THE OUTLAW BRIDE

by Maggie Shayne

  When a week went by and this was still the case, she could see his frustration, and she was fool enough to feel sorry for him.

  When she came in that morning, he wasn't in his bed. Assuming he was in the bathroom, she waited … and then she heard a clattering sound, followed by Elliot cussing under his breath.

  Without shyness or a hint of hesitation, she opened the bathroom door, half expecting to find her charge toppled on the floor.

  Instead, Elliot was braced against the small basin. The cast was propped on the nearby toilet seat's lowered lid, as Elliot balanced on the other one, apparently trying to shave. His face was coated in lather, and his razor lay on the floor.

  She couldn't help the wave of feeling that rushed into her. Or the wave of nausea that came with it. But that, at least, was unpreventable. She'd been ill three mornings in a row. Her time was late. She was not an idiot. She knew full well what that meant. The plan she had abandoned, the one she could not carry out, had worked.

  Softening toward Elliot, she pulled his arm around her shoulders and turned him away from the basin. "Come. It pains you too much to be on your feet. You must lie down."

  "I haven't had a decent bath or a shave in a week," he argued, but he didn't fight her as she helped him back toward the bed.

  "That is my fault. I am sorry, Elliot. My anger with you has made me neglect the job I agreed to do. Come, get into bed. I will take care of this for you." She eased him onto the edge and quickly lowered his leg into the sling. Then she hurried into the bathroom, located a small basin in a tall closet and filled it with warm water. She carried this back to the bedroom, left again, and returned this time with a washcloth, a towel, a bar of soap and the razor.

  His face was still covered in foam. He eyed her. "You have some shaving cream on you," he said. He reached out, swiped it off her cheek with a finger.

  "Gracias." She tried not to feel the shiver of awareness that passed through her at his touch, and dipped the razor into the water, then lifted his chin with her forefinger and began shaving him in slow, even strokes.

  "I guess … I owe you an apology," Elliot said. He managed to speak without moving his jaw much, all the while watching her.

  She shrugged in that I-could-care-less way she had mastered—or hoped she had—rinsed the blade, and shaved some more.

  "I never thought you were … what you thought I thought you were."

  "A whore?" she asked.

  Elliot winced. "Esmeralda, I never…"

  She shaved a little harder.

  He covered her hand with his. She took his hand away and kept shaving. He sighed. "All right, so what was I supposed to think? You hurt me, Esmeralda. I thought I was falling in love with you, and then you up and tell me it was all part of a plot to steal my land. What the hell was I supposed to think?"

  She lifted her brows but kept shaving, saying nothing.

  "What am I supposed to think now?" he went on.

  Finished, she snatched up the towel, wiped his face clean of foam. "I don't care what you think now."

  "Well, I do. I want to know the truth, Esmeralda. Did you feel something for me? Did you … do you still?"

  She met his eyes but quickly averted hers, not wanting him to see. A second later, he clamped his hands around her head, drew her face to his and kissed her.

  His mouth was warm and fresh. She stiffened her body, willed herself to pull free of him, but for some reason she didn't pull at all. In a moment, as his lips moved against hers, coaxing, soothing, she felt herself soften and yield. Her body trembled, hungered, yearned for his just as it had before. Just as it had truly never stopped doing.

  Dios, how she still wanted him. Still … still loved him … even knowing how little he thought of her.

  Elliot's fingers moved gently through her hair as he ended the kiss. She kept her eyes closed, ashamed of her weakness, unable to face him.

  "My God," he whispered. "Are those tears?" His thumbs ran over her cheeks.

  Her stomach heaved. She shot to her feet, ran into the bathroom, with barely time to spare, and retched so hard she fell to her knees. She was still there, leaning over, eyes watering, when she felt his hands on her shoulders.

  Gently, he helped her to her feet, and she knew it hurt him to be up, out of bed, and wished she could think of some reason why he would put himself through any pain at all for her.

  Still, he stood there, all his weight on one leg, the other sort of dangling, toes barely making contact with the floor. Elliot searched her face. "You're not fully recovered from that little adventure of ours, either, are you? Dammit, Esmeralda, you should have said something."

  She shook her head. "It is nothing."

  "It's not nothing."

  It wasn't. But he didn't know that. "I'll be fine."

  "You're right, you will. Go on, go lie down until you feel better. I mean it, Esmeralda."

  She looked at him, nodded once, and hurried out of the room. Because if she looked into those eyes of his much longer, she sensed he would see through her lie to the truth she was hiding so carefully inside.

  She didn't look … well. Elliot didn't like it. He didn't like that he cared, either, but there was no denying that he did, and her non-answers and cryptic criticisms made him think that maybe she had felt something for him once.

  The way she'd responded to his kiss made him think maybe she still did. Not the vomiting part. But before that. The shaking, the softening, the opening of her lips to his.

  Ah, hell, he was probably setting himself up for another fall. A hard fall this time. Not that it hadn't been a hard fall last time … just not quite hard enough to knock any sense into him. Must not have been. Because he still wanted her. He still felt all soft and squishy inside whenever her eyes met his. And now that he realized she wasn't feeling up to snuff, he was as worried as he would have been if it had been little Bubba or Maria-Michele sick.

  He was still in love with that damned stubborn, quick-tempered woman. Esmeralda. All raven hair and ebony eyes and emotions made of nitroglycerin. He was in love with her.

  And he didn't have a clue how she felt about him or what the hell to do next.

  He waited until she was busy someplace else—knowing damn good and well that she wouldn't have gone to her room to rest as he'd suggested—and got out of bed. He was sick of this room, sick of being on his back, and pain or no pain, he was finished with it. Besides that, with Esmeralda sick, he wasn't going to have her running up and down the stairs all day to look after him. He snagged the crutches that had been left in his room for when he was ready and hobbled into the hall.

  At the top of the stairs, he stopped. He looked down. Then he looked at the crutches. Then he looked down again. He'd better think of something soon. Gravity was already making his leg start to throb. Licking his lips, he tugged the crutches out from under his arms and lowered himself until he was sitting on the floor. Then, laying the crutches beside him, he proceeded to thump down the stairs, bump by bump.

  "What in the Sam Hill is all that—" Chelsea asked, coming into the living room in reaction to all the noise Elliot was making, then stopping in her tracks when she saw him, sitting on his butt, cast out in front of him, three steps from the bottom. "Elliot!"

  "Ah, hell, Chelsea, don't panic. I'm fine. Just got sick of being cooped up in the bedroom is all. And I don't think it's any too good for Esmeralda to be running up and down the stairs waiting on me all day."

  Chelsea frowned hard and folded her arms over her chest. Elliot figured that was probably because she needed to grip herself to keep from running over there and trying to help him up. He thumped to the bottom, stood the crutches up and, gripping them in the middle, used them to lever himself up to his feet, er, foot. Then he hobbled over to the biggest, softest recliner in the room and dropped into it.

  Man, who would have believed it would take this much effort just to get down the stairs? He was hot, breathless, and his leg was throbbing like a big bass drum.

  "H
ere," Chelsea said, apparently unable to restrain herself. She pulled a footstool over and lifted up his leg to lay it gently on the thing.

  Elliot sighed out loud, the relief was so palpable.

  "You should have hit the sofa instead of the chair."

  "I'm sick to death of lying down. This'll be fine."

  "Right."

  She didn't look as if she believed him. Elliot didn't particularly care. "Where is Esmeralda, anyway?" he asked her.

  Chelsea frowned. "I thought she was upstairs with you."

  "You mean she's not down here?"

  Chelsea shook her head. Elliot lowered his, cupped his chin. "Damn. She must be sicker than I thought."

  "She's sick?" Instantly concerned, Chelsea glanced up the stairs as Elliot nodded hard.

  "I told her to go lie down for a while, but I didn't really expect she'd do it. She must have been feeling worse than I realized." He shook his head, as Chelsea turned to scan his face.

  "So what's wrong with her?" she asked.

  "Damned if I know. I thought it must have been something to do with that night, the storm and the rain and all. But I'd expect her to have pneumonia from all that, not some stomach ailment."

  Chelsea tilted her head to one side. "Stomach ailment?"

  Elliot nodded.

  "She was … um … ill this morning?"

  "Yeah."

  Drawing a deep breath, Chelsea closed her eyes. "Yesterday, too. I heard her, early, before anyone else was up."

  Sighing hard, Elliot said, "Poor thing. You know, I'll bet it's the same thing as what's been ailing Taylor. Must be something going around."

  "Well, of course it's not the same thing," she said, smiling and shaking her head. "I guessed what was wrong with Taylor over a week ago, and it's not…" She stopped there. Blinked. Looked at Elliot, then up the stairs again.

  He saw Chelsea's eyes go wider. Saw the way she gaped at him for a minute. Then she swore, saying a word Elliot had never heard her use before. He automatically looked around for Bubba, but the little fellow must have gone out this morning with Garrett, so he wasn't in earshot of his mamma's uncustomary language.

  "Well, what's the matter?" Elliot asked, totally confused.

  Chelsea anchored her hands on her hips, tapping one foot and glaring at him. "Have you slept with that woman, Elliot Brand?" she demanded.

  He battled a grin, but it tugged at one side of his mouth anyway as he turned his face away from her. "I'm not gonna discuss my love life with you, Chelse. Sorry."

  "Hell and damnation," she cussed, and she stomped into the kitchen, leaving him clueless. He heard her dialing the phone, but he had no idea who she was calling. Who could figure women out, anyway?

  For the second time in just over a week, someone had called a Brand family meeting. Elliot had divided his time between the armchair and the sofa all day, even made it as far as the front porch once, to sit in the swing with his leg propped on the railing for a little while. Esmeralda had seemed to perk up by afternoon. She'd had lunch with him out on that big front porch in the sunshine. She had eaten as if she hadn't been fed in a week, which he thought wasn't likely to do her stomach bug much good, but he decided not to say anything.

  Anyway, halfway through the afternoon, the family started trooping in. Poor Penny, walking tilted backward with her belly leading the way, both hands underneath it, as if she needed to hold it up. Two weeks overdue now, if Elliot's count was right. Ben came beside her, looking as if he hadn't been sleeping well. Garrett and Chelsea were already inside, but they'd been deep in conversation in the kitchen, muttering under their breaths to each other and making Elliot wonder what the hell was up. Adam and Kirsten arrived looking gorgeous. Those two always looked gorgeous. Barbie and Ken go country, he thought. Jessi showed up with little Maria-Michele riding piggyback on Lash. Sara had been stacking cookies on a big tray, and she brought them in to set on a table. If Sara had one passion besides teaching and family, it was food. And finally Wes and Taylor arrived. Taylor looked worn-out. Rings around her eyes, and she seemed pale.

  "You still don't look up to snuff," Elliot observed when she came to his chair to ask how he was feeling. "Jeez, I hope to hell this isn't food poisoning or something."

  "It's not," she said, and she smiled a little oddly.

  "Are you sure? I mean, it's hanging on, whatever it is." Everyone was settling in now, finding seats, and the conversation was dying down.

  "I'm sure," Taylor said. "Chelsea called me this morning and just about chewed me a new belly button for not having gone to the doc already." She shook her head slowly. "I just never thought…"

  "Well, I told you to go see Doc over a week ago!" Elliot said. "So what did he say?"

  Her smile grew. "It's sweet of you to worry about me so much."

  He gave her hand a squeeze. "I am worried about you, sis. But it's more than that. Whatever you have, I think Esmeralda's coming down with it, too, so if you know what it is, I wish you'd spill."

  The room went dead silent. Every single head turned his way, and Taylor looked as if she were going to faint. He glanced past her at Wes. Wes looked like he was going to come over, yank Elliot out of his chair and throttle him.

  "What?" Elliot asked. "What did I say?" He glanced around the room, and it looked to him as if every single person was in on some secret he had yet to figure out. He finally found Esmeralda. She'd gotten to her feet and was backing slowly out of the room. She'd made it all the way to the arching doorway to the dining room, and when he met her eyes, she turned and fled. He heard her run out the back door. Heard the screen bang closed behind her.

  Shaking his head slowly, he brought his gaze back to Taylor's again. "Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here? Taylor, what's wrong with you? What's been making you so sick?"

  Taylor glanced at Chelsea. Chelsea shrugged. "Tell him."

  Looking at Elliot again, Taylor came closer, perched on the arm of his chair and put her arm around him. She gave him a gentle hug. "Oh, Elliot, hon. I'm not sick. I'm pregnant."

  She sat back just enough to look at him. He searched her face, happy for her for just a second before the rest of it hit him. She was smiling at him, but worried, too. And he only vaguely heard Jessi saying she'd guessed days ago, and Adam and Kirsten congratulating Wes.

  Taylor had been ill and pale, sick in the morning, but better in the afternoon, for days now. Jessi hadn't been that sick when she'd been carrying Maria-Michele, nor had Penny all through her pregnancy. But Elliot knew some women could be miserable for the first few months.

  Now … there was Esmeralda. Sick lately, but only in the morning. Pale. She didn't look as if she'd been sleeping well, and she'd seemed hungry as a horse at lunchtime.

  What if she wasn't sick at all. What if…? "Oh my goodness, oh-my-goodness, oh-my-ow-ow-ow!"

  Every head in the room swung again, this time toward Penny, who'd cut loose with a string of exclamations that made no sense at all. Elliot looked, too. Penny had shot to her feet, belly first. And her brows were up and she was biting her lips and clutching her belly with both hands.

  "Penny?" Ben asked. "Hon?"

  "I … think … maybe…" Penny scrunched up her face and made a horrible sound, like a balloon makes when you pinch its neck and let the air squeal out of it. It made the hairs on Elliot's neck stand up.

  "Oh my God," Ben said. The next thing Elliot knew, Ben was scooping Penny right off her feet and heading for the door. And it was a darn good thing Ben was a big fellow, because at this stage Penny was no pixie. Plus she was squawking and not staying any too still. Ben looked over his shoulder, and his eyes were huge, his skin pale, his expression shell-shocked. "Baby," he said. "Now! Hospital!"

  Then he was out the door. There was one moment of stunned silence before the family burst into motion, and then there were Brands running in a hundred directions. It was a whirlwind, one of those wonderful, chaotic moments Elliot knew he would always remember. Everyone talking, yelling, at o
nce, grabbing keys, hats, kids, handbags. And then, like magic, they were gone.

  Elliot sat alone in the living room. The screen door bounced twice and went still. Car engines came to life and faded. And there was silence. Dead, lonely, silence.

  Elliot figured they would get to the hospital, get settled into the waiting room, get to pacing, and then realize they'd run off and forgotten him. Hell, he'd been through this before. He had loads of time to get to the hospital. Hours and hours.

  So he figured he'd best use that time to wrap his mind around things here. Around the situation … the … the very slight possibility that maybe…

  Shoot, he couldn't even say it.

  Could he?

  He closed his eyes and thought on it for a minute. He tried to picture Esmeralda with her belly swollen out to the size of Penny's. He tried to picture himself laying his hand on that bulge and feeling that amazing miracle squirming around inside her, the way he'd done when Jessi was carrying Maria-Michele. He tried to picture Esmeralda lying in a white bed, with her raven curls spilling around her, and her black eyes gleaming and moist as she cradled a tiny dark newborn in her arms.

  Shoot. He sniffled, blinked his eyes dry, told himself he was just emotional because he was about to become an uncle again. But he knew better. Reaching for his crutches, he hobbled to the door, stepped out onto the front porch and looked around. She wouldn't have run off again. He knew that much. She'd promised to stay and care for him until his leg was healed up, and she had too much pride to go back on her word. Besides, she wouldn't want to risk him chasing after her and reinjuring himself.

  "Esmeralda?" he called. Very carefully, he moved along the porch, faced the barn. "I know you're out here somewhere. Don't you think it's best we talked, you and I?"