Free Lawman by Lisa Plumley

me,
not even for pulling out this little old derringer of mine. Why,
I've never even heard of such a thing."
    "I have."
    He was falling for it! "Oh, my. You don't
mean...?"
    She let her voice trail off, and did her
best to pack a goodly dose of trepidation into the stare she gave
him. Deliberately getting herself arrested was a desperate means of
making agent Winter leave the station, to be sure. But Megan felt
fairly certain she could elude him once they'd set out on the road
to the jail in Tucson. The way to town was as familiar as her own
dress patterns to her—but not to him.
    She blinked sorrowfully up at him and
whispered, "Jail? For me? You can't mean it."
    His gaze darkened, turning his eyes a
deeper, lonelier blue.
    "Oh, but I do," he said. "I'd arrest you
now, if I thought you could really pull that trigger."
    Despair tugged at her. He hadn't believed
her threat at all! At this rate, she'd never get him away from the
station.
    "But I could pull the trigger! You might not
believe it, but I can be mean as all get-out when provoked. Ask
anyone. Ask—"
    He grinned. His hand covered hers, eased her
fingers' desperate clench on the cold metal protection of her
derringer. "No, you couldn't."
    "I could! You shouldn't judge a book by its
cover, agent Winter. I'm snake-mean sometimes. You should see—"
    "I can see," he interrupted. "And I only
needed one look at this place—and at the behemoth out there in the
yard, watching out for you—to know that's not true."
    He must mean Mose. Whatever could simple,
sweet Mose have said to the Pinkerton man to make him think such a
thing?
    She couldn't give up. Wouldn't . "But
I—"
    He stopped her. "You're about as mean as a
day-old kitten, sugar." One by one, Gabriel pried her fingers loose
from her weapon, even as his next words washed over her with deadly
seriousness. "But let me warn you right now—if I find out you're
involved in my case, I will take you in. And I'll turn the key to
lock you up myself."
    Visions of the scandalous goodbye kiss she'd
imagined earlier whirled through her mind. Combined with the memory
of the kiss he'd already given her, it was almost enough to set her
tingling anew.
    A person would think she wanted him to
kiss her again, or something . Megan gave herself a shake and
tried not to think about the fact that his hands still covered
hers—and with a touch as tender as that of a man come courting the
woman he fancied, too.
    She'd bet a man like Gabriel Winter didn't
bother with courting anyone. She'd bet a man like him just took
what he wanted. Suddenly, she wasn't at all sure that if she found
herself in such a position, she could refuse him anything.
    A ridiculous notion, of course, Megan told
herself. Surely she had more fortitude, more discipline, than
that.
    "If you're involved in this robbery," he
went on, "I'll find out. And then I'll find you . And it
won't matter that you're a woman."
    She couldn't help the shiver that crept up
her spine at his words. But she could help what she did about it,
Megan vowed. Never let it be said that she'd abandoned her family,
or the station hands who depended on her, in their time of need.
The last thing she meant to do was let Gabriel Winter ride
roughshod over their lives.
    "Would it matter if I were innocent?" she
asked, lifting her chin.
    "If you were innocent—" He slipped her
derringer from her hand and removed its bullets, dropping them into
his palm as he spoke. "—then I would know it. I've never brought in
the wrong man."
    He returned her gun with a small,
aggravatingly gentleman-like bow. "Or the wrong woman."
    "How can you be sure?"
    "I'm sure."
    Her chin came up another notch. "I believe
you're confusing arrogance with certainty, agent Winter."
    "Well said, coming from a woman who's
confusing affection with innocence." He paused, shook his head.
"For your sake, I wish you could love your father enough to excuse
his crimes. But you can't."
    "I won't need to. He is innocent."
    Gabriel frowned and