She raised her gaze to his.
"I'm no green boy playing with his first six-shooter. And Darrell is a crack shot as well. We're the best men you could have defending you. But maybe our skills won't be needed. Beaufort's gang may attempt to break him out of jail instead. Or they may storm the courthouse and try to rescue him there. There's no guarantee that you're their focus. They're aware that you've been put under the protection of the Marshals. Attacking you would bring on the added heat of attacking the Empire. I'm thinking that may make them think twice about hitting the train."
She wanted to believe him. She was only twenty-six. Far too young to die and she had responsibilities, such as an inn to run. Clay had said the trip would take approximately three weeks. If she wanted to return home with her nerves and sanity intact, she'd have to trust him, even if that involved a good measure of self-delusion.
"Here."
He held a dripping, glazed cherry toward her mouth. Rather than pull away as she knew she should, she parted her lips. Clay's gaze held hers as he gently placed the fruit between her lips. She pulled the globe into her mouth and licked the glaze from her lip. Clay was slow in moving his fingers away. If she extended her tongue, she would touch him.
Do I want to touch him?
She pondered the question. A better one might be:
Do I think this may be the last time I get to? I might end up dead before too long.
He moved his hand away, freeing her from her inner dilemma.
"Keep up your strength," he told her quietly. "We've got a long way to go and I want you showing up at that courthouse looking as fresh and lovely as you do now."
"I can see that those rumors are true," Mariel said as she sat back. "About the women and your apprehension record."
He grinned and wrapped his sandwich in a bandana before stuffing it into a pocket of his jacket. The pie he gulped down in four large forkfuls.
"I'll gladly take that compliment, ma'am." He stood and placed his hat on his head before unslinging his belt from the hook on the wall and cinching his revolver low at his trim hips. He seemed extremely tall and imposing in the suddenly too small compartment. Mariel imagined him taking two steps toward her and looming over her. She thought she wouldn't resist whatever he did after that. I may not live to see the sunrise…
But Clay, with a smirk on his face as though he'd read her thoughts, opened the door of the compartment and stepped out into the hall. "Darrell will be by. Don't open this door for anyone but him or me." She listened to his spurs take him away, his absence filled by a sense of disappointment.
Five minutes later, the second Marshal, Darrell, older than Clay by a good fifteen years but full of energy and possessing an unflagging, stern expression, paused outside her compartment to tip his hat at her. She smiled and waved. He returned the wave and continued on to the adjacent compartment where he'd spend the night guarding over her while she slept here.
It was mostly black outside the window. Night was the danger. Night was when Beaufort's gang was most likely to strike, and it was telling that Clay had assigned himself to this shift. He wanted to meet the danger head on. Hopefully that decision had been made due to a realistic assessment of his skills, rather than an overinflated belief in his abilities.
"You'll just have to trust him," she murmured to herself. "Both of them." She forced herself to eat her pie even though she hadn't the stomach for it.
After she'd closed the curtains on both windows, she prepared for bed. Lying in the darkness, she sent up a silent prayer for her Marshal guardians.
She hadn't considered herself a brave person before now, but she told herself she should. Testifying against Beaufort was a death sentence, or so had claimed her neighbors when the Marshals had showed up in Willowtown to escort her north. Would the inn still be intact when she returned home, or would it be victim to vandals or something unpredictable, like a fire? She couldn't honestly say she loved running the place, but it had become a habit, like eating dinner every day. It was simply something that was part of her existence. If her father hadn't died while he was so young, Mariel might not even live in Willowton. She might not even live in Mountain Sky.