Free Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Robin Gideon

went to a ladder built into the rear wall of the livery stables and climbed up into the hayloft. Phantom unlatched the small door and eased himself inside. Pamela followed him, crawling on hands and knees to peer down over the edge at the men below.
    There were nine of them, five playing cards, and four throwing dice. All were drinking heavily. This was a night when liquor was provided for everyone, and these men seemed determined to drink all they could.
    Phantom tapped Pamela on the shoulder then moved away from the edge of the hayloft. She followed him toward the rear of the loft then knelt in the darkness, facing him. The loft was dusty, but she sensed they were safe in it. None of the hired hands would be feeding the horses this late at night, and there was no other reason for coming up here.
    “Now what?” she asked in a whisper, distinctly aware of her proximity to Phantom. She doubted that she needed to work so hard at whispering. She was very close to Phantom, but she figured it was best to be safe.
    “Now we wait. It’s nearly one o’clock. By about three o’clock, Tyler Napki will be drunk as a skunk, and his coachman will toss him into his carriage and take him home. Mrs. Napki and the children were already taken home, around eight-thirty, I believe.”
    “What’s that got to do with us?”
    “We’ll be riding on the roof of the carriage. Once we’re outside the gates, we’ll jump off. Napki and his coachman are both notorious drinkers on Saturday night. Neither one will hear a thing.”
    “You’ve planned everything, haven’t you?”
    “I didn’t plan on you.”
    His gaze met hers, and Pamela looked away. When Phantom looked into her eyes, it seemed he could see right through the defenses that she had erected to keep herself safe from the world. When she looked at him, she saw nothing but shadows, both literally and metaphorically. He was all light and darkness, part of him revealed, part of him concealed, his identity and his essential, intrinsic self elusive and enigmatic and tantalizingly seductive to the responsive female Pamela had never before realized she was.
    “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to cause you any bother. I just wanted…I had to strike out at Jonathon Darwell, don’t you see? Somebody has to. He’s got ten away with everything, absolutely everything…and the law never touches him. He owns the law.”
    Garrett listened carefully to Pamela and wondered how many people shared her sentiments. He also wondered what Darwell had done to her to make her hate him so much. Her contempt for Darwell was based on more than principle. Garrett hated Darwell because he’d wit nessed the havoc left in the wake of Darwell’s greed, but Pamela hated the man for personal reasons.
    Though Garrett Randolph’s legal expertise told him not to get involved, Pamela’s unexpected intrusion into his life had delighted him too much for him not to pursue the answer.
    “He owns a judge and a businessman who one day might be the governor of this territory, but he doesn’t own the law, Pamela. Nobody can own the law,” Phantom said quietly.
    She looked at him, shaking her head. “You just don’t understand.”
    Garrett reached out, removing his Stetson from her head. Her long, honey-blonde hair tumbled down around her shoulders in waves of satin. He smoothed some of it over her shoulders, wanting to touch both her hair and her body. She did not move away from his touch.
    “How did he hurt you?”
    Pamela looked away, shrugged, seemingly unaware that the move caused her heavy breasts to rise and fall beneath the well-washed blue cotton shirt. It appeared that this was not something she wanted to think about, much less talk about .
    “It doesn’t matter,” she answered quietly after a long pause. “It happened a long time ago. It really doesn’t matter anymore.”
    “I think it does,” Phantom observed softly. He reached out to brush the backs of his knuckles lightly