The Lawman Claims His Bride (Love Inspired Historical) (6 page)

Logan took her hands in his. “And until then I’m going to make sure you’re safe.”

Those were the same words Sheriff Scott had uttered to her last night. Fighting a sense of defeat, Megan lowered her head and sighed. “You’re going to leave me in here until you find the real killer.”

It made the most sense, even if she couldn’t bear the thought of another night in this cold, drafty, depressing jail cell.

“No.” Logan shook his head fiercely. “I’m not going to leave you locked up like a common criminal. I went to Mattie’s this morning. I have proof of your innocence.”

“You...you do?”

“Yes.” But he didn’t expand, which made her wonder if he really had proof or if he was still basing his assumption on what he thought he knew about her.

Before she could press him for more information, for
anything
to give her a sense of the truth hidden deep within her mind, he steered the conversation in a different direction. “As soon as I make the arrangements I’m going to take you home.”

Home? No.
No.
They couldn’t take that risk. “I can’t go to Charity House,” she said in a panicked voice. “We can’t put the children in danger.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m taking you to
my
home, where I grew up.”

His words took a moment to settle over her. “You want to take me to your family’s ranch?” Pure joy spread through her. Logan came from a large, happy family with a mother. And a father. And lots of siblings.

“It’s the best solution,” he said. “The only one.”

Glory.

“Will that be all right with you?” he asked.

She wanted to jump off the cot and fling herself into his arms. She wanted to tell him, yes, yes, yes.

But reality held her back. She was the daughter of a prostitute, raised in an orphanage with children from similar backgrounds as hers.

His family might never accept her.

Then again, surely the people who’d raised this wonderful, kind, godly man would have equally gracious hearts.

“I...” Not sure what to say, she lifted her arms in the air and he immediately tugged her into his embrace.

She rested her cheek against his hard, muscular chest and breathed in his scent.

For the first time since she’d walked into Mattie’s brothel yesterday Megan felt at peace. “Yes, Logan, I want to go home with you.”

“Good.” He blew out a long breath then set her away from him. “We’ll leave immediately. We’ll—”

“Logan, no.” Sheriff Scott slammed into the jail cell, his lips twisting at a furious angle. “You can’t take her away.”

At the sound of those five angry words, spoken with such conviction, Megan’s hope shattered.

Sheriff Scott wasn’t going to let her leave with Logan.

That meant she would have to spend another night in jail, alone, with no relief in sight.

How would she ever bear the torment?

Chapter Six

L
ogan had been shot once. In his leg. The bullet had seared through his flesh with a burning agony he’d never experienced before that moment. Yet compared to the pain sweeping through him now as he stared at the anguish on Megan’s face, the bullet wound seemed a mere pinprick.

A fierce, almost primal urge to wipe away her suffering nearly brought Logan to his knees. The sensation was so sharp, so raw, he had to fight for outward control.

He slowly released his hands from around Megan’s waist, sucked in a quick breath, then shifted her behind him, literally shielding her from Trey’s angry glare.

Logan slid his gaze across both men in the cell. “Who’s going to stop us from leaving town? You?” he demanded of Trey. “Or maybe, you?” He stabbed a finger in Shane’s direction.

Neither man appeared in a rush to answer him. After a moment, Shane broke eye contact. Trey, however, continued staring at Logan with an all-too-familiar look in his eyes. Trey wasn’t going to back down anytime soon.

Neither was Logan.

Flattening his lips in a grim line, he dug in his heels and held his ground.

After another moment of silence, Trey finally looked away. “Logan,” he said with unmistakable frustration. “You have to be smart about this. You have to think through every possibility. You—”

“We’re done negotiating.”

“Are we now? There’s still the pesky matter of the law.” Trey casually stuffed his hands in his pockets. He looked deceptively nonchalant. “You can’t just whisk Megan away. She’s a suspect in a murder.”

“She’s innocent.”

Trey shook his head sadly. “We’ve been through this before. Until her memory returns, or until we can prove her innocence, she stays put.”

“I have the evidence we need.”

Trey’s eyes narrowed. “What evidence?”

While Logan silently considered how much to reveal in Megan’s presence, Shane’s light footsteps sounded in the cell as he moved away. Excellent decision on the other man’s part. The good doctor didn’t belong in this conversation.

Neither did Megan.

“Let’s finish this outside,” Logan said to Trey.

“No.”
Megan hobbled around him, stopping when she stood by Trey’s side. “I deserve to know what Mattie said about me.”

Although Megan’s voice sounded stronger, Logan noted the pallor on her face. “I’m not sure you should hear this right now.”

“Yes, Logan.” She lifted her chin at a stubborn angle. “Now.”

Logan found himself gaping at her uncharacteristic tenacity. And her inflexibility. The Megan of the past had always been even tempered, tolerant. Gracious even, with the kind of patience that could nurse a child’s injured knee in one breath and laugh off a garden snake stuffed in her pocket the next.

“I think Megan should stay,” Shane said as he stepped out of the shadows. “Hearing the story might spark something in her memory.”

While he spoke, Shane glided to a spot next to Megan. Shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. Trey, Megan, Shane, all three stood in a single row, facing Logan with various levels of resolve in their gazes.

The proverbial three against one.

Logan let out a sharp hiss. There was no way around the inevitable now. He would to have to reveal what he’d discovered at Mattie’s, including the unsavory details of the madam’s business dealings with Kincaid, since he was one of her regular clients.

Without looking at Megan directly—how could he with some of what he had to say?—Logan ran through Mattie’s revelations in a quick, rapid-fire staccato. He finished with the final piece of evidence that cleared Megan of any crime. “Mattie found her lying on a small divan with a pillow under her head and a blanket tucked neatly around her legs.”

“Logan,” Trey began. “We still don’t know—”

Logan lifted his hand to stop Trey from continuing and instead focused on Megan for the first time since he’d started his tale.

She wasn’t looking at him, though. Her gaze darted around the jail cell and she’d gone completely still. A series of complicated emotions ran across her face, while her breathing quickened to quick, short gasps.

Was she on the verge of remembering something important?

Logan wanted to physically pull the hidden memories free for her. If only he knew how. There had to be a way. But then she moved her head from side to side, sighed heavily, and let her shoulders drop at a dejected angle.

At the sight of her obvious despair, Logan wanted to offer her whatever comfort he could. He wanted to tell her matters weren’t as hopeless as they seemed. That with prayer, time and God’s help everything would turn out well for them.

He opened his mouth to tell her all that, but Trey’s voice stopped him. “I’m afraid none of this changes Megan’s situation.”

Logan’s jaw flexed with the heat of renewed fury. “On the contrary. Everything has changed.” He spoke slowly, carefully, keeping his tone even. “It’s clear someone else entered the room and killed Kincaid. Nothing else explains how Mattie found her.”

“
Mattie
being the operative word here,” Trey said, regret filling his eyes. “Consider your source.”

“I have.” Realizing his shooting hand had started shaking—from anger—Logan wiped his palm against his thigh. “I’ve interrogated Mattie Silks more times than I care to count. I know when she’s lying. Perhaps for the first time in her life, the woman is telling the truth.”

Well versed in Logan and Mattie’s turbulent history, Trey faltered. “I’ll want to check Mattie’s story myself,” Trey said in way of concession.

“Suit yourself, but we both know Megan is innocent.” Logan smiled at her as he said the words.

She smiled back. And for that single moment in time, everything seemed to stop and pause.
Everything
felt right between them.

Then Trey ruined the moment. Again. “Logan, you should think about this one thing. You’re basing your entire decision about Megan’s innocence on information Mattie didn’t divulge last night. Why cooperate now?” he asked. “And with you, of all people?”

“Because she’s Mattie Silks. We both know she reveals what she wants, when she wants, to whomever she wants. I believe in her own, twisted way, Mattie’s been protecting Megan all along.” Like a mother would.

The realization didn’t sit well with Logan. He didn’t like the idea that a woman like Mattie Silks might actually think of Megan as a daughter. It was yet another reason to get her out of town quickly.

“I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said,” Trey admitted. “But for Megan’s sake, I won’t allow you to act in haste.”

“Megan is innocent,” Logan reiterated. “And the primary witness to a murder. That puts her under my protection now.”

“I’m aware witness protection is under your jurisdiction,” Trey said through snarled lips. “I’m not going to fight you on that. What do you have to say about this, Shane? Is Megan capable of making a journey like Logan is suggesting?”

Shane nodded. “Yes, as long as he makes frequent stops.” He turned to speak to Logan directly. “You must allow her to rest whenever necessary.”

“I have no intention of pushing her beyond reason.”

“Of course not,” Shane acknowledged. “Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

“She’ll also need a chaperone for the trip,” Trey pointed out, in a tone more like a father than a lawman.

“I know that, too.” In fact, Logan had already begun working up a list of chaperones in his mind.

He knew of several suitable women he trusted implicitly, all of them connected with Charity House. He didn’t see a problem with asking any of the ladies to accompany him and Megan to his family’s ranch, until his gaze met hers.

There was something in her eyes he couldn’t quite define. That look, it was the same one she’d given him earlier, as though she was...afraid?

Was she afraid of him?

Surely not. Something else had to be causing her worry.

“Megan, I’m confident we can find you a suitable chaperone, one we can both agree on.”

His words seemed to upset her more, so much so that tears gathered in her eyes.

Tears!

Megan was going to cry.

No, Lord. Please, no.

Logan could stand anything but that. Unlike his brother, Hunter, he’d always been powerless in the face of female tears. Even as a boy, Logan’s baby sisters had wrapped him around their little fingers with nothing more than a whimper. It hadn’t taken the little darlings long to learn how to use that particular weapon mercilessly against him.

But with Megan, her tears were different. They’d always been...terrifying. Gut-wrenching.

“Please, sweetheart, don’t cry.” Hoping to avoid the inevitable, he took her hands in his and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “We’ll get married instead. Before we leave.”

She gasped at his blunt delivery, her eyes wide with shock.

You’re botching this, Logan.

He softened his voice, took a deep breath and tried again. “Megan, I want to marry you.” At the sight of her skepticism, he added with more force, “I do.”

“You two can’t get married right now,” Trey and Shane said at the exact same moment, their voices melding into one, cruel sentence.

Paying no heed to either man, Logan gripped Megan’s hands a bit tighter and stared into her eyes. His mind traveled back to the time when her guardian had told him to wait until she was older, until he could provide for her properly.

For five years, he’d followed another man’s advice. He’d worked hard to prove himself as a lawman, moving up the ranks until he was no longer someone’s deputy but a U.S. Marshal in his own right.

What good had come from that route? Megan was in trouble. Her life was at risk. And where there had once been love and affection between them, strain and tension now reigned.

“Megan.” He raised one of her hands to his lips. “Will you marry me?”

Her eyes continued filling, the tears wiggling to the very edges of her lashes.

One lone tear escaped. Another soon followed.

He stopped the third with the pad of his thumb. “We’ve always planned to marry,” he reminded her. “It’s what we promised one another before I left for San Francisco.”

Another tear slipped free.

He swallowed. Hard.

This wasn’t how his marriage proposal was supposed to go. He’d had a plan, a good one that included dinner at a fancy restaurant and the ring he had tucked away in his pocket. He’d prepared a heartfelt declaration and even toyed with the idea of picking a bouquet of her favorite flowers to start off the evening on the right note.

But nothing in the last twelve hours had gone as planned. Logan wasn’t supposed to find his future bride in jail. He wasn’t supposed to feel uncertainty and confusion growing between them. And he certainly wasn’t supposed to make her cry.

He trapped another rogue tear with his fingertip.

“It won’t be a grand wedding, there’s no time for that, but we’ll be together, like we planned.”
Wasn’t that what mattered?
“What do you say, Megan? Will you marry me?

She blinked up at him, sorrow shimmering inside her gaze. But, if he wasn’t mistaken, the desire to say yes to his proposal was swimming in her eyes, as well.

Hope swelled in his heart.

Then Shane cleared his throat. “Logan, give her a moment to think,” he said softly. “She’s been through an ordeal. She deserves a bit of time to consider your proposal.”

Logan was in no mood for a lecture, but he knew Shane was right.

What if she says no?
He swallowed back a jolt of apprehension.
Lord, release me from this doubt. Whatever happens next, however she responds, help me to trust it is for the best. Not the end, but the beginning.

“If this is all too sudden for you,” he added in a surprisingly steady voice. “We can wait to be married until you’re completely ready.”

She cocked her head at a slight angle, a sense of wonder evident in her gaze. “You’d still marry me, even if I said no now?”

“Yes.” He smiled at her and satisfaction filled him when she returned the gesture.

“I’ve always wanted to marry you,” he said. “From the first moment I laid eyes on you I knew you were the one for me. I love you, Megan.” It was the truth, his defining truth these last five years.

It was also the right thing to say.

Her expression cleared and she flung herself back into his arms. Right where she belonged.

“Yes, Logan.” She choked back a sob. “Of course, I’ll marry you.”

Praise God,
he thought. Something was finally going their way.