Wed to the Texas Outlaw Page 15

  “Then there was the issue of Bird King having gone missing. Leland went from house to house, thinking someone must have him. Every place he went into, he shot off his gun. Sounded like he broke something each time. Windows, chairs, probably wedding china, too. From the way the women cried out, so dismayed-sounding, that’s what I’m guessing. They never did find Bird.”

  “They won’t,” Boone said. “He’s on the other side of that wall, in the tack shed.”

  “Dead?” It was hard to mistake the hope in Edward’s expression.

  With Boone’s reputation, it was understandable that Spears would think that he’d killed him—probably in cold blood.

  Boone shook his head. “Arm’s broken, though.”

  “I reckon that will have to do for now.”

  Apparently, Spears expected him to murder Bird at some point.

  All of a sudden Melinda slipped her hand into his. It felt as if his heart stopped dead in his chest. How could it be that he had married the only person in the world who understood what was inside him, that he didn’t have it in him to kill again?

  She knew he had committed that crime and others, yet here she sat, squeezing his hand, supporting him.

  How could a man do anything but love her? No, not just “a man.” How could he, her husband, do anything but love her?

  “I was so terrified hiding behind the saloon,” Trudy said. The conversation had gone on without him being aware. “Every time Lump called my name I was nearly sick. He was hunting me. I couldn’t look but his voice kept getting closer. It felt like he had nothing on his mind but finding me.”

  No doubt, assaulting Trudy Spears had been his single intention.

  “You’re safe here, Miss Spears,” he said. “There’s not much space in the house, but you and your father are welcome to stay. For tonight there’s a bed in the loft, the two of you can sleep up there.”

  “With all I already owe you, I wouldn’t put you out of your bed,” Edward said. “But my Trudy, she’s nearly dead on her feet.”

  In spite of the fact that she had recently twirled around in her new dress, Boone figured it had to be true. Just yesterday the poor girl had nearly seen her father burned to death and been pursued by a monster through it all.

  “My wife and I will be comfortable down here,” he said.

  Even though they all knew it wasn’t the exact truth, they nodded and smiled as though it were.

  After the Spearses climbed the ladder, Melinda leaned her head on his shoulder, crossed one slender arm over is chest and hugged him.

  “I’m proud of you,” she murmured.

  “Can’t think of why you should be,” he answered, barely above a whisper. “Here, lay your head on my lap. Sleep if you can.”

  She kissed his cheek. This gesture never failed to disarm him. Then she curled up on the straw bale and lay her head on his lap. Nuzzling her cheek against him, she settled in.

  It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before her breathing changed and he knew she was asleep.

  One by one he loosened the pins from her hair. He spread the sunshine mass over her shoulders, down her back, to help keep her warm.

  Rain drummed hard on the barn roof.

  He touched her back, stroking his fingers through the tresses, feeling at peace.

  But not completely.

  With his free hand, he picked up the rifle and listened for sounds beyond the rain.

  * * *

  Seven adults, one infant and a huge canine gathered for dinner in the parlor because the kitchen was too small.

  Dr. Brown was not happy about Billbro sharing the space, but as far as Melinda was concerned, he deserved the comforts of home and family as much as the rest of them did.

  Stanley sat on the floor near the fireplace, his plate balanced on his lap. Trudy sat on the couch casting sidelong glances at him.

  That was interesting given that they had spent two hours this afternoon in close company, carrying bucket after bucket of water from the creek to fill the two large barrels on the back porch.

  Stanley peered up at Trudy then quickly away. Boone, sitting on the floor near Stanley, didn’t appear to notice. No, and neither did Edward Spears who was focused on his meal.

  But Melinda knew a budding romance when she saw one. Sitting on the couch beside Mrs. Coulter, Melinda nudged the woman with her elbow. The new mother glanced up with a smile, but really, the only love she recognized was the one she shared with her infant.

  All of a sudden Melinda missed Becca dreadfully. Her cousin would have recognized the nudge immediately. They would have shared a glance, acknowledged the unspoken secret, then set about further matchmaking.

  She could only admit, glancing around the congested room, she felt a bit lonely. There was not a person here who truly knew her, had shared her past, beyond the past several days, that is.

  There was a bond growing between her and Boone, but it was still new, so fragile that she didn’t know what would become of it.

  If only Becca were here, Melinda would feel more confident. Hard times were coming, trials that she prayed she would find the pluck and the cleverness to overcome.

  Food would soon be scarce, for one thing. In the beginning they had planned for only the three of them. With all those they were sheltering, their supplies would soon run out.

  Then what? A trip to the mercantile was out of the question. The Kings had burned it down.

  One could only wonder what the folks in town would do for food.

  “I wonder,” she murmured, tapping her finger on her chin to concentrate.

  “Wonder what?” Boone asked, glancing away from Edward in the middle of a conversation.

  “Well, I wonder how much food the Kings have set aside. When they destroyed the store, did they think of that?”

  “Indeed they did.” Edward nodded, his expression grim. “While Buck was tying me up, the others were carrying out cans and dry goods. They laughed about bringing the town to its knees. In case we haven’t been there for two years already. From what they were saying they were going to take what the butcher had. The baker, too.”

  There was silence for the space of sixty seconds. No doubt everyone was as perplexed as she was about what was to be done.

  “Here on the ranch, we’ll get by,” Boone said. “There’s game on the property. The dog and I will hunt.”

  “We’re more fortunate than the folks in town.” Stanley shook his head. “If they go beyond town limits, they’ll be killed.”

  “Thank you for taking all of us in, Mr. Walker, Mrs. Walker,” Mrs. Coulter said. “I realize we are a drain on the resources you have.”

  What was her given name? Melinda wondered. After helping deliver Diana, she figured she ought to know.

  “Of course you are welcome here. Little Diana is a delight to us all. And, please, do call me Melinda?”

  “I—yes... Won’t you call me Giselle?” she asked after a hesitation.

  But that silent space of time said more than words. Clearly, she wasn’t comfortable being on a first-name basis with an outlaw’s wife.

  Melinda glanced at Boone, hoping that he hadn’t read the same thing into the gap. Whenever someone showed contempt for him, it broke her heart. Then it made her bristle.

  His gaze back at her was clouded, troubled-looking. He might as well have told her out loud that, even if he did care for her, he would not remain married to her. In that regretful gaze he communicated that he would never saddle her with a lifetime of that sort of rejection.

  Well, by sugar, one had to actually mount a saddle before it could take her anywhere.

  “There’s something that you all need to know,” she said. “None of you ought to feel that you are putting Boone and me out of our house because this isn’t our house. It
belongs to the town of Buffalo Bend. We are only here until my husband captures the King family and hands them over to the law.” Really there was no need for them to know what Stanley already did, that she and Boone had agreed to a temporary marriage.

  “He’s doing it because Judge Mathers offered him his freedom in exchange.”

  “As Mr. Walker’s lawyer, I argued against the bargain,” Stanley stated. “Boone ought to have been a free man on the merit of his wrong conviction. But here we are.”

  “Yes, here we are.” She glanced again at Boone. He didn’t seem happy to have everyone in on his secret, but Giselle’s attitude had been undeserved and she meant to make things clear to them all. “You might think that rounding up these criminals will be an easy thing, given my husband’s past as you understand it, but you are wrong. Boone is not the killer that he has been portrayed to be.”

  She had to stand up because she was suddenly feeling too hot for her clothes. “He only killed one man. A man who, I might say, had it coming. Imagine challenging a child to a gunfight! You can’t, naturally. It’s beyond imagining. That villain might have been the slower shot, but in the end he took Boone’s innocence and his future. I, for one, intend to help my husband get it back.”

  Stanley stood beside her but didn’t speak. From the beginning, the lawyer had been the first to take Boone’s side.

  Shoulder to shoulder with Stanley, sharing this bond, all of a sudden she didn’t feel nearly as alone.

  Trudy cleared her throat. “Thank you, Mr. Walker. My father and I owe you even more than we thought we did.”

  “As do I.” The doctor nodded his head, his thick dark hair catching the firelight.

  “I’ve wrongly judged you.” Giselle hugged her baby close. “May I call you Boone?”

  He nodded, but given the expression on his face, he ought to be called Mr. Curmudgeon.

  No doubt he thought she’d overstepped, but it seemed the wifely thing to do, and it felt rather nice.

  * * *

  Coming out of the house, Boone had no choice but to tuck Melinda inside his oversize coat with him.

  He shouldn’t be that close to her since he wanted to shake her, but the wind was whipping cold and she had given her own coat to Giselle.

  There couldn’t be much left in her trunk, having given some of her clothes to Trudy and some to the destitute young mother.

  “I can’t help but notice that you are cranky,” she muttered.

  “Cranky as hell.” All with good reason.

  “They needed to know the truth.”

  “Not from you.” Only steps away from the barn, he kept his gaze trained on the light that spilled into the night from under the door.

  “Yes from me! I’m your wife and they were thinking things about you that—”

  He gripped her shoulders, pinned her against the barn wall. “You are not my wife!”

  She arched a delicately shaped brow. “I am the woman who has a signed certificate of marriage. I’m also addressed as Mrs. Walker. I am the woman who has shared the loft with you, whose bosom you have slept upon.” She curled up her fists and pressed them against his chest. “That makes you my husband.”

  “Not the one you deserve. I’m—”

  “Mine.”

  “No.”

  But he was hers. Whether he ought to be or not didn’t change the reality.

  Oh, hell. He cupped her cheeks in his hands then came down upon her lips, kissing them hard. Then he gripped the collar of her blouse, pulled the buttons until they popped open.

  His hands were chilly. He knew it but he shoved them under her camisole anyway. He petted, squeezed. He nibbled the flower-scented skin of her throat and then kissed her mouth again, tasting her deeply, intimately.

  His mind roared, silently begging her to stop him, to push his cold hands, his ruined soul, away.

  All she did was thump her head back against the wall, close her eyes and sigh.

  This was wrong, he was wrong—his anger, his passion, he knew it was all wrong. But somehow in spite of what he knew, delving into her seemed right. It went to show how bad his judgment had always been, would always be.

  His exploding feelings for this woman couldn’t possibly be honorable.

  He ripped away from the kiss. Breathing hard, he dropped his hands from her chest, felt bereft.

  “Melinda, I cannot be the man you need.”

  She stepped out from under his arms where his hands fisted on the barn wall.

  Wind caught her dress and blew it. She tugged the bodice together then opened the barn door.

  He followed her inside, feeling miserable to his core.

  She dashed for the ladder. Halfway up, she turned.

  “I fear that you already are.”

  Her voice carried to him, a whisper among the shuffling of horse’s hooves.

  Hell, if he didn’t fear the same thing. But it didn’t change the fact that he could not continue forever as her husband.

  * * *

  Boone was right, of course. Just because she wanted the others to know the truth about him, and he was not going to tell it, did not mean that it was her right to expose it.

  Perhaps if she were the wife of his heart, she would have that right. But she was not and, given what he had said an hour ago, she would not be.

  Had she not pointed out that he had slept upon her bosom, perhaps he would be up here in the loft and not on the barn floor where it was hard and cold.

  Of them all, he was the one who most needed rest. He was also the one getting the least of it.

  She felt miserably guilty about that. What would happen if she tried to charm him into coming up here?

  One never knew until one tried.

  Rolling off the straw bed, she crept on hands and knees to the edge of the loft then peered down.

  Boone, his head reclining on Billbro as though the animal were a hairy pillow, stared up at her through the dim light.

  “Boone Walker,” she said in her sweetest inflection with her most winning smile. “You’ve simply got to come up to bed. You’ll catch a chill down there.”

  Drat! Without as much as a blink did he show any indication that she had swayed him. Gentle persuasion was her gift, as Rebecca’s was the violin and Lantree’s was healing.

  Just now, when she needed her skill the most, she realized what a silly one it really was.

  Still... “It’s ever so cold and lonely down there.” She offered a sweet pout and when that didn’t work she added a winking dimple. She had yet to see the man who could hold his own against a feminine dimple.

  “What are you doing, Melinda?”

  “It’s what I’m not doing that concerns me.” And fascinated her. Even from the beginning she had not been able to charm him.

  The fact that he looked past all that trickery made the butterflies in her belly awaken and flutter madly.

  She let her smile fade, to be replaced with the frown she was really feeling.

  “That’s more like it,” he said. “Now, what is it that can’t keep until a decent hour?”

  “Why do you think the Kings took all the food?” she asked, settling onto her belly and gazing down at him with her chin cupped in her palms. Truly, that puzzle was one of the things keeping her awake.

  “I reckon they’ll use it for bargaining. As a way to keep folks under their control.”

  “They will make demands.” She ought to have thought of that. “Yes, and one of them will be Bird. They’ll want him released.”

  “I reckon so.”

  “We’ll need our wits about us. More than ever.”

  “Not ‘we.’ I want you as far away from the danger as possible, Melinda. I said I would deliver you safely home to Montana. My word hasn’t meant much in the
past, but I mean this.”

  “I trust that you will. I have from the beginning.” She steepled her fingers under her chin, gazing down. “The thing is...you didn’t sleep last night. You’ll be better prepared to meet our enemies if you get some rest.”

  Boone sat up, ruffled Billbro’s fur and got a lick on the hand in thanks.

  He stood, stretched then climbed the ladder. Within seconds of lying on the hay bed, with hands clasped behind his head, his eyes dipped closed. But they blinked open a second later. Fatigue shadowed his expression.

  This worried her because if he wasn’t alert, their enemies might seize the advantage.

  “I’ll sit over here by the window.” She really did want him to sleep and thought he might not if he was worried about—well, clearly things could easily get out of hand between them.

  He shook his head, reached one arm toward her and crooked his finger in invitation.

  Now she was confused. What did he want of her?

  Probably the same thing she wanted of him, or perhaps only warmth and comfort.

  But since it was cold and his big, bold body would be warm, she lay down. When he tugged her in with his arm, she scooted back against him.

  “I’m glad I failed to charm you,” she murmured but doubted that he was awake. His breathing felt slow and even against her back. “Maybe you see me.”

  “I see you, and you do charm me.”

  A second later she heard a quiet snore.

  Chapter Eleven

  Startled, Boone woke from a deep sleep. At first he thought it was due to a sudden noise. But, no, it was because he had reached for Melinda and embraced cold, empty space.

  Sunlight streamed through the loft window. He’d overslept. He never overslept.

  Probably because he never slept deeply to begin with. That’s what came of living life on the run.

  While he was no longer on the run, he faced more danger than he ever had. At least in the past the danger had only been to him. Now he carried the safety of several folks on his shoulders.