Forever And A Day. Mary McBride

stood a kind of answer to his needs, and he wondered why it suddenly seemed to matter that she wasn’t the right answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was as taut and barbed as wire. “What do you want?”

      The whore’s mouth twitched in quick disappointment, then smoothed out to resume its customary, half amused, half bored expression. “There was a man downstairs asking after the girl,” she said. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

      Angie shrugged then and turned to go, but Gideon’s hand flashed out to catch her arm.

      “Who?” he growled.

      “Said his name was Logan. That’s all I know. Said he was looking for a girl, about twenty, about my height.” She lowered her voice. “He mentioned your name.”

      “What did you tell him?”

      She glanced at her arm, where his fingers were compressing her pale flesh. Gideon followed the direction of her gaze. He released her, cursing under his breath as he saw the crimson imprint that would soon turn black-and-blue. He closed his eyes briefly. “Sorry,” he said through clenched teeth.

      “Hey. Don’t worry about it, Missouri.” Angie gave her head a little toss. “I’ve been treated worse.”

      Ashamed because he had bruised her, unaccustomed to apologizing, Gideon simply stared at her. The whore’s mouth tilted into a small, fleeting grin.

      “A lot worse,” she added. “And don’t worry none about Logan. He was looking for her, not you. I heard you’d put the girl on the northbound train, so that’s what I told him. He was out of here so fast it like to made my head spin. Seems to set great store by the girl.”

      That was obvious, Gideon thought. It was obvious, too, that the banker had much more than an employer’s interest in his little teller if he had followed her all the way here.

      Well, hell, what natural man wouldn’t? If Miss Edwina Cassidy worked for him, Gideon would open the bank early and toil late just to keep her in his sights. Why should Race Logan be any different? Still, it didn’t make any sense when the man had allowed her to face a hard-bitten bank robber all alone.