Once An Outlaw

by Diana Bold

  It had seemed far longer.

  Talon’s fury burst through the dam that had held it, a torrent of all the injustices he’d suffered since his arrest. He pushed off the wall, hell bent on murder.

  Sutcliffe’s footman stepped forward, but Sutcliffe stayed him with an arrogant wave of his gloved hand. “Leave us, Lionel. He’s far too weak to do me any harm.”

  Lionel pinned Talon with an intimidating glance then shrugged and left the room.

  Talon burned with mortification. He hated his obvious weakness, hated that his father was right. He was in no shape to strike fear into anyone. “What are you doing here?”

  Sutcliffe gave him an arrogant smile. “Arranging your pardon, of course. You’re a free man, Montgomery. All you need to do is walk out that door.”

  Despite his hatred, Talon couldn’t contain the dizzying sense of hope his father’s words provoked. He wanted out of this place. He wanted to lift his face to the sun just one more time...

  It would be worth any price he had to pay. And the watchful look on Sutcliffe’s haughty face assured him there would be a price.

  The truth of it hit him like a fist in the gut. Sutcliffe had left him to rot for a reason. He’d wanted to make certain Talon was desperate enough to agree to whatever he was about to demand.

  “What do you want from me? You wouldn’t help me when I needed it. Why bother now?”

  Sutcliffe smiled again, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ve been busy. I attended to this as soon as I was able.”

  With those few careless words, Sutcliffe managed to express how utterly unimportant he found the life of his bastard son.

  “I didn’t ask you to help with my release. I needed you to use your influence to intervene on behalf of my crew. It’s the only thing I’ve ever asked of you, and now seventy good men are dead.”

  “Don’t work yourself into a state,” Sutcliffe said. “Your disreputable crew is safe and sound, sailing one of my ships to Barbados as we speak.”

  Relief washed over Talon with the force of a hurricane. He’d been haunted with guilt, knowing his men had died while he still lived. Now he swayed dizzily with the knowledge that Sutcliffe had saved his crew from the gallows.

  Sutcliffe frowned and shoved a chair in Talon’s direction. “Here, boy. Sit down before you fall.”

  The last ounce of Talon’s strength deserted him. He had no choice but to take the offered chair. Sutcliffe ensured his capitulation by handing him a tray loaded with fresh bread, cheese, and wine.

  Talon’s stomach growled, brought to life by the sharp, wonderful scents. He lifted a piece of crumbling bread to his lips with a trembling hand, eyeing Sutcliffe warily lest he try to snatch it away.

  “You’re far too thin and filthy as hell, but that can be remedied,” Sutcliffe mused while Talon devoured the food he’d provided.

  Talon paused long enough to raise a sarcastic brow. “If you needed me fat and clean, you should have arranged for my release months ago.”

  Sutcliffe threw back his head and laughed. “By God, boy. There’s more of me in you than I’d imagined, but I’m glad to see it. You’re perfect for what I have in mind. Absolutely perfect.”

  Sutcliffe’s words should have alarmed him, but the warmth of the room, coupled with the solid feel of good food in his stomach, stole over him, filling him with lethargy. Sutcliffe had spared his men. He was willing to listen.

  “What am I perfect for?” He was curious despite himself. Why would a man like Sutcliffe go to so much trouble to ensure the cooperation of an American privateer? It made no sense.

  “I need an heir.”

  Talon straightened, unamused. “You have an heir.”

  Sutcliffe waved his hand dismissively. “Lansdowne is an embarrassment to me. I procured him the loveliest bride in the land, hoping to dissuade him from his perverted ways, but I don’t think he’s so much as touched her hand in passing during the two years they’ve been married.”

  Nausea twisted in Talon’s gut. He had an inkling of where this was leading, and he didn’t like it, not one bit. He knew of Viscount Lansdowne’s preference for men. He’d once stalked his half‐brother, Daniel, through the streets of London, curious to see what his life might have been like if his mother had been the earl’s wife instead of his mistress. He’d seen far more than he’d wanted to. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “I want you to escort Lansdowne and his young wife to my plantation in the Carolinas. He’s become a liability. I don’t want him to return until Lady Kathryn manages to conceive a child.”

  The utter ruthlessness in Sutcliffe’s eyes when he spoke of banishing his only legitimate son sent a shiver up Talon’s spine. Perhaps he was the lucky one after all.

  “I doubt he’s capable of siring a child,” Talon muttered, disgusted with the entire subject.

  “I’m counting on you.” Sutcliffe leaned forward with sudden intensity. “You’re my son, more like me than Daniel could ever hope to be. If you father Lady Kathryn’s child, I’ll have a grandson worthy of my title.”

  The earl’s outrageous suggestion hung heavy in the air. “You want me to seduce Daniel’s wife?” Talon shook his head in stunned disbelief. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

  Sutcliffe sat down behind the warden’s desk and steepled his fingertips. “I’ve asked myself the same question time and again. What would it take to bend a man like you to my will?”

  In answer to his own question, Sutcliffe lifted one broad shoulder in a careless shrug. “I’d thought a few months of deprivation would make you more open to suggestion. But then I had a chance to visit with some of your men, and I think I discovered what it is you’d sell your soul for.”

  “Go to hell,” Talon snarled. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “You want land. Land in that heathen country you call home.” Sutcliffe smiled benignly. “I can give it to you. In fact, I’m prepared to deed you the title to my newly acquired holdings in Carolina. It’s a lovely place, I’ve been told. Two thousand acres west of Charleston. A plantation called Holyoke. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

  “You know I have.” Talon felt stripped, his most secret dream laid bare beneath his father’s steady gaze. He’d meant to buy Holyoke one day, leave the sea and settle down in a place where titles meant nothing.

  “It’s yours. I’ll have you on a ship to the Carolinas as soon as I can arrange it. All you have to do is seduce a lovely young woman. Then you can walk away and never look back.”

  “I’m not like you.” Talon stared down at his empty plate, the food he’d eaten churning in his stomach. “I won’t do it.”

  Sutcliffe sighed and got to his feet. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m very sorry indeed.”

  He strode to the door and rapped twice. The burly guard appeared immediately. “I’m finished with him. He refuses to listen to reason. You may escort him back to his cell.”

  Talon knew the earl expected him to change his mind. He watched the guard approach, his heart pounding in his chest. He tried to work up the courage to defy Sutcliffe, to go back to his cell and die rather than give his father the satisfaction of breaking him.

  But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go back down into that cold, dark hell. He wanted to live, damn it. He wanted the chance to make the son of a bitch pay for asking this of him.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

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  Prologue – Once A Gunslinger

  May 6, 1864

  Tristan Kane sprawled flat on his back in a bed of pine needles and dirt, staring numbly at the inferno blazing all around him. The trees to his right looked like giant demons, swaying in some macabre dance, while their fiery dirge roared relentlessly in his ears.

  Lifting a hand to his throbbing temple, he probed the painful gash that seemed to be the source of hi
s confusion. Blood stained his fingertips when he pulled them away. For a moment, he merely stared in fascination. Nearly four years of war, and this was the first time he’d been wounded.

  Fighting a wave of nausea, he struggled to sit up, only to find he’d lain among a sea of corpses, both friend and foe. The blue and gray uniforms were impossible to distinguish, covered as they were by filth and blood.

  Beside him lay Tom Skinner, a private who’d not yet seen his eighteenth birthday. Tristan turned his face away from the boy’s sightless blue eyes and bowed his head, overwhelmed with grief and exhaustion.

  He was so sick of this damnable war.

  What had happened? He recalled being sent to the center of the line to help Longstreet hold back Wadsworth’s Union troops, but everything after that was a blur. He’d been riding in front of his men, trying to guide them through the chaos and smoke, afraid he was leading them in circles…

  Oh, God. His gaze swept over the carnage surrounding him until it settled on the dull black coat of a dead horse. “Calypso?”

  He surged to his feet and stumbled toward the animal that had faithfully carried him through hell and back these last four years. Her sleek, ebony neck had been torn apart by shrapnel.

  “No,” he whispered, dropping to his knees. He pressed futilely at the wound, as if he could somehow save her.

  “No,” he moaned again, closing her sightless brown eyes with a trembling hand. He couldn’t bear to lose her. She was all he had left of home, his only link to the thoroughbred horses that had once been his heritage, until he’d turned traitor in the eyes of his family and friends.

  The flames crept closer, but he no longer cared. Calypso was gone—perhaps he should join her. There was a bit of honor in that, wasn’t there? Rather like a captain who refuses to leave his sinking ship.

  He closed his eyes, wondering if a bullet had grazed him or if he’d hit his head when Calypso buckled beneath him. Why did he continue to survive while everything he loved died?

  Almost everything. Memories of a beautiful girl with auburn hair and deep blue eyes overwhelmed him, reminding him he still had something to live for. He’d broken Savannah McKenzie’s heart when he left her, but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving things unresolved between them.

  An unearthly scream of pain rent the air, interrupting his thoughts and drowning out the steady staccato of distant battle and the roar of the fire. The unrelenting heat consumed everything in its path, swallowing the wounded alive.

  The acrid smell of burning flesh wrenched him from his despair. He wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.

  He unfastened Calypso’s cinch, falling backward as the saddle came free. For a moment, the heavy weight defeated him, but leaving it behind wasn’t an option. Supplies had become nonexistent in the Confederacy.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he clutched the familiar leather bulk to his chest and stumbled to his feet.

  Like so many before, the day became something to survive. Every step he took through the smoldering underbrush was a victory, something the Yankees couldn’t take from him. At last, he made his way to a small, winding creek the fire hadn’t yet reached. He stumbled down the bank, coughing and choking.

  Dropping the heavy saddle, he sank to his knees and crawled to the edge, desperate for a drink. The water ran red with the blood of men who’d died farther upstream, but he hesitated only a moment before dunking his entire head into its lukewarm depths, then swallowing greedily from his cupped hands.

  Shaking the excess water from his hair, he leaned back against the muddy bank, trying to catch his breath. He didn’t know how far he’d come, but he was past the point of exhaustion. Maybe it would be all right if he closed his eyes for a few seconds. God, how he needed some sleep...

  A sound in the trees across the bank roused him. Earlier, he’d been oblivious to his surroundings, but now he saw he wasn’t the only one who’d taken refuge at the creek. Dozens of wounded men lined the water’s edge. Most looked beyond hope, waiting for death, but someone moved among them, tall and unharmed. The stranger stooped periodically beside each dying man, as though looking for something.

  A gust of hot wind cleared the smoky haze that hung over the water, revealing a glimpse of Yankee blue. Tristan’s tenuous thread of control snapped in an explosion of rage. The son of a bitch was looting, searching through the pockets of men who weren’t even dead yet.

  He reached for his gun and leveled it, blinking back a trickle of sweat and blood. Determined to rid the world of at least one more Yankee before he met his own fate, he pulled the trigger.

  The enemy went down, but at the same moment a wave of excruciating pain swept through Tristan’s left leg. He glanced down in confusion, fearing his gun had misfired.

  “Damn it, Tristan.” The familiar voice jolted Tristan out of his confusion, drawing his gaze back across the creek. His victim laughed and sank to the ground, pressing a hand over the ragged wound in his left thigh. “I knew you were pissed, but I sure as hell didn’t think you’d shoot me.”

  Tristan’s gaze was riveted on the face of the man he’d just shot, a face identical to his own. “Michael,” he whispered, fear and guilt slamming into his gut.

  Dear God. He’d just shot his twin brother.

  Chapter One

  Summer, 1871 ‐ Colorado Territory

  Tristan Kane hated to kill a man before breakfast. It ruined the whole damned day.

  The first tendrils of daylight were streaking across the eastern horizon when he strode out the front door of the seedy hotel where he’d spent the night. Despite the early hour, a crowd had gathered along the wide, dusty street that ran through the center of town.

  Tristan let his gaze drift over the ragged group of cowboys and shopkeepers, willing them to feel his contempt. Christ, didn’t they have anything better to do at this time of day than watch him put another unwanted notch on his gun?

  A duel at dawn. He’d never been involved in anything so ridiculous, unless he counted the war. He was a gun for hire, not a dime-novel villain. Why had he agreed to this?

  Last night’s lunacy could only be attributed to an overabundance of whiskey and rage. The last thing he needed was another ghost to haunt him.

  “Kane.” The crowd parted and Johnny Muldoon stepped off the wooden boardwalk in front of the elaborate, false‐fronted mercantile. “I’m surprised you decided to show.”

  Tristan sighed, then inhaled the clean, crisp scent of pine, borne on a cool breeze from the wooded slopes behind him. He’d played out this scene before, in countless dusty Kansas railway towns, but for some reason he’d thought things would be different in Colorado. He’d hoped to outrun his reputation, escape the scent of death that clung to him like the dark clothes he wore.

  He should have known it would take more than a change of scenery.

  “Surprised?” Tristan questioned. “I’d say you’re scared shitless.” The crowd tittered.

  Johnny’s face blanched parchment white, making his freckles more prominent. “You’re talking to the man who’s going to send you to hell, Kane. You’d best mind your manners.”

  “Man?” Tristan taunted. “All I see is a scared little boy.”

  Johnny was perhaps twenty years old, but looked even younger. The kid wanted to make a name for himself, but beneath the bravado his terror was obvious. He still feared death, which was why it would be so easy for Tristan to kill him.

  The man who won a gunfight was usually the one who didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died.

  “I ain’t afraid of you.” Johnny’s voice held steady, but his gaze veered left, to a dark‐haired girl on the sidelines. Tears streaked her pale face, and her mouth moved soundlessly, as though she chanted a prayer.

  Was she his wife? His sweetheart? He cursed beneath his breath, wishing he hadn’t seen her. How could he gun this boy down while the woman who loved him watched?

  He let his attention slide from his opponent to the tidy shop fronts and well�
��kept homes lining the quiet, dusty street. He’d give anything to belong here, to have a chance at the kind of peaceful, everyday life the war had stolen from him, the kind of life these people took for granted.

  But Johnny had proven that was never going to happen. It didn’t matter how fast or how far he ran, he could never shake his past.

  Perhaps I should let the kid win.

  The thought took hold and tumbled through his mind. All he had to do was let that moment, the one when he knew the kid was going to draw, pass by. Then it would be over. At last his nightmarish existence would end.

  Could he do it? Did he have the guts?

  He’d come to Colorado to find his brother’s best friend, Joel McKenzie. Joel was a doctor and had been with Michael until the end. He’d planned to ask Joel about Michael’s last few moments of life, desperate to know if his brother had forgiven him, but maybe he wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to know. Not really.

  He walked out into the middle of the street, letting his hand fall away from his gun. “Go ahead, Johnny. Let’s see how brave you are.”

  It would have been so simple. Johnny’s face was easier to read than a grade school primer. He saw the moment of resolution, knew the exact second Johnny decided to kill him.

  His hand twitched reflexively, but he didn’t go for his weapon.

  Instead, he waited for death to take him.

  The bullet whined by, missing him by several feet.

  Shit. Disbelief rose in his throat, choking him. Nothing in his life had ever gone the way it was supposed to. Why had he expected this to be any different?

  He unbuckled his gun belt and threw it on the ground, advancing menacingly on his opponent. “Do it,” he snarled. “You want to be a hero. You want to be the one to take me down. So what are you waiting for? Shoot me!”

  Johnny shook his head and stumbled backward in an attempt to escape.