The Outlaw and the Lady (8 page)

“Now
I
am the one asking. How old is this Spence?”

The man was infuriating beyond measure. “Eighteen.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four. How old are you?” she fired back.

“As old as my tongue, and a little bit older than my teeth.”

Stunned, she sat in silence. Did the man have to be so damned mysterious? “You can’t trust me enough to tell me your age?”

“The less you know, the better.”

She folded her arms and tucked them beneath
her breasts. “Oh, that’s right. The bad men will do anything to find out what you look like.” Based on the nearness of his voice, she leaned toward him. “Don’t you understand that
you’re
the bad man?”

“Have you forgotten the man who attacked you?”

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but he wasn’t exactly asking me to describe you!”

She jerked at the sound of a plate crashing against a tree. Lee’s thundering footsteps vibrated against the ground. Against her better judgment she decided to press her advantage. She rose and fisted her hands against her sides. “You abducted me. You killed a man. You steal another man’s money—”

His pacing came to an abrupt halt. “He stole from us!”

His harsh breathing surrounded her, and she could envision his chest heaving, his eyes filled with anger. “Are you saying that you’re stealing your own money?”

“No.” She heard him swallow. Tension strained the air between them. “He stole our land. He took our cattle…he shattered our innocence.”

The anguish in his voice weakened her knees and she sank against the tree. “If what you say is true—”

“Do you think I would lie?”

Of all the things she didn’t know about this man, the one thing she did know was that he’d always been truthful. “No, I don’t think you’re lying. But why not go to the authorities?”

“It’s his word against ours. He said
we
stole the cattle,
we
stole the land. Then they lynched our father and oldest brother while the sheriff stood there and announced that justice had been served. When our mother tried to stop them, they killed her.”

Her stomach roiled. “But Shelby claims he never
heard
of Lee Raven before you committed crimes against him.”

“A man cannot give a description of someone if he does not recognize the name.”

The more she learned about him, the less she seemed to know. She should have realized that an outlaw wouldn’t use his true name. “What is your name?”

“I’ve told you too much already. Finish eating so we can leave.”

She heard him covering the fire with dirt and felt its radiating warmth retreat. She was a fool to care for this man, to desire any knowledge of him; all she would ever receive from him was heartache.

Would she—could she—betray him if she acquired the knowledge he so jealously guarded? Or as she feared, was she developing a fondness for him that might threaten her dedication to justice?

Lee despised the thick silence stretching between them and the stiffness in Angela’s body. Revealing his name would give away not only his identity, but his past—a past he could barely remember, but wanted desperately to forget.

He and Angela had ridden for hours, taking only a few short breaks. He could not afford to rest for long or to sleep. He had lost precious distance between himself and the men who followed him. For an inexplicable reason, he was more concerned about the second group. If there were Rangers searching for Angela, they would be relentless in their pursuit, driven by loyalty, not money.

He withdrew his poncho from his saddlebag. Angela stirred as he slipped it over her head to offer her some protection against the cool night air. He worried about the blow she’d taken to the head. He should never have left her unprotected and alone.

“Settle against me so you are more comfortable,” he said, pressing on her shoulder until her back eased against his chest and her head nestled within the crook of his shoulder. As dangerous as it was, he enjoyed the way she fit against him. “How is your head?” he asked.

“It just aches a little.” She released a small laugh, a delightful sound that gave him hope she might have forgiven him. “I saw stars when my head hit the ground. I haven’t seen stars since I was twelve.”

“It is a clear night. A thousand stars twinkle in the heavens.” A perfect night to kiss a woman, and he was incredibly tempted to kiss Angela again, to feel her pliant, warm lips moving against his.

When he was younger and his days were marked by hard toil and the loving embrace of a
complete family, he’d dared to sneak a kiss or two when a pretty girl was willing. But as a man, he’d never known the full flavor of a woman’s mouth…until Angela. Her sweet, tempting taste haunted him still. He could easily become obsessed with her, and that obsession would endanger them both.

“Why did you stay?” she asked softly.

“I told you. I realized I couldn’t go. Since I did not know the man, I could not trust him not to harm you.”

“And if he hadn’t knocked me to the ground?”

“I would have slipped farther into the shadows.” And have never seen her again, but he would have thought of her constantly. Whenever he heard a mockingbird or watched a sunrise or wrapped his poncho around his body. Whenever the wind wailed, the leaves in the trees rustled, or he sat alone in his saddle. She would be there, taunting him with dreams that lay beyond his grasp.

“I don’t understand why you risked capture when I’ve been nothing but trouble.”

“I have a bad habit of always wanting to protect women,” he murmured. “Even when they are aggravating.” Especially when they intrigued him, challenged him, made him wish he was a rancher, a teacher, a merchant…a simple man with a simple life that allowed him to sleep at night with a woman in his arms.

“So I assume you’ve had a lot of women in your life.”

He couldn’t determine if she’d issued a state
ment or asked a question, but he was fairly certain she didn’t welcome the thought that he might have had a life filled with women. The realization made him smile. “Not too many.”

“How many?”

He shrugged. “A hundred. Maybe two.”

A startling realization hit her. It was the first time he hadn’t been honest with her. “Did you know that your accent thickens when you lie?”

“Then my accent must forever be thick.”

“Not really. Sometimes it’s as though it’s not there at all. That’s part of the reason that I thought it was fake that first morning.”

“And the rest of the reason?”

She shook her head. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

And he hoped she never would because that one bit of information had the power to unleash all that he wanted to forget.

“I could have gotten you killed today,” she said quietly, leaning back and tilting her face slightly.

“But you did not. I am an extremely cautious man.”

“You saved me, and I don’t even know what you look like.”

She lifted her hand and he quickly wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

“Let me touch your face,” she pleaded gently.

“No.”

“Are you hideously ugly?”

Her tart voice made him smile. He much preferred her anger to her sadness.

“If you know what I look like,
querida
, I cannot return you to your father.”

“I would never tell anyone.”

“I never thought that I would murder a man. You cannot know what you would do,
querida
, until you are in the situation.”

“Why
did
you kill Floyd Shelby?”

Not even for her would he break the vow he’d taken that long ago night. “He aggravated me.”

“
He
aggravated you? It sounds as though you weren’t trying to get even with Vernon Shelby. What did his son do?”

The woman’s mind was like a steel trap, latching onto the most insignificant of things and twisting them around until she discovered their significance. “It is best to forget that night.”

“But you’re not forgetting it. You’re on a quest for revenge—”

“Some things are to be remembered, some forgotten, and that is all I will say on the matter. Now, go to sleep.”

Miraculously, she did as he ordered. He could only assume that her head still ached, and she welcomed the opportunity to escape the pain. Her head dropped forward and he positioned it at a more comfortable angle.

For one insane moment, he considered pressing her palm against his cheek, even though she’d fallen asleep and would never know. But if she ever touched his face, he feared her caress would reach into his heart.

W
ith Grayson Rhodes standing beside him, Christian Montgomery watched helplessly beneath the boughs of an ancient oak tree. There, Jessye Bainbridge clung to the scrap of green material that had once been part of her daughter’s dress. A woman’s tears had the ability to bring him to his knees, but this woman’s tears were especially painful to witness.

Other than his wife, Jessye was the most courageous woman he knew. He had not been surprised when he’d met up with Harry and Gray to find Jessye was with them. It was fortunate that he’d been at the Rangers’ Austin headquarters when the telegram had arrived alerting him to Angela’s abduction. Since he’d had less distance to travel, he’d been able to begin the search sooner.

Harry had his arms wrapped around his wife, and Kit could see that he was fighting back despair. The evidence—disturbed ground, a bloody rock, the scrap of cloth—suggested that a struggle had taken place in the clearing.

“I want this man found, Kit, I want him found, and by God, I want to be the one to kill him,” Harry said.

Kit cast a quick glance at his son, crouched in the center of the clearing, a pensive expression causing deep furrows to crease his brow. A thinker. Spence would make an excellent earl to Ravenleigh, the family estate in England. Four of his men were fanning out on foot, rummaging for evidence. He’d sent two other Rangers, Sean Cartwright and Adam Smith, on horse to search the surrounding area.

“I brought my best men, Harry.”

Jessye met his gaze, her eyes limpid pools of green. “What do you think happened here?”

God help him, he should have known she wouldn’t be content until she knew all. Kit combed his fingers through his hair. He was in dire need of a haircut, but ever since he’d received word of Angela’s abduction, he’d thought of nothing except finding her. “In all honesty, I don’t know what to make of this situation, but I don’t think Raven has hurt Angela.”

“Why?” Jessye asked, the relief in her voice like a sharp knife to Kit’s heart as her fingers tightened around the scrap of cloth. He hated dealing out false optimism, yet he wanted to lessen their
worry. He could only pray that it wasn’t for naught.

“If his intent was to attack Angela, why wait almost a week? It makes no sense.”

“Does taking our daughter make sense?” Harry asked.

Kit shook his head. “No, no, it doesn’t. Especially since he hasn’t asked for a ransom.”

“Perhaps because he hasn’t had time,” Gray suggested. “After all, we’ve determined there’s a group of bounty hunters between him and us.”

“Which makes it even less likely he attacked her, not when the men following were at their closest.”

Jessye tightened her fingers around the green cloth until her knuckles turned white. “Why did he rip off a portion of her bodice?”

“I don’t think he did,” Spence said.

Jessye looked at him as she did her own children, with affection. “Two buttonholes, Spence, tell me that this piece came from the bodice of her favorite dress. She’d never tear it off.”

“I’m not suggesting that she did. I’m only saying that Raven didn’t.” He shifted his body and pointed to the ground. “I believe these grooves were made by spurs when someone rolled a few times.”

Kit, Harry, and Gray exchanged furtive glances.

“Spence, I don’t think we want to travel this line of analysis,” Kit said quietly. He had no desire for Jessye to hear any speculative details regarding her daughter’s attack.

Spence met his gaze with eyes the same shade of light blue as his own. “I know where you think I’m headed with this, but when a man leaves a woman he’s bedded, he doesn’t usually roll several times. I think she and Raven stopped here. Perhaps he went in search of food; I’m not sure. But I think she was alone. Another man attacked her. Raven then attacked him, shoved him off her, and the man rolled, repeatedly, his rowels scoring the earth.”

“Possibly,” Kit acknowledged. “We’ll ask him when we find them. And we will find them.”

A movement caught his attention, and he watched Cartwright and Adams ride into the clearing and dismount. “What did you discover?”

Cartwright approached him. “We located the fire that we spotted two nights ago. Our guess is that it was Raven. We found this.”

Kit took the dirt-covered card he extended.

“Good Lord,” Harry said, as he limped across the clearing, leaning heavily on his cane. He snatched the card from Kit’s fingers and skimmed his thumb across it. “It’s Angela’s.” He looked at Cartwright. “Did you find the others?”

“No, sir. We almost missed this one. Dried leaves were covering most of it,” Cartwright said.

A contemplative expression on her face, Jessye took the card from Harry. “The two of hearts,” she murmured.

“Does that mean something?” Kit asked.

“I won Jessye’s love with that card.”

“You already had my love, Harry, you just earned the right to make me your wife.” She met
Harry’s gaze with her troubled one. “You don’t reckon she was trying to tell us that she loves this man.”

“Good God, no! He’s an outlaw, Jessye—”

“You were a scoundrel. That didn’t stop me from loving you.”

“A scoundrel and an outlaw are worlds apart. It must have accidentally fallen out of her pocket,” Harry said.

“Harry, from the moment you gave her that deck of marked cards, she insisted on wearing a dress with a pocket so she could carry it with her. If I bought her a dress without a pocket, she’d sewn one in it. Angela deliberately left this card, hoping someone would find it and know what it meant. I’d bet my life on it.”

“All right, let’s assume for a moment that Angela didn’t lose it, but left it on purpose,” Kit said. “I think we can safely assume she doesn’t love the desperado. So what message was she attempting to convey?”

“It obviously has sentimental meaning to your family. Perhaps she just wanted to reassure you that she was unharmed,” Grayson offered.

“‘Not to worry, I’m simply traipsing across the countryside with a murderer’?” Harry asked sharply.

Kit held up his hands. “All right, we don’t need to be snapping at each other.” He glanced at his son, who was good at deducing. “What do you make of all this?”

“I agree with Gray.”

If Spence had been ten years younger, Kit
would have ruffled his burnished hair for that “ask me why I think as I do” look in his eyes. “Because?”

“Why didn’t he make camp here?” Spence tossed out, before turning to Jessye. “All we’ve discovered falls in line with my theory. They stopped here. Perhaps he intended to camp here, but then someone attacked Angela. So they moved on and made camp elsewhere. She left the card to let you know that she’s okay.”

“Now what do we do?” Jessye asked.

“I propose that we continue on. Raven will be avoiding any populated areas, but that doesn’t mean we have to. One of my men can go to the nearest town and send one telegram to your daughters and one to Ashton to allay their worries a little.” He knew his wife would be anxious to receive news regarding their search.

Jessye wound her arms around him and released a tiny sob. “Oh, Kit, all those years ago, I thought I knew what you and Ashton were going through. I didn’t have a clue.”

He hugged her tightly. “We’ll find her, Jessye. I won’t fail this time.”

She lifted her gaze to him. “You didn’t fail last time.”

He stepped out of her embrace, understanding that an argument was not what she needed at this moment, but reassurances. “Let’s prepare to ride.”

He walked to Harry’s horse and waited for his friend to join him. He knew it grated on his pride that he needed help mounting his horse. He
heard Harry’s halting footsteps, the cane he used beating out an unsteady tattoo. Then silence.

“At least we have hope that Angela is alive, and perhaps he isn’t treating her too shabbily. There’s some comfort in not knowing everything, I suppose.”

Kit turned and faced his friend of many years. “No, Harry. There’s no comfort at all in not knowing. It’s been fifteen years since my firstborn son disappeared, and there isn’t a damn day when I don’t wake up and wonder if what I found was evidence he’d been killed. As painful as the absolute certainty will be, it’s better to know.”