When The Heart Beckons (8 page)

“Please.” Annabel touched his large,
freckled hand and gazed at him with imploring eyes. “This is
terribly important. Just tell me if he’s still in Eagle Gulch. I
swear to you he’ll never know you said a word.”

The clerk gave one quick nod. “But you’d
best steer clear of that hombre,” he whispered. Then as if alarmed
by his own foolhardiness, he busied himself once more with his
ledger book, ignoring Annabel as if she had suddenly become
invisible.

She turned slowly away and carried her bag
up to her room. At least she knew one thing. Steele was here in
this town. She’d have to watch her step and try to avoid him. The
last thing she wanted was to have to explain herself to that
cold-eyed gunfighter, especially when she was this close to finding
Brett.

Her green-painted room was every bit as
spartan as the one in Justice, except for the rather pretty
floral-patterned coverlet on the high narrow bed. Annabel sank down
upon it and tugged off her boots. As she lay back wearily on the
bed and closed her eyes, she began compiling a mental list of
people likely to be aware of Brett’s presence in town. Hotel
clerks, chambermaids, merchants, saloon keepers, and yes—saloon
women, for Brett adored females and Annabel knew that he would
certainly flirt congenially with any or all women he encountered
while slaking his thirst in a saloon.

Well, she’d better get started. Steele
already had a jump on her.

She performed a quick toilette, washing her
face and hands, brushing and repinning her hair into its flawless
chignon, and stuffing her aching feet back into her boots. She took
care to secure the derringer in its hiding place once more before
slipping downstairs and out into the street just as the sun glided
along the western sky in a splash of gilded lavender and rose.

Annabel headed immediately for the Hot
Pepper Saloon, no more than three doors down from her hotel. There
were four saloons in this town and if she had to enter all of them
to find what she needed to know she would do it, but she couldn’t
help hoping as she dodged into the alley behind the saloon that
such a step wouldn’t be necessary. She knew that the last thing she
should do was draw attention to herself by entering the saloon
openly, so she pushed open the back door and eased inside a small
corridor, hoping she would be lucky enough to obtain the
information she needed here at the Hot Pepper, without having to
visit all of the others.

It was noisy and crowded in the enormous
main room of the saloon. Smoke drifted above the green felt gaming
tables and curled against the red-flocked wallpaper. Brass
chandeliers gave out bright, garish light to illuminate the
costumes of the saloon girls, who hurried here and there among the
men, pouring drinks, lighting cigars. But it was dim and relatively
quiet in the back corridor in which Annabel found herself. There
was a short stairway on her left and she studied it speculatively,
while out in the saloon, laughter roared and glasses clinked and
someone banged out a popular ballad on the piano.

She set a foot on the bottom step, but at
that moment a woman burst through the doorway off the saloon, her
head turning as she called out to someone at the bar. Annabel
ducked back against the wall, out of sight, and held her
breath.

A cloud of musky perfume assailed her
nostrils as the woman sauntered into the corridor and started up
the stairs.

Annabel craned her neck ever so slightly to
get a glimpse of her. The woman was tall and statuesque, her buxom
figure resplendent in a gown of dark violet satin trimmed in black.
Her face was not what Annabel had expected. Though painted, it was
nevertheless an attractive, pleasant face. She wore an expression
of keen anticipation.

Annabel made a decision. She would follow
the woman upstairs. It was exactly the kind of opportunity she’d
been looking for, a chance to ask questions about Brett in private,
without having to venture into the main part of the saloon, where
she might attract attention.

She followed the woman up the short flight
of stairs and reached the landing in time to see the violet skirts
disappear through a door on the left.

No one else was in sight.

The floor creaked beneath her as Annabel
tiptoed down the dim hallway, lit only by a single bronze torchère.
She knocked softly on the door through which the woman had
passed.

“Who the hell is there?” an irritated female
voice called out at once.

“Someone who needs to speak with you. Please
open the door.”

There was silence. Annabel’s heart skidded
suddenly as wild laughter erupted abruptly from a room down the
hall, followed at once by a man’s grunting, and the violent creak
of bedsprings. From inside this room, however, there was no sound
at all. Or was someone whispering?

She put her ear to the door and nearly fell
in as the door was suddenly yanked wide. A brawny arm seized her
and tugged her inside before she had time to do more than gasp.

Roy Steele kicked the door shut behind her
and pinned her against it so hard she could scarcely breathe.
“You,” he said in cold disgust.

A
nnabel’s heart
hammered against her rib cage. For a moment she could do nothing
but stare helplessly into the icy depths of those black eyes. Then
panic kicked in and she began to wriggle.

“Hold still,” Steele commanded.

“L-let me go.”

“When I’m good and ready.”

“Who is she, Roy?” the woman asked. She
stood beside a small table, pouring whiskey from a crystal decanter
into a tall glass. As Annabel peered past Steele’s grim face in the
hopes that the woman would help her, she was dismayed to see that
far from looking troubled by Annabel’s predicament, the woman
looked merely amused.

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” The
unyielding determination in his voice chilled Annabel even more
than the hard expression on his face. Her heart sank farther at the
gunslinger’s next words.

“You’d better get out of here, Lily. It
won’t be a pretty sight.”

“Just don’t shoot her in my bedroom, Steele,
that’s all I ask,” the woman sighed, strolling past the
velvet-canopied brass bed, drink in hand. “The last time you shot
someone in here, it took me half a day to scrub the blood out of
the carpet.”

Steele swung Annabel away from the door as
the tall woman approached. “Honey,” Lily said, her tone not
entirely unsympathetic as she studied the young woman held
helplessly in the gunslinger’s unbreakable grip, “whoever you are,
you got on the wrong side of the wrong man. Let it be a lesson to
you.”

Then she was gone, the door clicking
ominously shut behind her.

Annabel stared into Steele’s glacial eyes
and managed to blurt out three words.

“I can explain.”

He backed her against the wall beside the
gold-curtained window. “Then do it.”

“Let go of me first.”

“You’re not in a position to negotiate
anything, lady.”

“T-true. But you’re scaring me half to death
and I can explain things much better if you let me go.”

His eyes narrowed, but he released her. He
moved back one step, and folded his arms across his chest. Annabel
moistened her lips. Even with this slight distance between them,
she felt trapped, overwhelmed. There was no way to escape. Roy
Steele was too big, too strong. He could grab her again anytime he
chose and they both knew it.

She peered past his broad shoulder at the
door, wishing she could somehow dash out, flee down the hall, and
disappear. Let Roy Steele comb every hotel in Eagle Gulch in search
of her. She’d have a chance to outwit him then, and in a pinch
Annabel would stake her wits and brains against those of any man,
even this one, with his shrewdly intelligent eyes and knowing
sneer.

“Don’t try it,” he warned, and she realized
he had seen her glance and guessed her thoughts.

“Actually, Mr. Steele, I’m glad to have this
opportunity to talk to you,” Annabel countered, looking up at him
as steadily as she could.

“I’ll just bet you are.”

“A gentleman doesn’t question a lady’s
word.” She licked her lips.

“I never claimed to be a gentleman, and I
sure as hell wonder if you’re much of a lady.”

Indignation rocked her, but she controlled
herself with an effort. This was hardly the time to defend her
dignity. She had to extricate herself from this, and fast. “May I
sit down?” she asked coolly.

“No.
Talk.
”

The sharp impatience with which he bit out
these words made Annabel decide she’d better plunge ahead without
irritating him any further.

“I’ve been wishing to engage your services,”
she said, trying to sound crisp and professional. “You are a
gunfighter, are you not?”

“You’ve been following me all over the place
for the past two days, lady, so you tell me.”

“Yes, well ... I wish to engage your
services.”

“To do what?”

“To protect me. There’s a man who wants to
kill me.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

Annabel’s eyes flashed with the raw heat of
summer lightning. “I am willing to pay good money for protection.
That is, I
was
. But since your attitude is so rude and so
very insufferable, Mr. Steele, as to hardly inspire confidence, I
believe I will take my business elsewhere. I won’t be troubling you
anymore ...”

He blocked her path as she started to sweep
toward the door.

“Not so fast.”

He gripped her wrist and held it, not hard,
but hard enough so that she couldn’t wrest free. Annabel bit her
lip, her hopes plummeting.

He doesn’t believe me
, she thought,
and wondered with a wild tug of fear what he would do to get the
truth from her. Lily’s casual words rang in her ears.
Honey,
whoever you are, you got on the wrong side of the wrong
man
.

Searching Steele’s face, a face that was at
once magnetically handsome and terrifying in its coldness, she
yearned to find some hint of mercy, of sympathy, even of plain
decent interest stamped upon his features, but there was none.
There was only hard skepticism in his eyes, and callous disbelief
in his expression.

She had never seen anyone so chillingly
dangerous. A shiver of dread ran through her as she pondered what
he would do if he suspected she was pursuing the same man he was
after—that her goal was to save Brett, putting her at direct
cross-purposes with him. No matter what happened, he couldn’t find
out. He must learn nothing about her connection with Brett, nothing
that would endanger Brett further or aid Steele in whatever dark
purpose he was engaged in.

“Suppose you tell me a little more about
this man who wants to kill you,” he drawled, and she felt her pulse
racing beneath his thumb.

So he’s testing me, trying to check out
my story
. There was still hope then of convincing him. Annabel
tried to think what her mother might have done when presented with
a similar sticky situation during the war.
Keep going
, she
decided.
Stick to your story and don’t give an inch. Don’t let
him see your panic
.

“Well, his name is Walter ... Walter
Stevenson,” she improvised rapidly, blurting out the first surname
that popped into her head. “I thought he was a friend, a very close
friend, a suitor, actually, but he swindled me out of my
inheritance—five thousand dollars, Mr. Steele! Why, I was never
more hornswoggled by anyone in my life! I threatened to report him
to the authorities and he said he would
kill
me if I did.
Well, naturally, I didn’t believe him at first, but then ... oh,
dear, this is the most unnerving part. The next day I was very
nearly run down by a carriage in the street—and I recognized the
driver, it was Walter’s groom! I was so frightened I didn’t know
what to do, so I left town—started for New Mexico to visit my ...
my brother, who lives there, you see, but someone has been
following me and ...” Annabel took a deep breath and lifted wide
helpless eyes to his face. “I have money, Mr. Steele, I can pay for
your protection. If you’ll only escort me as far as New Mexico
until I reach the safety of my brother’s ranch ...”

What on earth will I do if he
agrees?
she suddenly wondered in stark horror, somewhat awed
by her own newfound ability to spin tales on short notice. But the
next moment she realized she didn’t need to worry about that, for
Roy Steele displayed no signs of giving a damn about her supposed
predicament. The expression on his face was as menacing as
ever.

“Why is it that I think you’re lying?” he
growled.

“Really, Mr. Steele. Why would I lie?”

There was silence in the room as their gazes
locked. Steele examined those astonishingly clear and intense eyes
of hers and against his will caught himself drowning in their pure
gray-green depths. She wasn’t being straight with him, he sensed
that, but he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong with her
story. Instinct, that was all he had to go on, but it was the same
raw gut instinct that had kept him alive all across New Mexico,
Arizona, and Nevada over the past ten years. This beautiful young
woman with the delicate waif’s face and the long, velvet lashes was
lying to him. He was sure of it.

Roy Steele suppressed the urge to yank her
close and shake the truth out of her. The warmth and vibrance of
her seemed to reach out and grab him by the throat even from here,
even touching only her slender wrist between his fingers. If he
were to put his hands on her again, he might not be able to answer
for the consequences.

He didn’t seize her, but he was rawly aware
of her pulse fluttering beneath his thumb. That delicate throbbing
seemed to exemplify her vulnerability, and as he felt it, and
stared into her innocently upturned face, something hot and
seething twisted inside his gut.