Outlaw (32 page)

She looked at Amelia and shook her head.
"Any man would have taken to the bottle, facing all he did with
her. Especially at the end."

"His wife's
brothers
took Ben?"

Juana waved away Amelia's surprise.
"
Bastardos
. Selfish men," she muttered, her Spanish accent
growing stronger. "They thought their nephew belonged in a
civilized place, not here in the Territory with a drunken papa and
no mother."

"But he's the boy's father!" Amelia cried.
"Surely Ben would have been happier at home with him."

An image of a little boy, dragged away
crying by the uncles he barely knew, filled her mind. After losing
his mother, Ben would have needed his father all the more. Couldn't
his relatives see that?

"Ah, but
they
were happier having
their revenge on Mason," Juana said. "I don't think they ever liked
him, ever thought he should have married Ellen and brought her west
with him. They are cruel men. I saw it myself at her funeral."

She shuddered, and her mouth turned down at
the corners. "They called Mason every vile name I've ever heard,
and some I haven't." She smiled wryly. "They said he drove Ellen to
what she did."

Amelia stared at her, stunned by the idea of
men who would strike out in such a way at the funeral of a man's
wife. Men so vindictive they'd risk hurting their own small nephew
in the name of revenge.

"But they were Mason's relatives, too,
Juana. By marriage, at least. Maybe you misunderstood, maybe—"

"No." Juana shook her head, her voice firm.
"No. They accused him. Accused him of killing their sister." She
picked up the bread dough from Amelia's table, ripped it in half,
and began rounding one portion into a smooth-topped bread loaf.
"The lawmen were duty-bound to take Mason in and find out the
truth."

"And that's when he escaped? When the posse
started after him?" Amelia guessed.

"Not at first," Juana said, frowning as she
shook away the flour clinging to the bread dough. "Sheriff Shibell
came out alone to talk to Mason at first. He knew him, just like
everybody else. He didn't believe what those
bastardo
brothers of Ellen's said." She cast Amelia a sharp glance. "None of
us did."

She muttered something below her breath and
shook her head. "But by then those Sharpes had taken Ben away, and
Mason went after them."

"So when the sheriff got there," Amelia
said, thinking aloud, "and found Mason gone, he assumed he'd run
because he was guilty."

"Yes." Juana's lips tightened. "And set the
posse after him, then and there.
Tonto
."

Amelia sighed. "I don't understand any of
this," she said. "If Mason was trying to get to Tucson to find his
son, what was he doing robbing stagecoaches in the meantime?"

Juana shrugged. "Not robbing. Trying to ask
about where those
bastardo
Sharpe brothers had taken his son
without being caught, I'd say," she said. "A clever one, that
Kincaid."

"I don't think I ever saw him take any
money," Amelia reflected, thinking back on the stagecoach robberies
she'd witnessed since embarking on her Arizona Territory mission.
"And it did turn out to be a very effective disguise."

It had certainly fooled her. She nearly
blushed to recall how convinced she'd been that she was meeting the
famous poet bandit. So much had happened since then, those
convictions seemed far away indeed.

"But he never talked to me about it," Juana
went on. "Maybe James or Manuel. Mason is not a man to confide in
others."

Amelia remembered his pain when he'd
described to her the loss of his wife, his freedom...his son. That
Mason had trusted her enough to reveal himself to her humbled her.
And she—she had convinced herself this morning that she meant
little to him, if he could leave her so easily. Sorrow slowed her
hands as she scraped dough from the tabletop and threw the scraps
away.

She had to find a way to clear his name, to
restore his freedom if she could. She loved him. And she owed Mason
at least that much for the many times he'd saved her since her
arrival in the Territory.

Amelia's eyes narrowed. Her father was an
influential man back home—perhaps if he sent a wire to the sheriff
in Tucson? Arranged a work furlough, perhaps? She could easily
imagine the sheriff agreeing to such a plan, especially if J.G.
O'Malley vouched for Mason.

Except Mason would never agree. He'd think
it indentured servitude, she was almost certain. And he'd be partly
right. Amelia bit her lip, trying to think of another plan. Surely
there was something she could do to help. Mason was an innocent
man.

Juana plunked the unbaked loaf into a pan
and started shaping the next, frowning to herself over the story
she'd been telling. "Those Sharpes were right about one thing,
though. Mason did not belong with her."

Surprised at the venom in Juana's tone,
Amelia paused in the act of wiping up flour from the tabletop. "You
didn't like Ellen?"

Juana plunked the second loaf into a pan
with an unladylike snort. "Like her?" She wiped her hands and
looked at Amelia. "Tell me. What is to like about a woman who cares
only for herself?"

"But surely she loved her husband, her
son—"

"Ellen was cold,
pequeña
. I think
Mason did not see at first, because she was so beautiful. After
time...after time he could no longer ignore it."

Juana lifted a crate of crockery bowls and
battered cutlery, balancing its weight against her hips as she
headed for the stage station's front room. Amelia followed her into
the long, low room, thoughts of Mason's wife—and her acknowledged
beauty—slowing her movements as she followed Juana along the
rough-hewn tables, laying bowls at each place setting.

Suddenly she felt too messy, too poorly
dressed and too pitifully groomed to ever hope to hold Mason's
interest. Not like his beautiful wife, the mother of his child.
Glumly, Amelia gathered a handful of spoons and knives to add to
the place settings, ashamed at her shallow concerns and yet wholly
unable to put them aside.

Mason's leaving made every doubtful thought
she'd ever entertained about herself leap straight into her mind
and set up housekeeping again.

"I thought you were the same," Juana said
with a small laugh, going to light the lamps hung at even intervals
along the adobe walls. Evening was nearly upon them, deepening the
shadows where the farthest oil lamps hung. "Another fancy eastern
lady, come to hurt my friend."

The words struck Amelia like a careless
blow, made her heart thump hollowly in her chest as she clutched
the tableware still to be set. Was that how she truly appeared? No
wonder Mason had seemed so unfriendly at first, so unwilling to
view her as anything more than a burden to be disposed of as
quickly as possible.

He'd had other priorities. His freedom. His
son. And she'd distracted him from them all. Regret tightened
inside her like a fist. Numbly she watched Juana replace the
chimney on the last lamp and blow out the lighted taper she'd
used.

"I—I never meant to hurt him," Amelia said,
staring just past Juana's shoulder. No wonder Juana and Mason got
along so well—neither had the slightest fear of speaking their
truths, however bluntly. She rubbed the smooth silver in her hands,
trying to summon the courage to go on. "I didn't even mean for him
to rescue me. I never—"

"Oh, Amelia!" Juana exclaimed, touching her
shoulder lightly. "I know that! You needn't look so worried. I
changed my mind when I—"

Hoof beats entering the courtyard stilled
her voice. A horse whinnied, then blew. An instant later, the door
swung open.

Manuel.

Alone.

Yet he'd vowed to stay with Mason for as
long as he needed him.

Amelia's spoons and knives fell from her
nerveless grip, clattering to the floor in a shower of dull
silver.

"Where's Mason?" she cried, rushing toward
him. If Manuel had returned alone, did that mean the posse had
captured Mason?

Manuel raised his hands, palms upward.
"
Señorita
, he—"

No
. She couldn't listen.

Mason had to be outside. Nothing had
happened. He was fine. Fine. Maybe even waiting for her, and she
was wasting time talking with Manuel. She pushed past him and
entered the courtyard, her head swiveling for any sign of
Mason.

The sun had nearly set, casting the boxy,
mesquite-bordered area into long, cool shadows. The breeze ruffled
her hair, lifting tendrils from her chignon to stream across her
face. Brushing them impatiently aside, Amelia looked toward the
hitching post. Manuel's horse stood tethered there, its sides
lathered and heaving.

Manuel's horse only.

Her heartbeat quickening, she scanned the
rest of the courtyard. Station hands at work, wagons being repaired
at the blacksmith's shop, and high rounded creosote bushes crowded
her vision. No tall, broad-shouldered man rode in toward the
station. No Mason.

"No, no," Amelia whispered, wheeling blindly
toward the opened stage station door. Warmth hit her when she
stumbled inside, seeking Manuel.

He stood beside Juana, his broad-brimmed
sombrero
gone, looking as though he'd climbed on his hands
and knees the whole way up Picacho Peak. Dried mud caked his shirt
to his chest, and his trousers were ripped at the knees. His face,
when he looked at her, was lined with fatigue, dirt-smudged and
haggard.

She couldn't move any further. Dread rooted
her to the spot.

Juana tugged a chair from the table,
scraping its legs across the hard-packed earth floor. She nodded
toward it, motioning Amelia into it with a subtle inclination of
her head. New sorrow pulled at the corners of her mouth. Bad. The
news Manuel brought was bad.

"No." Amelia backed up, the room swimming.
Even in the low lamplight, everything looked different—brighter,
blurrier, farther away. Small sounds reached her—the horse shifting
outside, the stew bubbling in the back room, a bird crying near the
window—but whatever Juana was saying was lost to her.

Her fingers felt numb. She tasted denial,
breathed it in the air, and whatever the news Manuel had brought,
she didn't want it.

"No." She backed up further. Her hip bumped
against something, then a chair and wash basin toppled, crashing
into the adobe wall behind. The sound galvanized her, sent her feet
into motion with only the need to get away guiding her.

Tables, more chairs blocked her path.
Blindly she pushed them aside, feeling her throat tighten with
tears that wouldn't come. Manuel's message was false. Mason was
strong, he knew how to survive in the desert and beyond. He'd
never—

Warm fingers closed on her upper arm.
"
Señorita
, I must tell you," came Manuel's voice into the
darkness swirling around her. "I promised I would tell you—"

Fury swept through Amelia with such force it
made her shake. She spun, wrenching his hand from her arm. "You
left him!" she spat. "You promised to stay with him! How can you
speak to me of promises when you—you—"

Rage choked her, made it impossible to go
on. Instead she glared at Manuel, seeing only the man who'd failed
to help Mason. The man who'd brought everything upon their heads
with his carelessness in returning the wagon to Maricopa Wells, the
man who'd all-but led the posse straight to Mason—and she knew what
it was to hate someone in an instant.

"Amelia." Juana's voice sounded gentle, like
that of a mother to a grieving child. "
Pequeña
, sit down.
Listen to him." Her hand touched Amelia's shoulder. "Manuel is only
keeping his word. He came to—"

"No! If not for him, Mason would never have
been found. The posse would still be searching. And Ben would have
a father now, not—"

A sob rippled through her. Manuel's roar of
anger made it stick in her throat, unvoiced.

"If not for
you
, he would have been
with his son days ago!" he yelled, his Spanish accent thickening as
he advanced toward her. "Instead he stayed here to lie with you,
and put us all at risk.
Puta
! Do not raise your voice to
me."

He looked ready to strike her, his eyes
blazing against his dirt-smudged skin. His hand shot forward,
clamped around her wrist, and Amelia shrank before him, shocked
from her rage by the bitterness in his face. Manuel wrenched her
wrist to waist- height. He pressed his thumb into the fragile bones
at its center, forcing her hand to open.

"Manuel, no!" cried Juana. "Not like
this!"

"This one deserves no better." His eyes met
Amelia's, and for an instant she thought she glimpsed pity there.
It vanished just as quickly. "She is as bad as that bitch wife of
his."

He pushed his fist into her palm, forcing
something into her hand. Something light, yet familiar—she felt its
fine-honed edge bite into her skin, but couldn't look closer to see
what it was.

"Mason asked me to give you this," Manuel
said, releasing her wrist with a cruel snap of his arm.

"
And to say goodbye
."

He spat into the ground at her feet. With
one final, scathing look he strode away, leaving Amelia wavering.
Goodbye?
Goodbye
? Hysteria pushed at her, unraveling her
thoughts as quickly as they came. She stared at Juana, unable to
move or speak.

Suddenly, Juana's image wavered and blurred,
and as though noticing the fact from a great distance, Amelia
realized she was crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks, running
into her mouth, her ears, tasting of salt and disbelief.

"Goodbye?" she croaked. It couldn't be, he
couldn't be gone.
Mason, Mason
...

"Ahh,
pequeña
," Juana murmured. "I
did not think it would come to this. I had hoped there would be
another way. Another way for Mason, too."