Megan Chance (5 page)

Conor let the anger boil, closing the small portfolio to hide the suddenly condemning eyes of his father. Sean Roarke would never approve of what he was doing. He'd said more than once that revenge was a petty emotion, that it was the shortest road to hell. But Conor was sure his father had never felt it for himself. How could Sean know the way the need for vengeance ate up everything inside until there was nothing left to do but go after it?

Conor shoved the portrait back into his saddlebags and pushed them against the wall. He had no time for those memories. There were other things to think about now. Plans to make. Revenge took all his concentration.

He sat back against the damp sod, resting his arms on his knees, leaning his head back to stare at the makeshift grass ceiling. He thought about Sari. The evening had not gone anything like he'd planned.

The fact was that he had underestimated her. His memories of Sari in Tamaqua were colored by the reasons he'd been there to begin with. It had been different then. He'd been sent to infiltrate, to become one of them, to form an alliance. Sari had been that alliance. She'd been lonely and unhappy, but when he'd noticed how easily she laughed and talked with him ... Well, it had been easy to start a friendship. To start more than that.

In spite of that he had underestimated her. Underestimated and forgotten.

The words she'd thrown at him—
"I never took you for a liar"
—stayed with him. It was disturbing, how much they stung. Disturbing that when he looked at her, his actions seemed irritatingly profane.

Conor swore to himself and sat back on his heels. She had been one of them in the end, and he couldn't forget that. At the time, he'd thought she was innocent. He remembered how she'd talked about Michael in Tamaqua. The way she'd spat his name and hated his politics and his friends. She'd talked as if she didn't know Michael's true role with the Mollies—he was their best executioner. But now he wondered—again—if it had all been an act. Was she as good a liar as he was? And if she hadn't been lying, had she realized, when she warned her brother away, that Michael was the man assigned to kill her lover?

Undoubtedly she had. Conor closed his eyes. He suspected she had guessed he was the traitor long before the others did. It had been his biggest miscalculation. He'd thought she was loyal to him. He'd thought—he would have sworn—she was in love with him.

Conor snorted softly. What did he know of love anyway? Except for his father, he had no experience with it.

But he knew about wooing. He knew how to kiss a woman and seduce her with words. He knew the touches that made a body burn. The touches that had made Sari burn. And if he had to utilize them again, so be it....

Conor smiled. He would find Michael Doyle this time. He would bring him to justice—
his
justice. No matter what it took.

I
t was dinnertime, and Sari hummed as she took the lid off the pot of boiling potatoes and sniffed their earthy, mealy scent. They were almost ready. Sari lifted the bowl beside her and quickly mixed the crumbly dough of the noodlelike rivels, dropping the tiny pellets into the boiling water to cook along with the potatoes.

Wiping her floury fingers on her apron, Sari glanced at her uncle, huddled in a chair by the bookshelves. He was sound asleep, the knitted afghan falling from around his shoulders, his head angled back against the seat. His soft snores filled the soddy, and Sari felt a quick wave of relief. Sleep was what he needed now, and she hoped he was having pleasant dreams.

Which was more than she'd had herself. Sari frowned, remembering last night. Remembering Conor's easy assumption that he belonged here.

Irritation stabbed her, along with a twinge of fear.

She had spent the morning trying to reconcile herself to the fact that he was staying, but she still didn't believe that protecting her was the only reason he was in Beaver Creek. He had walked away from her more than a year ago, had disappeared without a word. She had been convinced then that he would come back, sure that he was just hiding from the assassins. After all, she had been the one who told him the other Mollies suspected him of betrayal. She had been the one to warn him.

Sari clenched the fabric of her apron, letting anger bury the anguish that was as real today as it had ever been. Had she known then what she knew now, she would have let Michael and his men have Conor Roarke.

But she hadn't known. Instead she'd waited for him, anxiously checking the mails, living for a message that never came. It wasn't until just before Evan was arrested that she knew for certain what she had suspected for some time. Jamie O'Brien was the traitor. It was then she realized that he was never coming back.

Sari took a deep breath. There was no reason to think he was any different now. But at least Conor had taught her something. Now she expected treachery. He hadn't changed, she knew. He was already lying to her. Why would he want to protect her from the Mollies? He'd shown no such compulsion back in Pennsylvania, when she'd been in much greater danger. Her betrayal of Evan was common knowledge. There was more reason to kill her then, and more opportunity. Perhaps Conor was here to make sure they did get her. Sari smiled thinly at the thought. Now, that made sense.

She glanced out the window, catching sight of him as he crossed the yard to the house. The cotton shirt he wore stretched across his shoulders, the tails of a dark bandanna flapped against his throat. He wore no hat and no coat, though she knew the day was cold, and the wind fluttered back his brown hair.

The sight sent a wave through her of almost forgotten longing. She spun away quickly, suppressing it. Her hands shook as she lifted the lid on the pot of soup again, and clanked it back down when the steam scalded her face.

The leather hinges of the door creaked open; cold air cut the warmth of the room as Conor walked in.

Sari turned, catching his glance. The unexpected touch of his blue eyes threw her. But only for a moment. "You missed breakfast," she said coldly. "I was hoping you planned to keep your own company."

Conor lifted a brow. "Sorry to disappoint you. I think it's best if I stay around the house as much as possible."

She pulled open the iron door of the stove and took a handful of flat, dry buffalo chips from the fuelbox beside it. "How conscientious of you." She threw them in and wiped her hands on her apron. "What kept you from your duties this morning?"

"Sleep." Conor smiled as Charles yawned and stretched awake. "I'm not used to farmers' hours, I'm afraid."

"You will learn." Charles's voice was hoarse, but amusement touched it even just out of sleep. "It will not take long, I promise you. A few mornings of listening to the cows ..." He shrugged, smiling. "We will make a farmer of you yet."

"No threats, please," Conor said. He went to the stove and grabbed the pot of coffee simmering there, bending close to Sari. She smelled the astringent scent of bay rum, the faint, musty odor of straw. It was absurd, how seductive the scents seemed, how alluring.

Sari backed into the corner, trying not to touch him as he took two cups from the shelf and poured coffee into each. He crossed the room, handing a cup to Charles before he sat at the kitchen table.

Nervously Sari grabbed thick pottery bowls from the shelf above the stove and piled crumbly corn bread onto a plate. Her hands trembled as she ladled soup into the bowls, the pottery clattered as she set them on the table. Soup sloshed onto the stained oilcloth. She glanced carefully at Conor. "What's Pinkerton's opinion on how long you'll be here? Will this go on as long as your last investigation did? Do I have to house you for two years?"

That wounded him, she noted with satisfaction. His eyes hardened, she caught the tensing of his jaw.

"I'm here to do a job, Sari," he said quietly, his raspy voice grating against her nerves. "When it's over, I'll leave."

"Just like last time," she said bitterly. "And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime we'll both have to make the best of things."

She lifted her brows in mock admiration. "How noble you are for making such a sacrifice. It's horrible that you had to put your own life aside to travel here—to protect me, no less. How painful that must be."

"Sari—" Charles warned.

Sari ignored him. "Or wait—I forget. How could there be pain when you never cared in the first place?"

Conor looked away. "You don't know anything about it."

"Obviously."

"I can't help the past. It was a job—"

"And I was part of it. I know. I was there." She turned to her uncle, who seemed to sink into the chair under the heat of her stare. "Tell him,
Onkle
, tell him what happened when he left." When Charles didn't respond, she swiveled to Conor. "Tell him how they all looked at me as if they couldn't bear the sight of me. As if I were responsible."

Conor straightened. "I never meant for that to happen."

"Didn't you?" She laughed shortly. "What did you think would happen? Did you expect them to excuse me? They
knew
. They knew about us, they suspected I'd given you information. Evan knew I'd warned you."

"I couldn't help that," Conor said quietly, just as emotionless as he'd been since he'd walked into the soddy this morning. "Life isn't fair, Sari."

"Fair? Is that what you call it? Well, then, it doesn't seem fair to me, Jamie—" she caught her

breath as the name slipped out. "It doesn't seem fair that you caused it all, and yet I don't see any guilt in your eyes. There's nothing for me to do except think that you don't feel any. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you feel guilty for everything you did."

He hesitated, and when he looked away again, Sari felt a sinking inside that had nothing to do with anger. "You don't," she whispered. "You don't feel guilty at all, do you?"

She heard the barest pause before he answered. "I'm sorry for what I put you through," he said, his voice so soft, she had to strain to hear it. "But guilt is a luxury I can't afford right now."

Sari squeezed her eyes right, willing him away. She couldn't stand this, not the torture of seeing him every day nor the constant reminder of her own guilt and humiliation. "How wonderful for you that you can dismiss it so easily."

"You're wrong," he said softly, dangerously so. "You're wrong. I don't dismiss it. But I can't think about it. The sleepers could be outside right now, watching the house, waiting for you to step outside. Waiting for me. I can't afford distractions."

She stared at him—at the tightness of his face, the hardness of his eyes. He was a stranger this way, a man she didn't understand, a man she didn't know. And she felt the aura of danger hovering around him. It seemed to fill the air between them.

Charles cleared his throat, the chair creaked as he rose. He walked slowly to the table, rubbing the back of his neck. "The two of you are enough to make me lose my appetite," he said lightly. "Come, Roarke, sit down. Let us eat, and then you can come with me to the fields. I would like your opinion on something."

Conor nodded, not taking his eyes off Sari, who stood motionless by the stove. "Can I see the soddy from there?" he asked.

"
Ja
." Charles nodded. "It is not far. Sari will be safe enough."

Conor hesitated. "I'm not sure how much I can help you," he said finally, moving to take his place at the table. He sat heavily in the chair, picking up the spoon and drawing it through the soup. The earthy, buttery smell of potatoes wafted hot and aromatic in the air, but his appetite was gone.

He barely heard Charles as the old man began talking, outlining plans for the rest of the afternoon. Conor watched Sari from the corner of his eye, noting how stiffly she stood, how jerky her movements were. She seemed oblivious to them both, but he knew that was only a facade. The tension stretched between them until he felt as if a thin, taut wire held them together. One false move, and they would both snap.

She took a pie from the sideboard and set it on the table with such force, the top of the smooth custard cracked. Charles jumped.

Conor glanced at it doubtfully. "What's that?"

"Sugar pie." Sari slid the knife through the custard as if it were his heart she were slitting instead. She lifted out a piece and set it, quivering and collapsing slightly, on a plate. She shoved it in front of him.

"Sugar pie." Conor eyed the dark cream souping delicately in a golden crust. The smell of molasses greeted his nose. "I don't think I like sugar pie, thank you anyway."

"
G'schenkte gaul, gook net ins maul
."

You don't look a gift horse in the mouth
. Conor recognized the phrase, he'd heard her say it a hundred times before. She spoke the archaic German with gentle gutturals and softly rounded vowels, the way she'd learned it from her uncle. The husky burr struck him in the stomach with force, and with it came the memory, quick and burning, of the German love words she'd whispered in his ear, the way her warm, moist breath shivered at the hair curling at his neck. The way her silky tresses had swept his chest, and her slender fingers had stroked him.

He swallowed quickly, then saw by the quick flush staining her cheeks that she was remembering it too. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she turned away.

"You'd best eat,
Onkle
," she said softly, "before it gets cold."

"W
hat do you think?" Charles straightened, his gaze sweeping the land before him with pleasure and pride.

Conor took in the view, the purple-hued mountains that broke the prairie, the snowy rock face of Pike's Peak rising jagged against the rest. And below it the plains covered with brown and withered buffalo grass and sage—even the few cottonwoods lining the banks of Beaver Creek looked beaten and gnarled, punished by the harsh wind.

He chose his words carefully. "I think there is a lot to do."

Charles smiled. "
Ja
. There is much work." He pointed to the long brown scar of a half-dug ditch. "The canal is the most of it. The ground is frozen now, but in the spring we will dig again."