Rebel Outlaw

by Carol Arens

  Gordie lifted his gun, his face grimacing with the pain of having the toothpick imbedded in his arm.

  Fully focused on his effort, he didn’t notice Holly Jane. She kicked his wrist. A bullet exploded against the ground sending up a spray of grit.

  Somehow, in spite of the blow, he kept hold of the weapon. He pointed it at her.

  She dropped to her knees, reaching for the hot barrel of the gun, a prayer her only hope that she could knock it away faster than Gordie could pull the trigger again.

  Colt’s boot slammed his cousin’s hand onto the earth.

  He snatched up Gordie’s gun. In the same movement he plucked the blade from his arm. The man screamed. He passed out.

  “Didn’t know you were such a scrapper, Sunshine.” Colt reached his hand down to her.

  She grabbed his fingers. His smile was her lifeline. He wouldn’t be grinning if someone had died. She glanced about.

  There was a good bit of weeping and moaning.

  Cyrus was the loudest. His wrist had a gash that might have killed him had it been deeper. To add to his misery, his sister had shot him in the thigh when Butcher bit her hand and redirected her aim.

  Edith had an egg growing on the back of her head and a swelling ankle to go with it. Somehow, Butcher had managed to disarm her without breaking her skin. The blood on her arm belonged to the fellow on the hill.

  Gordie, sprawled in the dirt, lay quiet and unconscious. The slattern screeched in a long fit of hysterics with her skirt flung over her head.

  She proclaimed at the top of her lungs that Colt was a demon escaped from hell.

  As far as Holly Jane was concerned there were angels present.

  Not a soul had been killed, and everyone who deserved to be wounded had been.

  * * *

  The rumble of a half-dozen horses’ hooves pounded the earth. A few seconds later, Marshal Prentis and his deputies rounded the base of the hill, nearly obscured by the cloud of dust they kicked up.

  “You tried to kill me,” Cyrus wailed, writhing in the dirt like the snake he’d been since he’d learned to slither.

  Colt felt the reassuring warmth of Holly Jane under his arm and tugged her closer. She and the children hadn’t been hurt in the ruckus, and that’s all that mattered to him.

  The others deserved more than what they ended up with. He was relieved that the law was here to give it to them. Too bad some of the Traverses had been away. Still, with the lives they led, it couldn’t be long until they ended up in prison, anyway.

  “Since you didn’t do any lasting harm to Holly Jane, I decided not to.”

  “Spoiled little princess,” Edith grumbled, rubbing her ankle. “So cursed sweet looking. Wish I’d taken my fist to her face.”

  “See those riders coming in, Curly? That’s Marshal Prentis and his men. You’re going to have a lot of time to repent of being the truly wicked woman you are.”

  Holly Jane glanced down at Edith, who glared spitefully at her.

  She shrugged, clearly dismissing his cousin and her nasty mouth. “I’m taking Butcher over to the trough to clean him up. He’s been quite the hero today.”

  “He’s a beast and going to turn on you!” Edith shouted after Holly Jane.

  Colt doubted that. The animal seemed as besotted with his new mistress as every other animal he’d ever seen cross her path. Holly Jane was a special woman, even the beasts recognized it.

  “See if he doesn’t.” Edith shifted her glare to him. “Unlike you, the mutt will be loyal to family once he comes to his senses.”

  Colt crouched down beside her. His cousin had always been of a hateful temperament growing up. Time had only made her worse.

  “Here’s a thought to take with you to jail, coz. The one-and-only reason you’re sitting here, still breathing, is because of family loyalty.”

  “Now you sound like a Travers, but the truth is you don’t have it in you to kill anyone—you never did.”

  “I reckon that’s right. But I’m sure as hell going to have a good time thinking of you with no one to harass but the bars on your prison cell.”

  Colt stood up when the hoofbeats stopped in the yard.

  “You aren’t dead,” Marshal Prentis observed, dismounting his winded horse. “Figured you would be.”

  The marshal weaved about and around the Traverses scattered on the ground, shaking his head.

  “Looks like no one is,” he pointed out. “We could use a man like you, Travers, if you’d agree to carrying a gun.”

  Cyrus grunted something that resembled a harsh laugh. “His own pappy carried the shame.”

  “He whipped the tail off you all.” The marshal took off his hat and swiped the dust from his brow. “Count your lucky stars he made us hold back. You’d probably be facing hell instead of prison if he hadn’t.”

  A deputy guffawed. “One and the same.”

  Watching Holly Jane over at the trough, cleaning Butcher’s face and wearing Edith’s sweaty clothing, it was hard to find a shred of pity.

  The marshal must have followed his gaze.

  “She the lady you came to take home?”

  He nodded. “Just as soon as everything’s in order here.”

  “Those the children you mentioned, up there on the hill? What do you plan to do about them?”

  “They can come with me if that’s their choice,” Colt answered. “But even though Hattie was a kidnapped bride, she likely got attached to them. She may want to take them with her, back home to her kin.”

  “If that’s the case, I’ll see that they all get there safe.”

  “I’d be obliged.”

  “The job is yours, even without a sidearm if you want it.” The marshal drew his coat tighter about his chest to ward off the cold.

  “Appreciate the offer, Marshal Prentis.” Colt glanced behind him at the deputies taking charge of the wounded Traverses. “But I’ve had my fill of outlaws.”

  Finished washing the dog, Holly Jane walked toward him. Her hair hung limp and dirty about her face and it stank of smoke. For all that, her smile was fresh and bright.

  Holly Jane Munroe was, by a mile, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen...with his eyes or with his heart.

  The one-and-only thing he wanted was to take her home and raise horses and babies.

  He intended to tell her that just as soon as she was warm, clean and rested.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Holly Jane sat on a bench at the train depot with a tin cup of hot coffee in her palms. She didn’t need to drink it right away... The aroma and the circle of warmth under her fingers were heaven enough.

  It had taken nearly two days of hard riding to arrive in the town of Beaverton, a place that Colt had insisted upon coming to because of the train.

  The time it took to get home would be cut in half traveling by rail, he had explained.

  Well, he would know more about that than she would. Until he bought Granddaddy’s ranch, the rails had been his life. She had never even heard a train whistle until an hour ago.

  She sat by herself, hunched as far into the corner as she could get. Ladies strolled the platform in clean, fashionable clothing. They chatted and laughed. They hugged loved ones hello and goodbye. She tried not to notice the occasional curious glances cast in her direction.

  She looked a fright and she knew it. No doubt she smelled worse. No amount of trying to convince Colt that she was not presentable enough to ride the train would sway his decision that they would travel by rail.

  Huddled into his coat against the rising wind, she pressed his hat on her head so that it wouldn’t blow off and reveal the horrid mess of her hair.

  A long swallow of coffee helped to ease the chill, but even with that comfort, frigid air nipped at her ankles a
nd shivered her knees.

  When it came right down to it, ragged-looking or not, she would be relieved to be inside the railcar with its padded seats. Snuggling in, she would watch the land rush by outside, see the stars track across the sky and all the while be warm behind the glass window.

  While she waited for Colt to come back, she thought about Hattie.

  The young woman was going home for the first time since she had been carried away. She had come from a good and loving family who would welcome her home with relieved tears and hugs, Hattie had told her. Hopefully they would be as welcoming of the children coming with her.

  Marshal Prentis was escorting them home, so they would be safe until then.

  Holly Jane breathed in the comforting aroma drifting up from her coffee mug. She sighed out loud. Life was beginning to fall back into place around her.

  What a relief to know that the outlaw gang would soon be locked up good and tight in their prison cells. For the entire first day and night on the trail she had feared that they would somehow charge over a hilltop or pop out from behind a bush.

  Whenever she looked over her shoulder or chewed her lip in agitation, Colt swept her from Molly’s saddle and placed her in front of him on Silver. He reminded her that the prisoners were in the hands of six armed deputies and that they were wounded.

  The only place the Traverses were going was to prison, he had reassured her.

  He’d held her, hugged her tight to his muscular chest until her nervousness passed, then she went back to her own horse.

  Someday she might tell him that she hadn’t been frightened as many times as she led him to believe.

  More than an hour had passed and another mug of coffee before she spotted Colt walking up the road toward the station.

  The setting sun lit him from behind. He carried a package under each arm. The wind lifted his hair away from his face. It fluttered the sleeves of his shirt. He must be cold to the bone since she was wearing his coat and his Stetson.

  “The horses and the dog are bedded down in a boxcar,” he said, his smile warming her like no one else’s had ever done. “I wired Grannie and Aunt Tillie that we’re on our way home.”

  All at once the train whistle blew.

  “Let’s get out of the weather.” He shifted both packages to one arm then lifted her with a hand under her elbow.

  He led her past one crowded passenger car then another, finally stopping in front of the pretty red caboose.

  “Here we are, home sweet home, until this time tomorrow, anyway.”

  He climbed aboard the back platform, opened the door then reached his hand down for her.

  “Oh, my word,” she gasped, stepping inside.

  The caboose was a furnished room. Heat from a small stove warmed her instantly. There was a round table with a bowl of apples on it. A pair of padded chairs sat beside a window. In the corner was a washstand with a pitcher and a bowl. The bowl had steam rising from it.

  She might have run to it and dunked her whole face in the water had she not been so distracted by the bed.

  The one and only bed.

  * * *

  Colt watched Holly Jane stare at the bed. He wouldn’t press her to share it with him, but he sure as hell hoped she would, once he had his say.

  He’d thought about it the full two days between the Broken Brand and here. He’d spun the words in his mind, this way and that. Nothing he came up with was half convincing enough. What could he say to persuade a pure and lovely soul to join fates with a coarse former outlaw?

  Holly Jane turned to him, her eyes bright and joyful even being smudged with weariness.

  “How on earth?” She pivoted, taking in the furnished caboose.

  “I know the conductor, Lamont. This is his place and he owed me a favor.”

  Paid in full now, Colt noted. He glanced about at polished wood and freshly changed linens. The stove in the corner gave off waves of warmth. Everything was just as he had requested.

  In under two hours his friend had turned the space into an inviting retreat.

  A suite in a fine hotel wouldn’t have been as nice. And this room moved. They would be home two days sooner by riding the caboose.

  A knock tapped lightly on the door. Colt opened it to be greeted by a young woman wearing a crisp white apron. She stepped inside carrying a tray of food covered by a napkin.

  “Compliments of the New Beaverton Hotel and Mr. Lamont, sir, for you and your wife.” She set the food on the table then hurried out.

  Even under a layer of dust, he noticed Holly Jane’s blush.

  “I don’t dare sit down,” she said, glancing sidelong at the bed. “I’m filthy.”

  “No more than I am.”

  “At least you’re wearing your own filth.” She lifted the skirt away from her knee. “Half of what I’ve got smeared on my skin belongs to Edith Travers.”

  Not for long, he thought, and couldn’t help grinning. He must look like the devil with his impure thoughts and a week’s worth of beard stubble.

  The train jolted into motion. The whistle blew.

  Holly Jane lost her balance and fell against him. He caught her waist to steady her. Even under the big duster he felt the sweet curve where her waist flared into her hips.

  From the window he watched folks slide past, waving goodbye to loved ones.

  He was grateful not to be one of them. His loved one was going home with him.

  The wheels picked up speed, clinking on the iron tracks.

  “You hungry?” he asked close to her ear.

  The brim of the Stetson bumped his mouth when she shook her head. “I’m too filthy to eat.”

  “About time we took care of that.”

  He took her hand and led her to the chair that sat beside the washbasin. If he got his way he’d never let go of her hand. As far as that thinking went, he’d never quit touching her at all.

  Hell, he couldn’t touch her body all the time, but he intended to touch her heart. He’d live there, right inside even when they were apart.

  He sat her down, then dragged a chair from the table and settled across from her.

  “Toasty as a heat wave in here.” He slipped the canvas duster back from her shoulders and she wriggled her arms free.

  He removed the Stetson from her head. She shook her hair free of the constraint. Tangles of blond curls tumbled down her chest.

  Lamplight showed a smudge of dirt on her nose and a smear of grit on her cheek.

  He picked up the bar of sweet-smelling soap that Lamont had left beside the water basin, dropped it in the water then dipped a clean, soft cloth in the bowl.

  “You leave any dust back there on the trail, Sunshine?”

  He stroked the rag down her nose and across her cheeks, dipped again and drew the fresh-smelling cloth across her forehead and chin. Last of all he touched her lips, dabbing and stroking the way he intended to do with his mouth.

  “Only what you left behind.” She reached for the cloth. “I can clean myself.”

  “I reckon you can.” He stroked her throat with warm water.

  She closed her eyes. Leaning into the gentle rub, she sighed.

  “That feels like heaven. I thought for a while that I’d never be clean again.”

  Her brown eyes blinked open when he took the cloth away to rinse it.

  “I’m glad you burned the ranch down. It wasn’t a fit place for anyone to live. That night in the shed I thought about you being just a little boy and forced to live there... I cried myself to sleep over it.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  Life was what it was. It all led him to where he was today...to this moment with a woman he shouldn’t deserve. But here she was, gazing at him without blame even though it was because of him that she
had been kidnapped.

  Today the ranch was a heap of cold ashes, most of it probably blown away by now, along with the guilt of who he used to be.

  It was Holly Jane as much as the burning that set him free of his past.

  Setting the rag aside, he picked up a new hairbrush that Lamont had provided and turned it in his hand. Until he told her what was on his mind he had no right to continue touching her the way he had a mind to.

  “Do you remember that I had something that I wanted to talk to you about the night you were to meet me at the carousel?”

  “I remember.” Her gaze softened, turning tender upon him.

  “The old ladies were right. You are my one.” He brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “That’s what I meant when I said I’d never ride the elephant with anyone but you.”

  “Looks like they are going to get their way...Granddaddy, too, if you are asking for my hand.”

  He shook his head. “Not just your hand... I want your lips to kiss and your breasts to touch, I want to bury myself in you every night. I’m asking for your heart.”

  Sliding forward on the chair, he cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, Holly Jane.”

  He kissed her quick and hard, knowing that fire would flash between them...praying that if she had a doubt about him, passion would sway her decision.

  “Marry me... Be my wife.”

  She blinked, her eyes moist. Seconds passed...a full thirty of them. It couldn’t take so long for a simple yes.

  A gust of wind hit the caboose straight on and rocked it.

  “Grannie and Aunt Tillie thought it would take you longer. They said—”

  “You going to marry me or not?”

  “Yes, Colt.” This time she did the kissing. A white-hot flame seared his soul. “I am.”

  “I promise to be a better husband than I was an outlaw.”

  “Thank Glory for that. You didn’t seem to do your family proud where thievery was concerned.”

  “I reckon I’ll steal something after all.”

  Edith’s gown on Holly Jane’s skin was an insult. He’d been itching to get rid of it for two days.

  “Sit back, Sunshine.”