Amelia and the Outlaw

by Lorraine Heath

  But she couldn’t help but believe that a judge might not have been so harsh with his sentence if he’d known how Jesse had disbursed his share of the money.

  “Did you do that after every bank robbery?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  Her heart sank. Every time she saw good, he snatched it away.

  “So you started keeping it,” she said.

  “No. I just didn’t always give it to the church. Some towns don’t have a church. So I’d leave it at the school or on someone’s doorstep. I didn’t like it burning a hole in my pocket.”

  She cradled his cheek. “Jesse, that’s admirable…in an odd sort of way.”

  “Amelia, I still robbed the banks.”

  “Why? After the first one, after you realized you weren’t going to keep the money, why did you continue to steal?” she asked.

  “Because I liked riding with the Nightriders. I was twelve when I first hooked up with them. For two years no one beat me or yelled at me or called me worthless. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I belonged. I didn’t want to lose that.”

  He wasn’t exactly Robin Hood. And yet something about his actions seemed commendable in a strange sort of way. No doubt she was simply looking at him with her heart rather than her common sense.

  Since he seemed willing to talk about his past in ways he hadn’t before, she decided to take the conversation a step farther.

  “Jesse, I was wondering…during that last bank robbery, how is it that you were the only member of the gang to get caught?”

  “I didn’t leave when Pete told me to.”

  She tried to recall what she knew about the bank robbery. “I remember reading that it happened at night. I know Pete shot a clerk. But what was the clerk doing there?”

  “Working, I reckon. He came out of a back office. Guess he heard us making a commotion, so he decided to investigate. He surprised us. And Pete doesn’t like surprises. He fired his gun without thinking.”

  “But the clerk didn’t die, did he?” she asked.

  “Nope. He lived to tell the marshal that Pete had shot him.”

  “You sound almost bitter that he did,” she said. “If he hadn’t told the authorities who shot him, they might have thought you’d done it!”

  “I don’t resent what he told them,” he told her. “I begrudge what he didn’t tell them.”

  “And what was that?” she prodded.

  “It doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago.”

  But it did matter. To her. A man had been shot, almost killed. Jesse had been there. It could have so easily been him who wounded the clerk.

  Reaching out, she cradled his cheek. She wanted to believe in Jesse, but it was difficult with this wall standing between them. “Please tell me what you wanted him to say.”

  He shook his head. “I was such a fool. Young, naive. I wanted him…thought he would put in a good word for me.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Jesse, the Nightriders broke into the bank and shot him! I imagine he felt that at least one of you going to prison was owed to him for what he’d suffered.”

  “But he owed me!”

  She stared through the night at him, wishing she had a lantern so she could see into his eyes more clearly. “Why in the world do you think he owed you anything?”

  “Because I stayed behind. I stayed behind and kept my hands pressed to his wound so the blood wouldn’t flow so fast. I stayed behind knowing I’d get caught!”

  Her heart thundering, she sat up. She didn’t know how to respond. Her father had never mentioned this aspect of the case. She wondered if he knew. But how could anyone know if the clerk had never told?

  “You stayed behind on purpose?” she asked softly. “I mean, you had a chance to escape?”

  “Pete and the others got away. Pete tried to get me to go with him. He grabbed my arm, but I jerked free. There was so much blood. I was afraid the clerk would bleed to death if no one stayed to help him. Pete told me that I’d be on my own.

  “Somebody must have heard the gunshot,” Jesse continued. “It didn’t take long for the law to arrive. The clerk probably would have been all right if I hadn’t stayed.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I foolishly thought if I helped the fella that he’d explain what I’d done, and that it would make a difference to somebody.” He shrugged. “But he didn’t.”

  Before tonight she’d never really wondered how it was that he was the only member of the gang to have been captured. She’d expected him to say that he’d been wounded, left behind for dead. Abandoned.

  In a way he had been, but it had been his choice.

  “Didn’t you tell the authorities why you’d stayed behind?”

  “No one was interested in what a fourteen-year-old kid had to say.”

  She was horrified at the thought. “But at your trial—”

  “They put the clerk on the stand. He told them that we broke into the bank, and Pete shot him. What he told them was true. He just didn’t tell them everything.”

  Jesse was a contradiction, inherently good, convinced to do bad. If she’d been his lawyer, she would have played on that aspect of his life. She would have presented the whole story to the jury and the judge.

  “So no one ever knew you might have saved the man’s life,” she mused. “We should tell my father.”

  “Amelia, it doesn’t matter anymore. The past is the past. I don’t want to think about it, and I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve got to get you back to the house long before dawn, so I need to get busy capturing that stallion for you.”

  He started to get up. She wrapped her hand around his arm. He stilled.

  “There’s goodness in you, Jesse Lawton. I want my father to know about it.”

  “It won’t make any difference.”

  She couldn’t blame him for not believing that it would. Pete had rewarded him with kind words when he’d done bad things. No one had ever praised him or shown him appreciation when he’d deserved it.

  “I don’t want you to capture the stallion,” she said quietly.

  In the waning moonlight, she saw him smile…the most beautiful smile he’d ever bestowed upon her.

  It took her breath away.

  She knew, deep within her heart, that he’d brought her here hoping she’d abandon her quest for the stallion. His gift to her had become a night beneath the stars, a night of awakening, a time of sharing like he’d never given her before.

  “Remember this night, Amelia. No matter what happens, remember this night.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her tenderly.

  Remember this night? How could she ever forget it? For them, it was the start of a new beginning.

  Jesse drew away from her, took her hand, got to his feet, and pulled her up to hers.

  “I need to get you home,” he said.

  “What did you mean by ‘no matter what happens’?” she asked.

  “I know I can’t keep seeing you like this. Sooner or later somebody will find out. I don’t expect you to wait five years for another dance.”

  He led her to her horse and helped her into the saddle. Gazing down at him, she didn’t think she’d have to wait five years. Not once she told her father everything Jesse had revealed tonight.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Standing within the night shadows of the barn, Jesse watched the house. He’d escorted Amelia to her front door, given her one last, lingering kiss, and left her with the lie that he’d see to the horses.

  He’d unsaddled Duchess. But the horse he’d ridden to the rise earlier remained saddled. He’d located a worn but empty saddlebag in the tack room.

  After tonight he’d be unable to turn back. Jesse would be an outlaw for the rest of his life.

  He’d lose whatever affection Amelia had for him.

  He’d be on the run.

  But she’d be safe.

  That was all that mattered to him.

  Jesse had been waiting for lampli
ght to appear in Amelia’s window. Long minutes had passed. It suddenly occurred to him that she might slip into her room and get ready for bed in the dark. She wouldn’t want to chance waking someone up.

  He glanced at the far horizon. It wouldn’t be much longer before the sun began to appear. If he was going to break into the safe, he needed to do it now.

  He took a deep breath to steel his resolve. He didn’t much like that he was betraying the judge and Amelia and everyone else at the ranch who had treated him decently since the day of misunderstanding.

  But he didn’t see that he had much choice.

  He glanced around. No movement. The men weren’t stirring yet, but soon they would be. Leading the horse behind him and loathing each stride that took him closer, he walked to the house. The moon was a silver orb that guided him.

  He tethered the horse to a nearby bush. He crept across the porch and placed his hand on the doorknob. He turned it.

  Locked.

  He took a slender piece of wire out of his pocket and hunkered in front of the door. In the beginning Pete had used him to climb to the roof and slip inside because he was small and skinny.

  But in time, as he’d begun to fill out, he’d had to find another way to help Pete get inside buildings. So he’d learned how to pick locks. He wasn’t particularly proud of the skill, so he’d decided not to tell Amelia that he had the ability to—

  Click!

  open a locked door with nothing more than wire and patience.

  He stuck his head through the opened door and glanced around. All was still. All was quiet.

  He moved stealthily to the judge’s library. He could see the silhouette of a chair and the desk. He walked cautiously to the desk and found the lamp.

  He struck a match, lit the lamp, and turned the flame down low. He carried the lamp to the safe and set it on the floor.

  He knelt beside the safe, pressed his ear to the cool metal, and turned the dial. His heart was pounding so loudly that he could barely hear the motion of the tumblers.

  Concentrate, he commanded himself.

  His palms grew damp. He wiped them on his britches. Britches the judge had provided.

  Gritting his teeth, he focused all his efforts on the safe. The slow, careful turning of the knob.

  Clink.

  A tumbler fell.

  He rotated the dial the other way.

  Clank.

  Another tumbler.

  He turned the knob.

  Click.

  He jerked the handle down and swung open the door. The paper money was arranged in five neat stacks. A pouch rested in front. He snatched up the pouch and heard the clink of coins.

  He didn’t bother to check the coins or count the currency as he stuffed it all into the saddlebag. Pete could worry about the particulars later. He only hoped there was enough here to satisfy Pete’s greed.

  Strange how he’d always thought rich folks were greedy because they possessed money. But the Harpers had given him an abundance of things, including a second chance.

  “What are you doing?”

  He twisted around. Amelia stood in the doorway.

  He felt as though someone had thrust a rusty bayonet into his chest.

  He surged to his feet and quickly crossed the room, intending simply to edge past her.

  She grabbed his arm. “Jesse?”

  “If you care for me at all, give me a two-hour head start before you tell anyone what I’ve done.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”

  He jerked free of her hold, revealing the truth that he wished was a lie. “Once an outlaw, always an outlaw.”

  He strode out of the house, holding his breath, expecting to hear her yell for her father.

  But only silence followed in his wake.

  He mounted the horse, brought it about, and glanced back over his shoulder. She stood in the doorway, watching him.

  He urged the horse into a gallop, knowing he would forever see the devastation of his betrayal reflected in Amelia Harper’s eyes.

  Amelia sat in the chair in her father’s library, watching as he and her brothers loaded their rifles.

  Jesse had asked her to give him two hours.

  She’d given him a full two minutes.

  After they’d returned from their excursion to search for the mustang, she’d gone to the parlor where she’d danced with so many gentlemen during her party. She’d thought about them, thought about Jesse.

  She’d come to the conclusion that she did indeed love Jesse Lawton. She’d been on her way to her bedroom when she’d spotted the low light coming out of the library. She’d assumed she’d find her father at his desk reading his law books and contemplating some aspect of a trial.

  She’d wanted to share her revelation with him, tell him all she’d learned about Jesse, and determine whether she had enough information for him to reconsider Jesse’s sentence.

  Instead she’d discovered Jesse taking the money that her father kept in the safe so he could pay the men each month. He kept the bulk of his wealth in a bank in Fort Worth. So what Jesse had taken, her father could afford to lose.

  But it was the principle of the thing. She knew her father felt as though he’d been stabbed in the back, betrayed.

  She’d initially experienced a similar sharp stab of pain in her chest when she’d seen what Jesse was doing. But now…

  “Something’s wrong,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, we’ve been robbed!” David announced.

  “Why would he take the money?” she asked.

  “Because he’s an outlaw,” David said as he closed his fingers around a fistful of bullets and dropped them into his pocket.

  For pity’s sake, how many times did he plan to shoot Jesse?

  She shook her head. “But as far as I know he didn’t need the money. He told me that when he participated in the bank robberies before, he kept only what he needed to survive.” She flung her hand out in frustration. “He had everything he needed here: clothes, a roof over his head, food. He had no reason to steal from us. Why would he do this?”

  “We’ll ask him when we find him,” her father said. “David, gather up the men.”

  “David, wait,” Robert said. “I think Amelia’s right.”

  “What makes you think so?” her father asked.

  “That day we took him to Fort Worth, he said he didn’t know how he’d pay us back. Why would he say that and then take from us? It makes no sense.”

  Her father looked at her. “You saw him ride out?”

  She nodded mutely.

  “Which way did he go?”

  “North. Toward the line shack.”

  “Toward the Oklahoma territory,” David said, his voice filled with impatience. “The longer we wait, the less likely we are to catch him.”

  Amelia sat up straighter in the chair. “The night he got caught robbing that bank…Papa, did you know that he’d stayed behind trying to stop that clerk from bleeding to death?”

  Her father furrowed his brow deeply. “Judge Gray’s notes didn’t say anything about that. Who told you this?”

  “Jesse told me tonight.”

  “He lied,” David said.

  “Why would he do that?” she asked. She looked at her father imploringly. “I’m afraid he must be in some kind of trouble.”

  “Of course he’s in trouble, Amelia,” David began. “He stole—”

  “Will you stop?” she yelled, coming to her feet. “Will you stop thinking about what he did and try to help me figure out why he did it? You’re loading your rifles and stuffing your pockets with bullets and he doesn’t have a gun. He’s not dangerous.”

  “But what if he is?” David asked.

  “He’s not,” she assured him. “If he were, he would have hurt me when we went looking for that mustang a couple of hours ago.”

  Her father narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jesse said he wanted to ca
pture the mustang for me. We rode out to the ridge, and we talked. That’s all we did.” She felt heat burn her face. Well, that and a little kissing. “Something was bothering him. I thought it was the idea of capturing the mustang, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe he took the money because he didn’t think he had a choice. Don’t bring the men into the hunt. He’ll just get killed if you do. They don’t trust him any more than you do.”

  Her father nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. We could begin the search. The men can follow an hour behind us. Then if we run into trouble at least we’ll know they’re coming after us. David, why don’t you let Tanner know?”

  As though the speaking of his name had summoned him, Tanner stepped into the library with Frank following in his wake.

  “Judge, I think there’s something you need to hear,” Tanner said. He placed his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Go ahead and tell him.”

  Frank looked as though he wasn’t as sure as Tanner was that he should speak. He licked his lips and shifted his feet.

  “Come on, boy,” her father barked. “We have important matters to see to.”

  Frank nodded as though he’d made his decision. “It’s about Jesse and Mitch. It’s no secret that Mitch has been planning to court Amelia. During the party when she went outside for a breath of air, Mitch followed her.”

  Amelia’s stomach knotted up. Had Mitch spied on her?

  Frank looked uncomfortable as he added, “He saw Amelia dance with Jesse. Saw him kiss her.”

  Amelia thought she might be ill. How dare Mitch spy on her!

  Frank continued, “When Jesse headed back to the bunkhouse, Mitch followed far enough back that Jesse didn’t know he was there. Mitch had planned to beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of Jesse. Instead he overheard Jesse talking to some fella. Some fella named Pete.”

  “Sometimes-One-Eyed Pete?” Amelia asked, trepidation slicing through her.

  “I don’t know. I guess. Anyway, Mitch told me that he heard Jesse tell Pete that he’d get the money out of the safe and take it to Pete at the north line shack.”

  “Let’s go,” David ordered.

  “Wait!” Amelia cried. David staggered to a stop. She met Frank’s gaze. “Do you have any idea why Jesse would do this for Pete?”