Lawman (8 page)

It wouldn't do to let down her guard around
him. Megan kept her weapon steady. This was a man who could not be
trusted.

Not that she'd been anywhere close to doing
so, Megan assured herself as she sharpened her focus on his roguish
face, waiting for whatever he'd do next. If she'd forgotten herself
for an instant or two, that was only because he'd forced her to
play every role she could think of to try to stop him from
searching the station. It certainly had nothing to do with the
shocking feel of his arms holding her close, his hands stroking her
hair, his mouth meeting hers in a kiss so gentle, so
tantalizing....

She grabbed hold of her wayward thoughts and
steeled her resolve. Too much lay at stake here to risk being
distracted, and she'd need all her wits to deal with the challenge
Gabriel Winter presented.

How was she to stop him from searching the
station—preferably without getting herself arrested in the
process?

She still couldn't believe none of the
methods she'd tried earlier had worked. Even tears hadn't been
enough to soften him, and she hadn't thought to find a man alive
who'd remain unmoved by a woman's tears. Agent Winter's heart must
be as cold as his name implied.

The realization was enough to kindle fresh
terror inside her. This time, it was just possible she'd bitten off
a greater challenge than she could chew. Megan steadied her gun
with hands gone suddenly damp and trembling, and did her best to
assume an air of nonchalance.

"In any case, agent Winter, you must know
that crooked lawmen roll through this territory as often as
tumbleweeds do. So even if what you say is true, I—"

"It's true." He stepped closer. "I am a
lawman, clear to the last inch."

Involuntarily, she checked the truth of his
statement. The civilized polish of his city-slicker's wool suit and
clean-shaven jaw suggested a businessman more than anything else.
But the low-slung heft of his gun belt and the cynical steel in his
gaze told another story. It was the latter Megan was inclined
toward believing.

He really was a lawman. One intent on
locking her father in irons and dragging him to jail for a crime he
couldn't possibly have committed. Dear Lord. She had to do
something to stop him. The havoc agent Winter could wreak at
Kearney Station with his wrongheaded investigation was
terrifying.

"And an honest lawman, at that," Gabriel
went on, dropping his gaze to her derringer, "one with half a mind
to take you in right along with your father. It's a dangerous woman
who'd draw a weapon on a Pinkerton man—no matter how wee a one it
might be."

Summoning all the bravado she could, Megan
smiled past the hammering of her heart and looked him up and down.
"Pshaw, Mr. Winter. You don't seem so very wee to me."

His answering smile looked deadly—and miles
more charming than it had a right to be, given the circumstances.
Caught beneath its influence, she could almost believe he was a man
who'd lock an innocent woman in jail. Most certainly, she could
believe he was a man who'd give his lady prisoner a scorching
goodbye kiss...only moments before turning the key.

The cad.

"Is there always a double meaning to your
words, Miss Kearney? Or might it be possible someday to believe
what you say?"

"I doubt very much you believe in anything
or anyone."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "I believe in
facts."

"I've already given you those," Megan said.
"My father was not involved in any wrongdoing. So if you'd kindly
leave before your presence here causes any more ruckus—"

"No."

Despite the threat of her derringer, he
moved closer. Either she didn't seem menacing enough to keep him
away, or he was too fearless to heed her warning. She sensed the
ready strength in his shoulders, felt the warmth of his body near
hers, and started trembling anew. Desperate measures were in
order.

Megan attempted a sneer, like the ones the
Easterners wore when they stepped off the stage and glimpsed The
Great Desert for the first time. As meanly as she could, she said,
"I already asked you once to leave, Mr. Winter. I'm not asking
again."

Unfortunately, he seemed unimpressed.

"I'm not leaving here until I'm finished."
His bemused smile was enough to get her dander up, all on its own.
"And I'm a long sight from being finished with you."

Her thoughts whirled. Trapped between the
door at her back and the solid, implacable man at her front, Megan
did the only thing that seemed reasonable.

She raised her gun higher.

He spared it a glance. Nothing more. An
instant later, Gabriel brought his big hand up to cradle the back
of her neck in his palm, and the searing heat of his skin was
almost enough to make her drop her derringer without a single
thought.

Holding her breath, Megan looked up into a
face shadowed with hard-won experience. For a man not much older
than she was, Gabriel Winter seemed remarkably cynical. His
features called nothing to mind so strongly as danger, and the
angle of his jaw, the sharp edge of his nose, and the predatory
gleam in his eyes did nothing to dispel that impression.

However civilized the trappings he wore,
Gabriel Winter was nonetheless a hunter. One who would not rest
until he'd taken what he'd come to find.

She had the sudden, panic-stricken fear he
had come to find her.

As though he'd guessed her fear, he
increased the pressure of his fingertips against her nape and
tilted her head toward his. The other quality agent Winter
possessed in abundance was masculine assurance, and he was plainly
unafraid to use it.

"If my presence here is too much for you,"
he said, "I'd advise you to lay down your weapon right now.
Otherwise, you'll find yourself with more of me than you can
handle."

Megan figured she already had more of him
than she could handle. She almost admitted it aloud. After all, his
unexpected arrival at the station had already forced her into
sweet-talking, kissing, and desperate measures the likes of which
she'd never tried before.

And
the likes of which would have
worked on almost anyone else, she felt sure. Drat the man and his
stubborn, wily ways!

She needed time to think. She needed time to
plan. She needed distance from the impossible-to-ignore masculinity
of a man with her father's ruination on his mind...and the back of
her neck in his hand. Gently, he thrummed his fingers over her
skin, teased the fine hairs at her nape, stroked her as though he
hadn't anything better to do in the world than sample the feel of
her beneath his fingers.

And watch her with the eyes of a hawk.

"Understand?" he asked.

She understood. Understood he wasn't leaving
the station unless she found a way to make him, somehow. Blast
it.

In answer, Megan jerked her head upward,
trying to free herself from his grasp. She found the impulse as
impossible to resist as it was useless. Although he took his hand
from her neck, hers was a temporary victory at best, and she knew
it. She could no more escape the war of wills that had begun
between them than she could snap her fingers and have her father
magically reappear at the station with her nest egg money safely in
hand.

She almost cried out at the thought. What
chance did she have to regain her savings, her chance for a future,
now? With only three days until the Websters left Tucson for good,
a father gone missing, and a relentless, silver-tongued Pinkerton
man to keep track of, it looked as though her dressmaker's shop
dream was about to slip from her grasp for the last time.

It would be years, maybe many years, before
another affordable shop came available to buy. Whatever else
happened, she could not let this Pinkerton man delay her. Neither
could she let him ruin her papa's life and livelihood by openly
accusing him of something he couldn't possibly have done. Somehow,
she had to find her father, recover her savings, and get away with
both before agent Winter realized what she was up to.

With that thought in mind, Megan glared up
at her unwelcome guest. If she left for Tucson to find her father
as she'd planned, he'd surely search the station, with or without
her consent. It would throw the place into an uproar. Somehow, she
had to draw him away from here. But how?

Would he believe she'd had a sudden change
of heart?

Probably not.

"Do I understand?" She repeated his
question, hating the shakiness in her voice even as she lay her
free hand dramatically over her heart. "My goodness, agent Winter.
You can't possibly mean you would take
me
into custody! Not
for something so inconsequential as ordering you off my land."

"With a firearm for persuasion."

She shrugged and gave him her sweetest
smile. "I find it increases a man's attention span."

His gaze flickered over her, taking in her
upswept hair, her dress, and her shoes just visible beneath her
hem. Leisurely, he lengthened his perusal to include the flare of
her long brown skirts, then took his time following her bodice's
trail of jet buttons upward to her face.

The rascal grinned. "I expect you manage to
keep a man's attention," he said. "With or without a peashooter
handy."

His quicksilver smile, coupled with the heat
in his eyes and the apparent sincerity in his voice, would surely
have set another, more gullible woman to swooning on the spot. She
knew better than to listen. Never had a man spoken such niceties to
plain Megan Kearney. She prided herself on being practical enough
not to hope for them.

At least she had until now.

"You flatter me, agent Winter."
Concentrate
, she ordered herself. Was he falling for her
tactic? "That must be how I knew you'd never arrest a lady like me,
not even for pulling out this little old derringer of mine. Why,
I've never even heard of such a thing."

"I have."

He was falling for it! "Oh, my. You don't
mean...?"

She let her voice trail off, and did her
best to pack a goodly dose of trepidation into the stare she gave
him. Deliberately getting herself arrested was a desperate means of
making agent Winter leave the station, to be sure. But Megan felt
fairly certain she could elude him once they'd set out on the road
to the jail in Tucson. The way to town was as familiar as her own
dress patterns to her—but not to him.

She blinked sorrowfully up at him and
whispered, "Jail? For me? You can't mean it."

His gaze darkened, turning his eyes a
deeper, lonelier blue.

"Oh, but I do," he said. "I'd arrest you
now, if I thought you could really pull that trigger."

Despair tugged at her. He hadn't believed
her threat at all! At this rate, she'd never get him away from the
station.

"But I could pull the trigger! You might not
believe it, but I can be mean as all get-out when provoked. Ask
anyone. Ask—"

He grinned. His hand covered hers, eased her
fingers' desperate clench on the cold metal protection of her
derringer. "No, you couldn't."

"I could! You shouldn't judge a book by its
cover, agent Winter. I'm snake-mean sometimes. You should see—"

"I can see," he interrupted. "And I only
needed one look at this place—and at the behemoth out there in the
yard, watching out for you—to know that's not true."

He must mean Mose. Whatever could simple,
sweet Mose have said to the Pinkerton man to make him think such a
thing?

She couldn't give up.
Wouldn't
. "But
I—"

He stopped her. "You're about as mean as a
day-old kitten, sugar." One by one, Gabriel pried her fingers loose
from her weapon, even as his next words washed over her with deadly
seriousness. "But let me warn you right now—if I find out you're
involved in my case, I will take you in. And I'll turn the key to
lock you up myself."

Visions of the scandalous goodbye kiss she'd
imagined earlier whirled through her mind. Combined with the memory
of the kiss he'd already given her, it was almost enough to set her
tingling anew.

A person would think she wanted him to
kiss her again, or something
. Megan gave herself a shake and
tried not to think about the fact that his hands still covered
hers—and with a touch as tender as that of a man come courting the
woman he fancied, too.

She'd bet a man like Gabriel Winter didn't
bother with courting anyone. She'd bet a man like him just took
what he wanted. Suddenly, she wasn't at all sure that if she found
herself in such a position, she could refuse him anything.

A ridiculous notion, of course, Megan told
herself. Surely she had more fortitude, more discipline, than
that.

"If you're involved in this robbery," he
went on, "I'll find out. And then I'll find
you
. And it
won't matter that you're a woman."

She couldn't help the shiver that crept up
her spine at his words. But she could help what she did about it,
Megan vowed. Never let it be said that she'd abandoned her family,
or the station hands who depended on her, in their time of need.
The last thing she meant to do was let Gabriel Winter ride
roughshod over their lives.

"Would it matter if I were innocent?" she
asked, lifting her chin.

"If you were innocent—" He slipped her
derringer from her hand and removed its bullets, dropping them into
his palm as he spoke. "—then I would know it. I've never brought in
the wrong man."

He returned her gun with a small,
aggravatingly gentleman-like bow. "Or the wrong woman."

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm sure."

Her chin came up another notch. "I believe
you're confusing arrogance with certainty, agent Winter."

"Well said, coming from a woman who's
confusing affection with innocence." He paused, shook his head.
"For your sake, I wish you could love your father enough to excuse
his crimes. But you can't."