Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [106]
“Not yet.”
“Are you close to capturing him?”
“Closer than I’ve ever been.”
She looked down. “That isn’t saying much, is it?”
He reared back at the slur but said nothing.
“Well, I’ll see you in a bit, then.” Turning, she headed back the way she’d come, her skirts swaying with each step.
He watched until she disappeared into the thicket. He needed to send word to his captain. Tell him the mission had been compromised. But if he did, Heywood might pull him off the job. And that he could not, would not, allow.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Arriving home, Georgie latched the hook on her screen door, then dropped her opera glasses and field notebook on the easy chair and fell onto the couch. She didn’t change, light a lamp, review her notes, or make supper. She simply sat, staring at the empty fireplace.
Questions swarmed in her head. She tried to go back to her earliest memory of Luke and reconstruct what had happened to see if there were clues she should have seen. But how could she have? Never would it have occurred to her Lucious Landrum was sitting in the desk beside her. Or was it really Ranger Landrum? Perhaps she was right the first time. It was Comer pretending to be Landrum pretending to be Luke.
Her head began to ache. She recalled his splinters that first day he climbed the poles, something a seasoned troubleman would have known how to avoid. She thought of the numerous times he’d heard someone come up her walk well before she did. And then, there was the inordinate amount of time he spent in the field. Was he actually working or spending time with his gang?
Mr. Ragston’s call yesterday came to mind. How he’d specifically asked to speak to Luke, even though most folks reported their problems to her and she conveyed them to Luke. How Luke had insisted on going out to the Ragstons’, even though nothing was wrong. How he’d waited until after hours to clear the Spanish moss off the lines.
Had there even been any moss, or was it all a ruse? Was Mr. Ragston part of the Comer Gang? The idea seemed preposterous. He had a wife, children, and a farm to run. He had no hair, huge ears, and droopy eyes. Outlaws didn’t look like that. She had seen sketches and pulp novels. Why, she’d seen the Comer Gang herself. Not a one of them looked like Mr. Ragston.
But she hadn’t seen them all. Only the ones who’d boarded the train or held them at gunpoint. She closed her eyes, conjuring up Comer. His eyes had been blue, no question. And he’d had extremely wide shoulders. But she wasn’t certain he was as tall as Luke.
No, he’d only been about a head taller than she was. Hadn’t he? And Luke was more like a head and a half. Still, she couldn’t be sure.
She called to mind her impressions of Lucious Landrum. None of them had been favorable, but if she pushed those aside and concentrated solely on physical characteristics, would she recognize him as Luke?
Pulling up her legs, she leaned her head on her knees. Think. Think.
His silhouette as he talked to the engineer. But it was the engineer who wore overalls, not Landrum.
His scowl as he demanded the widow return the money Comer had given her. But the light had begun to fade and his Stetson had shadowed his face and eyes.
The thick, dark beard had made his features appear round, so different from the sharp, angular lines of Luke’s cheeks and jaw.
No, she simply could not reconcile the man called Lucious Landrum with the man she knew as Luke Palmer.
But there was no disputing those pistols. They were Landrum’s, all right. That didn’t mean it was Landrum who now carried them, though.
She took a deep breath. Luke had certainly looked different today in shirt and pants. She’d not realized how flat his stomach was, how muscular his legs. She thought of the gun belt riding low on his hips, the exquisite scrollwork on his guns, the motto beneath—
Her head whipped up. The gun belt. Lucious Landrum had worn his exactly the same way, but Frank Comer had his cinched around his waist as if he needed it there to hold up his trousers.
She slowly lowered her legs. If there was one thing