Page 39 of The Swindler’s Daughter

He gave me a don’t-act-dumb look. “You got that watch back. Do you have any idea what that meant to the watchmaker?” he asked, his eyes bright. “That was his prized piece, his most expensive item. The loss would have devastated him.”

“I’m glad he has it back,” I said, my eyes straight ahead, my feet hurried.

“Miriam, do you have any idea how much you could help us? That lawman didn’t even realize it was gone. You didn’t cause a scene. No one was chasing you.”

Yes, I did know how much I could help because I knew how good I was, but that fact had me panicking over the implications, so I kept walking until Rowan took hold of my arm.

“Miriam, please.” He caught my gaze with his, but all I could do was stand there, knowing I was going to disappoint him. “You want to help us. I know you do. So what’s stopping you?”

I shook my head and shrugged out of his grasp as I tried to dredge up all my good reasons. “The law?” I suggested. “Right and wrong?”

“Those aren’t the same thing and I think you know that,” he said gently.

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. “Rowan…”

“Listen, I know it’s scary. The idea of stepping outside the law. When you’ve obeyed the rules your entire life, it’s terrifying—”

“That’s just it,” I interrupted, dropping my basket at my feet. “I haven’t obeyed the rules my whole life.” My voice shook with the admission. Apparently it was time for some honesty.

“The laws, then,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“No, not those either.” I took a step closer. “You assume I don’t want to break the law because I never have before.” I pulled in a breath of courage. “The truth is that I’ve broken the law more times than I can count.” I swallowed and kept talking, determined to let him see the truth of who I was. “You think you’re a thief? I’m a better one. You’ve been skirting the law for months. I stole from people without a moment’s hesitation for years.”

I could see the questions racing around in his head as he tried to make my words fit together with what he knew. Finally his expression cleared and his brow hitched up in realization. “Your father was a peddler,” he said.

“Yes, and if there is such a thing as an honest peddler, I’ve never met one.”

He mentally chewed on my words for a while, his brow pulled together in thought. “The way you retrieved that watch.”

“It was instinct. I barely even had to think about it because I’ve done it a hundred times before.” My throat tightened. “It came so naturally, and that is terrifying and humiliating,” I confessed as my voice cracked and my face crumpled.

“Humiliating?” he asked, puzzled. “Why?”

“Why?” I asked in exasperation. “Why am I embarrassed that I stole from people for a living? How can I not be?”

“Because you survived! You were a child and that’s how you survived.” He looked strangely…proud at that moment. And hopeful. “Not only that but now you can use what you know for more than just helping yourself.”

I bit my lips together, shaking my head. “I can’t.”

“But why? You can put those skills to good use.” I could see the excitement in his eyes, the prospects he saw for what I could do for him.

I shook my head harder. “I don’t want to be that person.”

“What person?” He looked honestly clueless. “You would be helping people. Wouldn’t it be good to take those skills that you were forced to use as a child and use them for something good?”

I frowned and backed away from him. “I know what you’re doing.”

His puzzlement was genuine. “What am I doing?”

“You’re justifying something that you know is wrong. I don’t want to do that!” My voice rose as the burden of the feelings I had wrapped around this subject convulsed and stretched inside me. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who finds it so easy to pick a man’s pocket that they don’t even have to think about it.” I turned away, but he put a staying hand on my arm.

“Do you honestly feel guilty about it?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“But…” He was flummoxed. “That man has his watch back. You returned stolen goods.”

“Through thievery.”