A Wanted Man (8 page)

“An odd one?” she echoed. “Is that what he is?”

“Standing out there in this weather. In any and
all
weather. Why?”

“Spent some time pondering this, have you?” Laura asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The steel of Mrs. Bossidy’s needles jabbed in and out of a snarl of bright scarlet yarn. The project was completely unidentifiable, but Laura had asked what she was making—
once
—and had no intention of making that mistake again. Laura knew perfectly well Mrs. Bossidy’s only interest in Mr. Duncan was suspicion, but she bristled so easily at the suggestion Laura couldn’t resist. “Someone has to keep an eye on the man, considering how closely he keeps one on you.”

“Umm-hmm.” The rain spurted against the glass and plastered his dark shirt against his chest. “What’s ridiculous is that he’s standing out there in this weather.”

Mrs. Bossidy frowned over the wool, then bared her teeth as she tugged on a strand, ripping out the row of uneven stitches she’d just laboriously completed. “Maybe he’ll catch pleurisy and save us all a lot of trouble.”

Abruptly Laura set aside her papers and stood. “I’m going to invite him in.”

“Come now, Laura. He’s a big boy. I’m sure he knows how to come in out of the rain if he wants to.”

“My father probably offered him a bonus if he remained on duty twenty-four hours a day.” She headed for the door.

“Laura…”

“I’ll not have him take ill on my account, regardless of what my father promised him. We’re miles from anywhere,
every
where, and no one’s lying in wait to kidnap me. You know that as well as I do. There’s sim
ply no place to hide out there. We’d see any attackers coming from ten miles away. It’s not going to hurt for him to come inside and warm up.”

Mrs. Bossidy frowned, setting aside her knitting. “I’ll do it.”

“Stay. I know how you feel about cool weather, and I could use a bit of fresh air.” She sprinted down the aisle before Mrs. Bossidy could start warning her about the risks ahead, spouting about chilly air and locomotive smoke and dangerous men.

Rain stung her face the instant she opened the door. He turned to face her immediately, then shifted so that his breadth shielded her from the worst of the wind. The movement was subtle enough that she was unsure if it was by design.

He said nothing. Not unusual, she supposed; a wise employee always waited for his boss to speak first. But her tongue got tangled up in staring at him. She wondered if it was shallow of her to be so taken with his looks. Surely she was wise enough to see beyond the surface to take the true measure of a person. But the artist in her couldn’t help but be intrigued. His face challenged her, the ever-shifting shadows in his eyes as the light changed, the hard angles that seemed to reveal the secrets and hardships of his life if one but knew how to decipher them.

“You should come inside,” she said at last. “The weather’s turned, and there are darker clouds ahead. It’s likely to get worse.”

He glanced at the sky. “I’m fine.” So she’d finally decided to talk to him, Sam thought. He hadn’t expected her to hold out as long as she had. The lively curiosity that shone in her face whenever she saw anyone or anything new had to get the better of her sooner or later. He
hadn’t been traveling with them but a few hours before that became obvious. “I’m used to the weather. This is nothing compared to the high desert on a winter night. You’re going to get chilled, though.”

“I like it.” To prove it, she dropped the arms she’d hugged to herself. “Crisp. Invigorating.”

“It is that.” She’d start shivering in a moment, he’d wager. Fresh color sprang into her cheeks. The fine, thin silk of her shirtwaist, the color of pearls, nearly as pale as her skin, couldn’t be much armor against the weather. The fabric was damp already, clinging lightly to the angle of her collarbone, the gentle curve of her upper breasts.

He shouldn’t be thinking of such things. Beyond the fact that she was merely a means to an end, and that using her any more than he’d already planned to would be unconscionable, it was clear that she’d been sheltered and protected for her entire life. She was years younger in experience than she was in truth—and she had to be enough younger than he it should give him pause as it was.

But his thoughts were not that governable. He’d spent the better part of two weeks looking at her—if he was supposed to appear to be guarding her, he’d decided, he’d better put up a good show of it. And one could not look at her so much without gaining a certain…appreciation.

She was not conventionally pretty at first glance. Too pale, too thin, bland brown hair, and light blue eyes, nothing that caught one’s attention and held it, and those beautiful, clever clothes she wore drew the eye away from her.

But she wasn’t what he expected. How could the daughter of such privilege be so innately kind? She was thoughtful of her guards, her companion; she
rarely asked them for anything, much less issued the orders he knew they’d have followed without question. She wore her luxurious clothes without a hint of preening, as if she had no pride in them, and they meant no more to her than one of his old flannel shirts did to him. He had yet to decide if that was a good or bad quality, proof that she was irretrievably spoiled and so did not appreciate them or whether it confirmed that the trappings of wealth were meaningless to her.

But it was hard to consider her spoiled when she took such delight in every new sight and everyone she met. It made no difference whether it was a grand sweep of landscape or a shack on the verge of tumbling down, whether the person was a mayor dressed in a high hat greeting her on a bunting-bedecked depot or a weathered, cantankerous old farmer who’d complained mightily about her arrival holding up his lunch. They all fascinated her, a lively interest that couldn’t be feigned.

And that was when plain transformed into something else entirely. The warm brightness of her smile, turned indiscriminately and powerfully on everyone she met, and the vibrant light in her eyes were far more affecting than mere prettiness. He wondered if he’d ever again be quite so taken by beauty.

Like now. She wasn’t smiling—hadn’t quite forgiven him enough for that—but she gazed at him with fierce concentration, a pucker to her mouth as if she was pondering something vital. And it made him feel important, in the way the son of an Ohio farmer who’d never done anything but survived shouldn’t feel.

“So…you’re talking to me again?”

She shrugged. “The other options are limited. I’ve known the three of them almost my entire lives, and I’ve heard all their stories a dozen times, as they have
mine. Once we reach another town I’m sure I won’t be driven to such desperate measures.”

She had a bit of the devil in her, this one, that peeked out at unexpected moments. Not often, just enough to keep Sam anticipating it. She hadn’t had much opportunity to let that devil out, he decided, but if she ever had the chance to loose it…“So I shouldn’t be flattered.”

“You can be flattered if you want to. I don’t mind.” The train rolled into a wide curve, shifting the platform beneath their feet, giving the wind an opening that it tore through with vicious enthusiasm. She shivered.

“You’re getting cold. You should go inside.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“You won’t be for long if you stay out here.”

But she didn’t move. He could appreciate a stubborn streak. He had a wide one of those himself. More than anything else it was probably what had kept him alive when so many others died.

But he couldn’t stand to watch her shiver, her delicate shoulders looking so fragile they might snap with the next quake.

He ripped off his old cotton coat and slung it around her shoulders. She startled as he did so, jerking away, her uncertain gaze flying up to meet his. His hands hovered at her collarbone, tucking the edges of his coat up beneath her chin. It swallowed her up, shoulders flopping halfway to her elbows, the hem nearly meeting the floor. “Your father hired me to protect you from kidnappers and thieves and reporters and other such undesirables,” he said. “But if you die of lung fever, I’m thinking I won’t be getting my bonus, either.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders drifted down, a relaxation of her stiff posture that seemed strained rather than natural, as if she’d forced herself to soften rather than truly
being at ease. “I didn’t mean to jump. You surprised me, that’s all.”

“I’ll try to give you more warning next time.” His hands should be back at his sides. Yet they remained, in that pocket of warmth beneath her chin. He could move them up, down, sideways—any direction but away—and there’d be something worth exploring.

And Mrs. Bossidy will fly through that door and shove me right off the back of the train
, he thought wryly.

He pulled his hands back. But his fingers brushed skin on the way—neck, the underside of her chin—delicately warm, far more arousing than such a brief touch should have been.

“Mr. Duncan—”

“Sam.”

“I—” She darted a glance back at the train car, where the dragon nun who masqueraded as her companion had left them alone far longer than he would have expected. “I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be polite.”

“We’re not nearly so formal in the West, Miss Hamilton. Certainly not when addressing our servants.”

“Servant? Is that what you are?”

“I’m getting paid to perform a service, so I suppose I am. This week, at least.”

“Does that mean I can give you orders?” In another woman, he would have been suspicious of that gleam in her eye. But from Laura…surely the orders she was plotting to issue weren’t that wicked.

How disappointing.

She took his silence as assent. “Good. Then I order you to go inside and get out of this weather.”

“You didn’t employ me.”

She tilted her head, as if scheming to come at the problem another way. “Please?”

He glanced at the doorway. He could go in for just a little while, maybe. To make her happy and deflect suspicion. He could handle going in there briefly. He could leave at any time.

Immediately his chest tightened, as if a grizzly had plopped down on top of him. Darkness bled into his vision.

He swallowed hard and shook his head.

“If you’re uncomfortable coming into the women’s car alone, at least go into the other car with Hiram and Mr. Hoxie.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” That was a lie, of course, but it had nothing to do with Laura or Mrs. Bossidy. “I just need to keep an eye on things. Those cars are so well padded an entire war party could arrive before we ever heard it coming.”

“War parties?” she asked skeptically. “I thought that hasn’t happened in years. I was under the impression that the army clamped down rather thoroughly after Little Bighorn.”

“It was just an example,” he said. “Surprised you knew about that.”

“When one is confined completely to one’s rooms for two years, and nearly so for a decade beyond that, one can go through quite a lot of books and newspapers.” Though the newspapers had been harder to come by, Laura remembered. Her mother had worried that the headlines would disturb Laura’s delicate emotions, as she’d put it at the time. Laura had taken to wheedling them from a footman who’d a weakness for the chocolates her father brought her back from New York. When your access to the world was limited, you had to take it wherever and however you could get it.

She saw the surprise on his face—so rare, to shock
any emotion out of him, or at least any evidence of it. But she’d rather learn something of him than have to explain her illness.

Come to think of it, she’d never had to
explain
it before, for everyone in her life had always known of it, whether because they’d lived through every painful moment with her or because they’d heard it whispered in the circles her parents moved in.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

Anxiety pitched in his chest. “Tell you what?” he asked carefully.

“That my father hired you.” The mist gave a sheen to her skin. “Back in Kearney. You could have told me. You didn’t have to…pretend.”

“Pretend? Pretend what?” It would be better, so much better, to distract her with another subject and leave this risky topic completely alone. But he hadn’t expected her to ask outright. She seemed so much more the type tactfully to avoid any subject that might matter. “Pretend to be interested?”

“I didn’t say
interested
.” Beneath the fresh, damp glow, color rose into her cheeks. She wore it well. “Friendly, perhaps.”

“I wasn’t pretending.”

That caught her attention. Her lashes flew up. Blue eyes. Pale, unremarkable blue, but the color was so light and clear that you could see right into her soul, if only she would allow it. “Your work, I mean. Listening to you talk about it. I’ve never known an artist before.” If she could be straightforward, so could he. “Is that why you were so angry with me? Because you thought I’d pretended an interest that didn’t exist?”

“Don’t be silly. You give yourself too much credit. No, I was angry because I believed that my father had
finally,
finally,
decided to trust me with some slight independence. I was not pleased to discover I was wrong.” Her gaze narrowed. “Did he tell you not to reveal yourself?”

“No.” Now why didn’t he just say “yes”? It would have been easier.

Because he didn’t want to lie to her any more than he had to. And wasn’t that stupid? He’d never before been much constrained by inconvenient scruples. “I’ve just always found it helpful to get the lay of the land before I admitted my intentions.”

“Oh.” She huddled deeper into his coat, the collar gathering up around her ears where the pale curve was tipped with red.

“That’s it.” He reached out and spun her around until she faced the door. “You’re shivering. Time to go in.”

“I doubt I’m required to take orders from
you
,” Laura said. His hands were heavy on her shoulders, warm even through the fabric, which itself held a potent warmth.
His
warmth; she’d felt it the instant he’d draped it around her, penetrating deep, so much so she’d momentarily lost the train of the conversation.