Or halfway across the state by now. No wonder the little son of a bitch had been in such a sweat to leave Marcus and his boots and his damn nickel behind.
“Excuse me, miss.” Touching a finger to the brim of his hat, Marcus turned and walked away.
Amanda peeked around the building for a last glimpse of the stranger, whose whiskers hadn’t totally concealed a strikingly handsome face. Even the shade of his hat hadn’t been able to hide eyes that were bluer than a prairie sky at noon. And now, as he walked away, Amanda couldn’t help but notice how wide his shoulders were and how his gunbelt hugged his narrow hips. If eastern dandies had the merest notion how the slant of a bullet-laden gunbelt set a woman’s heart to pounding, she was convinced that New York and Connecticut would soon be as wild as the West.
“Oh, my.” But even as the wistful sigh escaped her lips, Amanda reminded herself that a woman who was engaged to be married had absolutely no business noticing the physical attributes of men. Strange men, too. Ones who, for all she knew, were only interested in dragging her back to her grandmother and pocketing the five-thousand-dollar reward.
She’d only escaped two days ago, tossing her hastily packed valise from the train as it slowed for the Omaha depot, then jumping after it, while her grandmother snored in her big upholstered chair. “Over my dead body,” the old woman had blustered. But as it turned out, over her snoring body had been adequate.
Amanda smiled, still quite pleased with herself for outfoxing the stubborn old vixen. She didn’t for a minute believe her grandmother didn’t have her well-being at heart, but this time Honoria Grenville was wrong. This time—for the first time in all her twenty-one years—Amanda knew what she wanted and, by heaven, she was going to get it, even if it meant slinking around train depots and begging favors from raggedy little shoeshine boys.
And where was that boy, anyway? Surely he’d had ample time to purchase her ticket by now. She’d have gone into the depot herself, but with those reward posters tacked on every available inch of wall, she didn’t dare. Her grandmother must have had them printed within minutes of her escape, then hired half the men in Nebraska to post them.
She paced back and forth now, squinting up at the sun, wishing she’d remembered to take her watch with her when she jumped off the train. If she had remembered it, though, she wouldn’t have had an excuse to ask that darkly handsome man for the time, though, would she?
A tiny grin itched at her lips. How shocked her grandmother would be at Amanda’s bold behavior. Of course, she hadn’t expected the man to pursue the brief conversation. Or her. That worried Amanda considerably. What if he had seen one of the posters?
It suddenly occurred to her then that the little boy might have seen one of the dratted posters inside the depot and run for help. Her fingers twitched at the sides of her skirt, ready to hike it up and make yet another escape, when she heard the soft jingle of spurs just around the corner of the building.
“Here you go, miss.”
When the handsome stranger held out a ticket, Amanda snatched it from his hand. Thank God, she wanted to wail, and had to swallow hard to keep from showing her incredible relief. But before she could subdue her vocal cords enough to offer a single word, the man quite literally chilled her with those blue eyes of his.
“You’re welcome,” he said with undisguised sarcasm. “Always glad to help a lady in distress.”
What did he think she was, an ungrateful, illmannered boor? She was a lady, after all. That was practically her sole credential. And as for distress, well, she’d gotten along just fine for the past two days, despite the fact that she was being hunted like a dog. And, like a dog, Amanda could feel her lips pulling back in a snarl when she said, “I’m most appreciative of your chivalry, sir. Keep the change, won’t you?”
“Keep the—?”
Marcus dragged in a calming breath as he looked down at the four silver dollars in the palm of his hand. He’d just sprinted a quarter mile to catch a nine-year-old thief, caught the boy by the scruff of the neck, upended him and shaken the two double eagles loose.
“Don’t you ever steal from somebody who trusts you,” Marcus had warned him. “Especially a lady who’s scared and in trouble and is depending on you for help. You got that, kid?”
After nodding and blubbering about how sorry he was, the little bastard had proved just how much the advice meant to him by kicking Marcus in the shin and hightailing it into a grove of elm trees.
And now here he was—Marcus Quicksilver, knight errant, slayer of dragons and shoeshine boys, humble ticket bearer—being told by his damsel in distress to keep the goddamn change!
He was tempted to swipe the railroad ticket right out of her dainty little hand and tell her to walk wherever it was she was headed and good luck to anybody she met along the way. Instead, he reached out for her hand, turned it over and slapped the four coins into the palm of her glove. Hard.
“My pleasure, miss,” he said through clenched teeth. “Enjoy your trip.” And here’s hoping I get hit by lightning before I ever set eyes on you again.
Marcus was still muttering to himself half an hour later as he settled into his seat in the crowded railroad car. He’d had the devil’s own time getting his horse, a chestnut mare he’d christened Sarah B., up the ramp of the baggage car and into her narrow stall. Like her dramatically famous namesake, Sarah Bernhardt, the horse was temperamental. She rarely acted up when the two of them were alone on the trail, but seemed to prefer an audience, usually one of chortling, tobacco-chawing geezers who took great delight and purely perverse pleasure in Marcus’s predicament.
He sat now with his saddlebags on the empty seat beside him, his arms crossed over his chest and his legs stretched out, anticipating a halfway-decent nap once the train got under way and its rocking motion began. It ought to be fairly quiet until the train pulled into the next meal stop, in Julesburg. He listened to the big locomotive building up its head of steam, felt the floor beneath his boots begin to tremble, then heard the conductor bawl out, “All aboard!” Marcus let his eyes drift closed.
With a little luck and a little nap, he hoped his foul temper would dissipate. Maybe his luck would change, too. He hadn’t been lucky of late. Not a bit Now he was just about broke. Again.
Not that it mattered all that much, Marcus thought wearily. A lifetime ago, when he became a bounty hunter, more out of necessity than by choice, his plan had been to collect enough bounties until he had the cash to buy a decent piece of land and try his hand at farming again. Even try his luck at marriage one more time.
He was no closer to that dream today than he’d been a decade ago, and it made him wonder—when he allowed himself to think about the pain of the past and the blank slate of the future—if maybe he really didn’t want that dream to come true.
Hell. Maybe a man was only meant to be lucky once in a lifetime, and his all-too-brief marriage to Sarabeth had been his own brief portion of good luck.
He sighed roughly, shrugging off the haunting memories, settling deeper into the upholstery. Even more than good luck now, he needed the healing power of a good, long sleep.
“Excuse me.” Someone jabbed his shoulder. “I said excuse me, sir. Would you be good enough to remove your belongings from this seat?”
Marcus didn’t even have to look up. That haughty voice was almost as familiar to him as his own now. Her face, as well. Those money-green eyes would be narrowed on him, cool and demanding, and her luscious mouth would be thin with impatience. He hesitated a moment, as if he hadn’t heard her, before he reached over to grab hold of his saddlebags and shove them under his seat.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Marcus angled his hat over his eyes once more and crossed his arms, more determined than ever to fall asleep, despite—or maybe because of—the feverish activity in the adjacent seat.
She