Tired and bleary-eyed, Dale ate breakfast in the hotel dining room. Sitting alone at a corner table, he fished a pencil stub from his pocket, tore a piece of paper from an old copy of the Arizona Weekly Citizen, and jotted down a list of questions:
1. Who was the man who caused a commotion when Revery was shot?
2. When did that man come into town and where was he now?
3. Had anyone seen Rowena McKenzie talking with Revery?
4. Who owned the wagon Revery crashed into the gully?
5. Who owned the wagon horse that ended the same way?
6. Had Rowena McKenzie lost any money in the swindle?
7. Who else had lost money and how much?
Not wasting any time, Dale tossed down his napkin, finished his coffee and set off to conduct his interviews. Outside, the street was quiet. Clouds had gathered in the sky again, and yesterday’s drizzle was turning into a few flakes of snow, the final gasp of winter. Good, Dale thought. The bad weather would keep people indoors and the storekeepers would have more time to talk.
He started with the barbershop. The small, dapper man with an oiled mustache gave him an assessing glance. “A haircut, sir?”
Dale nodded, took down his hat and settled in the reclining leather chair. Might as well use the time productively while he went about his business.
By early afternoon, he’d had his boots polished, his coat pressed, the fraying cartridge loops on his gun belt restored. He’d tasted three different kinds of angel cake, sipped whiskey and beer and tea and coffee. He’d listened to voices that ranged from shrilly female to the croak of an adolescent boy to the raspy cough of a man who smoked too much.
Everyone had good things to say about Rowena McKenzie. Pinares had been founded by Quakers, and although no one used thou or thee anymore, the abhorrence of violence that went with the religion was deeply ingrained in the community. In some other town, Rowena McKenzie might not even have been arrested for what she had done, but instead the citizens might have taken up a collection to reward her for so efficiently dispatching the conman who had taken advantage of their trust.
Dale’s best source of information was Alice Meek, the sturdy proprietor of the café where Rowena McKenzie worked. Needing little prompting, the woman talked in a breezy monologue while she chopped meat and vegetables for a stew, the only item on the lunch menu chalked to the blackboard by the entrance.
“The man that caused the commotion were a feller by the name of Robert Smith. New to town, he was. A small man, quiet and well spoken. A good customer at lunchtime. The first one to lay his money down for this mining claim. Kept telling everyone what a good investment it was. Went right off his head, poor soul. Don’t know what became of him. Rode off that very night. I reckon he took to hiding, too afraid to let his wife know he’d lost the money he was meant to use to bring his family out here. He were from Pennsylvania.”
“Did Miss Rowena get taken in by the swindlers, too?”
Carrot slices tumbled into the cauldron. “Miss Rowena? Invest? Poor lamb, she ain’t got a penny to spare. I’d like to pay her more but times are tough.” Mrs. Meek shook her head. “She’d been ill with a fever, Miss Rowena, but when she got to her feet again she went round warning people against parting with their money. Nobody listened to her, though, even though she has more book learning than any of them, of course excepting Mr. Carpenter—that’s the lawyer—and Reverend Poole.”
“Did you ever see her engage in private conversation with Revery?”
Mrs. Meek slammed the meat cleaver over a chunk of beef, mouth pursed, mental struggle evident on her rounded features. “Might as well tell you. Things usually come out anyway. Minna Tellerman—that’s the hotel owner’s wife—seen her come out of Revery’s room one night. Now, if it were any other woman, I’d think she been doing a bit of trade, if you take my meaning. But not Miss Rowena. She’s a lady, a real lady. Not a lady of the night.”
At his next stop, the livery stable, Dale discovered the wagon used in the escape had been rented but the horse, a big chestnut thoroughbred, had belonged to Revery, and he had ridden the animal into town. It was uncommon to have a horse trained for both harness and saddle, a detail which added to Dale’s suspicions.
A telegram to the Claims Recorder in the Warren Mining District received the surprising reply that the mining claim the swindlers had been peddling did in fact exist and had been legally filed, but the land had been sampled and was deemed worthless. However, the presence of the nearby Copper Queen mine in Bisbee, valued at nearly two million dollars, allowed even plain gravel to be marketed as if it were solid copper.
Dale returned to his room, compiled a list of the victims and the amounts they had lost. No one had been swindled out of more than one hundred dollars, a relatively modest amount in such an affluent town, and the majority of the victims had lost fifty or twenty-five dollars. It seemed the fraudsters were skilled in estimating what people could afford, and only allowed them to invest accordingly, using the excuse that they had a limited number of shares in the claim available and needed to give everyone an opportunity to profit.
When the list of investors was complete, Dale added up the total. Altogether, Revery and his accomplice, Robert Smith, had taken just over three thousand dollars.
Of course, Revery and Smith were unlikely to be their real names. Frowning, Dale searched his memory. He could recall reading about a similar case in Colorado a year earlier. On that occasion, the perpetrators had called themselves Edmond Rawlins and Billy Jones. One name with matching initials, the other so common it wouldn’t trigger any alarm bells. Everything tied together neatly. The only thing Dale couldn’t figure out was how Rowena McKenzie fitted into the setup. He got to his feet, glimpsed at his new haircut in the mirror and pulled on his freshly pressed coat. Time to find out.
It was not lonely in the jail. Women came to visit, delivering clean clothes and gossip. As long as the other two cells remained unoccupied, the nights were calm. The meals were adequate and the sheriff provided hot water to wash and the privacy to benefit from it.
If it hadn’t been for the worry about Claude and Eugene, and the guilt over having betrayed the people in Pinares that constantly chafed at her, like a pair of ill-fitting shoes, Rowena might have regarded her incarceration as a holiday. She harbored no fears about her own fate, for she took it for granted that the judge would believe her when the time came to reveal the truth. But today she felt restless. When her ears picked out a slightly uneven cadence of footsteps in the corridor, her heartbeat quickened.
She bounced up from the cot. Turning her back to hide her efforts, she fluffed up the wispy curls at her temples and adjusted the collar of her sage-green wool dress, a worn but good quality garment which Permelia Jenkins, the tailor’s daughter, had only just that morning returned after cleaning and pressing it with an expert touch.
Today the sheriff must have dispensed with his guardian duty, for the marshal with a crescent-shaped scar on his cheek walked up to the cell unaccompanied. A jolt went through Rowena at the sight of him. He’d had a haircut. And he’d tidied up his clothing. Although the difference was subtle, it emphasized the combination of violence and elegance that would surely have sent all her old school friends into a swoon.
The marshal unlocked the iron grille with one hand, while dangling a sturdy captain’s chair from the other. Not making a sound—not even a muffled clunk, as if to compensate for his angry outburst the day before—he lowered the chair to the floor, settled onto the wooden seat and fired a question at her.
“How do you know the men called Elroy Revery and Robert Smith?”
Rowena controlled a flinch. So, the marshal had already figured out the connection between her and the fraudsters. She sank to sit on the cot. “I have nothing to say.”
“What are their real names?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Why did you help them escape?”
She clamped her lips together. I have nothing to say no longer seemed an adequate response, so she chose to meet a question with a question.
“How did you get your scar?”
“Do they have some kind of hold on you?”
“How did you become a federal marshal?”
That last question hit its mark. She could tell from the slight narrowing of those cool green eyes that watched her every move. “I have a deal for you,” Marshal Hunter said. “I shall answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”
Rowena mulled it over. In the back of her mind, she could hear her father’s voice, raspy from a lifetime of herding cattle in the harsh Wyoming climate. “Make a deal with the devil and you might end up in hell.” He’d quoted those words about using violence to defend the ranch, and the memory of his reluctance had made her doubt the word of Reese, the gunman who claimed her father had employed him.
But now, as Rowena met the sharp scrutiny of Marshal Hunter, an odd tingle of anticipation and daring skittered along her skin. Such a bargain could be used to provide misdirection, confuse the marshal’s train of thought. And, in truth, she wanted to learn more about him. What harm could there be, if she posed her questions wisely and gave her replies with caution.
“Can I choose which questions to answer?”
Marshal Hunter nodded his assent.
“How did you get your scar?”
“I was left for dead and a coyote tried to have me for his supper.” He paused and gave her a speculative look. “How did you end up in Pinares?”
Rowena suppressed a smile. So, he had accepted she wouldn’t talk about the shooting. He would lead her round and round the topic, attempting to trip her up. Sitting straighter on the cot, she curled her hands around the rough timber edge and sharpened her concentration. “I came here soon after I left school. How did you become a federal marshal?”
“I had nothing better to do. Where did you go to school?”
“Boston. Where did you grow up?”
“Louisiana. Are you running away from something?”
“I...” She was wearing thick socks and no shoes, and she lifted her heels, balancing the balls of her feet against the cold cement floor, the nervous movement hidden by the folds of her green wool skirt. “I was running away...when I came here...” Rowena lowered her lashes, but she could not resist glancing up again. She studied the crescent-shaped scar on the marshal’s face—a scar that bore the fang marks of a coyote. “And you...when you became a United States Marshal...were you running away from something?”
To her surprise, Marshal Hunter broke into a smile. It transformed his face, making him look young and carefree. The green eyes sparkled with humor. “I was running away from something,” he admitted. “And that something was an overbearing, determined mother who had her own ideas about how I should live.” The smile lingered. “My turn. Who were you running away from?”
She hesitated, then spoke quietly. “Myself.”
“Never an easy thing to do,” the marshal replied with a note of empathy in his tone.
Rowena nodded. “My turn.”
She intended to fire out another question, but her mind went blank. She had asked about his home, about his choice of career. What about his family? Before her brain caught up with the implications of the question, she blurted out, “Are you married?”
Slowly, the marshal’s expression sharpened and those green eyes fastened on her, so bold and direct Rowena believed they could see to the very core of her. But when the marshal replied, his voice was bland, perhaps a little impatient. “Why do you want to know?”
Up to now, she’d been enjoying the sparring. It had been like bantering with her suitors in Boston—not that she’d had many, for unlike some of her school friends she possessed neither great wealth nor important family connections—but what she felt now was not the girlish, superficial fluster of those occasions. What she felt now was deep and dark and laced with undertones of danger.
She inhaled a fortifying breath and refused to contemplate why the question about the marshal’s marital status might be of interest to her. “No particular reason,” she replied with a casual air. “I was just making conversation. And that was your question. My turn.”
She racked her brain, but her concentration was in tatters. She couldn’t think of anything that would allow an emotional retreat, could come up with no casual question that would draw them back from the dangerous waters of exchanging intimacies, of confessing hidden thoughts.
“Will you come back tomorrow?” she asked finally.
“Yes.” Like a gentleman who has been given a hint that his allotted visiting time had come to an end, the marshal rose to his feet. “Good night, Miss McKenzie.”
He retreated with those strangely deliberate footsteps she’d noticed before, not because of any visible quality in how he walked, but because her musician’s ear had picked out the distinctive cadence of his boot heels against the cement floor.
As the marshal turned around to slide the iron bars back in place, Rowena couldn’t stop herself from staring at him. One by one, she registered every part of his appearance—the coal-black hair, freshly cut, the gaunt face with high cheekbones, the green eyes framed with dark lashes, the hard slash of a mouth, the lean yet powerful body. Marshal Hunter stood still, aware of her scrutiny. For a while, it appeared to Rowena that time had stopped turning.
After what seemed like an eternity, the marshal dipped his head in a curt nod of farewell and vanished out of sight, leaving her alone with an avalanche of confused thoughts that ran the gamut from past failings into future possibilities.
Dale finished his morning shave and studied his reflection in the gilt-framed mirror hanging above the cracked porcelain washbasin in his hotel room. What had Rowena McKenzie seen when she’d stared at him with such intensity? Had she been repelled by his scar?
Are you married? Are you married? Are you married?
The question seemed to whisper at him from every corner of the shabby, well-worn hotel room. Dale shook his head, as if to dislodge the soft feminine voice that appeared to be stuck inside his mind. The attempt proved as futile as swatting at a fly with a piece of string.
He’d never considered that marriage might be an option for him. And yet, he could not stop his thoughts from reeling back to Roy Hagan, a friend he used to ride with in his outlaw years. Born with different colored eyes, Roy had been an outcast all his life. He’d been an outlaw when he met Celia, a bank clerk’s daughter, and escorted her on a trail through the Arizona Territory. They had fallen in love, and despite Roy’s lawless background, Celia had accepted him. She’d given herself to him, had fought to have a future with him. Their love had seemed so perfect, so complete, even with death looming over them, for at that time Roy had not yet broken free from the Red Bluff Gang, or been granted a presidential pardon. But Celia had loved him anyway, had been prepared to risk her life and sacrifice her reputation to be with him.
Could it happen to him? Could a woman love him like that?
Dale scowled at his image in the mirror. Of course it couldn’t happen to him. Rowena McKenzie had stared at him because she’d been repelled by his scar. He had done his duty. He had uncovered the facts, at least enough to piece together a clear picture of the situation.
Number one: he knew that Robert Smith and Elroy Revery were professional fraudsters who had perpetrated the same scam on many occasions. On at least one such occasion Revery—or whatever was his real name—had been shot and carted away by a bolting horse. As Revery had since reappeared, it was evident that he had not died, and the same was likely to apply on this occasion. The lack of a body supported that assumption, although this time Revery had been forced to sacrifice his horse.
Number two: Rowena McKenzie was an honorable person—Dale trusted his lawman’s instinct on that—and she had lived in Pinares for two years, during which time Revery and Smith had been operating elsewhere. During those two years Miss McKenzie had not sent or received any letters or telegrams. She could not have been in contact with the fraudsters. It must be a coincidence that they had come to Pinares.
Number three: Rowena McKenzie had done her best to stop people from investing in the worthless mining shares, and hence it appeared that she was not part of the fraud. However, she had secretly visited Revery in his hotel room, which was evidence of a bond between them. The bond did not seem sinister, with the conmen having some kind of a hold over her, for Miss McKenzie seemed confident that once she revealed the truth about the shooting her troubles would be over. Further, she did not appear to have any dark secrets that could be used to blackmail her.
Number four: Rowena McKenzie had grabbed Kurt Lonergan’s pistol from the holster and fired the shot that allowed Revery to escape. She had done this after Smith, masquerading as one of the disgruntled investors, fell over in the crowd and was unable to use his gun. Clearly, she had facilitated the escape of the conmen, but it appeared to have been an impulse, dictated by the occasion. Had it been premeditated she would have arranged to be carrying a gun.
Number five: Rowena McKenzie was refusing to defend herself against a murder charge. She was waiting for a telegram that would allow her to reveal the truth. The telegram must be to let her know that Revery and Smith were safely out of the territory, and any other territory or state where there might be a warrant out on them.
This information, part fact, part speculation, ought to be enough to convince any judge that Rowena McKenzie should not hang, but should instead remain in custody until she was prepared to talk. He could relay his findings to Sheriff Macklin and be on his way to California. He ought to hurry, sign the agreement to buy his ranch before anyone else discovered the place and pushed the price beyond his reach by offering more.
Are you married? Are you married?
Ignoring the voice that whispered inside his head, Dale pulled his suit coat on. His task was not completed. He understood the chain of events, could be almost certain that Rowena McKenzie had not committed murder. However, she had aided and abetted fraudsters, and he couldn’t consider his job finished until he had discovered what had caused her to do that. It would then be up to the judge to decide if Miss McKenzie was guilty of participating in a fraud, or had merely acted unwisely out of misplaced loyalties.
Outside, the sky was laden, the ground white with a layer of frost. Steeling himself against the icy wind, Dale hurried down the street to the small brick building that housed the jail and the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Macklin sat at his desk, feet propped on top, a steaming mug of coffee balanced between his hands. “Go right in,” he told Dale. “She’s between visitors. The cell door is unlocked.”
Dale walked down the corridor, keeping his footsteps quiet. He found Rowena McKenzie in her jail cell, squatting on all fours beneath the window, peering at something on the floor. Like yesterday, she was dressed in a green gown, with a shapeless man’s sweater worn on top to provide an extra layer of warmth.
“Miss McKenzie.”
Even though she ignored his greeting, her body seemed to stiffen. Then she sighed, loud enough for the sound to carry out to him, and hard enough for her shoulders to slump. She scampered up to her feet and turned to him, a frown of dismay on her face.
“I almost had him,” she complained. “Or her. I don’t know which.”
He stepped into the cell. “Had what?”
“Mousie.” Her expression softened. “He—or she—is a tiny mouse. A field mouse, I think. I’ve been feeding him with bread crumbs. He’s been letting me get very close. I was hoping that today he would let me pick him up, but you scared him away.”
“I have that effect on small children and mice.”
Miss McKenzie glanced at him, but either she missed the reference to his damaged looks or chose to pay no attention. Once again, Dale speculated about her past. She must have been brought up wealthy. However, he could sense no bitterness in her, no resentment over her loss of status in life. To the contrary, she seemed to possess the ability to find joy in little things, even having a rodent for a pet.
“Try it,” she urged him now, gesturing toward the floor beneath the window. “Mousie knows she didn’t get all the bread crumbs. She’ll be back.”
Dale edged closer and dropped to his haunches where he could see a scattering of bread crumbs. He wondered if Miss McKenzie realized she had just made her little mouse into a female, presumably for his benefit. He kept still, his attention on the floor. Silence settled over the jail cell. Just as well, Dale thought, for he seemed at a loss for words.
Seconds ticked by, turned into minutes. Rowena McKenzie crouched beside him. Their bodies seemed very close to each other in the confines of the narrow space. Dale could feel the sleeve of that shapeless sweater brushing against his arm, adding to his awareness of her presence.
“Listen,” she whispered. “Mousie has returned.”
The slight rustling sound grew louder, and then a tiny gray-brown mouse emerged from a crack in the brickwork. Scurrying, the creature hurried over to the pile of crumbs and began to feast on them.
“See,” Miss McKenzie said. “She is not afraid of you at all.”
Side by side, they watched the mouse, until the clatter of footsteps along the corridor sent the tiny creature into a frantic flight back into the safety of the hole in the brick wall. Instinctively, Dale curled his hand around Miss McKenzie’s elbow to help her up. She accepted the gesture with practiced ease, which added to his certainty that she’d been brought up a lady, accustomed to men who performed such courtesies.
By the time a sturdy woman wrapped in a long wool cape came to a halt by the open iron grille, they were facing the entrance, however Dale’s hand remained curled around Miss McKenzie’s arm.
“Good morning, Miss Rowena.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Powell.”
The woman held out a basket. “Brought you lunch.”
The visitor’s face was red from the cold, her nose dripping, but she managed to give Dale a haughty look. “I trust you to do your job, Marshal. None of us understand what’s going on, but we know Miss Rowena is no murderer. We don’t need no badge and gun to figure that out.”
Rowena flapped her hand. “Oh, don’t be so grumpy, Mrs. Powell. We were just feeding my pet mouse. The marshal wasn’t beating me up so I’ll sign a confession.”
“I’m not cooking lunch for no mouse,” the woman muttered. She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “Well, I’d best be going. The chicken coop won’t clean itself and the firewood don’t fall into a pile on its own. I’ll see you on Tuesday, Miss Rowena.” With a curt nod of farewell, the visitor turned around and strode off, her bulky cape flaring behind her.
“I apologize for Mrs. Powell,” Rowena whispered after the woman’s footsteps had faded away. “She likes to gossip, and being stuck in a jail cell makes me a captive audience. You being here deprived her of spreading what little scandal she has managed to stir up since her last visit.”
Not pausing to ask if he wished to eat, Rowena stuck her head into the corridor and yelled, “Can I come out, Sheriff Macklin? I need plates and cutlery.”
“Prisoner transit approved,” the sheriff called back.
Bemused, Dale watched as Miss McKenzie marched out, graceful even with the shapeless man’s sweater covering her dress. Her feet were encased in thick socks that made her footsteps soundless. Her glossy mahogany hair was piled into an upsweep that her mouse-taming must have caused to unravel, allowing strands to flutter free around her face.
As Dale followed her with his eyes, he felt a tug in his chest. There was a gentleness about Rowena McKenzie that touched some sore spot inside him. He’d known ladies in his childhood, and many of them had been haughty and conceited. Lacking concern for the welfare of others, taking masculine admiration as their birthright, they had only shown friendship to those they considered their social equals. Rowena McKenzie was different, and that, combined with her beauty, fascinated him.
When she came back, she bustled about. Using the edge of the bunk as a table and the floor for seating, she served him a lunch of spicy stew. While they ate, they talked. Nothing personal, merely lighthearted observations about the town and its inhabitants. Two more times they were interrupted by visitors, a blushing teenage girl who came to lend Miss McKenzie a book, and an elderly woman who brought her another pair of thick wool socks.
“Why not tell the truth, Miss McKenzie?” Dale asked after the woman left. “The people in town worry about you.”
She stacked the empty plates, ready to return them to the sheriff’s office. “I will...eventually...when I have to...”
Dale didn’t press it. It might be something to do with her background, perhaps the events that had brought about her reduced circumstances. Most likely, she owed a debt of gratitude to the men she’d helped to escape, and her silence was to protect them. But did she understand the gamble she was taking with her life? She expected that once she decided to reveal the truth, everyone would believe her and the charges would be withdrawn. However, sometimes the wheels of law took a wrong turn, and being innocent might not be enough.
Dale shuffled the pack of cards and dealt two hands of five-card draw on the table fashioned from an overturned crate. Despite the bare brick walls, the jail cell appeared homely now. Books jostled for space with newspapers in the small bookcase he’d knocked together from a piece of waste lumber, and a coal burner in the corner provided a source of heat.
Rowena picked up her cards, studied them with a notch between her straight, dark brows. Unable to hide the flicker of excitement, she rearranged the cards in her hand, extracted three and laid them facedown on the table.
“Three,” she said.
Dale gave his own hand a cursory study. Two eights, two kings, a queen. Why did luck favor him now that he would have preferred it to remain absent? He discarded one of the kings and dealt the replacements.
“Three for the lady. One for the dealer.”
Rowena picked up her cards. Her face clouded with disappointment. Dale gathered his own hand. Damn. Another eight. He kept his features impassive while he waited for Rowena to open the betting. Maybe he could scare her into folding.
“Bet one hundred thousand,” she said.
“Call your hundred thousand...and raise five hundred thousand.”
“Call your five hundred thousand...and raise another hundred thousand.”
Like the eager novice that she was, Rowena kept raising her bet. Between rounds of adding more imaginary money into the pot, she stared at her cards and tapped her forefinger against her pursed lips, a sure sign she was bluffing. Dale decided to rein her in, limit her losses. “Call your million.”
“Raise...” Rowena darted him a questioning glance. Dale replied with an imperceptible shake of his head, and to his relief Rowena had the good sense to stop.
With excruciating slowness, like tasting a foul-flavored medicine, Rowena spread her cards on the table. A pair of jacks. Dale revealed his own hand and jotted the entry to the exercise book they used for their score keeping. “You owe me seventeen million four hundred thousand dollars.”
Rowena rolled her eyes. “You’ll bankrupt me yet, you cardsharp.”
Smiling, Dale gathered the deck, passed it over to her. “Your turn to deal.”
Inexpertly, she shuffled the cards, talking at the same time. “I’m surprised the Marshals Service lets you stay in Pinares until the trial. You’re not doing much to earn your pay. It’s not as if I’m a dangerous criminal who needs constant guarding.”
“Marshals don’t get a salary. They get paid a fee for each assignment.” In truth, Dale knew he might be overstepping the boundaries with his visits, but he enjoyed her company. Every afternoon he arrived a little earlier and left a little later. Her feminine presence, her laughter, her beauty and her carefree manner seemed like a summer breeze that dispelled some of the darkness inside him. He was even regaining his sense of humor.
It seemed that for the first time since his genteel world of Southern aristocracy had vanished into cannon fire and flames, he was experiencing the social niceties he’d missed out on. From the age of twelve to eighteen he’d been consumed with tracking down and killing the soldiers who’d murdered Laurel. The next eleven years he’d lived in an outlaw hideout, isolated from the world, surrounded by cruel, coarse men.
When he’d gained a pardon, he could have re-entered the world he’d been born into, the world of ballrooms and parties, of plays and music, of culture and refinement, of money and comfort. However, although a pardon made him an honest man in the eyes of the law, it couldn’t restore his peace of mind. It couldn’t heal the guilt and shame over Laurel’s death. It couldn’t make his scars disappear. It couldn’t keep away the nightmares that forced him to relive the horrors of his past, time and time again.
The legacy of his outlaw years held him back from attempting to rebuild his life as a gentleman, a gentleman of high birth and affluent means. Instead, he had sought some measure of restitution by becoming a federal marshal, a man who upheld the law instead of flouting it.
Because of his past, Dale had never courted a girl. Sure, he’d paid for a whore in his outlaw years. But in the last three years he’d lived celibate. Not because of a moral conversion of some sort, but because he couldn’t tolerate the prospect that when faced with the sight of his scarred body a whore might demand extra payment.
But now, in Rowena’s company, he felt as if he was getting a glimpse into what he’d missed out on, all those parties and balls, the pleasure of a woman’s voice, her laughter. Although Rowena’s gentleness and her impish sense of humor appealed to him, he couldn’t deny there was a carnal element to his fascination. All too often, his eyes strayed to the curve of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the fullness of her mouth, but he possessed enough discipline to keep her from becoming aware of it.
He could see no harm in it, so he allowed the feeling to grow, safe in the knowledge it couldn’t lead to anything. Rowena McKenzie was not the kind a woman a man could trifle with. Perhaps it was curiosity more than anything, a new experience, attraction that was more than just physical. And, to start with, spending his nights racked with unfulfilled desire had seemed preferable to nightmares. As Rowena McKenzie got deeper and deeper under his skin, Dale had begun to doubt the wisdom of that assumption.
“Anyway,” he went on, “I am retiring from the Marshals Service.”
“Retiring? Aren’t you a bit young for a rocking chair on the porch?”
“I’m thirty-two. And I don’t plan to be idle. There is this place, this valley over in California...the prettiest place you ever saw, with a stream running through it... I stumbled upon the property by chance a year ago, when my horse went lame...”
Half resenting the words as they spilled out, he went on nonetheless, telling her of the ranch, of the old man who wished to sell. He told her how he’d saved every penny of his fees and could now just about afford the down payment, with a bank lending the rest.
As he talked, Dale felt a tension coil within him, like the anticipation before a gunfight. He had never shared his dreams with anyone, except perhaps the dream of breaking away from the outlaw life, a dream he’d once shared with his friend Roy Hagan.
When he stopped, emotionally drained, silence fell. Rowena clutched the pack of cards in her hands. “I once knew such a place, too.” Although her tone was wistful, she cast him an odd, speculative look. Dale had noticed it once or twice before, as if she were somehow assessing him, measuring his mettle. And then, with a visible effort to regain the lighthearted mood, Rowena dealt the cards, placing them on the table with an exaggerated flourish.
A pair of tens for him. When Rowena saw her own hand, her face lit up. To keep things simple, they skipped the initial rounds of betting and went straight to replacement cards. She took only one. He asked for three, failed to improve on the pair.
Rowena opened, forefinger tapping at her lips, her attention riveted on the cards. Dale suppressed a sigh. Another bluff. The pot grew until they had fifteen million of imaginary money on the table. Rowena laid down her cards. “Ace high.”
Dale revealed his own hand. “When will you learn that a busted straight is worth nothing?”
“You ought to have folded when I kept raising.”
“Never expect to control what the other players do.” He updated the scorecard. “You owe me thirty-two million and change.” With a rueful smile, he looked up at her. “Cherie, promise me you’ll never gamble with real money.”
She laughed, that light, sunny sound that touched something inside him. He spoke quietly. “Don’t gamble with your life either, Miss Rowena. The judge arrived a few hours ago. He is reviewing his docket today. He’ll hear the criminal cases first, before the civil disputes, and yours is the only one. Your trial will take place tomorrow morning.”
Dale knew he could have revealed the truth by now—that there had been no murder, merely an elaborate charade to facilitate the escape of the two conmen who’d been selling shares in a worthless mining claim—but he also knew that Sheriff Macklin wouldn’t accept his findings without the prisoner’s own testimony.
Every day, the postmaster’s boy came by to tell Miss Rowena there had been no telegram. Dale didn’t know what information the telegram would contain, only that Rowena was determined not to disclose her innocence until it arrived. He hoped she wouldn’t take her obstinacy too far. Judge Williams could be like a bear, easily riled, and the judge’s verdict, however misguided if handed down in a fit of anger, would become the law.