The Unlikely Groom

“Where am I?”

It was all that occurred to her. Worse, her voice croaked with an embarrassing thinness. Ashlynne swallowed and forced herself to maintain a steady gaze in Lucas’s direction.

“In my bed.” He shot her a heavy glare that seemed pointed at the same time and told her nothing.

She frowned. It made her feel better and she hoped it would put Lucas in his place. Her unseemly awareness of him or not, the man remained a scoundrel. He very deliberately wanted to make things sound as bad as he could, and that wasn’t fair.

He was the one who’d given her the whiskey, after all.

Oh, dear Lord. Ashlynne dropped her gaze to her lap and her hands went icy cold. Whiskey, she remembered, and a new wrinkle in her memory smoothed itself out. She’d had several cups of coffee laced with whiskey and swallowed them down without so much as a second thought. In a saloon. On the night of her brother’s murder.

How could she? She’d never done anything that dreadful! Worse, that disrespectful. What kind of woman had she become?

But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—take the time to answer the questions now. Self-reproach could—and would—come later, once she was alone. She wanted no witness for the emotional storm that waited just beneath her ability to control it.

For the moment she forced herself to look at Lucas once more. She leveled a steady gaze in his direction and spoke in a clear voice. “So this is your bed.” She paused. “Or your cot, as it were.”

“Complaining about the accommodations?”

“Not at all. I’m more interested in knowing exactly where your bed is.”

Lucas shrugged. “Where else? In the back room at the Star.”

The back room of a saloon. Ashlynne’s heart dropped. Humiliation urged her to hide her face in her hands, but she resisted with stiffened shoulders and clenched fists. She wouldn’t give Lucas Templeton the satisfaction of seeing her like that—and she couldn’t afford to give her weaker side the victory.

She forced herself to maintain direct eye contact with Lucas and to ignore the sour churning that had roiled up in her stomach. “How did I get here?”

“I brought you,” he said as he pushed himself straight and unfolded his body from the chair. He moved in one grand, sweeping motion that seemed completely unsuitable for a man his size.

He should have been more awkward, clumsier, she thought with a spurt of irritation. It would be only fair. Handsome men shouldn’t have every other ability at their beck and call, as well.

And she shouldn’t be noticing the man or how he moved.

“I didn’t know what else to do with you,” he added after a moment. “You couldn’t seem to tell me where you were staying.” He gave his lips a brief twist that she suspected was supposed to have been a smile. Even so, he didn’t appear at all amused.

He started across the room, taking a lazy detour that skirted a crooked stack of crates. The path brought him perilously close to the bed and Ashlynne’s instincts screamed at her to scoot back. Stubbornly she held herself still.

He passed by to stop at a window that Ashlynne hadn’t noticed before. A bit of light seeped from beneath a dark piece of brocade fabric that had been tacked over it in an odd-looking curtain.

Lucas tugged the makeshift drapery away from the window and hooked it around a nail to stay back. Light flooded the room, a pale, thin brightness that she recognized already as a winter day this far north. In summer, she’d been told, the midnight sun could be blinding. At the moment this was enough to force Ashlynne’s eyelids to snap closed and she jerked her hand up to shield her face.

Each movement pained her and she struggled against myriad physical ailments, refusing to acknowledge them. She dared not, not now that she’d remembered her drunken revelry was to blame. She was not like her father or brother. Demon alcohol would never get the better of her.

“What time is it?” she asked as she blinked to clear her vision.

She heard a soft rustle and then Lucas said, “Going on noon.”

“Noon!”

Her eyelids popped open and she stared between Lucas and the window. He didn’t seem to notice; he’d glanced down to replace his watch in the small pocket of his vest. When he looked up again, his smile appeared all too smug and he leaned his shoulder against the wall.

How could he appear casual and relaxed and dangerous all at once?

“What’s the matter, darlin’?” he asked. “Are you feeling a bit worse for the wear?”

Dear Lord. Noon. She had never slept so late.

She looked away, unable to hold his gaze, and stared down at the woolen cape in her lap. Somehow she’d managed to wad it into a wrinkled ball that seemed to represent the shambles of her entire life. Shame sent the blood racing up her neck to her face and her cheeks burned with fire.

“I—I have to go!”

Ashlynne tore at her cloak, shoved it from her legs and onto the floor. She stood, stumbling in her haste, and only then did she slow down. Careful, she reminded herself sharply. Now wasn’t the time to show Lucas how flustered she really was.

She took a deep breath and did her best to ignore the renewed pounding in her head. Gingerly she controlled her movements as she brushed the wrinkles from her skirt and adjusted her waistband. Her blouse would simply have to remain somewhat untucked, her bodice wrinkled, but she smoothed loose wisps of hair away from her face.

Finally, when she could avoid it no longer, she leveled a steady glare at Lucas. He stared back, just as she’d known he would.

“Thank you for…” She paused, struggling with how best to phrase her appreciation and yet conceal the confusion and fear that wrangled for dominance within her. “Helping me last night,” she finished, knowing the words were inadequate but without anything better. “I don’t know how I would have managed otherwise.”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find the sheriff and Reverend Dickey.” She didn’t mind when her tone came out a bit sulky. Lucas needn’t make such autocratic demands; it was none of his business where she went and what she did.

But…he had been good enough to help her last night and she would always appreciate that. “Can you tell me where the sheriff’s office is located?” she asked in a more conciliatory tone.

“We don’t have a sheriff.”

“Well, there must be some law enforcement here.”

“Deputy Marshal Taylor. But you don’t want to go to him.”

“Of course I do!” Ashlynne pulled herself up to stand as tall and imposing as she could. Even at that, she was hardly a match for Lucas’s size and she knew it. She conjured up a deep scowl to help with the illusion of strength. “I didn’t see him last night and I have a number of questions—not the least of which is if he has any idea who murdered my brother!”

“You won’t get answers from Taylor.”

“Surely he must have begun to investigate the—” she paused, swallowing the sudden lump at the back of her throat “—shooting by now. He must know something, and he won’t know where to find me.”

“You don’t want to see Taylor,” said Lucas again, his tone growing more insistent. He straightened from his casual pose and offered an answering scowl. “He won’t tell you anything. If you know what’s good for you, Ashlynne, you’ll just forget it.”

“Forget it?” Ashlynne’s voice rose in octave and strength. “How can you suggest such a thing? I would never do something like that! Ian was my only brother, the last family I had left. I have no intention of forgetting what happened to him. I mean to make certain that justice is served, and I’m sure that Deputy Taylor feels the same way.”

“Don’t be naive.”

“Naive? I only expect the law to do its job.”

“Listen, Ashlynne.” Lucas started in her direction, then he stopped and shook his head. “Deputy Taylor doesn’t give one good goddamn about the law. Or you. He’s Soapy’s man, and if you don’t want to end up like your brother, you’ll leave it alone.”

“Soapy’s man? What are you talking about?”