Lawman (35 page)

"What I believe doesn't matter."

Able to resist no longer, Gabriel pulled her
into his arms. As though he could keep her there with nothing but
brute strength and the force of his will, he held her within his
grasp tightly. He savored the wondrous curve of her backside
pressed against him...felt the soft, brave welcoming of her hands
clasping his forearms below her breasts, and wanted nothing more
than to remain this close to her until dawn broke.

And beyond.

"All that matters is what's true," he said.
"It's true that I feel I'm where I belong when I hold you, Meg. And
I'd vow you feel the same."

Dreamily, she eased herself nearer, nestling
close against him. "Oh, Gabriel. How I want to believe you."

"Then do it." He nudged aside the glossy
curtain of her hair and pressed a kiss to the curve of her
shoulder. Just as he'd imagined, she tasted of woman and warmth,
her sweetness underlaid with hints of coconut and clean dress
starch. "Delicious," he murmured.

"Hmmm?" Megan tilted her head, craning to
see his face. "I might have sworn you said 'suspicious.'"

Her guess described her troubled expression
perfectly. Never had she seemed more wary of him...or more hungry
to believe. Gabriel squeezed her fondly and said, "You misheard me.
I said you were delicious."

"Bosh!" With a chortle of disbelief, Megan
shoved away and whirled to face him. "Never in my life has a
man—"

"
I'm not those men
." Gently, he
pressed his thumb to her lips, sealing them closed against the
protest he recognized in her spirited dark eyes. "I'm not any of
those men who were blind to your beauty and your fire and your
bright, infuriating mind."

She scoffed, raising her brows with an
expression that said he'd have a piece of her dratted infuriating
mind the very minute he took his hand from her lips. Instead,
Gabriel traced over the soft heat he'd found, savoring the plump
textures of her mouth beneath his thumb, and surrendered yet
another piece of his heart.

"I'm not like them, sugar," he said. "I'm
not a fool."

He bent, captured her lips with his. The
first meeting of their mouths made him groan...called forth an
answering murmur from Megan. The union that followed stopped his
thoughts altogether.

God, but this woman felt like everything
he'd ever wanted. Tasted like all he'd ever needed. Breathless with
hunger, Gabriel swept his tongue against hers, driving his hand in
her hair to keep her still. He wanted, wanted...and every moment
felt himself balanced on the edge of losing her forever.

Too soon, she ended the kiss. Saying
nothing, her eyes luminous, Megan stared up at him. Her gaze
dropped to his arms at her waist and she frowned, as though
puzzling over finding herself still held so closely. When she
looked up again, the doubt in her expression vexed him beyond all
reason. At that moment, Gabriel would have given all he had to see
it vanished from her face.

"Ahhh, Meg," he murmured, smiling over his
irresistible, fruitless urge to nudge an answering smile onto her
features. "Believe me, and let's go on from here. Believe that I
want you. I've never said truer words."

She shook her head. "You don't even know
me."

"I know all I need to. You're loving and
loyal—"

"To a man you despise!"

"—stubborn and clever—"

"Ha! You're angry I've bested you!" she
interrupted, looking relieved to have found familiar territory
between them.

Gabriel refused to let her claim it. "You
have a passing fine way with a lady's bonnet," he went on, grinning
widely at the memory of her various overladen hats, "and a kiss
that could blow a man's boots straight off."

Her gaze jerked toward his bare feet,
curling against the cold balcony stones, then upward. Megan
narrowed her eyes. "You did that yourself!"

Laughing, he gathered her closely again.
"True. It was in anticipation that I did it, hoping you might kiss
me."

"You said you did it for the sake of
equality between us," she protested.

But Meg snuggled against him nevertheless.
The feel of her slender arms wrapped tentatively around his middle
was something he knew he'd remember a lifetime.

Or at least until he'd urged her to hold him
in another, more intimate way. The same anticipation he'd spoken of
before surged through him at the thought.

"Equality. Of course," Gabriel said, feeling
uncommonly lighthearted. He lifted his hand to his shirt buttons
and worked the topmost one free, then set to task on the next. With
surprise, he found himself delighting in teasing her—and in
wondering where that teasing might end.

"I'm still for having equality between us,"
he went on as he unbuttoned, giving her a wink. "In fact, I'd like
to equalize things even further."

"Gabriel!" Megan gasped and playfully
swatted his hand away. "After you went to such trouble tonight to
keep me warm and dry, I'll not have you catching a chill yourself,
just to bait me."

"Hmmm. I had hoped to tempt you."

Her breath caught. When she turned her
forlorn gaze to his, he saw that he
had
tempted her...and
that she still feared to reach for what she desired.

"
How
can you want me?" she cried
suddenly, her voice stumbling hoarsely over the words. True to the
woman she was, Megan got them said in spite of it. "How can
you—handsome, brilliant—" She churned her arm as though dredging a
reluctant compliment from a well brimful with them. "—aggravatingly
determined
you
—want me? How, when—when—"

"I do, Meg."

"—when my own mother did not, and my papa
can't seem to abide the mere sight of me these days?" Anguish
cracked her voice and brought fresh tears to her eyes. "They don't
want me, Gabriel. Neither has anyone else, save Addie, and she's
just as lonely as me."

He longed to tug her close again. To love
away her fears and her sadness, if she would let him. One look at
Megan's tight-clenched fists and faraway eyes warned him not to
try.

Not yet.

Fiercely, she stared up at him, determined
to have her say. "You seem to think I have dozens of beaus.
Dozens!" Her choked laughter mocked the very idea. "I'll tell you
truly, that I've never had one. Not one that lasted. And do you
know why?"

"Meg—"

She wrenched away from his outstretched arms
and faced him with her demand for his answer plain to see.

Gabriel had nothing to give. He'd teased her
over her scores of beaus because he'd been sure she'd had them.
Looking at her now, he still felt sure. Damnation! Megan must have
had suitors chasing after her from the first day she batted those
damned eyes of hers at some poor boy in short pants in the
schoolyard. Was he supposed to believe differently now?

He could not. No matter how she battered him
with her tears and her reckless determination.

"Do you know why?" she demanded again.

At a loss for a reply, Gabriel remained
silent. She answered herself instead, with a recrimination it
pained him to see.

"They didn't want me because they saw the
truth about me, just like my mother did. Just like her blasted
sharper of a traveling salesman did. Just like my papa does now.
So why don't you see it, too
?"

She wept, at an end to her words—and maybe
her new-fashioned trust in him, too. Gabriel reached for her hand
with shaky fingers, and twined their fingers together as closely as
he yearned to join their bodies. He squeezed.

"I'm sorry, Meg," he said quietly. "I can't
see it, and I won't tell you that I do. There's nothing in you that
I don't want to keep with me, for all the days we have left."

Her tremulous, beautiful gaze lifted to his.
"Do you mean it?" she whispered.

Gabriel grinned. "It's beyond vexing to
admit it," he said, "especially to a woman who challenges me at
every devilish turn. But I see only goodness in you. Only that. And
I've never meant anything I've said more."

"Oh."

Her small exclamation came from Megan with
obvious surprise. She tried to step back, bumped against the
balcony rail behind her, and halted. Everything about her seemed
softened somehow, gentled with a new vulnerability Gabriel hadn't
glimpsed in her before. He liked it. He liked the woman behind
it.

"Except that I want you," he said, tilting
her face up in the cradle of his hands. He stroked his thumbs over
her cheeks, delighting in the softness of her skin—and in the
unsteady smile he felt beneath his palms. "I mean that just as
much."

And his kiss was meant to convey it. He
covered her mouth with his, and felt gladness fill him. Never had
he craved the taste of a woman like he did Megan. Never had he
needed
more than he did now. Leisurely, Gabriel stroked his
tongue over hers, nibbled tenderly at her lower lip, kissed the
tilting edges of her mouth...and then began the process anew.

"Ahhh, Meg." Breathing heavily, he pulled
away at last. He rested his forehead against hers and looked into
her eyes. "This feels beyond dangerous between us. I should go,
before you regret I ever came back for you tonight."

"Don't go!" Megan grasped his hand, holding
it joined with hers against her shoulder. Biting her lip, she
looked up at him. "Not yet. Will—will you promise me
something?"

Let my papa go free
. What other vow
could she wish for? Bitterness hardened his expression when he
gazed back at her.

"What is it?"

She pattered her fingers over his hand, like
a person seeking a word lost just on the tip of their tongue. She
rose on tiptoes. She took a deep breath. Just as he was about to
demand that Megan say the pledge she requested, she spoke.

"When you feel that you want to leave me,"
she said, fixing her gaze on the curtains shifting in the breeze at
the balcony doors behind them, "would you promise me...promise me
that you'll let me leave first? At least then I might have the
illusion of—"

"What? Meg—"

"—the illusion of not being left
behind."

Her lonesome eyes betrayed the one word
she'd left unsaid.

Again
. Left behind again.

Gabriel ached to realize how deeply she'd
been hurt. How deeply wounded Megan felt even now. He reached for
her, wanting to prove the world wasn't populated with people like
her father, a man to be depended upon only for reliable thievery
and flight, and her mother, a woman who'd shown her daughter much
of the same. His hand touched her neck, the sweep of her jaw. With
a helpless sound of empathy, he cradled her face in his palm.

Megan jerked her chin upward, out of his
reach. "It won't be at issue much longer."

"No?" Feeling bereft, Gabriel fisted his
empty hands and summoned a patience born of new understanding. "Why
not?"

"Because soon it won't matter who leav—I
mean, what anyone else does around me. I'll be snug in my new
dressmaker's shop, with business to spare and no time to waste
wondering over what other people do."

"Or why they can't be counted on?"

She gave him a sharp look. "You think you
read me so well."

"Don't I?"

"If you did, you would see the truth in me."
The words were as blunt as Megan's eyes were tear-filled and wary.
"Do you give me your promise, or not?"

"My promise to have you be the first to
leave?"

She nodded.

That she would request it at all pained
Gabriel deeply. "Yes," he said, seeing no other choice. He'd simply
hold off on their leave-taking for as long as possible. "Will you
tell me what happened with your mother?"

With evident surprise, she looked up. He saw
her fingers curl around the balcony railing, and wished it was him
she held so closely.

"I want to know you, Meg."

And then hunt down the people who hurt
you
. He couldn't, not really—at least not in the way he meant
it—but the idea held a certain bloodthirsty appeal Gabriel could
not deny. The protective, male part of him yearned to see Megan
avenged. Needed to be sure his woman was safe.

Not that he would ever hurt a woman, Gabriel
knew. He would never come to claim Megan's mother, for instance.
But with her father still within reach....

Megan shrugged. Her casual gesture fooled
him not a bit. This mattered to her. Because of it, it mattered to
him as well.

"I did promise, didn't I?" she asked,
sniffling back the last of her tears.

"You did." He pulled her closer.

This time, she came. "When you brushed my
hair earlier," she began, "it called to mind the last time my mama
did the same for me. Remember what I told you?"

Gabriel kissed the top of her head, wrapping
his arms securely around her. "The tortoiseshell hairbrush. I
remember. It was only today that you said it, sugar. Do you think
I'm a feeble old man, to have forgotten it already?"

Her smile filled her voice. "Not
feeble."

"Just old?" With a mock growl, he nuzzled
her neck. "I'll show you how young I can feel, when you've finished
your story."

Sighing, Megan went on. "On that last day,
mama took more care than ever. Even though it wasn't a church day,
she pinned up my hair with rags the night before. My papa wondered
about that, let me tell you—" Almost proudly, she relayed her
father's confusion over middle-of-the-week primping. "—but mama
told him I was old enough to learn hairstyling, and he should leave
us be."

"My nieces wore their hair braided like
ropes at the sides of their head until they were out of short
skirts," Gabriel said. "I'm not surprised he was suspicious."

"Neither am I, looking back on it now. But
at the time, I hated it. I thought surely he would change mama's
mind, and she would leave me be."

"She did not."