The Ballad of Emma O'Toole Read Free

O’Toole—” Armitage took one step backward, then another. “I didn’t mean to—”
    “Balderdash!” Emma glanced a blow off his shoulder. “You planned this. You were waiting for me to walk home, and you knew just how to play me.”
    Armitage staggered. Losing his balance, he pitched backward, slid down the muddy slope and crashed into a duck pen. As shrieks and Chinese curses joined the melee of squawking birds, Emma hurled the battered umbrella afterhim and fled. Her heart hammered her ribs as she plunged up the steep road.
    Through the rain she could make out the weathered brown blur of the boardinghouse. With the last of her strength she mounted the steps and crept around to the lean-to where she sank onto the bed and buried her face in her hands. A sob escaped her constricted throat. She gulped it back. It wouldn’t do to break down. She had responsibilities and a promise to keep.
    Once more Emma forced her mind to conjure up Logan Devereaux. She saw his face, the jet-black eyes, the golden skin, the bitter little quirk at the corner of his mouth as he confessed what he’d done. He’d claimed he was sorry. But the gambler’s emotionless gaze had made lies of his words. For all his show of regret, the man’s heart was surely as cold as a rattlesnake’s.
    She could feel her anger welling again, its fire warming her chilled body. She would use that anger, she vowed. She would use its heat to fuel her, to keep her going despite her suffering, her loneliness and her humiliation.
    Tomorrow, after her chores were done, she would go to the jail and confront the murdering villain again. She wanted to see how helooked after a night spent behind bars, contemplating his fate.
    She wanted to see him in pain.
    “Brung you some readin’, Devereaux.” Deputy Chase MacPherson’s mouth slid into a lopsided grin as he tossed the folded newspaper through the bars.
    Logan let the paper land on the bunk, then ambled across the cell to pick it up. There was no hurry. Even before he opened the
Record
to the front page, he knew what he would see.
    But he hadn’t anticipated how bad it would be.
    Logan’s jaw tensed as he read down the page to the clumsily rendered drawing of Emma O’Toole. The reporter Hector Armitage had played up the dramatics of the story, ignoring most of the facts. The innocent youth, the black-hearted gambler, the bereft, pregnant sweetheart—hell, it was pure melodrama! Why hadn’t the slimy bastard mentioned that young Carter had been caught cheating or that he’d drawn a pistol and threatened to use it? Why hadn’t Armitage interviewed the men who’d seen the gun and heard those threats?
    As Logan’s memory blundered once more through the nightmare of events, he saw himselfbent over the dying youth, pillowing the boy’s head with his own jacket. He remembered the reporter’s freckled face thrusting into his vision, heard the annoying prattle of the man identifying himself and then pelting Logan with questions.
    He’d sworn at Armitage and shoved him so hard that the little man had fallen against a spittoon and knocked it over. Only now did Logan realize what a dangerous enemy he’d made. With this story, it was clear that Hector Armitage was intent on turning the whole town against him.
    “You got a visitor, gamblin’ man.” As the deputy sidled into view again, Logan’s heart convulsed with hope. It could be the lawyer he’d been demanding since dawn, or—
    “Right purty thing she is, too,” the deputy added with a suggestive wink.
    Logan sagged onto the bunk, his spirits blackening. He only knew one
she
in this miserable town, and it was a good bet she hadn’t come here to bring him chicken and dumplings. In fact, He couldn’t figure out why Emma O’Toole would come at all unless it was to vent more anger on him. He was sorry for her loss, but it was hard to feel much sympathy when her story in the newspaper was, without a doubt,turning the town against him. The young lady