Jillian Hart (19 page)

    "Pa's still at the jail?" Emily asked, brows furrowed with confusion.
    "No." Polly pulled the buggy over to the side of the road. It was too distracting to both drive and talk–and this talk was important. "Your Pa is over at the jail in Paradise Bluff–"
    "He's working late again." Emily crinkled up her face in disappointment. "I sure miss him when he ain't here for supper."
    The late afternoon traffic bustled past them on the far end of Front Street. The gleeful sounds of children freed from the school peppered the air. Polly watched the school teacher step out of the building to clean her erasing cloths. The world was so normal, but not her world.
    The words Polly kept meaning to say got all bunched up in her throat. "I miss him, too. What do you want to do?"
    "It's all icky out" Emily studied the falling ice that made the world slippery and cold. "I suppose the river's all froze up."
    "I suppose it is."
    "When's Pa comin' home?" Emily leaned into Polly's arms.
    Polly held her stepdaughter tight. "I don't exactly know."
    Emily sighed. "I'm sure glad I have you. I used to have to stay with Woody's wife. She's nice, but she don't have no kids."
    Polly's heart ached, and she hugged her little girl closer. How was she going to tell Emily about her father? That he was a wolf in disguise? An outlaw who harmed people just because he could do it?
    "What's wrong?" Emily tilted her head back against Polly's arm. "You look like you're gonna cry."
    "I never cry." Polly swallowed hard. Her chest ached with pain for Emily–she knew what it was like to be an outlaw's daughter. She knew the shame and the hardship. The deputies had kept Ben's arrest quiet, but that wouldn't last for long. What would happen to Emily then?
    That was the real reason Ben had married her, Polly could see that now. He needed someone to take care of Emily–not a housekeeper or a deputy's wife–but someone who loved her in case the law ever caught up with him.
    Polly grabbed the reins, still hugging Emily, and gave the mare a gentle slap. Renegade turned out onto the street. Polly heard someone shout in protest. She didn't have the heart to see who she'd nearly run off the road this time and apologize.
    "Polly, you forgot to look at the traffic," Emily reminded her.
    "I'm never going to get used to this buggy." She didn't want to. She wanted to light out of here and ride until the pain in her heart eased. She wanted to get far away from Indian Trails, where no memories could haunt her.
    While she'd been falling in love with him, Ben MacLain had merely been humoring her. In fact, he'd never said the words. Not when he made love to her the first time, or the last. And when he proposed to her, he didn't ask her to marry
him
but to marry
them
, him and Emily.
    The landscape slid by in a blur.
    Emily tugged her sleeve. "Where did you get that?"
    "I fell off the horse today." Polly couldn't bear to tell her more.
    "Pa always kisses my boo-boos." Emily crawled up onto her knees and pressed her lips to Polly's cheekbone. "Now you're all better."
    "I sure am." It wasn't her cut that hurt–it was her heart.
    She stopped the mare in the middle of the road and debated what to do. She couldn't run. She couldn't return to their cozy log home and tell Emily what had really happened. Well, that only left one thing to do.
    She turned the buggy around and headed the mare toward town. "How would you like to stay with Adella for a while? I'll ask her ma if it's all right."
    "Sure." Emily's brows scrunched, obviously happy at the notion of visiting her best friend, but also worried. "Where are you goin'?"
    "To get your pa."

Chapter Sixteen

    Ben couldn't sleep. The marshal had put him in a private cell, way in the back, where a small window gave him a view of the last quarter moon and a piece of the sky. Emily would be sound asleep by now. He wondered if Polly had told her a story. He wondered if Emily was disappointed in him or, worse, ashamed.
    He knew Polly was. He'd heard it in the cold tone of her voice and saw it in the hard turn of her shoulder. She'd loved him. Now she hated him.
    Well, how could he blame her? He'd never given her his heart.
    He heard a sound outside the window. A sort of scratching sound. He figured maybe a dog was out there or a wild animal. Then an explosion thundered, and sharp pieces of the wall fired inward. A chunk struck him in the same shoulder he'd banged up earlier when fighting the Brown gang. Before he could jump to his feet, a shadow filled the significant hole in the outside wall.
    "Hurry up," Polly ordered. "A light in the sheriffs quarters just came on."
    Ben glanced at the rubble around his feet. He peered through the six-foot hole in the stone wall. "How did you do this?"
    "It's amazing what a stick of dynamite will do in a pinch." Polly tossed him Fugitive's reins. "Hurry up. I hear voices."
    He couldn't believe his eyes. She sat astride the pinto mare in her denims and man's jacket, her Stetson slung low over her eyes. His heart soared. "You came for me."
    "I came for Emily." Her voice was cold. "Mount up, the sheriff's front door just opened."
    "Not like this." He had nothing to run for. He was tired of hiding. It was time to face his past
    "
What the heck do you mean
?" Polly swung her mare around. "I blew up a jail for you. For Emily."
    "She's why I can't run." Ben heard the drum of distant footsteps and the angry shouts of the prisoners who wanted to be released, too. "I've shamed the both of you enough."
    "Then what's the point of staying in prison?" Polly tied a knot in the reins, dropped them over the saddle horn and hauled out her revolvers. "Emily needs you."
    "She has you, Polly."
    "I know, that's why you married me, isn't it?" She didn't mean to sound bitter. It's just that she'd almost believed she was valuable enough to be loved, truly loved. And finding out she wasn't hurt more than she could bear. "Fine, stay there and play by their rules. In case you've forgotten, I'm a fugitive too and I intend to prove my innocence so Emily won't ever have to worry about losing her mother, too."
    Darn him for being so thick headed, so . . . noble. He stood there looking at her as if he couldn't force himself to break the law by running. And heck if she didn't believe him.
    Foolish, silly heart. She spun the pinto into the shadows because those lawmen were getting too close for comfort. Once again, she'd been wrong. Ben hadn't wanted her, hadn't needed her. Was she ever going to learn? Or was she going to be like her mother and the other women she'd seen over the years–giving their all to men who would never care?
    Ben watched Polly retreat. The reins felt heavy in his hands. Fugitive nosed him and nickered low and nervous. The horse sensed the danger. It wasn't the first time his trusty palomino had carried him away from a broken-into jail cell.
    Damn her for forcing his hand like this. For taking charge and making him break the law one more time. Either way, the sheriff and marshals stationed in this town weren't going to ask questions and then shoot. Reining in his anger, Ben swung up into the saddle. Together, he and Polly raced off into the night.

    His anger bubbled over after they'd put enough rugged wilderness between them and the lawmen to relax a bit. "What was that stunt you pulled back there?"
    "You mean that little maneuver I did to evade the posse?"
    "No. Using dynamite to bust me out of jail." Damn, she was being difficult on purpose. "You could have gotten us both killed."
    "I know how to use dynamite."
    "You could have asked before you blew the wall out of my prison cell–"
    She lifted her chin, full of fight. "Funny, every other man I've broken out of jail was grateful."
    "I didn't want out. I have two more months left on my clemency period. I have an arraignment with the county judge in the morning. I figured I could work this out. Now you've blown it all to hell."
    "Well, excuse me. I guess this is just another instance of the respectable Ben MacLain not really needing anyone." She gave Renegade more rein and the mare shot forward.
    Ben's mount kept pace. "Me? What about you? You haven't asked for help the entire time I've known you. Not for the range and not for dealing with your ruthless father."
    "Pa is dead. He's dealt with."
    "I killed him. Are you angry about that?"
    She didn't answer. Her jawline tensed. The drum of the pounding horses hooves against the frozen ground and the rush of wind filled the silence, but nothing could erase the cold anger he felt radiating from her.
    "You don't even need me now." He hated that. "You're so damn independent you can't even ask for my help."
    "I don't need your help."
I need your love.
She bit back the words before they could tumble across her lips. She ached with it, hurt with it. "I can prove my innocence on my own."
    "All by yourself?"
    "That's right." She didn't need him. She didn't want him. Really, she didn't. "I just want you to take Emily and start a new life somewhere in Idaho Territory or something."
    "But she's going to need her mother–"
    "Maybe you could buy another one for her," Polly interrupted. Pain sounded sharp in her voice and she hated it. She wanted to keep her foolish, vulnerable feelings hidden.
    "I never bought you and I never used you." He reached across the few feet between their horses and caught her reins. He drew both horses to a halt in the middle of the moonlit road.
    "You betrayed me. You made me love a man just like Pa."
    "That's not what's bothering you." He gentled his voice, though it rang low as thunder, deep as the night. "I'm nothing like your pa. I never was."
    Emotions gathered in her chest, coiling tight into a painful, solid ball. "You made me believe–"
    "What did I make you believe?" He laid his hand along the side of her face. "Tell me."
    "That I was loved," she blurted out, hating her own weakness. She jerked her reins from his grip and kneed Renegade into a fast gallop.
    The law was after them, but she didn't care. If they caught up to her, she would sure as heck evade them again. The winding path she'd taken through the wilderness would confuse them. They would have to wait for morning light to follow her tracks.
    She could handle dynamite, lawmen on her tail, and outshoot half the men in this territory, but she didn't know what to do with a broken heart. How to fix it. How to let it be.
    She just wanted to get away from the pain.
    "You love Emily." Ben caught up to her.
    She drove Renegade harder.
    Ben stayed right on the mare's flank. "Emily loves you."
    "I know. That's why I'm doing this. For Emily. She needs her father."
    "But not her mother?"
    That ball in her chest began to expand until she could barely breathe. "I'm a bounty hunter. I wore those pretty dresses and drove a beautiful buggy and cared for a priceless little girl for a while, but that was all. It couldn't last."
    "It's still there, Polly."
    "No." She gasped for breath, then realized she was sobbing. "You're an outlaw, Emily's going to be heartbroken, and I was wrong. I should have kept on going. I could have evaded you if I wanted to, I just–"
    Renegade was tiring and she eased the mare back into a trot. It was easier to ride than it was to try to talk about the confused, jumbled emotions hurting like a gunshot to her chest. "I wanted a real family and a man like you to love me."
    "A respectable sheriff?"
   
No, you
. She couldn't say the words. He didn't love her. No matter how much she'd given him, he'd never loved her back. Caring and friendship and sex weren't good enough. She was no longer an outlaw's daughter. She was her own woman, and she would not give up her independence for a life without love.
    "This is where we part paths, MacLain." She held her chin high, so he wouldn't suspect she was holding back tears. "You take good care of Emily for me. Tell her I'll write."
    "You can't read."
    "I intend to learn." She intended to do a lot of things. She spun the mare up the small incline and away from Ben MacLain.
    "Polly." His voice sounded warm and rich, noble and strong. No outlaw sounded that way.
    And he wasn't an outlaw, she knew that. He was everything her father was not, regardless of his past. He was a man who could love his daughter and rebuild a good life despite the mistakes of his youth.
    The rising sun stung her eyes.
    "You need me, Polly MacLain. Admit it." His voice followed her.
    "You'd better get riding, Ben. The law is going to be after us soon enough."
    "I'm never going anywhere without you again." He caught her arm, and the touch startled her. She brought her mare to a stop. Ben's hand brushed up her arm. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my past. I just wanted it to go away. Just like you wanted yours to."
    "That's no excuse."
    "I
am
Ben MacLain. I am a damn good sheriff, I work like hell to be a good father, and I'm failing miserably at being a husband. But I guarantee I'm going to get better as time passes."
    Her chin shot up. "Some lucky woman is going to benefit, then."
    "Yes, she is." He wasn't fooled. Polly was hurting inside, and this courageous woman who could ride the wilderness and face ruthless outlaws without blinking didn't know how to let herself be loved.
    The fault wasn't all his, but he was going to fix it, and fix it now.
    "I love you." He laid his hand against her chin when it looked like she was going to turn away. "I love you in a way I never thought possible. You are the reason behind every breath I take and everything I do. I wake up in the morning thinking of you, and you are the last thing on my mind when I close my eyes at night."
    "Fancy words for an outlaw." She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, keen and powerful, and he wanted to take her into his arms and hold her until there was no more fear, no more peril, only the frenzied beating of their hearts.
    Fugitive swiveled his ears, straining to hear. There was no time to hold her, to convince her of the love he harbored for her. So he led the way through the trees, heading northeast like she'd been doing, toward the rugged peaks of the Garnet Mountains.

    Bad Bart Dixon gave thanks to Polly Brown for blasting a hole in the south wall of the Paradise Bluff jail. All the inmates were talking about it. She'd come to rescue her husband, that bulldog sheriff.
    Just his luck, too. He'd had nothin' else to do but sit on this cot and think about all the ways he could get his revenge. He'd been in this local jail for too damn long. The judge had indicted him and here he sat, waiting for the marshals to decide to haul him up to the territorial prison.
    Dixon had to worry. How long would the rest of his gang wait? They had orders to free him the minute the marshals tried to take him across the mountains.
    The longer he sat here rotting, the more likely it was those damn cusses would give up waiting.
    Well, freedom called. It was luck that the explosion blasted apart a cracked door hinge on the neighboring cell. The prisoner inside had grabbed the deputy who came dashing in to check, and stolen his guns and keys.
    Dixon loved the sound of his jail door swinging free. He ran out of there like greased lightning. Only a single marshal had remained behind to keep peace, and it was simple as pie sneaking 'round the shadows of the building and into the alley.
    He grabbed a set of clothes off a backyard line. The trousers were too big and the shirt too small, but beggars couldn't be choosers. He stole a horse from a small stable and lit off toward the hills, intent on Polly's trail.