Outlaw Moon

by Charlotte Hubbard

  He was right, dammit. Best to tuck her tail between her legs and forget this embarrassing conversation ever happened. Jack had no room in his life for a tag-along, and she had no business thinking he could solve any of her problems. He was wanted for murder! He’d probably put a knife through her heart at the least provocation—it would be easier for him the second time. Those glittering eyes and that nasty mustache announced to the world that he was a hard, dangerous man who would keep his distance at any cost, and she was naive to think her insights about him were anything more than wishful thinking on her part.

  Jack steeled himself against the sight of this waif, whose thick waves of hair tumbled forward as she hung her head. What a tease she was, coming out here in the wee hours with such a proposition! Her white gown gave off an angelic glow in the moonlight, and he noticed that it was decorated with intricate white embroidery that shone softly when her shoulders sagged. A glimmer of gold necklaces intrigued him further, led his eyes to the roundness that reminded him she was naked beneath that filmy gown. It would be so easy to. ...

  Amber turned to go, and he grabbed her hand. She felt a jolt of electricity, and when she dared to look into his eyes she saw a dusky grin that fed her own smoldering desires. He was everything she should stay away from—more trouble than Gideon Minnit could ever think of becoming—and his sinister sensuality promised certain doom if she succumbed to him. But when the lips beneath that black mustache parted, she had to taste them one last time.

  Rafferty moaned and pulled her against his chest, silently swearing at himself. What was it that attracted him to women who could only drain him dry? Since the moment he first entered her tent, he’d known Madame LaBelle would lure him into yet another impossible predicament, but he’d told himself that he could shut out the siren song of this provocative palm reader. Maybe in his mind he could resist her, but the rest of his body was now her shameless, willing victim.

  “Damn you,” he muttered against her mouth. She was sweet, womanly warmth as she rubbed against him in perfect harmony with his body’s responses.

  “Bastard,” she replied breathlessly. His lips were moving restlessly over her face and neck, and when he found the sensitive spot at the hollow of her throat she let out a desperate sigh. His hands roamed freely over her, cupping the halves of her hips, coaxing her against the solid, male ridge that seemed to scorch her through the folds of her flimsy gown. The way he was handling her, he’d soon tear the fabric—and what remained of her decency—to shreds as he lowered her to the ground.

  The grass felt cool beneath her feverish body, and then Jack’s warm, vital weight spread over her like a blanket. He was moaning softly, almost like a prayer, as his lips explored her breasts, dampening the gown and causing her nipples to harden with the delicious friction. Other men had stolen caresses, but their selfish fondling had repelled her. Rafferty knew exactly how she wanted to be touched, and where, and the intuitive rightness flowing between them made her mouth drop open.

  Jack looked up into a smoldering, sloe-eyed smile and knew he’d already gone too far. The awe on Amber’s face reflected the wonder he himself was feeling—the last thing he’d wanted when he decided to scare her off by unleashing his lust. His body was throbbing with need, and the only things between him and satisfaction were his fly buttons and a gossamer gown that was already halfway up her thighs. But somehow he pushed away, resting his weight on his forearms as he gazed down at her lovely face. “I’m sorry,” he rasped.

  “Why?”

  This woman could ask the damndest questions! Rafferty swallowed a retort and took a deep breath to compose himself. “Because I let things get out of hand.”

  “Feels like your hands have everything just where they want it,” she teased softly. “And isn’t it something, the way I fit against you? It’s fate, you know. We belong together, Mr. Rafferty.”

  He groaned and tried to think of a way out of this mess. Swearing at her didn’t work, and attacking her hadn’t frightened her in the least. But the way she was getting all moony-eyed, he didn’t dare call her bluff by waxing romantic.

  “Amber, it was this kind of recklessness that led me to kill that soiled dove,” he explained. He closed his eyes so he couldn’t see the intense yearning in hers, and continued. “I—I was raised to be a gentleman, to respect women, and yet when I heard your pistol click I lost all sense of—it’s not like me to jump a woman—”

  “I know that,” she replied softly. “And it’s not my way to shoot a man, either, but Gideon insists I keep that pistol under the table, just in case. It’s loaded with blanks, you know. Like the guns we use to shoot the Indians in the pageant.”

  Amber was trying to prove her harmlessness, but she was becoming more lethal by the second. Her voice soothed him—too much!—and despite the way he’d eluded posses and marshals and hardened himself to the solitude his fugitive life required, he was falling for this complicated woman and her wiles. He sensed a loneliness within her, a kindred spirit to his own, but he couldn’t succumb to the mystical link between them—not now, not ever. And he was damn sorry about it.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow night,” he said resolutely. “And I’m going alone. Understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got nothing to offer you, Amber. All I own I can carry on my horse, and I’d only bring you heartache and misery,” he went on in a firm, low voice. “Now I’m going to get up, and you’re going back to your car, and that’s to be the end of it. After Gideon pays me tomorrow night I’ll be gone, and you’d best put me out of your mind. All right?”

  “All right.”

  He should’ve known she was being too compliant. In the split second it took to give her a resigned smile, Amber wove her slender arms around his neck and kissed him so gently, so perfectly, that he could believe there was hope. For a brief, glowing moment the road had an end to it, and this woman waited for him there, in the doorway of their home.

  Jack’s breath fell softly upon her, and she let herself enjoy this one kiss that would have to last forever. He was right: she could claim no place in his life or in his heart. For these few blissful moments she savored the richness of his lips, the light tickle of his mustache, as she ran her fingers through hair that was a silky contrast to the man who was hard in every other way.

  Rafferty ended the kiss and eased himself off her. “You’re not going to follow me tomorrow night?”

  “No,” she promised.

  “Good girl. Someday when a better man comes along, you’ll be glad we called it to a halt.” He helped her to her feet, brushing loose grass from her backside with fingers that restrained themselves. “Good night, Amber.”

  “Good night, Jack. Sweet dreams.”

  You can’t dream if you can’t sleep, he thought as he watched her sway slowly back to Gideon’s show train. He hated sending her away so cruelly—hated himself, when she turned and he saw the sheen of tears on her moonlit face—but it had to be this way, for both of them.

  It was near the end of Maude’s balancing act that Rafferty sensed something was about to go drastically wrong. The grandstand was filled to capacity and people were sitting in the aisles, taking in the last evening of glitter and magic Gideon Midnight was going to give them. Humidity from an afternoon shower thickened the air, intensifying the women’s perfumes and the tang of manure, making people mop their brows with handkerchiefs. Maude was panting as she slowly paced along the raised platform, but the stick on her nose remained perfectly balanced as she watched him for her cue to toss it up and catch it.

  What the hell was eating at him? At his command, the collie caught the stick and dashed around the ring to the thunderous applause she’d received all week. He saw Amber watching him from the gate, her soulful gaze and quivering lip sure signs that she intended to stay behind—and Midnight stood a short distance from her, wearing a cocksure grin and a shimmering blue outfit that seemed to celebrate his victory and Jack’s departure. Everything was going according to
plan, yet Rafferty felt his insides tensing. The urge to bolt from the ring nearly overpowered him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, a warm show of appreciation for Mr. Rafe Jackson and Maude the Wonder Dog!” the announcer sang out, and Jack forced himself to take his bows alongside his pet, who walked upright in a tight circle with her paws bent daintily at her chest.

  Rafferty raised his arms in a final farewell, and his heart stopped. Across from him, three rows from ringside, sat a burly, broad-shouldered man with a mustache so thick he could paint with it. Even from this distance his blue eyes held a calculating coolness that made Jack freeze for a moment. Then he whistled for Maude and bounded out of the ring so Gideon could claim the spotlight—except he didn’t stop to say goodbye to Amber, and he knew better than to stick around for tonight’s pay.

  “Son of a bitch!” he muttered as he ran down the midway toward the corrals. “We’ve got to get our tails on a train, Maudie. I don’t know who that fellow was, but he sure knows me!”

  Moments later Rafferty mounted his horse, leaned down to heft his dog onto his lap, and galloped away from the fairgrounds without a backward glance. If he was lucky there’d be a train—to anywhere—pulling out when he got to the station, and he intended to be on it.

  Chapter 5

  “You’re sure that’s him? He doesn’t look much like these pictures.” Booth Watson glanced at the slender woman seated beside him and then studied the two sheets he’d taken from his pocket. One was a Wanted poster, and its sketched likeness of a short-haired, clean-shaven murderer was so vague it resembled half the men seated around him.

  “It’s Jack,” his companion replied. She pointed to the photograph he held, her voice resolute. “Imagine this man with longer hair and that scandalous mustache, and you can’t miss the match. Don’t let the fact that he’s in somebody’s wedding picture fool you, Mr. Watson. Rafferty’s too sly for his own good. Even if he realizes we’re after him, he’ll never guess why!”

  Booth studied the photograph for the dozenth time, but it still didn’t figure. The wedding party smiling out at him included a few friends—most notably the groom, Barry Thompson, who was a top-notch marshal in Colorado. Thompson would’ve known Rafferty had a price on his head and would’ve had the murderer behind bars instead of in front of the camera on the biggest day of his life. But the client beside him didn’t see it that way.

  “We’d better be going,” he said in a low voice. “Rafferty saw me when he was taking his bows, and—”

  “Would you look at that!” she squealed, and then Felicity Nunn was grabbing his arm in that giddy, feminine way she had. “Why, I’ve never seen a sharpshooter like Gideon Midnight! Five balls he just shot, without missing a one. And my goodness, how that man can ride!”

  Watson glanced at the acrobatic marksman with an indulgent smile for his client. She was an excitable thing—and he supposed every woman in the crowd was admiring the agile blond in the shimmering blue clothes—but he had serious business to tend to. “Mrs. Nunn, if I don’t follow Rafferty—”

  “Just a minute! Just until Midnight finishes his ride,” she pleaded. “If you leave me here, I’ll never find you when this crowd lets out.”

  “We’ve come too far to lose him at this point,” Booth insisted, and despite the delicate hand wrapped around his arm he donned his charcoal Stetson. “I’ll meet you out front, by the sword swallower’s tent. Now don’t wander off! Once I grab Rafferty, we’ll take him into Omaha.”

  Felicity turned her cat-green eyes on him, widening them in a way he sensed was practiced . . . but effective nonetheless. “Get him, Watson. I’m depending on you, sir.”

  Once again he questioned the wisdom of taking this woman’s case—and he certainly hadn’t intended for her to come along on the manhunt—but he was too close to the capture to ponder these problems now. With a brisk nod he left his seat to stride out of the arena and along the midway lined with sideshow exhibits and refreshment stands. The evening air felt good, and the sweet scents of funnel cakes and lemonade were vague temptations as he eyed every booth and the spaces between them where a fugitive might hide.

  Some discreet questions before the show had led him to the corrals where a roustabout pointed out Rafferty’s gray gelding, and before that it was word of mouth about a man and his trained dog that made Booth follow a hunch and come here tonight. Things were playing right into his hand, if indeed the ebony-haired desperado called Rafe Jackson was the man accused of murdering Felicity’s sister, and his pulse pounded as he rounded the corner by the corrals.

  The gray was gone.

  “Damn!” he muttered, but he walked around the enclosure to be sure Rafferty’s mount wasn’t clustered with other similar-colored horses. Dusk was falling, and such a mistake was easy to make in the tricky light . . . but even Mrs. Nunn could’ve spotted the fresh set of tracks in the mud, leading away from the fairgrounds.

  Watson rammed his thumbs through his belt loops, disgusted with himself. He’d wanted to leave his seat during the historical pageant and catch Rafferty as he drove the stagecoach out of the arena, but Felicity pointed out that he was to appear a few acts later with the dog, when he’d be easier to identify. And now she’d held him up again, just long enough that he thought he saw a distant shadow on the horizon. He’d be on the outlaw’s trail already, but he couldn’t leave his client—

  “By God, we’re riding before it gets any darker!” he muttered. He spun on his bootheel and broke into a run, wondering if Felicity Nunn had detained him on purpose. She was a young widow with more money than she could count, and chasing Jack Rafferty was no doubt the most exciting mission she’d ever undertaken—and he was the one being kept from doing his job by her whims.

  Never, never listen to a woman! he chided himself, and when he heard the band burst into a jaunty march as a thick stream of people poured out of the arena, Booth Watson knew his plans were foiled. A mass of humanity, talking and laughing, clogged the midway as he hurried over to the sword swallower’s exhibit, craning his neck to spot a slender blonde in a sage green outfit. If they hurried, there was still time to catch Rafferty before the darkness covered his trail.

  But long after the sword swallower had stunned his audience with numerous feats of wonder, and then doused the torches that lit his small stage when the crowd started home, Felicity still hadn’t shown up.

  “Amber, my sweet,” Gideon said with a belch, “the moment’s finally arrived . .. the moment—hic—we’ve both been waiting for.”

  Amber drummed her fingertips on the table, wishing this farce were over. Ever since she discovered that Rafferty ran out without so much as a wave, she’d felt angry and disgusted and used. Now she was stuck here with this half-drunk trick-shot artist who’d lost every hand of their strip poker game on purpose, so he could impress upon her what a stud she’d won by staying here instead of following Jack.

  The first hand had cost Midnight his white hat, the next two his white boots, and the fourth one his blue spangled shirt. He’d stood and turned his back almost coyly to remove it ... and when she saw how the shoulders of the garment remained rigid while his own shoulders sloped pitifully away from his scrawny neck, Amber realized just how deep this showman’s fakery went. His blue leggings were the next thing to go, and now that his back was turned and the clingy fabric was slipping down over his skinny little butt, Amber peered closely to see if any other strategic padding fell away.

  She choked on a laugh when a rolled-up sock dropped out of his crotch.

  “Close your eyes,” Gideon rasped over his shoulder. “Gotta go—hic—relieve myself before I let you claim your prize.”

  Amber put her hand to her face and shook with silent laughter as the little blond padded out to her caboose’s platform. It was after midnight, and whoever passed by this end of the train tomorrow when the tents came down would wonder about the sizable puddle beside her private car. It was cruel to keep filling Midnight’s glass with beer each time he stepped outside,
but it was her best defense against his amorous advances.

  “Mercy, what a night!” Gideon said with a chuckle. He came inside with his hand cupped over his privates, grinning at her. “Decided to make more of a sport out of it. Decided it’ll—hic—be more fun to start winnin’ now, to watch you peel away some clothes. Your deal, darlin’.”

  It was always her deal, because Midnight loved to watch her shuffle, and she suspected he wasn’t terribly good at it himself. Since he didn’t realize her deck was marked, this gave her the perfect chance to cheat, but he was such a poor player she seldom felt tempted to take advantage of him.

  He took a deep gulp from his glass. “It’s shameless, the way—hic—you keep pourin’ this beer for me, Amber.”

  “Just being the gracious hostess,” she replied as the cards rippled between her hands.

  “That you are, and you’ll get your reward—hic—over and over again, my love.”

  He rested his chin between his fists, watching her hands with bleary blue eyes. Amber sensed that if she could stall him long enough, maybe remove just her skirt and one layer of underthings, the beer and the evening’s humidity would take its toll before Gideon could make good on his boastful promises. She deftly dealt him two kings and three tens, and then slapped the deck down to look at her own paltry cards. “What’s your bid, Gid?”

  He raised an eyebrow at the nickname he detested, but then studied his cards closely. “How’s a man s’posed to get ahead with a hand like this?” he asked morosely. “Sometimes I think you cheat, honey.”

  She couldn’t point out that he had a full house staring him in the face . . . but there was a way to wake him up. “You’ve got to play to win,” she stated, masking her impatience, “because if you lose this hand, you’ve got no choice but to put one of those big diamond rings down.”