Cherished (50 page)

Annabel waited, pressing back against the
stall. She heard the blacksmith return to work, swearing under his
breath, and then she eased her way to the rear door and out once
more into the quickly falling dusk.

But as she rounded the corner of the
building, heading back toward the hotel, she suddenly collided with
a rock-hard wall of sheer male muscle looming directly before
her.

“Ma’am.” The harshness of Roy Steele’s voice
raised gooseflesh on her arms. She tried to answer in kind.

“Mr. Steele.”

“You know my name.”

For the second time since she’d met him,
Annabel felt the hot blush warming her cheeks, but she recovered
smoothly. “Why, yes, the clerk at the hotel mentioned it. May I
pass, please?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Mr. Steele ...”

“You’re not going anywhere until you answer a
question. Why are you following me?”

“Following you? Mr. Steele, you obviously
have an exaggerated sense of your power over women. I assure you I
am not ...”

“You are.”

She shook her head and let a light laugh
trill from her lips. “Well. If you aren’t the vainest man I’ve ever
met. Merely because I happen to find myself in the same vicinity as
you twice in one day—to my own regret, I assure you ...”

Icy fury clamped down over his implacable
features. “Stop prattling. Answer my question or I’ll ...”

“You’ll what? Shoot me? Oh, heavens, I am
quite shaking in my boots!”

Annabel was amazed at her own audacity. Truth
be told, she was shaking in her boots; her knees rattled quite
humiliatingly beneath her serviceable traveling skirt. But she kept
her face schooled into an expression of outraged scorn. If there
was one thing she hated, it was a bully, and Roy Steele was nothing
but a bully, she assured herself.

A bully who looked as if he would like to
wring her neck. He reached out one hand and for an agonizing second
Annabel thought he was really going to choke her, but he only
gripped her by the shoulder. “If you weren’t following me, lady,
what the hell are you doing in this alley? A little while ago, I
saw you behind me on Main Street, pretending to look in a shop
window.”

“You’re quite mad, Mr. Steele.
Quite
mad. And if you don’t let me go this very instant ...”

“Steele! Freeze!”

A voice like hell’s own thunder roared
through the alley. Annabel and Steele both spun toward it.

Annabel’s eyes widened at the sight before
her. Good God, not one, but two vicious-looking gunmen glared at
them from less than twenty feet away.

They must be outlaws—or gunfighters, Annabel
guessed, fighting back a rush of faintness. Her heart was banging
against the wall of her chest like an Indian war drum. She’d never
seen such dirty, unkempt, savage-looking men.

Unshaven, their faces pockmarked and tough as
buffalo hide beneath their stringy brown hair, they looked like the
type of men who would as soon wring a cat’s neck as pet it. They
both wore long greasy yellow dusters over dirt-stained pants and
cracked boots that were torn and splattered with mud. One man was
taller than the other, with even tinier, beadier eyes. Annabel
noted in alarm that his gun was drawn and pointed straight at Roy
Steele. The other man had a long mustache and a scar looping from
his cheek down across his pointed chin. They bore a startling
resemblance to each other: the same long gangly build, the same
flat, squashed noses, the same aura of evil radiating from them,
right down to the expression of leering hatred on their faces.

“Who are they?” she whispered to Steele,
swallowing past the lump of fear in her throat.

“The Hart brothers. Outlaws. Reckon they mean
to kill me.”

“In that case, I think I’ll be going,” she
murmured, but as she took one tentative step away from him, the
taller gunman fired off a shot that scattered pebbles near her
feet.

“Don’t neither of you move none!” he ordered.
His brother spat into the dirt and grinned at Steele.

“Steele, you son of a bitch, I’m gonna blow
your damned head off.”

“Or else I will!” his brother vowed.

The gunfighter answered with a cool laugh.
“You reckon so, Les?”

Annabel could scarcely believe her ears.
There was no mistaking the icy nonchalance in Steele’s voice.
Peeking over at him, she saw that there was no fear on his face.
Not a trace of it. Only a sneer of contempt. She drew in a deep
breath though her lungs were tight with fear. Glancing at the other
two men, her heart sank. The hatred on their faces had hardened
with his cool words and arrogant demeanor.
Steele
, she
thought and it was almost a prayer breathed in the late afternoon
stillness,
you’d better be good. Damned good
.

“You kin wipe that smug look off your face,
Steele, ‘cause we got you now, and you know it,” Mustache crowed
with glee. “You knew we’d get you for killing Jesse. Wal, your time
has come. You’re going to hell where you belong.”

Steele kept his gaze riveted on the men, but
spoke to Annabel in a calm, offhand tone. “I’d get out of here if I
were you.”

“H-how do you suggest I do that?”

“Run.”

Run. Run away and leave him there to face
these cutthroats alone. Well, why not? He certainly seemed able to
take care of himself, and he was hardly her concern. Yet Annabel
hated the idea of dashing away like a scared rabbit before these
two ugly lumps of vermin. “I never run, Mr. Steele,” she murmured,
her gaze fixed warily on the Hart brothers all the while. “It’s so
undignified ...”

“You little fool. This isn’t a parlor game.
Run.”

Les waved his gun. “What’re you talkin’ to
your lady friend fer? Pay attention, you low-down bastard—you’re
about to die!”

Steele let out another low, cold laugh. The
sound of it chilled Annabel’s blood. “Does this female look like
any lady friend of mine, Les? Hell, I don’t even know this woman.
And I don’t want to. Get her out of here so the three of us can
settle this.”

“Mebbe she’d like to watch. How ‘bout it,
little lady? You want to watch this hombre die?”

“I’d much rather have a cup of tea at the
hotel,” she confessed, trying to smile though her lips felt like
cardboard. “And I’d like to ask your permission to go there right
now and do just that—but first I feel I must point out to you that
two against one is hardly fair odds, gentlemen. And you might not
realize this, Mr., er, Les, but you already have your gun drawn!
That’s not a typical gun duel, not at all, from everything I’ve
seen and read. Why, you’ll go to jail.”

Mustache shoved his hat back on his head.
“Not if there ain’t no witnesses.”

The implication of this remark made Annabel
swallow hard. “I admire you for thinking ahead,” she managed
faintly, “but perhaps you gentlemen could just discuss this first
...”

“No more talk.” Les Hart suddenly went tense
with readiness, his eyes razoring in on Steele once more. “Steele,
you never shoulda killed our brother.”

“We’ve been waiting a long time to git you,
and we’re not goin’ to wait a minute more,” Mustache growled. “I
jest wanted to see the look on your face and now ...”

“Watch out! Behind you!” Annabel shouted, her
arm lifting to point and instinctively the two men jerked
around.

At the same moment Roy Steele knocked her to
the ground.

Then the street exploded in a thunderous,
violent blur.

Gunshots rent the air, dust and smoke
billowed, blood erupted. Annabel, face down in the dust, heard
herself screaming.

She stopped at last, jamming a dirty fist
into her mouth and lifting her head to stare in disbelief at the
bloody tableau.

The Hart brothers sprawled dead in the alley.
At least one was dead, she amended, gulping down the sick nausea
that rose in her throat. The other still twitched in a grotesquely
horrible little dance. After what seemed like endless seconds, his
elbows and knees went still and the gurgling in his throat
stopped.

Roy Steele stood calmly, feet planted apart,
surveying the scene. He looked as cool and remote as a glacier. His
gaze flickered to her, his black eyes gleaming above the wisp of
blue smoke that curled upward from his Colt .45.

“I
told
you to run.”

* * * * * * * * *

Jill Gregory is a
New York Times
and
USA Today
best-selling author of more than thirty
historical and contemporary novels and has been honored with the
Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as with
back-to-back Reviewer’s Choice awards for Best Western Historical
Romance. Her books have been published in more than twenty-four
countries. Jill grew up in Chicago and received her bachelor of
arts degree in English from the University of Illinois. An animal
lover, Jill loves long walks, reading, hot tea on a winter’s day,
and the company of friends. She lives in Michigan with her husband,
and enjoys her home overlooking the woods where the deer, rabbits,
squirrels, and an occasional owl or hawk come out to play. Visit
Jill on the web at
www.jillgregory.net
.