thousand dollars. There’d be no reneging with old lady Grenville, Marcus was certain. Five thousand was a drop in the bucket to someone like her. And to him? To him it was perhaps the future that he’d spent the past decade avoiding. Five thousand could buy a lot of land. Good land. By God, maybe it was time.
Marcus blew a stream of cigar smoke off to his left and picked a fleck of tobacco from his lower lip. He was intensely aware of the folded poster in his pocket. It already felt like folded greenbacks, and he wondered if the Grenville woman would come across with cash or a check. Of course, he hadn’t done anything to earn it yet, he reminded himself. Fantasizing about the reward was one thing. Bringing Miss Amanda Grenville in was something else entirely.
He was glad now that she’d gotten off the train. That saved him forcing the decision upon her. The fewer people who saw her, the better, because it was as sure as sunrise that every manhunter west of the Mississippi had already dropped whatever he was doing and was hot on little Amanda’s trail. It was also likely that every amateur with a five-thousand-dollar dream was searching for her, too.
For a minute, Marcus seriously considered tying her up and nailing her in a crate neatly addressed to Granny Grenville. That would not only garner him the reward, but would also put an end to hatboxes, snagged buttons, sharp elbows and all the other irritations the lady just naturally provoked. But it would also mean the end of those glorious green eyes and that fetching little mouth and…
Well, hell. It just wouldn’t be sporting, Marcus told himself. Half the pleasure of being a bounty hunter was the chase, in his estimation. Most of the pleasure, if he was to be brutally honest. The money had never meant all that much to him.
What was even better, he thought now, as he watched little Miss Amanda Grenville come flying down the street in his direction, was having his quarry run right into his arms. Into his waiting, helpful arms. Marcus took a last pull from his cigar, then dropped it and ground it under his heel.
“The train left!” She skidded to a halt beside him, and hardly had enough breath to get the words out. Her pretty face was flushed and damp, but those green eyes were dry and hot.
“Right on time, too.” Marcus bit down on a grin as he shifted off the post and gestured toward the fabric-covered parcel not too distant from his feet. “There’s your hatbox, Duchess. Don’t bother to thank me.”
If she heard him, she didn’t react. Nor did she express a tad of gratitude. Not that Marcus expected a goddess to be grateful to a mortal. Her gaze moved frantically around the platform. She waved her hands wildly. “Where’s my valise?”
He shrugged.
“I need my valise!” she wailed, not so much to him as to the Fates in general. “All my clothes are in my valise. And my hairbrush, too. And…and…” Her foot shot out and sent the hatbox flying. “All my money’s in my suitcase, dammit. What am I supposed to do now?”
Then she paced back and forth for a minute like a tiny tornado on the platform, before she plopped down in a heap of skirts and started chewing on a nail, muttering to herself as if Marcus weren’t there.
He stood silently, watching the way the afternoon sun warmed her hair, wondering what it would look like unpinned and spilling over her shoulders like a yellow shawl, imagining the delicacy of those shoulders, the perfect paleness of the skin, the…
“Did you miss the train, too?”
Her plaintive question brought him out of his reverie and put an end to his foolish, misdirected thoughts. “Yep,” he said. “Looks like we’re in the same boat, so to speak.”
She looked up at him, shading her glorious green eyes against the sun, pondering him with her brow furrowed and the tip of her pink tongue passing over her lower lip. No doubt she was wondering if she could trust him. For a minute she reminded Marcus of a lost little girl, rather than a pampered and spoiled runaway heiress. His heart gave an extra and very peculiar thump, and he suddenly felt like fighting a grizzly bear on her behalf, or stopping a train by throwing his body across the tracks. Doing all those foolish and heroic things he would have done so gladly for Sarabeth all those years ago.
“Help me,” she said. “I’ll pay you.”
Pay him? Marcus’s heart gave a tiny pop, like a soap bubble. Pay him!
“Help me catch up with the train,” she said. “Then, when I retrieve my luggage, I’ll reward you handsomely.”
He shouldn’t be so put out, he told himself. Or so confoundedly disappointed by her offer. After all, money and handsome rewards were what this was all about, weren’t they? He wanted to be paid—and paid well, too, dammit—didn’t he?
“You might try a simple thank-you,” he growled.
“Then you will help me?” She scuttled up from the platform and looked up into his face eagerly, holding her breath while she awaited his reply.
Marcus made her wait, just because he felt cussed and mean and bruised, even though he had every intention of helping her, of sticking to little Miss Amanda Grenville like glue from here on out.
“Say please.”
Those big green eyes blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said say please. You know, that little word that often accompanies requests.” He arched an eyebrow. “Surely you’ve heard it before, even if you haven’t used it yourself, brat.”
Her mouth formed an astonished and perfect little O then, and her eyes flashed.
“Say it,” he coaxed.
When her mouth finally closed, her teeth were clenched so hard she could barely get the word out. “Pi-please.”
“That’s better.” Marcus grinned and stepped closer to her. Just then the breeze shifted, blowing up dust and cinders from the track, along with a powerful fragrance that seemed to emanate from Miss Amanda Grenville herself. He sniffed, baffled for a moment. The rich women he’d known—a few over the years, and far less rich than Amanda—had smelled like exotic flowers, jasmine and tuberose and lily of the valley, or like musky she-cats in hot jungles. But this woman suddenly smelled like… like…
Still baffled, he sniffed again, then took a half step back, eying her suspiciously. “What the hell is that?”
“What is what?”
“That smell. That perfume you’re wearing.”
Her chin lifted imperiously. “It’s vanilla, if you must know. I think it’s rather nice. Fresh. And…and wholesome.”
“Wholesome, huh? You smell like a damn cake.”
“I’d suggest that you cease breathing, sir, but since I’m in need of your assistance…”
Marcus shook his head. He’d have to stay downwind of her, that was for sure. Or see that she got a bath. “All right. You wait here while I wire ahead to the next station and have them pull your luggage off the train.” He started toward the depot door. “Wait a minute. I’ll need to know what it looks like, this valise of yours. Any identification on it?”
“It’s a brown alligator satchel with double handles and the initials A.G. in gold on one side.”
“A.G.?”
She blinked, flummoxed for a second by her admission, before the runaway heiress recovered her wits and called out, “Yes. A.G. A as in Alice and G as in…as in Green. Alice Green.”
“Right.” Well, she was fairly quick on her feet, he thought. He would’ve preferred a slower-witted bounty. “You’re sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped.
Marcus touched the brim of his hat, giving her an encouraging little salute from the door. Little Alice Green would probably need it, since she wasn’t going to be seeing that monogrammed suitcase again