THE OUTLAW BRIDE

by Maggie Shayne

  She hadn't gone back that far. She'd seen the storm coming and had crept just far enough into the cave to ensure she would stay dry. She'd brought an armful of twigs and dried leaves with her. It had taken longer to locate a piece of flint, but that particular stone was plentiful here. She sparked a fire to life easily. Lord knew she'd done so many, many times before on her father's hearth, or that of her aunt. Or on the trail between the two. She could have blocked the cave's entrance with pine boughs, had she wanted to, but she preferred that the smoke from the fire have a clear way to exit. Besides, the opening was small, and not much wind or rain would come through. She'd even had time enough to gather a nice pile of fallen leaves into her haven. They made a fragrant and utterly soft bed for her.

  A good thing, for it looked as if she might be here the night through.

  The storm she'd sensed, then seen approaching finally broke loose, making the darkness fall early. Esmeralda curled into her leaf bed, beside her snapping fire, and watched the dark rain pour down. All the day through she'd managed to avoid thinking about Elliot Brand. Even now, she tried to elude him, but he kept invading her mind. When she turned her head sharply, as if averting her inner eye, she saw him yet again.

  The spot on the wall was faded and dull, but her eyes picked it out, even in the winking firelight. EM loves EB. A crooked, lopsided heart surrounded the silly, little-girl sentiment. She'd spent hours, she recalled, digging the letters into the stone with her father's hammer and his hunting knife, which she'd used as a makeshift chisel. He'd been furious when he'd seen the blade. Honestly, she'd ruined the thing. But she never told him how, or why.

  As a little girl, she'd fancied herself in love with Eldon Brand. Then he had changed. His parents had been killed, his eldest brother had run off, the rest of the boys had been farmed out to any family who would take them, and Eldon had changed. He'd become a mean, heartless, cruel man without a soul. A man she could never love.

  Only now did she realize … it had never really been Eldon in her heart at all. It was Elliot. It was Elliot all along. Somehow … her heart had known. It had recognized a shadow of Elliot in Eldon … a kernel of him … somehow. And it had known.

  Just as she knew now what was really eating at her soul.

  Elliot was who he was because of his family. Everything he had become—everything that made him a man she could so easily love—was due to them. The Brands. The family she'd hated all her life and vowed on her father's grave to destroy. As much as she disliked them—or wanted to—she could not deny that.

  If she stayed in Elliot's life, she would come between him and his loving family. Without that loving family … well, he would cease to be Elliot. Just see how differently Eldon had turned out when his family had fallen apart. Think of little Bubba, and Jessi's child, Maria, and the one Penny would give birth to at any time now. How would their lives turn out if Esmeralda broke the bonds of this family?

  No, family was too important. She knew that far better than anyone else could.

  Sí, Esmeralda. And what about your own child, eh?

  Blinking hard, she looked around, as if seeking the source of that voice, even though she knew it had come from within. She pressed a hand to her abdomen. "It was only one night," she whispered to the empty cave … to the carving on the wall and to the dancing flames. "It was only one night, there will be no child."

  Even to her own ears, the words sounded like lies.

  He was soaked to the skin, it was pitch-dark, and Elliot had seen no sign of Esmeralda yet. He was even more worried than he'd been before. The night was cold, not bitter, but cold. And the storm was working itself up into a real frenzy. Hell, where could she be?

  "Thank goodness you're back," Chelsea said, hurrying to greet the soggy crew of failed searchers at the door. She was tugging Garrett's raincoat off him almost before he closed the door behind him. Last one in, as always. He'd seen to it that they all put up their horses, rubbed the animals down and fed them, and then he'd hustled every one of his siblings through the door ahead of him. Father figure. It was his way.

  Chelsea shook the rain off his slicker and hung it on a peg near the door. "There's coffee and cocoa waiting," she said. "Go on in by the fire. You're soaked through."

  She was on Elliot even before she finished speaking, tugging his coat off, shaking the rain from his hat. Mother figure. That was Chelsea.

  "I'm goin' right back out," Elliot said. "Just need some dry clothes and a hot drink. Five minutes, tops." He heeled off his soggy boots, and his damp socks left footprints on the floor as he headed into the parlor.

  Chelsea, now rubbing at Jessi's hair with a towel, said, "Well, there's been no word from her here."

  "I keep tellin' you, Mama," Bubba said, stomping his foot. "Emmerelda's hidin' in the secret castle."

  "I know, hon. I know." Chelsea ruffled Bubba's hair, and turned to Elliot again. "Sara has some news you'll all want to know about."

  Elliot was standing with his back to the blessed heat of the fireplace and feeling guilty as hell for soaking up the heat when Esmeralda was probably freezing somewhere. He looked up at Chelsea. Wes, Ben and Adam had managed to get their own coats off and escape her coddling hands. Then Sara came in, a tray of steaming mugs in her grip. Garrett spoke before Elliot could.

  "What is it, Sara? Chelsea says you have news?" Garrett asked, taking two mugs, handing one to Elliot.

  "Pretty old news, actually. Look at this…" Setting the tray down on the coffee table, Sara bent to the stack of very old, very time-yellowed papers beside it. Turned out they were actually newspaper pages, each one carefully attached to a cardboard page of a scrapbook. And even the scrapbook looked aged and worn.

  Quinn Town Cryer, the paper's banner read. And beneath that, 6 June, 1881. Sara said, "Let me read you the lead story. The headline says, Mexican Murderess Escapes Justice." She cleared her throat, and read on.

  "Esmeralda Montoya, daughter of the late Luis Montoya, former owner of the Double-M Ranch, was sentenced to hang today for the murder of Eldon Brand. Montoya, an unmarried, unchaperoned, undiscliplined harridan up from Mexico to see to her father's burial, has been disputing the Brand family's claims to the ranch and making a scandalous nuisance of herself around town. After knifing the unarmed Eldon Brand in the gut and leaving him alone to die, Montoya faced the gallows today. Her hanging never took place. Aided by an unknown outlaw who burst in on the execution waving a gun, Montoya escaped justice on a stolen horse. Though the sheriff and a posse gave chase, the pair somehow eluded them. One source claims the posse had them surrounded at one point, but none of the men involved will comment on how the pair managed to escape. So far, Montoya and her unknown accomplice are still at large. Eldon Brand, her victim, will be buried tomorrow at the Quinn Town Cemetery."

  Sara cleared her throat. "The byline is Jeremiah Brand. Hardly an unbiased reporter, hmm?"

  "Biased or not, that's not exactly proof," Jessi began, then she bit her lip. "I mean, I believe Elliot anyway. I don't need any proof. But if I did, this wouldn't qualify."

  "Oh no?" Sara asked, and she turned the cardboard with the clipping attached and at the same time yanked a magnifying glass from her hip pocket. "Check out the photograph, cousin Jessi."

  Jessi sighed, moved closer, and took the page. Then, frowning, she held up the glass and looked closer. "Oh … my … God."

  Lifting her head slowly, blinking, wide eyed, she said, "Where did you get this?"

  "In the attic, with a bunch of stuff your parents and their parents had stashed away up there. I can't believe you guys have never gone through it. Your entire family history is up there. Even old Wanted posters with Waylon Brand's mug on them—he looks just like Wes!"

  Shaking her head slowly, Jessi looked at the newspaper photo again. "This can't be…" she said.

  Having had enough, Elliot gulped down the last of his cocoa, and took the page from his sister's hand. And there was Esmeralda, just as he'd first glimpsed her. Standing on the ga
llows. The dress torn, the bruise on her cheek, her hair loose … and that stupid pendant hanging around her neck.

  Seeing her face, even in the poor-quality, time-faded photo, made him ache for her all the more. He handed it to Garrett, shaking his head. "So you have the proof you said you didn't need," he told Jessi. "And in case you didn't notice, that's the selfsame dress she was wearing when she arrived, right down to the rips and tears in the same places. And that's Tay's pendant around her neck. And I don't rightly care about any of this. I just have to find her."

  "Look in the castle, Uncle Elliot," Little Bubba said.

  "Yeah, I will pal." Elliot started for the door. But Bubba yanked his shirtsleeve hard.

  "How? You don't know where it is!"

  "I'll find it." He didn't want to hurt Bubba's feelings, not for the world, but he was in a hurry. It was cold and dark and…

  "I can show you!" Bubba said proudly, eyes big and round, as Elliot looked down at him and tried hard to conceal his impatience. "In my 'scope … out my window … I can show you…"

  "Now, Bubba, bud, it's too darn dark outside to see anything out your window," he said. "And Uncle Elliot's got to hurry and go find Esmeralda, because it's raining and cold outside."

  Making a face that suggested Elliot was a complete idiot, Bubba said, "But she's not gettin' wet, 'cause she's in the secret castle! An' she's not cold, 'cause of the fire … that's why I can see from my window, Uncle El! 'Cause of the fire."

  Nodding, he patted Bubba on the head and turned toward the door. Then he stilled and turned back to the little boy again. Fire? He could see a fire from his window? "Maybe you'd better show me after all, Bubba."

  Grinning widely, Bubba took Elliot's hand and they raced through the room to the stairs, then up them to his bedroom.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  "I'm going alone," Elliot said.

  His family had crowded into Bubba's room to take turns looking through My First Telescope to the telltale light of a distant fire. Bubba said there was a cave out there that he'd discovered on one of his many excursions with his dad, and that he called it the secret castle because that was what it looked like to him. Garrett remembered the place once Bubba reminded him. And Elliot remembered that Esmeralda had mentioned a cave, too, a place where she used to go as a girl, to dream of some fellow she'd been sweet on. Yet another man in the long line of them who'd managed to let her down, or hurt her in some way. He remembered that, too. Had sensed it at the time.

  He didn't plan on doing the same.

  "Elliot, come on. The more of us that go with you—"

  "The more of you that go with me, the more likely Esmeralda will be to take off again. You guys haven't been exactly hospitable toward her, you know."

  "Well, how the hell could we have possibly known she was for real?" Jessi argued.

  "Because I told you she was."

  Jessi's head lowered, and she looked guilty.

  "Elliot's right," Chelsea said. "Besides, he could probably use some time alone with her to explain why he decided to issue her the world's clumsiest and most poorly thought-out marriage proposal."

  "More decree than proposal," Sara said.

  Elliot took a minute to glare at Chelsea, then he shook a finger at Sara. "Don't you forget that you're single, too, and sooner or later I'll have the chance to get even with you for that remark."

  She grinned. "I'm holding out for Prince Charming," she said. "So I imagine you're gonna have a long wait."

  "Go on, Elliot," Jessi said. "Go get Esmeralda. When she comes back we'll all apologize and maybe we can … I don't know … start over with her. If she'll let us."

  Elliot nodded and hurried out of the room. His clothes were still damp. He didn't rightly care. He slung his wet slicker on, clapped his damp Stetson on his head and ran out the door. Boots slapping mud, rain pounding him all the way, he raced through the darkness to the stable and saddled up a fresh horse, and then he was out of there. He kept telling himself to take it slow. That Esmeralda was—according to Bubba, at least—in a warm, dry spot, sheltered from the storm. Probably safe.

  Probably.

  Probably wasn't good enough. He'd at least taken time to snag a flashlight on the way out of the house, and he flicked it on as he rode toward the distant cave. He worried all the way about what he would find when he finally got there.

  Esmeralda lay in the soft, fragrant leaves. The cave was toasty-warm, and that made her sleepy. She was hungry, too, but she supposed that would have to wait until morning. Then she would see about finding some food. For now…

  She closed her eyes and told herself not to think about Elliot.

  But she thought about him anyway. She imagined him finding her here, striding through the cave's small opening, rain-damp and tired. He would say, "I've been so worried about you. Are you all right?" And she would lower her eyes and nod and say she was fine. And then he would come the rest of the way inside and sit with her near the fire, in her leaf bed, and he would tell her he was sorry about the way his family acted. He would say it didn't matter what they thought, that he loved her and wanted to marry her all the same.

  Esmeralda shivered a little as she lay there, eyes half-closed, imagining his dark eyes and the emotion in them as he told her that. She thought that would be the time when she would have to tell him the truth. That she'd been planning to trick him, that she'd only wanted to sleep with him so she could get pregnant, make him marry her, and then lay claim to at least part of the land. But she would hurry on to tell him the rest. That she'd changed her mind. That she couldn't go through with it.

  In her mind, Elliot was angry at first. But within a few minutes his face softened, and he forgave her. He said what she'd planned didn't matter. He said he loved her anyway…

  She opened her eyes wider, then rolled them at her own foolishness. "Sí, that's exactly the way it will happen!" she snapped at herself in the darkness. The fire snapped, too, as if in agreement. "Not only does he not love me—he doesn't even know me. And if he cared even one tiny little bit, he wouldn't have stopped searching for me so soon."

  Not that she wanted him searching for her at all. Because she didn't, and she didn't know why she was letting her mind conjure all these silly scenarios, anyway. They all ended the same. With him sweeping her into his arms and kissing her. It was nothing but a craving. Nothing but lust. She was in a cave with a storm raging outside, while he was safe in his bed in his big fat house, surrounded by his big, cruel family. That should tell her all she needed to know about Elliot Brand.

  The sound of her name floated to her, faint and distant, brought to her by a sudden gust. The flames shot upward, and sparks flew. Frowning, Esmeralda whispered. "What was that?" and sat up slowly.

  She strained her ears … and in a moment, she heard it again. Closer this time. But still faint, and muffled by the rain. "Esmerallllldaaaaaa!"

  Creeping fast on all fours, she rounded the fire and knelt in the cave's opening. There the wind buffeted her face, and raindrops pinged like bullets. "Elliot?" she asked the wind.

  The shout came again, and she saw it. A light, small but bright. As she stared at the distant spot, a silhouette grew sharper against the storm; a man on a horse. He was bent in the saddle, curving his back in defense against the elements as he rode onward.

  He had come after her! Oh, Dios, suppose he truly did love her?

  Her heart lurched a little. So many questions. Was she carrying his child? Would he forgive her for that, and for what she had planned? Could he? Did she … did she love the man? Was it possible to love a man she'd known for such a short time? Oh, but it felt as if she had known him forever.

  But what about his family? They hated her! They would never accept her. And her father had insisted that…

  Oh, but what did it matter? She was getting too far ahead of herself. She didn't even know for sure it was him.

  He called to her again. Elliot's voice, no mistaking t
hat. Turning, Esmeralda drew a flaming limb from her small fire, and then stepped out of the cave and waved it slowly back and forth over her head. "Here!" she called. "I am here, Elliot!"

  The small light aimed toward her. The horse began to move faster. Thunder ripped through the sky, and lightning cut a jagged path. Blinding, it was, and striking so hard she felt the ground beneath her feet vibrate and sizzle, and she heard the sound of the strike like a gunshot—deafening, frightening and sharp.

  The horse reared, and she thought Elliot tumbled from its back, but she couldn't be sure. She took two steps forward. "Elliot?" He was still a hundred yards from her, up on the hillside. Lightning flashed again, a bare instant after the first strike, and she saw more clearly. Two things were illuminated in the night to her questing eyes and pounding heart: the riderless horse, galloping back the way it had come … and the huge, ancient tree, leaning slowly toward the ground where the horse had been. Then leaning more. Groaning and leaning even more.

  Esmeralda lunged forward, her torch still in her hand. "Elliot!" Where was he? It was dark again. She couldn't see him. But the tree gave one last groan, and then cracked loudly and toppled. It crashed to the ground, splitting and creaking as it broke. The sound it made was deafening. A groaning, creaking, snapping, and then a dull roar as it hit.

  And something else. Something that could have been a man's cry.

  She ran, heedless now of the rain drenching her, or of her bare feet slipping and slapping in the cold mud. She just ran. That tiny light was her guide, though it lay still on the ground. She followed it, let it guide her, and called Elliot's name over and over again.

  Then she saw him. He lay on his back in the mud, hair plastered to his face … and it looked as though a tree with a girth the size of his horse's lay right across his body. From the waist down she couldn't even see him for the trunk and the limbs and leaves.