She waved a hand at him. “I know it’s improper, but I didn’t come down here to kiss you.”
And that rendered him speechless. He wondered if he were the one blushing for once. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, scrambling to regain his composure.
A flicker of amusement appeared in her otherwise serious face. “I need to speak with you, and I don’t wish to awaken anyone.”
Mitchell glanced past her toward the darkened house. “All right. But we’re leaving the door open.” It wouldn’t matter, not if Arlen or George—or, heaven forbid, Josie—came down here to investigate, but it made him feel somewhat better about the situation.
Lara pushed past him to the table in the middle of the room. She ran a finger over the half-carved duck and smiled before opening the newspaper and setting it flat on the table. She pointed at something toward the bottom. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
Mitchell tucked his hands into his pockets and joined her. Her finger pointed at an article near the bottom of the page next to an image of a man.
A man who looked far too familiar.
Mitchell tried to keep his expression impassive as his eyes raked over the artist’s rendition of Buck Clarkson—a man he never thought he’d see again.
A man who had now escaped prison.
He couldn’t fully comprehend the words in the article, but the gist of it was bright as day. Clarkson had escaped. Clarkson, who thought Mitchell was the one responsible for his sentence.
Get a hold of yourself, King. Clarkson didn’t know where he’d gone. He was a good two hundred miles from Denver.
“When was this paper printed?” He reached for the corner and turned the page back.
“A few weeks ago? It doesn’t matter,” Lara said, twisting her hands in front of her.
Exactly three weeks ago, according to the date on the front page. Three weeks for Clarkson to ask around about him.
And then something else occurred to him.
His eyes found Lara’s. “Why are you showing me this?” She couldn’t know. It was impossible. The article didn’t mention his name.
She bit down on her lip, and he thought he saw fear cross her face like a shadow. “He was in town. I’m certain of it. And he . . . Mitchell, I think he was following me.”
The world seemed to swirl around him, loud and silent, bright and dark, all at once. He gripped the edge of the table and tried to force his mind to function.
Facts. He needed facts. And then he could make a decision.
“Tell me what he looked like,” he said to Lara.
She tilted her head, as if she wasn’t entirely certain why he was asking when the man’s image was right there in the newspaper. “Not like much of anything, really. Brown hair, not very tall but not short, just . . . like any other man.”
That was Clarkson’s particular talent—blending into any place, any scenario. He was just as much at home in a first-class railroad car as he was among the men guarding the payload in the last car.
“Did he threaten you?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Lara replied. “When I realized he was behind me, he simply stopped, raised his hat, and turned around. I . . . to be honest, I’m not sure hewasfollowing me. It was only a feeling I had. Maybe it was because I’m still a little spooked from what happened down by the road—”
“You were right to be wary.” He glanced down at the paper. It had been Clarkson. He felt it deep inside. It was far too coincidental for a stranger who just happened to look like him to be the one who’d followed Lara.
He pushed down the urge to toss a saddle on Trip and ride into town, to yank Clarkson out of whatever boardinghouse he’d found and show him exactly how he felt about him scaring Lara.
“Mitchell?” Her voice was quiet, threaded through with concern.
He pulled his gaze from the newspaper and back up to her. For the hundredth time, he was struck with how beautiful she was. That red hair was like a fire that never went out and the soft planes of her face begged for his touch.
Mitchell swallowed hard, trying to press those thoughts to the back of his mind. This was all too good to be true. He should have known that the second he accepted the job here.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” she asked.
