The Ballad of Emma O'Toole. Elizabeth Lane

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СКАЧАТЬ backward, then another. “I didn’t mean to—”

      “Balderdash!” Emma glanced a blow off his shoulder. “You planned this. You were waiting for me to walk home, and you knew just how to play me.”

      Armitage staggered. Losing his balance, he pitched backward, slid down the muddy slope and crashed into a duck pen. As shrieks and Chinese curses joined the melee of squawking birds, Emma hurled the battered umbrella after him and fled. Her heart hammered her ribs as she plunged up the steep road.

      Through the rain she could make out the weathered brown blur of the boardinghouse. With the last of her strength she mounted the steps and crept around to the lean-to where she sank onto the bed and buried her face in her hands. A sob escaped her constricted throat. She gulped it back. It wouldn’t do to break down. She had responsibilities and a promise to keep.

      Once more Emma forced her mind to conjure up Logan Devereaux. She saw his face, the jet-black eyes, the golden skin, the bitter little quirk at the corner of his mouth as he confessed what he’d done. He’d claimed he was sorry. But the gambler’s emotionless gaze had made lies of his words. For all his show of regret, the man’s heart was surely as cold as a rattlesnake’s.

      She could feel her anger welling again, its fire warming her chilled body. She would use that anger, she vowed. She would use its heat to fuel her, to keep her going despite her suffering, her loneliness and her humiliation.

      Tomorrow, after her chores were done, she would go to the jail and confront the murdering villain again. She wanted to see how he looked after a night spent behind bars, contemplating his fate.

      She wanted to see him in pain.

      “Brung you some readin’, Devereaux.” Deputy Chase MacPherson’s mouth slid into a lopsided grin as he tossed the folded newspaper through the bars.

      Logan let the paper land on the bunk, then ambled across the cell to pick it up. There was no hurry. Even before he opened the Record to the front page, he knew what he would see.

      But he hadn’t anticipated how bad it would be.

      Logan’s jaw tensed as he read down the page to the clumsily rendered drawing of Emma O’Toole. The reporter Hector Armitage had played up the dramatics of the story, ignoring most of the facts. The innocent youth, the black-hearted gambler, the bereft, pregnant sweetheart—hell, it was pure melodrama! Why hadn’t the slimy bastard mentioned that young Carter had been caught cheating or that he’d drawn a pistol and threatened to use it? Why hadn’t Armitage interviewed the men who’d seen the gun and heard those threats?

      As Logan’s memory blundered once more through the nightmare of events, he saw himself bent over the dying youth, pillowing the boy’s head with his own jacket. He remembered the reporter’s freckled face thrusting into his vision, heard the annoying prattle of the man identifying himself and then pelting Logan with questions.

      He’d sworn at Armitage and shoved him so hard that the little man had fallen against a spittoon and knocked it over. Only now did Logan realize what a dangerous enemy he’d made. With this story, it was clear that Hector Armitage was intent on turning the whole town against him.

      “You got a visitor, gamblin’ man.” As the deputy sidled into view again, Logan’s heart convulsed with hope. It could be the lawyer he’d been demanding since dawn, or—

      “Right purty thing she is, too,” the deputy added with a suggestive wink.

      Logan sagged onto the bunk, his spirits blackening. He only knew one she in this miserable town, and it was a good bet she hadn’t come here to bring him chicken and dumplings. In fact, He couldn’t figure out why Emma O’Toole would come at all unless it was to vent more anger on him. He was sorry for her loss, but it was hard to feel much sympathy when her story in the newspaper was, without a doubt, turning the town against him. The young lady had him right where she wanted him, and the way things were going, she’d probably get her wish to see him hang.

      Feigning indifference, Logan opened the newspaper to page two and pretended to read. He could hear the light tread of footsteps approaching his cell, but even as they stopped, he didn’t look up. Emma O’Toole had sworn to see him punished. He would show her how blasted little he cared.

      “Mr. Devereaux.” Her voice quivered with defiance. Logan didn’t move.

      “Hey, gambler, you got a lady friend here!” The deputy seized a bar of the door and shook it until the lock rattled. “If’n you don’t want her, I’ll be happy to—”

      “All right.” Logan’s rapier glare cut him short. “I’ll speak with Miss O’Toole, but not with you hanging over her shoulder, MacPherson. Get out of here.”

      “But the marshal said for me to—”

      “Go on now, Mr. MacPherson.” Emma O’Toole’s voice was diamond-cool, diamondhard. “Your prisoner can hardly do me any harm when he’s locked behind bars.”

       Do me any harm!

      Logan bit back a curse. The woman was speaking as if he were some kind of wild animal who might leap out and have his way with her. Was that the next story she’d share with that little worm of a reporter?

      But what did it matter? She was here. And this, he realized, was his chance to make sure that she finally heard him out. Emma O’Toole was not getting away until he’d told her the whole miserable story.

      Logan stared down at the open newspaper, biding his time as the deputy’s footsteps faded away. In the stillness that remained, he could feel Emma O’Toole’s presence. He could feel her gaze like fire on his skin and hear her shallow, agitated breathing. Even without looking at her, Logan could sense how much she hated him.

      He let the seconds tick past, stalling as he would in a card game, forcing her to wait. He was in charge now, and he wanted her to know it. Otherwise she might not listen.

      And making her listen could make the difference between life and death.

      Only when he sensed she was nearing the end of her patience did Logan untangle his feet, rise from the bunk and look directly at her. Even then, with so long to prepare for it, the sight of Emma O’Toole stopped his breath for an instant.

      She was standing rigidly outside the cell, wearing an ugly, starched gray frock that had clearly been made for someone else. Her dark honey hair was pulled tightly back from her face, accentuating her bloodshot, blue-green eyes. She looked pale and drawn and haggard, but for all that, Logan couldn’t tear his gaze from her. Last night in the dimly lit saloon, his vision had caught little more than the flash of her anger. But now he knew that that exquisitely powerful face, with its tragic beauty, would haunt him to the end of his days.

      Her lips parted as their eyes met. The awareness dawned on him that he’d slept in his clothes, that his heavy black whiskers needed a shave, and that the chamber pot under his bunk hadn’t been emptied since last night. He looked like a derelict and probably smelled worse, but there was little he could do about that now. The only important thing was that she hear what he had to say, and that she believe him. If there was a spark of understanding in her, and if he could touch it—

      But this was no time to lower his guard, Logan reminded himself. The woman wanted him dead. She had said so to his face, and again in that cursed news article. The fact that she was young and vulnerable didn’t make her any less his enemy.

      He СКАЧАТЬ