Читать книгу The Unlikely Groom - Wendy Douglas - Страница 12

S he hadn’t listened to him.

Lucas stalked down the boardwalk that fronted Broadway, ignoring the whispers and sidelong glances. He had neither the patience nor the time for polite chitchat and he wanted everyone to know it. He’d been careful to build his reputation as a man who kept his distance from others, but today that didn’t seem to matter to anyone besides himself.

He’d broken his own rule last night, and that, it seemed, had changed everything. At least as far as his fellow Alaskans were concerned. He’d taken Ashlynne back to the Star after the shooting—rescued her, people were saying. Now they wanted to know why…and what else might have happened after that.

He wasn’t telling anyone a damn thing.

Frowning, he added a steely glare of disapproval to keep the curiosity seekers and gossipmongers from approaching him. There wasn’t anything to tell, except that Ashlynne Mackenzie didn’t drink spirits…and she didn’t listen to advice any better than she held her liquor.

The damn woman had ignored everything he’d said. She hadn’t even pretended to listen. She’d simply settled her cloak around her shoulders, turned her back on him and walked out of the Star without a backward glance.

He hadn’t wondered where she was going. He’d known. She was on her way to see Taylor, no matter what Lucas had said…and he’d meant to let her go. She needed to learn the truth about Soapy Smith’s hold over Skagway. If she had to do it the hard way, then that was a choice she made on her own. Lucas had given her the chance to do things the easy way, and she hadn’t believed him.

He refused to follow her in this folly.

He’d had second thoughts almost immediately—and he’d squashed them down just as quickly. He’d gone about his morning routine, changed his shirt and splashed cold water over his face. Surely that would clear the cobwebs from his cluttered mind.

It had done precisely that…though not in the way he’d meant it to. Thirty minutes later he’d headed out after her—and the second thoughts had returned twofold. This time for far different reasons.

He hadn’t listened to any of them.

Second thoughts weakened a man, crippled him…even killed him. They’d done their best to kill the old Lucas Templeton. In his place, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, another man had come to life. A man who followed his instincts.

Even when he knew he was making probably the biggest mistake of his life?

The biggest mistake of this life, he clarified for himself. He’d made far bigger mistakes in his former life, but they didn’t count for anything anymore. He couldn’t let them.

The life he’d made in Alaska was the only life that counted for anything.

Blinking, Lucas walked away from his maudlin thoughts by stepping down to the icy, half frozen and half muddy, rutted street. He crossed at the intersection and then stepped up onto another section of boardwalk. The walks weren’t particularly well built, but they kept a man’s feet free from the muck and mud and manure created by the steady stream of horses and wagons that churned up the roads, even in the middle of winter.

No matter how far he went, he couldn’t escape himself. And no matter how hard he worked to force it away, there was one question that refused to leave him in peace: why had he listened to the part of him that insisted on going after Ashlynne after she’d walked out?

But he knew. It was that damned sense of decency that he’d thought he’d left behind him eons ago. It had reared its ugly head last night and gotten him into this mess to begin with. Couldn’t a good night’s sleep—or at least a few hours of dozing in a chair—have cleared up that bit of nonsense once and for all?

Apparently not. Lucas couldn’t seem to forget that Ian’s murder changed everything for Ashlynne. She might not understand—or want to acknowledge—the significance of her altered circumstances, but that didn’t change the truth of it any. Her brother’s death put everything at stake for her and in an entirely different way.

If she had grasped that one unchangeable fact, she wouldn’t have marched off to find Deputy Taylor.

Lucas shook his head. Ashlynne had no idea what kind of trouble she would be inviting if she asked the deputy to find Ian’s killer. Justice, vengeance—her reasons didn’t matter. Taylor wouldn’t hear of it, Soapy wouldn’t stand for it…and Lucas couldn’t seem to force himself to let her fend for herself against the others.

The marshal’s office wasn’t far now, but Lucas found he had to look to find it. New structures seemed to spring up in town every day. Some were constructed of lumber, while others were nothing more than canvas tents. Still others were a combination of both. Skagway boasted hotels, restaurants, outfitters, a hardware store and a druggist. There was even a hospital and Reverend Dickey’s Union Church, built last fall.

The sound of voices, one raised in anger, echoed from up ahead of him and a moment later Ashlynne backed out onto the boardwalk. “The proper authorities will hear of my treatment here today, sir. You can be certain of it.” She slammed the door shut behind her.

So he’d been right, Lucas thought as he approached her from behind. Surprisingly, perhaps, he didn’t notice any particular satisfaction within himself at the knowledge.

“You found Deputy Taylor,” he murmured carefully.

Ashlynne went still. Tiny hairs rose on the back of her neck, revealed by the loose upsweep of her hair. Even beneath the protection of her cloak, he could see the way in which she stiffened her shoulders and straightened her spine. Second after second ticked by, until slowly, finally, she turned to face him.

She nodded, though her controlled expression revealed nothing. “Yes, I found him.”

“And?”

She blinked, a slow, calculated movement that recalled nothing of the earlier confused owlishness of a woman who wasn’t quite centered. “And you were right, of course.” She made the admission with some defiance. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

He ignored the question. “What did he say?”

“What did you expect he’d say?”

“Tell me,” he insisted.

“He refused to investigate Ian’s death. No one witnessed the shooting itself, according to the deputy, which means that I have nothing but gossip and innuendo to support my claim.”

She shook her head and uttered a brittle laugh that held more pain than amusement. Lucas did his best to ignore both.

“That isn’t all,” she added before he found an appropriate reply. “The deputy is…unhappy that Soapy Smith is so often blamed when things happen in Skagway. He warned me against speaking publicly about Ian’s death. Soapy is an up-standing, law-abiding citizen—” her emphasis on the words seemed to indicate that she quoted Taylor directly “—and he’s been unfairly targeted by jealous, careless stampeders.”

The lawman’s claims sounded no more convincing to Lucas than they had to Ashlynne—but that could have been Lucas’s own fault. He could have easily prejudiced her against Soapy before she’d ever set foot in Taylor’s office. Still, Lucas hadn’t anticipated the deputy’s threat—and he had no illusions about the way in which Taylor had meant his words. And yet, having heard them now, he couldn’t say that he found himself particularly surprised, either.

But what did that mean for Ashlynne?

“I tried to warn you,” he said, feeling no particular satisfaction in reminding her of the fact.

“So you did.” She raised her eyes to meet his. The amber color had darkened to a bruised ebony that couldn’t disguise either her pain or her confusion. “But I just don’t understand, Lucas. Why wouldn’t a man of the law want justice? Didn’t he take an oath to uphold the law?”

The sound of his name on her lips—his given name and not that formal, disapproving Mr. Templeton—took hold of something within Lucas that made his blood run cold. His nerves awakened as though he’d just received an electrical shock, and his body tightened with an overwhelming physical awareness for Ashlynne.

And for the man he had become.

Forget it—and the way you feel. He uttered the chastisement harshly, only just managing to keep it to himself. And forget the oath that you took at one time in your life.

“An oath doesn’t mean a damn thing if you don’t believe in it,” he said ruthlessly.

“You think Deputy Taylor doesn’t believe in the law?”

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t give a damn. What I do know is that he believes in Soapy Smith and himself more than anything else.”

“But how can he ignore the truth?”

“You can be sure that Soapy didn’t pull the trigger himself, Ashlynne.” Neither of them could afford to forget that truth. “He’s very careful about things like that.”

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t the man who’s responsible,” she insisted stubbornly. “You know it as well as I do. You told me so.”

“I—” Lucas cut off his reply when a man stepped out onto the boardwalk from a nearby saloon, one of Lucas’s competitors. He didn’t know the man by name, but he recognized the face.

One of Soapy’s men…and Lucas and Ashlynne remained standing outside the deputy marshal’s office. Worse, if anyone cared to overhear, they were talking about the very things that Taylor had commanded her to keep private.

“Come on.” Lucas grabbed her arm and tugged it through his, keeping hold of her forearm as he pulled her down the boardwalk. He steered them back the way he’d come—and away from Soapy’s man.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“Wait!” Ashlynne tried to resist, but Lucas would have no part of it and hurried her along.

“Tell me where you’re staying. When you’re not sleeping in my bed, of course.” He added the last deliberately, meaning it to upset her enough that she’d quit fighting him and follow his lead with a bit more cooperation.

His words had the opposite effect. She stopped more suddenly than he could have imagined and dug in her heels, refusing to move another inch.

Dammit! You should have expected it, he told himself with no small irritation. Ashlynne had done nothing the way in which he’d anticipated that she would.

“Why?” She jerked her arm from his.

“Ashlynne, come along.” He shot her a glare as hard as stone and said in a voice that was no softer, “You don’t want to openly defy Deputy Taylor. Not now, when he just warned you away.”

“How do you know what I want to do?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared back at him.

He would have had an excellent view of her figure if she hadn’t been wearing that ridiculously bulky cloak, now cinched at the waist by her hands. As it was, he found it far too easy to recall exactly the curve of her hips, her waist, her breasts. Until he looked into her eyes.

She was doing her best to appear angry and purposeful—and she probably even felt that way. At least in part. But a flicker of uneasiness—even fear—lurked in the depths of her gaze. That, and a certain weariness, as well. And if she looked a bit worse for the wear today, well, he could hardly blame her.

She hadn’t scraped her hair back with the same painful neatness as she’d worn it the night before; rather, she’d secured it in something of a loose bun. The softer look appealed to Lucas on a very basic, masculine level and his blood warmed despite the chill of the afternoon.

Stop noticing her as a woman! he snapped to himself.

Aloud, it took little effort to roughen the tone of his voice enough to get her attention. “You don’t strike me as a stupid woman, Ashlynne. We both know what you should want to do—and that is not to act on a rash impulse. You tried that once already today. You might want to think carefully about just what you want to do next.”

She stared at him with some apparent curiosity, as though she actually considered his words. A part of him breathed a sigh of relief at the unexpected cooperation, but the truth was he doubted that he’d done all that much to encourage it. It seemed unlikely that any woman in her position would forget a confrontation with a man like Taylor all that easily. After that, Ashlynne could hardly deny that Lucas only spoke the truth now.

She blinked and turned in the direction they’d been heading. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m staying at the Clifford House.” They walked in silence until she asked, “Why didn’t you take me there last night?”

Lucas shrugged, wishing not for the first time that it had been possible. “I told you, I didn’t know what else to do with you. I didn’t know where you were staying and you couldn’t seem to tell me.”

Her breath caught with a sharp hiss and she slanted him a glare of clear frustration. “I told you I don’t drink spirits.”

“Last night wasn’t a typical situation. The little bit of whiskey you had won’t ruin you.”

“It wasn’t a good thing for me, either.”

Lucas disagreed, but the finality of her tone told him there was no point in arguing with her. Frankly he didn’t care enough to quarrel with her over it. He owned and operated a saloon; she disapproved—highly—of such places.

What did it matter if they disagreed? Now that she’d seen the truth of what to expect from Taylor and his brand of law enforcement, she would be on her way back Outside on the next available ship. Lucas would remain here, where he belonged, and they would both be the better for it.