Outlaw for Christmas (9781101573020)

by Austin, Lori

  “I have to change the bandage,” she blurted out.

  Noah glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. Her voice had come out low and hoarse, like those mornings when she hadn’t slept all night, when the sun was too early and the world spun with dizzying brightness.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He disappeared into his room. Ruth hurried after, arriving in the doorway just in time to see the sheet drop. Frozen, she stared at the long, naked expanse of his back, buttocks, and thighs. She’d already seen all of him, but he’d been unconscious. Somehow it wasn’t the same.

  Ruth’s face heated, and she turned around. “I’ll get the water and the bandages.”

  When she reentered the room several moments later, he sat up in bed, covers pooled in his lap, arms crossed over his chest.

  Ruth placed her nursing items on the chair, then sat on the bed, her hip riding close to his. Ignoring Noah’s deepening scowl, she reached for the bandages.

  He caught her hands. “I said no.”

  Raising her gaze from his stomach to his face, she stared deeply into his eyes. “And I said yes,” she whispered.

  He released her as if she were a rattlesnake; an expression akin to fear shadowed his eyes. Frowning, she brushed his hair from his cheek. He flinched.

  “I’ll try not to hurt you.”

  “Just get it done.” He looked away, staring at the plank wall and not at her.

  Ruth was confused. The promise of pain hadn’t bothered him before. He’d spoken easily of digging a bullet out of his flesh. Why did he flinch now? She’d best get this done quickly. She would spare him anything she could.

  Deftly, Ruth removed the old bandage, smoothed a warm cloth around the wound, and washed away any remnant of blood. From the pocket of her dress she pulled a salve Tim always used on the horses when they cut themselves on a fence or a post.

  He said he’d gotten it from an Osage chief, though Ruth had her doubts. Most of the Indians had been pushed out of the way long before Kelly Creek was settled. The ones who had not left were relocated to Indian Territory.

  The last full-scale uprising had been by the Sioux and Cheyenne near the end of 1868. Since Ruth had not even been in Kansas a year then, the incident had made a lasting impression on her. Especially since two young women were kidnapped from a town very much like Kelly Creek and not very far away from the same. New to the frontier, terrified of Indians, she’d found it difficult to sleep for weeks after that.

  Ruth dipped her fingertips into the jar, then spread the salve along the jagged line of stitches. Noah didn’t cry out, but his muscles fluttered and bunched beneath her touch. She couldn’t help it; she kept touching him. His side, his ribs, his belly, soft skin and crisp hair, hard muscles and bone, unyielding but mortal. She swirled her fingers over his wound, then traced her thumb around the flat, tight dip of his belly button.

  Noah grabbed her wrist and yanked it away none too gently. “What in hell is that stuff?”

  “I’m not sure. But it heals the horses quickly enough.”

  His eyes widened. “Horse liniment?”

  “It won’t kill you.”

  “No, but you might,” he muttered.

  She didn’t understand. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I only want to help you.”

  Ruth tugged on her wrist, but he tightened his hold to something near painful. “You have to stop touching me, Ruth. It’s wrong, and you know it.”

  “How can this be wrong? Don’t you feel it, too?”

  “Yes, damn it.” He released her with a shove and a growl. “If you don’t stop, I’ll show you exactly how wrong this is.”

  There were times when she caught a glimpse of the boy she’d loved lurking in his eyes. But more often than not she saw a man she did not recognize, one who frightened her a little with his hard hands, his mysterious scars, his rough words, and mercurial moods.

  Noah had been in her heart for years, in her dreams, too. But in them he’d only walked back into her life. There the dream had ended. In her girlish fantasies there had been none of the awareness that set her on edge whenever she was with him and made her half-crazy with longing whenever she wasn’t. Ruth had a feeling that any dreams of Noah from this point on would be quite different.

  “What is this?” She placed her palm against his chest, and Noah’s heart thudded in time with the pulse in her wrist.

  He caught his breath, closed his eyes, and his face tightened. She smoothed her hand over his heated skin, across to his breastbone, then down, and down some more, her fingers tangling in the softer hair that furred his belly.

  Before she could touch what she’d only gotten a hint of yesterday, he opened his eyes. “Stop it, Ruth.”

  The longing in his gaze warred with the weariness in his voice. His face pale and drawn, he looked older than she knew him to be.

  Ruth removed her fingers from the top of the sheet and softly touched his hair. “I’m sorry. You’re tired.”

  He pulled his head away. “You don’t understand what you’re playing with.”

  Her hand, hanging bereft in the air between them, clenched. “I’m not a child, Noah. I know what I feel.”

  “Lust. Plain and simple.”

  He sounded so certain, and Noah should know. He’d been out in the world. He’d been a man for a long time. Still …

  “What I feel when I touch you isn’t plain, and it certainly isn’t simple. I—”

  “You’re right.” He cut her off, a bit desperately, she thought. What did he think she’d meant to say? That she loved him?

  She had. She did. She always would.

  “Desire isn’t plain or simple,” he continued. “Especially the first time you feel it.”

  Ruth narrowed her eyes, unconscionably furious that he’d felt this before with someone else. What they shared was special—had been from the beginning and was only more so now.

  “I’m flattered you feel this way about me, Ruth.”

  “Flattered?”

  She was getting angrier by the minute. He acted as if she were an ignorant child, as if he found her amusing. He behaved as if he did not feel the same way, and she knew that he did.

  Oh, he might not love her, but he wanted her. She glanced down at the sheet draped over his hips. He couldn’t deny that.

  Noah put his hands in his lap. “We come from two different worlds—”

  “No. We come from the same world. That’s how we got to Kansas.”

  “Even then you and I were different. I was a thief. You were a child. I came to that train on a leash, Ruth. Maybe you’ve forgotten that, but I never will.”

  The bitterness in his voice made her pause. At the time, he hadn’t seemed to care about the rope. She’d thought him proud and brave. But maybe he’d learned to hide his humiliation at a very young age.

  “I haven’t forgotten.” She put her hand atop his, refusing to retreat when he started. “I’m the one who set you free.”

  His face, hard and angry, smoothed, then gentled. “You tried, at any rate. But there are some things a man can never be free of.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  He shook his head. “Even if we were the same back then, and we weren’t, you’re a respected lady now. Hell, the town’s named after you, Ruth!”

  “No, it’s named after the man who took me in and adopted me despite not wanting me.”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind.”

  He studied her, but she had learned long ago how to hide everything she did not want to discuss behind a façade of polite disinterest. He surrendered on a sigh. “Marry the sheriff. Have ten kids. Forget about me.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why you want to deny that what we have is special. But deny it all you want. What’s between us is too powerful to go away. Ever.”

  Before he could divine what she was about, Ruth kissed him, using what little she knew, combined with everything she’d learned, to pour
all that she felt into him.

  For a moment, he resisted, his body rigid, his mouth stiff and tight. But when she traced the seam of his lips with her tongue, teased the corners, too, then feathered her fingers into his hair and cradled his head between her hands, he relaxed, bit by bit, and soon he was kissing her back.

  She tried to be gentle, but what she felt was not, and the kiss deepened, becoming more than their first kiss had been. Because Noah knew he kissed her; this time he could not deny it.

  Ruth reveled in the proof that he desired her as much as she desired him. And maybe desire could turn to love.

  Maybe.

  So Ruth devoted her attention to their all-important embrace. At first, Noah did not touch her, squeezing his hands together in his lap as if to keep some part of himself under control, and that would not do.

  She moved closer, her breasts pressing against his bare skin until his warmth seemed to seep through the excessive layers of her clothes. He groaned, the sound a delicious vibration against her lips and her chest, then wrapped his big hands around her hips and held on.

  Ruth did nothing but kiss his mouth and touch his hair. To be truthful, she wasn’t exactly sure what else to do. One of her most vivid memories of Noah was waking up with her cheek against his chest, his arms holding her safe and tight. Although the peace she’d experienced then still existed, at the same time she felt anything but peaceful.

  Back then he’d smelled of winter wind and summer salt. He still did. If she put her cheek against his chest now, she would be unable to stop herself from tasting that scent, tracing her tongue over the glorious expanse of muscle, flesh, and bone. She wanted to open her mouth and take part of him within.

  Insane longings bubbled inside her, and if she acted on any one of them, he would push her away. She wasn’t so foolish as to believe he’d lost his head as much as she had. Though she wanted to kiss him until the night blew away, Ruth broke the embrace before Noah could.

  Eyes closed, lips wet, he was so beautiful that tears burned in her throat. Not wanting him to see how much he affected her, she inched away. His fingers clung to her hips, then slid free as she stood and turned.

  “Think about that while you sleep, Noah. I know I will.”

  She retreated before he could reply. As she put on her coat she heard a thud, as if a fist had slammed into the wall.

  “Damn it!”

  Ruth’s smile of triumph warmed her as she rode home beneath the waning Kansas night.

  ***

  Noah had to get out of here before he did the most foolish thing he’d ever done in a lifetime of foolishness.

  If he stayed, she’d seduce him. Noah scratched his head. Who’d ever believe that naive, virginal Ruth would have the power to seduce a man such as he?

  Noah had lost his virginity long before he’d met her. His innocence had died even before that. He’d had women so beautiful that a man dared not close his eyes lest he miss a moment. He’d slept with women so skilled, they were worth three times what he paid them. So why did Ruth tempt him as no other woman ever had?

  Because he was more depraved than even he would have believed. He never would have figured himself for a despoiler of innocence. But the way he felt now, so on edge he might explode, his skin humming wherever she’d touched, his belly aching with the need to bury himself inside her and never let her go—that’s just what he was.

  A slithering, sneaking serpent come into Ruth’s precious garden.

  She thought she loved him. He could see it in her eyes. Noah rubbed his head some more as the voice of a little girl came out of his past.

  I know I love you.

  She’d been the first person to say those words to him. Other women had said them since. But Noah never had; Noah never would.

  Those words were special. Magic. They bound folks together. For always.

  He could never bind anyone to him that way. Because if he truly loved them, they deserved better than him.

  Ruth certainly did.

  He’d kept her from saying the words tonight. He wouldn’t be able to keep her from saying them forever. Once said—between a man and a woman this time instead of a boy and girl—they would take on a life of their own and bind Ruth to him even more strongly than before.

  On the basis of a childish half-promise, she’d waited for him ten years. If he wasn’t careful, she’d keep waiting. And while the thought of any other man touching her made Noah see red waves of fury rolling before his eyes, the thought of her being alone forever made him angrier still. She needed someone, and that someone could not be him. Staying would not only be foolish but suicidal.

  Noah didn’t mind dying, but he didn’t want to die in front of Ruth. He especially didn’t want Ruth to know the truth.

  She might be his angel, but some things were too much for even an angel to forgive.

  Noah decided right then and there that no matter how much it hurt, no matter how weak he was, no matter if he died out there alone on the prairie, before another day was through, before another kiss, another touch, before too many words bound her closer to him, he would leave this place and hurt her a little bit now rather than destroy her completely later on.

  ***

  “Would you stop that infernal singing?”

  Ruth glanced up in surprise. She’d been peeling apples and thinking of Noah, counting the hours until she could slip back to him. “Was I singing? I hadn’t realized.”

  Tildy scowled as she stirred a pot of applesauce. The scent of apples, sugar, and spice hung heavy in the room. Christmas still lived in the air.

  “I dare say, if you aren’t singing, you’re humming today. It’s unlike you.”

  Tildy was right. Ruth couldn’t recall ever being lighthearted enough to sing or hum as she went through her day. For the past ten years she’d been waiting for something. Now that something was here.

  Tildy still waited for an explanation. Ruth smiled, then shrugged. “I’m happy.”

  The old woman grunted. Though she had a heart as big as her hips, her usual demeanor was one small step above cranky. Ruth liked her, anyway.

  Tildy had been the one to hold her when her mother died. Father had been indisposed—for several weeks. The few times Ruth had been ill, Tildy had put a cold cloth on her brow and fed her broth and bread. The woman was the closest thing to a mother that Ruth had ever known. But she wasn’t exactly warm or tender.

  “Does your happiness have anything to do with a man?”

  Ruth dropped her paring knife into the bowl of apple peels. “Man?” she asked as she picked peels off the hilt. How much did Tildy know? And how?

  “You know. Fellas. Boys, but bigger.”

  “I know what a man is, Tildy.”

  “You could have fooled me.” Tildy slammed the wooden spoon against the corner of the pot, making Ruth start. “You gonna marry that sheriff without even meeting any other men?”

  Leon. Once again, she’d forgotten all about him. How was he faring on his quest to capture Billy Jo Kansas? Was he safe? Warm? Near or far? She hadn’t thought about Leon since …

  Since Noah had kissed her.

  She’d told Leon she’d consider his offer. She’d told her father the same. But the fact that she hadn’t considered Leon much at all as soon as Noah fell back into her life made Ruth reconsider a whole lot more than Leon’s proposal.

  “Meeting other men isn’t easy in Kelly Creek,” she answered. “Father scares most of them away before they even say hello.”

  “He wants you to marry the best man for his job.” Tildy put her hands on her hips and narrowed her sharp gray eyes on Ruth’s face. “But marriage is serious business, missy. You’d best remember that you’ll be the one in the man’s bed, bearing his children, washing his socks, cleaning his house.”

  “What have you got against Leon?”

  Tildy shrugged. “Nothing in particular. Just seems your father thinks he’s the best choice out of nothing much. That’s not a good recommendation for a li
fetime with a man. I should know.”

  Ruth studied her a minute. Was that why Tildy and Tim had the marriage that they had? Each was the best out of nothing much? From what Ruth had seen of their marriage, she’d rather live alone.

  “Take my word on this,” Tildy admonished. “The sheriff is a good man. But he’s far too concerned with Kelly Creek, just like your father. You deserve a man who’s far too concerned with you.”

  Ruth had thought the same thing herself. “A man like that would be almost like a miracle.”

  “Miracles happen.” Tildy’s face went dreamy.

  “And when they do, you grab them and hold on to them tight and never, ever let them go.”

  Ruth was suddenly certain Tildy had loved once and been loved in return. She was equally certain that Tildy’s one true love had not been Tim. Or at least she hoped not, for that would not bode well for love.

  The housekeeper blinked, and the faraway gaze disappeared. “What did you say when the sheriff asked you to be his wife?”

  “That I’d think on it.”

  The housekeeper tsked and shook her head. “If you have to think on it, then you shouldn’t bother. The only man you should marry is one you can’t bear to live without. Wait for that man, Ruth. He’ll be worth it. I swear.”

  Ruth stood, wiped her hands on a towel, and handed the bowl of apples to Tildy.

  “Where are you going?”

  “For a ride.”

  Tildy nodded. “Need to think a bit?”

  “I guess not.”

  As it wasn’t a holiday or the Lord’s day, her father would be at work until long after supper was done. Tildy had her applesauce; Tim had departed for town. There was nothing to stop Ruth from going to Noah right now. Why had she waited?

  Shortly thereafter, Ruth let herself into the farmhouse. As she ran through the kitchen, her heart already in the room with him, her mind, just a step behind, registered the stove cold and the lamps dark. It was almost as if—

  Ruth’s gaze went to the bed.

  “Oh, no.” Her voice, filled with tears, bereft of hope, whispered about the bedroom.