Only My Love Page 32

  But she knew it was a lie. She wanted to make him feel something, some regret for not being completely honest with her when he had had the chance. This wasn't about Jay Mac. He was merely an excuse, the thing she could talk about when what she really wanted to say was 'why weren't you honest about loving me?'

  "Are you nervous about the trial?" he asked.

  The trial. She wanted to scream, rail at him. She didn't care about the trial. No, that wasn't true either. She did care, only not as much as she cared about him never touching her any more, never kissing her, never acknowledging by so much as a gesture that they had once been lovers, or that he had ever said he loved her. She remembered his words when she asked about the separate rooms in Stillwater. "This isn't Kelly's Saloon and you aren't really my wife." It seemed there was no place for them anywhere outside of Kelly's Saloon. Not Stillwater. Not Denver. Certainly not New York.

  "I suppose I'm nervous," she said. "A little."

  "The courtroom will be full."

  She shrugged. "The trial has national interest."

  "Have you thought of how you're going to respond to questions about us?"

  Her beautifully feathered eyebrows rose a fraction. "What about us?" she said coolly. Hidden from his view were her fingers frantically pleating the napkin, knuckles nearly as white as the linen. "There's nothing to tell. Nothing happened."

  It was what he expected to hear at the trial, but not now, not in the relative privacy of the dining room, when they were alone for one of the few times since the arrests. Ethan felt as if he'd been kicked. "I see," he said. His eyes searched hers, caught her glance and held it. He could not tell what she was thinking, the emerald eyes were more blank than guarded, more resigned than challenging. "That's the way you remember it?" he asked.

  "Don't you?" She waited. Tell me now, she wanted to say. Tell me that you love me. Make me believe it wasn't about offering comfort when you thought we would die.

  He remembered that she had said she loved him.

  He had tried to caution himself then that she was merely throwing him a bone, that she had said it as a means of salving her own conscience. But he hadn't wanted to believe that, not really. His fingers raked his dark hair. A heavy ache settled in his chest. "The same," he said quietly, looking away from her.

  "Then there's no reason for either one of us to be nervous, is there? We've only to speak the truth."

  "There's bound to be speculation," he said.

  "There always is," she said with credible indifference. When he didn't say anything silence settled uncomfortably between them. The remainder of her meal grew cold. Ethan ate very little of what was left of his. The waitress came and cleared the table. They accepted her offer of coffee and pie because they were reluctant to leave and didn't know how to go on.

  "When do you think I'll be able to go home?" she asked. "That was the gist of Mama's telegram yesterday."

  Apple pie tasted like ash in his mouth. "A few weeks. I suspect Houston's trial will take the longest. Dee's may be a close second. The cases against Happy, Ben, and Jake will be quick. They may even be tried together."

  "Peter Monroe's?"

  "Cooper has to be extradited here first. That could take a while. It shouldn't matter to you. You don't have to give any testimony in that case. I'm the witness who can identify him."

  "Then you won't be going to New York any time soon." Michael wondered at her preternatural calm. How could her heart, beating wildly, not lend its vibration to her voice?

  "No," he said. The coffee was too hot for his mouth. He didn't care. "Not any time soon. I don't have any business there."

  "I thought..." She faltered and started again, more briskly this time. "I thought you might have some dealings with Joe Rivington."

  "If I do, it will take me to Washington, not New York."

  "Of course... I didn't think of that."

  "This is where I'll be settling, Michael. Colorado will be my home."

  "Denver?"

  "Most likely. It's at the center of my jurisdiction."

  She nodded. He would hate New York if he had to stay there any length of time. It was probably just as well that there was no discussion of marriage. She was east and he was west. It had been so easy to forget in Kelly's Saloon. She had just been his then. Her smile was wistful. And he had been hers.

  "Something amusing?" he asked softly.

  "No," she said. "Just a wayward thought."

  Ethan knew all about those. He wanted to touch her hair. Gaslight softened the burnished frame of it around her face. He imagined his fingertips trace the arch of her cheekbones, sliding along the line of her jaw. His thumb would pass over her lower lip, caress the pout. The tip of her tongue would touch him. Her eyes would darken. He would... Ethan stopped. Michael's eyes were regarding him steadily, as if she could read his thoughts. He reined them in. She didn't want any part of him now. She'd made that clear by going out of her way to avoid him and spending most of her time with Drew Beaumont as soon as he got to Denver.

  He pointed to the pie she had barely touched. "Are you finished?"

  She flushed self-consciously. "I'm not very hungry." She almost asked if he wanted it then saw he hadn't finished his own. Michael placed her napkin beside her plate. "I should be returning to my room. I have a story to finish for the paper."

  "I didn't realize you were writing about the trial for the Chronicle."

  "It's not about the trial. It's about dance halls in mining towns. Something with which I'm well acquainted. I have enough material in my journal for ten or so different articles. Mr. Marshall's going to run them as a serial in the Sunday edition."

  She'd never be satisfied with the Rocky Mountain News, he thought. "I'll escort you to your room," he said, starting to rise.

  Michael let Ethan pull out her chair. She stood. "That won't be necessary." Over his shoulder she caught sight of Drew standing in the hotel lobby. "I see Drew. He'll walk with me. Our rooms are on the same floor and I need to talk to him about something anyway."

  Ethan couldn't find any good reason to object. Drew had seen them and was already approaching. Ethan didn't want to be thanked one more time for saving Drew's life. He bid a curt good evening to Michael, took his hat, and brushed past Drew without a word.

  "What's the matter with the marshal?" Drew asked, taking Michael's arm.

  She stared after Ethan a moment longer. "Just the trial," she said finally. "He's anxious for the trial to begin."

  * * *

  For fifteen days Denver hung on every word of the trials. Denver was not alone. People all over the country were interested in the story of a sheriff and a deputy who robbed trains, the woman who was his mistress and who may or may not have murdered her husband, the half-brothers who prospected for years in the Rockies with nothing to show for it except what they stole, and everyone's connection to the vice-president of Union Pacific who had hit upon the plan to add to his personal fortune.

  The courtroom was filled to capacity every morning, with people waiting in the hallways in the vain hope that someone would excuse themself from the proceedings and the vacancy might be taken. Judge Clark Tucker presided over the madness that ensued, raising his gavel in a threatening manner at the unruly crowd rather than banging it. The Rocky Mountain News reported Tucker wore a gun beneath his robes but no one would confirm it, least of all the distinguished judge himself.

  True to Ethan's predictions, Houston's trial lasted the longest. It was there that the story of Michael's abduction unraveled and was bared for public scrutiny. Houston's lawyer contended the fault lay with Ethan Stone, not with Nathaniel Houston. He argued eloquently that the man who had placed her in danger was the one who had taken her from the train, not the one who allegedly led the robbery. It was also the defense's contention that the incident at the mines was an accident, the result of a landslide and not attempted murder. He proved that Houston had not ordered the deaths of the Chronicle reporters by bringing witnesses from the robbery who could
testify to Houston's whereabouts on the train when the cars had been uncoupled.

  The courtroom was quiet while Ethan testified but it was nothing to the silence that held the gallery still when Michael took the stand. Under oath she recounted the story of the robbery of No. 349 and her abduction, the way in which Marshal Stone had been careful to maintain his cover for the others but reveal himself to her. Many of the things she was asked to relate by the defense were more damaging to Ethan's reputation than to Houston. It was not Houston who made her work in the saloon or kept her locked in her room. It was not Houston who stopped her escape. She told of being drugged, though she could not say with certainty that Houston had ordered it. The prosecution gave her time to explain that what Ethan had done had been done to protect her; Houston's attorney did everything in his power to make the jury forget that. Her state of mind at the time of the mine incident was called to question again and again and the defense beat her down until she admitted she was not certain of the early events of that night. When she left the stand she was pale and her hands trembled. Drew escorted her out of the courtroom. Ethan did not look up at her as she passed.

  After four days of testimony and two days of deliberation the verdict was returned. Houston was found guilty on all counts of robbery. He was cleared on the murder charges of the Chronicle employees and the attempted murder of Ethan and Michael. Sentencing for the robberies alone would see him in prison for forty years, but the prosecution had been seeking the death penalty.

  When the verdict was read Houston reacted as if he had won, as indeed Ethan felt that he had. On his way out of the courtroom, surrounded by guards, Houston swiveled his head in Ethan's direction and smiled. It was full of promise, full of threat. Ethan bore it without blinking. He didn't react at all until he saw Houston seek out Michael. It was the expression in Houston's obsidian eyes that made Ethan's blood run cold, but it was his wink that nearly raised Ethan out of his seat. He looked back three rows at Michael. Her head was bent. He couldn't tell if she had seen Houston's suggestive leer or not. It was certain that Drew had. The reporter was staring after Houston while his hand flew across his notepad.

  The circumstances of the death of Mr. Kelly were never introduced at Detra's trial. If the jury had read any of the accounts in the newspaper, or if they knew her father had been a druggist, they gave no indication of it. In Judge Tucker's courtroom she was strictly on trial for her part in planning the robberies. Ethan provided the main testimony against her. Michael's story came strictly from what she had heard at the door as the robbery for No. 486 was being planned. Detra's attorney provided plenty of people, including Kitty Long, who supported her business-like acumen in running the saloon and her fairness in dealing with employees. Miners from Madison bore witness to the fact that she was well thought of in the mining town and honest with the games she ran in the saloon. The twelve man jury liked her as well and they were not convinced she was as critical to the planning as Ethan would have had them believe. She was, after all, only a woman. They found her guilty but the honorable Judge Tucker only gave her two years.

  Ben, Happy, and Jake were tried together. Ben and Jake received the same sentence as Houston. Happy, on the strength of Michael's testimony that he had admitted his guilt in the deaths of the Chronicle staffers, was sentenced to hang.

  Michael did not attend the public hanging three days later. When they cut Happy McAllister down, Michael was somewhere between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, headed home.

  Chapter 13

  John MacKenzie Worth swiveled in his large leather armchair as the door to his office opened. The deep burgundy leather held the aroma of cigar smoke. It was the way he liked it, even before he'd given them up seven months earlier. He'd bargained with God for the safe return of his daughter. His wife thought he'd finally given them up for her. In deference to years of Nina's nagging, he let her believe it. Now Nina was encouraging him to get rid of the chair. He was holding firm there.

  Jay Mac's secretary entered the office filled with self-importance, his demeanor as stiff as his blackened mustache. "Your two o'clock appointment is here," he said. "He's brought someone with him."

  "Show them in, Wilson." He looked beyond the secretary's shoulder and saw two men approaching the office's threshold. "Never mind. They've found their own way." He stood up, came around his desk, and dismissed Wilson while holding out a hand to his visitors.

  They both looked bone weary, stiff from days and nights of train travel to which neither was accustomed. They did not have the appearance of men who tolerated confinement, much less enjoyed it.

  Ethan Stone found his hand taken firmly in Jay Mac's. The older man looked him squarely in the eye and studied him long and hard. Jay Mac's face remained impassive. Here was the man, Ethan thought, who taught Michael how to play poker. Ethan relished the idea of sitting across a table from Jay Mac some day himself, just to see who bluffed better and who folded first.

  On this occasion Ethan gave the round to Jay Mac. It was impossible not to look into the face of Michael's father and not see Michael. Ethan knew for a moment he had actually flinched from the directness of Jay Mac's implacable green eyes.

  John MacKenzie Worth was several inches shorter than Ethan but it was something Ethan noticed only as Jay Mac was turning away. Michael's father was slender and there was an aura of authority and power that lent him a stature that didn't physically exist. He had a head of thick dark blonde hair, turning to ash at the temples. Threads of the same lighter color sprinkled his side whiskers and mustache. His face was a trifle broader than Michael's but they shared the same seriously set mouth. Unlike his daughter, Jay Mac's spectacles were kept in the breast pocket of his jacket when he wasn't wearing them.

  "This is Jarret Sullivan," Ethan said when Jay Mac greeted the man who had accompanied him. "I've asked him to help. We go back a few years together, since the Express days."

  Jarret shook Jay Mac's hand. He was as tall as Ethan, slightly broader in the shoulders, but leaner overall. Long-limbed, he held himself loosely, so that he appeared lithe rather than powerful. There was a sense of calm surrounding him, a lazy watchfulness that made him seem more relaxed than he actually was. A faint lift of one corner of his mouth signaled Jarret's sometimes cynical, sometimes genuine, amusement of what went on around him. He was never as removed from events as his remote, dark blue eyes seemed to indicate.

  The deep sapphire eyes were a startling feature in a face that was tanned and weathered by the sun. The sharply cut jaw and patrician nose gave him the arrogant air of a blue blood. The beard stubble on his chin and jaw made him look dangerous. His hair was dark blond, too long at the nape for New York fashion, but somehow suited to him.

  "Sullivan?" asked Jay Mac, finishing his assessment. "That's an Irish name, isn't it?"

  Jarret had little patience for Jay Mac sizing him up, but in deference to Ethan he made an attempt to answer politely, in a credible Irish brogue, keeping his disdain in check. "County Wexford on me da's side."

  Jay Mac chuckled, removing his hand. He indicated the chairs in front of his desk and asked Ethan and Jarret to be seated. He stood, leaning back on the edge of his desk, and lifted the black lacquered box of cigars beside him. Raising the lid, he offered them to his guests. "I gave them up myself," he said. "But I wouldn't mind smelling one burning. I don't think that would be going back on my promise."

  Ethan passed but Jarret took one. "Promise?" Ethan asked.

  Jay Mac closed the lid, clipped and lit Jarret's cigar. "I made a bargain to stop smoking if God returned my daughter safely." He missed Ethan's start of surprise as he vicariously enjoyed Jarret's second hand smoke. After a moment he straightened, sighed, and went around the desk to his chair. He sat down and gave Ethan his full attention. "I got your telegram five days ago," he said. "It seemed to me God was going back on His word. I never said as much to Moira or Mary Francis. They'd be sorely disappointed to hear me talk that way, but it's what I've been thinking. Tell me, Mr. Stone, ho
w much danger is my daughter really in?"

  Ethan glanced at Jarret who was stretched out comfortably in his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, giving every evidence that he was enjoying his cigar. Ethan couldn't affect such calm. There was tension in every line of his body. It was an effort to remain seated when what he wanted to do was pace the floor. His only concession to the agitation was to lean forward in his chair. "If I didn't believe that Houston and Detra would come looking for her, I wouldn't have wired you or come here myself," he said. He hadn't heard from Michael since she left Denver. There had been no letters or telegrams, nothing to indicate that she ever wanted to see him again. "Michael will need protection. I don't believe for a minute that Houston and Dee will slip away quietly and live the rest of their lives in anonymity. If you'd seen the look Houston gave Michael as he was being led away after sentencing, you wouldn't believe it either."

  Jay Mac picked up the letter opener on his desk and tapped the flat of it lightly against his palm. Those who knew him well would have recognized the agitation and anger in the gesture. "I didn't want her testifying at their trials," he said with an edge of sharpness in his tone. "That should have been your job alone."

  "She would have been subpoenaed," Ethan told him. "She was a witness to almost everything."

  "I have you to thank for that, don't I?" He slapped the letter opener a little harder against his skin. "And if you don't think I could have kept her from testifying, you're seriously underestimating my influence."

  "You couldn't have bought me, Mr. Worth." Ethan's blue-gray eyes did not waver from the railroad tycoon's. John MacKenzie Worth was one of the hundred most powerful men in the country and at this moment it mattered nothing at all to Ethan. "I don't want your money."

  This time it was Jay Mac who looked away. He tossed the letter opener on the desk. It skittered across the surface and spun like a compass needle before it fell still. "I was just blowing off steam."

  The admission was nearly an apology. Either seemed surprising coming from Jay Mac Worth. Ethan nodded once, accepting it. "You never tried any bribery at all, did you?"