Читать книгу The Cowboy from Christmas Past - Tina Leonard - Страница 10

Dillinger watched the woman walk out the door to go fix her automobile—or so she said. He wasn’t sure what the petite fireball was up to—maybe she thought she could make him think he was insane with that weird conversation about him flying around—but a woman like that begged for caution. Her quick, soft conversation with the man who’d come to the door worried him, and he hadn’t missed the gleam in her eyes when she glanced at Rose. If there was ever a lady looking for a baby, Auburn was it. It showed in her concern, and her careful handling and her distrust of him. He wouldn’t trust him, either, baby or not—but he could feel her longing for the infant like a man longed for peace and quiet. And she was on the run, another reason he didn’t trust her. Everybody had something to hide—he did, too—but a woman who was used to running might just decide to run with his precious bundle.

He’d looked into the eyes of thieves many a time. They carried a hungry, focused, almost desperate aura, all the while trying to fool you with their calm. He was in a strange place, with things he didn’t recognize all around him. All he knew was that he had to protect the one thing he had with him, which seemed to have brought him here, if he ever hoped to get back home again, home to his ranch and to the memories of Polly. Carefully, he wrapped up Rose’s things in a sack he found in Auburn’s kitchen, snuggled the baby in his arms and slipped out the door.

“Hey!”

He heard Auburn’s sweet-toned voice, tinged with some anxiety. She was at the elevator, not gone long enough to get to her car.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Leaving,” he said, deciding one of them had to be honest. “We’re in your way.”

“Not more than anything else,” Auburn said. “Please don’t go.”

That shocked him. He’d expected a protest from her, but not a gentle request. “We need to.”

“You don’t even know where you’re going, do you?”

He didn’t. Why admit it? “Rose and I will do fine.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, and he hardened his heart.

“You don’t really need to. We only just met you. You’re not our problem. I mean, we’re not your problem.”

She cocked her head. “You’re not a problem, really. Something’s wrong.”

The confusion in her pretty eyes was very alluring. When she wasn’t dolled up, and when she showed her soft side like this, she was quite fetching. She might not have Polly’s innocent beauty, but was enticing nonetheless. Dillinger didn’t let himself recognize the sudden stab of unwelcome attraction he felt for the woman.

“It’s better this way.” He wanted to walk past her to the elevator, to get away before Rose awakened and needed another bottle, but part of him seemed stuck to the floor.

“Hey,” Auburn said, her voice soft, “I really need you.”

His brows raised of their own accord. “Why?”

She seemed to choose her words carefully. “Protection.”

She’d already had one man visit her abode, the so-called security guard. She’d run with Dillinger from a boss named Harry. The kind of protection she needed didn’t seem to require further description. “I—No. I’m not for hire.”

She stepped closer. He could smell her fresh-washed scent, look into her pleading eyes. Automatically, he shut off the part of him that wanted to ask what protection she could possibly need.

“I need help,” she said, “and a hired gun is just what I need.”

He narrowed his gaze. “You didn’t believe me earlier when I told you who I was.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe about you.”

“The sentiment is mutual.”

“I think for Rose’s sake we should travel together.”

He shook his head. “Lady, I know you want my baby, but you’ll never get her from me.”

“I don’t want to steal Rose.”

“You want something. I can feel it.”

She slowly nodded. “Yes. I do. I want you to travel with me to the next place, and be my cover.”

“I don’t even know how I got here. I don’t want to travel again, whatever that means.” Maybe she’d done it. Maybe it was her—the woman—who had pulled him forward through time, and not the baby. He desperately hoped it wasn’t Auburn who had somehow worked a magic spell to draw him to her. He could be stuck with her!

“We’ll just head west,” she said soothingly.

He’d heard that one before. Everyone always wanted to go west, for gold, for open land, for a new start.

“What are you running from?”

“An ex-fiancé. A wealthy ex-fiancé, whom I discovered has a shady past. I’m a little afraid that he’ll find me.” She took a breath. “And I’m not ready for that.”

He held Rose’s carrier tightly in one hand, her sack of belongings in the other. Had Auburn brought him here because she wanted protection from a man? Needed a husband? All he knew was that he didn’t trust this woman and her big eyes at all. “Because?”

“He’ll be embarrassed that I stood him up. And it’s worse because my family owes their livelihood to him. I’ve always enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, but I thought my parents earned their wealth on their own. The week before the wedding, I learned that they had done deals over time with my fiancé. I began to feel uncomfortably like the fatted calf. Which sounds horrible because my family loves me. But I wanted to make it on my own in the world, not belong to someone. Does that sound crazy?”

He didn’t know. Women made agreements to marry for a dozen reasons, most of them complicated, some ridiculous, but they seemed to make sense to the female mind. It was a complex issue. Polly had married him, she always said, because she couldn’t love a man who couldn’t manage her high spirits and her energy. But he hadn’t managed Polly; she’d managed him. He’d enjoyed the light of her spirit, letting it flow over him. She could have married a lot better than a gunslinger, even though he’d changed everything about himself to win Polly. Her family had never forgiven him his past, though they loved her dearly. Shame had been written all over their faces anytime they saw him. They couldn’t believe he had won their daughter’s heart.

He couldn’t believe he had, either.

But right now, this woman was standing in his way. She claimed to need him, and truthfully, he could use her, too, but only if she wasn’t planning to make off with his baby. She struck him as the type who didn’t make easy attachments, though he wasn’t sure why he felt that way. It was just a feeling he had, and he always went with his hunches. “Listen, I like traveling alone.”

She perked up. “So do I! It’s really more economical, isn’t it? You don’t have to share anything, you can go where you want to….” Her face fell. “On the other hand, it can be lonely.”

“I’m never lonely,” he fibbed. He’d been lonely on the ranch after Polly died, desperately so.

“Well, you’re brave.” She shrugged. “You and Rose can take the backseat, if you must feel alone. I’ll be in the front, and we can ignore each other.”

He didn’t think he could totally ignore her, any more than he could ignore a wasp stinging his buttocks. “How far west are you going?”

“I was thinking New Mexico,” she said, her tone breezy. “But you can choose, if you like.”

“I don’t really care,” he said with a growl, stopping himself from saying, but if you try to take my baby, I’ll find you. “One condition,” he said.

“What?”

He took a long, hard look at her, trying to see inside her soul. He had pretty good success with reading people; if you didn’t have that sixth sense, you could wind up dead. “No more mothering this baby.”

She drew herself up, clearly hurt. “Fine, cowboy. You can take care of that child all by your little old self.”

“Good.”

“Fine.” She swept past him on the stairwell. “Let me grab my things. I don’t have much, and I’m paid up through the month here.”

Now was his moment to take off, get away from her and her spell. But she piqued his curiosity in the worst way. What if she was somehow instrumental to his existence in this century? He had to find the key to getting himself sent back. “How do you pay by the month at a place like this?”

“By understanding the travel industry. Anyway, you let me handle the arrangements, cowboy. You mind the angel.”

Fine. He didn’t really want to know any more about her than he had to, anyway.

Only her traveling secret, and she’d just now given herself away. Auburn understood the travel industry, both in this dimension and some others.

He felt pretty smart at figuring her out so easily.

MEN COULD BE IDIOTS. Auburn tried not to swear under her breath as she tossed her Louis Vuitton luggage into the trunk of her car, annoyed that Dillinger had tried to leave her high and dry. Steal his baby? Hah! She wasn’t completely certain that was Dillinger’s child, but he’d turned bearlike, protective of his cub.

She wouldn’t touch his silly old baby, if he was going to be such an ass about it. “Get in the back,” she told him crossly, “and strap that carrier in correctly, please.”

She sounded bossy and she knew it, but he complied, fumbling a bit with the straps before correctly tightening the baby backward in the seat. Auburn smiled a little at Rose, stiffening when she caught Dillinger looking at her. “You’re getting better at that,” she said airily.

“Like you’re an expert at it, yourself.”

Turning on the car engine, she said, “I was trying to give you a compliment. Obviously, you’re the kind of man whose ego won’t let you accept one gracefully.”

“Probably.” The rearview mirror showed him gazing with interest at the buildings downtown as they passed, not paying a whole lot of attention to her as she drove from the city. Auburn picked the highway marked West and pressed the pedal as hard as the speed limit would allow.

THIS WAS LIKE A magic carpet ride, or a train that could go full-speed across the country. Dillinger was fascinated by the way Auburn flew past the cars and signs on the highway. It was amazing! There were things overhead she called airplanes—he didn’t let on that he had barely heard of flying machines—and so much to see that his head was whirling. She was the reason he was here, he was positive.

He had to convince her to send him and Rose back. They were not suited for living like this. First, he had to return Rose to her rightful mother, even if it meant helping them financially. He felt certain no mother would abandon a baby on his porch unless the woman was destitute.

The only thing he couldn’t understand was why the mother had chosen his porch. He was miles from town. He had a bad reputation. He didn’t darken the doorway of a church. And this was no frontier baby. Her clothes were store-bought. Her socks were knit of the finest lace and cotton, not rough country socks made for warmth and work, like his. Rose should be placed with a family of wealth, not stay with him, if he couldn’t manage to find her birth mother. He knew it was imperative that he get the baby home as fast as possible.

What if he could talk Auburn into taking him and Rose back home to the ranch, and going with them? She said she needed to hide away. She’d be safe at his ranch. No one would ever find her there.

But did he want the opinionated woman in his home, where Polly had brought him such warmth and contentment?

For Rose’s sake, he could do it.

He’d opened his mouth to broach the question, when suddenly he felt himself being jerked against the seat belt.

PIERRE TOSSED THE EARRING across the room. He’d fallen asleep in a chair in Dillinger’s den, and had awakened annoyed that the man hadn’t yet returned. The snow outside was piling up, making a mess of the dirt road. If he wasn’t careful, he’d get snowed in and trapped here for God only knew how long. Anger built inside him. He felt outsmarted by the gunslinger, and he hated it. Maybe the man had planned to be gone for weeks, months.

Pierre felt bad for throwing his sister’s earring. He picked up the delicate bauble again, giving it one last shake. His heart heavy, he vowed to return next week, when Dillinger might be home and the snow and ice not threatening to encase the house in a chilly tomb. Why the man chose to live out here when he could have lived in town was puzzling, but he’d had Polly all to himself this way. A beautiful flower like his sister hadn’t deserved to wilt out here in the uncivilized wilderness.

Pierre put the earring back on the writing desk, staring at it for a long time, tempted to take the trinket with him. Maybe the charcoal drawing of his sister would ease the ache in his heart more. But no, it didn’t truly capture the fire Polly had possessed.

He left everything just as it had been, so the gunslinger would never suspect someone had been waiting here, planning to kill him.