Only My Love (15 page)

Houston shook his head, considering Dee's behavior. "I guess I've been away too long," he said finally. "She needs a little attention. So does your woman."

Michael bristled. Her head snapped up. "I am not his woman any more."

Ethan smiled grimly. "Looks like I've been away too long, too," he said.

"Appears so." Houston gave Michael a jaunty two-fingered salute as if he was tipping his hat to her and tapped Ethan lightly on the back. On his way out the door he examined the lock. "I'll see about getting this fixed tomorrow. Don't worry about interruptions tonight. Even Happy's found himself a woman till morning." He closed the door softly behind him.

Michael waited until the sound of Houston's footfalls faded. "I don't know which I despise more," she said. "You or that smug smile of yours." She mimicked Houston's tone. "'Your woman could use some attention.'" She shot Ethan a disgusted glance. "And you reply in the same patronizing vein. Do all men think the way you do or is it only my bad luck to keep meeting them? Honestly, for a moment there you both sounded like my—" She stopped abruptly, the drift of her thoughts pulling her up short.

"Like your..." Ethan prompted.

"Never mind." Michael scooted back on the bed to get away from Ethan's towering presence. "It's enough you know that I don't appreciate comments like that."

Ethan unhooked his gun belt and hung it up on a nail just inside the door. He fiddled with the latch just to see if he could secure it again and gave up when he saw the cause as hopeless. He sat down in the maroon and gold wing chair and stretched out his long legs, hooking his feet at the ankles. "Since we're speaking of appreciation," he said with credible calm, "I'm going to tell you what I not only don't appreciate, but won't put up with. I think we've already established that you're not to lock me out of this or any other room again. If the room's secured, it's because I've decided I wanted it that way. I don't want to hear your sass in front of other people. It looks like I can't control you, and if the others think I can't, you're as good as dead. You're alive because I've managed to convince them I can hold onto you.

"As far as Houston goes, stop trying to throw yourself at him. Dee will scratch out your eyes. She may do it anyway, so watch yourself around her."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Ethan's expression was skeptical. His dark lashes lowered a fraction as he studied Michael to gauge her sincerity. "Didn't you hear the things Dee was saying to you?"

"I heard her. Of course I heard her. I also felt her animosity the moment she came in here. What I don't understand is why."

His voice was harsh, impatient whisper. "How can you be a reporter and be so naive? I thought that was beat out of you right away."

"I'm not naive."

"I see it a little differently. Dee was angry because she recognized your interest in Houston."

"There," she said rather triumphantly.
"That's
what I don't understand. What do you mean I was throwing myself at him? I find him as repulsive as I do you."

Ethan's eyes dropped to her mouth, stayed there long enough to remind her of the kiss they shared, then rose to meet her guilty gaze. "I assume I've made my point. Stay away from him."

It was more than a warning. It was a command. Michael gave no indication one way or the other if she intended to follow it. "I was the one at a disadvantage," she reminded him. "If you had knocked I would have had time to dress."

"I did knock. Several times."

Michael frowned, trying to remember back to what she had been doing just before the door was kicked open. She had been brushing her hair, deep in thought. "I didn't hear you." She bit her lower lip. "And I wasn't throwing myself at Houston."

Ethan knew Michael was telling the truth. He had seen as clearly as Detra that the interest was primarily, perhaps completely, on Houston's side. There was likely to be trouble. If Michael encouraged him, there was
sure
to be trouble.

"May I have that comb, please?" Michael asked, pointing to the floor near Ethan's feet. He scooped it up and tossed it across the room. Michael caught it deftly and began running it through her hair. "How long are you going to keep me with you?"

"As long as I have to," he said. Watching her fingers sift through the damp strands of her hair, Ethan was tempted to reply with the truth: "As long as I want to."

"How long is that?"

"I don't know."

"Days? Weeks?"

He shook his head and said carelessly, "Months... years... forever. It depends."

"Depends? On what?"

"On whether you live that long." He leaned forward in his chair and rested his forearms on knees. "On whether you convince us that you don't mean to turn us in."

There was a pause in the steady motion of Michael's hand through her dark chestnut hair. How would she ever convince any of them of that, she wondered. No one was that good an actress. Her thoughts took a tangential leap suddenly. The only actress she knew was Katy Dakota, Logan Marshall's wife. That in turn reminded Michael of the publisher himself and then of the
Chronicle.
For a reason she could not immediately fathom she found herself staring hard at Ethan Stone again, trying to place his face.

Although Ethan was unaware of the route her thoughts had taken to lead to this direct and steady stare, he knew what she was trying to do. He found himself absently rubbing his upper lip with his forefinger in a way he had done when he had a mustache. As soon as he was aware of the gesture he stopped, afraid it would give her a clue.

He shifted in the chair, throwing one leg over the arm.

"I suppose Detra will have some clothes for you in the morning," he said. "You'll have to alter them. You heard her. She won't do it."

"Then I'll have to wear them as they are. I don't sew."

"Now there's a surprise," Ethan said sarcastically. "Didn't your mother teach you anything?"

"Lots of things. I chose not to learn needlework."

"Were you born ornery?"

The realization that she was biting back a smile distressed her. She did not want him to make her laugh. "It's a family characteristic," she said coolly.

"Along with sass and brass."

She avoided his eyes, turned away from the frank assessment that seemed to know what she was thinking and was gently mocking her for it. "The sass and brass may be my own." She caught the glimmer of a smile on his face, a smile that was as a lazy as his walk, as faint as his drawl. Careful to keep her attention elsewhere, Michael pretended great interest in her surroundings.

She had not appreciated earlier what a comfortable room it was. The furnishings were all dark wood, walnut or cherry, rather plain and solid, lacking the intricate finishing detail of a master carpenter, but warm and serviceable just the same. Besides the bed, bureau, and side table, there was the wide-armed wing chair in which Ethan was sitting, the table beside him, an upholstered footstool, two straw seat ladder-back chairs near the stove, a wardrobe, and washstand. A large sponge ware basin and pitcher sat on the stand's marble top. The room's single window was framed with blue and white checked curtains. The walls were papered: deep violet flowers curving gracefully on a cream background. Except for the mirror above the bureau and Ethan's gun belt near the door, nothing hung on them. The parts of the floor that weren't covered by the carpet had been swept clean and mopped recently. The entire room, in fact, was neatly kept. Recalling that someone did laundry for him, she wondered if Ethan was responsible for the room or paid one of Dee's girls to provide the service.

Ethan watched Michael's eyes wander about the room and tried to fathom the nature of her thoughts. "Not quite what you're used to, I expect."

Michael didn't answer immediately. "Not what I grew up with," she said softly. "But what I'm used to." She turned to him again, waiting to see if he would pry. He didn't. Perhaps he didn't want to know what she meant. Certainly he had no reason to care. "There's bound to be a search for me," she told him. "The paper. My family. Have you thought of that?"

"I've thought of it. I thought of it when I realized I was going to have to bring you with me."

"What do you mean? What have you done?"

"I made sure the people who saw you run out of the train think I killed you. I don't know what they could see from that distance but they heard the extra shots."

"But they'll never find a body... they'll know—"

"They'll know I dropped it over the cliff along with your friend's. They're only going to think they can't find it. After what Happy and Obie did to the
Chronicle's
cars and the caboose, do you really believe anyone will think I was capable of showing mercy?"

"No."

Ethan hardly knew whether to be relieved or insulted by the quickness of her response. "Exactly." As far as he was concerned the subject was closed.

"I wonder if Hannah's family witnessed it," she said, more to herself than to Ethan. "I wouldn't like to think they had." She thought about the family's journey of hope, about the story she might never write. She didn't need to think about it any longer. She needed to act. "Where's my coat? I had pencils in there and a notepad with the beginnings of a story. And where are my glasses? I can't write without my glasses."

"You're not doing any writing tonight." Ethan reached in his pocket and pulled out a gold watch. He flipped open the cover, glanced at the time, and closed it again. "It's after eight."

"That's early."

"On some other night it might be, but not tonight. You slept a lot more in the saddle than I did. I plan to pack it in soon."

"I still want my pencils and notepad." Without conscious thought her hands strayed to her hair.

"No pencils there," Ethan said. Thank God, he thought.

She realized what she had been doing. Her expression was sheepish. "Oh. Sometimes I put them there so I can find them later."

Ethan remembered the first time he had seen her. She had searched all over her desk before she chanced upon one of them in her hair. "Well, they're not there now. Your things are safe, I'm sure."

"My glasses?"

"They were in the pocket of the shirt I gave Kitty. They were already a little bent."

"Bent! But-"

"When I knocked you out," he said shortly. "It's a small price to pay in exchange for your life."

It
was
a petty concern, she thought. It
was
the least of her problems. Bent spectacles were merely an inconvenience. Yet somehow the loss of her glasses crystallized the loss of everything and everyone else. Tears welled in her eyes and her chin quivered.

"You're crying about your glasses?" Ethan demanded, disbelief and scorn rife in his tone. "Lady, I don't pretend to understand what goes on in that mind of yours. Your friends have been killed, you've been... oh, hell, I don't need to recite the litany of crimes against you... and you're crying now because of your spectacles."

She swiped at her eyes and sucked in her breath to steady her nerves and her chin. "It's not the glasses," she said in a small voice. Michael turned on her side away from him so he couldn't see the steadily dripping tears.

Ethan made no reply. He sat very still in his corner of the room, waiting for the soft even cadence of her breathing that would signal sleep. It was more than twenty minutes in coming, but eventually she gave in to the weariness that had made her as fragile as crystal.

Taking his time, Ethan tended to the fire in the stove, adding coals so it would burn reasonably well into the night. He checked his gun belt, removing the extra ammunition and the bullets from his Colt. Opening the third drawer of his bureau, he dropped the bullets in and hid them under a few shirts. The bottom of the wardrobe had several blankets stored away. Ethan took them out and laid them on the floor beside the bed. After nearly a week of sleeping on the ground he had been looking forward to his bed. He had thought about sharing it with Kitty or Josie or Carmen, but not with Mary Michael Dennehy. Certainly not Michael.

She had both pillows. One she was hugging to her breast, the other was under her head. Ethan gently lifted her hair and her head and pulled. Michael didn't stir. His hand was slow to release her hair. The ball of his thumb passed back and forth across the silky texture. In his mind's eye he saw her sitting at the head of the bed, running the comb through her hair, pulling it straight, only to have it spring into curls the moment she released it. He gave up his hold on her hair reluctantly and only when he realized how she would react if she woke and saw what he was doing.

There was no sense in frightening her anymore than she'd already been frightened.

Stripping down to his drawers, Ethan blew out the lamps and got into his makeshift bed. It was warmer than the ground he had slept on the night before but not any softer. Turning onto his back, his head cradled in the palm of his hands, Ethan stared at the ceiling and considered what he was going to do about Michael Dennehy.

Ethan thought back to the afternoon five months earlier in the
Chronicle's
offices. He was not nearly done with the work he had set out to do for Carl Franklin, John Rivington, and Logan Marshall. The things they had discussed that day, even the things they had suspected, had not prepared Ethan for the depth of the problem he was facing. He owed none of the men anything, not the railroad man, not the government man, and certainly not the
Chronicle's
publisher. Yet it didn't seem that he could quit at this juncture. In light of everything that had gone wrong during the robbery he owed something to the brakemen, conductors, and reporters who had occupied the last five cars of No. 349.