Forever And A Day

The aged teller seemed to melt beside her. “You...you’re not supposed to be here, Miss Honey. Please. Nobody else is supposed to be...”

Boot heels clomped on the opposite side of the counter, followed by the distinct sound of iron clearing leather. And then a deep, whiskey-rich drawl.

“The name’s Summerfield.”

What little color remained in Kenneth Crane’s face drained away. His Adam’s apple somersaulted in his throat as he mumbled something unintelligible, then crumpled into a dead faint on the floor beside Honey’s knees.

* * *

“Gideon Summerfield?” she exclaimed.

Gideon contemplated the pretty face that had bobbed up from behind the counter like a windflower after a warm spring rain. The blue-green eyes that bloomed big and round with surprise. The moist petaled lips that forgot to close completely after speech. The dark tendrils of hair that framed her face, then spilled over her shoulders and couldn’t quite conceal a breathless, ample bosom.

After five years in prison, the sight of a female—pretty or otherwise—windflower or weed—was enough to snap every nerve in his body. And the sight of this particular female jolted him like white-hot lightning. For a dizzying second, he didn’t know where he was...or why.

“The Gideon Summerfield?” The blue-green eyes blinked and the petaled lips quivered.

He wrenched himself from the empty-headed bewilderment. For crissake! If he wasn’t careful, Gideon thought, he’d be on his way back to Jefferson City in leg irons and steel bracelets. No woman in the world was worth that.

“That’s right, sweetheart. And now that you know who, let’s move on to why.” He leaned against the counter, edging the barrel of his pistol between the brass bars. “Hand it over.”

Honey wasn’t sure which terrified her more—the Colt or the deadly, gunmetal gray of the eyes that were narrowed on her face. Gideon Summerfield! If what she had read in the papers was true, this man wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Frank and Jesse James. Cole Younger. Gideon Summerfield. Dwight Samuel. The names rolled through her mind like a funeral march. They were cold-blooded killers, all.

Her knees were knocking together beneath the counter as Honey raised her hand, still clutching some of the bills she had gathered from the floor. “Here.” She shoved them beneath the brass grille. “Take these.”

The gunmetal gaze dipped to the crumpled banknotes, then swung back to Honey’s face. A tiny grin played at the corners of his mouth as Gideon Summerfield tipped back the brim of his hat with the muzzle of his gun.

“Must be all of twenty dollars there,” he drawled.

That amused expression only chilled her more. “Just...just take it and get out. I won’t scream. I promise. I won’t even tell anyone you were here.”

His grin flashed wider. “Hard to make a living robbing banks at twenty bucks a throw, wouldn’t you say?”

She stood there just staring at him now, her turquoise eyes big and bright with fear, her lips pressed together to still the trembling, her chin tilted that defiant little notch.

Something twisted in Gideon Summerfield’s gut then. What the hell kind of a man was Race Logan to leave a windflower to face this situation alone? The girl was terrified, and rightly so with the cold barrel of a Colt pointed at her young heart. Logan no doubt had figured a defenseless flower would cause the least trouble, provoke the least amount of violence from the jailbird. But, dammit, didn’t the banker have any inkling how frightened this little teller would be? Didn’t he care?

Gideon cursed himself for his own misguided sympathy. What good would it do anyway? Most likely just land him back in a dank five-by-eight cell in Missouri. Hell, the little bank clerk would survive this fine, even wind up with a doozy of a tale to tell her grandchildren one day.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said brusquely. “Let’s just get this over with. Hand over the money.”

“No.”

He stared at her in disbelief, not certain he had heard her right. “This isn’t a Presbyterian social, darlin’. I wasn’t asking you to dance. I said hand over the money.”

Her chin came up another notch. “No.”

“You’re playing this out for all it’s worth, aren’t you, sweetheart?” He thumbed back the hammer of his gun as his eyes narrowed to steely slits. “The money. Now.”

Honey was about to tell him no again when Kenneth Crane rose shakily behind her.

“I—I’ll get it for you,” he stammered.

“Much obliged.” Gideon’s eyes remained on the windflower, whose pretty face had puckered indignantly at the old man’s words. There was as much fire in her eyes now as fear.

“Kenneth, don’t you dare...” she began, then fell silent when the tip of Gideon’s pistol touched her chin.

His words were directed to the teller, who was heading for the paneled oak door of the office, but his gaze skewered Honey. “I appreciate your compliance, mister. I’ll appreciate your speed even more.”

“Kenneth!” Honey wailed.

“Shh. Hush up, sweetheart. It’ll all be over within a minute or two. Nobody’ll blame you for this.”

Honey glared at him. “A lot you know, you... you...”

His lips quirked into another grin and one eyebrow lifted rakishly. “Thief?”

“No-good, degenerate snake!”

Gideon Summerfield laughed out loud. “Plenty of folks would agree with you, darlin’, but none of them would have the vinegar to say it to my face.” Gray eyes skimmed her face, her throat, the lace frills on the bodice of her dress. “Vinegar,” he murmured huskily, “and lace and honey. Sweet, warm honey.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

His gaze jerked up to her face and the remnants of his smile disappeared. “You should be,” he ground out from between clenched teeth, thinking if she had even a glimmer of the fire blazing in him right now this little girl would run screaming from the bank, whether he held a gun on her or not.

“Well, I’m not.” What she feared right now was facing her father’s rage when he discovered his bank had been robbed while his daughter was in it. If she had ever hoped to impress him with her responsibility, this incident would dash those hopes irreparably. He’d never let her even visit the bank again, much less work in it.

Damnation! She wanted to reach across the counter and just choke this desperado for the way he was messing up her plans and her life. Her hands clenched into fists at the thought, and then Honey realized she was still wearing half of the wrist cuffs. The legal half. Jewelry for a thief. Now, if only...

Kenneth Crane came out of the office, lugging a large canvas bag by its leather handles. “Here...here it is,” he said as he shuffled toward Summerfield on the public side of the counter.

Ignoring the gun, Honey scurried around the counter. Then, just as Gideon Summerfield extended his hand for the bag, Honey reached out and clamped the empty cuff around his wrist. At the sound of the click, her eyes blazed victoriously and her mouth settled into a smug line.

“Oh, Lord,” breathed Kenneth Crane, appearing to wither inside his suit.

Honey flicked the teller a disdainful look. She had expected that from the fainthearted wretch. From Gideon Summerfield, on the other hand, she expected curses and a battle royal with fists and fingernails and feet. She stiffened her body in preparation.

He did curse—a soft, almost whispered expletive that seemed more prayer than oath—and then he shook his head just before his free arm circled Honey and he hoisted her onto his hip.

“Put me down,” she shrieked. “Kenneth, for God’s sake, don’t just stand there gawking. Do something.”

“Oh, Lord,” the teller moaned. “I don’t know what to do.”

It was Gideon Summerfield who answered him with a growl. “I’ll tell you what to do, fella. You tell your boss to be a whole lot more careful about who he invites to his parties.”

Then, with the money bag in one hand and a flailing Honey in the other, he walked out the door.

Chapter Two