The Lawman Claims His Bride

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 head, he trekked across the planked sidewalk and wove through the labyrinth of activity on the street.

The moment he entered the jailhouse his heart beat a single, heavy kick against his ribs. The room held little light and the air shimmered with a cold, gray foreboding. Closing the door with a firm click, Logan forced his vision to adjust. He dropped a cursory glance at the desk cluttered with piles of forgotten reports before focusing his attention on the lone occupant in the middle cell.

Megan.

With a fierce mental shake, he slammed shut the part of him that wanted to beat down the bars between them. He willed her to look at him but she didn’t acknowledge his presence.

She appeared lost in thought, so small, so fragile. So…alone. Guilt pushed at him, mocking his attempt to think rationally. He’d waited five years to ask this woman to become his wife. He’d remained loyal to her in the face of every temptation San Francisco had to offer, and he’d done it without an ounce of regret. Until now. Now, as he stared at Megan’s bent head, he knew nothing but regret. Regret that he’d put off coming home for too long.

For one brief moment, he savored the soft lines of her shoulders, the elegant tilt of her head and the wheat-colored curls spilling down her back. She held her shoulders stiff as she twisted her hands in her lap, rubbing them over one another again and again and again.

Logan frowned.

He’d seen her like this only one time before. The day Pastor Beau had told her of her mother’s death. Logan had fought the urge to steal her away back then, to rescue her from her grief.

She’d been too young at the time. That’s what they’d said. Pastor Beau and her guardian, Marc Dupree, had insisted Logan step back and assess the situation like a man and not a “boy in love.” When he hadn’t backed off, Marc had threatened him, resorting to brute force to make his point. In the end, Logan had relented. For Megan’s sake, he’d allowed the others to sway his better judgment.

A mistake.

Now a row of impenetrable iron bars stood between him and the woman he loved.

Logan balled his shooting hand into a tight fist. The urge to hit something, or someone, came fast, but he reminded himself he’d taken a different path than his brother. Still, a low growl of frustration rumbled deep in his throat.

At the sound, Megan looked up and slowly turned her head.

Their gazes melded.

Logan’s heart pummeled his rib cage. The brutal assault made each intake of air a struggle.

Lost in her eyes, a compelling tapestry of silver over blue, he experienced a deep sensation of completion. The emotion was so simple, so pure he wondered how he’d been able to walk away before.

Well, he was home now.

“Logan?” A little sigh slipped from her lips. “Is it really you?”