Wed to the Texas Outlaw Read online

  Chapter Fourteen

  Had she not been anchored by Boone’s big, hard body sprawled on top of her, Melinda believed she would have floated away.

  With her eyes closed she savored the delicious pulsating in her womb. The languorous feeling radiated to her fingers and toes, making her feel weightless but at the same time one with the bed and the man.

  “I never imagined,” she sighed.

  “I didn’t, either.” He rolled off her but hugged her to his chest so that they lay face-to-face. His breath warmed the top of her hair even as the chill of the room began to settle upon them.

  “Really?” He didn’t? “Even though you’ve done this many times? Does that mean I’ve erased the others from your memory completely?”

  “What others?” He pinched her behind then cupped her face in his hand and lifted her chin. Stroking his thumb across her cheek, he looked into her eyes. “This is the first time I’ve made love to a woman who is my wife—first time to a woman I love.”

  “Well, then, you were as much a virgin as I was.” She liked the thought even though, by the facts, it was not true.

  “Are you hurting?”

  She shook her head but not so vigorously as to dislodge the tender touch of his hand on her cheek. “Deliciously sore.”

  “I reckon I should kiss it and make it better.”

  “Really? People do...” Her voice failed because he had begun to blaze a trail with his mouth that started with a suckle of each breast then a lingering lick over her ribs to her belly—well, my word, he really did intend to—

  “Oh,” she said. No, that really was not a word but a sigh.

  His tongue was smooth, caressing her intimate spot with heat. Viking-blond hair falling loose over his shoulders tickled, shivered across her thighs. He was so very male, which made her feel so very female.

  And as much as she wanted to think about this newborn womanliness, her thoughts were quickly succumbing to sensation.

  When she was nearly to that point of shattering delight, he stopped, lifted his head. Exposed, a delightful shiver blew across her aching flesh.

  Coarse chest hair rubbed her belly, her chest. Heat rolled off her in waves. How curious that the sizzle made her shiver.

  The stiff hair of Boone’s chin grazed her neck. The other stiff part of him, the one that finally made her his wife, claimed her again.

  She thrust her hips taking him deep within her. And, yes, it did hurt; a twinge and nothing more. The ache dwarfed in comparison to the joy of joining bodies and lives.

  No sooner had she adjusted to the womanly twinge than it was gone. Boone pushed up, his hands braced beside her head. She twined her fingers in his, gripping hard. Fascinated, engulfed, she watched his belly flex while he pumped into her, withdrew then entered her again.

  She moaned his name, possibly called him husband, or lover, but certainly hers. Then in an explosion of bliss, she clenched around him.

  He buried his face into her neck. It felt damp, with sweat or tears—probably both.

  After a few moments of savoring the scent of him, the strength of his arms around her, she wanted to drift into a doze, but Boone sighed against her ear.

  “What time is it, do you think?”

  “It’s forever o’clock, of course.”

  * * *

  Billbro whined from below and woke Melinda from a deep sleep. With all that had, and was about to happen, she would not have believed it possible to even close her eyes.

  She reached for Boone but touched empty space.

  Forever o’clock had come and gone.

  According to Boone’s pocket watch, which lay open on the makeshift table, it was now a glaring eleven-thirty.

  She sat up then snapped the watch closed.

  Certainly he had left it there for safekeeping and nothing more. She would not entertain the possibility that he meant it as a remembrance—a physical reminder of who he had been.

  Not that.

  From below she heard his boots cross the floor then the barn door open. Boone spoke a few words to the dog. From up here she couldn’t tell what they were.

  She dressed quickly then swiped up the watch and carried it down the ladder.

  Boone sat on an overturned barrel. The lamp beside him on the floor softly illuminated him. With his elbows propped on his knees, he gazed at something he turned in his fingers.

  He didn’t look up. She stood, one foot on the floor, one poised on the last ladder rung.

  The deputy’s badge gleamed from the polishing Boone was giving it.

  She couldn’t speak, move or even find her breath. She’d known this hour was coming, but suddenly here it was. No more a vague event happening in the future.

  Her husband was arming for battle.

  “Boone,” she whispered across the dimly lit space.

  He glanced up. With a half smile, he pinned the badge on his pocket.

  “Does it look wrong?”

  She shook her head.

  He reached for her and she dashed to him. He pulled her onto his lap.

  “Feels kind of funny.” He kissed her hair. “I spent a lot of years on the wrong side of what this represents.”

  “Oh,” she said, leaning back to get a better look at the dimly glowing metal. It smelled of fresh polish. She noticed that he had hammered out the dent. “I think you look heroic.”

  “I’m just a man with a job to do. But I want you to know something. That line between right and wrong, I’ll do my damnedest to never cross it again. You don’t need to worry. I’m no longer that man.”

  “I never worried about the kind of man you are. I have faith that you will do a splendid job as deputy.” She gave him a great hug around the neck and breathed in the warm, male scent of his skin. “Imagine the stories we will tell our grandchildren!”

  “As long as the stories begin from this point on. Don’t know what they’ll think about their pa having been an outlaw.”

  “They’ll be proud, is what. You’ll be an example of how a person can be redeemed.”

  “Pray with me for a minute, honey.”

  Boone held both of her hands in his. Foreheads together, Melinda silently asked for protection, for Boone and for all of them. She also asked that her husband might do what he needed to do without killing anyone.

  She knew the moment he was finished asking for guidance because he gently kissed her.

  “I love you, Melinda. Never forget it.”

  “I’ll make sure to remind you, even when we are old and doddering.”

  “Can’t see you doddering.” He shook his head. “Even if you do dodder, you’ll still be the most beautiful woman around.”

  “Watch what you say, deputy! I know how to shoot. I’ve been taught by the best.”

  “A fact is a fact.”

  “I hear someone coming.” She gripped his shirtfront, kissed him until she was breathless. “I love you, Boone.”

  “Melinda,” he whispered against her hair as the barn door squealed open.

  * * *

  Boone shrugged into his coat and stepped outside of the barn. For the most part, the storm had moved on, leaving a depressing drizzle in its place.

  Giselle, kneeling on the wagon bed and cradling Diana under her coat, waved to him. He acknowledged her farewell with a tip of his hat. When he did, water dripped from the brim to further dampen his coat.

  Trudy rushed up to him for a quick hug before she joined Giselle in the buckboard. Edward, coming behind her, shook his hand.

  “If there are words big enough to thank you for getting me out of the fire, I don’t know what they are. And not only for that, but you took me and my girl in when we had no place else to go. You are a rare man, Boone Walker,” he said then followed Trudy,
helped her into the wagon and mounted a horse.

  As soon as Edward settled in the saddle, Boone saw him place his rifle across his lap. His fingers curled tight on the stock.

  Except for the pat of drizzle on mud, the night was silent, somber. Folks kept their thoughts to themselves.

  Just as well since they were probably thinking he was about to die.

  That was a possibility—but not the only possibility. For the first time Boone had plans for his life that didn’t involve drifting from one hovel of a town to another. All of a sudden he had a woman to love, roots to grow and babies to be brought into the world. Wrongs to try to set right.

  No, he was not riding toward his death. He was riding toward his future. The trouble was, between here and there, he’d face some nasty opposition.

  Standing beside the wagon team, Doc and Stanley stood in quiet conversation. Doc stood, his arms across his chest, nodding his head.

  With a glance up at Boone, Stanley crossed the paddock toward him.

  “I’d like to reargue my point that I ought to stay with you.”

  “I’m proud to call you friend, Stanley. Hell, if it wasn’t for you I’d be spending my life in a cell.” Boone clapped Stanley on the shoulder. “And I might need your help, just not here with me.”

  “What can I do?” Hadn’t the small lawyer grown a couple of inches? He’d swear the man used to be shorter. “I’ll help however I can.”

  “If the worst happens, take Melinda back to Montana.” Boone had to clear his throat; it felt as though a walnut had become lodged in his Adam’s apple. “If it doesn’t happen, I’d like you to stand with me when I give her a proper wedding.”

  Smythe must have swallowed a walnut, too, since he didn’t answer. He simply nodded and let his gaze slide toward the barn.

  After a long, silent moment when they should have been saying goodbye but were not, Stanley turned and walked toward the wagon. He tugged on the mule’s reins, making sure the animal was tethered securely.

  With a last glance at Boone, a nod, he climbed up the buckboard and sat beside the doc. He gathered up the reins.

  They were ready to go—all except for Melinda. She had yet to come out of the barn.

  Hell’s curses. If he had to go in and fetch her, it might be a long while before he brought her out.

  He was saved from having to face the temptation when she walked out leading a horse behind her.

  She wore a frilly hat with a silk flower tucked into the lace band. The brim drooped in the rain, the pink bud quickly wilting with the moisture.

  It looked as if she was going to walk past him without lifting her gaze from the muddy ground.

  Hell, she did walk past him without a glance or a word.

  “Melinda?”

  She stopped, dropped the reins, then spun around.

  In a leap, she was in his arms.

  “I couldn’t tell you goodbye,” she cried. He wrapped his arms around her middle and lifted her. She pressed her face into his neck. “I think if I try I’ll go to pieces.”

  He breathed in the scent of her hair, felt the fresh chill of the raindrops clinging to her hat.

  “There are no goodbyes between us, honey.” He set her back on her feet, cupped her face in his hands then bent to kiss her. “Go on now. Get on your horse and go with the wagon. I’ll follow when I’m finished here.”

  “I’ll see you soon, then.” She nodded, squeezed his shoulder and shoved out of his embrace.

  Her back looked stiff, walking away, as if she held it that way by the greatest of will.

  Halfway she turned, touched her throat then raced back. She squeezed him around the middle.

  “I’ll be watching for you, Boone.” With that, she ran for the horse and mounted up.

  The wagon moved out of the yard and he was left alone. He watched it rattle down the road feeling bereft.

  But only until a blur separated from the dark mass and charged for him.

  “There’s a good dog.” Boone hugged Billbro’s neck. “I’m grateful for your company, Deputy.”

  The dog-wolf sat, his wagging tail making tracks in the mud.

  “How would you feel about coming to live with me and Melinda in Montana? I hear it’s real pretty.” Billbro whined so he ruffled his tall, furry ears. “I do believe that means yes. Would you like to know a secret, fella? One that not even Melinda knows? Sure do hope she approves because I sure as hell have my mind made up.”

  He took a breath. Saying this out loud made it fact, no longer something suggested by the small voice in his mind. The deputy cocked his big head.

  “I know it seems unlikely, but I want to become a preacher. You’re right. I’ll need to clean my language up some—more than some—but I’d need to do it for the young’uns anyway.”

  Right now he didn’t know the first thing about how a man became a preacher, but he figured since the Good Lord had given him the idea, He’d figure out a way for it to happen.

  The quiet suggestion had shocked him the first time it had come to him, but once entertained, he hadn’t been able to shake it. That small voice of conviction was one he used to ignore, but now things were different.

  Somehow over the course of the night he’d gone from feeling his goal impossible to seeing himself comforting souls instead of doing them wrong.

  He might finally do something to make his mother proud. She’d sure spent enough hours reading to him from the Good Book in an attempt to get him to mend his ways.

  “Can you hear me, Ma? I’m going straight.” He felt something brush his cheek. Could have been a breeze but—

  The wolf licked his hand.

  “Yeah, I think it was her, too. So, boy, I reckon I’ll begin as a ranch hand at Moreland Ranch, if my brother will have me, just until I get the hows and whys of ministering figured out.

  “Hey! I didn’t know wolves licked folk’s faces. That mean you think I can do it? I reckon it does and I appreciate it. But if any of this is going to happen, I need you to catch up with the wagon and keep Melinda safe.”

  The deputy gave a low woof then spun and loped after the wagon. Boone watched until the dark swallowed him up.

  The old Boone had never minded being alone. This Boone was unsettled by it.

  That’s one way he knew that the outlaw was gone.

  * * *

  Ten minutes passed while Boone stood in the drizzle listening, fearing that he would hear the crack of gunfire coming from the direction the wagon had taken.

  He had no way of knowing for sure what mayhem the Kings intended or when they intended to perpetrate it, but he knew it would be soon and it would happen here.

  There was something about the feel of the night that wasn’t right. Evil was riding in and it wouldn’t be long before it got here.

  Boone checked his pistol again. He knew the chambers each had a bullet, but he needed to do something to keep his hands occupied while he thought about what to do.

  Staying here and waiting for an attack didn’t seem wise. He’d rather ambush his enemies than have them ambush him.

  But where the dickens was he supposed to go? The ranch would be best, but they could as easily be in Jasper Springs as at the ranch.

  He wouldn’t go to town and risk someone being injured if he could figure a way around it.

  And he desperately did want to find a way around it. Life, he had learned in the past couple of weeks, took more turns than a blowing tumbleweed.

  He’d been an outlaw, had figured on being such for the rest of his life. The next thing he knew he had been hoodwinked into marriage and forced to represent law and order.

  Now he wanted to be married—would do anything to stay that way. As far as upholding the law went, he wanted to do it and not simply as a way to gain his freedom
.

  Maybe the biggest revelation for the new Boone was that he wanted to uphold more than the law of the land. There were those commandments he’d learned at his mother’s knee, the very ones he’d scoffed at his whole life. He’d let Ma down, ignoring them and living wild. But if that brush against his cheek wasn’t just the wind, she knew how sorry he was.

  He couldn’t pinpoint when he’d left the criminal behind and become the man that Melinda had seen all along. But here he was, standing in the rain hoping that the lawman he was at the moment would not be forced to do anything that the preacher he hoped to become would regret.

  “Truuuudyyyyy...” a singsong voice called, carrying through the darkness. Lump wasn’t in the yard yet but he was close. “Oh, Truuuudyyyy!”

  Here it was, the time of reckoning. If there was one varmint creeping around in the night the others could not be far behind.

  At least he was saved from puzzling over where to go. The stage had been set. This is where he would take a stand. Live or die in defense of the wagon, which had not gotten nearly far enough away.

  Hoofbeats clopped into the yard. Distant gunshots cut the darkness.

  The fools announced their arrival like a trumpet would announce the coming of a royal presence.

  While he ran toward the barn he listened to the direction and pattern of the shots. One blast came from a shotgun. A pair of pistol shots echoed from the same direction. Three more riders, three shooting guns. All of the noise was coming from the road leading to town.

  Relief washed through him but mingled equally with dread.

  Relief because the wagon was not traveling that road but cut a path across the homestead in the opposite direction.

  Dread because he was the only one standing between the Kings and his wife.

  Boone dashed for the loft. Scrambling up the ladder, he lunged for the window and crouched beside it.

  Lump, bawling Trudy’s name without letup, rode up to the front of the house. He stared at it for a moment then led his horse around the back.

  A movement caught Boone’s attention, not coming from the direction he expected it to.

  Another rider charged into the yard, her lacy bonnet dangling down her back.