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He tipped his hat. “Miss Bryan.”
“Mr. Marshal.”
“It’s Marshal Neagle.”
“I like Mr. Marshal better.”
“May I ask what you’re doing on this train?”
“Accompanying you.”
“How can you accompany someone who didn’t know you were on board?”
“Would you have agreed to my joining you if I had left it to you to decide?”
“Certainly not.”
“I gathered as much, so I chose for you.”
“How did you stay hidden the entire journey from California to Washington, D.C.”
“Easily. I stayed in my seat for the most part and didn’t go to the dining car.”
“What did you eat?”
“Precious little.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m perfectly lucid.”
“We will get off at the next station that has a connecting train headed for Missouri.”
“I’m not going back to Missouri, Marshal.”
“You’re not going home with me, either.”
“You would put a woman out on the street?”
“How could you even suggest such a thing?”
“Well, would you?”
“No.”
“Then you’re stuck with me.”
A deep sigh escaped, and he took her by the elbow. “Come with me.”
When they got back to his seat, he seated her against the window in the seat beside him.
“What now?” she asked.
“How am I to know? You spring this on me when we’ve left the station and you’re too far from home for me to send you back unaccompanied. I suppose I must escort you back to Missouri, but it’s unseemly for you to travel with a man who is not your relative.”
“You can remedy that.”
“And how is that?”
“Marry me, then I would be your wife.”
“You’re suggesting I marry a woman I don’t know.”
“We know each other. We’ve had meetings in a jail and in a hotel.”
“Would you keep your voice down, someone might hear you and think the worst.”
“Do you think I care what people think?”
“It is abundantly clear that you give no consideration at all to propriety, my dear.”
“I’m your dear now?”
“If you can ignore social niceties, Miss Kitty, I can do the same.”
She lifted her hand to his face and rubbed the stubble along his chin. “That is all that I ask.”
“What am I going to do with you?” He stilled her hand with his own.
“Marry me.”
“I told you I wasn’t seeking a wife.”
“If my father knew that you spent time with me alone on a train, in a jail, and in a hotel, he would demand we be wed.”
“You’re serious?” He cocked an eyebrow. “You’d let him believe something more had transpired between us?”
“I don’t joke about important things.”
“You would want to trap a man that way?”
“Nobody would need to know it was my choice to be alone with you or that you were a gentleman the entire time.”
“I ought to ring your pretty little neck.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
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