Wild Fire (Wild State) (9 page)

Lon had grunted, refusing to leave his post by the window where he’d been watching the quiet street below, waiting for David’s return.

“I also can’t protect her. She’s just a little girl, on her own.”

“She’s seventeen.”

“And who were
you
at seventeen, Lon?” David had demanded in sudden anger. “What wisdom did you have at the ripe old age of seventeen that made you any less a child than she?”

Lon hadn’t been able to answer, and David had sighed wearily. “I asked her to return the ring.” A soft
thump
had followed, the sound of coins jingling as Lon’s recently lifted purse had hit the mattress. “She said it was gone but that you could have your money back.”

Some previously unused organ hiding beneath Lon’s rib cage had pinched in response, a quick burst of pain followed by a sinking ache as the sting lessened. He couldn’t explain his reaction now any better than he had been able to six years ago, and here he was, about to see the nimble-fingered thief for the first time since that night.

He wondered if she would resemble David more in adulthood than she had as a girl.

Smoke drifted around the platform, clouding the snowfall until the air hung heavy and colorless around the disembarking passengers. Rumpled and fatigued, people—mostly men—clustered onto the boards, at turns shouting and mumbling as they scrambled for their luggage and traveling companions. The stationmaster directed a porter to hold open the station’s doors, directing passengers inside to where it was warm.

Some shot Lon uneasy glances as they walked by, but he remained impassive, his bowler hat situated low on his forehead. Nowhere did he see the short, dark-haired girl he remembered from that visit to New Orleans.

He laid a hand over his chest, over the letter resting safely in his inside pocket. No, she would be here today, arriving on
this
train. Unless she’d been delayed. Or perhaps she knew he was here?
 

But that was impossible. She couldn’t know he was a United States marshal, much less that he was waiting here to bring her into federal custody.

Then he saw it. Two cars back, the faded red door of a freight car slid open. A black-hatted figure wearing a bright blue scarf slipped through the opening, quick as a bunny, using both hands to haul the door shut.

The stowaway’s hat tilted left, then right, then began to bob and weave through the various workmen shuffling to unload the shipment of goods. The scarf acted as a beacon, allowing Lon to track its progress in the settling smoke and watch as it came closer. Closer.
 

He held very still—held his breath, too, the icy gulp of air he’d inhaled pummeling his lungs—and waited until that down-bent, hat-wearing head was nearly to the station house door and its inviting glow.

At the last moment, he shifted a foot to the side, blocking the entrance.

The impact of her short frame against his torso caused her to gasp, and his stomach to clench. Even bundled from neck to ankle in the bulky overcoat obviously designed for a man, the imprint of her feminine form contrasted starkly with the flatter, harder planes of his body.

There were definitely breasts beneath that coat.

Lon didn’t remember David’s sister as having breasts.

Doubting the gut instinct that had snared his attention in the first place, Lon stepped back. “My apologies, ma’am—” But the hat’s floppy brim tipped back, and he was trapped by a pair of big hazel eyes, their toffee hue at the startled pupils bleeding into sage green around the outer ring. Dark brows slashed like heavy brushstrokes above thick lashes, and the blunt tip of her nose was pink as a cherry from the cold. A mouth almost too wide for her sharply sculpted features, with lips that had most certainly
not
been that full the last time he’d seen them, opened to reveal a small gap between her two front teeth, barely noticeable but there nonetheless.

She lifted her chin, the faint cleft in it a softer version of the one David had constantly bemoaned having to shave. Save that tiny cleft, she looked nothing like her brother.

Lon wondered why he was relieved about that.

Her odd-colored eyes darted over his features, rounded in apprehension as she took in the frown he felt on his own face.
 

Don’t scare her. She’s just a little girl.

Lon choked on a laugh. Esther Beldonne was in no way, shape, or form a little girl. Not anymore.
 

Before he could determine his next course of action, she broke into a brilliant smile that lit her up from head to toe, transforming her into the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in all his thirty-two years. His lungs seized, the cold oxygen freezing his airway as he stared down at her.

What the hell just happened
?

For once it wasn’t David’s voice in his head but his own, and both were quickly silenced when she threw her arms around his waist and buried her face against his chest. “Alonzo,” she murmured, a wealth of emotion in her lilting Southern voice. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

Edie Harris
studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Iowa and Grinnell College. She fills her days with writing and editing contract proposals, but her nights belong to the world of romance fiction. An avid reader/tweeter/blogger, Edie lives and works in Iowa City.
 

Visit her website for backlist titles, contact information, and regular updates on upcoming projects.
www.edieharris.com

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