Outlaw (19 page)

And sometime along the way, she intended for
Mason to kiss her again. Exactly the way he had before. Maybe then
she could satisfy her curiosity once and for all, and be done with
mooning over an outlaw.

Sighing, Amelia crouched beside the campfire
he'd made for her outside their stolen wagon and checked the
breakfast she was cooking inside their stolen cast-iron spider. The
cornmeal flapjacks sizzled beside thick strips of bacon, sending
the aromas of toasted corn and smoked meat wafting upward. Thank
heaven the rain had stopped late last night, giving the ground time
to dry out somewhat. The warmth of their small fire was bliss.

Standing, stretching, Amelia tried to work
the kinks out of her back before heading toward the covered wagon.
Last night she'd been grateful for its shelter, however illegally
gained. This morning, her conscience poked at her constantly,
trying to make itself heard.

Stealing that wagon was probably a hanging
offense. Things hadn't been bad enough, Amelia thought wryly as she
rummaged inside the wagon bed. She and Mason had felt compelled to
commit a mortal sin on top of it.

Telling herself they'd find a way to set it
right somehow, Amelia pulled out the coffee beans and grinder she'd
found. She carried them back to the fire, turned out the first
batch of flapjacks onto a tin plate, then poured more batter into
the spider. Maybe she'd eat the first batch herself, and not even
wait for Mason to return, she thought rebelliously. What was the
point in propriety when a lady found herself stuck in the middle of
the desert?

Mason's shadow fell over her just as Amelia
poured the green coffee beans into a fresh skillet to roast them.
Shaking them back and forth in the pan, she nodded toward the plate
of flapjacks without looking at him.

"You can have the first batch," she said,
feeling unreasonably like smoothing her wrinkled dress and primping
to gain his favor. She tamped down the urge. Had she no pride left?
"The coffee will be done in a little while."

The campfire flames licked higher, burning
her hand. Yelling, Amelia let go of the skillet. It fell sideways
into the fire, scattering coffee beans in every direction.

"Blast!" she cried, standing and kicking at
the wayward skillet in frustration. Now Mason probably thought she
was as useless at cooking as she'd proved to be at everything else
in this godforsaken Territory. "Goldanged stupid skillet."

She kicked it again, and only succeeded in
stubbing her toe on the hard cast iron. Tears prickled behind her
eyes, making her even madder.

"Let me make the coffee, before you catch
yourself on fire," Mason said.

She refused to look at him. As a man who
didn't even want to be around her, Mason didn't deserve the
satisfaction of an acknowledgment. Still she felt him grinning at
her, and the knowledge irked her beyond reason.

This was like the worst girlhood crush on a
boy she'd ever suffered—only magnified a hundred times, because
there was no escaping Mason. At least for now, they were stuck
together. Not that it mattered. They'd probably be hunted down by a
posse and hung as thieves before she convinced him to satisfy her
curiosity about the kiss.

"I know how to make coffee," Mason
persisted.

"No. I can do it," Amelia gritted out,
wadding her skirt around the skillet handle to pull it from the
fire. This time, she was successful. Dropping it onto the ground to
cool, she turned to Mason with her hands on her hips.

"You might as well eat. There's nothing
wrong with the flapjacks or bacon."

He raised his eyebrows.

Was he trying to provoke her apurpose?

She'd ignore him, Amelia vowed. Humming,
scooping her hand into the container of coffee beans again, she
pulled out a handful and poured them carefully into the skillet.
She held it over the fire—further away this time—and shook it with
a triumphant look toward Mason.

"I happen to be a very good cook," she
announced. Her expression, she felt sure, fairly dared him to
disagree.

"I'm sure you are," he agreed, sounding
utterly unconvinced. She might have announced she was a circus
performer and earned as much credibility. He pierced the sizzling
bacon with his fork, examining each slice as he transferred it to
his plate.

By the time he'd scrutinized the fifth
piece, Amelia couldn't contain herself any longer.

"Exactly what do you expect to find?" she
asked.

Propping his plate on his knee, Mason looked
up at her. "It looks browner than I expected," he said, shrugging.
"I thought maybe you'd fried up some jerky."

"Even I know better than that." She flipped
two cornmeal flapjacks onto a plate for herself, then added one of
the few remaining strips of bacon. She glanced at him again. "It's
just crispy. I like crispy bacon."

"It's burned."

"It's good." To prove her point, Amelia
picked up a piece and bit into it. The bacon crunched in her mouth,
salty and crispy and exactly the way she liked it. Still munching,
she pierced a second piece and added it to her plate, too.

"Burned." Mason peered suspiciously at his
bacon, frowning as though she'd cooked some specially for her and
he'd gotten only the dregs.

Seeing him in full daylight, Amelia was
taken aback at his appearance. Although he looked somewhat more
respectable now that he was clean-shaven, Mason seemed...weary.
Dark circles cast shadows beneath his eyes, and without their usual
brown beard-stubble, his cheeks looked a bit sunken. Suddenly,
crispy bacon or not, she wanted him to eat his fill.

"I'll cook some more bacon if you want," she
offered, setting her plate down to pour more batter onto the
blistering cast iron surface of the spider. That done, Amelia
maneuvered the cooled, roasted coffee beans into the top of the
grinder and replaced the lid.

Cranking the handle, she added, "You look as
though you could use the fortification."

Mason choked on a bite of meat. Reaching
around him, Amelia slapped his back helpfully.

"Quit that!" he muttered once he'd quit
coughing. He cast her a dark look, then turned his attention toward
his flapjacks.

Fine. Whatever got him to eat, Amelia
reasoned. She poured the coffee grounds into the pot, filled it
with water, and hung it over the fire. Slapping her palms together,
she surveyed her campsite with satisfaction. She'd turned it quite
homey, between the warmth of the fire and the good smells of
flapjacks, bacon—and soon, coffee perking.

She picked up her plate and settled herself
on a rock opposite Mason. With not a few surreptitious glances in
his direction—did he like the food or not?—she cut a bite of
flapjack with the edge of her fork and ate it.

Before long, Mason's plate was nearly empty.
He took more from the spider, poured himself some coffee into a tin
cup, and ate more. Finally, he paused for breath. He pointed his
fork toward the overturned crate Amelia had set up beside the
campfire to hold the bowl of flapjack batter and the uncooked bacon
strips.

"What I can't figure out," he said, "is what
the creosote branches are for. Did you season the flapjacks with
them?"

"They're a centerpiece." Hurt, Amelia
glanced at the tin cup filled with bush branches she'd set on one
edge of the crate. "Don't you think the flowers are pretty?"

They were the best she'd been able to
find—the narrow-leafed branches of some desert bush, with tiny
yellow blossoms on them. The wet ones did carry a somewhat pungent
aroma, but it wasn't as though she could just run down to the
greengrocer's for flowers. What did he expect?

Mason grunted, but as he lowered his head to
concentrate on his meal again, Amelia plainly spotted the smile on
his face.

"What's so funny?" she demanded. "You don't
like flowers?"

"I—"

"But I don't suppose you would," she went on
before he could finish. Waving her arm, she ended up slamming her
plate onto the rock beside her, feeling piqued. "You don't like
anything. You don't like the flowers—" she raised her index finger
"or the bacon." Another finger went up. "You haven't said a word
about the flapjacks, so I suppose they don't meet your standards
either."

Her middle finger joined the first two,
enumerating his many dislikes. Mason started to say something else,
but Amelia cut him off. "And you obviously don't like me, either,
so—"

Suddenly, Mason's hand clapped over her
mouth. Muffled, she stared up at him in shock. At some point during
her speech, he'd leaned right over her without her even noticing
it. Now his chest loomed directly in her line of vision, giving her
an excellent—if unwanted—view of his tawny skin and muscular torso
through the opened vee of his wrinkly shirt.

She couldn't help but notice what a
fine-looking man Mason Kincaid was, outlaw or not. Memories of how
he'd looked taking off his wet shirt in the wagon last night edged
into her mind.

"If you'd let a man get a word in edgewise,"
he said, "you might like what you'd hear."

Amelia nodded, unable to manage more with
his hand over her mouth. He took it away, scowling.

"In case you didn't notice," Mason pointed
out as he returned to the rock he'd been using for a seat, "I just
ate a good half-dozen of your flapjacks, and all the rest of your
damned burned bacon. If that doesn't pass for liking the food, I
don't know what does."

"Oh." It was a compliment, Amelia realized.
He liked her cooking. But what about the rest? If she asked, would
Mason reveal how he felt about her, too?

"You're right," she said, trying to appear
conciliatory. "I guess that does prove you like the food."

He nodded and said nothing more.

The man understood instinctively how to vex
her.

She held back a sigh. "You like the food
and...?"

"And what?"

He had to be vexing her apurpose. Perhaps it
was the male version of being coy in the hopes of promoting a
flirtation. Amelia hadn't much experience in that arena.

Deciding she might as well play along, she
prompted, "And you also like...?"

He brightened and gave her a wide,
openhearted grin. Encouraged, Amelia waited for him to speak. Any
moment now, Mason would say something kind and romantic and heroic,
like the men in her dime novels.

"I like the creosote branches, too," he
admitted. "In spite of the smell. Puts a nice lady's touch on
things."

She stared at him. Mason's grin, if
anything, only got wider.

"Quit fishing, Curly Top. I already said I
liked the food—I'm not the kind of man to go on about it all
morning." He stood, pushing himself upright with his hands on his
thighs. "Besides, we've got work to be done."

"What kind of work? Did somebody follow
us?"

Panic sent Amelia to her feet, too. Craning
her neck, she tried to see beyond Mason and around the hill, back
toward Maricopa Wells. Was that only a cloud she saw low in the
sky? Or was it dust kicked up from the hooves of a mounted posse's
horses as they pursued the outlaws?

"Nobody's following us. My guess is, the
wagon's owner is blind-drunk passed-out someplace at the station,
and hasn't realized his rig is missing yet."

"But there are a woman's things in the
wagon," Amelia protested. "What about her?"

"Maybe they're both holed-up someplace."

She put her hands on her hips. "Oh,
Mason—really. I just can't imagine a lady imbibing so heavily that
she—"

"I didn't mean they were holed-up drinking,"
he said, heading for the wagon. He climbed inside the back,
emerging head-first a moment later to untie the thick drawstring
cinching the canvas together.

"Well, what did you...," Amelia started to
ask, following him. A peculiar reddening of Mason's cheeks made the
words stick in her throat. Why, he was blushing!

"Ahh," she murmured, feeling her own cheeks
heat. He meant the wagon owners had holed-up someplace to be
intimate.

The notion reminded her of the night she and
Mason had just spent together, sleeping only a few feet apart from
each other. Wearing not a stitch aside from quilts. Shivering, she
tried to concentrate on what Mason was doing rather than the
intriguing images in her head, and failed.

He ducked his head and went on loosening the
drawstring. "I see you take my meaning, then," he said.

"I, ahhh..." An idea struck her. "No, I
don't," she lied. After all, any subject that could cause an outlaw
to blush was one capable of piquing her interest.

"And I've been curious about this very thing
lately," Amelia said, digging the toe of her shoe into the soil
rather than raise her eyes to Mason. He spread the canvas opening
wider apart, for all appearances barely listening to her.

Trying to sound nonchalant, if unworldly,
she went on: "Perhaps you could instruct me in the nature of—"

"And anyway, the rain washed away our wagon
tracks and the hill hides us from the road, so—" Mason's voice
faltered, his hand tightening abruptly on the canvas edge. His gaze
locked with hers. "
What did you say
?"

Amelia's boldness deserted her. Her throat
tightened, making it hard to speak. "Well, you're a worldly man.
At—at least if our kiss was anything to go by," she said, "and I'm
curious to know about...that is, perhaps you could instruct me
in—"

"No," he said flatly.

His eyes narrowed. Roughly he tied off the
drawstring, then jumped down from the wagon. He landed right next
to her—tall, broad-shouldered—and inexplicably angry.

If she'd wanted him to pay attention to her,
surely she'd accomplished that goal with room to spare.

"I should think you'd be flattered," Amelia
said. "I've never asked a man to kiss me before. You're the
first."

"I'm honored."