Outlaw (6 page)

Amelia rested her chin on her upraised knees
and sighed. Perhaps the animal had a better sense of direction than
she did. In any case, she wasn't moving another inch until
daybreak. Maybe then she'd be able to spot the trail.

At least she'd managed to salvage both of
her J.G. O'Malley & Sons satchels. She could still deliver the
book orders to Tucson, and maybe even gather a few new ones. She'd
make her father proud of her if it took her last breath to
accomplish it.

But that was in the future. Now, wedged
securely in her hiding place between two cold, filthy boulders,
Amelia thought longingly of hot chocolate, a steaming bath, and a
bed with fluffy blankets and feather pillows. Instead she'd made a
meal of stringy dried beef and a bed out of sticky, jabbing
mesquite branches.

Even the foliage was dangerous in the
Arizona Territory.

She was sure her poor
derrière
must
be perforated by now—the things had tiny thorns that poked right
through her new pink dress. It was ruined for certain, ruined after
only one wearing. She didn't even want to consider the condition of
her balmorals, after scrabbling for the past half-hour amongst the
rocks and cactus that made up the mountainside.

Even so, sitting atop mesquite branches was
better than just plopping onto the bare ground. Amelia shuddered to
think what kinds of
things
lived and crawled and slithered
in the dark. Every once in a while, she heard a tell-tale
scuttling—the movements of a desert mouse, perhaps, or a snake.
Dear Lord, maybe even a coyote.

Maybe all three.

Scooting deeper into the crevice she'd
found, Amelia sucked in a big breath and began singing again. As
long as she was singing, she couldn't hear the mysterious screeches
and cries amongst the peculiar stringy-leafed trees just beyond her
hiding place. As long as she was singing, Amelia felt a little less
lonely. And there was no situation that a good song couldn't
improve—at least that's what Miss Fitzsimmons always told the
Briarwood ladies. At the moment, Amelia felt just desperate enough
to try it.

Hugging herself for warmth, she took up her
song again. "I ooooonce was lost," she warbled softly, "but now am
found..."

"Got that right," growled a masculine voice
from somewhere above her. A big hand shot down between the boulders
and clamped onto her shoulder. Amelia screamed.

And kept on screaming.

The hand's owner pulled hard.
Another
outlaw
? The mountain must be a blessed den of thieves, she
thought crazily. She wriggled backward, then slapped both hands on
the boulders beside her for balance. Ughh, they were dusty...and
then, slimy. With an involuntary grimace, she whisked her hands
away. He pulled her the rest of the way out of the crevice.

Amelia screamed louder, flailing her arms in
a wild attempt to escape. He pinned them to her sides and dragged
her back against him, then covered her mouth with his palm. It
tasted gritty with dirt, and smelled of tobacco. At her back, his
chest felt every bit as solid as the boulders had; so did the
bunched-up muscles in his upper arms as he tightened his hold on
her.

"Quit your caterwauling. You'll have every
lawman within fifty miles on us."

The poet bandit. She'd have recognized his
low-pitched, grouchy voice anyplace. Amelia stilled, trying not to
sag with defeat. He'd found her—again. And found her easily,
too.

A powerful wave of homesickness washed over
her. Why was this happening to her, of all people? Despite her
yearnings for adventure, now that she was faced with it, Amelia
felt less like the brave heroine of one of her dime novels and more
like a person who belonged safe at home, in the quiet brick house
she shared with her family when she wasn't at Briarwood.

Amelia just wanted to go home. She wanted to
go back to Big Pike Lake, Michigan—back to civilization. Even her
four older brothers' incessant watching over her, their teasing and
their insistence on driving her places in their dashing spider
phaeton carriages sounded wonderfully homey, now that she was
without them, and...and what was that the poet bandit had said?

She tugged at his hand. Amazingly, he took
it away from her mouth.

"Lawman?" Amelia croaked. "Did you say
lawman?" She turned to face him, her gaze taking in the poet
bandit's powerful physique, his unsmiling, rugged face, and the gun
strapped to his hip. "Are they after you right now?"

Don't be daft, she told herself—of course
the law was after him. A person only had to look at him to know he
was dangerous. He'd abducted her, for heaven's sakes.

His mouth turned up at the corners in an
expression somewhere between a smile and a sneer. "I'm a wanted
man," he said simply. "That's why we've got to keep moving."

Amelia stepped backward. "Well, I—I knew
that," she warbled, fear and nervousness combining to loosen her
tongue. "I just thought they'd given up on catching you, that's
all, with you being so famous for your poetry and such. You have to
admit, that kind of thing does sell newspapers."

This last was her brother Denton's
oft-expressed opinion, but Amelia felt justified in claiming it,
under the circumstances.

The bandit gave her a funny look.

"Haven't I mentioned it?" she asked. "I
thought for certain I had. Oh, well." Amelia drew a deep breath and
chattered on about how she'd recognized him back at the
stagecoach.

"I've read all about you in the
periodicals," she added helpfully, thinking it couldn't possibly
hurt to butter him up a little. She'd never met a man who didn't
appreciate a kind word about his work. Amelia raised her hands as
though spanning the width of a newspaper headline. "The famous poet
bandit."

He scowled. Amelia's hopes for kinder
treatment fled, replaced with a fresh shiver of fear. What could
have happened to turn him into a desperado like the poet bandit,
anyway?

"I'm not who you think I am," he said,
giving her a dark, wholly incomprehensible smile.

It had the disturbing effect of making her
insides feel like warm, melted jelly, something Amelia had never in
a million years expected to feel in the company of a desperado. To
be fair, she had to admit he was a fine-looking man—if a little
unschooled in the social graces. A
lady
bandit would
probably find him downright irresistible.

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
"We're going back to camp," he announced. Then he proceeded to pull
her, stumbling with weariness and befuddlement and the effort of
juggling her satchels, along behind him.

"You must be the poet bandit," she insisted,
feeling vaguely combative and too exhausted to care if she angered
him. What else could the outlaw do to her? He'd made it all too
clear that escaping him was nearly impossible. What was the harm in
finding out a little more about her captor?

"I'm
certain
you're the poet
bandit."

He trudged on, ignoring her.

She cleared her throat and asked, a little
more loudly, "Who are you, then?"

He stopped, causing Amelia to bump smack
into his black canvas duster coat. She stepped backward and tried
to raise her hand to rub her nose, but his strong, warm fingers
held her fast. The outlaw faced her, holding Amelia's wrist between
their bodies where the chill night air couldn't penetrate.

His eyes met hers. "It's better if you don't
know," he said.

His deep, rumbling voice wound its way
inside her, raising goose bumps along her arms. Why was he being so
mysterious? They trekked a little further, leaving Amelia to mull
it over. Of course he couldn't just come right out and admit to
being a famous outlaw; he hadn't evaded capture this long by
telling folks who he really was.

Deciding it would be wise to play along with
him if that's what he wanted, Amelia addressed her next question to
his broad back. "What shall I call you, then?"

She waited. Typically, he remained silent.
His shoulders were vague outlines in the scattered moonlight,
marching tirelessly ahead. She hoped he knew where they were going,
because she was well and truly lost now.

"Mister Bandit?" she proposed. "The Black
Bandit? Outlaw—""Don't you ever shut up?"

Amelia stopped talking. She decided he was
probably lost, too, and didn't want to admit it. It felt as though
they'd been walking through the stunted trees and bushes, over the
rocky, ankle-twisting ground, for hours. He showed no signs of
slowing down, either.

"Err, Mister...Bandit?" Amelia panted.
They'd traveled, by her best reckoning, at least two miles. "Could
we stop for a minute, please?"

He scowled over his shoulder at her. In the
faint moonlight she saw that his jaw and cheeks were smudged black
with dirt. "No."

"But my ankle hurts. Remember? From the hole
in the road?"

He trudged on. A little ways from that
surprising ridge Amelia had slid down on her way to her crevice, he
suddenly stopped. His offhanded wave toward a pile of boulders was
the closest he was likely to come to issuing an invitation to
rest.

"Thank you." She plopped onto them, her
dignity mostly gone, and gingerly pressed her ankle with her
fingertip. It felt swollen. It looked fat, sticking up out of the
top of her dusty shoe. Amelia sighed and pulled her skirt over her
shoe tips. If the other ladies at Briarwood could see her now,
they'd laugh their heads off. They always teased her about her
plump ankles, and now her ankle was twice as big as usual.

Beside her, her no-name abductor glared at
the ridge. She couldn't see what the old hunk of rocks could've
done to bother him so much. Doing her best to ignore him, Amelia
sniffled and sang, very quietly, "Aaamazing Grace, how sweet the
sound..."

"Do you have to make noise all the
time?"

His growled inquiry, along with the
murderous look in his eyes, stopped her instantly. Amelia snapped
her mouth closed. He was just like her brothers—they always
complained about her singing, too.

The outlaw bent, scooped something shiny
from the ground, and pocketed it before she could see what it was.
At the moment, she felt too indignant to care.

"I like to sing," Amelia said. "It makes me
feel better."

"It makes me feel like gagging you."

"Hmmph."

"You haven't quit talking, singing, or
humming since I found you. Come on," he said, reaching for her
wrist and hauling Amelia to her feet, "if you've got punch enough
to sing, you can walk the rest of the way to camp."

It didn't take much longer to get there.
After another few minutes of walking, they reached the clearing.
Near the rocks, the bandit's horse nickered a welcome. In the
center, the campfire smoldered; the poet bandit released her, then
ambled over to tend it. Amelia hobbled to the blanket and sank onto
it.

Ahhh, it was blissful to rest her ankle. She
lay back, rolled herself in the tattered, horsey-smelling blanket,
and felt grateful for its meager warmth after the time she'd spent
in that chilly crevice and then hiking through the woods. Craning
her neck, Amelia watched the bandit coax the fire higher.

Her eyes drifted closed. Above her, the wind
whispered through the trees and an owl hooted, but Amelia felt
surprisingly snug—and much too safe for her own peace of mind, now
that the bandit was nearby. Why should that be? It was ridiculous
to feel safe around an outlaw, she thought as she drifted
asleep.

Sometime later, something hard nudged her
ribs. She muttered and squirmed away from it. It nudged her again,
then something tickled her ear. Amelia swatted it away, but it came
back. She was about to open her eyes to investigate when a
masculine voice whispered in her ear, "Rise and shine, Curly
Girl."

The poet bandit. Amelia cracked open her
eyes to a see him crouched beside her; his black twill pants legs
wavered in the breeze just a few inches from her nose, giving her
an up-close and personal view of his legs. She turned her head a
little, bringing his hard-muscled thighs into view. There his pants
stretched tight, with creases leading up to...his gun belt.

Feeling her cheeks redden, Amelia pushed
herself up on her elbows. He smirked at her.

"Mornin'."

She looked around, breathing deeply of the
brisk, dew-damp desert air. "It's not morning," she told him,
yawning. "It's still half dark out."

Amelia closed her eyes and flopped onto the
blanket again. Rudely, the bandit wrenched her upwards, using her
elbow for leverage.

"Ouch!" She rubbed her elbow, glaring at him
from beneath her limp curled bangs. The man obviously had no notion
of proper behavior—his was barbaric.

"It's morning enough for me," the outlaw
told her. "We're heading out."

At his words, Amelia peered around the camp.
He was serious—he'd already snuffed out the fire, packed up
everything but the bedroll, and saddled the horse.

"Don't you ever sleep?" she blurted out.

His eyes darkened. "Are you getting up, or
do I have to take you out of there myself and sling you over my
horse again?"

She rolled out of the blanket and hastily
kicked it toward him. "Here's your stupid blanket," she muttered as
she got up. "I'm coming."

Amelia swabbed her tongue around in her
mouth, wishing for a toothbrush. Hers, still packed inside her
baggage aboard the stagecoach, had probably made it all the way to
Maricopa Wells by now. Briefly, she considered asking to borrow the
bandit's toothbrush—his breath was nice and clean, she'd noticed
while he'd loomed over her—then decided against it. He'd probably
make her crawl over to get it out of his pack, or something equally
mean.

"Here."

He lofted the canteen toward her. She caught
it between her arms and stomach with an unladylike grunt and
stalked into a stand of nearby bushes where she could have some
privacy. Through their screen of branches—studded with tiny yellow
flowers, Amelia was surprised to notice—the outlaw was invisible to
her. She hoped she was equally hidden from his view.