Free Tracie Peterson - [New Mexico Sunset 03] by Angel's Cause

out and see if you were all right. Are you?” His expression was one of sober consideration, while his eyes traveled the length of Angeline’s simple white shirtwaist and blue serge skirt.
    Angeline noted that her suffrage ribbon had somehow been torn from her and was probably beneath the muddy boots of the town’s male population. Otherwise, she felt fine now that she could breathe. “I’m perfectly well,” she finally answered.
    “Good.” Gavin’s voice still sounded rather indifferent. “We’d better get out of here and get back to the hotel.”
    “You’re staying at the hotel?” Angeline questioned. “Why are you here, Gavin?” she pressed without giving him a chance to answer her first question.
    Gavin opened the door and peered down the alleyway in each direction. He motioned her to the door with his finger pressed to his lips to insure her silence.
    Angeline was never good at keeping quiet, however. Especially when she wanted answers to important questions. She stared up at the handsome face of the man who claimed to love her and whispered, “Why?”
    Gavin looked down at her as though she’d asked the stupidest question possible. “Why do you think?” he replied softly and pulled her into the shrouding darkness.
    Angeline didn’t like leaving the lighted room, but she liked the idea of awaiting the return of an angry owner even less. She allowed Gavin to pull her along until they approached the main street and saw that at least twenty or thirty angry men still surrounded the front doors to the hotel.
    “Come on,” Gavin growled in a barely audible voice. He pushed Angeline toward the end of the boardwalk and ended up pulling her into the livery at the edge of town before he’d allow her to rest.
    “What in the world is wrong with you, Gavin Lucas?”
    “Me? You think there’s something wrong with me?” His voice was indignant.
    “Yes,” Angeline began, but Gavin wouldn’t hear any more.
    “I came here because your mother and father are sick with worry and grief about your well-being. I’ve followed you from Santa Fe and tried a hundred times to get close enough to talk to you, but you have more watchdogs than prime herd of beef on its way to market.” Angeline started to respond to his reference but closed her mouth quickly at the look of warning Gavin gave her.
    “I nearly get killed in that crowd just to save your scrawny, ungrateful neck, and you have the audacity to ask me why I came here?”
    Angeline was quite taken back at this side of Gavin. She knew him to be quite serious and decidedly dedicated to his loved ones, but she’d never seen him this mad. “I’m. . .I’m. . .” she wanted the words to be just right, but they wouldn’t come together.
    “You’re what?” Gavin asked her as if he thought her reply might actual ly be important.
    “I’m sorry.” Angeline finally managed to say. “I never meant to hurt my folks, but the cause is important.”
    “You and your causes!” Gavin exclaimed in disgust. “Your cause got a little out of hand tonight, don’t you think?”
    “I didn’t expect it to result in a fight,” Angeline admitted, taking a seat on a nearby bale of straw.
    Just then the livery keeper entered from outside. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know I had company. Sorry to keep you waiting, but it seems we had a bit of excitement at the hotel tonight.”
    “No problem,” Gavin replied and nodded, toward Angeline. “I had a bit of excitement tonight, myself.”
    The man looked at Angeline, nodded, and gave Gavin a sly wink. “I’ll be out back if you need me, but I suppose you won’t.” Then the man left as though it were perfectly normal to find two strangers arguing in his livery.
    Angeline jerked herself upright and glared at Gavin. “I’ll not have you besmirch my reputation by implying that you and I, that we, that we. . .” She blushed furiously and fell silent.
    “That we what? That we raced through the streets, fighting to