Outlaw Moon

by Charlotte Hubbard

  But that was a childish thing to want, considering how she’d sworn off men and how Jack’s ardor had cooled, now that he realized what a failure she was away from civilization. He was probably every bit as sorry as she that they hadn’t stayed on the train, indulging their passions until parting at the Canadian border. At least he would’ve left with a more flattering memory of her that way.

  And when he emerged from the cave with a sheet of paper and a pen in his hands, his words stabbed at her. “Thought I’d write a letter to my sweetheart,” he said in his husky drawl. “There’s more paper, if you want to send anybody a note. One of these days we’ll pass through a town where we can post it.”

  His gentle tone only rubbed salt in her wounds ... an old, festering one, and the new one created by his talk of another woman. “No, thanks,” she mumbled. “Nobody to write to.”

  Rafferty sat cross-legged beside the fire, turning the clean skillet over one knee to use as a lap desk. “If you’d rather read, there’s a Bible and a worn-out copy of Fanny Hill in my saddlebags. Use to have a whole stack of dime novels, about Buffalo Bill and such, but I travel lighter these days.”

  When she shook her head, Jack saw misery shadowing her eyes, as though she’d smeared that lash-blacking stuff around them. She was still smarting from her fire building fiasco, he sensed, yet during dinner Amber had slipped into an almost funereal mood that was foreign to anything he’d seen previously.

  Women are like that—and you could spend all night never figuring out why her chin’s dragging the ground, he reminded himself. Then he wrote Dear Ma, on the sheet of paper in front of him.

  Now he was stumped. His letters home always required a creativity that stretched his talents, because his ma thought he was so busy practicing law that he had no time to come see her. And what could he possibly say about his new destination, and the sloe-eyed palm reader who now occupied his days and nights?

  Amber’s pained expression made him scowl. “You all right, honey? Or is that rabbit kicking you in the stomach?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” Never mind that he’d called her honey again—he had that sweetheart on his mind, after all—or that he was concerned about her well-being. The fire made golden light dance with the shadows on his handsome face, and the shine in his dark eyes taunted her. What remained of his interest in her would wane soon enough, when he found out the rest of her secrets.

  Rafferty shifted. It’s nothing, I’m fine was never the truth, yet taking her words at face value was all he could do. Hadn’t he curbed his temper and again explained how to prepare a campfire and coffee? Hadn’t he offered her the only diversions he carried with him? If she chose to stare listlessly into the fire, bored. . . .

  Or was it something else? He saw her gaze flit to the paper on his lap and then dart away, and he knew. “Amber, this is a note to my mother,” he said quietly. “Probably hard for you to believe, but this ole lady-killer sends his ma word once in a while—money, when I can—because she’s all alone now. And because she and my pa made a lot of sacrifices to send me to law school.”

  Her eyes widened with amazement and something else he couldn’t gauge. Jack chuckled, a little embarrassed. “Surprise you, did I? It’s not every day you meet a lawyer who’s running from the law, I bet. Wild-eyed maniac that I am, I still can’t bring myself to confess my crime to my mother. So I’ve told her I’m being sent to all these places where my letters are postmarked, to help out towns that need top-notch lawyers for their toughest criminal cases, you know. She’d keel right over if she knew the truth about her only child.”

  Amber’s thoughts became a whirlwind: this man with the wicked mustache, who stole pin-striped suits and roasted rabbits and had been in hiding for more than a year, was a professional ... a man with an education. His elaborate lies to his mother only made him more fascinating to her, yet now that she knew the whole truth about Jack Rafferty she was even sorrier she’d become fond of him. If he knew the truth about her ....

  When she looked away, Rafferty’s frown deepened. Miss LaBelle, with her sharp wit and sense of irony, would ordinarily be relishing such a story where he was the twist in the tale. Yet she seemed restless and detached . . . almost ashamed. But of what?

  Before he could think of a polite way to ask, he witnessed a startling change in her face. She was inhaling deeply, slowly, focusing her dark eyes on him with a sense of intense drama reminiscent of Madame LaBelle, yet the look was far more hardened than any the flirtatious fortuneteller had given him . . . hardened, and desperate. And damned if she wasn’t unbuttoning the outermost of the three blouses she wore.

  She was peeling off the second one, running her tongue along her lips with a calculating air, before he could speak. “What in the hell’re you—you’re liable to get frostbite, exposing yourself out here!”

  Amber ignored his teasing exaggeration and shrugged out of the remaining blouse without allowing her gaze to waver. There was a chill in the night air, which made her nipples point provocatively at him beneath the filmy fabric of her camisole. So much the better. She had his complete attention now, and she was determined to prove that she had some value as his traveling companion, before he grew tired of her tears and abandoned her for good.

  Mama’s lessons had suddenly taken on a startling relevance, out here where smiling at the right man could indeed mean the difference between starvation and being saved. “Jack, let me make love to you,” she murmured as her camisole straps slipped down over her shoulders. “You’ve had a hard day, and I’m mostly to blame. Let me make it up to you.”

  The sight of her lush, perfect breasts, with their dusky peaks standing pertly at attention, made him suck in his breath. Amber was a sweet, sweet dream, half-naked in the light of the flickering fire, with flames dancing in her ebony eyes. But it just didn’t set right.

  “Honey, you’ve got nothing to make up for.”

  “But I do! I’ve caused you nothing but trouble since—”

  When she stood to let a skirt slither to the ground, Rafferty jumped up to grab her hands. “What’s this all about, really?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “I never expected any payment for—knew damn well you’d have trouble with the fire and yet I—”

  “Here’s some fire for you, Mr. Rafferty,” she challenged, and then she pulled him close for a kiss that would surely convince him to take advantage of the one natural talent she could offer him now.

  Jack’s senses reeled. The woman in his arms was soft and warm and so damn willing—just as she’d been in the fantasies that plagued him as they rode close together on Smoke all day. Her tongue teased at his, yet somehow he tore himself away. “Stop it! Talk to me, dammit.”

  Amber cringed as though he’d slapped her. Rafferty’s chiseled features took on a stern hardness as he stared down at her, waiting for an answer. His fingers cut into her upper arms, and his breathing was as rapid as her own, but she sensed it wasn’t passion making him react this way. As suddenly as she’d taken inspiration from Mama for this little act, she lost it. He wasn’t going to let go of her until she admitted the awful truth.

  “I—I can’t seem to do anything right,” she whimpered, lowering her gaze to his powerful shoulders. “I can’t make coffee—can’t cook at all! Can’t set up the simplest of camps. Hell, I can’t even occupy myself so you can write to your mother, Jack, because I can’t read!”

  Rafferty stared at her for a moment. His first impulse was to say so what?, since book-learning was of little use out here in the woods. Yet he realized how deep Amber’s anguish must be running, for her to blurt out such an admission while trying to seduce him. “Do you think that matters to me?” he asked softly.

  “Of course it does! You’ve had years of schooling, and the only letters I know are written on a deck of cards, and all I can do to earn my keep is—”

  He shushed her outburst with a gentle finger, smiling sadly. “If I’m so smart, how come I’m hightailing it to Canada? If I’m such a talented,
upstanding attorney, why’d I kill a woman after proposing marriage to her?”

  Amber took her turn at staring, but she was too upset to answer. So there had been someone he cared for, and now that he knew how incompatible they were he’d leave her and find somebody else—a lady, who could at least write her name—

  “Honey, you’re a warm, beautiful, uniquely-talented woman,” Rafferty murmured as his gaze took in her flushed face and sleek, lovely shoulders. “You’re far too intelligent to be any man’s whore, and you’re certainly not going to become mine.”

  She let out an impatient sigh. “You’re just saying that. A man with your education can’t see anything in me, other than the attributes I can pleasure you with. And it seems I can’t even do that without falling short!”

  “Not true. Not true at all.”

  Jack paused to consider the rest of his response, because this conversation had suddenly become a matter of serious consequence to the young woman in his arms . . . perhaps the most important talk she’d ever had in her life. Amber LaBelle had bared herself to him, heart, soul, and deepest, darkest agonies, and it was up to him to convince her she was a worthwhile person. A monumental task, given her half-naked state and the abject terror that shone in her eyes, but he had to try.

  “You know what I admire most about you?” he began. He released his grip on her to place his arms loosely about her waist, hoping he looked more confident than he felt.

  Amber gazed up at him and slowly shook her head.

  “Well, from the first you’ve had such a perspective on things. You know not to take outward appearances too seriously, because you have a finely-honed ability to read people,” Rafferty replied in a thoughtful tone. “Gideon, for instance. You knew he was a first-class fraud and you didn’t let him take advantage of you.”

  When she chuckled softly he went on, encouraged. “And me, for example. You knew I was a murderer, yet you took it in stride—lied to Minnit and played along like we were bosom buddies, just to antagonize him. Few people can think on the fly that way, Amber. Few women could have their benefactor’s rug yanked out from under them and still land on their feet, by using the skills they picked up on the side.”

  His eyes burned into hers, and she longed to listen to his low, reassuring voice until he filled her with all the love and concern she’d been missing for so many years now. It only seemed right to give a little back to him. “Jack, I never believed for one minute that you murdered that woman. I—”

  “We’re talking about you, Amber,” he went on with a tender smile. “About how you please me ... about what a wonderful, giving, exciting woman you were in my arms, and about how your body and mine became one for some of the sweetest lovemaking I can ever recall. I’ll never forgive myself for making light of your innocence. You gave me the gift of yourself as no other man can ever receive it, and I was honored, even if I had one helluva poor way of showing it.”

  She felt her eyes filling with tears, yet she couldn’t look away from him. Jack’s face, framed by his raven hair and set off by that alluring mustache, was absolutely beautiful in a masculine way that sent desire surging through her—real desire this time. She stroked his hair, so soft and thick, and let her thumb trace his lightly-stubbled jawline to feel his pulse racing with hers.

  He lowered his lips to hers with a dreamlike slowness and then kissed her with a breathtaking, unhurried eloquence that seemed to lift her from the ground. His hand slipped behind her head as his other arm held her against him, and he drank deeply from her soul to slake his own thirst while filling her with a joy so intense she could scarcely comprehend it.

  But she did understand this: Jack Rafferty had not forsaken her. Only in her most frantic fantasies had he abandoned her, and as he deepened the kiss, giving her a wealth of compassion without asking anything in return, she suddenly realized she loved him. And as intuitively as she’d known Rafferty was running from the wrong ghosts, she knew he loved her, too, and that he would somehow find his salvation in her, improbable as that seemed.

  They pulled apart with a soft gasp. Rafferty didn’t know his heart could pound so hard, didn’t know how they’d reached such an unspoken understanding during the time it took for one kiss. But his life had changed irrevocably in the past few seconds.

  “Lord, but I want to make love to you,” he whispered against her hair, “but I want the time to be right. I want it to be a pleasure we share as equals, not a way for you to lift me up by lowering yourself. Do you understand?”

  Amber nodded, feeling relief and wonder where there had once been dejection.

  “And the very least this sex-crazed maniac can do for you, old friend—dear friend,” he added with a loving chuckle, “is to teach you to read and write. And if you don’t want to learn, honey, I promise you it makes absolutely no difference in the way I feel about you.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, too stunned to believe he’d say that. “You’re sure? I’ve felt so stupid all my life.”

  “If you’re sharp enough to fool me for this long, you’ll be able to master words on paper as perfectly as you’ve acquired your spoken vocabulary,” he insisted. He hadn’t the slightest idea where to begin—had never been anybody’s teacher—but now that it mattered so much to the beautiful, brown-eyed woman looking so trustingly up at him, Jack felt capable of miracles.

  “Your use of language is as sophisticated as mine,” he went on, “so we’ll just fill in a few blanks by—”

  “Comes from mimicking those fine-feathered blue-bloods Mama catered to.”

  Rafferty grinned. “And it worked, didn’t it? I have a pen, I have paper—just say you want it, Amber, and the written word’s going to be your baby to play with. Now, let’s cover you up before you make that nose any runnier.”

  She stood in awe as he pulled up her camisole straps and began to replace her blouses. The strain was apparent on his face: Jack wanted her as blatantly as she’d thrown herself at him, yet valor had won out for the sake of her virtue as a talented, teachable woman.

  And as Amber contemplated the opportunity he’d presented, her heart swelled within her. No more changing the subject when people discussed good books they were reading . . . no more pointing to what other people were eating because the cafe’s menu made no sense to her ... no more faking comprehension when someone gave directions, and then wandering lost because she couldn’t read the street signs. Her mother’s poverty had kept her from attending school or seeing a tutor; her father’s generosity hadn’t included the education he’d provided his legitimate daughters, because he assumed she wouldn’t need—or didn’t deserve—such skills.

  And with one sentence, Jack Rafferty was offering to fill that horrid, heart-rending void in her life. She looked at the rakish way his black hair fell over his forehead, at the faded flannel shirt and dusty jeans that seemed such a natural part of his rugged physique, and she doubted she’d ever met a more disreputable-looking character—a lawyer, no less! She wasn’t the only one who’d been fooling people for quite some time.

  Yet she loved and respected this man, yearned to hear more about him. And though he hadn’t said it in so many words, his feelings for her were as plain as the mustache on his face—a love so unconditional she couldn’t fully understand it. But she didn’t question it.

  “Rafferty?”

  He looked up from arranging more branches on the fire, into the most compelling smile he’d ever seen. “Yeah?”

  “When do we start?”

  Chapter 15

  Rafferty had resolutely bedded down beside the fire, allowing Amber the privacy and warmth of the cave, but it was hours before dawn when he was awakened by stealthy movements behind him. He lay there, feigning sleep, until he couldn’t ignore the slender figure curling herself against his backside as she slipped an arm around his waist.

  “Anything wrong?” he murmured.

  He heard a quiet giggle. “I’m too excited to sleep.”

  Jack chuckled. There’d be no more r
est until this little tease had her first taste of wordmaking, so he carefully turned over until he was facing her in the velvety darkness. “Come here, you,” he whispered, lifting his blanket. “It’s too dark to see yet. Better rest that little brain so it’ll be ready for all the wisdom and knowledge of the ages I’m about to pour into it.”

  “Along with some bull?”

  “Yeah, maybe a little of that, too.” Rafferty wrapped his arms around her, and when her head was nestled against his chest and her warmth began to seep into him, he let out a long sigh.

  Could this actually be happiness—contentment? he wondered. Lord, it’s been so long since I felt those things I barely recognize them.

  Amber breathed the heavy, warm scent of him and snuggled closer. He smelled like dusty flannel and musky, dried sweat . . . potently male, yet more comforting than arousing right now. His heart was thudding steadily beneath her ear; his body was molding itself to hers, and she found herself drifting . . . drifting . . . floating sweetly between sleep and dreams of the way things had changed between them, and the way she longed for their life to be from here on out.

  Rafferty felt her relax, and when her breathing deepened he smiled against her hair. Never in his life had he held a woman for the sole purpose of savoring her, and he sensed this day would hold many such moments. Eager as she was to start reading, he’d decided to remain camped here for a while—dangerous as that might be. She’d sat a horse until she was walking funny, and a rest would give them a chance to become acquainted without the distractions of finding their way through the woods.