B000XUBEHA EBOK (20 page)

It was irritating and silly to be so nervous about having supper with a man, especially a man she knew as well as she knew Cameron. Besides, they’d been eating supper together for well over a month. But tonight was the first time they’d dressed for the event, and the first time they’d gone out. These differences created a sense of excitement and anticipation.

Della glanced at the mantle clock, then frowned into the bureau mirror and tugged at her bangs. She’d held the crimping iron too long over the lamp chimney, and consequently had singed her bangs. She’d snipped off the singed ends and now her bangs were shorter than she would have liked. Damn.

But the rest of her hair was clean and shiny and piled in a looping arrangement atop her head. Rather elegant, she thought, wishing she had an ornament to tuck into the mass of curls. She’d tugged loose a strand or two to sort of waft near her cheeks in front of her good jet earrings. A nice softening touch.

Standing back, she studied the molded fit of the jacket to the suit she planned to wear on the train. She’d dressed up her train ensemble with her jet brooch and evening heels, but the suit was far from a fancy dine-out gown. She didn’t own a dine-out gown. Her train suit would have to do.

When a knock sounded at her door, she pinched her cheeks and bit her lips for color. After her sunburn had peeled—and thank heaven the peeling had ended—her skin had turned light gold. Well, what did it matter? She hadn’t worried about milk-white skin in years.

“Oh my.” Her breath caught when she opened the door. Cameron stood before her in evening dress, freshly barbered and smelling of expensive bay rum. Her heart knocked against her rib cage and her nervousness increased. A few hours ago she couldn’t have imagined him wearing anything other than his wrinkled duster and travel-worn riding clothes. Now he was a dangerous man wearing evening dress as if he’d never worn anything else. James Cameron was a man who could seduce a woman with a single glance. And break her heart with the second glance.

“You look beautiful,” he said softly, his gaze traveling from her hair to her mouth.

They studied each other in uncomfortable silence, awkward with the formally dressed strangers they had become. Then they moved at the same time and bumped into each other.

“Excuse me.”

“No, it was my fault.” Stepping aside, he waved her into the corridor, then offered his arm.

“When I bumped into you . . .” She looked over her shoulder to be certain there was no one in the hallway to overhear. “Are you wearing a pistol under your jacket?”

“Of course.”

Della didn’t think she would ever get accustomed to the idea of wearing arms to the table. What seemed natural at a campfire impressed her as eccentric in a hotel as refined as the Grande.

“Do you really think you need a weapon in the hotel’s dining room? Surely they don’t serve meat so rare that you have to shoot it before you can eat it.” Lifting her skirts, she descended the staircase on his arm, pleasantly aware that they made a handsome couple.

Smiling, Cameron led her into the dining room, and the maître d’ guided them to a table at the back of the room, where he seated Della.

The candles were lit on every table, even though only one other table was occupied at this early hour. Mirrors artfully hung on flocked wallpaper reflected the soft glow of candlelight and the gleam of silver, crystal, and elegant bone china.

“We’ll each have a whisky.” When the maître d’ departed, Cameron looked at Della across the vase of wild asters. “Should I have ordered tea or sherry for you?”

Once she would have pretended a faint rather than take a sip of whisky in public. But the incident about when to eat had reminded her who she was now. She lifted her head. “I suspect I’ll like the whisky here better than the cheap bottle back home.”

“Is your room adequate?”

“It’s wonderful. Large, airy, and tonight I’ll sleep on a cloud. Are you expecting someone?”

“No.”

He sat with his back to the wall, giving him a full view of the room and entrance, which seemed to interest him more than anything Della said. His restless gaze scanned the room, rested briefly on Della, then returned to the entry doors and began the circuit again.

The soldier would always be part of him, she decided. Or perhaps the habit of vigilance had come with a sheriff’s badge or the years of bounty hunting. She admired him for the good he had accomplished, for his courage and dedication. But it was disconcerting to talk to a man who appeared to be only half listening.

She sipped from the whisky glass and let smooth, liquid fire slip down the back of her throat. Very nice. And much better than anything else she might have ordered if she had wanted to be oh-so-proper. She had never liked sherry.

A revelation struck her in the midst of a sentence and her eyes widened.

Her sudden silence brought Cameron’s gaze to her face. “Is something wrong? Della?”

“You don’t care what I’ve done in the past,” she whispered, staring at him. “And you don’t care what rules I break. You like me anyway.”

What a thing to say to a man. Her mother must be spinning in her grave.

Flustered, a blush of embarrassment tinting her cheeks and throat, she waved a hand. “I mean, I think you like me anyway. I didn’t intend to put you in an awkward position, or—”

His full attention went into the smile he turned on her. “I do like you.”

“I like you, too.”

Good Lord. There must be something about expensive whisky that loosened one’s tongue and trampled good sense. Next she’d be handing him her room key and suggesting they return upstairs. A violent wave of heat shot from her collarbone to her forehead. What was she thinking? She must be losing her mind.

Helplessly caught in the moment, her gaze locked to his and a shiver tingled up her spine. Cool blue eyes, narrowed in speculation, moved slowly to trace the shape of her lips, the angle of her jaw and throat. Swallowing hard, Della tried to look away but couldn’t. Her breath quickened, and her stomach felt tight and hot.

“There are green flecks in your eyes,” Cameron said, his voice rough.

“There’s a tiny scar near your upper lip.”

A commotion erupted at the entrance to the dining room, and Cameron’s gaze swung toward the sound of raised voices. Instantly he jumped to his feet and reached inside his jacket for his pistol.

“Get away from the table. Now!”

“What?” Della looked over her shoulder in time to see a wild-eyed man strike the maître d’ with the butt of a long-barreled pistol. The maître d’ crumpled to the floor. Good Lord. She could hardly believe her eyes.

“Move, Della!”

In two seconds she was up and pressed against the wall, away from the line of fire. Oddly, time seemed to slow, giving her the leisure to notice details.

The other couple sat frozen in their chairs, horrified faces shifting from the man in the entry to Cameron.

The man appeared to be drunk, slurring words and stumbling a little. Della couldn’t see him well in the candlelight, but she guessed him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Aside from his wild expression, half frightened, half belligerent, he didn’t look like the sort of man who would rush into a dining room waving a gun. Of course, she didn’t know what such a man ought to look like.

“Are you James Cameron?” he shouted.

“I am.” Cameron stood steady and relaxed, the pistol in his hand at his side.

The man waved the long-barreled gun. “I’m Harvey T. Morton. It’s the last name you need to know.” He lowered the long-barrel to his side. “Draw, Cameron.”

“Go on home, Harvey Morton.”

“On the count of three. One . . .”

“You’ve proved yourself. You’re willing. Let that be the end of it.”

“Two . . .”

“Damn it.”

Della saw Harvey Morton say “three,” but she didn’t hear the word. Harvey’s arm swung up and he fired. The mirror over Cameron’s left shoulder exploded in a shower of glittering shards. A wall sconce not far from Della shattered and fell.

After what seemed a lifetime, Cameron raised his arm and fired. Surprised, Harvey T. Morton stared down at his chest before he fell to the floor hard enough that Della felt the impact beneath her evening slippers. Harvey Morton said something, maybe he swore, then he rolled onto his back.

Della’s eyes were so wide they ached. Still pressed to the wall, she stared at Cameron. Not a hair was out of place. He didn’t appear agitated, didn’t seem upset or moved. After a moment he stepped forward, pistol in hand, and walked to the entrance.

A lot was going on there. One of the waiters was helping the maître d’ to his feet. The desk clerk and several other people had crowded around the doorway. A man wearing a badge arrived, scanned the scene and Harvey Morton’s body, then looked up at Cameron and swore. Della couldn’t see everything, but it looked as if Cameron prodded Morton with his boot, then pushed his gun back inside his jacket.

“I mighta known this would happen.” Sheriff Bannon stepped up to Cameron. “Killing follows men like you. Gunslingers.” With a look of disgust, he spat on the floor.

“Hold on.” The man who’d been sitting at the other table came forward. “That man,” he pointed to Morton, “came in here while Mr. Cameron was doing nothing more provoking than having supper with his wife. He challenged Mr. Cameron to draw even through Mr. Cameron tried to talk him out of it. And then,” he stared at Cameron, “Mr. Cameron let Morton draw first and fire a couple of shots before he fired himself. I’ll swear to that in court if need be.”

“I saw it, too,” the waiter confirmed. “It was self-defense.”

The sheriff nodded slowly, rocking back on his heels to look up at Cameron. “I want you out of here tonight.”

“That isn’t convenient.” Cameron’s voice was level and expressionless, but there must have been something in his eyes, because the sheriff studied him a moment, then colored slightly.

“You can stay tonight, I’ll bend that much. But you leave first thing in the morning.”

“That’s acceptable.” Cameron turned to the waiter. “You may serve our entrées now.”

“You have an appetite after everything that’s happened?” Della said when he returned to the table. She couldn’t believe it. “Cameron—you just killed a man.”

He brushed slivers of broken mirror off their seats. “This must be your napkin.” Holding out her chair, he waited for her to be seated.

Della sat down hard. She’d never been in a situation like this. She had no idea how a man was supposed to behave after he killed another man. Or how a witness should respond. She replaced her napkin across her lap with shaking fingers. “Do you regret killing that man?”

His eyes were cold, distant. “Perhaps you didn’t notice the part where Harvey T. Morton fired at me. Twice.”

Della glanced at the broken pieces of mirror sparkling on their table linen. “That’s another thing. Why in God’s name did you just stand there and let him shoot at you?” Remembering how she had almost collapsed in fear made her mouth go dry and her stomach cramp.

“The pistol Morton was carrying is notorious for not firing accurately; plus he’d been drinking. The odds were in my favor that any shots would go wild.” He tossed back the rest of his whisky. “This kind of situation is unfortunate enough. It’s easier on the sheriff, the witnesses, and the man’s family if there is no question as to what happened. From my point of view, I don’t want anyone thinking this was murder. I want everyone clear that it was self-defense. So I’m never going to fire first.”

“But he could have gotten lucky and shot you.”

“Yes.”

Della considered the entrée the waiter placed before her. Bundled veal, rice and tomatoes, corn and beans, served with a basket of warm tortillas. She couldn’t eat a bite. Instead, she asked the waiter to bring her coffee, which she drank while Cameron calmly ate his supper.

Sadly it seemed a lifetime ago since they had gazed into each other’s eyes and whispered about green flecks and small scars. Were those the same two people who now sat in silence?

Near the end of the meal, Cameron looked across the candles and their eyes held.

He could have been killed. I cannot love this man. I
cannot walk behind another hearse.

Even if I hadn’t killed Clarence Ward, I couldn’t give
her the peace of mind she needs. This was never meant
to be.

Chapter 12

Since it felt as if they needed a little distance, Cameron didn’t ride beside Della as he’d taken to doing before their stay in Rocas. He rode out ahead for a few days, leading Rebecca, studying the mountains that rose against the sky as they entered the foothills.

Toward midday two men passed about a mile south, riding east. Later in the afternoon he exchanged nods with a half dozen cowhands heading for Fort Worth. He and Della didn’t exchange more than a dozen words until they stopped for the night. Working smoothly together, they set up camp, then sat down to wait while a rabbit roasted over the fire pit.

“I always thought it would be empty and solitary out here,” Della remarked, taking off her hat. She removed a few hairpins and let her braid fall down her back. “It surprises me how many people we’ve seen since this trip started.” She started to rise. “I think the coffee’s done.”