Outlaw Bride (Lawmen and Outlaws) (3 page)

After he settled her in the wagon, he set to secure the animals. “Now, ’Gade, it’s up to you to keep us safe. You sound the alarum, boy, you hear?”

Then he couldn’t help laughing. He wasn’t all by himself anymore. His passenger must think him right addled to keep conversation with a dog.

Checking her face, he saw it once again twisted with tears. And she was shaking hard as ever. That blanket pushed up to her ears wasn’t doing the trick. Truth was, the night was colder than last. He had no choice.

After poking between his teeth with his knife tip and chewing on some river grass, he rinsed his mouth and washed his face. Then he hopped in the wagon and settled himself beside her. He meant no disrespect. Two bodies were warmer than one.

A heat long forgotten seeped into his bones, crept into the notch of his legs, that place of wonder that Tawana hadn’t gotten to know. His chest hurt. They hadn’t had time for much at all.

And he scolded his unruly brain. Likely his passenger belonged to some other man, same as himself still belonging to Tawana. He reined in his feelings.

Then he remembered The Devil who had been his mother’s legal mate. She might be running from such a fiend.

Truth to tell, the safest place for her was that convent up ahead. Safest for him, too. He felt snowed under by his feelings.

Not just as protector, but as a man.

****

The air was cool, the morning sun warm on her face when Jessy Belle woke up, her backside spooned up against Cleeland Redd. His arms held her tight, clasping together just under her bosoms.

She shivered but with heat. My God, had he spent the whole night next to her? Even if he had, she had no fear that he’d taken advantage. He’d promised to keep her safe from her own brother and he was friends with nuns.

Besides. Even with the sun’s warmth, her face boiled. She knew down to her bones a man like Cleeland Redd would make sure a woman remembered a night of his loving.

Truth was, Cleeland Redd beat out any other male she’d ever known just with his behavior alone. Even on the trail, he kept himself clean and presentable, hadn’t cussed once or chawed tobacco or treated the critters mean. Or worst of all, passed wind.

All she wanted was to cuddle up next to him to sleep forever, get full of more of those deep down good feelings from yesterday that were simmering new. Right now she could feel a ridge of hardness against her back and reckoned she knew just what it was.

She snuggled against him like she had a right to. The air was still cold from the night just past. Then the thought of those nuns came crashing back. Yesterday she’d vowed to become one of them, for safekeeping. And that meant she couldn’t have a man at all.

Surviving a noose hadn’t made life easier one single bit. She didn’t dare bring Ahab’s wrath down on this man’s head. Besides, he might already have a woman or a wife.

Something like jealousy burned for a long sad minute.

Sitting up in the wagon, she couldn’t help a grin as she looked down at him. He could keep watch sleeping tight as a baby? Then she saw the mules and mustang tied safe to the wagon, Renegade standing guard. With dismay, she remembered her outburst, and him drawing her close.

Him asking her if she knew horseflesh.

Her eyes closed, hopeless. She knew it so well she could collect the best from a livery in pitch dark. But that was over. Now she was grown up and respectable. With his fine ways and manners, Cleeland Redd need never know of her wasted youth as an outlaw and pickpocket.

Yes, indeed, she had to keep herself a secret for many reasons. Cleeland Redd had announced his interest in the reward money. And likely there would be a hefty price on her head if that grave of hers was ever dug up empty.

At that second, his gaze met hers. She felt that strange warmth down below where those places of mystery grew tense, wet even. Even underneath her camisole, her bosoms tightened worse than the days she’d bound herself with canvas to seem a boy.

He smiled back. “Feeling better?”

She nodded, but the sounds from her craw were still too soft to form words. Like before, she flapped her hands at her chest, but mostly kept down a new sob, wished she’d been a decent woman and they’d met under regular circumstances.

“We’ll get those nuns to doctor you up.” He stretched, long and lazy. Like waking up with her wasn’t such a disgraceful thing to do.

Maybe that meant he was unattached himself.

Well, she wasn’t. That convent was a dagnabbed good idea.

“I’m fine.” She mouthed the words, figuring he could see the shapes. “Breakfast?”

“You got a name?” he asked then, sitting up as she hopped down. Her feet hit the ground strong, but she figured she shouldn’t have tried to commune with him if he was so set on finding out things of a personal nature. For a while, she ought to act like she’d lost her mind somewhat, seem weak and addled. That would give her time aplenty to make herself presentable with one little made-up fact at a time.

Reaching back inside the wagon, she grabbed a slate and a bag of chalk from the box of supplies. Thank the good Lord Mama had prevailed, teaching Jessy Belle to read and write when Pa wasn’t looking. Lazy and ignorant, Ahab had taken right after Pa.

Truth was, one of her jobs had been clipping articles whenever the gang had been featured in a newspaper. Another had been reading aloud the childish dime novels that made light of Ahab’s crimes. Those tomfool stories turned him into something of a hero who simply helped innocent horses escape from evil ranchers and selfish cowboys.

Once in a while, she even wrote and posted letters to somebody special whenever any of them got sentimental.

“I know words,” she wrote as he hopped down, “but no memories.”

That simple statement ought to give her time to concoct something reasonable. Something that would inspire Cleeland Redd to think her a proper mate for him. Even though she’d already accepted a man like this having a woman already.

And even though she’d already determined herself to become a nun.

But as she held up the little slate, Cleeland Redd gave her frown and a squint. Like he’d just stepped in something he wished he hadn’t.

Her stomach growled just as her spirits sank deeper. She recalled most of the blithering louts in Ahab’s employ. Pointing to her head and shaking it, she mouthed the words, reckoning Cleeland Redd couldn’t read. He wasn’t so perfect after all, not with a mind as lazy as her brother’s. She clucked like a mother.

He nodded. “Then I’ll call you Mary. After my mother.”

After his mother? She had to turn away, her heart pittering like schoolgirls she’d only read about. That had to mean something. Specially when it was the very name she’d picked for herself. To keep from making any significance of her thoughts, she scrabbled through the wagon and drew out a pot and a ladle and a big chunk of jerky.

“Soup,” she mouthed. She’d make him a quick meal, something to ward off the morning chill. And it’d go down easy for herself. Her throat was still ragged, all the way down her gullet.

Making meals was another way she had served the gang. She clearly remembered when Ahab had realized her growing bosoms meant she was finally a woman. And a woman cooked and cleaned for her man. In this case, men.

As she plodded around the creek bank, she liked Cleeland Redd watching her off and on while he tended the animals and kindled up the ashes. His eyes weren’t rude, unlike so many others. Renegade galloped around her skirts. Maybe in a storybook or another life they’d have been a real couple waking up after a campout with their dog along for the ride.

With their babe nurturing inside her.

Her face burned in spite of the cool morning. Where in hell had such an unruly thought come from?

Then she chided herself for cussing. After all, she was a woman of morals now.

And soon to be a nun. Her heart busted a little.

After filling the pot with creek water, she took her knife and chopped up some wild onions and sage leaves, threw in the jerky, and set it to heat over the fire. Then she dug around the wagon for some flour and baking powder and a Dutch oven.

Even an outlaw woman knew how to brew up beaten biscuits.

****

Redd’s heart sank to the bottom of the earth. Past China. Into hell. Was she going to want to talk to him in written words all the rest of the way?

His ear had picked up every Indian dialect and tongue for a hundred miles either direction, and he could cipher any pictograph twice that far away. But translating the written American language could only be done with squints and long pauses. Something his brain just didn’t like to do.

No way in hell did he want her to consider him some ignorant fool. It was best to keep himself talking.

“Figure we can sort out all we need to know when we get to the mission,” he announced after breaking camp and helping her up into the wagon. He kept a mug full of the broth to sip. She’d done a damn tasty job of breaking their fast with so little to make it from. While he felt some pride at her accomplishment, he also felt doubt. He’d seen sparks of intellect in her eyes. Had she truly lost her wits or was she trying to pull off some sort of fraud?

But when she leaned against his shoulder, she fell asleep, breathing innocent as a baby against the creak of the wheels and the murmur of Oak Creek. He liked the feel of her. It was almost like they were a couple for real, camping out along the road with their dog. Then he recollected, with a twinge, she likely had a man of her own.

His teeth ground together. Likely a man who’d tried to kill her.

Then Cathedral Rock started calming him down, like it always did, making him feel downright worshipful. Right now looked like he could hold it in his hand. But for the next hour or two it grew big against the horizon. At last, true to its name, it loomed like a giant church over the tiny mission brushed with graythorn and mesquite. The sleeping girl woke up, skittish like a kitten, hearing Sister Adelaide Eugene’s
olά
as they drove up.

By now, the day had heated up plenty. The nun’s face was a smiling pink triangle framed by the black veil that hung from a tight frame around her head.

“Mister Redd, hopefully your travels were uneventful. Who do you have here?” Like always, she kept her hands tucked together inside her sleeves, but her words and face were friendly.

“Not so uneventful, Sister,” he said, braking the wagon and climbing down. “Found this young lady fainted alongside the road late yesterday. Hope you and those almost-nuns can doctor her up.”

The nun frowned. “You know full well they’re called ‘postulants,’ Mister Redd. What seems to be the matter, child?”

But the girl started to scribble on the slate and held it up like she’d done before. He snorted and spoke for her.

“She can’t talk. I call her Mary.” He met his passenger’s eyes. “This here’s the nun I been telling you about. Sister Adelaide Eugene.”

“Oh, dear Mother of Mercy!” Sister Adelaide Eugene burst out in astonishment. “Whatever circumstance could have cost you your tongue?”

His passenger held up the slate again.

“ ‘No memories?’” the nun read, alarmed. “My dear, have you no recollection at all?”

The girl shook her head but looked away from the nun’s sharp eyes while she did it. Once again Redd felt that stab of doubt against her mind being enfeebled at all.

But before he could ask for a private word, the nun shook her head. “Mister Redd, I have no training against diseases of the brain,” she said. “You must seek out a doctor in the nearest town.”

At that, his passenger tensed, turned pale. And Redd suspected he’d been right all along about this, too. She was hiding from someone.

Then she wiped the slate clean and wrote something else. It jumbled together before Redd’s eyes and he knew his passenger understood his squint. He looked away, mortified, but grateful that the nun read the message out loud.

“‘Sister, I am well enough. I would like to stay with you and become a nun.’”

Even with the sun warming him up, Redd’s shoulders chilled. It was just the thought he’d had himself, about her hiding out here til he sorted things out. But what if she meant it for real? Was it possible she’d been headed here on her own?

Damn, it would be nothing but a waste, her with those full-grown bosoms meant to pleasure a man and nourish his babe.

At that thought, something he didn’t let happen too often started up again between his legs. And here he was in the company of a holy woman and one who claimed she wanted to be one.

Damn
. Tawana still lived inside his mind, heart. Every thought. Yet somehow he had caught this young woman’s appeal, her strength and her ragtaggle beauty. He wanted to hear what she sounded like, and when her wits came back, to find out everything about her.

“Why, my dear, I..I...” Sister Adelaide Eugene sputtered. “I...I don’t think I understand. Our way of life isn’t one to decide upon quickly. There are many preparations and sacrifices.”

The girl started to scribble hard on the slate again, but Sister Adelaide Eugene stopped the chalk, gentle. “My dear, if you have no memories, you can’t know if you’re free to take vows. You might be a man’s wife, or a young child’s mother. You may not even share our faith.”

“Sister.” Redd interrupted, beseeching as polite as he could. He hated to admit it, but he had to. It was a good plan. It really was. “A private word, please?”

“Of course, Mister Redd.” Surprise lit her eyes.

He led her away where the girl couldn’t hear. The shelter from the young mulberry sapling wasn’t much, but the wind blew the opposite way and might muffle their voices.

Politely, he pulled his black Stetson from his head. “I sure wish you’d leave off the mister, Sister. And I advise you to take her in, whatever your rules.”

“But Mister Redd!” Her face was now a white triangle wrapped in black, and he could see shock in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “I spoke the truth. One doesn’t choose the veil like one orders a new hat from a catalogue! Besides, surely someone is missing her.”

“I respect all you said, ma’am. Don’t mean to make her a nun for real. Just keep her with you for a time until I can sort things out.”