“I’m sorry, Anna, I know it hurts to talk about it, but I’ve got to know every tiny thing that happened if I’m going to help you. You might think something is unimportant, but it could be exactly what can make the difference between clearing you and sending you to prison.” The lines of Ethan’s mouth tightened, and then he asked, “What happened to cause them to beat him up so badly?”
“It was because of me.” She shuddered at the memories. “At night when we camped and he was on guard, Arlis would come to me and lie down beside me on the ground, but only when the others were either too drunk to know or sound asleep. At first it unnerved me, but I learned to accept it since he seemingly was harmless. After a while, I realized he really didn’t mean any harm.”
A cold shiver spread over her as she recounted the events. “Then one night he got closer to me than he’d ever done before and reached up my dress. For the first time, I was frightened of him. I wanted to cry out but knew whether it was my doing or not Gator would blame me, so I just lay still.”
The right words began to elude Anna, but from deep within she found the strength to continue. “Arlis hushed me by putting his hands over my mouth, and I knew my luck had run out and he was going to take advantage of me, but he just continued to whisper, almost as though to calm me, that I should be quiet. It didn’t come across as threatening, but all the while he delved deeper between my underskirt and my dress.”
Ethan’s jaw quivered and his face registered his disdain. Staring ahead, he finally said, “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill the sonofabitch.”
“But, Ethan, he never touched me in a sexual way, just seemed obsessed with my petticoat.” In a show of understanding how Ethan might feel, Anna rested her hand on his knee. “So please don’t pass judgment until you hear what it meant. He told me over and over to trust him, and he’d protect me. And he stayed true to his word. Night after night he’d come to me and do the same thing.”
Ethan took her hand and raised it to his lips, lightly kissing it. She leaned into him, thankful for his support.
“Then one night he hushed me, as he’d been doing every night for a while, but this time it was different when he reached up my dress. He seemed interested in pleating the material, and then I realized that he’d stuck something in my petticoat. Ethan, he never intended to take advantage of me. He had cut slits between the layers of my underskirt and had threaded in a knife. It wasn’t all that big, and certainly not that sharp, but it gave me what I needed to escape.” Anna lifted her head from Ethan’s shoulder and turned toward him. “He even had made a makeshift casing to keep the blade from cutting me.”
“He played it slow and safe, staying in the background, making everyone think he wasn’t all that sharp,” Ethan said.
“He’s smarter than the others, but they never gave him any credit for anything he did right, and they never missed an opportunity to kick him around for what he didn’t do right.”
Anna was tired and didn’t want to go on with her story, but she knew Ethan would pressure her. There was no doubt in her mind that he intended to help her in any way possible. “I just felt sorry for him, that’s all.”
Three turkeys strutted between mesquite bushes about six or eight yards away, and Anna sighed, wishing she could be as free and as unconcerned about her future as they were about theirs.
She took a breath and gathered her thoughts, going on to tell Ethan that she didn’t sleep the rest of that night thinking she was being set up by Arlis. She’d be shot by the Big Cajun or Shorty if she even tried to escape. She didn’t know how to trust, but at that time Arlis Buckley was her only friend.
“So, Arlis ended up saving your life by helping you escape?”
“Yes.” Sudden relief flowed over Anna. For the first time, she’d told her story out loud. “If it hadn’t been for him, I’d be dead today. I knew from that second on that if I didn’t return the favor and trust Arlis, Gator and Shorty would end up killing both of us.”
“I’m trying to understand, but there’re still parts missing.” Ethan took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and put the Stetson back on.
“When Gator pushed the horses so hard that the pony Arlis had died from exhaustion, Arlis and I began to ride double. So I was able to talk to him when we were far enough ahead of the others and the wind was with us. Gator hated the dust, but he hated letting us out of his sight more, so sometimes we’d get a pretty good lead on them.”
Slipping his arm around Anna, Ethan tucked her to his side and rubbed her shoulder but said nothing, as though he realized if he stopped to ask questions she’d lose the need to tell him everything.
“I’d talk very quietly, reassuring him that we’d both be safe, but he always indicated he wasn’t so sure.”
“Not much of a talker, then?”
“Short on words, but long on smarts.”
“So how’d you get away?”
“It doesn’t matter now, Ethan. Arlis continued to come to me every night, and when we got on the other side of Menardville, he told me to take Troubadour and go to Abilene.”
“And you eventually did?” Ethan asked.
“Yes.”
“That pretty much explains what happened to Buckley—they probably killed him when they saw you were gone with his horse.”
She closed her eyes, almost thankful that Ethan had come up with an excuse for Arlis’s death. “If they did kill him, it was because they lost another horse, not because I was gone. By that time, I’d become a nuisance to them. The novelty of a gang led by a redheaded woman had worn off. I think they knew they were about at the end of the line with their bank heists. Each robbery was harder than the one before, and the haul became less and less.”
“A bunch of outlaws could blend in no matter where they went, but not with a beautiful gal like you in tow. The law was on their butts, and they knew it.”
Although the heat was stifling, the shade helped shield them. Ethan continued to hold her close, occasionally kissing her temple.
Now for the part of the story she’d been dreading since she’d laid eyes on the lawman. The truth about Arlis’s demise.
Anna impatiently corralled her drifting thoughts, knowing what she had to do, while praying Ethan would understand.
Ethan pulled his big frame to his feet and reached down for her hand, tenderness and caring filling his gaze.
From the distance, a dog’s bark broke the silence. A hound almost unrecognizable, because he was covered with red mud, bounced out of the brush and announced his arrival with a concerto of barks.
Bones danced at Ethan’s feet circling around and around begging for the lawman’s attention. “I never thought I’d see the day that I’d be happy to see such a mangy mutt.”
A combination of apprehension and relief flooded Anna’s thoughts. She knew the dog wouldn’t have left Dakota’s side if he was injured or lost, but where was the kid?
Bones wagged his tail and she swore he smiled at Ethan, a much different welcome than the first day they met. The pooch rolled over twice, scratched behind his ear, and yelped at Ethan.
Although he tried to ignore the dog, it seemed Bones wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Ethan sat down, patted his knee, and the mud-clad dog jumped in his lap so Ethan could check his paws. “Anna, he’s walked a long ways.”
“You mean the mangy mutt walked a long ways.”
“Might have to change his name.” Ethan laughed and made a funny face at Bones, who tried to lick Ethan before he shooed him away.
Suddenly, Troubadour loped down the path in their direction on the heels of Ethan’s palomino.
After Ethan gave both horses a preliminary once-over to make sure they had fared the storms, he took the reins and walked with Anna back to the small corral.
“Are they okay?” Anna asked.
“Troubador’s front legs are pretty bunged up where someone who didn’t know squat about hobbling tried to—”
“Then they weren’t with Da
kota, because he never would have hobbled them.” An uneasy feeling squeezed at her heart. “If someone used that method to restrain them, it wasn’t Dakota.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Remember how he reacted when you mentioned that you’d hobbled Yellow Jacket the first day?”
Ethan nodded in agreement. “He certainly didn’t take kindly to the way I handled my horse, and as I recollect, it really upset you the way he acted.”
“It wasn’t him. It was . . .”
Dark angry clouds overshadowed white fluffy ones, promising evening thunderstorms.
As they walked, Anna dug deep inside to tell Ethan about how Gator and Shorty would hobble her at night to keep her from escaping. The practice that, with the aid of the knife Arlis hid in her skirt, eventually helped her escape since they didn’t watch her as carefully.
The closer they got to the dugout, the faster Bones ran.
“I don’t think Bones would have left Dakota willingly either,” Anna said as they neared the lean-to.
Ethan dug into his pocket. “This morning, I found this near a wash just a little north of where you said Dakota would take the horses.” He handed her the jack of hearts. “Do you have any idea what it means, if anything?”
Anna examined the card carefully. “No. Unless the fact that Dakota doesn’t like the jacks could make a difference. He always puts two of them aside when he plays cards and refers to them as his ‘bad jacks.’ Maybe he dropped it accidentally.”
“Do me a favor. On the outside chance the card belongs to my deck, when you go in will you get my cards out of my saddlebags and make sure it isn’t one of mine?”
“Sure, but unless you were hiding cards so you could win at gin and it fell out of your pocket, I can’t see how one could get that far up the trail.” She laughed at the thought of Ethan cheating at cards.
She thoughtfully rubbed the card. “Ethan, Dakota’s cards are his best friends. He’d never misplace or lose one . . . unintentionally. That just isn’t in his makeup. He has a purpose for everything he does.”
The harder Anna tried to ignore the facts, the more they became real to her.
Like Arlis Buckley, Dakota did nothing without a reason.
Chapter 11
Anna chuckled all the way back to the dugout, thinking about how Bones wanted to follow her but kept running back to Ethan. Apparently the dog was undecided whether he should stay with his newfound friend or go with his master. A more fickle-minded dog she couldn’t recall knowing.
Although clouds were building overhead, Anna felt only the sunshine. For the first time since the horrid day she saw her brother being held at gunpoint, she was shed of the cast-iron yoke that the robberies had put around her neck. Ethan not only understood what had happened, but wanted to help her get out of the mess. Although it had been heart wrenching to divulge every sordid detail, she had made it through the first step: making Ethan understand.
With Ethan’s support, she could face anything, including her family and friends, whom she had betrayed. Once they knew the truth, she’d earn back their trust. She wished she had a crystal ball to see what the future held for her and Ethan.
Yes, she would still like to know what was so important that Ethan suddenly left town and became a Texas Ranger, but now that their relationship had matured, and might even have a future, it didn’t matter.
Once inside the dugout Anna pulled out an iron skillet and a bowl to make cornbread. While she worked, she imagined just how happy her father and mother would be to have her home safe and sound. Her father would be so indebted to Ethan that he’d offer him a job at the bank. The same bank where she’d always imagined he would work.
But what if he didn’t want to be a banker? It didn’t matter—she wanted him to follow his dreams and if being a lawman was what he wanted, she’d support him.
Maybe they could move away to begin a new life together. Only his happiness mattered to her, and since banks were in every town, if she wanted there’d always be work for her. But the job she wanted most was being a wife to Ethan and a mother to his children.
What in the Sam Hill! One very big problem existed: whether she’d seen it in his eyes or not, Ethan had never even whispered that he loved her or wanted to make a commitment to her for the rest of their lives. She’d pretty much gotten things bass-ackwards, thinking about white picket fences and baby prams. Had she gone loco?
Quickly she poured the cornbread mixture into the skillet, but kept her eyes peeled on the door, praying for Dakota’s return. Something deep inside told her he was okay, but the fact that the horses and Bones had returned without him alarmed her. She was eager to tell him about their trip to Galveston, and if presented in a simple, direct manner where he came on board immediately with it, he’d probably even be excited and make it into an adventure.
For the first time since Ethan arrived, she knew in her heart that once she told him the truth about Dakota he’d do everything he could to help keep him safe, too.
If the flea-bitten mutt won the lawman over, no doubt Dakota could. As if on cue, Bones scratched at the door, and she let him in. She gave him a pat and returned to her chores, letting her thoughts wander around in her brain.
Ethan had made her realize that she truly wasn’t a crook but was an unwilling participant in the robberies. Of course, she knew that all along, but for some reason having someone acknowledge what she already knew seemed to exonerate her, at least in her own mind.
Ethan was the brightest kid in school, and that coupled with his good looks and charisma would have made him an excellent lawyer. If Anna had to select only one person to speak on her behalf, it’d be Ethan. But she knew her future would be placed in the hands of her father’s personal lawyer, who always made her think of Sunday dinner—a roasted pig with a big apple in his mouth.
Anna washed the bowl she’d mixed the cornbread in and returned it to the cupboard.
Suddenly she realized she’d been so engrossed with fixing some supper and her dreams of what might be that she’d forgotten to look for the playing card.
Anna rushed to where Ethan left his saddlebags and dragged them over to the bed, where she heaved them onto the mattress. Digging deep into the first bag, she came up empty-handed. She turned it over and unbuckled the other side.
After moving around a number of items, Anna pulled out some and placed them on the bed, in order to locate the cards. She quickly checked the deck and accounted for all four jacks.
As she returned Ethan’s personal things, she came across a tan box and recognized it as the one she had seen him with the first day he arrived in the canyon. Oh how she was tempted to open it. While she could blame curiosity for her desire to peek, she knew whatever was inside must be extremely personal for Ethan to keep it with him all of the time. Regardless of the temptation she would respect his privacy, as she would want him to do in return, and would forget about the box’s existence.
Bones nudged her elbow. “Go away. Supper will be ready soon and you’ll get your share, I promise,” she said.
Anna shooed away the dog, although he only took it as a signal she wanted to play. The hound jumped at her, knocking the box out of her hand and onto the floor, spilling all of its contents.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, Bones,” she said, as she bent over to retrieve the box. Faceup on the floor was a picture of a beautiful young woman with hair the color of wheat holding a baby boy of about six months. A pleasantly plump child.
Anna stared at the mother and baby. Carefully picking up the picture, she pored over it for a long time, examining every feature of the child. He was definitely a Kimble—she could tell by the shape of his forehead and the dimples.
Dimples . . . Her heart plunged.
A gamut of perplexing emotions trampled on Anna’s soul.
She placed the picture in the box, along with a man’s gold wedding band, before she noticed a card lying to the side. Written in an eloquent hand, it read:
&nbs
p; I named him Ethan Robert Kimble. He looks just like you, even to his dimples. Never a day goes by that I don’t miss you.
Love,
Jenny
“Ethan has a child,” she whispered to herself. Tears welled in her eyes and a hurt deeper than anything she’d ever experienced stabbed at her heart. Worse than anything she had endured while on the run.
Anna took a deep breath to mask her inner turmoil, refusing to believe what was right before her eyes.
She picked up the ring once again and clenched it in her fist. Not only did Ethan have a son, but he had a wife. A beautiful family . . . the family she had just been visualizing as belonging to her.
Returning the ring to the box, she quietly put it back in Ethan’s saddlebags, buckled the strap, and laboriously moved the bags to their original resting place.
Anna threw herself across the bed and let the tears flow.
Everything was clear to her now. Ethan had walked away from her six years before because he was in love with someone else.
The only word she never thought she’d ever use to describe Ethan—coward—speared itself through her heart.
Too cowardly to tell her that he’d fallen in love with someone else. Too cowardly to face her father and refuse his offer to work for him at the bank. Too cowardly to become a lawyer.
But what hurt the most was, Ethan hadn’t lived up to his own commitments. Yet he had the gall to accuse her of running from her own.
Ethan took his time caring for the horses and preparing for their trip out of the canyon. When he finished, he’d make one more trek back up the Palo Duro in search of Dakota. It irked him to think that he might be right about the kid all along, that he was a horse thief. Otherwise, why was he nowhere to be found? He’d probably befriended Anna only for a safe place to hide out. Since she’d met him in Amarillo, he was likely already back there unconcerned about the good-hearted woman he’d trampled on.
Give Me A Texas Outlaw Bundle with Give Me A Cowboy Page 22