Czytaj książkę: «Her Forbidden Gunslinger»

Chapter One

Helena, Montana Territory, 1888

Married?

Sophie closed her eyes and prayed that she had heard him wrong. Then she counted to ten in an attempt to dispel the anger she could feel rising within her. Experience had taught her that it was never worthwhile showing anger when her uncle was in one of his moods. And he was in rare form today.

She opened her eyes to see him relaxing in the leather wing-backed chair, gazing at his cigar with a self-satisfied smile curving his lips. Having just delivered the blow orchestrated to finally break her, he had every reason to smile. He crossed his legs and picked up the tumbler of cognac from the marble-topped table beside him and took a sip, seeming to forget she was there and that he had just ruined her life.

She hated him.

“Oncle Jean, perhaps I misheard—”

“Non, cherie, you heard me correctly. Your wedding will be next month. Anton and I have already discussed the matter. The specifics can be worked out later. Nothing too large. An intimate gathering will suffice. You’ll need to have a gown made, but I’m sure an arrangement can be made with Martine to have it finished in time. If only your mother hadn’t run off to marry that Scot, she would have had a proper gown to pass down to you, but…” His words ended on a sigh.

Sophie refrained from pointing out the Scot had been her father and had her mother not run off to marry him the conversation would be moot.

“Well, what can we do now?” her uncle continued. “She did what she did and I do owe her a debt, do I not? I am here now and not in France, and look at my good fortune.” He gestured to the room, with its frescoed ceilings, exotic wood floor and gilt-trimmed furnishing; it was the epitome of excessive opulence. Then his gaze lit on her and he gave the smile she hated: worse than smug, this smile was dead. “And I repay a little of my debt every day.”

“But Monsieur Beaudin is…is…” Old. Repulsive. Abhorrent. Each descriptor was more fitting than the last, she had trouble choosing just one.

“Careful, cherie, he is my dearest friend.”

Sophie looked at her uncle in his coat of maroon velvet, his garish neckerchief, his graying hair slicked back with pomade, and thought he could have been Anton sitting there for all the difference there was between them. Many of the ladies in town thought him handsome, but she saw only the evil lurking beneath the surface.

“Oncle, you mistake me. I was merely going to point out that he is too sophisticated for a ranch girl. While you have been more than kind to take me in, that is what I am, and one never really strays far from one’s roots, no?”

A vein twitched in his temple and she knew her barb had landed. She couldn’t check the cowardly impulse to glance at the silver hawk’s head of his walking cane where it was propped against his chair. Perhaps it was suicide to remind him that he came from Le Marais, a slum in Paris, but recklessness was as much a part of her nature as this forced deference was foreign to it. Being from the same slum, her mother never would’ve had a proper wedding gown, anyway.

“Rejoice that I have found a Frenchman willing and gracious enough to overlook your many shortcomings. You will be a good wife to him, Sophie, or you will answer to me for it. Do you understand?” All pretense of civility had fled, leaving his eyes cold and flat. The look he gave her now was the look that had earned him free rein in the copper mines in this region of the territory.

“Oui. Could I telegraph Alexandre? He should come to the ceremony.” She had not seen her brother since he’d signed over his inheritance and fled to Chicago five years earlier, though Jean gave her regular updates.

His good humor restored by her compliance, her uncle smiled and took a puff of his cigar. “I will see that he is notified, but you may write a letter to post if you wish. The Nelsons’ ball is at nine tonight. Be ready.”

Sophie stood to take her leave. “Merci, Oncle.” It was her customary closing with any of their conversations.

Thank you, Uncle. Thank you for taking me in after you murdered my parents. Thank you for allowing me breath one more day. Thank you for not committing most of the unspeakable crimes against me your soulless eyes promise you are capable of perpetrating.

Yet.

She hated him! If only her life didn’t stretch out before her as one endless act devoted to playing out the whims of that monster. Already, the sounds of despair and anger that she’d had trouble containing were threatening to escape, causing her shoulders to shake with the effort of subduing them. She closed the door to his study and turned to flee to her room. But when she turned, something solid and decidedly masculine blocked her path.

Without even looking, she knew who it was. Gray. She was always so preternaturally aware of him; every fiber of her being knew when he was near. Today he was Jean’s sentry. How had she not noticed him on her way into the study?

Strong hands came up to her waist to steady her. She slowly looked up at him, unable to so quickly hide the wetness in her eyes and the misery lurking behind them.

“Breathe.”

His voice poured over her, further igniting the prickling recognition she had no right to feel. It was an awareness that went much deeper than the simple fact that she had heard his voice many times before. Her fingers curled against his strong chest, begging to stroke him, to take some comfort from him, the man she had come to think of as her favorite.

Instinctively, her body did as he commanded. She sucked in a deep breath while allowing her gaze to trace his face and luxuriate in the rare chance to study him. He was stoic, forbidding like the rest of her uncle’s gunmen, and handsome. Her gaze touched his strong jaw, blade-straight nose and high cheekbones. Features that could have been called patrician but for the touch of bronze in his complexion and the midnight of his hair which bespoke a native heritage. It was a heart-stopping combination, and she wondered if that alone was the reason she was so fascinated by him, but then he spoke.

“Did he hurt you?” His gaze touched every part of her face, leaving her skin hot and tingling where it lingered.

In that look, she understood why she was drawn to him. The genuine concern there. He was the only one who looked at her as someone who might be in pain or need help. He gave her a glimpse of what it might be like to feel safe, even though the very idea of safe was wrong. If Jean ordered any of his men to remove her as a threat, none of them would hesitate.

Gray included. She shivered, reminding herself to never forget that. But still she couldn’t step away.

“No, he didn’t. I’m fine.” But then she shook her head because she wasn’t fine at all. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. The back of her throat ached and she swallowed past the lump that had formed there.

“Just breathe in.” His hands began to lightly stroke up and down the length of her back. Again her body obeyed his command and she took in a deep gulp of air. “Now let it out slowly.”

His startling gray eyes held hers as he bid her repeat the process two more times. He was so confident in his soothing commands that the tension began to seep from her body. The feeling of security inexplicably made her confide her trouble to him. “I’m going to be married. I don’t…” But her voice trailed off when his eyes narrowed.

“When?” The question was a breath between them.

“In a month.” Oh, God, only weeks away! She bit the inside of her lip to keep it from trembling.

For a moment there was nothing, no response, nothing flickering in his eyes. There was only the sound of his breathing, slow and even. She fancied she felt it caress her cheek, but it was a ridiculous thought to savor now when her world had been pulled out from under her.

“Who’s the groom?” The muscle in his jaw tightened and he clenched his hands almost possessively at her waist.

“Monsieur Beaudin,” she whispered.

“He doesn’t deserve you.” The words were so emphatic and blasphemous, spoken there in the hallway just outside her uncle’s door, that they shocked her. Did he know? Did he have any idea that she was a prisoner in every sense of the word?

She searched his face, looking for the meaning behind them, but the momentary ferocity brought about with those words had gone and his handsome visage was impassive again. Still, she couldn’t stop the flush of pleasure they evoked as she settled on his gray eyes. They were dark like the clouds of a thunderstorm. She’d never seen anything like them.

“Who would deserve me?” She hadn’t meant to ask, but his intense stare had hypnotized the question from her.

That stare never wavered when he answered. “Somebody who’ll take care of you.”

His words were so pleasing she closed her eyes briefly to revel in them. She’d almost forgotten what it meant to be taken care of, to not wake up every morning and battle the fear that constantly plagued her. Life with Anton would be a gross continuation of her life with Jean. Never knowing when she might displease him. Never knowing when a remark might provoke him to strike her, or give her a week locked away in her room with scarcely enough food to sustain her. She’d learned to gauge Jean so those things rarely happened now, but with Anton she’d have to start over.

But Gray… She took in a long, shuddering breath. Gray was a protector. The woman who was lucky enough to be his would never know fear. There would be so much more. It was those thoughts of more that made her become aware of the impropriety of their near-embrace and slowly push herself away from him. His hands dropped from her waist with a lingering caress that she imagined was intentional, while her own hands reluctantly returned to her sides.

“I’m afraid the question of my care doesn’t figure into things.” She attempted a parting smile. “Thank you.” And she started to walk past him, but his eyes held hers a little longer. There was something deep and longing there, but impossible to explore. So she walked to the stairs while trying to pretend that she couldn’t still feel his hands on her, that she wouldn’t perpetually relive that brief moment in his arms. It was the only time he had touched her and she knew she’d never forget it.

* * *

Gray took a long, final drag from his cigarillo before flicking it so it went flying in a high arc into the street. The orange glow of the tip bounced twice before settling in the dirt to slowly burn out. He wanted his hunger for Sophie to burn out just as easily, but it wouldn’t. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t forget the hopelessness on her face that morning. He wanted to think of her as he thought of Jean LaSalle: cold, remote, arrogant. But she wasn’t any of those. She tried to be remote but her eyes gave her away; he wanted to know what they hid from the world.

Watching her walk away from him had been harder than it should have been. Even now he could recall the faint trace of honeysuckle she had left behind and how he had stood there breathing it in until her scent too had gone. The warmth of her body still clung to his hands where he’d held her.

He wanted to forget, but his eyes kept drifting to her anyway. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Nelsons’ mansion, they found her effortlessly among the other dancers. With her crown of golden hair and deep blue gown she could have been one of the angels on LaSalle’s ceiling. His gaze drifted down to the way the gown clung to her small waist and then the creamy globes of flesh that threatened to spill from its bodice. No, he amended, she was too earthy to be angelic. He forced his gaze from that temptation to her face. She was smiling, but it was strained and didn’t meet her eyes. They were turbulent like the pale, clear blue of a mountain stream in spring.

The familiar impulse to just take her called to him. He’d felt it months ago when he’d first come to work for LaSalle, and now it thundered through him like the drum of his own heartbeat. Life on the plains was so much simpler. If he wanted her and was strong enough to take her, protect her, then he could have her. But life in Helena was more complicated, and taking her wouldn’t help him reach his goal, so he beat back the urge and refocused.

She was dancing with Anton Beaudin. The lustful gleam in the man’s eye was unmistakable and it immediately made Gray angry, though he was her groom and had every right to his thoughts. But the idea of Sophie giving herself to that cocky bastard made Gray want to smash his fist into the man’s face. His jaw tensed as he turned away from the window.

A vision of her in his own arms flashed through his mind, but he immediately checked the unwarranted thought. She was white and her uncle was rich. Both of those made her beyond the reach of a dirty, half-breed Comanche bastard. He’d given up any notion of courting a respectable, white woman long ago. And the fact that LaSalle was the meanest son of a bitch he’d ever come across, was further deterrent.

Besides those things, she deserved someone better than him. He’d never make her happy.

Gray shook his head and reminded himself he had a job to do. Sophie Buchanan was nothing but a distraction and she’d probably hate him when his task was finished. The sooner she got married the better.

But as soon as he had gotten his thoughts in order, her voice with its soft French intonations carried to him. It wasn’t a heavily accented voice like LaSalle’s. The inflection could only be heard in the occasional word, just often enough to make him listen for it. His gaze scanned the street, visibly as vigilant as he was supposed to be, but ravenously drinking up the sound of her voice.

“Monsieur Sinclair, please, if someone could just take me home.”

The hint of desperation in Sophie’s voice caught Gray’s attention. He turned his head slightly to see her standing just outside the closed terrace doors, pulling off her white gloves to fan herself with them. Sinclair stood before her, his back slightly blocking her, so that Gray had to move closer to hear the conversation.

“It’s almost midnight. Supper will be served soon. Don’t you think eating something will make you feel better?” Sinclair was saying.

“I just need to go home…please.”

There was a moment of silence and then. “I’ll need to okay it with your uncle.”

“Go to LaSalle. I’ll take her.” Gray heard himself offer. Sinclair was usually the one assigned to Sophie’s needs but, as the most trusted gunman, he had been ordered to attend a midnight meeting LaSalle had planned later that night with some important men in town for the ball.

Sinclair looked over at him, a glimmer of relief on his face, and gave a nod of thanks. “Don’t be long, she’ll be okay with Brand at the house. We’ll need to talk after the meeting. You know about the safe?”

Gray nodded and left to get the buggy, berating himself for volunteering. He was supposed to keep his distance. Cole could have been found at his post and dispatched to see her home.

But there was no reason it shouldn’t be Gray. No one knew how badly he wanted her. No one knew that he dreamed at night of taking her over his horse and fleeing with her across the plains like his grandfather might have done. No one knew how very little was stopping him from doing just that.