Chapter 18

18

Maeve sidled up next to Dakota where he leaned against the wall, right by the swinging door that connected the dining room to the kitchen. "What is—?"

Dakota yelped and jumped as if he'd sat down on a tack. He whirled to stare at her. "Where did you come from?"

Maeve's eyes widened as she looked up at him. "I walked right up beside you." Privately she admitted she'd come from the side he wasn't paying attention to, quietly, just to see if he'd notice her. "Now I'll finish what I was saying, and I'm surer than ever I'm right. What is going on with you today?"

Dakota's cheeks turned just the littlest bit pink.

"You're blushing? You don't seem like a man who's given to blushing. When was the last time that happened?"

Dakota's eyes seemed to gaze into the past, and yet he kept looking at the door to the dining room that led to the lobby. Which was what he'd been doing all afternoon. They were on the far side of the room, while the rest of their group sat around a table near the lobby door. They were talking with Ginny's lawyer, Mr. Etherton.

"I might've been, um, thirteen," Dakota answered. "Betty Ellen Wallace came and found me and my little brothers swimming in a creek by our house."

"Why did that make you blush?" Maeve asked.

He was watching the door again. With a shrug as if it didn't matter, and yet he'd remembered it mighty fast, he said, "We were all in our ... uh, that is, we were all five of us in the—" he cleared his throat—"the altogether, I guess you'd say. And she was a twelve-year-old girl. No matter her age, though, any girl seeing us like that would've brought on a blush at that age. Well, at any age." He proved it by blushing more deeply.

Maeve shook her head in a tiny yet aggressive manner. "Forget the swimming. What is going on with you today?"

Dakota saw someone move in the hallway and moved to investigate further. Maeve knew he had seen something because she was now riveted on the dining room door the same as he'd been. Dakota was standing by the door to the kitchen, and then he slipped through it and was gone. She saw the man, whoever it was, walk on past and go outside. Seconds later, she pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen and smacked Dakota in the face.

Startled, she stepped back and saw he'd had his eye pressed to a barely open crack in the door. He'd watched the man pass by the lobby, too.

He glared at her and walked back into the dining room, a red welt forming on his forehead.

"Sorry." She was sorry she'd whacked him in the face, but on the other hand... "Were you hiding?"

"No. I was checking the back door. The kitchen is usually empty this time of day, so someone could walk right in through that door."

Maeve stared at him for a minute, then said something she knew was outrageously insulting. She wanted to shock him. "And I say you're a liar, and a poor one at that."

Dakota sucked in a breath, straightened to his full height, which was quite tall compared to her, and nearly cut her to ribbons with his blazing eyes. "You take that back."

Calling someone a liar in the West was serious business. Herds of cattle, whole ranches, horses, and mining claims were traded or sold with nothing but a handshake and a man's word that he'd fulfill his side of the bargain. If a man couldn't be trusted out here, he was finished. He wouldn't be able to conduct any business, and he might as well pack up his things and head back east. Though the West was huge, it was sparsely populated. People knew people they'd never met by their reputation. Cowboys sitting around a campfire wove tales of all they'd seen, of men they'd known. A bad reputation could fly far and wide as if carried on the wind.

"Argue if you want, or admit you're not going to tell me, but don't lie to me." Maeve cut off whatever righteous defense he was about to make for himself.

She watched him wilt just a bit. His eyes darted to the lobby door, just as they'd been doing all afternoon, and then he gave Maeve an uncertain look—as if he wanted to tell the truth but was afraid. What secret was Dakota hauling around with him? she wondered.

"You're afraid someone's going to see you?" Maeve finally concluded. She had a younger brother and sister. They were imps, so she had to think fast to keep ahead of their mischief. Add up clues, read their sneaky little expressions. She did that now with Dakota.

"It can't have anything to do with Ginny," she went on. "You've shown no fear of being seen by Rutledge or his henchman Sykes or that awful Dr. Horecroft. Who is in this hotel you don't want to see you? You don't strike me as a man who's afraid of much, which means you're hiding ... to protect us?" Maeve couldn't figure out how that made much sense, but it was all that came to mind.

Dakota tore his eyes from the door and gave her a look of such horror that she knew she was very close.

"What trouble could your being noticed by them cause the rest of us? Who do you know in Cheyenne anyway?" From what Maeve understood of him, he'd been in charge of the wagon trains and later lived in his valley where he gentled wild mustangs. So how could he know anyone here in Cheyenne?

"Something happened during that year when you went to take over Jake's homestead." She was putting it all together like a puzzle.

"That's enough," Dakota said. "Yes, I've got a secret, and it's one I can't tell anyone."

"That's the definition of the word," she said, shaking her head. "Well, if it's true you're keeping a secret, you're not very good at it. So you may as well tell me what's going on."

"No. It's a secret for a reason. It could be dangerous for you to know. Let's just say there's a man in town who may intend to harm me. If I wasn't in town, surrounded by women and children, I'd go face him. But I'm avoiding him because if he sees me, if he figures out who I am, it could lead to a shootout. And that puts anyone standing close to me in danger. So far he hasn't seen me, or if he has, he didn't recognize me. I'm hoping we can settle Ginny's trial tomorrow, then head straight for home. That way this man will never see me. If he catches up with me later, at least there won't be bullets flying right past Jake's toddlers—and you."

"Go to the sheriff, Dakota. Tell him about your troubles and have that man tossed into the cell along with Rutledge and Sykes."

"Can't have him arrested if he's committed no crime."

Maeve frowned as she thought it over some more. It seemed her skills at staying ahead of her little brother and sister had stretched as far as she could make them stretch. "Please tell me what all this is about." She loved secrets. She had several she'd kept for a long time. Nothing important, mainly having to do with old friends back in Ireland, girls who'd sneaked out of their houses to meet the lads who'd sweet-talked them into taking a walk late at night. But Dakota's secret sounded like it would be a good one. "You know, I'm great at keeping secrets."

Dakota snorted. "I'm keeping this one for a very good reason. Not only could it put you in danger, but Jake might decide he wants no part of me here with you folks. And if he does, I can't be around to help protect Ginny. So the secret must stay a secret. You're exactly right—that's what the word means."

Maeve crossed her arms and studied him. "If I knew what it was that might put us in danger, I'd be on edge with you. I'd be better able to protect everyone."

"Just be on edge. You don't need to know why."

"Yes, but I want to."

A shadow passed over Dakota's face, and he looked away from the door. He focused on her in a way that made her realize he hadn't done that since she startled him.

"If I told you"—he looked back to the lobby door—"you'd hate me for it and stay far away from me."

"I wouldn't hate you, Dakota." Which wasn't a fair statement because she'd hated him for certain when her da had died and he wouldn't let them take a day away from their traveling to give Maeve a chance to say a proper goodbye to him.

Of course, that was a while ago, and she hadn't hated him lately.

"You would hate me, and you should."

"That makes no sense. Why should I hate you?"

Dakota didn't answer, but then the answer might be part of the secret. "You'd never allow yourself to spend any time with me, and if I paid you any personal attention, you'd stomp off and hide behind Ginny."

"I'd never allow you to pay any personal attention to me anyway."

That drew his full attention again. Despite the quiet voices across the dining room and that gaping lobby door, Maeve felt as though the whole world went silent. Dakota's eyes locked on hers, and she felt that gaze as if he were touching her. She felt his interest. She felt her own interest.

He reached out to gently catch hold of her wrist. He pulled her through the swinging door, and from one mo ment to the next they were alone in the empty kitchen. She had one split second to make sure no one was coming in the back door.

Dakota lowered his head and kissed her. Her first kiss.

She was lost in it, confused by it, captured by it. She was drawn to Dakota by the touch of his lips.

He eased back. "You allowed that, Miss O'Toole."

Shocked by such a rude statement, Maeve opened her mouth to shout at the big lunkhead. He stopped her by kissing her again. And by the great horn spoon, she kissed him back.

All she'd been through. All the stress of travel and her mother's announcement about Bruce and worrying about Ginny and what was coming toward her—all of it faded away to nothing. It was only her and this man, drawing her closer in the empty kitchen, tilting his head to kiss her more deeply. Paying her some very personal attention.

In truth she knew nothing of kissing. Deep kisses, tilted heads, encircling arms. It was all a great mystery that she would admit to having wondered about. And now that mystery was solved, and she was only left to revel in it. Sink into it, hoping it would never end.

No quiet voices, no danger, nothing intruded on their little cocoon of privacy. All she could see or feel or know was Dakota and his strong arms and this wonderful closeness. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt for a man before. Cracks in the parched desert of her heart that she hadn't known existed filled and healed there in Dakota Harlan's arms.

Finally, he eased her away, just a few inches, just enough that she could see him. Except her eyes had fallen shut. She fluttered them open to stare into his blue eyes. Her arms were around his neck, his around her waist.

"Maeve, you are a pretty woman." He kissed her again, then wrenched his head sideways. He shook himself all over like a dog shedding water, then dragged her arms off his neck. Holding her hands by the wrists, he kissed the back of her fingers, then urged her through the swinging door back into the dining room.

She slumped against the wall. Only it wasn't the wall, it was the swinging door, and she almost fell through it.

Dakota caught her, kept her on her feet, and drew her to the side enough that she could lean against something solid. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "And that's why I should tell my secret. You need to be reminded I'm no man you want ... well, paying any personal attention to you."

Maeve was sorely afraid she did want the attention. There was ample evidence of that. But since she was afraid her voice might shake, she didn't respond, nor did she ask him again what his secret was. If she did ask again, would he take her back into the kitchen? she wondered. He was trying to make her see how drawn they were to each other. And yet he didn't want that.

Though her thoughts were muddled, she remembered he'd said she would likely hate him after he shared his secret. She most certainly didn't want to hate him and doubted she would no matter what kind of trouble had brought this man to town, the one hunting him.

What could it possibly be? Dakota wasn't wanted by the law. When she'd advised him to go to the sheriff, he hadn't reacted like someone afraid his face was on a wanted poster.

No, some man was hunting him. A man with bad intentions but who hadn't committed a crime yet. She couldn't imagine what Dakota could have done to bring someone after him with a grudge. And why would she hate him if the man was unjustly angry with him? Did that mean Dakota had harmed someone? In some way not against the law?

For a moment, she was tempted to ask him once more just because she hoped he'd slip into the kitchen with her and kiss her again. Just to prove to her why they should stay apart.

Instead, she clamped her mouth shut. Using the doorframe to stay on her feet, she watched the lobby door. When someone moved out there and Dakota slipped into the kitchen, she could now see he was still looking through the cracked-open door. When he came back, she let him have at whatever nonsense he was up to. She was far too busy trying to get her heart rate to slow and her thoughts to clear.

She stayed beside him for a few more minutes. Then he did one of his disappearing into the kitchen tricks. But this time a man came into the dining room. An older man, gray-haired, stout, and dressed in a fine suit of clothes. He walked straight to Ginny's lawyer, who rose and shook his hand.

Dakota returned to the dining room as soon as the man was fully visible.

Mr. Etherton introduced everyone to the newcomer, including turning to point to Dakota and Maeve.

"This is Dr. Lawrence Snider. He's a respected man of medicine here in Wyoming. In fact, he's the personal physician to the territorial governor. He's going to spend some time with Ginny to assess her mental state." Then, formalities over, the doctor talked to Mr. Etherton earnestly for a few moments.

Dr. Snider extended a hand to Ginny, who rose from her chair. For the first time, Maeve noticed the papers in Ginny's hands. Ginny did tend to write a lot. Maeve had seen her do so several times during this trip. Maeve had assumed Ginny was writing someone a letter.

But who? Ginny had cut herself off from the whole world. They'd written to Kat, but they were here with Kat, so Ginny wouldn't be writing any letters.

Now she took the papers with her, and Maeve couldn't guess what was on them and why she'd want to show them to the doctor.

Beth rose, too, but then the lawyer Etherton started talking rapidly to her. With a frown, Beth quickly reclaimed her chair.

Ginny and Dr. Snider crossed to the other side of the dining room. It wasn't that big of a room, yet Ginny left her family on the east side of the lobby door and went with Dr. Snider over to the west side. The two of them settled in to talk while Beth fidgeted in her chair.

The babies soon woke from their naps, which kept Jake's family busy. Maeve abandoned Dakota to help out. Meanwhile, Ginny talked with Dr. Snider for the rest of the afternoon.