Free Lawman by Lisa Plumley Page A

turned toward the
window, stepping far enough from her to draw back the edge of the
curtains and gaze into the yard beyond. The rigid set of his wide
shoulders looked fearsome, but something in the tilt of his head
suggested he hadn't fully decided about the case at hand.
    That possibility was one Megan couldn't
afford to pass up. She didn't care if she was grasping at straws.
She wanted to be the one to convince him—in her father's favor.
    "Joseph Kearney has never done a single
thing to regret in his life." Except maybe disappear on an
occasional gambling junket with his daughter's savings , her
conscience jibed. "Certainly nothing that would warrant having
Pinkerton men on his trail. You must believe me. He's an innocent
man. I just know it!"
    "Based on what?"
    His tone was deceptively mild. The stern set
of his handsome face as he turned to her was anything but.
    "You say he's innocent. Based on what?"
Gabriel repeated.
    "B—based on belief, of course," Megan
stammered, taken aback at the bleakness she glimpsed in his
expression. Whatever had put the wintery chill in this man's eyes
had wounded him, too deeply for words. "I believe it's true, with
all my heart."
    Gabriel thumbed up his hat brim. From
beneath its shadows, he studied her. "You'd take something like
this on faith?"
    "Of course. What else is there?"
    He studied her a moment longer. "Then you're
a bigger fool than I thought."
    Her, a fool? Simply for believing in her own
father's innocence? Megan didn't know whether to be shocked,
insulted ...or saddened that he was so disillusioned as to think
such a thing in the first place.
    Before she could decide, he turned. Briskly,
he surveyed the room, and his gaze lit on the two satchels and
parasol she'd stacked in one corner of the station office in
preparation for her travels to Tucson. He nodded toward them.
    "You'll be wanting to bring those, I'd
imagine. We'll leave in an hour."
    "Leave? But I...no!"
    His mocking smile caught her off-guard.
"Don't make me waste time drawing up matching father-and-daughter
wanted posters, sugar."
    Shock glued her feet to the floorboards.
" You're arresting me ?"
    Gabriel's eyebrows raised. "Not yet.
Trusting someone isn't a crime. Just foolhardy."
    He pulled down his hat and reached for the
doorknob, keeping one hand on the gun belt beneath his fine suit as
though expecting her to make some desperate, doomed attempt to
escape him. Megan knew better.
    She'd elude him later, if necessary—when the
odds were better suited to her favor.
    "That's why I'm not trusting you," he went
on, "I'm telling you. You're going with me to find your father.
And, if need be, you're going to help me do it. Ought to be no
better bait to a devoted father than a daughter in need, wouldn't
you say?"
    Perhaps—for any father but her own. As Mrs.
Webster had so cruelly pointed out earlier, Joseph Kearney didn't
quite measure up to the ideal of a doting papa.
    "I'd say you're a beast!"
    "No, a realist." He had the audacity to
wink. "Although the two might look the same to you, just at the
moment. You'll come 'round in the end, I'll wager."
    "And turn out like you? Sweet heaven, I hope
not."
    He shrugged. "Beyond the first prick, it's
kinder to see things the way they really are."
    With a powerful sweep of his arm, he opened
the door. The sounds of the latest stage pulling away in the
distance, men working, and birdsong from the pair of cactus wrens
nesting nearby rushed inside on a choking drift of dust and autumn
sunlight.
    In the midst of it all, Gabriel Winter stood
on the threshold with his back to her and his arms folded, as
though deciding which outbuilding to search first, which station
hand to begin the questioning with. His whole manner bespoke
authority.
    And Megan understood a threat when she saw
one.
    "You can't really expect me to help you!"
she cried. "I'm the last person who'd want to see you bring in my
father."
    "That's why I'm not leaving you here."
    Unreasonable, unexpected tears came