Free Walking on Air by Catherine Anderson

if she didn’t do precisely what he said.
    Lips trembling, she stared at him as if he were a coiled rattler about to strike. “Are you mad? We’ve never even met! What do you mean, you’ve chosen me to be”—she gulped and passed a shaky hand over her mercilessly tidy chignon—“your wife?”
    Since explaining how he’d come to be here wasn’t an option, Gabe kept his mouth shut. Nan looked different today, a mere shadow of the woman he’d seen at the window right after he’d been shot. Then, her hair had been loose and agleam with candlelight, and she’d appeared soft and feminine. He detested the severe hairstyle she sported now, which allowed not even a tiny wisp of gold to frame her lovely oval face. He also hated her blue dress, a prim garment that skimmed her corseted waist and flared with so many gathers in the skirt that her curvaceous hips and legs were invisible. The collar was so high and tight it was a wonder she could breathe.
    “You’re right; we haven’t met,” he conceded. “But I’ve observed you about town, and I’m a man who knows what he wants when he sees it. In short, Miss Sullivan, I want you, and it’ll be extremely foolish on your part if you refuse to marry me.”
    Her chin came up. Gabe nearly smiled. It was a small, delicate chin with a cute little cleft. Her cheekbones, fragile and purely feminine, slanted back toward her ears, which were small and pink at the lobes, reminding him of the tiny seashells he’d once seen on an ocean beach during a stay in California.
    In a tone that managed to quiver and drip ice at the same time, she said, “Well, foolish though it may be, I do, absolutely and unequivocally, refuse!” She straightened her narrow shoulders and stepped away from the shelves. It didn’t escape Gabe’s notice that she wobbled slightly on her feet. “Your suggestion is preposterous, sir. Please remove yourself from my shop. Now.”
    Gabe finally allowed himself to grin—a slow, humorless curve of his lips born of long practice that had made more than one man in a rage decide to think twice before he pushed his luck. “Fine, Miss Sullivan. Never let it be said that I don’t know when my welcome has worn thin.” He moved away from the jewelry case and touched a fingertip to the brim of his Stetson. “I’ll just mosey on down to the marshal’s office. I’m sure he’ll be real interested to learn that the widowed milliner who’s passed herself off as Nan Hoffman for eight years is actually Nancy Sullivan, a woman wanted for murdering her fiancé, Horace Barclay. The telegraph lines will be tapping quicker than a lamb shakes its tail, I’m guessing, and by dusk, you’ll be on the wrong side of a jail cell’s bars.”
    Gabe allowed his grin to broaden just slightly into a smile. “You ever been in the hoosegow, darlin’? Those cells reek of stale urine. The mattress ticking crawls with bedbugs. If nature calls, you’ve got to relieve yourself in a bucket that’s still crusty with the leavings of the last man who used it.” He held up a finger. “A word of warning about those buckets. Don’t make the mistake of sitting on one. You’ll sure as hell catch the crabs.” At her bewildered expression, he gave a low laugh. “Crabs are a form of lice, only you get them at the wrong end. Itch like a son of a gun, and it’s harder than hell to get rid of them.” He sighed. “Oh, well, scratching your nether regions raw will keep you busy while you wait for the wheels of justice to turn. And they turn slowly, Nan. I don’t reckon the law in New York will get all the way out here to Colorado any too fast. Might take as long as a week or two for the authorities to come fetch you—or arrange for a lawman here to transport you back to—” He broke off, pretending forgetfulness. “What’s the name of that island? Ah, yes, Manhattan. Never got an urge to ride that way. I hear the eastern shores are crawling with people. I’m a man who likes some elbow