CHAPTER 16

Marsh looked at the invitation again. Tea with Meredith and Quinn Devereux tomorrow at four P.M. The Pacific Palace.

The man who’d delivered the invitation had worn the livery of the Pacific Palace and had patiently waited for an answer.

Hell, Marsh might as well find out now what the city was saying about yesterday’s shooting. There had been nothing in the papers that morning, but he didn’t know how long the silence might last.

He turned to the messenger. “Tell Mr. Devereux I accept.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and turned away, heading for the door.

Marsh watched him leave, then turned back to the invitation. He wondered whether it had been written by Devereux’s wife. An artist, he remembered. He wondered whether she had any idea whom she was inviting. She would probably rescind it if she did.

He looked down at his pocket watch. Almost eleven. The cook was already here. Hugh would arrive shortly.

Winchester growled in the corner, and Marsh went into the kitchen to retrieve some scraps for him. He tried to keep the dog inside now. Because there were so many mongrels in the streets, a law had been passed decreeing that stray dogs were to be shot on sight. Unfortunately, Winchester didn’t understand and managed to disappear for hours at a time. And, dammit, he worried about the beast.

Everything was getting too damn civilized.

Tea, huh?

Hell, he wasn’t ready to be civilized. Not yet.

Still, he found himself looking forward to visiting the Devereuxs tomorrow afternoon. He wondered whether tea really meant tea. Such niceties had escaped him these past two decades. Teas and balls and conversation. That odd wistfulness was snaking into his awareness again. Laughter. Affection. Warmth.

One of the afternoon newspapers ran a front-page story about the shoot-out. It revived all the rumors about the feud between the owners of the Glory Hole and the Silver Slipper, and called Taylor Canton, the Texas businessman turned San Francisco saloon keeper, a hero. There was a sketch of Cat. Thank God there was none of him, but the article did hint at some mystery about him.

Marsh threw the paper down. All he needed was for someone to link Taylor Canton with the Marsh Canton of the dime novel Duel at Sunset. He hadn’t been that concerned with the earlier stories: they had mentioned only Canton the saloon owner. But now, because of the shooting, the link was there for anyone to see.

He knew from past experience he could expect more reporters this afternoon. Best thing to do was disappear for a few days until the story died. It would mean added hours for Hugh, since notoriety always seemed to spur business.

Marsh cursed long and fluently. He still wasn’t sure how far he could trust his manager, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

Why in the hell did he ever think this would work?

But he was enjoying it. For the first time since the war, he had started to forget the stench of death. He had started to live in ways he had forgotten were possible.

Christ, but he enjoyed seeing the Glory Hole fill with customers. Hearing Jenny sing. And most of all seeing Cat’s eyes spark with anger—and passion. For the first time he envisioned a future that had nothing to do with death.

He was still staring at the crumpled newspaper when he became aware of a stir of interest in the place. He turned and watched as Catalina walked straight to the bar he was leaning against.

Elegant and striking, she was wearing green taffeta that made her eyes seem incredibly green—and so lovely, they made him ache inside.

“Miss Cat,” he said graciously, just a hint of mockery coloring his voice.

“Mr. Canton,” she said, also in a slightly mocking way, but with a twinkle in her eyes. He’d always thought her beautiful, but now she was enchanting.

“I thought you might be interested in how Molly is doing,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow, which could be interpreted in any number of ways: he was; he wasn’t; why should he be?

The gesture put her at a disadvantage. Just as he meant it to.

But this time she didn’t appear a bit perturbed. As if she knew exactly what he was trying to do and was amused, rather than annoyed. It was disconcerting.

“She’s going to be fine. For the moment.”

He said nothing, remaining as still and quiet and watchful as a man could be. Waiting. Always waiting. The now-familiar warm shiver crawled up Cat’s backbone and down her legs, and then back up through the most private part of her. How did he cause that to happen? By his intense masculinity? Or by the danger that hovered around him? Or the competence. The cool aloofness that she now knew hid a passion that ran deep. And his music. The night music that revealed a love of beauty that was surprising in a man who lived by the gun.

For she was sure now that he had lived by the gun, that he had been a gunfighter. Perhaps still was.

Sweet Lucifer, but she wanted to touch him.

And she was going to ask him for a favor. Dear God, what would he ask in return?

To keep from looking at him, her gaze went down to the newspaper and was held by the sketch. She felt the color drain from her cheeks. Who had done it?

His gaze followed hers and then returned to her face, studying it with interest. A weapon. She was giving him a weapon, and she knew it.

Cat forced herself to relax. A sketch. Would someone from the old days see it? And remember? But it had been so many years. No one would even care, not about a gambler lying dead in a Mississippi rooming house.

She forced her attention back to Canton. “Molly’s afraid for you. I said I would warn you.”

For the first time since Cat had met him, Canton looked startled. Astounded, in fact. She felt the warm shiver turn to warm honey running up and down her veins. She didn’t know whether he was astonished because someone thought they should be afraid for him, or because someone actually worried about him. But whatever it was, it rocked that usual unruffled composure and made him suddenly seem less like that fallen archangel she always imagined him to be.

“Me?”

Cat had to smile at the absolute disbelief in his voice. “You,” she repeated.

“Why?”

Cat looked around. Eyes were on them. Many eyes. Fascinated eyes. “Can we speak alone?”

He shrugged. “Why not?” His eyes were speculative now, the surprise gone. “My room is the only place.”

Apprehension stabbed Cat. She needed to be in a room with him alone like she needed a knife in the heart. For Molly’s sake, she told herself. Only for Molly. Or was she lying to herself?

He took her arm gently, with that same old-world courtesy she had seen in him before, and before she realized what was happening, she had accompanied him to his room and he was opening a door. The mongrel dog she had seen several times before followed at a cautious distance.

“Winchester,” he said conversationally to the beast. “You’ll have to wait outside.”

“Winchester?”

He shrugged and looked just a little abashed. “He’s ugly as hell,” Canton explained, helpfully. He stood back and allowed her to enter, closing the door behind him.

And then there was just the two of them. Without even the dog for distraction.

Nervous, Cat looked around. The room was even more Spartan than Teddy’s. A bed. A worn, scratched bureau. A mirror. There were no chairs.

Canton bowed and gestured to the bed. “Would you care for a seat?”

No! But she held the exclamation and shook her head instead.

He merely grinned, the kind of grin, she thought, that the spider wore as it invited the fly into its parlor. She knew exactly how that fly felt.

Leave.

But no part of her body worked properly. Not her mouth, nor her mind, nor her legs. Catalina Hilliard, the Ice Queen, stunned into silence. Fight. Fight for your survival. You’ve done it before.

He moved closer. She felt his warm breath on her, the heat of his body radiating the same kind of excitement she knew hers was.

She stepped back. A small step. But it was a giant step of will. “About Molly …”

“About Molly …?” he mocked in that low drawl that seeped through her body, turning the warm honey into hot bubbling desire.

“She … she …”

But he stepped toward her. His face was so very close to hers, his mouth moving toward her mouth, his hand touching her arm like a fiery brand.

“Darlin’, you talk too much,” he whispered, and before she could protest that she hadn’t talked at all, his mouth closed on hers.

And the explosion, the explosion that had been on the verge of erupting so long, came. The world seemed to rock with it as his lips met hers, plundered hers, made love to hers.

Cat thought she would drown in sensations, in the natural responses of her body to his.

She probably could have resisted if his lips hadn’t turned as tender as they had in the carriage that day. And his eyes were closed. He was a man who always kept his eyes open—so he trusted her in some way. An odd satisfaction flooded her.

She opened her lips under his prodding, and his tongue entered her mouth, teasing and searching but still with a tenderness that shattered her usual defenses. His arm went around her, drawing her hard against him as their tongues played love games of their own.

Her hand went up around his neck, touching the thick dark hair that curled ever so slightly around her fingers. Amazingly, her other hand moved down, to his neck, massaging it in increasingly fast circles as her body writhed.

His eyes flew open in surprise, and for a fleeting second they were unguarded. There was a raw, aching longing in them, a yearning that was only part passion. She felt it in his hands, in his lips, in his possessive arms. Then his eyes closed again, as if he realized he’d revealed something very private, and she closed hers, too, drinking up the almost magical closeness of a moment shared between two people who didn’t know how to share.

Cat had never known a man and woman could feel this way. A bittersweet ache grew inside, a poignancy for herself, for what she had missed, and sensed that Canton had missed. It grew into a loneliness so vast, she felt tears gather behind her eyes, the kind of tears too deep to shed.

Her mouth tightened against his, demanding oblivion from her too-unbearable thoughts. She felt his body shudder, and then his lips move away from her, moving along the contours of her cheek, hesitating at the corner of her eye as if sensing the tears she held back. They hesitated there, and then she felt his tongue feathering her cheek, his lips caressing skin now burning with his touch.

Desire ripped through her, blocking out all the old fear and distaste, as his lips moved again so carefully, so gently back down her cheek and to her ear, nuzzling until she knew nothing but this consuming need for him. His hands became tentative, devoid of the usual sureness with which he moved, as if waiting for her to break away, as she had before.

But she couldn’t break away now if her life depended on it. The past was obliterated by the sensations, the incredibly exquisite sweetness of the moment.

“Darlin’,” he said in a ragged whisper that was devoid of the usual mockery. “Darlin’ Cat.” She heard her own raw need in the sound, her own wonderment at what was happening. Her own yearning. And she felt herself shiver with a mixture of apprehension and expectation. Her hands moved with a fierce tenderness along the side of his neck, tracing small patterns of possession.

She drew a shaky breath, trying to restore some calm in a body possessed by a storm, but it only drew his attention back to her mouth, and his lips clamped down, kissing her slowly, deeply. Her hands ceased their wandering, clasping together behind his neck, pulling him closer until her body strained against his. She felt his arousal and heard his soft moan.

When his lips left hers, she knew a second of terrible loss, but then they pressed against her cheek for the barest of moments, and she sensed he was remembering the other times, the times she had torn herself away from him.

She looked up, and she knew her eyes were bright and clear, that they answered the question his hesitancy was asking. If she’d had any doubts, that question had answered them. He was giving her a choice, even though she felt the straining need in him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered, and she wondered how he knew she feared pain—but then, both of them knew a great deal about each other in unspoken ways. They always had. From the moment they met.

She was still afraid, not physically, but of the magnitude of the feelings betraying her, betraying her body, betraying everything she knew and had believed. The tenderness she felt was worst. The urge to touch him, to run her fingers along the crevices of his face.

He picked her up, carrying her over to the bed, his mouth touching hers as he did. She stopped thinking, lost in the immediate beauty and mystery of his kiss.

Marsh tried to tame the fire licking at his groin, dampen the fierce tenderness that somehow had emerged after a very long sleep. It wasn’t because he cared, he told himself. He couldn’t care. He wouldn’t allow himself to care. It was merely part of the seduction, the only way to cure himself of an obsession that could ruin him.

Why didn’t he believe that? He looked down at her, at the face that had tormented him and now regarded him with a steady gaze that asked so many more questions than he could ever answer. She had always made him feel alive, had made him so acutely aware of forgotten emotions. The sun was brighter, the cut of the wind more invigorating, the stars more dazzling.

Elation tugged at him; little darts of pleasure struck his skin as he saw her questioning smile and the brilliance of her eyes that sparked at him, whether from desire or anger. Joy—how else to explain the sudden exuberance, the smile that had started someplace inside at the sudden trust that shone in her face?

He sat down, Cat still in his arms, nestling there as if she belonged. He moved one of his hands slightly so his fingers could get to the buttons at the back of her dress. He half expected her to object any moment, but she didn’t. His hand slid inside the dress, meeting the resistance of her corset. His experienced fingers suddenly turned into those of an eager boy and fumbled.

It simply wouldn’t work with her sitting on his lap, looking up at him with such unabashed interest, as if she had discovered something totally unexpected. There was a softness there he’d never seen before.

Marsh felt uncertainty again. What if things didn’t go to plan? What if she only dug herself deeper into his life? He couldn’t afford that. She couldn’t.

He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the last time he’d cared for someone. The aftermath. People he loved died. It was as simple as that. So he’d simply stopped loving.

But that had nothing to do with Catalina Hilliard. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t.

Yet something slammed into his ribs as he looked at her, and his heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She was breathtaking. He wanted her desperately, so desperately, he was afraid to take her, afraid the addiction would become even stronger.

Her hands suddenly reached up, touching his face gently. It had been forever since he’d been touched with anything even remotely like gentleness. It was potent. Overwhelming.

To hell with the consequences.

This time he moved her slightly, giving his hands more freedom as he pulled her dress from her and then attacked the ribbons of her corset. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed slowly as his hands ran up and down her arms. As he had in her room, he sensed that something had happened to her to make her wary. Rape, perhaps.

The thought gentled his hands, although a fierce anger assaulted him at the possibility. He wanted to kill whoever had hurt her, whoever had made her afraid.

He swallowed the budding rage, though a simmering anger lingered deep inside, fueling the hot, hungry blaze that was spreading like wildfire in his body. He leaned down and kissed her again with barely restrained passion.

Her response was unflinching now, though her lips trembled slightly under his. He undid her hair, watching it tumble in black waves around her face and down her back. One of his hands ran through the strands to relish their silkiness.

Marsh wished he knew what she was thinking. He took his lips away, and she rested against his chest as one of his hands unbuttoned his shirt and then his trousers. Marsh felt her tension, and yet there was no fear in her eyes. Only expectancy. And hope? He wanted to give her pleasure. More than pleasure … though he didn’t know exactly what.

And then he did. He wanted to hear her laugh. He wanted to see her smile. With him. For him.

He felt her gaze stay on him as he finished undressing. She was so still. So solemn.

But as his hands stroked her possessively, caressing her shoulders, then her back, and finally her breasts, he felt her body tremble. Her hand went tentatively to the jagged scar and touched it with a tenderness that made him ache.

“Catalina,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Oh, Catalina.”

She smiled then, a kind of wondering smile that made him hurt even more inside, that made his arousal even more painful. He turned her around so she lay on the bed, and then he stretched out next to her, leaning over to kiss her breasts. Her body was lovely, slender and firm. She didn’t need that corset, he thought, as he ran his hands along her waist, then her hips. He had never been so patient, so carefully tender, yet her stillness was almost unnatural to him, like that of a deer frozen in the light of a lantern. He felt the instinctive reaction of her body to his touch, yet she seemed to give in to it. He knew she wanted him; he knew it in ways men knew, but he also knew there was something holding her back.

Christ, he wanted to kill whoever had caused this.

His sudden fury transferred itself to his hands. He wanted to wipe away memories, to wash away the touch of anyone else.

Cat held herself very still, feeling trapped by her own weakness. She couldn’t ignore the desire he created in her, but she was terrified that it would be followed by revulsion.

But still she wanted this. There was a magic she’d never known before, a wonderment that her body had these feelings, that she wanted to touch him, wanted to kiss him, wanted even more from him. Wanted to give to him. And now tremors ran through her as his hands moved up and down her body, trailing fire wherever they went. The pressure behind her eyes grew as did the pressure in the core of her.

His mouth touched her breast. His tongue teased and flicked and circled. The nerves in her body came alive, raw and burning. Her body moved toward him. His hand slid down to the triangle of hair, his fingers soothing, creating shock waves of sensation just as his mouth moved up to her lips. She strained against him, her fears lost, her reservations tumbling away like grains of sand caught by a wave.

He moved slightly, positioning that hard body above hers, his swollen manhood probing but not invading. He was waiting for her; she felt the hard tension in him, the rigid control it took for him to hold back. Giving her choices again. Not taking.

No one had offered her choices before. The pressure in her head and body exploded. She felt tears seep onto her cheeks, the first tears in many years. Her arms went around him, urging him down, cherishing the warmth of his body while seeking something more. She didn’t know if he could give it to her; she didn’t even know what it was, but she felt a need as big as the California sky.

His gaze fastened on the tears, and his smoldering gray eyes grew startled, then filled with an aching understanding that sent quivers through her body. He started to move away, but her hands held him and she shook her head, her words blocked by emotion.

His eyes closed and his tongue licked the tears from her face as she felt the throbbing of him farther down, and she sensed what this was costing him, what agony he must be in.

And now she was in agony too. Her arms tightened around him, and he lifted his head and looked steadily into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

She was. At long, long last she was. She nodded, her eyes feasting on his beautiful archangel face.

He moved slightly, and she felt his penetration, his slow entry—and then, astonishingly, she felt ripples of pleasure. Triumph, coupled with billows of delicious sensation, surged through her.

Marsh forced himself to be deliberate, slow, although he was burning like all the fires in hell. He ached. But years of selfishness and indifference to others had fallen away, and he wanted to heal and give pleasure. He wanted to make everything right. He wanted to wipe away that unbearable sadness in a face meant to laugh. He wanted his feisty Cat back.

His. At this moment. He planned to make the moment as fine as possible. He stroked her hair, then her face, before he continued, his body joining hers with loving patience, holding back until he felt her respond, felt her body move to his, welcome his, dance with his, with hesitant yet growing movements.

And then he could wait no longer and plunged inside, feeling the tightness of her, knowing it had been a very long time since she had been with a man.

Her arms wrapped tighter around him, and he suddenly felt worthy. Wonderful. He heard her small gasp of pleasure, his own small moan as the initial streaks of exquisite pleasure rushed through him. He felt her body quiver in response to his quickening rhythm, clasping tightly around him and reaching.

He had never made love like this before, his mind and emotions as involved as his body, and now he knew what he had missed. There was a startling brilliance in the pleasure, a satisfaction that had always been absent. “Oh, God,” he whispered with a kind of reverence as he felt her internal explosion, the tremors, just before his own came.

Cat couldn’t believe what had happened. In the mellow afterglow of their lovemaking, she felt transformed, reborn in some mysterious way. No longer soiled. No longer half a woman.

She nibbled at her lower lip as he put an arm under her head, pulling her close to him. He didn’t just use her and roll off with a curse. He wanted to stay. And she wanted him to stay.

There was such comfort in cradling, and in being cradled.

She turned, and her lips nuzzled the scars on his chest, as if she could take today the pain that had been his yesterday.

“Taylor,” she murmured, and she looked up at him as she did so, seeing the surprise on his face. Taylor was not a familiar name to him.

Who was he?

She didn’t care at the moment. She only knew he had given her a gift, a gift of feeling.

It wasn’t one that could last. She knew that. Yet it would have a lasting impact. No longer would she think of lovemaking as ugly, as a violation. She knew what it was to soar, to dance with the brightest stars, to feel the force of a racing comet.

He was still, so very still, and she wondered whether he regretted this. She looked at his face. So guarded. Even now. She saw questions there. But she wanted to ask them, not answer them. She couldn’t answer them. She could never describe her past, the crime that had made her a fugitive. In that, she had to be alone.

She had given him part of her soul, and she wasn’t sure how he would treat it. She put a finger to his mouth and traced its outlines, placing into memory every small line.

He caught her finger in his mouth and nibbled on it. “You taste good, Miss Cat,” he murmured.

Cat stared up at him, wanting him in ways she’d never wanted a man before. She wanted tender nothings. She wanted touches. She wanted—sweet Lucifer, she didn’t know what she wanted. Not when she was this close to him. She closed her eyes, wondering whether it was all a dream, a sweet nightmare meant to torment her. A hell of particularly exquisite torment.

She tried to be as light as he. “You taste good, too, Canton.”

“What happened to Taylor?”

“It doesn’t seem to fit you.”

“What does fit me?”

“Canton,” she said. “Just plain Canton.” Or Lucifer. The tempter. The thief of souls.

His hand ran along her backbone, and she felt heat building again. A soul-deep heat. She was already beginning to respond, her nerve ends tingling, her skin burning to his touch, the core of her anticipating, growing taut and needy.

Her gaze met his dark one. His hands moved along her body, exciting her until she trembled with need.

He covered her again, this time with none of the caution he’d used before, none of the sweetness.

And this time she wanted neither.

She was as fierce in her demands as he was. Appetite spurred appetite into ever more ravenous hunger. Cat knew now what to do, what to expect, and this time she participated fully, meeting thrust for thrust. She wanted to crawl into his mind as well as take his body into hers.

“Oh, Cat,” he said in a voice that was almost a moan.

She heard a similar moan coming from herself, or was it a whimper? He moved within her, hard and demanding.

Her legs went around his, an instinctive act that startled her as much, she realized from the sudden jerking of his body, as it did him. His movements became fiercer with the welcome she was now offering so freely.

Marsh rejoiced in the change, in the open declaration of need he’d only sensed before. She was giving herself to him without question, without reservation, and he felt as if she had presented him with the greatest possible gift. There was so much he didn’t know about her. He was surprised at his hunger to know her, know everything about her. Dammit. Damn. The silent curses followed the same rhythm as his body, as need drove him deeper and deeper. Her body moved with his, meeting and challenging and demanding. And then he felt her shudder, and in one last thrust he felt his world explode in satisfaction. And from her cry he knew her world, too, had exploded.

He held her, rolling her over so she lay on top of him and he could watch her face. But she rested it on his shoulder in a gesture of trust that turned the pang he’d felt into something like agony. He was the last person anyone should trust with any part of her self.

They lay there, once more so close and yet … separate in silence. The secrets again, he thought.

The secrets. Cat felt them weighing upon her like lead. Her hand traveled over the scars on his chest. There was so much she wanted to know. But if she asked, he might ask questions of his own. Questions she could never answer. She now trusted him with her body, but not her life.

So she merely snuggled into the curves of his body, soaking up the heat still permeating from it. She felt young, alive. She wouldn’t allow the past to intrude. Not now.

The shadows of the late afternoon shifted and began to close in around the bed. She heard his heart beat, felt his warm breath, his hands around her now in soothing ways. And she knew she would never get enough of him. She suddenly felt panicky. She had to put some distance between them. Cat rolled off and moved next to him in the bed, but his hand kept her with him when she would have left.

“Don’t go,” he whispered huskily.

She didn’t want to go. But she had to. Before he took everything that she was.

“I … I must go. I had really just come to warn you. Molly asked …”

His finger stopped her words. “You were worried about me.” It was an amused statement, and she wondered if he doubted that she would worry about him.

“Molly was worried about you.”

“You may tell her I have one great skill above all others,” he said lazily, “and that is self-preservation.”

Her eyes went to the scars on his body and then up to his eyes, a dubious expression on her face.

He chuckled. “Appearances to the contrary,” he admitted. His hand tangled in her hair. “You’re quite beautiful, you know.”

Cat tried to ignore the new onslaught of desire. Of heat. “You’re changing the subject.”

“There’s nothing I can do now,” he observed, secretly pleased by her concern.

“Canton …”

He liked the way she said his name. He would have liked to hear his given name on her lips. Marsh. But that would be dangerous. In too many ways. He took her fingers and brushed them with his lips. “Hummmm?”

“You haven’t asked who was after Molly.”

He shrugged. “Some smitten suitor?”

“I wish that were so,” she said, trying not to let him divert her again. Still, the heat moved from her fingers up her arm. She had to force herself to remain sitting, to retain some dignity. It wasn’t easy when she was naked. And he was naked next to her.

“Then who?” he asked, as though pacifying a child. He suddenly had a bad feeling about this conversation.

“Her father,” she said, recalling the strained conversation she’d had with Molly just hours ago. “A banker in Oakland.”

Marsh stiffened.

“I think she’s terrified of him. She says he’s killed at least one person who’s tried to help her and badly hurt others.”

His gaze fastened on her. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Teddy thought maybe you …”

Marsh went cold all over. So that was why she’d come to him. What a fool he was to think otherwise, to think that she might actually care.

He released her fingers and sat up, stretching with feigned nonchalance. “Me, what?”

Cat heard a subtle warning in his voice, saw the way his eyes shuttered. She shivered at the sudden chill in the room. “Nothing,” she said, but she knew it was too late. Whatever had been between them minutes ago was gone.

“Don’t stop now,” he said silkily. “I always pay for services, darlin’.”

The words slammed through her with a pain deeper than any she’d ever known. That warmth, that wonderful warmth, drained from her. Pay? Services? She looked at him with hatred and reached for her clothes with as much dignity as she could muster. She wanted to slap him, to wipe away that suddenly hateful smirk on his face. But then she remembered that other moment of violence years ago.

No!

She dressed quickly, keeping her face averted from his. She couldn’t bear looking at him. Bile rose in her throat. She had fooled herself once more, had taken a hint of caring and made so much more of it than it was. A seduction pure and simple. She’d supposed he was very good at it. She hadn’t known how good. And then he’d looked at her as if she were dirt. A whore.

You’re nothing but a whore. Everything she’d accomplished crashed down around her. Nothing but a whore. Nothing … nothing. She heard her husband’s voice saying the words over and over again. And now Canton. Tears burned inside her as nausea threatened to humiliate her even more. She wouldn’t let him see how his barb had wounded her.

She hated him. Dear God, how she hated him at this moment.

She finished her last button and found her shoes. After slipping her feet into them, she started for the door.

Cat was almost there, almost safe, when his hand caught her arm and swung her around. Goddamn him. She clenched her teeth together as she forced herself to look up at him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of avoiding his gaze.

“Let me go,” she said frigidly.

“I told you I pay my debts,” he said, just as coldly. “What do you want?”

“For you to drop dead,” she said.

“That’s not what you wanted minutes ago.” The old mockery was in his voice, and she wondered whether she had imagined those hoarse whispers, the gentle lips, the way he had kissed her tears away.

“But it’s what I want now,” she said.

He smiled through clenched teeth. It was much like the snarl she’d seen his dog make. “You can join a long line then, darlin’.”

If she had not forsworn violence, she probably could have slain him then and there. Her eyes wandered to the gunbelt thrown carelessly over a chair.

His eyes followed her glance. His hands started moving up her arms again in the seductive way they had moved before. She felt the same heat, but this time she ignored it.

“If you touch me again, I will kill you.”

“You will try,” he said in a harsh voice. But he took his hands away and stood, feet apart, his naked body suddenly tense. She couldn’t prevent her gaze from lingering for the slightest of seconds, hating the perfection of the man, perfection marred only by the visible trail of violence. Dear Lucifer, but she wanted to mar it even more at the moment.

She lifted her chin and turned again. This time her steps were quick, and she knew he wasn’t following. She opened the door and gracefully moved away, trying to curb her instinct to run. She made it through the saloon and out the door. She rested for the briefest of seconds against the wall of the Glory Hole. Cat looked at the Silver Slipper. Her Silver Slipper. Her life.

She felt sick, sick and even more alone than she had ever been. How could she have given herself like that? To a man like Canton.

The enemy she’d thought she had in him was magnified many times now. She would force him out of San Francisco. Even if she ruined herself in the process.

Marsh watched Cat walk across the street, her shoulders squared like a soldier going into battle. Determined. Defiant. Proud.

He watched as she went inside, and then he stalked, still naked, to the bed where the sheets were in a tangle. He closed his eyes for a moment. He had felt free. And so damned good. He’d thought then that she’d wanted him.

He remembered how her eyes had widened after he had shot the man who’d grabbed her young charge. He’d known then that she realized he was a hired killer.

Then this afternoon she’d used that knowledge. And he’d died a little inside. She’d wanted a killer after all, not the man he was struggling to become.

His hand went up to his neck and rubbed it. He thought of the stricken look on her face when he’d mentioned payment. Maybe … maybe he had leapt to conclusions.

He groaned like an animal in pain. He hadn’t jumped to conclusions. He knew that. What else would she want from him? He had to remember she was the woman who’d had him ambushed, beaten, jailed.

Christ, there was no way of changing the past. No way of changing what he was—even she recognized that.

He’d been a goddamn fool to think otherwise.

A stupid goddamn fool.