Carol Finch (15 page)

And this wasn’t it.

She spat a curse at the infuriating image floating in her mind. She would be gone from here, sitting in the lap of luxury, if not for the unfinished business of Lorelei Russell. She was not getting away with this! Maggie fumed as she discarded her gown. Lorelei would pay her due. Then Maggie would pack up and leave this godforsaken place.

And damn that arrogant bounty hunter for wasting time asking impertinent questions. Starting tomorrow, she would offer his job to any man on the stagecoach who agreed to accept a gunfighter’s wages and promised quick results.

Competition was what Reece McCree needed, the sarcastic scoundrel. She wasn’t wasting another week with his nonsense.

Maggie flounced on her feather bed and blew out an agitated breath. All that kept her going these days was visions of elegant hotels and restaurants in a thriving city. She would become the envy of her family. They had laughed at her dreams, but all of them would be wishing to exchange places with her one day soon.

The thought of lounging in luxurious accommodations put a smile on her face. There would be a wealthy suitor in her future, she promised herself. Someone with style, polished manners and enough money to shower her with jewels and fashionable clothing. After touring the world, she would have at least two grand mansions, complete with servants, to return home to when she tired of extensive traveling.

With visions of grandeur dancing in her head, Maggie snuggled into her soft bed and fell asleep.

The next morning when Lori came downstairs she noticed her father’s abrupt manner toward Gideon, who took it in stride. He was used to being treated without
respect—and she’d been guilty of that, too, come to think of it.

After her ordeal and Gideon’s lack of trust, she knew how it felt to be looked upon with suspicion and treated like a second-class citizen. No one had questioned her integrity or morals until she’d had the notorious distinction of having her name plastered on Wanted posters. She had been labeled a criminal and that incensed her.

Gideon had been ridiculed because of his job and his mixed heritage. Watching her father cast Gideon disparaging glances and all but ignore him was too much for Lori to bear. She was sensitive to his plight, as well as her own.

“A word, please, Papa,” she murmured as she strode over to pour herself a cup of coffee.

“I’ve had more than one word to say to that lawman and none of them were pleasant,” her father huffed, then sent another sizzling glower toward the back of Gideon’s raven head while he ate breakfast. “And you shouldn’t be downstairs where someone might walk in and see you. At least Gideon and I agree on that count.”

With her father at her heels, Lori ascended the steps, then ducked around the corner. “I appreciate your attempt to protect me from harm, but you need to have faith that you’ve trained me well enough to take care of myself.”

“With pistols, rifles, knives and hand-to-hand combat, yes,” he agreed as he glared down the steps to where Gideon sat. “Now we’re discussing a hard-edged man who’s accustomed to wielding authority and knows how to use—and abuse—power.”

“Like you when you were a high-ranking military officer?” she supplied helpfully.

He scowled at that. “I tried not to abuse my power.”

“Did you occasionally use it to your advantage?”

He scowled again. “Once or twice, but this is different.
You were alone with Gideon during the cross-country trek.”

“That’s true, but I also traveled alone with his younger brother, Glenn, until Gideon rejoined us.”

“
How
young?” Clive demanded, brows furrowed.

“Twenty-six.”

Clive muttered under his breath.

“Let me repeat,” she said emphatically. “I can take care of myself around men, the respectful and disrespectful ones alike. Have you already forgotten that I thwarted an abduction attempt just last night in this very hallway?”

Clive blew out an agitated breath. “No, I haven’t forgotten…but I don’t like Gideon Fox.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Papa, because I’m exceptionally fond of him,” she admitted. “If he manages to clear my name in this murder case then he’s going to become my very favorite man on the planet.” She grinned impishly at her father. “Present company excluded, of course.”

Her attempt to cajole him back to good humor was marginally effective. He stared at her with intense hazel eyes that sought to bore into her private thoughts.

“How much do you like him, Lorelei?” he asked.

“At lot. More than anyone else I’ve met.”

“Damn it, you know he leads a gypsy lifestyle, riding all over the territory to hunt down criminals. His dangerous profession makes him the worst kind of candidate for a husband,” he lectured.

“Sort of like marrying a soldier who fights one battle after another and moves to one military post after another?”

Clive gnashed his teeth. “All right, so your mother moved all over creation with me. I can’t see you following Gideon Fox while he’s on foray. People try to shoot at him all the time, I’d imagine.”

“People have been shooting at
me
lately. We seem to have a lot in common.”

Her father rolled his eyes at her dry humor.

“I didn’t say I planned to follow Gideon to the ends of the earth,” she reminded her father. But
if
he asked,
after
he said he loved her madly and couldn’t live without her, she’d do it at the drop of a hat.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen. There was no fairy-tale ending, she told herself sensibly. Even if Gideon wouldn’t admit that he was merely killing time with her during this investigation,
she
knew it.

“All the same, I don’t want you to get your heart broken,” her father said. “He’s a bad risk—”

“Am I interrupting?” This from Gideon who’d moved silently up the steps to join them.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Clive said in a clipped tone, then grunted uncomfortably when Lori gouged him with her elbow.

“No, you aren’t,” she told Gideon then stared deliberately at her father. “
You
be nice.”

His reply was a snort.

“Thank you for breakfast, Clive,” Gideon said politely.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’m going to ride over to Burgess Ranch and Stage Station to ask a few questions and have a look around,” Gideon announced.

“Then you’d best pin on your badge, so no one tries to blow your head off,” Clive suggested in a tone that indicated he wouldn’t mind doing it himself.

“I’m coming with you,” Lori volunteered.

Gideon shook his raven head. “You’re staying out of sight while your father tends to business and waits on customers.”

“And what am I supposed to do here?” she grumbled.

“I don’t know. Knit something,” Gideon suggested.

“I don’t knit.”

He slid a Peacemaker from his left holster. “Then make yourself useful by cleaning my pistol. I don’t want it to misfire after getting wet in the downpour the other day.”

Scowling, Lori accepted his Peacemaker.

“Good, you look like you’d like to use it on him, too,” her father observed as Gideon descended the steps.

She cocked her head and peered up at her father. “What would you do if it came to pass that Gideon began to like me as much as I like him?”

“I’ll borrow that pistol and shoot myself,” her father said before he lurched around to descend the steps.

“Then it’s a good thing marriage isn’t in my future,” she murmured as she strode off to clean the pistol. “We’d end up with a wedding and a funeral.”

G
ideon took the business of scouting the wooded area near the trading post where the shot had been fired the previous night very seriously. He checked for boot prints, horse prints and shell casings. Sure enough, he found a discarded cartridge and a man’s boot prints, but no sign of a horse.

Canvassing a wider area that led to and from the sniper’s nest in the underbrush near the river, Gideon discovered a cigar butt, horse tracks and more boot prints. He frowned pensively as he squatted down to compare the prints to the ones by the river. Then he shifted his attention to the window of Clive Russell’s upstairs bedroom.

“That’s strange,” he mused aloud.

“You there! Are you looking for a ferry ride across Winding River?”

Gideon rose to his feet, then ambled toward the young man who’d apparently arrived for work. He was short, stout, raven-haired, dark-eyed and looked to be in his mid-twenties. Full-blood Osage, Gideon guessed. The man’s eyes
widened when he noticed the badge Gideon had pinned on his leather vest.

For the most part, Gideon didn’t display the badge because most white folks were leery about offering information to lawmen. But Clive had recommended it—probably because he wouldn’t mind seeing Gideon shot by the nearest outlaw.

“If you’re looking for whoever shot Tony Rogers I can tell you it wasn’t Miz Lorelei.”

Gideon inwardly smiled at the man’s blind loyalty to his employer’s daughter. Another secret admirer, no doubt.

“I’m inclined to believe that myself,” Gideon confided then extended his hand. “Deputy U.S. Marshal Gideon Fox. I used to work for the Osage Police near Pawhuska. My family is from the Heart-Stays Clan.”

“John Little Calf.” He smiled cordially. “My clan is the Big Hills People. I’ve been working part-time for Clive Russell since Lorelei disappeared.”

“You were well acquainted with Lorelei before the shooting?” Gideon prompted.

John nodded his head. “I am one of her many friends and admirers.”

“Figures.” Gideon mumbled, drawing John’s quizzical stare. “How well did you know Tony Rogers?”

John shrugged a thick-bladed shoulder, making his long black braids ripple over his chest. “Well enough. I saw him here on occasion, while gathering supplies. I recall a few women vying for his attention at the trading post. But I don’t know them by name. I’ve also filled in occasionally at the stage station the past year when Hub Burgess and his wife were traveling. Tony was a hardworking man and a fair-minded boss, even to the two white men who went chasing after Lorelei. They were short on ambition.”

“What about the other hired hand?”

“Sylvester Jenkins?” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I suppose he got along all right with Tony. But I was only there for a week at a time. Then I returned to our family farm to catch up on my work.”

“Do you have any reason to want Tony dead?” Gideon asked for shock value.

John’s surprised expression was answer enough. “No. Except that he courted Lorelei and I never worked up the nerve to do it myself.”

“How many other men around here envied Tony’s close association with Lori?”

John smiled wryly. “You’ll need a notepad if you want me to list all the names. She’s a favorite in the area. She’s kind, considerate and she delivers supplies to families who cannot always come themselves. She treats our people as equals. Not like some whites who intrude on our reservation lands and look at us with disdain,” he added in a bitter tone.

When Gideon nodded in agreement and turned away, John called after him. “Find the man who shot Tony Rogers. I know it wasn’t Lorelei. I can feel it in my heart, Gideon Fox.”

Gideon ambled over to fetch Pirate, then headed northeast toward Burgess Stage Station. The ten-mile jaunt on the stagecoach route gave him too much time to reflect on his obsession with Lori. And it didn’t sound as if he was the only one around here who was fascinated with that golden-eyed, flame-haired beauty.

Gideon couldn’t pinpoint the time and day when the emotions he’d kept in cold storage for a decade began to give him fits. Naturally, he was physically attracted to her. Most men seemed to be, his brother included. Plus, John Little Calf insisted she was kind, generous, caring and willing to help her neighbors and customers.

He wondered why he was the one who got on the wrong side of her feisty nature and her sharp tongue. He freely admitted that Lori wasn’t your garden-variety female. Not with an ex-army officer for a father, who had trained her to hold her own against the unwanted advances of men. She was competent, bright, beautiful, witty and—

When Pirate pricked up his ears, Gideon reflexively plastered himself against his horse’s neck. A gunshot ripped through the trees and whistled past his head. Reining sideways, Gideon made a beeline toward the spot where the shot was fired. Puzzled, he glanced at the river bend that was clogged with trees, making it difficult to see in either direction. He frowned when he noticed stepping-stones on the riverbank. The only telltale clue Gideon noticed was one heel print from a boot in front of the nearest stone.

“Come on, Pirate,” he murmured to his valuable horse, whose keen senses had saved Gideon’s life more times than he could count. “Unless you want to take a swim, we can’t find out who took that shot then floated away.”

An hour later, Gideon drew Pirate to a halt on the rise of ground overlooking the stagecoach station. A two-story clapboard home, bunkhouse, oversize barn and several corrals filled with horses sat in the distance. Cattle and sheep grazed in adjoining pastures. The place looked a mite run-down, what with untrimmed grass and weeds waving in the breeze. He supposed that was to be expected since the owner and foreman had died recently.

Gideon rode downhill, noting the spacious house abutting a grove of trees and creek that provided a convenient water supply for the owners and their livestock. There were two groves of trees on either side of the gargantuan barn. Gideon veered toward the one Lori claimed a sniper had used for cover while he fired a fatal shot at Tony Rogers.

From his position in the shadows, he saw a
woman—Widow Burgess, he presumed—exit the house and head toward the stage station that sat beside the corrals. Maggie Burgess was well dressed and extremely attractive with her shapely figure and chestnut-brown hair.

Unfortunately, she didn’t draw Gideon’s masculine interest. For some reason, he’d developed a single-minded fascination for a flame-haired, golden-eyed temptress, who had quickly learned how and where to touch him and make him forget everything he ever knew.

Giving himself a mental kick in the seat of the breeches, Gideon focused on the widow, who veered toward the simply constructed cabin. He predicted she was on her way to check on the meal she planned to serve incoming passengers.

A tall, lanky man with thin-bladed shoulders and a slight limp exited the barn. In the distance, Gideon heard the clatter of a stagecoach and the pounding of hooves. Good. He wanted the inhabitants of the station occupied while he scouted for clues without someone looking over his shoulder.

This was critical,
Gideon reminded himself as he dismounted to survey the area where the fatal shot was fired. Gideon squatted down to take a close look then cursed when he realized the area had been wiped clean by recent rains. There were no footprints or shell casings to indicate anyone had fired three shots from this location. Which made it impossible to prove Lori’s claim that someone else had shot Tony while he and Lori were together.

“I wondered when you’d show up.”

Gideon wheeled on his haunches, reflexively drawing his pistol in one swift motion that testified to years of practice. When the man who’d called out to him emerged from the underbrush with his hands in the air, grinning wryly, Gideon reholstered his Peacemaker.

“Reece McCree, it’s been a long damn time.” Gideon shook his hand and added, “I heard you were dead.”

The bounty hunter, who matched Gideon in size, stature and mixed breeding, smiled in greeting. “Never believe rumors, Fox. You know better than that.”

Reaching into his vest pocket, Gideon retrieved the cigar butt that he’d recovered this morning near the trading post then handed it to Reece. “Yours, I presume. I found this in the trees near the place where you waited to scale the wall and pounce on Lori. I’ve never known you to miss very often with a rifle or pistol.” He glared disdainfully at his former friend. “You might as well know that I take serious offense to you taking potshots and trying to kidnap a woman under my protection.”

Without changing expression, Reece tucked the evidence in his pocket. “Careless of me.” He lit a fresh cheroot.

“What the hell were you trying to do last night?” Gideon growled irritably. “
Scare
Lori into confessing to murder?”

Reece puffed leisurely on his cigar, sending a cloud of smoke drifting into the air. “I didn’t take the shot,” he said very simply. “Like you, I rarely miss with a pistol or rifle. I was standing off to the west, as I’ve been doing every night for the past few days. I anticipated the woman would sneak home. I wasn’t expecting you to be with her, however. How did that come to pass?”

“I’m still a marshal, working an investigation,” Gideon reminded him. “Unlike you, I didn’t put my gun up for hire.”

Reece frowned darkly. “I discovered there are times when a marshal is restricted by laws and killers walk free.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Gideon arched a curious
brow. “So why did you take this particular case for bounty money?”

Reece grinned around the cigar he had clamped between his teeth. “Why not? A beautiful woman wanted for murder? It’s an intriguing case. And she
is
beautiful and well rounded in all the right places. I should know. I had the good fortune of holding her close for a few minutes last night during our question-and-answer session. It was all very enjoyable until she put a knot on my head. The woman is a wildcat…. I like that about her.”

Gideon tried extremely hard not to react to the teasing taunt, for Reece was studying him all too closely with silver-gray eyes trained to observe every detail. Hell, watching Reece look for telling reactions was like looking at himself in the mirror because he used the same tactics.

Reece McCree had been an exceptional Deputy U.S. Marshal until he became personally involved in a case. Like Gideon was now. The incident had ended badly and bitterness had consumed Reece. He’d turned in his badge and disappeared from sight for over a year. There had been rumors of his death and other rumors indicating he’d turned to bounty hunting and took only the most dangerous cases that left him traveling hither and yon.

“I thought it was odd that Lori’s abductor asked several questions about whether she could positively identify the supposed sniper. Where were you when Anthony Rogers died? And what did you have against him? Or were
you
hunting him for reward money?” he asked with rapid-fire precision.

Reece’s bronzed face became an unreadable mask. Gideon swore he was looking at his reflection in a mirror again. Like Reece, Gideon had shut down emotionally on dozens of occasions.

The exception being Lori’s case. He’d tried to remain uninvolved. And look where that got him. In too deep.

“Was he the elusive killer you’ve been tracking since you turned in your badge?” Gideon persisted.

“No.”

“Did you kill him and let Lori take the blame?”

“Hell, no!”

“Then what’s your connection to Tony Rogers, if he wasn’t the man who killed Angela—”

“Don’t!” Reece interrupted sharply. “I’ve spent over a year trying to forget. The last thing I need is you bringing it up.”

Gideon surveyed Reece’s angular features. He wondered how it felt to be haunted by memories that a year’s time still couldn’t cure. If something tragic happened to Lori, he wondered if a decade would be enough time to ease the pain.

Gideon didn’t want to find out. He wanted to solve this case and spread the word that Lorelei Russell had nothing to do with Tony’s death so no one else would hunt her for bounty.

And from now on, he promised himself resolutely, he’d compensate for mistrusting her and taunting her unmercifully. He’d be kind, understanding of her crusade to clear her name and exceptionally considerate of her needs.

She deserved that after the cynical way he’d treated her.

“Tell me something, Fox.”

“If I can.”

“Do
you
think she did it? The bewitching but feisty little wildcat I tangled with last night?”

“No, I don’t think she’s involved.”

Reece smiled slyly as he puffed on his cheroot. “And
which head would be doing your thinking in this case, Fox?”

“Are you implying I’m involved with her?” he asked with a carefully blank stare.

“I know you are,” Reece said matter-of-factly. “I was there last night when the shot was fired. I saw you put yourself in harm’s way to protect her.”

“She’s in my custody,” Gideon defended self-righteously.

Reece snickered. “Is that what you call that midnight swim the two of you enjoyed yesterday evening?”

Gideon felt heat rise instantly in his face to stain his cheeks. He gnashed his teeth when Reece waggled his thick brows suggestively. “You need to shut up, McCree,” Gideon muttered. “That’s between her and me.”

“I’ll say it was,” Reece teased unmercifully. “In the past, I’ve seen you
cover
a prisoner under your protection with
gunfire,
but not with your
body.
That was never your style.” His expression sobered. “But a man can change. I did.”

Apparently so. Gideon didn’t feel like the same man he’d been before the beguiling female walked from the fog. She’d turned his life upside down and resurrected emotions he’d kept dead and buried for a decade.

Hands on hips, Gideon blew out his breath. “Are you going to help me solve this case or pester the hell out of me?”

Reece bit down on his cheroot and grinned wickedly. “I plan to do both because I find your dealings with this accused murderess beyond fascinating.” He cocked his head and studied Gideon astutely. “Just so we’re clear, are you using each other for sex or is something else going on with you two?”