And now Megan was snared in his trap.
He placed his lips close to her ear. “I promise you one thing, my little beauty.” He wrapped velvet around his words. “This will hurt.”
Something dark inside Megan snapped at the threat.
Cold, ruthless rage took hold of her.
She forgot about the knife at her throat. Forgot about the menace in her attacker’s eyes. And only focused on the black emotion spiraling through her.
Fury controlled her now. She allowed the power of it to spread, allowed her hands to act without permission from her brain. Slowly, resolutely, her palms snaked up her attacker’s arms and latched onto his shoulders.
Cole grinned and lowered his head toward hers. His eyes were a bit unfocused, as though the whiskey had dulled his thinking.
Megan shoved him with all her might.
Unprepared for the attack, Cole staggered back a step. The knife dropped from his hand. It hit the floor with a loud crack. Roaring a curse at her, he caught his balance and lunged for her again.
This time, murder glittered in his eyes.
Everything Megan wanted in life flashed through her mind. Logan. Children. A home of her own. “No!” Using her nails as talons she rushed at the man. “No.”
Trying to cover his face, he fumbled back a step. He began to fall but he grabbed her arm for support. They lurched backward, together, heading straight for the stone fireplace.
Megan fought to free herself, pulling her weight in the opposite direction. Another yank on her arm carried her straight into him.
Tangled together, they stumbled two steps back. Three. His head slammed against the mantle.
The hand on her arm went limp and he slid to the floor like a bundle of discarded rags.
Megan fell to the ground a second later, struggling for air. Now on her hands and knees, she blinked in horror at the man beside her. As quickly as they had come, all the dangerous emotions inside her disappeared. In the next instant, tears welled. Tears of frustration, of fear, of…
Why wasn’t he moving?
Hands shaking, Megan reached out. Attacking an innocent woman, indeed. She poked his cowardly shoulder.
He didn’t respond, didn’t budge.
Heart hammering in her throat, she glanced at the clock above her head, the one sitting on the center of the stone mantle. Megan was shocked to discover that no more than five minutes had passed since the outlaw had entered the parlor.
Feeling as though she was looking at him from a very far distance, she forced herself to study his face. His mouth hung open, slack at the jaw. And with each tick of the clock, he turned deathly pale.
Thou shalt not kill.
What if he was dead?
Thou shalt not kill.
What if he wasn’t?
She had to know for sure.
For several heartbeats Megan watched him closely. His chest rose and fell in an unsteady rhythm.
He was alive. But injured.
Megan tried to force up some regret, but she felt no remorse. Cole had attacked her. Given a few more minutes he’d have forced himself on her. Or worse yet, killed her.
Bile rose in her throat. Covering her mouth, she rushed into the bathroom. At the same moment, the door in the outer room opened and closed with a bang. She heard a man’s voice.
The sound brought with it a terrible thought. Men like Cole Kincaid ran in packs. Had one of his gang come to check on him?
No. No one could know he was here. He’d slipped out of one of the upstairs rooms when he’d seen the owner of the brothel rushing Megan down the back stairwell. He’d told her that himself, right before he’d pulled the knife.
Then who could be sneaking into the madam’s private parlor?
Megan took a tentative step toward the door and listened. She heard a muffled, “Get on your feet, Kincaid. Now.”
A nasty oath came in response to the demand.
“I said get up. I want you standing when you face the devil.”
Megan couldn’t identify the newcomer’s next words, precisely, yet the husky baritone sparked a feeling of relief. She knew that voice, knew it well.
What was he doing here tonight, in Mattie’s brothel, at this hour?
Bewildered, she edged forward and peered into the parlor. The man’s back was to her so she couldn’t see his face. But she recognized that powerful build. Except…
The way he held his shoulders wasn’t quite right.
Her thoughts knotted together in her mind, blurring like a distant dream just out of reach.
The man suddenly turned to face her. Their gazes met for only a brief moment before Megan’s vision grayed, darkened. And then her world went black.
Winter clung to the damp March air, refusing to relinquish its frigid grip on Denver. In an attempt to calm his raging emotions, U.S. Marshal Logan Mitchell filled his lungs with the biting cold. Eyes narrowed, temper hot, his thoughts pinpointed to one impossible reality.
Megan had been arrested. His Megan.
The churning in his gut formed into a tight, angry spasm. He could easily allow the dark emotion to take hold, but that would unleash a part of him he’d held tightly controlled since childhood.
Rubbing at the tension at the back of his neck, Logan studied the unassuming brick building directly across the street. He didn’t need perfect vision to read the words embossed on the plaque nailed to the door. Sheriff’s Office and Jailhouse.
This had to be a mistake. His future wife should not be locked up. She should be back at Charity House, the orphanage where she lived and worked, helping settle the younger children into bed for the night.
Logan lifted his eyes to the dark heavens, tried to formulate a prayer, but words escaped him. How did he turn to God for guidance when he had yet to discover what Megan had done, or why Trey Scott had locked her up like a common criminal?
No one at Charity House had given him a direct answer as to Megan’s whereabouts this evening. Instead, they’d given him some cryptic explanation about her reading to a sick woman living in Mattie Silks’s brothel. Mattie Silks’s brothel!
When Logan had questioned the ornery madam, she’d been the difficult, condescending woman he remembered all too well. She’d circled him like a rat sizing up a meaty piece of garbage, all the while talking to him in half sentences and irrelevant facts.
But Logan had been on to her game of distraction. He hadn’t missed her covert glances toward the back of the house, where her private suite of rooms was located. The woman had been hiding something. Or someone. Only when he’d started toward her boudoir did she direct him to the county jail. The county jail!
He sucked in another hard breath. The dark, damp air magnified the stench of stale liquor, cloying perfume and the polluted smells of Denver’s underbelly.
Nothing had changed on Market Street in the last five years. One glance at the bustling sidewalks told him that gambling, prostitution and saloons still flourished. Men of various sizes and economic situations spilled out of buildings only to stumble into others. Some moved in packs, others sought their pleasure alone. Raucous music mingled with shouts, cursing and laughter.
Bringing order and redemption to these streets would not come easy or fast. Logan would attempt to do so anyway.
But first, he had to free Megan.
Jamming his hat onto his