Outlaw (18 page)

"We picked a well-equipped wagon to
steal."

Teetering a bit, Amy kicked aside some pots
and sat down on the floor, then pulled the quilt closer around
her.

"
You
stole the wagon. I just drove
it." She started laughing, choking on her apple again, then tossed
the apple core out the rear of the wagon. She slapped her knees
with laughter. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

She'd gone hysterical on him.

Mason felt like bolting from the wagon and
taking his chances with the storm. Anything but stay here with this
woman—this woman who couldn't take a walk without getting stuck in
a pile of boulders, who couldn't take a stagecoach ride without
stirring up trouble, who couldn't get by in the Territory without
help.

Without his help.

Away from the eastern life she was used to,
Amelia O'Malley was in so far over her head she was a danger to
everybody around her. Now, Mason feared, she was finally beginning
to understand that.

She coughed, finally bringing her laughter
under control. "I'm sorry, Mason. I'm just not used to all this,
that's all. I'll do better in the future, I promise."

He shook his head. "You've got no future,"
he said. "When we get to Tucson, I'm putting you on the first stage
to Yuma. You can catch a train back east to Big Trout Pond from
there."

"Big Pike Lake," she replied automatically,
the ghost of a smile on her face at his misuse of her hometown's
name. She hugged the quilt closer, like she'd finally begun to get
warm and wanted to savor it.

Slowly, her eyes widened. "No! I can't go
back!" she cried, her head wrenching toward him as she realized
what he'd said. "I have satchels to find, books to deliver, work to
be done. I can't—"

"You don't belong here," Mason said bluntly,
"and I have people to meet. Important business to take care of."
A child to recover
, but he couldn't tell her that.

"I'll do better! I won't get into any more
trouble, I won't!" Amy swore.

Her eyes brightened hopefully. Mason felt
like groaning at whatever hare-brained scheme she was likely
hatching in that curly blond head.

"In fact," she said quickly, "I'll help you.
It's the least I can do. I'll help you find whatever you're looking
for. You're a wanted man, and it'll be hard for you to get around
in Tucson. I can—"

"You're wanted, too."

Mason turned, heading for the driver's seat.
The tools were bound to be stored there. Between a good set of
pliers and a good horn of the whiskey Curly Top had mentioned, he'd
have the prickly pear spines out in no time.

He'd regained some measure of control, and
it felt good. Amy could complain all she wanted to—they had to go
their separate ways in Tucson. It was the only right thing to
do.

"Oh, drat—that's right. We're both wanted,"
she said, starting in humming her hymn again.

Evidently, church music got Curly Top's
brain working, Mason thought sourly. She paused.

"Then we'll just have to stick together, I
guess," she announced, sounding pleased with herself. "You'll be
helping me just by getting me to Tucson safely, and I'll help you
after we get there. I know about cities."

Mason doubted it. If she knew about cities
like she knew about Arizona Territory—from dime novels, if her
conversations aboard the Maricopa Wells stagecoach could be
believed—they were both in trouble.

He unearthed a pair of long-handled pliers
from the box of tools near the driver's bench, pulled them out,
then tested their grip by opening and closing them. Satisfied,
Mason headed back toward the barrel he'd been seated on
earlier.

"It's best if we're not together any longer
than we have to be," he told her, settling onto the barrel.

Amy snuggled deeper into her quilt. "I owe
you my life, Mason. You saved me! I can't just get on a stage and
forget all that."

"Yes, you can." Grimacing, he examined the
spines in his leg. Holding his pants taut with one hand, he set the
pliers around one of the spines embedded just below his knee and
pulled.

A pinpoint of fire slid through his skin,
making sweat break out on his forehead. He raised the pliers,
peering at the long, needle-like spine. It was tipped with blood on
one end. Taking it from the pliers' grip, he set to work on the
rest of the spines. Pulling out each of those one by one was going
to be a sonofabitch.

Four spines later, his vision swam and his
leg felt like a pincushion for six-inch ladies' hat pins. "Where
did you say the whiskey was?" he asked.

Amy stared, transfixed, at the spine he'd
just pulled out. Her mouth opened slightly, but no sound
emerged.

He frowned. "Maybe you ought to have a plug,
too, Curly Top."

She found her voice, but her gaze remained
fixed on the quivering spines still stick in his leg. "I never
imbibe anything stronger than wine," she told him. Her eyes met
his. "Are you sure that's all right to do? What if your leg turns
septic or something?"

"Never mind. I'll get it myself." Mason set
the pliers on a crate beside him, then rose. He remembered seeing
the whiskey bottle someplace near the tool box....

"I'm sorry you hurt yourself," Amy said in a
small voice behind him. "You did it coming to get me, didn't
you?"

"Doesn't matter."

He found the bottle and raised it to the
meager daylight that still forced its way through the rainstorm.
The liquor inside sloshed faintly. Still more than half-full.

"It does matter!" Amy insisted. "Not every
man would jump into a flooded river like that, just to save a woman
they barely knew. You risked yourself for me."

Her voice sounded faraway, as though it came
from underwater. Only half-listening, Mason rubbed his thumbs over
the smooth glass bottle in his hands. How long since he'd tasted
whiskey? A week after Ellen's death? Two? It had made him numb
enough not to fight when the Sharpes had arrived from the east.
Numb enough not to argue when they made their damned
accusations.

It had made him too numb to stop them from
taking Ben away.

Damn. He rolled the bottle between his
palms, trying not to remember. After a long while, he realized he
was staring at it. With unsteady fingers Mason uncorked the
whiskey, then rolled the cork between his thumb and forefinger.

He raised the bottle and inhaled the tangy
smell of the liquor. The crooked finger of a soiled dove inviting
him upstairs couldn't have beckoned him more.
Just one
drink
, he told himself, studying the bottle. Just a slug or two
to dull the pain, and then he'd get the rest of those prickly pear
spines out.

It wouldn't be like it was before. He
wouldn't let it numb him again.

Amelia was still talking, but he couldn't
listen. Staring into the distance, his back to her, Mason raised
the whiskey. One pull of liquor couldn't hurt. A man was entitled
to that much—even a man who'd done the things Mason had. The warm
glass neck of the bottle fit his lips like a forgotten lover,
promising relief...promising he'd forget. He only had to tilt his
head back, let the whiskey burn down his throat....

And prove that Ellen meant nothing. That Ben
meant nothing.

Swearing, Mason wrenched the bottle
downward. His damned fingers shook as he corked it again with a
final, savage twist, then raised his arm to hurl the whiskey into
the deepening shadows beyond the covered wagon. Better to be rid of
the temptation once and for all.

He stretched his arm back, preparing to
throw, his mind filled with images of his life before.

"Mason?"

Amy's arms wrapped around him from behind,
bringing the warmth of the quilt with her. The red and white
pattern flowed over both of them, enfolding them together. Slowly,
he lowered the whiskey bottle.

"You're a good man," she said, hugging him
tightly. "I don't need to know your name to know that. I can see
it. I can feel it." She wrapped her arms around his middle and
hugged him closer. "I don't care what you've done, what they say
you've done."

He couldn't speak, couldn't move for the
sense of gratitude her words aroused. He couldn't remember the last
time kindness like that had touched him. The last time anyone had
believed in him.

But it had been a long time.

"I don't need to know your name to know a
man like you could never be an outlaw," she went on, her voice low.
"You just saved my life! How—"

"My name's Kincaid," Mason told her.

Her hands stilled. "What?"

"Mason Kincaid." He turned, encircling her
waist in his arms, and lifted her high against him. He wanted to
crush her to him, to keep her with him, to prove to Amy he could
keep her safe.

To prove it to himself.

"My real name is Mason Kincaid."

Her smile was a benediction. The warmth of
it went straight to his soul. He needed nothing else to know, once
and for all, that he had to send her away.

He eased Amy down his body and set her on a
barrel beside him. "I escaped from the lawman who came to arrest me
a little more than a week ago and I've been on the run ever
since."

"But—"

"Let me finish." Damn, but his chest ached
with something he couldn't name. Mason made himself say the words
that she needed to hear, but it had never been harder to push them
past his lips. Stiffly, he went on: "He came for me because I was
accused two days before that of murdering my wife."

God, but the words still choked him. Mason
moved away from her, leaving Amelia on the barrel alone.

Leaving him alone again, too.

"I knew he was coming for me, and I left
before he got there," Mason said. He looked down at her. "I
am
an outlaw—whatever you believe."

Amy touched his arm. "But they're wrong.
They have to be! I don't believe you could do such a thing. You've
saved me again and again, and I—"

"Because I don't want another damned murder
charge hanging on my head!" Mason shouted. She flinched, driven
backward by the sudden intensity of his anger. He tried to gentle
his voice, and failed. "I've got nothing else to lose—except what's
waiting for me in Tucson. Don't stand in my way."

Clenching her fists, Amy stepped closer to
him. She raised her head and looked him in the eye. "Every time I
escaped from you," she said, her voice shuddering with emotion,
"you came after me."

"I already told you, I—"

"
No
. This time, you let
me
finish." She caught hold of his hand and squeezed hard. "And every
time, I kept thinking you'd recaptured me."

Mason wrenched his hand away, scowling. He
couldn't shake loose her grip on his heart as easily. Curly Top had
picked a hell of a time to turn determined on him.

"You should have gotten the hell away from
me while you still could," he said.

As though he'd never spoken, never moved,
Amy followed him.

"And every time I was wrong," she said.
Holding the quilt up with one hand, she slipped her other hand from
beneath it and tunneled under his blanket instead. He felt her hand
smooth warmth across his chest. It came to rest directly over his
heart.

"Don't you see?" she asked, looking up at
him with tears shimmering in her eyes. "All those times, you
weren't capturing me."

How had his attempts to scare her away from
him backfired so quickly, so completely? He didn't want this,
didn't want anyone else depending on him. Mason tried to sound
mean, tried to sound like it cost him nothing to say, "I
wasn't?"

"No."

A tear spilled onto her cheek. He had to
fight the urge to caress it away.

"You were
rescuing
me," she said.

"Amy—"

"And I'm going to rescue you in return."

Chapter Twelve

Falling in love with Mason had been a fluke.
By the time Amelia had woken up, bruised and half-exhausted from a
night spent sleeping amidst a wagon bed of supplies, she'd felt
fairly certain she was starting to get over it already. She had to
be. Otherwise, she didn't know how she was going to deal with a man
who pulled her to him with one hand and pushed her away with the
other. At the same time.

By all indications, he wanted nothing
whatsoever to do with her this morning. Mason had wakened her
before sunrise, rumbling something in that mean outlaw's voice of
his about not lolling around like sitting ducks. Then he'd taken
himself off to the swollen stream with a bucket of clean water and
a straightedge razor to shave with, leaving her alone to fend for
herself.

Amelia didn't understand him—or herself, for
that matter. Mason Kincaid was the wrong kind of man for her to
care about. He was wholly unsuitable. Yet he'd held her as though
he couldn't get enough of her care, kissed her in a way that still
made her lips tingle when she remembered it.

How could that be? How was it possible that
she, who'd had no trouble resisting improper advances from the few
young men who'd approached her in the past, found herself longing
for yet another kiss from Mason—even at this very moment?

She brushed her fingertips across her lips,
remembering. Looking toward the nearby ridge where Mason sat, she
spotted his lithe, powerful body silhouetted by the rising sun, his
arm propped with deceptive casualness on his bent knee as he
scanned the countryside for signs they'd been pursued from Maricopa
Wells. Shafts of orange and gold sunlight burnished his body and
hid his expression at the same time. She'd never known anyone more
enigmatic. Mason protected her at every turn, even while seeming
aggrieved by her very presence.

He was a puzzle, Amelia decided. A puzzle
she didn't even have all the pieces to. She meant to figure him
out, though. Soon. In the meantime, she intended to get to Tucson
safely, to retrieve her J.G. O'Malley & Sons satchels, and to
deliver those book orders.