The Outlaw's Return

by Victoria Bylin

  He kicked the dirt. “Yeah, I’ve been in love.”

  “Do you l-love m-my sister?”

  He saw that question coming. Looking stern, he stared at Gus across the fire. The boy stared back with a daring J.T. had to admire. Instead of telling Gus that some questions were too personal, he laughed out loud.

  Gus glared at him. “Well, do you?”

  He knew better than to involve the boy. Yes, he loved Mary. He could admit it to himself, but what did he have to give her? His guns, two good horses and a talent for faro. And his bad name. No woman in her right mind would want J. T. Quinn for a husband, but he felt a yearning he couldn’t deny. He wanted to spend the rest of his days with Mary Larue, and he wanted to give her the respect of a wedding ring.

  He felt Gus’s eyes on his face and hoped the boy couldn’t read his thoughts. He picked up another rock and hurled it at a distant shadow. “If I talk to anyone about that, it should be your sister.”

  “But you like her, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Gus. I do. I like your sister a lot.” He felt a lot more than like, but like would do for a twelve-year-old. “It’s late, and we’re hunting rabbit tomorrow. You need to get some sleep.”

  “Yeah.” The boy hunkered down in his bedroll.

  J.T. spread his own blankets, then stretched flat and stared at the sky. He didn’t doubt his love for Mary, but what could he do about it? Even if he found a way to make a living—he enjoyed roofing—other differences kept them apart. She believed in God, and he didn’t. No way would J.T. ever turn the other cheek to an enemy. Looking at the patchwork of clouds and sky, he began to wonder—did it matter what he thought about God? He couldn’t share her faith, but maybe he didn’t need to compete with it. All couples had their differences. She liked rhubarb and he didn’t. He liked his coffee hot and strong. She ruined hers with cream. Did their differences really matter? He’d cleaned up his life. He was willing to die for her. Surely that was enough to earn back her trust.

  He was pondering the possibility when he heard scuffling in the brush. Bolting upright, he grabbed his gun and took aim. Fancy Girl jumped to her feet and growled. When the noise faded completely, he uncocked the hammer.

  Gus sat upright. Sleepy but wide-eyed, he looked at the gun in J.T.’s hand. “Did you hear something?”

  “Just a coyote.”

  The boy patted Fancy Girl, then glanced at the sky. He looked nervous, and J.T. regretted scaring him. It would have been worse, though, if someone had snuck up on them.

  Gus looked at him from across the dead campfire. “C-c-an I asked you another question?”

  “Sure.” It couldn’t be worse than the ones about love.

  “D-do you ever pray?”

  He was wrong. This question was harder. Gus looked up to him. What he said would matter, and J.T. didn’t want the boy to be like him. He also had to be honest, because anything less would insult them both. He put the gun back under the blanket he used for a pillow. “I prayed when I was your age.”

  “What about now?”

  “Not much.” Not ever.

  “I-it’s not hard.” Gus sounded confident. “M-my mama taught me special words to s-s-ay, but mostly I th-think them.”

  J.T. had no idea what to say, but he wanted to encourage the boy. “That’s good.”

  “I—I don’t stammer when I t-t-talk in my head.”

  What would that be like, J.T. wondered, to hear yourself right but have the words come out wrong? Every man had flaws, but Gus lived with constant failure. It had to hurt.

  The boy seemed to be talking to the dark. “M-ary says my stam-m-mer doesn’t m-m-matter to God, but I w-wish i-it would stop.”

  “I know the feeling, Gus.” J.T. had wishes of his own. “I’ve never had a stammer, but there are things about myself I don’t much like.”

  He had no desire to share his regrets with Gus. The boy had been far too protected to understand J.T.’s choices. To his relief, Gus lay back down. So did J.T., but he felt as if the stars were pinning him down. Since he’d dared God to show Himself, he’d had been pestered by clouds and curious boys, hot benches, friendly people, puppies and most dangerous of all, the notion of being in love. If the Almighty had taken J.T.’s challenge to show Himself, He’d done it in curious ways.

  Gus’s voice came out of the dark. “J.T.?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think G-God listens?”

  A week ago he’d have said no. Tonight he was asking the same question. “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Gus said with certainty.

  As if that were enough, the boy fell asleep, leaving J.T. to stare at the sky. He shut his eyes to hide the stars, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched, or watched over, so he opened them again. A falling star shot across the black expanse, leaving a trail that faded to nothing. He imagined his own life ending the same way. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He wasn’t afraid of anything…. Except he was. He was terrified of small dark places and being pinned on his back. He was worried about Fancy Girl having puppies, and he feared what Roy Desmond would do to Gertie. And Mary. He was afraid he’d lose her again before he could fully earn her trust.

  A cloud obscured the top half of the crescent moon. As the shadow passed, Fancy Girl lumbered to her feet and came to him. Leaving Gus to his dreams, she took her usual spot and rested her head on his chest.

  “Hi there, girl.” He scratched her neck the way she liked, then rested his hand on her belly. The puppies were quiet now, but he could feel the promise of life and it humbled him. There were things a man could do, and things he couldn’t. J.T. could take a life, but he couldn’t give it back. He hoped Mary would be around when Fancy’s time came. The dog would do all the work, but he knew that birth and death were a breath apart.

  “Rest up, girl,” he murmured. “You’re going to be fine.”

  The dog’s tail whapped.

  “I know,” he said to her. “Strange things are happening to both of us.”

  J.T. didn’t have new life growing in his belly, but he felt the stirrings just the same. With Fancy at his side, he closed his eyes and thought of what he’d do with Gus tomorrow. They’d hunt rabbit so the boy could practice with a rifle, then they’d do some more boxing. Lost in pleasant thoughts, he fell into a deep and comfortable sleep.

  On Wednesday morning Mary finished cleaning up after breakfast, locked the café and went to Swan’s Nest to borrow a buggy. In her arms was a picnic basket, and in her pocket was the map J.T. had left to the stream where they’d be camping. He’d given it to her without being asked, and she’d been impressed. After a chat with Adie, she left Denver with a sense of pleasant anticipation.

  She’d had plenty of time to think about her feelings for J.T. She didn’t feel ready to tell him about the miscarriage, but she liked the idea of being his friend. Adie had helped to open Mary’s eyes, but sadly so had Gertie. While praying for her sister, Mary had seen herself even more clearly in Gertie’s determination to ignore the facts about Roy. Mary couldn’t deny that J.T. had changed.

  She’d seen the evidence for herself and no longer questioned his good intentions, but his place in her life was another matter. Regret changed a man’s heart, but faith changed his ways. With faith, a man could love a woman more than he cared about himself. Without it Mary couldn’t trust J.T. fully, but she hoped they could be friends. To show him she’d crossed a line, she’d packed a picnic lunch with cobbler and other goodies, and she planned to surprise him at the stream.

  With the sun bright, she passed the Slewfoot Mine and turned down the road that led to Cherry Creek. It wound past boulders and cottonwoods, around a bend and ended at a clearing. She saw ashes in the fire pit, bedrolls, neatly stacked cookware and their horses grazing nearby. J.T. and Gus had to be close, so she climbed out of the buggy. Heading toward the creek, she heard J.T. making playful threats, Gus’s high-pitched shouting and the furious splashing of a water fight.

  Enjoying the
happy sounds, she ambled down the trail until the sparkle of amber glass stopped her in her tracks. Looking more closely, she saw a whiskey bottle in the brush. Not just one bottle, but two. Trembling, she bent down and inspected them. They were both clean, unmarked by rainwater or dirt. One of them had no odor, but the other still reeked and was marked with fingerprints. It hadn’t been there long. Maybe hours…no more than a day or two.

  J.T. had let her down…again.

  She wanted to go back to the buggy and leave, but she couldn’t leave Gus in the care of a drunken gunfighter.

  Furious, she picked up the bottle and marched to the stream. From the top of a small rise, she saw the man and the boy waging war with water and buckets. She saw J.T.’s shaving tools on a rock, his shirt hanging on a willow branch and Gus’s shirt next to it as if they were cut from the same cloth. She stood with the whiskey bottle in her hand, watching and crying and wishing J.T. had never come back to Denver.

  With her eyes on J.T.’s face, she navigated between the rocks and weeds. He didn’t see her and neither did Gus. She watched her brother dump a bucket of water over J.T.’s head. The clear liquid sparkled on his hair and face, then ran in streams down his chest, washing him clean but not really.

  “Why, God?” she murmured. “Why did You bring him back just to fail me?”

  As if to answer her question, J.T. suddenly spotted her and smiled. Gus took advantage and knocked him off his feet. He went under and came up sputtering and laughing and happier than she’d ever seen him. With a disgusted look, she held up the whiskey bottle. She waved it for him to see, threw it as far as she could and went back to the buggy to wait.

  Chapter Fifteen

  J.T. didn’t see the bottle until it flew out of Mary’s hand. Sloshing out of the stream, he shouted at Gus over his shoulder. “Stay here, kid. This is between your sister and me.”

  Dripping wet, he grabbed his shirt and charged barefoot up the steep incline, dragging his shirt over his head as he chased her. A thorn dug into the sole of his foot, but he ignored it. At the top of the hill, he saw her twenty feet away. “Mary, wait! It’s not what you think.”

  She whirled and faced him. “Yes, it is. It’s whiskey.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “Do you expect me to believe you?” She laughed bitterly. “I smelled the bottle. It’s fresh. It has fingerprints on it.”

  “I know. I threw it away.”

  She huffed. “Of course you did.”

  “You’ve got to believe me.” He paced closer, a step at a time, giving her a chance to back off if she was going to run. Crowding her wouldn’t help his cause. She had to come willingly. She had to choose to give him a chance. Fighting both the fear that she’d run and the anger of being falsely accused, he held his arms to the side to open himself fully to her view.

  “Do I look drunk?” he said mildly.

  Her eyes dipped to his bare feet, dirty now and stinging from the thorn. She took in his wet trousers and the damp shirt, and finally she looked into his eyes. J.T. knew they were clear and bright. They were also full of hope, because he really did have a clean conscience. It felt good.

  He took a step closer. “Am I slurring my words?”

  “No.” She bit her lip. “I want to believe you, but I saw the bottle. I smelled it.”

  He took another step, a larger one.

  Mary stayed in place.

  He came closer still, holding her gaze until they were a foot apart. If she wanted to smell his breath, the choice was hers. Understanding his intention, she leaned slightly forward and inhaled. So did J.T. He smelled the rosy soap Mary used in Abilene and sun-warmed cotton. When her eyes went wide, he lowered his arms. “What do you smell?”

  “I smell…water.”

  He wanted to kiss her for the joy of it, but he settled for enjoying her surprise. “I found the bottles by the fire pit. I tossed them so Gus wouldn’t find them.”

  The next thing he knew, Mary had her hands on his shoulders and was clutching his shirt. The wet cotton dragged against his back, pulling them closer as she matched her mouth to his in a kiss that erased every thought except one—he loved this woman. She didn’t seem to care that he was sopping wet, so he put his arms around her and drew her close. When she made the kiss bolder, so did he. Her straw hat was in his way, so he loosened the ribbons and took it off her head.

  He wanted to give more than he took, but he wouldn’t give more than Mary wanted. He matched her breath for breath but offered nothing more. She ended the kiss with a sigh, then rested her head on his shoulder. He thought of his demand that God show Himself. This was forgiveness. This was mercy. Mary trusted him again, but now where did they go? He wasn’t the only person who had to decide, so he loosened his arms enough to see her face. She looked like a woman who’d been thoroughly kissed and now regretted it. Troubled, he used both hands to put the hat back on her head.

  “What happens next?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Backing away, she hastily tied the satin ribbons. The patches from his wet shirt showed on her dress, leaving an imprint of the embrace. The sun would dry the dress in minutes. The kiss couldn’t be so easily erased, but Mary looked like she wanted to try. She finished the bow with a snap, then squared her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “Oh, definitely not,” he said, teasing her.

  “I mean it.” She started to pace. “I came out her to tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for Gus and Gertie. I brought bread and chicken and…and cobbler. I thought we could be friends, but that kiss—” Groaning, she turned her back. “You’ve always done that to me. It’s just not fair!”

  “It’s fair, all right.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not!”

  He walked up behind her. “You do the same thing to me, probably even stronger.” He wanted to turn her around, but the choice to come into his arms belonged to her.

  “I’m so confused!” she said to the sky. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, moaned, then lowered her arms and faced him. “I have to be honest with you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Kissing you was as wonderful as ever.”

  He’d been expecting her to call him a good-for-nothing. Instead she’d given him a compliment. “I can say the same to you.”

  “Some things don’t change,” she said quietly. “But others do. I can’t kiss you again. Not like that. I was caught up in the moment. It shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’d be lying.”

  “Lying?” He didn’t understand at all.

  “I don’t want to repeat the past, and right now that’s all we have.” She looked stronger now, as if she’d found her purpose. “I’m not the woman you knew in Abilene. It might not look like it from the outside—”

  “It shows,” he interrupted. “I see the changes.”

  “They’re on the inside, too.” She lifted her chin even higher. “My faith is important to me, but I’m human. I like kissing you, but we can’t be more than friends. The differences between us matter.”

  When he finally understood, his eyes narrowed. “You love God and I don’t.” He calmed his voice. “I don’t see why it’s a problem. You can go to church all you want. It doesn’t bother me a bit.”

  Her expression told him that he’d missed the point.

  He felt like throwing a rock at a cloud, climbing up to one and pummeling it into smoke. He cared about Mary. He loved her. He’d have told her if he thought she’d be happy about it, but loving her only added to the wedge between them. He was beginning to feel like a puppet on a string, and he didn’t like it. He was also starting to worry about Gus. The boy had seen the start of the quarrel and would be concerned. “This needs to wait,” he said coldly. “Gus is still at the creek.”

  Mary looked pained. “I didn’t forget him.”

  “Neither did I.”

  She lifted her chin. “He’ll be hungry. We can still have lunch.�
��

  J.T. wanted to get away from her, but she had a point. “I’ll get him. Wait here.”

  “I’ll go,” she insisted. “I want to see him.”

  “No!” He’d had all he could stand. “I’m soaking wet, and I’ve got a thorn in my foot. You accused me of getting drunk in front of Gus, then you kissed me like you meant it, but you didn’t. And now you want to give me cobbler. Right now, all I want is to put on dry clothes and not talk.”

  With that, he headed for the stream to get Gus.

  As Mary handed out sandwiches, she couldn’t stop remembering the picnic in Kansas. That day she and J.T. had talked for hours and kissed like fools. Today they weren’t speaking to each other. Instead they each focused on Gus. She listened to the boy’s tales about shooting and boxing lessons, while J.T. ate in silence except to praise her brother. After the cobbler, Gus asked J.T. if they could go home today instead of tomorrow. He agreed, and together they packed while Mary washed dishes at the stream.

  With the water rippling around the rocks, she thought of her decision to be J.T.’s friend and the kiss that revealed her deeper feelings. Adie was right. Love wasn’t a choice, and she loved J.T. She couldn’t tell him, though. Not only did her faith matter, but she’d didn’t trust him with her feelings about the past.

  A lean shadow fell on the sand next to her. Abruptly, she turned and saw J.T. several steps away. “We’re packed and ready.”

  She had one more plate to rinse. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

  She hoped he’d linger so they could patch up the quarrel, but he walked away. She finished scrubbing the last dish with sand, rinsed it, then gathered the plates and went back to the campsite. To her surprise, the buckskin was tied to the buggy, and J.T. was waiting with his hat pulled low. Gus, mounted on J.T.’s extra horse, looked pleased. When she reached the rig, J.T. took the basket, shoved it under the seat and then offered his hand. “I’m driving you home.”