Chapter Four

After a harried morning spent selecting a wedding band and wiring funds to Chicago to retain the services of a Pinkerton agent, Gabe had made a beeline to the saloon, where he’d purchased another jug of rotgut whiskey and slowly sipped two jiggers while he considered how best to handle Nan Hoffman. Creating a winning round with the cards he’d been dealt was a challenge, and in the end, he’d concluded that he couldn’t corner his quarry if he approached her with his hat in hand. Gabe was a man who frightened women off the boardwalk into muddy streets to avoid getting too close to him. To herd Nan Hoffman to a preacher or justice of the peace this afternoon, he had to be ruthless and without conscience. He’d scare her into the middle of next week and marry her before she had a chance to think it through. He didn’t have time for the social niceties. Not that he knew much about them anyhow.

He’d stridden into her shop with his jaw set, prepared to convince her that he was the meanest, most coldhearted bastard she’d ever met. And judging by the way she was now grinding her backbone into the shelves behind her, had turned white as flour, and dropped her dusting rag, he guessed he’d accomplished his goal. The poor woman’s face was a mask of terror.

And he felt like a rotten, low-down skunk. This wasn’t fair play, dammit. He knew so many of her secrets—including that her nipples were such a pretty rose pink that they showed through her chemise—that he felt horrible about using the knowledge against her. On the other hand, going to hell wasn’t real high on his list of aspirations, either. This was like facing a gunman in the street, a win-or-lose contest, and Gabe stood to lose far more than Nan if he failed to convince her that her pretty little neck would soon make the acquaintance of a hangman’s noose if she didn’t do precisely what he said.

Lips trembling, she stared at him as if he were a coiled rattler about to strike. “Are you mad? We’ve never even met! What do you mean, you’ve chosen me to be”—she gulped and passed a shaky hand over her mercilessly tidy chignon—“your wife?”

Since explaining how he’d come to be here wasn’t an option, Gabe kept his mouth shut. Nan looked different today, a mere shadow of the woman he’d seen at the window right after he’d been shot. Then, her hair had been loose and agleam with candlelight, and she’d appeared soft and feminine. He detested the severe hairstyle she sported now, which allowed not even a tiny wisp of gold to frame her lovely oval face. He also hated her blue dress, a prim garment that skimmed her corseted waist and flared with so many gathers in the skirt that her curvaceous hips and legs were invisible. The collar was so high and tight it was a wonder she could breathe.

“You’re right; we haven’t met,” he conceded. “But I’ve observed you about town, and I’m a man who knows what he wants when he sees it. In short, Miss Sullivan, I want you, and it’ll be extremely foolish on your part if you refuse to marry me.”

Her chin came up. Gabe nearly smiled. It was a small, delicate chin with a cute little cleft. Her cheekbones, fragile and purely feminine, slanted back toward her ears, which were small and pink at the lobes, reminding him of the tiny seashells he’d once seen on an ocean beach during a stay in California.

In a tone that managed to quiver and drip ice at the same time, she said, “Well, foolish though it may be, I do, absolutely and unequivocally, refuse!” She straightened her narrow shoulders and stepped away from the shelves. It didn’t escape Gabe’s notice that she wobbled slightly on her feet. “Your suggestion is preposterous, sir. Please remove yourself from my shop. Now.”

Gabe finally allowed himself to grin—a slow, humorless curve of his lips born of long practice that had made more than one man in a rage decide to think twice before he pushed his luck. “Fine, Miss Sullivan. Never let it be said that I don’t know when my welcome has worn thin.” He moved away from the jewelry case and touched a fingertip to the brim of his Stetson. “I’ll just mosey on down to the marshal’s office. I’m sure he’ll be real interested to learn that the widowed milliner who’s passed herself off as Nan Hoffman for eight years is actually Nancy Sullivan, a woman wanted for murdering her fiancé, Horace Barclay. The telegraph lines will be tapping quicker than a lamb shakes its tail, I’m guessing, and by dusk, you’ll be on the wrong side of a jail cell’s bars.”

Gabe allowed his grin to broaden just slightly into a smile. “You ever been in the hoosegow, darlin’? Those cells reek of stale urine. The mattress ticking crawls with bedbugs. If nature calls, you’ve got to relieve yourself in a bucket that’s still crusty with the leavings of the last man who used it.” He held up a finger. “A word of warning about those buckets. Don’t make the mistake of sitting on one. You’ll sure as hell catch the crabs.” At her bewildered expression, he gave a low laugh. “Crabs are a form of lice, only you get them at the wrong end. Itch like a son of a gun, and it’s harder than hell to get rid of them.” He sighed. “Oh, well, scratching your nether regions raw will keep you busy while you wait for the wheels of justice to turn. And they turn slowly, Nan. I don’t reckon the law in New York will get all the way out here to Colorado any too fast. Might take as long as a week or two for the authorities to come fetch you—or arrange for a lawman here to transport you back to—” He broke off, pretending forgetfulness. “What’s the name of that island? Ah, yes, Manhattan. Never got an urge to ride that way. I hear the eastern shores are crawling with people. I’m a man who likes some elbow room.”

Gabe turned as if to leave, hating himself even as he felt victorious. Nan Sullivan wasn’t a stupid woman. The success she’d made of her shop proved that. Right now, he could almost hear her mind racing as she weighed her options. And Gabe had given her none. If she let him walk out that door, he’d eat his hat and have his boots for dessert.

•   •   •

Nan’s knees were rattling so badly that she could barely keep them locked to remain standing. She watched the stranger in black take quick strides toward the door, knowing as he covered the distance that she could not allow that overhead bell to jangle. In a very real way, it would be her death knell. And, dear God, what would become of Laney, her bright, talented, gregarious little sister? Nan knew precisely what would happen. The moment their father got word of Laney’s whereabouts, he would come to fetch her, take her back to Manhattan, and marry her off at age sixteen or younger to some fat old lecher to form a shipping or industrial alliance that would make him even wealthier than he already was.

As terrified as Nan was for herself, fear for Laney loomed foremost in her mind. Nan had tried so hard to give her sister a better childhood than she’d had, encouraging Laney to have friends, bolstering her confidence by showering her with praise, and always urging her on, even when the child set herself nearly impossible goals. As a result, Laney was everything that Nan wished she were herself, if only she’d been given a chance. She would not allow Martin Sullivan to undo all of that.

“Wait!” Nan cried just as the man touched the doorknob. “I don’t even know your name!”

He stopped, turned to face her again, and then swept his black hat from his head in a mockery of gentlemanly politeness. “I beg your pardon, Miss Sullivan. I should have properly introduced myself before asking for your hand. Gabriel Valance, at your service.” He bent slightly at the waist in an offhand bow. “Gabe is my preference.”

Nan didn’t think her heart could jitter any more violently, but it did when she heard his name, which was almost legendary in Random and undoubtedly in other towns as well. “The Gabriel Valance, the gunslinger?”

He settled his Stetson back on his dark head, cocking the brim just so. “One and the same, ma’am. I don’t think I’m quite as bad a fellow as folks make me out to be, but that’s neither here nor there. Fourteen men have tried to kill me, I didn’t feel obliged to let them, and so I got them before they could get me.” A crease appeared between his black brows. “Well, to be honest, there was one recent exception, but though the other fellow shot me first, my Colt also found its mark, and he fell face-first in the street beside me, dead as a doornail, just like all the others who went before him.”

“Fourteen?”

“A good thing for me, I guess. Thirteen is a really unlucky number.”

Once again Nan felt as if she might faint. Moving unsteadily to a crate of merchandise, she sank weakly onto the splintery wooden slats. Her future plans had never included marriage, let alone marriage to a man who informed her coolly that he’d killed fourteen men. Did he carve notches on his gun belt? Her gaze slid to his hips. He lifted an eyebrow, and she realized what he must be thinking. Hastily she averted her eyes, but not before she saw his mouth quiver in quickly suppressed amusement. Her gaze darted to a beaded clutch bag on a nearby shelf. She longed to throw it in his face. Instead, she murmured faintly, “Fourteen men? Dear heaven.”

“Nothing about my life has been heavenly, Miss Sullivan. My mama was a whore who got sick and died on me when I was only a little tyke. My father was a coldhearted bastard who made a success of his first gambling establishment and then destroyed anyone who got in his way to buy another and another, until he became a man of inestimable wealth.” He paused and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his sun-browned neck. “Well, maybe inestimable is a stretch, but he was a very rich man. He never acknowledged me as his son until he died. Never even saw to it that I was cared for. I grew up on the streets, scavenging for food from people’s trash and stealing clothes off drying lines. When I had no shoes, I cut stolen sheets into strips and wrapped my feet in linen.”

Nan stared at him, too shaken to feel sympathy, yet shocked to her core nevertheless. Her childhood had been dreadful, but the one he described was far worse.

“I was fourteen when I got tired of being kicked around,” Valance continued. “And, yes, a homeless, hungry boy living hand-to-mouth does get kicked around. There are men in this world who take pleasure in hurting those who can’t fight back.” He rubbed beside his nose. “With a good deal of afterthought, I’ve got reason to believe I wasn’t any too bright at that age, because stealing a sidearm off a sleeping drunk on the boardwalk was a bad mistake. Once I had a weapon, I mucked horseshit out of livery stalls to earn enough money to buy bullets, and then, every second I wasn’t shoveling manure or sleeping wherever I could find shelter, I practiced shooting at targets. Once I could take the head off a matchstick without fail at fifty yards, I worked on my speed until nary a man in Kansas City could clear leather faster.

“Right about then was when my lack of good sense really began to show, because I walked into a saloon, bold as brass, with a chip on my shoulder so big it would have taken a club to knock it off. I went into the establishment to show the world that I was no longer a snot-nosed brat who couldn’t fight back. I mistakenly thought that just wearing a gun would accomplish that. I never anticipated that it would take an exchange of lead to get the job done. Unfortunately for me, there was a gunslinger of some repute passing through town, and he was bellied up to the bar, washing the trail dust from his throat with a jug of whiskey. When he saw me swagger in, still a kid with peach fuzz for whiskers, acting like I could nail any man who challenged me, he took exception, told me to make fast tracks, and when I didn’t, he made the mistake of going for his gun. I killed him before his Colt ever cleared the holster.”

Nan closed her eyes. She had asked for an introduction, but hearing this story was more than she’d bargained for. Mr. Valance didn’t seem to sense her reluctance to hear more, so he continued.

“Once a man outdraws a famous gunslinger in public—exhibiting that much speed and accuracy—he becomes, hell, I don’t know, a target, I reckon you could say. Word travels fast. Before I knew it, every fellow who fancied himself a quick draw wanted to face me in the street to prove that he was faster. By the time I was eighteen, I’d killed six men, never once because I set out to, but because I had no choice. I had to defend myself or die, and I wasn’t quite ready at that age to meet my maker. After six encounters, I took to the trail, trying my damnedest to stay one step ahead of the fools who were trying to find me, but over the last fifteen years, I’ve failed in that endeavor eight times, so, all in all, fourteen men have made the fatal mistake of challenging me.”

Nan lifted her lashes. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a single word to utter.

“So,” Valance said with a tip of his hat, “do you consider us to be properly introduced now, Miss Sullivan, or do I have to tell you every other ugly detail of my past to get the job done?”

Nan finally found her voice. “If this is your idea of courtship, M-Mr. Valance, I can assure you that it leaves a great deal to be desired.”

He laughed, and the gruff rumble of humor came so unexpectedly that she started. “No, ma’am, it’s not my idea of courtship. I’ll tend to the courting part after I put a ring on your finger.”

“I have not agreed to marry you.”

“No, but if you refuse, I can promise that you won’t like the consequences, and neither will your sister.”

Nan clenched her fists over the gathers of her skirt. “I never meant to kill Horace Barclay. He was . . . Well, he meant to take liberties he had no right to take prior to marriage. I got away from him long enough to grab a knitting needle from my yarn basket to warn him off. He just laughed and lunged at me, tripped, and fell forward, taking me down under his vast weight. I never meant to stab him.”

Valance leaned his back against the door and crossed his booted feet. “I’ve no doubt you’re telling the truth. As dumb as I’ve been a few times in my life, I’ve smartened up over the years. I’d never marry a woman I thought might stab me when I turned my back on her.”

“Then why?” Nan cried, her voice turning shrill. “If you believe I’m innocent, why are you doing this to me? You can’t possibly bear me any affection. You know only enough about me to send me to the gallows, and if I end up there, my little sister will suffer even more than I will, and for far longer. Why? You walk into my shop from out of nowhere, a man I’ve never seen in my life, and demand that I marry you. I don’t understand. What can you possibly hope to gain? You don’t seem interested in money.”

“I’ve got plenty of money of my own without tapping a woman who works from dawn until late at night to make a success of her business.” His coffee-dark gaze locked with hers. “So, you’re right: I’m not interested in your bank account. Maybe I’d just like a chance to spend time with a beautiful, refined woman. Or a chance, maybe, to hang my hat on the same hook for a spell and see how it feels to have a normal life. I’ve countless reasons, Miss Sullivan, but time’s a-wasting, and I’m finished talking. You can get your cloak and go with me to the preacher—or a justice of the peace, if you prefer—and become my wife. Or you can tell me to go to hell, and I’ll walk down to the marshal’s office. Your choice.”

“Choice?” Nan’s voice shot up an octave. Catching herself, she continued in a calmer tone. “What do you mean, choice? And even if I agree to this madness, how can I be certain you won’t soon tire of the situation and turn me in anyway?”

“You don’t for certain yet.” He shrugged one thick shoulder. “On down the road, you’ll come to know me better and realize I’d never make a bargain like this with you and then renege later. But for now, all you’ve got is my word. If you marry me, the truth of your real identity will be a secret I’ll carry with me to the grave.”

Nan realized her blurred image of him was caused by tears, and that infuriated her. She never allowed herself to cry in front of anyone. She’d learned under her father’s harsh tutelage that weeping only encouraged a merciless person to be crueler.

And there was not the slightest doubt in her mind that Gabriel Valance was merciless, perhaps even more so than her sire. He was the kind of man who would rule a woman with an iron fist, and crush her with the brute force of a blow if she dared to defy him.

Even so, Nan had no options. She didn’t want to hang for a crime she hadn’t intentionally committed, and she would endure anything, even marriage to a self-confessed killer, to protect Laney.

She pushed shakily to her feet. “Please excuse me while I go upstairs to my living quarters and fetch my wrap.”

He inclined his head. Then he moved quickly forward as the door opened behind him and bumped his back. Geneva White, the banker’s wife, walked in, smiling brightly. Atop her brown coiffure, she sported a gaudy, overdecorated hat that Nan had made, per Geneva’s specifications, cringing as she’d added the requested stuffed canary to a crowning and unattractively flamboyant abundance of flowers and feathers. According to Geneva, such hats were all the rage back east, and it was the silly woman’s primary aspiration to set the fashion standards in Random, keeping its female population apace with the latest fads. Over her rose walking dress, she wore a lush cape of burgundy wool and suede gloves of exactly the same hue.

Her blue eyes twinkled with eager excitement. “I’ve finally succumbed to temptation, Nan, and Simon has relented. I want to commission you to design that gown for me.”

Nan glanced at Valance. He gave a slight shake of his head. Nan tried to smile at her customer, but her face felt as if it were painted with dried egg white.

“I’m terribly sorry, Geneva, but I’m closing for the day. A matter of some urgency has come up.”

“Oh, dear, is Laney all right?” Geneva asked.

“Laney is fine.” Nan groped for an explanation and settled for, “It’s a private matter.”

Geneva finally noticed the man who loomed to her right like a dark specter. She paled, flashed a horrified look at Nan, and made a fast retreat to the door. “Later, then. Perhaps I shall return on Monday after the holiday weekend.”

“Perfect,” Nan managed to reply with some semblance of a normal tone. “I’ll look forward to coming up with a fabulous design.”

Geneva gave Valance a last, wary glance and exited the shop with a loud jingle and bang of the closing door.

Valance gazed through the windows at the fleeing woman. “Was that a bird on her head?”

“Yes.” Nan’s stomach rolled, and for a moment she feared she might gag and purge her stomach on her gleaming plank floors.

“Not a real one, I hope.”

Bile burned in Nan’s throat. “The fake ones don’t look that real.” She remembered how she’d hated handling the stuffed creature—ever conscious of how tiny, fragile, and defenseless it must have been in life. She’d read, afterward, that people painted the insides of shoe boxes with varnish, stuffed the live canaries inside, closed the lid, and killed them with the fumes. A quick and painless death that left the birds unmarked, the article had claimed. But Nan didn’t believe it was painless.

Her world had become a varnish-coated box, the lid was closing, and she could attest to the fact that struggling for breath was agonizing.

•   •   •

A biting chill sliced through Nan’s green wool cape, making her already cold body feel like a chunk of ice. She couldn’t imagine how Gabriel Valance could bear being outside without a coat, but if he suffered from the near-freezing temperature, he gave no sign of it. He stopped just outside her shop to arch a raven brow at her.

“Which do you prefer,” he asked, “a justice of the peace or a preacher?”

Nan definitely didn’t want to marry this man in a spiritual ceremony. If they kept it as merely a legal union, recognized only by the state, she could at least tell herself that the vows she was about to make wouldn’t be binding in heaven. “The justice of the peace suits me fine.”

He nodded, and for a man who had to be new in town, he turned right, needing no direction. With surprisingly good manners, he stepped to the outside of the boardwalk and cupped her elbow in his hand, keeping her sheltered between him and the storefronts as they walked. Nan tried not to think about how large his hand felt—or how even the relaxed press of his fingers emanated strength through her wool wrap. If he chose, he could probably crush her bones with the sheer force of his grip.

This isn’t happening, she thought a little wildly. It can’t be. I swore never to marry, and it was a promise I meant to keep. And yet here she was, striding along beside him as if nothing out of the ordinary were about to occur. Madness. How would she explain this to Laney? Even worse, how would she survive the coming night? Gabriel Valance wasn’t one to prevaricate; he’d been brutally honest about his reasons for doing this. He’d seen her and decided that he wanted her. Though Nan had never lain with a man, she was no twitter-brained young girl who had no idea what occurred in a marriage bed, and in her opinion, the whole process would be not only disgusting, but also possibly painful. She seriously doubted that Gabriel Valence knew the meaning of the word gentle.

“How did you find out about me?” she asked, her voice twanging with panic.

His grasp on her arm tightened as he guided her around a loose plank. “Well, now, there’s a story, and one you wouldn’t believe if I told you. So let’s just say a little bird whispered in my ear.”

Nan’s panic mounted. “If you were told about me, then someone else must know as well.”

“Two individuals—no, make that three—know every detail about your past, but they’re in no position to talk.”

“You can’t be sure of that!” she responded shrilly.

He laughed, and with surprise she realized his amusement was genuine. “Oh, ma’am, I think I can. They’re no longer of this world.”

“You killed them?”

Just then, a drunk burst through the bat-wing doors of the saloon out onto the boardwalk. Valance caught Nan back, drew her to a stop, and gave her a perturbed frown. “Why the hell would you think that?”

“You said they’re no longer of this world; that means dead.”

“Well, they’re not dead,” he shot back. “Not the way you’re thinking, anyhow.” Using his free hand, he fidgeted with his hat. “It’s hard to explain, and I’m not going to stand here trying until I talk myself blue. You just have to take my word for it; they won’t be yapping to anybody.”

Nan gaped up at his tanned face, wishing his coffee-dark eyes were easier to read. The drunk finally staggered from the boardwalk into the street, heedless of the fact that he forced a farmer to bring his wagon team to a rearing stop, and apparently deaf to the insults shouted after him as he wove across the thoroughfare toward the general store.

Valance guided Nan back into a walk. Only a few doorways ahead was the office of the justice of the peace, a man named Walter Hamm, who also served the community as an attorney at law, occasionally sat on the judicial bench, and sold eggs from his wife’s chickens on the side, undercutting Burke Redmond’s prices at the general store by a penny a dozen. Ellen Hamm’s eggs were superb, with yolks that were nearly orange, and whites that held their shape in a hot skillet, testimony to the good care and feed her hens received. Nan often came up the street to buy eggs from Walter. Today the walk seemed much longer, yet at the same time all too brief.

When they reached the door, Nan jerked to a halt well away from the threshold. She felt Valance’s grip lighten on her elbow.

“If you want to bolt, I won’t try to stop you,” he said. “If you can’t go in there and do this willingly, I won’t—”

“Willingly?” she challenged, her voice reed thin with anger. “You’ve given me no choice. It’s go in or be hanged by the neck until dead.”

“With that or you just contradicted yourself. You do have a choice.” He angled a meaningful look across the street at the marshal’s office. When he looked back at her, a muscle along his jaw ticked, and his eyes seemed as black as a moonless night. “Make up your mind, Miss Sullivan. Marriage or the gallows? I think I’m the better bargain.”

Nan couldn’t argue the point, so she covered the remaining distance to the entrance. She couldn’t make herself believe, really believe, that she was going to marry a man she had never clapped eyes on until an hour ago, if, indeed, it had even been that long. But do it she would. No matter how badly he treated her, she would somehow protect Laney, and in the end, being his wife would be better than dying. She’d escaped from an intolerable situation before and started a whole new life. If she had to, she would withdraw what money she had in the bank and do it again.