Websters to
discourage her.

Besides, all her dreams hinged on reaching
an accord with them.

"I'm afraid my father's been called away on
business," she said.
Called away to a Faro game, more
likely
. According to Addie, he'd ridden out for Tucson sometime
before sunup, all afire about some 'big opportunity' he meant to
surprise them with. "So he won't be able to be here with us
today."

"Oh, my. That's such a shame."

Megan's heart twisted. She'd never thought
of it in precisely those terms before, but Mrs. Webster was right,
after a fashion.

If she waited long enough for Joseph Kearney
to appear and formally sanction her dressmaker's shop purchase,
she'd not only be the spinster she already was—she'd be wrinkled
and gray-haired, to boot. As much as she loved him, her father
never seemed to be around when she needed him. Today was no
exception...and that truly was a shame.

Pride made her sit straighter. With as much
composure as she could muster, Megan met Mrs. Webster's gaze
head-on. "Not such a shame, madam. I've enjoyed the freedom it's
allowed me."

Briskly, she plunked the ledgers onto the
desktop and reached into the drawer again, feeling with her
fingertips for the smooth glass canning jar that held her nest egg.
The sooner they finished this, the better.

Her fingertips met cool glass. Smiling, she
pulled out the jar, keeping it below the desk so she could count
its contents in private. "I'll just be a moment," she told the
Websters.

"Take your time, Miss Kearney," said
Jedediah.

"We want to be sure you count all those
precious coppers correctly," added Mrs. Webster with a smug,
haughty expression—the same expression that greeted Megan in town,
whenever she ventured to Tucson for fabric or lace or tinware.

Now, as always, it hurt. Why could she never
muster enough defenses against those cutting looks? No matter how
hard she tried, they always managed to pierce her defenses
somehow.

One day those cutting looks wouldn't bother
her, Megan promised herself. One day, she'd rise above them.

"You might even want to count twice,"
Jedediah added.

Sudden, unwanted tears of embarrassment and
anger stung her eyes. She wished she'd negotiated even harder on
that purchase agreement, wrangled even more favorable terms than
the excellent ones she already had secured.

Her hands trembled on the jar lid, sending
it clattering to the floor. Wanting nothing more than to throw her
carefully counted coins and precious rolled bills right at the
Websters, Megan reached inside.

And came up with nothing. Her nest egg
savings had vanished. Disappeared...just as quickly as the Websters
themselves would, when they learned the truth.

Oh, papa
, Megan thought as she stared
at the empty jar in her hands.
Whatever have you done this
time
?

Chapter Two

"Stop, Miss Megan!" Addie said, reaching
over to wrestle a hairbrush and comb from Megan's grasp before she
could pack it. "This is the craziest notion I've heard since old
Charlie took it into his head to rig parasols to the drivers' seats
on all the coaches."

"It's not crazy, it's necessary." Megan
packed her second-best dress atop the clothes already assembled in
the opened satchel on her bed, then snatched back the hairbrush and
comb, stuffed them inside, and snapped her luggage closed. "Who
knows how much of that nest egg money papa's already lost?"

"He meant well. He—he—thought he'd double
it. Surprise you for your birthday next month. Afore he left,
Joseph told me he had a sure-fire system this time. One that can't
be beat."

Addie folded her bony arms over her apron
front and leaned against the doorjamb. Her expression said she
believed everything she'd just said.

But Megan knew better.

"He always has some highfalutin', can't-miss
gambling technique up his sleeve," she reminded Addie, hefting her
second satchel onto the bed. "And it always works perfectly—right
up until the moment he loses it all."

Addie gave her a sorrowful look. "He loves
you, child."

Megan's hand fisted on the black cotton
stockings she'd been about to stuff into the satchel. An image of
her father's smiling, bewhiskered face rose in her mind's
eye...then dissolved beneath a new vision of a gaming table, a haze
of smoke, and papa crying into his Levin's Park beer because he'd
lost every penny of his daughter's nest egg. It was too real to be
ignored.

"Awww, Addie. I love him, too."

She smoothed out the crumpled stockings and
tucked them into the satchel beside her hair ribbons and the
derringer she'd received from the station hands for a Christmas
gift last year. She looked at the little gun again, thought better
of keeping it out of reach, and slipped it into her skirt pocket
instead.

"But I can't let him do this again. It's
taken me two years to replace what he lost last time he found my
savings. At this rate, by the time I get my dressmaker's shop, I'll
be too old to see what I'm stitching."

She added a bottle of rose water and a wad
of lacy handkerchiefs, then closed the satchel. "Besides, the
Websters are set to head back east on Saturday's train. If I
haven't gotten the money to them before then, they'll sell their
mercantile to Mr. Meyer the butcher next door, and my chance will
be gone."

She'd managed to hide the fact of her
missing money from Jedediah and his wife, and had somehow convinced
them they needed a re-written purchase agreement—due to all the
changes—before completing their transaction. With her promise to
have a new contract drawn up and delivered to them later in the
week, they'd left on the morning express only minutes earlier.