Justin's Bride (21 page)

He'd waited seven years to hear her apologize and mean it. He would have thought he would feel more when she said those words. There was a time he would have sold his soul to hear them from her. Now they left him empty. It was nice of her to apologize, but it didn't change what had happened. It didn't erase her betrayal.

“I know it doesn't change those facts,” she said without turning around. “I wish... I suppose my wishes aren't important.” She sighed. “Where did you go when you left here? I always wondered what became of you. The next morning you were just gone. The sheriff talked about rounding up a posse, then Laurie woke up and said you weren't the man who had attacked her.”

Megan wore a blue calico dress, similar in style and print to the green one she'd worn the night he'd stayed for supper at her house. The night they'd kissed and he'd touched her breasts. The night he'd discovered that no matter how he hated her, the passion between them flared as bright and hot as it ever had. That evening her hair had been down in a loose braid. Today she wore it up. She looked respectable. No blond curls defied her tightly twisted bun. She should have looked severe.

She was merely beautiful. The afternoon sun filtered through the window and illuminated the side of her neck. He'd touched that sweet skin, had tasted it and kissed it. She'd arched against him in pleasure.

He could have walked away from that. He could have bedded her or not, and let her go. It wasn't the passion that kept him wound up like a too-tight watch spring. It was the fact that she'd wondered about him after he'd gone. That she'd thought of him, perhaps even mourned him. He was supposed to be tough and unflappable. Around Megan he was as stupid as a day-old calf.

“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,” she murmured, still not looking at him.

“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I left here determined to prove the entire town right about me. If they thought I was a criminal, then I was damn well going to be one.”

That got her attention. She turned slowly until she faced him. The sunlight danced around her, outlining her shape, creating a pale halo from hair.

“You never broke the law.”

“Folks around here didn't seem to notice that. If there was trouble, I was usually in the middle of it.” He tilted his chair back and raised his feet until his heels rested on the corner of the desk. He crossed his ankles and smiled in remembrance. “I was going to rob banks. I figured it was the quickest way to make a name for myself.”

“You wouldn't do that.”

He shrugged. “I rode north for days while I made my plans. I came to a small town. I wasn't even sure where I was. Wyoming, maybe. Anyway, there was a bank there. I decided that was the one. I went into the local saloon. I needed a drink for courage.”

The memories quickly came back to him. The sawdust on the floor, the scarred old bar and the gray-haired man serving drinks. There had been something kind about the barkeep's eyes, something that had made him confess his secrets.

“After a couple of whiskeys I started shooting my mouth off, bragging about what I was going to do. I even showed the barkeep my gun. He was real impressed.”

Megan moved closer, then sank onto the chair on the other side of his desk. As she tilted her head, the light brushed against her cheek, turning her pale skin to cream and darkening her eyes to the color of a moonlit sky. Hazel to gray, fear to curiosity, curiosity to caring. He didn't want to know she cared. It wasn't enough.

“Did he help you?” she asked.

“Yeah, but not the way you'd think. He kept asking me questions about how I was going to rob the bank, then pointing out problems I hadn't thought of. After a few minutes, I realized I wasn't prepared to pull off the job.” He grinned. “I felt awful then. I wasn't even a good criminal. When I admitted that to the old man, he smiled at me and told me it was for the best. Then he pulled out his badge and tossed it on the table. In addition to owning the saloon, he was the town sheriff.”

Instinctively, Justin reached up for the badge on his chest. It was a different shape, a circle surrounded the star, but the meaning was the same.

“You must have been shocked.”

“That's putting it mildly. I just about sh—” He glanced up at her and cleared his throat. “I about embarrassed myself something awful. But Williams was a fair man. He said I hadn't committed a crime and someone's just thinking about committing one wasn't enough to get a body arrested. Then he did the damnedest thing. He asked me if I needed a job, then offered to hire me as a deputy.”

It was as if that had happened yesterday. Justin could still feel the intense jolt of pleasure, followed by anger as he'd assumed the old man was taunting him. Bullying him the way the children at school had until he'd gotten big enough to make them stop. But Williams had been serious. His kindly eyes had squarely held Justin's gaze as he'd explained the duties involved with being a deputy in the tiny town. Last of all Williams had pointed out that Justin would have to stop his plans for a life of crime.

“He believed in you,” Megan said slowly. She leaned forward in her seat. “He was the first one. No one here believed. Not even me.”

He didn't think she would figure it out so quickly. “I owe him a lot. I paid back some of my debt to him when we had trouble a while back, but it's not enough. He's the reason I came back here. He told me I had to make peace with this town before I could go on with what I wanted to do.”

He'd been staring at the toes of his worn boots, but from the corner of his eye he saw Megan stiffen. “You didn't know I was going to be here, did you?” she asked.

You didn't come back for me.
She didn't have to say it. He heard the words echoing in the silence of the small office.

“I thought you were married and gone,” he admitted.

“Of course. Why wouldn't I be?”

The tightness around her perfect mouth could have been hurt. Except hurting would mean she still cared. And she couldn't. Not about him. He was still the town bastard, and she was the respectable Megan Bartlett. They'd never had a chance.

“What happens when you've made your peace?” she asked.

“We're leaving.”

“You and Bonnie?”

“If I can't find a relative of hers, I'm going to adopt her.”

“Because of what Williams did for you?”

He nodded. “And because I don't want to lose her.”

“I wish I had known more back then.” Megan stared at her lap. “I wish I could go back and change what happened between us.”

“Why?” He lowered his feet to the ground with a thump. “Nothing would be different. You still wouldn't have left with me.”

“I might have,” she said softly.

“I don't believe you.”

“I know. You think it's all about what other people think, and that I should just dismiss their feelings. It's not that easy. I was raised differently than you. I never learned how not to care about the opinions of others, especially people who matter to me. My father would have disowned me. I was only seventeen, Justin. I was wrong, but I wish you could understand how hard it was for me. How hard it still is.”

“No, I don't understand.” He waved his hand toward the window. “What is so frightening about Landing? Who has this hold on you?”

“I can't explain it.”

He watched her as she reached across the desk and picked up the pocketknife that had been resting there. It was the same one she'd returned to him the night he'd been at her house. He still didn't know why she'd kept it all these years.

She turned the knife over in her hands and traced the initials with her fingertips. There was something familiar about the gesture, as if she'd done it a thousand times before. As if the knife had meant something to her. A dangerous line of thought, he told himself. One best left alone.

“Colleen doesn't like me working in the store,” she said. “She thinks it's shameful that a single woman, a spinster, really, is engaging in commerce.” She smiled slightly. “I think she's been reading too many society pages. It's not as if we have a social standing.”

“You do in Landing.”

She shrugged. “That doesn't count. But she keeps telling me that my working is wrong. That I should hire a man to manage the store for me and spend my time doing...” Her voice trailed off. “I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing.”

“Looking for a husband,” he offered.

“Yes, that, of course. Charity work, but only for those people whom she has deemed worthy.”

He made a noise low in his throat. Megan glanced up at him. The gray had faded from her eyes leaving them hazel again, and sad. “You think this is funny. It's not to me. Colleen is the only family I have left. After what happened today, I'm not sure we'll ever speak again.”

He tried to find it in his heart to be sorry, but he couldn't. Not being around Colleen might be best for Megan, if she could get over the guilt. He thought about her store, about how well she was doing. If the wide variety of items for sale and the steady stream of customers were any indication, she was doing better than her father had done. He couldn't imagine Megan sitting home knitting socks for needy orphans. Nor could he imagine her married to someone else.

“There were no proposals after mine?” he asked.

She placed the knife back on his desk and folded her hands on her lap, looking as prim as a schoolgirl. “I was engaged for a short time, but when my father passed away, my fianc;aae didn't agree with my desire to postpone the wedding until after the year of mourning. He broke off the engagement and married someone else.”

“You must not have wanted to get married all that badly if you were willing to wait a year.”

She straightened in her chair and glared at him. “You have no business—” She paused, then grinned. “You're right. I didn't love him. I couldn't. Not after—” she cleared her throat “—that is, not after everything that had happened to me.”

Not after you. Is that what she'd been about to say? God, he didn't want to know that. It would change too much. He'd accepted the fact that Megan was still in Landing and that there was still something very strong between them. But he was going to do his damnedest to make sure nothing came of it. He'd been weak once before and she'd almost destroyed him. He wouldn't survive a second time. But even if he could, he wouldn't risk Bonnie's heart. He'd already explained to the child they would be leaving in a year. He knew she didn't understand the reference to time, but she was willing to be with him. She trusted him.

Yet, the past flickered through Megan's eyes and taunted him. He wanted to reach across the desk and pull her close to him. He wanted to kiss her and forget his good intentions. He wanted to touch her and take her right here on his desk, the rest of the world be damned.

Instead, he pushed her from him the only way he knew how. “Did Colleen and your father approve of your fianc;aae, or did you keep that engagement a secret, as well?”

Her gaze held his steadily. “No more, Justin. You win this game. I can't play anymore. I can't go back and forth, tender, then hurting.” She stood up and smoothed her palms against her skirt. “I'm not good enough for my family, yet, in your mind, I'm too good for you. I don't seem to belong anywhere.”

“Make your own damn place, woman. Don't depend on me or anyone else to do it for you.”

“That's so easy to say. I admire your ability to do exactly as you please. I've always thought it was a strength. One I couldn't seem to summon. You must be pleased we never married. Think how I would have disappointed you.”

She wouldn't have at all, he realized, then found the answer to a question that had puzzled him for years. As her pain swept over him, shaming him, he knew why he'd never found another woman, why he'd so easily walked away from that widow in Wyoming who'd offered her ranch and herself. He wasn't afraid of being tied down. He was afraid he couldn't be with anyone but Megan. Worse, he was terrified that she'd been right about him. That they'd all been right. Even now he lived with the fear that he was nothing but a bastard and a troublemaker.

He'd let her walk away from him seven years ago because he'd feared the truth in her words. Hating Megan was so much easier than watching her come to despise him.

He stood and moved around the desk. When he was in front of her, he reached for her hands and clasped them in his. Hazel eyes watched warily, as if she feared this act of kindness was to lull her before he attacked again.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “For everything. It's not my place to judge you.” He brought her hands to his face and pressed her warm palms to his skin. Her mouth parted, tempting him. He ignored the need that flickered through him. “You're right. The game has gone on too long. I'll stay out of your way. I'll be respectful and distant. Even Colleen won't be able to fault my behavior around you.”

She jerked her hands free. “Is that what you think I want?” she demanded.

“It's best.”

“For me, I suppose. Oh, you make me so angry.” She planted her hands on her hips. “You're as bad as Colleen, you know. She tells me what to think, what to do. Now you're doing the same.”

“I thought this is what you wanted.”

“No.” She shook her head, then pointed her finger at his chest. “You
assumed.
You didn't ask. No one ever asks. They tell me what they think is best.”

“Dammit, Megan, I'm trying to do the right thing, here. You're the one who has to live in this town. I thought I was making it easier on you. You should be grateful.”

“Don't tell me what I should be and stop swearing.” She glared up at him. Her mouth trembled with fury.

“You don't want me to stay out of your way?” he asked, still confused.