The Outlaw's Bride (7 page)

“McSween, eh?” Dolan squinted at her. “So you’re working for Mac, are you, Miss Gates?”

“The lady’s a schoolteacher,” Noah spoke up. “She’s here to teach kids how to read and write.”

Snake sidled along the counter. With one dirty finger he prodded Noah’s arm. “What I want to know
is why you didn’t do yer shoppin’ at Tunstall’s store, Buchanan.”

“I reckon you’d know the answer to that, Jackson.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean, huh? You sayin’ I done the Britisher in?”

Noah smiled. “I’m saying you’d know we couldn’t shop at Tunstall’s because it’s shut down this morning. I didn’t say you killed him.
You
did.”

“Why, you—”

“All right, hold it there, now!” The voice of young Billy Bonney snuffed the argument as the Kid strode through the front door, followed closely by the town constable.

“We’ve come with a warrant,” the constable announced.

At that, the store erupted. Guns drawn, men on both sides of the room rushed toward the fray. Susan screamed. Isobel grabbed her friend’s hand and was making for the counter when Noah bundled both of them in his arms and drew them against his chest.

“Heads down!” he growled. Barreling between two Dolan men, he kicked wide the counter’s swinging door. He huddled Isobel and Susan against the side of a three-foot-high black iron safe. “Stay here. Don’t move till I come back for you, hear?”

As he drew his six-shooter, Noah gave the women a last glance. Cradling Susan’s head in her lap, Isobel gazed at him, her eyes deep. For the first time in his life, Noah realized, someone else’s life meant more than his own.

Wishing she had a gun, Isobel held the sobbing young woman. She scanned the rows of dry goods on the
shelves behind her head. Black Leaf sheep dip. Tobacco paste. Pride of Denver soap. Glass lamp globes. Tins from the National Biscuit Company. Red Cross cough drops. Chase & Sanborn’s packaged teas. She spied guitar strings, corsets, union suits, gloves and shoes. But no guns.

“Hold on!” a voice bellowed over the rest. “I got a warrant here, and you boys better calm down and listen to it.”

Isobel peered over the countertop.

“This here warrant,” the constable announced, “is signed by Squire Wilson for the arrest of James J. Dolan, Jesse Evans, Jim Jackson—”

“What fer?” someone shouted.

“For the murder of John Henry Tunstall.”

Voices rose again, drowning out the constable. Isobel searched for Noah among the mob, but he was nowhere in sight. If only she had her pistol.

“As sheriff of Lincoln, I’m arresting you!” Sheriff Brady shouted. “All of you!”

“You can’t do that, Sheriff!” the Kid protested. “We came in here to arrest these fellers. You can’t turn around and arrest us.”

“I sure can and do.”

“On what charges?”

“Disturbing the peace.”

The momentary burst of laughter was followed by a sudden scuffle. A gun went off. Susan shrieked. Isobel scrunched down, covering Susan’s head in her lap. Not far from the safe where they hid, she spotted a derringer tucked at the back of a counter behind a cigar box. No doubt Jimmie Dolan had placed it there, but Isobel knew she could put it to good use herself. An
ironing board leaned against a shelf, and she dragged it closer and propped it against the safe to form a makeshift barrier.

“Forgive me for leaving you, Susan,” she whispered, “but I must have a weapon.”

Crawling across the dusty floor, she reached for the gun. But when a hand clamped over her wrist, she let out a gasp.

“Isobel,” Noah hissed. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“A woman of honor can end a
lucha
between cowards like these filthy vaqueros!”

“You’re crazier than a bedbug, lady. Let go of that thing.” He pried her fingers from the pistol and tossed the weapon into an open drawer filled with packets of Putnam’s fabric dyes. “Where’s Susan? I’ve got to get the two of you out of this place before it blows.”

“Here I am, Mr. Buchanan,” Susan whimpered.

“It’s okay, Miss Gates,” he assured her. “Give me your hand, and we’ll head out the back way.”

Isobel crossed her arms and watched in distaste as Noah escorted the red-haired schoolteacher from the hiding place. Tears streaming, Susan buried her head against his shoulder.

“You’ll be all right now, Miss Gates. Come on.” Noah cast a warning frown at Isobel, then jerked on her arm and hurried the two women toward the back door.

The hubbub grew behind them as Dolan’s men swarmed to help make the arrest. The closing door silenced the commotion inside the store.

“Let me go!” Isobel snarled, twisting against Noah’s grip as he hurried her and Susan down the muddy road. “Where are you taking me?”

“Santa Fe. Let that don of yours try to keep his eye on you.”

“He’s not my don!” she snapped. “You’re the man who married me, Noah Buchanan, and I command you to treat me with respect!”

Noah stopped dead still on the road. “If I’m the man you married, Isobel, then you’d better do as I say. That means no pistols, no shooting, no taking matters into your own hands and getting somebody killed. If I’m your husband, I’m the boss. You hear?”

Isobel tossed her head. “What you want is a weak little nobody for a wife, yes?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you have married the wrong woman.”

“You’re right about that, too.”

“Oh, no!” Susan cried out. “Here comes the Dolan mob with the constable and the others under arrest.”

Noah stiffened. “The pair of you head over to Alexander McSween’s house and sew Isobel’s dress. I don’t want to see hide nor hair of either of you around Lincoln Town today.”

Simmering, Isobel stared at the towering cowboy who presumed to rule over her by his bartered title of husband. His blue eyes fairly crackled as he met her gaze.

“You got a problem with that plan, Isobel?” he asked.

“I can’t take another minute!” Susan sobbed. Lifting her skirts, she ran down the road toward the McSween home. She had just passed the Wortley Hotel when a group of soldiers emerged and surrounded the approaching Dolan mob.

“My only problem on this day is you, sir,” Isobel informed her counterfeit husband. “You forget that we
made an agreement. You will protect me, and in return I will testify about the murder of John Tunstall. You have no right to treat me like a—”

“You left out part of our deal, darlin’,” Noah cut in, pulling her against his chest as the throng of men drew near. “Your job is to be my sweet little wife until Chisum sells me some land.”

Isobel tugged her shawl tight and hugged her packet of calico fabric as if it might insulate her from him. “A good wife knows how to protect herself.”

“You and Susan were shielded behind that safe. You were perfectly secure.”

“Susan. Ah,
sí
, poor Susan who weeps at the sound of gunfire. How happy she was to be taken under your wing like a helpless chick.”

Noah’s jaw dropped. “You’re jealous. Jealous of Susan Gates.”

“Jealous? Ha! She can have you, for all I care. I want a man who treats me like a lady.”

“Then you ought to try acting ladylike instead of crawling around the floor to get at a gun.”

“And allow myself to be shot by some dirty vaquero like the one who killed my father? Never.” She lifted her chin. “I should never have agreed to marry you. I can take care of myself. I am good at shooting.”

“You’re good at a lot of things.”

Her eyes darted up, and she read the twinkle in his. Her mouth twitched, and she shrugged her shoulders. “You know very little about me,
señor
.”

“Seems to me I learned a few things about you last night, didn’t I?”

At the mention of their kisses, she felt heat suffuse her cheeks. “You know nothing,” she managed.

“I know that right now you’re starting to look like a blushing bride. So, I’m going to head my pretty little wife over to Mac’s house and set you to sewing up your new dress. All right?”

“Oh, yes, my strong, brave husband,” she responded, batting her eyes for effect. “I will stitch and bake—and weep for joy when I hear your footsteps on the porch.”

“You do that, sweetheart.”

Chuckling, Noah tucked Isobel close and strolled with her toward the adobe home. At the warmth of his arm around her shoulders, it occurred to Isobel that perhaps she wouldn’t mind being a wife who would sew and bake and wait for her husband to come home at night. What a curious thought.

I
sobel had never stitched a dress in her life. For that matter, she had never allowed plain cotton fabric to touch her skin—not until the day she wed Noah Buchanan and was compelled to wear one of Susan Gates’s simple ginghams. But she had to remember she was no longer Isobel Matas, daughter and heiress of a wealthy Catalonian family. She was Belle Buchanan, wife of a poor cowboy.

All morning, Susan patiently taught her student how to sew. First Isobel learned to thread the black Wheeler & Wilson treadle sewing machine. Using a borrowed pattern that had been the model for nearly every dress stitched in Lincoln Town, Isobel learned to lay out the blue fabric and cut it to size. The bodice took some adjusting, for she insisted on hooks all the way up to her throat. Modesty was a definite requirement these days. She may have succumbed to Noah’s charms once or twice, Isobel allowed, but she would not permit such intimacies to become commonplace.

As she snipped and pinned and tried her hand at finishing seams, Isobel thought about those stolen kisses.
What could she have been thinking? She had made a simple agreement with Noah Buchanan. Each would use the other to get what they needed. How then had she slipped so willingly into his arms?

Oh, his kisses… Isobel shut her eyes as the memory seeped through her.

“Are you planning to gather that skirt or not?”

Susan’s voice dissolved the memory of Noah’s rough stubble against Isobel’s cheek. With renewed determination to focus, she resumed sewing. Her feet tilted up and down to work the treadle, while her fingers guided the fabric. The soft cush-cush-cush of needle biting through cotton cloth lulled her. As the full skirt ruffled beneath her fingers and the long hours stretched on, she struggled to force images of Noah from her thoughts.

“How are you and Mr. Buchanan getting along?” Susan asked. Night was setting in and the lamps cast a golden glow over the swaths of fabric that had taken shape during the day. “We’ve avoided the subject all day, but I can’t hold my tongue a moment longer. He seems like such a nice man.”

“Nice, yes…” Isobel wet the tip of a thread with her tongue, knotted it and began to hem. “Nice…but common. Like the vaqueros on our hacienda. Strong and powerful but very ill-mannered.”

“You still have your sights on Don Guillermo Pascal, then?”

Isobel smoothed the hem and leaned back in her chair. “Noah sent
Señor
Pascal a telegram last night. There has been no reply.”

“Maybe he hasn’t had time to answer.”

“If a man wants to make a woman his wife, he will
do anything for her. He will rescue her from peril. He will care for her at any cost.”

“But for all you know, your don is on his way to Lincoln right now.”

“He doesn’t want me, Susan, and how can I blame him? I have nothing to offer.”

“You’re pretty.”

Isobel laughed. “For a common man, a wife need only be pretty. But in my social class, wealth and land are necessary to forge a marriage.”

“What will you do? You’ve come all this way to marry him.”

“I always knew I must find my father’s killer first. I must regain my lands and jewels. Then Guillermo will marry me.”

“Meanwhile, you’re married to Noah, and he’s a very good man. You might consider just sticking with him.”

“Oh, Susan, what a silly head you have! To think that I would ever consider Noah Buchanan in any serious way is loco. We have an arrangement. He’s nothing but a vaquero and so plain. He has no land, no house, no cattle, nothing. His hands are large and rough. A workingman’s hands. He’s beneath me, Susan. How can I explain it?”

“You just did.” Noah’s voice echoed off the adobe walls of the little sewing room. Isobel and Susan lifted their heads at the unexpected intrusion.

“Noah,” Isobel gasped.

“I came for you. It’s almost dark.”

She studied the hem of her new dress. Had he heard the horrible things she had said about him? Things she
knew were weak excuses to hide the surge of emotion she felt every time she thought of him?

“Isobel learned a lot today, Mr. Buchanan,” Susan reported, filling the awkward silence. “She threaded the Wheeler and Wilson. She’s fine with a straight seam, too.”

“But I sure do hate for the
marquesa
to have to wear such common duds.”

Isobel stood, her face hot and her heart thudding. “The dress will suit my purpose. Shall we go?”

Noah shrugged. “Good night, Miss Gates. I hope you have a pleasant evening.”

“Mr. Buchanan, do you suppose I might have a word with you? That is, if Isobel wouldn’t mind waiting outside a minute.”

“But of course,” Isobel said.

She watched a pink stain creep up Susan’s cheeks as the schoolteacher eyed Noah. Grabbing the blue dress, Isobel bundled it in her arms and stepped out of the sewing room. Why should she care if her friend had cast an eye on Noah? First, Susan was supposedly in love with Dick Brewer, and now she blushed and giggled over another man. Susan, it appeared, was an audacious flirt.

But what difference did it make to Isobel if Susan or any other young lady fancied Noah? She and he both intended the arrangement to end in an annulment. Let Susan Gates have the vaquero.

In a few moments, the sewing room door opened and Noah stepped out into the hall. Without a word, he escorted Isobel out of the McSween home.

“Nice night,” he commented as they started down the road.

Isobel chose not to respond. Now that she saw things more clearly, she realized kissing Noah had simply been a result of the madness in this tangled town. But such foolishness was in the past. She knew what she had to do with her life. And she certainly understood Noah’s place in it.

“Chilly, though,” he said as he opened the front door of the Patrón home. “Mighty chilly.”

When they had crossed through the empty front room to their bedroom door, Isobel opened her mouth to speak, but Noah addressed her first.

“Isobel, I heard what you told Miss Gates about me,” he said. “I’m a plain, common vaquero. I’m beneath you.”

“Noah, wait—”

“Hear me out. Last night I thought maybe we had found something good. I prayed about it all day—half the time asking God to blot you from my mind, half the time begging Him to let me keep you.”

“You prayed to God…about me?” The very idea of approaching the Creator of heaven and earth with something so personal confused her.

“Yes,” he continued, “and I didn’t think I was going to get an answer anytime soon. But a few minutes ago, I heard what you said, and that made things clear enough. I’ll give you plenty of elbow room from here on, Isobel.”

“But I didn’t mean it—what I said to Susan.” She gestured emptily, aware that anything tender between them had been swept away by her careless words.

“I may be a common cowboy,” he said, “but I’ve got my pride. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll head back to Mac’s place and bunk down in his barn.”

Settling his hat on his head, he strode through the silent living room and left Isobel alone to wonder whether her husband would seek other, warmer arms that night.

In the morning Isobel ate the breakfast Beatriz Patrón brought to her room, then she slipped her new blue-cotton gown over her head. It was not a bad dress, she admitted, though it was hopelessly outdated. But evidently Lincoln Town had never heard of fashion.

What would Noah think of her dress? she wondered. And what did that matter anyway? She had offended him and cast him aside. Why should she give his opinion any credit?

But even as she thought it, she fell to her knees by the bed and buried her face in the blanket. How many times during the night had she slid to the floor, folded her hands and attempted to address God as Noah had—as One who actually cared about her…about Isobel Matas and her insignificant desires.

God was majestic, a Lord who ruled over all the universe. What thought would He spare for a woman who longed to be held and loved and cherished? How could He truly care about a silly, headstrong girl up to her ears in trouble?

He didn’t care, of course. God was busy tending to kings and priests, wars and famines, earthquakes and floods. But she needed guidance! Her father was dead, her mother thousands of miles away and her intended husband utterly silent. God would bother Himself with none of that, of course. She was alone.

Rising, Isobel stepped to the washbasin and brushed her hair. As stiff bristles slid through her golden waves,
she wondered how to make the best use of this day. She could speak with Squire Wilson about the events surrounding her father’s death. She might ask Sheriff Brady, too, though she could hardly trust what such a man might tell her.

Sweeping her hair into a knot, she had just begun to pin it when someone knocked on the door. Dropping the mass of hair, she swung around, fingertips at her throat.

“Yes?”

“Buchanan here.”

Annoyed at the flutter that began in her chest at the sound of his deep voice, she strode to the door and pulled it open. Though images of Noah had drifted through her mind all night, she was unprepared for the sight of him. A clean chambray shirt showed beneath the ankle-length canvas duster coat he wore. His denim trousers ended in a pair of black boots. A pistol hung in the holster at his hip.

“We’re going on a buggy ride,” he informed her. “Bring your shawl. It’s cold out.”

Too disconcerted to protest, Isobel wrapped her white shawl around her head and shoulders.

“Straighten the bed,” Noah ordered. “Good manners.”

Isobel had never made a bed in her life, but she bent over to smooth the blankets. A buggy ride? Where had he gotten a buggy? What did he intend? And where had he been all night? With Susan?

She glanced at Noah. His square jaw gleamed from the morning’s shave. His blue eyes glowed with the brilliant hue of the morning sky outside her window.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“You’ll see.” He took her arm and set off through the house. He paused in the kitchen long enough to bundle a stack of freshly baked tortillas in a white napkin and hand them to Isobel.

“Thanks, Beatriz,” he said to Juan’s petite wife. “If we aren’t back by sunset, send out a posse.”

“Sunset!” Isobel exclaimed. “But I—”

“I’ll be in Mac’s rig, Beatriz,” he said. Busy with her housework, the woman waved them on. Noah hustled Isobel across the porch and into the waiting buggy.

A pale yellow sun rose to light the Capitan Mountains as Noah drove the buggy toward the Rio Bonito’s narrow valley. Purple shadows faded. Greens began to stand out. Sometime in the night, Noah had made up his mind to take Isobel out of town, where he could talk to her about things that needed to be said. And being so far from civilization, he would have time to calm her down before she did something fool headed. At least he could try.

Noah found he had a hard time keeping his eyes on the dirt track. Isobel looked mighty fine this morning. Her new blue dress with its ruffles and gathers showed off her figure in a way that made it hard for him to concentrate. Though she sat up straight on the buggy seat and held her chin high, she looked as sweet and mild as fresh milk.

But he knew better. Beneath that demure facade lay a woman with a tongue as sharp as barbed wire. He had felt its sting the night before when she had told Susan Gates her opinion of him. It didn’t take much to set Noah Buchanan on the straight track. And Isobel had done just that. So much for the daydreams that had been rolling
around in his head since the night he had kissed her. Daydreams weren’t worth a barrel of shucks.

“Where are you taking me?” Isobel spoke up as the buggy passed the Dolan store, where the group of Fort Stanton soldiers lounged on the porch.

“Out of town.”

“I guessed that much,” she retorted.

Noah didn’t let himself rise to the taunt. He wasn’t about to start talking to her this close to town.

As the buggy rolled closer to the river, the barren terrain gave way to cedar shrubs mingled with piñons and junipers. Grama grass and bunchgrass, untouched by cattle or sheep so far from town, had grown thick the past summer. Now a dry gray-brown, it crackled beneath the buggy wheels.

The rig bumped and jolted along the rutted trail until Noah turned the horse into the woods. “I intend to speak with several men in Lincoln today,” Isobel said. “I can’t be away long.”

“Eat a tortilla,” Noah told her.

Letting out a sigh of exasperation, she crossed her arms. “Noah Buchanan, I—”

“If you aren’t going to eat, hand me one. That Susan Gates is a bum cook. Good thing she’s set her mind on teaching.” He couldn’t hold back a smile at the memory of the men hunkering down for breakfast at McSween’s house. “Eggs looked like cow chips. And the bacon…well, a man could break a tooth on the stuff.”

“Poor Susan,” Isobel murmured.

“But she’s a sweet gal anyhow. Whoa, now.” He pulled the horse to a stop in a glade at the edge of a stream. “How’s this?”

“For what?”

“For talking.” He jumped down from the buggy and walked around to Isobel’s side. When he extended a hand, she stood, lifted her skirt, and set her fingers on his palm. She was trembling, he noted as he helped her down, and he suddenly realized how unexpected—maybe even frightening—this excursion might appear to her.

“What will we talk about?” she asked.

He looked into her eyes, swallowed and hitched up his shoulders. “I’ll put down a blanket, and we can sit a spell.”

“Has something happened? Is it about Mr. Tunstall’s murder?”

He rubbed a palm across the back of his neck. “I’ll fetch that blanket.”

She stood unmoving while he unloaded a wool blanket from the buggy and spread it on a patch of grass under a tree. Seating herself, she seemed to melt into a pouf of blue cotton.

“What I have to tell you isn’t about Tunstall,” he began as he sat down beside her.

“Then who?”

He took a deep breath. “I know who killed your father.”

“Who did it? Tell me at once!” She clumped her skirt in knotted fists.

“Before you get bees in your britches, I want you to hear me out, Isobel. Do your best to think straight.”