Only My Love (56 page)

"The police could do this. You don't have to."

"I wish I could be certain you're right. But there are plenty of places in New York where the police don't go without a partner and where they'd be noticed too quickly to be effective. I don't want to risk losing Houston because he sees them coming. Let me find where Dee's staying first then I'll get Jarret to help me."

Michael's arms crossed in front of her, just below her breasts, making her pregnant state more noticeable. "I don't see why you can't have Jarret follow her now," she muttered under her breath. "I don't see why you have to do it."

Ethan raked his hair, weary of arguing. "Because I
have
to."

It was not what Michael wanted to hear. For a moment she blocked the exit from the bedroom as he attempted to leave. Sighing, she stepped aside. "When can I expect you back?" It was another way of asking when she could stop worrying.

Ethan was already shrugging into his light traveling duster. He stepped away from the mantel and looked at himself in the mirror above it. His gun and gun belt were concealed. He made a swipe along the surface of the mantel, cupped the room key, and dropped it in his pocket. "As near as I can make it Dee will be done working at eight. I'll be in the lobby waiting for her to leave."

"There's an employee's entrance. Dee will go that way."

He shook his head. "Not Dee. You're forgetting how well I know her, Michael. She'll walk out of here as if she owns the place." He went on before Michael could find some other point of contention. "Depending on where she's staying, I should be back here in a few hours."

"Eleven?" she asked.

"Don't try to pin me down, Michael. Something could happen to delay me."

"I know! That's why I'm worried."

He took her by the shoulders, searched her face, willing her to believe him, believe
in
him. "This is my job. This is what I do. There's not going to be a confrontation tonight. I only want to see where she goes."

Michael was stiff in Ethan's arms, unresponsive to the kiss he placed on her mouth. She was angry with him, angry with herself because she couldn't stop him. Then between them, the baby kicked, and she knew he felt it because his kiss softened, became more persuasive, more wanting, and she gave herself up to it because she couldn't bear the thought of him leaving with words between them instead of the baby.

Once he was gone Michael sat on the sofa and stared at the door, prepared to wait.

When she heard the knock some forty minutes later Michael's first thought was that Ethan had forgotten something. She unfolded stiff legs and hobbled to the door. Upon opening it, her second thought was that whatever he'd left behind, it couldn't have been the key. She'd seen him pocket that.

"You!" she said. It seemed to her that she had screamed the word but in truth her voice was a mere whisper. Houston had pushed past her, his gun drawn, before she had a second chance.

Michael backed into the room as Houston closed and bolted the door. Her knees caught the back of the sofa and she dropped abruptly. Instinctively her hands crossed protectively in front of her abdomen.

He hadn't changed at all. There was a slight limp in his step but even with the cane, Houston retained a certain swagger. His weather worn Stetson had been replaced by a gentleman's derby and his clothes were fitting of New York fashion, but Houston was nothing if not a chameleon, she thought. Without principles or ideals he made himself at home anywhere. He dropped the derby in the chair at his side and replaced his gun, a Smith & Wesson pocket revolver, in the leather holster that fit snugly around his shoulder and under his jacket. Jerking back his head, the fringe of his light hair moved off his forehead. His sharp, handsome features were passive, his black eyes distant, and he leaned on his ebony walking stick as he subjected Michael to several long moments of consideration and scrutiny.

"I admit I was surprised that you came to the door so quickly," he said. "Dee led me to expect you'd be bed-ridden. I thought I'd have to pick the lock."

"Where's Ethan?"

Houston shrugged. "Following Dee I suppose. That's what he planned to do, isn't it? I came around the hotel tonight to walk Dee home. I like to do that sometimes. It gives me the opportunity to see you and Ethan. On a nice evening like this it's quite possible that you'll be out on the balcony." He saw Michael shiver at the notion of being watched by him. It was a cold smile that touched his mouth. "Tonight I was going to surprise Detra. Imagine my surprise when I saw her leave and our friend Marshal Stone following a good twelve paces behind. She hailed a hack and so did he." His head tilted to one side as he studied her. "And here is another surprise. You. Looking quite healthy, and quite pregnant. Dee's drugs seemed to have failed again."

"Again?" Michael asked casually, her fists clenching. She forced herself not to glance at the clock on the mantel to give any indication that she was playing for time. If Ethan took a hack then he wouldn't be gone long at all. "Oh, you mean before, when she kept me confined in Madison while you robbed the train. You've always been wrong about that, Houston, always believed the wrong person. I never left my room during that time. I damn well never left the hotel. The only people I talked to when I was coherent were Kitty and Dee. I can't find it in my heart to believe it was Kitty who betrayed you. You draw your own conclusion."

Houston did not make Michael privy to the conclusion he reached. "How did you discover the drugs Dee's been using now?" he asked.

"What drugs?"

He shook his head. "No, it's too late for prevarication. You showed no confusion when I observed that you weren't bed-ridden. You know what I expected to find."

"No, I'm not certain. Was it Ethan you intended to kill? Or me and my baby?" She stood and went around the sofa to the oval walnut table ladened with food, bottled water, and wine. "Would you care for something to eat? A drink perhaps? I have red and white wine. I think there's a bottle of Scotch here somewhere. No beer, I'm afraid." She smiled coolly. "Oh, but you're hesitating. Really, Houston, there's no need. Everything here is quite safe. I wouldn't try something so devious as poison. I'm much more direct than that. Surely you've noticed."

"I've noticed," he said. "It's one of the things I've admired about you."

Michael's eyes dropped away beneath his steady regard.

"I'll take some of that Scotch," he said.

She found the bottle and poured him the drink, careful to avoid his touch when she handed him the tumbler.

He moved his hat, sat down, and took a swallow of his drink. His cane rested against the arm of the chair. "I'd still like to hear how you avoided the poison. Dee assured me there was a doctor in and out of here."

"There was." Michael poised herself on the broad arm of the sofa, resting her hip against the curve. "But he was here to see Ethan, not me. Another surprise, isn't it? I think Ethan got the first dose of Dee's drugs when he finished my meal one evening. After that it was always Ethan who received the tainted food."

Houston nodded slowly. "I see. Then it seems Dee mistook some things she saw."

"Oh?"

"She said that she'd seen Ethan helping you onto the balcony one afternoon."

"The other way around, I'm afraid. I was helping him."

"He was fortunate to have you care for him."

Michael ignored that. "You still haven't killed anyone, Houston. None of this can be laid clearly at your door. It intrigues me the way you manage to elude responsibility. At most you'll get a few more years as Dee's accomplice."

"You're forgetting the escape. I'll get years for that."

"It's not the same as hanging."

"You've never been to prison or you'd know that hanging's preferable." Michael was not quick enough to hide her shock and Houston saw it. "You hadn't thought of that, had you?"

"Are you going to kill me?"

"I don't know. It was my intention when I came here, but seeing you... I don't know." His hands curled around his tumbler. "Did Ethan plan to make an arrest tonight?"

Michael was silent.

"How soon do you think he'll be here?"

She remained quiet.

Houston leaned forward, clutching the tumbler so hard the tips of his fingers were bloodless. "Don't be stupid, Michael."

She flushed. "I am not going to help you."

The color in her face made him smile. He relaxed slightly. "I could take you with me. I could overlook the fact that you're a reporter, that you're carrying Ethan's child, even that you despise me. Feelings change, don't they? I think there was a time you felt similarly toward Ethan."

Michael maintained her dignity by maintaining her silence.

"Well, Michael? Would you do that? Would you come away with me? We could go to Canada or even Europe. I have money. It wouldn't be as if you'd want for anything."

"I'm quite certain there are trains to rob in Canada."

Amused by her sarcasm and bravado, Houston laughed. "I can't help but like you. I really didn't want to believe you'd been the one to betray us at the robbery, but the fact that you were a reporter, well, that couldn't be overlooked. It was only a matter of time before you found a way to turn us in."

A faint line creased Michael's brow. "You knew it was Detra, didn't you?" she said.

"Let's say I suspected. But then, I also understood her reasoning. She knew how I felt about you. You were a threat to her, a threat to all of us as it turned out. When she gathered the proof that you worked for the
Chronicle
and I didn't act on it to her satisfaction, she felt she had to take a more direct action."

"But Obie was killed that night. You could have all been killed!"

"I know. And Detra would have eventually paid the price for her betrayal, but it would have been
my
price, not Ethan's, not the court's." Houston knocked back the last of his drink. He rolled the tumbler between his palms. "You'll have to make your decision quickly, Michael. Dee and I weren't staying far from here. Depending on what Ethan intended this evening, he could be back very soon. Your answer will determine whether he finds you dead or finds you at all."

It was the perfect calm with which he spoke that incensed Michael. That he could talk as if he were giving her a choice when there was none at all, that he could threaten her and, in turn, her child, made her insensible of her own safety. Angered beyond reason, she pushed away from the sofa arm and reached for the first thing she could put her hands on.

It happened to be Houston's ebony walking stick.

She thrust it at him, not connecting, but using it as if it were an extension of her pointing finger. Her voice was tight, cold. "Get out. Get out while you still can. Don't threaten me or my baby or my husband again. Do you think I am flattered by your attention, by your offer? I want nothing so much as to see the last of you."

When Houston remained precisely as he was, Michael gripped the silver knob head of the cane more tightly and jabbed it toward his chest. This had the effect of making him pay more attention to his walking stick than to her. "I mean it," she said. "Leave!"

In a single, fluid motion, Houston dropped the tumbler and reached for his gun.

Startled by his sudden move, Michael shoved him back with the stick. She was unaware of the stiletto until she saw blood blossoming on his chest.

Houston looked down at himself and then at Michael. She was stepping back from the chair, the cane trembling in her hands, her features set with shock. Blood was spilling through his fingers and across his white cuffs. His face was ashen, the wound mortal, but there was a shadow of a smile at his mouth. "You always surprise me, Michael," he whispered. "I think you would have been very good for me."

Epilogue

She was the only sort of woman he noticed.

In a room full of women Ethan Stone's shaded glance slipped over the brunettes and the blondes and settled on one head of magnificently burnished mahogany hair. She was sitting on the dais, facing the gathering. Her head was bent over her work as she took notes of the meeting, scribbling as fast as the evening's lecturer spoke on the issue of women's rights in the city, in the marketplace, and at the ballot box. Ethan only listened with half an ear, knowing he would disappoint Michael when she asked him later what he thought, but quite unable to keep his mind on anything but the look of her.