The Law and Miss Penny (31 page)

Artemis gulped. "Yes, sir. And yes, I did. The marshal's room is right smack next door to mine. He's in room seventeen, and I'm in fifteen. You planning to get yourself a room at The Grand, too?"

"No, kid. I'm put up at a hotel around the corner with Cletus. We're just fine."

Artemis craned his neck this way and that. "Say—where is Cletus?"

"Laying low, kid. Just like all of us should be."

"Yeah, but you should do it at The Grand." Artemis smacked his own forehead. "Glory be, Tubbs. You should see the room I got. Why, there's velvet curtains fancier than most folks got clothes, some fuzzy red wallpaper that feels like petting a dog backwards, and a bed I swear is made of cotton balls. You fellahs ought to get yourselves a room over there."

His mood considerably brighter, Tubbs didn't interrupt the kid's dissertation to remind him that it would be a very poor idea to put Cletus in the same hotel with the marshal, or to tell him that he planned to slip into room 17 sometime during the night. It was best, Tubbs decided, if Artemis didn't know any more than he had to. And he definitely didn't need to know that by morning, Morgan Slater would be lying on his own bed of "cotton balls," those fancy velvet curtains flapping a farewell to his cold, dead body.

* * *

An hour or so before dawn, as the wide Colorado sky began to loosen its grip on the night, Tubbs got up from his post just inside the door of room 17, and stretched. He'd been sitting there for hours, listening and waiting for the marshal's return, but all had been as quiet as a graveyard.

Because it was much too chancy for him to stick around until the sun came up, he knew he couldn't wait any longer to be on his way. Gritting his teeth as he thought about his continued failure to finish off the marshal, Tubbs let himself out of the room and stole away into what was left of the night.

* * *

As the light of dawn slowly trickled into her room, Mariah stretched, burrowing deeper beneath the blankets, and then snuggled into the crook of Cain's arm.

Silverton.
They'd finally reached Silverton, with no further mishaps. Now, it looked as if everything would be all right. She glanced at Cain's sleeping face, thinking that soon she would have to trim that Brother Law beard again; it was getting a little shaggy. Then Mariah sighed and snuggled even closer to him.

She loved him. Lord, how she loved him. Had she bothered to tell him how much yet? Mariah thought back to the night before, trying to remember exactly what she'd said and when, but the entire evening was a blur of passion, pleasure, and contentment. She fingered one of Cain's nipples, still amazed at how very much like her own body his could be, at how quickly even this part of him hardened and grew erect.

"Careful what you ask for, princess..."

Cain's voice was husky with sleep, and it stirred her almost as much as his touch did. She reached lower beneath the covers. "Or I might get it? Is that what you were about to say?"

Leaning up on his elbow, a thick lock of his auburn hair dipping low over one eye, he gave her a crooked grin as he said, "Do you really think you can handle it? Maybe your eyes have gotten bigger than your—" He interrupted himself as he saw that a narrow beam of sunlight had turned the hairs on his arm to a pale rust color. "Oh, hell—it's morning. Your parents will be out and about soon."

"Oh, my God. I forgot all about them."

Cain threw back the covers and leapt out of bed, gasping as the cold mountain air slapped at his naked body. At over 9,000 feet, Silverton's altitude offered some damn frigid mornings, even in early summer.

Mariah laughed at his antics as he dressed, amused as she watched him hop from one foot to the other in an effort to warm himself. She hadn't had the chance to inspect him in such an exposed state before, but now that she did, she decided the view had definitely been worth the wait.

She loved his body almost as much as she loved him—especially his nude backside. It was nice and round and heavily muscled, a perfect thing for her to hang on to whenever the ride got too rough. Mariah blushed at the memory of one of those rougher "rides," amazed that she could still have such a response after all they'd been to each other of late.

Cain fit his hat onto his head. "See you at breakfast," he whispered as he opened the door and peered out into the hallway. Then he was gone.

Mariah sank back against her pillow, loath to climb out of the bed, so rich with his scent. She thought of how pious and proper he'd looked in his frock coat and preacher's hat as he slipped out of her room, then of how very irreverent and wicked the man beneath the Brother Law costume could be.

It was time, she decided, to buy the man she loved a little present, something to replace that ugly skimmer. He would most certainly appreciate the thought; Cain hated that hat as much as she loved the lovely bonnet he'd bought for her.

Her mind made up, Mariah decided to stop by her parents' room and borrow another twenty dollars from Zack's dwindling purse. Then, later in the morning, but before the troupe had to prepare for their opening performance, she would take him to Sherwin & Houghton's General Merchandise store.

Mariah smiled. The hat would be her first gift to him, another little way for her to say "I love you," just in case the actual words hadn't yet fallen from her lips.

* * *

After a hearty breakfast of ham, eggs, and plate- sized flapjacks, the troupe split up. Zack and Artemis went to the livery to groom the mules, and Oda went back to her room to mend a few loose beads in the Princess Tanacoa costume. This left Mariah with the free time she needed to do a little shopping.

Smiling secretly as she and Cain strolled down Greene Street, Mariah drew in a deep breath of crisp mountain air. "Don't you just love Silverton?"

Cain thought it was funny that she mentioned that subject. He had just been dwelling on the little pocket town—in fact, thinking about it almost nonstop since early this morning. Even though none of the landmarks, the hotels, or public buildings looked particularly familiar to him, he knew without question that he'd been there before. More disturbing, his gut told him that for some reason, Silverton had once been a very important part of his life.

"Cain? Are you listening to me?"

"Sure, princess. I was just trying to figure out if I've ever been here before."

A cold little finger seemed to tap at the back of her neck, but Mariah shrugged the sensation off. She would let nothing spoil what she and Cain had together now. Nothing. "This is probably your first visit here. You'd remember a place like Silverton if you'd been here before. Why, it even has a bowling alley."

"A bowling alley?" He rolled the words on his tongue as if tasting them, trying to understand what they meant. "I don't think I know what that is."

"You mean you've never heard of bowling before?"

"I've heard the word, but I don't know what it is. Things like that have happened to me a lot since the accident. I know a word, but not what it means."

"Then let me help with this one. There's a small building around the corner with a couple of wooden alleyways inside. You throw a heavy rubber ball at a number of wooden bottles, and hope that you can knock them all down. A young boy at the other end of the alley sets the bottles back up, and then rolls your ball back down to you so you can try again. That's all there is to it. It's just a silly little game."

Silly, yes. Bowling sounded like a real waste of time to Cain, and yet something about the word continued to disturb him. He seriously doubted that he had ever tried to play the game. Maybe Virginia had been the one who liked to visit the bowling alley. She was awfully fond of games.
Virginia?

A sudden, sharp pain shot through Cain's head. He stopped in his tracks, his boots scraping against the boardwalk in front of the livery. At almost the same moment Virginia's name had sprung into his thoughts, the image of the mysterious blond woman had come to mind. Was she Virginia? If so, what part had she played in his life before Mariah?

Sick to think what the memories might mean, Cain closed his eyes and mind against the answers—answers he now knew were there waiting for him to call them up, waiting patiently like old friends... or bitter, dangerous enemies. Yes, finally he knew something, and knew it without question. If he wanted to, he had it within his grasp to figure out who and what he was. If he wanted to.

"Cain—is something wrong?"

He could feel Mariah tugging at his sleeve, saw that she was worried about him, but he couldn't speak or think past the stunning revelations in his mind. He felt helpless—the day he was born he hadn't been this helpless—and even worse... scared. Oh, but he was scared. What would Mariah do if she knew what he'd discovered? How would she react? Would she realize, as he did, that those answers might just mean the end of what they had together?

The end of his time with Mariah.
No, no. He couldn't think of it. He wouldn't. If Cain didn't know another thing right then, he did realize that he'd never been happier in his life than he was with her. Never.

"Cain, please," Mariah said, her voice quivering. "What's wrong? You're making me nervous."

He had to touch her, had to feel that which was real to him. Then he would be himself again. Cain put his arms around Mariah, hugging her tight for a long moment, propriety be damned. When he released her, his voice was hoarse as he said, "I'm all right. I just felt a little nauseous for a minute."

"You're sick?" Her hand automatically went to his forehead. His skin was cool—almost too cool. "The store is on the corner of Thirteenth Street just a few feet ahead, darling. Do you feel well enough to go on, or would you rather go back to the hotel?"

"I'm fine." He assured her by wrapping his arm around her waist and coaxing her forward. "Let's go on."

But as far as Mariah could see, Cain looked anything but fine. He was unnaturally pale, and a network of tiny wrinkles she'd never seen before webbed the corners of his eyes and his mouth. The cold finger at the back of her neck grew icy, insistent, but Mariah refused to acknowledge it. She centered her thoughts on Cain.

As they stepped down from the boardwalk to cross the alley, Mariah heard the chatter of youngsters. She glanced in the direction of the voices, and saw that two young girls were playing jack-straws in the dirt.

One of them, a child of around five who lacked her front teeth but more than made up for the deficit with a riot of flaming red curls, looked up at Cain and broke into a huge grin. "Hi, Daddy."

Mariah's first impulse was to laugh, but she put her palm over her mouth and shifted her attention to the second youngster, a girl of around seven who was busy chiding the little redhead.

"Don't pay any attention to Amelia," said the younger girl's friend. "She thinks every man she sees is her daddy!"

"Do not."

"Do too."

And so the conversation continued, until Mariah had to turn away to release her laughter. She glanced around to see how Cain was taking to "instant fatherhood," only to discover that he was no longer beside her. When she turned all the way around, she saw that he was back up on the boardwalk, leaning against the post with both hands pressed against his temples. He looked as if he was about to pass out.

Mariah rushed to his side. "Oh, Cain. You are sick. Let's go find a doctor."

He heard her voice, but it seemed far, far away, belonged to another lifetime... another woman. The image of something bright burned into his brain, and as it came into focus, he realized that it was the badge of a United States marshal. The badge of Morgan Slater. His badge.

"Cain, please—you're scaring me." Mariah grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, tugging at it, and his hands fell away from his face. He straightened his spine, but continued to use the post for support.

She expected to see that he'd gone even paler, to perhaps find a measure of pain in his expression, but the haggard, hateful features that looked on her instead turned that icy finger at her neck into a hand. And then wrapped it around her throat.

His fury bigger than both of them, he clenched his fists at his sides, and said, "God in heaven, Mariah. How could you have done this to me?"

Her world went black, filling with terrible gloom. She took a backward step, her voice quivering. "Done what?"

More images now, rolling though his mind like some hideous fireball. The medicine show. Bucksnort. This band of lying, thieving—

"What's wrong?" Tears built up in her throat, making her voice wobbly. "Please, Cain. What's happened?"

"Cain? Who the hell is that?"

"Oh, no." Mariah took a few more backward steps, this time stumbling and nearly falling. "Oh...
God."

"You life, you... you bitch!"
lied
to me." His features were black with rage. "You stole my

"Oh, but I never meant—"

Morgan wrapped his strong fingers around her arms, hauling her up close. "What in God's name were you thinking? How could you have done this to me?"

"Please—please let me go. You're hurting me."

Her voice was pitiful, a wail, but still Morgan's hands squeezed. His rage knew no bounds. He wanted to shake her, crush the very life from her lying, cheating body, and most frightening and irrational of all... kiss her until she begged for mercy.