After the Ashes(5)

“It worked on Berkley Ellard, didn’t it?”

She slowly lowered her arms. The mere mention of Berkley’s name popped the bubble of guilt she always carried in the center of her chest. “That was different. Berkley knew you. Besides, a crooked game of cards doesn’t hold a candle to what you’ve been accused of. That Braddock fellow thinks you’re a murderer.”

Corey abandoned his chair to kneel beside her. “I saw the way he looked at you. And you don’t even look that good right now. If you pretty yourself up like the old days, he’ll listen to anything you have to say. I know it.”

She tried to look indignant rather than shamefaced. She wasn’t that same silly girl anymore. And Braddock could easily use her weakness against her. He had to have noted her nervous fluttering in his presence.

“What exactly are you asking me to do?”

“Nothing. Just stall for time. Sweet-talk him.” Corey stood. Lorelei ran her hand over the table’s gouged surface. She held no power over men. Berkley had taught her that, and Braddock stirred her in a way that Berkley never had, even while he terrified her. But she had to do something.

“Do you know what he’ll think if I show up at his hotel room dressed in some low-cut evening gown? He’ll think I’m delivering myself to him on a silver platter.”

Corey slid behind her and rubbed her shoulders, a sure sign he thought he might be getting his way. “You can handle him. I saw how you set him back when he grabbed your arm. He’ll be the perfect gentleman in your hands, Lorelei.”

She doubted Braddock even knew what a gentleman was. And even if he did, how could she expect him to behave like one if she wantonly showed up at his hotel room, alone, asking for a favor? “Corey, I can’t do what you ask. It’s not proper. Ma wouldn’t approve, and she’s not cold in her grave yet.”

“If you don’t stop him, he’s going to hunt me down and they’re going to hang me. Don’t you think Ma would want you to save my life if you could?”

The only thing worse than having her only daughter turn into a harlot would be having her only surviving son, her baby, harmed. Lorelei braced her elbows on the table and covered her eyes with her fingers. “It’s not going to work. I can’t convince him to stop chasing you.”

“Just keep him occupied. While you’re talking to him I can sneak away. I know a place where I can heal up; then maybe we can figure out what to do. I just need to get him off my trail, Lorelei, or there’s no hope at all.”

She peeked through her fingers. Corey watched her, his brown eyes shining like sunlight on a sorrel’s groomed coat, the color returning to his cheeks. She was the one who felt sick.

“I’ll do it,” she agreed.

When he opened his mouth to thank her, she stopped him. “I’m going to find out what he knows about those other men. I still think you should go to the authorities and tell them you weren’t a part of the robbery.”

A grin wobbled at the comers of his mouth, but when he limped back to the bed, her brother grimaced dramatically enough to assure Lorelei he wasn’t as injured as he wanted her to believe.

“It’s your arm that’s hurt, Corey.”

He cradled the arm she reminded him of as he sank onto the bed. “I’ll clear my name with the law as soon as things calm down and folks aren’t so hanging mad. I never wanted to be an outlaw, just a horse breeder.”

Lorelei folded her arms over her chest, feeling duped. Their mother would claim being an outlaw and a horse breeder were one and the same. Lorelei didn’t even want to think what she would say about the undertaking to which her daughter had just agreed.




CHAPTER TWO



Braddock leaned against the cool iron headboard, and rubbed his hand over his freshly shaven face. He had forgotten how good it felt to be clean. The long, hot bath in itself had been worth the ride into Arriba. A sound night’s sleep on a soft bed wouldn’t hurt, either. He shifted his shoulders until his hard angles melted into the mattress beneath him, but the unknotting of his stiff back didn’t do a thing for the nick in his pride left by that thorny flower of Southern womanhood.

The way she’d stood there—high and mighty, all the while he could tell she quaked in her boots—made him feel something he hadn’t in a long time: like it was his duty to protect her. His honor bound oath. But he had lost his taste for oaths and honor during the long war to preserve the union  . He’d done more hacking apart than preserving.

And as well as she put on the proper lady act, he knew Sullivan wasn’t her brother. No man would expect his sister to fight his battles. In Braddock’s experience, family didn’t work like that. They didn’t help each other without something to gain. So what did this woman have to gain by protecting Sullivan? A wedding ring perhaps, or maybe part of the gold. Braddock pushed himself off the bed. He pulled a clean shirt from his saddlebag and tugged its well-worn, black cotton over his shoulders, but left it unbuttoned. He hadn’t done the woman a favor by letting her believe she’d succeeded in protecting Sullivan by standing up to him. She’d be in for a very unpleasant surprise if she tried to stand up to Mulcahy.