by Austin, Lori
With a curse, he kissed her as he used to, before he’d pretended to be a gentleman. Back when he’d been an outlaw, as he was again now.
He took possession of her mouth, of her. He was so much bigger than she, so much stronger. She should be frightened, but she felt nothing but need once his lips met hers.
His fingers flitted over her hair, a tentative caress. His hands cupped the sides of her neck, an encompassing embrace, then skimmed across her shoulders, down to clasp with hers, palm to palm, a connection she clung to in order to keep from doing more than she ought. She’d thought he’d taught her more than enough, but she’d been wrong.
He’d neglected to teach her how lips could caress and excite, how a tongue could tease and torment, how teeth could scrape and tickle. How a kiss could be everything while promising nothing at all.
He kissed her as she liked it, as if he meant it, and she knew this kiss was goodbye.
She also knew, with more certainty than she’d ever known anything before, that be it love or hate, she could not let him die.
Chapter Fifteen
Ruth broke the kiss, which was all to the good. Noah wasn’t certain he could have. Though he had been selfish to kiss her, he couldn’t apologize for it. They might ride together for the next day or so until they reached Kelly Creek, he might even have a moment with her before he died, but in truth, this was goodbye, and he needed a memory that would last into eternity.
“We’d better go outside before they come in after us.”
His voice was hoarse with emotions he dared not name, his mouth filled with words he dared not utter. He’d been selfish enough, and the kiss was all he could allow.
Noah expected Ruth to argue or at least try to kiss him again. He was shocked when she shrugged and opened the outer door. So much for goodbye and eternity.
Before he could even follow her outside, Leon held Ruth in his embrace. “You’re all right.”
The emotion in the sheriff’s voice annoyed Noah. Why? He couldn’t say. He’d already decided that Leon would be the best man for her. That didn’t mean Noah had to like it.
“I’m fine.” Ruth patted Leon on the back before pulling away.
For some reason, that awkward embrace made Noah feel better, and it shouldn’t. He wanted Ruth to be happy, and she wouldn’t be happy with him. That much he knew.
“Where’s my damned money?”
Noah glanced at the Danville sheriff. “I thought it was the bank’s money.”
The man pulled his pistol and pointed the weapon at Noah. “I’ve had about all I’m gonna take from you and Harker both.”
Noah raised his hands, glanced toward Ruth, found her behind Leon, and relaxed. No need to force a fight as long as she was safe. He returned his attention to the man with the gun.
“Dooley has the money. I’m sure he’ll be coming out directly. Nowhere to spend it down there.”
“Why can’t we just go in and get him?”
Noah considered letting him do just that. Then Leon cleared his throat. “Walker …”
“All right,” Noah mumbled. “He’ll shoot you, one by one, as you come on down. You can say the password, get inside, but he’ll still shoot you when he doesn’t recognize you. You’re better off to wait for him here.”
“So you’ve got a man and your money,” Leon said. “I’ll be taking this man and the girl with me.”
“Fine.” The sheriff waved them off with his gun.
Leon helped Ruth onto his horse. Noah mounted his. Then Leon handed Ruth the reins. “Just a minute; I almost forgot.” He withdrew the handcuffs from his coat and started toward Noah. With a sigh, Noah put his wrists together and held them out for the sheriff.
A shot split the silence. One of the posse fell. Pandemonium ensued.
The lawmen started shooting at the cabin. Ruth shrieked as her horse tore off into the night. Leon dove behind a rock. A bullet whistled past Noah’s cheek. That was all the encouragement he needed. Bent low over his horse’s neck, Noah followed Ruth into the brush.
Her animal was spooked and tore through the foliage at a dangerous pace. Noah, who knew the area, was able to guide his horse and gain on them.
Ruth was a good rider, and that saved her from death or serious injury. A person on a hell-bent horse who did not know how to ride could be knocked to the ground by a low-hanging branch or tumbled from their mount by a near collision with a tree. They would land in front of Noah’s horse and be trampled. Just the thought of what could happen spurred Noah onward at full chisel.
The brush thinned. Ruth’s horse tired and slowed. He caught up to them as they approached the open area where Missouri brush gave way to Kansas plain.
Noah stopped his mount, jumped off, and caught the reins of hers. Expecting Ruth to be terrified, he was dumbfounded to discover that her eyes snapped with excitement and her mouth tilted upward with laughter.
“Where should we go?”
“Wh-what?”
“You know the area. Where can we go?”
“Go?” He sounded like a moron. Maybe he was. She didn’t seem frightened by her horse’s rampage, the gunfire, or her proximity to a notorious outlaw. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you did?”
“I saw an opportunity, and I took it.”
“Your horse didn’t spook and take off with you?”
“Of course not.” She wrinkled her nose. “This is the sheriff’s horse. It’s used to gunfire. I took off with it.”
“What for?”
“To get you out of there. While they’re playing lawmen and robbers, we can get away.”
“There is no we, and there is no away. I’m taking you back.” The staccato rap of gunfire in the distance made him hesitate. “Or maybe we’ll just wait over here for Leon.”
He led their horses out of the overgrown foliage and onto the night-black prairie. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds, along with the stars. Blue velvet darkness spread over the land. The scene might have been peaceful if it weren’t for the gunfire behind them.
Ruth slid from her horse. “I’m not going back,” she said quietly. “And neither are you. Why are we wasting time?”
For a moment, Noah let himself imagine what might happen if he did what she asked. They’d jump on their horses and ride west—together. For a single night it might be fun.
But he had no money and very few food supplies. He couldn’t go to Jonah now that Leon knew who he was. He couldn’t stop somewhere and try to get a job. There’d be Wanted posters out within the week.
Ruth, with her flame-red hair and ladylike manner, would stand out like a buffalo in the center of New York City. After promising Leon he would see Ruth safely back to him, then breaking that promise, Noah could depend on the sheriff’s hounding them to the ends of the earth. To survive, he’d need to steal again. To stay ahead of the law, they’d always be on the run.
The images weren’t a dream; they were Noah’s eternal nightmare.
“You deserve a home, a family, safety, peace—all the things I can’t ever give you.”
“I deserve love.” She tilted her head and studied his face. “Can you give me that?”
Her question shocked him enough to ask. “You still love me after all that you’ve heard?”
Ruth glanced away, across the prairie. “I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know what to believe.” She took a deep breath and met his eyes again. “I only know that I don’t want you to ride away, because if I never see you again, I’ll never know.”
“I’m not the man you thought I was, Ruth.”
“You can be Noah with me. Let Billy Jo die.”
“That’s the trouble. Billy Jo will never die. I thought he had, but he’s in here.” Noah thumped his chest with a fist. “Love doesn’t change what I am.
“Love can change everything.”
“I wish you were right, but you’re not.”
/> Her lip trembled, and Noah wanted to take her in his arms and give her everything she desired. But he couldn’t do that any more than he could go back to Kelly Creek. Not that life would be worth living without her, but he wouldn’t return and make Ruth watch him die.
So he’d run now while he had the chance, and he’d never come back. If he couldn’t give her love, he could at least give her that.
Noah sighed and got on his horse. “Thank you for this chance. I’ll take it and make a run. But you have to go back, Ruth.”
She lifted her chin. “Who says?”
“You don’t belong with me. You belong in Kelly Creek with Leon and your father, your home and your friends.”
“I wish everyone would quit telling me what to do, where to go, what to feel!” She turned her back, folded her arms over her chest, and hunched her shoulders. “Even you.”
The whisper of her voice brushed his heart. He wanted to touch her again, but they’d already said goodbye. If he kissed her now, he might not leave. Or worse, he might take her with him.
Without another word, another touch, Noah urged his horse away from the only warmth and love he’d ever known in his life.
***
Noah was leaving her! Just like that. Not a kiss, not a word of goodbye. Why was Ruth surprised?
He wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. He wasn’t any kind of hero. Other women got chocolates, perfume, engagement rings. She got an outlaw for Christmas.
She’d saved his life, then offered to go off with him like any two-dollar whore. He didn’t even want her that way any longer. He didn’t want her at all.
He said he hadn’t taken her innocence because he cared about her. But if he’d felt the same way she had, he’d have been unable to stop himself from touching her, as she had been unable to stop herself from touching him.
She should hate him. She did. How could she love someone who had lied, stolen, and killed? Because even though he’d said Billy Jo was in his heart, Noah was in there, too. There was good inside of him if he’d only give that good a chance.
She could still remember as if it were yesterday the way Noah had made the horrid boy on the train leave her be. Just the sound of Noah’s voice, the force of his presence, had protected her. While they’d been on the train, she had felt safe. Stepping off in Kansas, watching Noah walk away, had been the worst moment of her life. Until now.
Ruth recalled every kiss, every touch, every whisper, each time Noah had said her name. He’d planned to stay in Kelly Creek and become a boring banker for her. Because of her he’d let down his guard, stayed in one place too long, and could yet pay for it with his life. She would do whatever she had to do to stay with him—at least until she figured out the truth.
She peered into the night. Already Noah and his horse were just a speck on the prairie. Ruth mounted up.
If she followed, what would he do? Shoot her? Leave her? Drag her back to Kelly Creek?
“I don’t think so.” Ruth urged her horse in Noah’s wake.
It should have been simple to follow a man and a horse over flat land, but it wasn’t. Ruth quickly discovered she had to stay close enough not to lose sight of him, which was easy to do in the midnight black of a wintry Kansas night.
But she didn’t want to get too close in case he heard her. If he discovered her plot when they were still too near Leon, he would leave her flat, then everything would be for naught.
As if in answer to her unspoken prayer, a brisk, icy wind shrieked in from the west, whistling so loudly, Ruth no longer heard the continuing pop of gunfire from the east. If Noah could hear anything but that wind, she would be surprised.
Her horse snorted and shook his head. He shied as if he didn’t want to go on. Ruth insisted. What she wouldn’t give for Annabelle right now. Annabelle liked a good, fast ride in the dark.
Her mount continued to act up, at times shooting forward as if it sensed something on its tail, the next moment balking as if it smelled something foul directly in front of them.
The horse behaved so oddly, Ruth started to get nervous herself. Animals could sense things that people could not. Was there a coyote, a wolf, maybe even an Indian, out there?
Leon’s rifle still rested in the scabbard on his saddle. Its presence soothed her a bit. She couldn’t shoot very well, but at least she’d have something to shoot with if she needed to.
The whistling wind shot down her coat, turning the nervous sweat that laced her backbone to ice. Perhaps the skittish horse got a whiff of that sweat, for it bucked and shot forward as if chased by demons.
Ruth held on. Right now she didn’t care if Noah knew she’d followed him. She just wanted to be with him when she discovered what had spooked her horse.
For a moment, the darkness seemed complete. Her straining eyes searched and searched, but she couldn’t see Noah at all. Then a silhouette appeared, still too far away for her comfort but definitely a man and a horse.
Something pressed at her back, like chill fingers against her spine. Ruth shot a glance over her shoulder. Her stomach lurched into her throat.
A gun would not save her from this.
***
Noah!
He thought he heard Ruth’s voice, but it was only the wind. Blasted gale sounded like a woman crying. Would he be hearing Ruth’s voice in the night forevermore?
Noah!
“Looks like it,” he mumbled.
The horse didn’t even flick his ears back to indicate he heard Noah’s ramblings. Damn, he missed Dog. Who was he going to talk to for the rest of his miserable life?
A shadow to his left made Noah jerk his head in that direction. But the shadow was only a cabin perched at the edge of the brush he skirted. No lights in the window, but that didn’t mean the place was empty. As far as Noah could tell, without a moon to guide him, right now it was the middle of the night.
The best way to head south—and he might as well head south; it was as good a direction as any other—was to edge on down the border. He’d run to Indian Territory in the past, and it was mighty hard to catch a man there. Then he’d slide into Texas and scoot on through to Old Mexico—the farther away from Ruth the better for them both.
As if in protest, his horse skittered and balked. “What is the matter with you?”
The animal whipped around, then proceeded to prance while Noah stared. Ruth was there—for a moment.
Until she was swallowed by the huge white cloud of snow.
Noah urged his horse in her direction. The animal didn’t want to comply, but after a short discussion, he went. Noah had to get to Ruth before the blizzard obscured everything in its path, and he wasn’t going to let a balky horse stop him.
“Ruth!” he shouted to no avail. He was still too far away for her to hear him.
He cursed himself for not even considering that a storm could be near. He’d smelled snow but put it off as … snow. The stuff blanketed the ground for miles. His horse had been skittish, but it wasn’t his horse. The night was cloudy, but the day had been clear. Still, he’d lived in Kansas long enough to know that a man had to be prepared for a blizzard to drop out of the sky anytime between October and May.
His only excuse: He’d been a little busy with two sheriffs, a posse, and a partridge in a pear tree. But excuses wouldn’t matter if he lost Ruth to the snow.
Noah and the horse ran into the wall of white. The snow hit them like shards of shattering ice. The animal fought him, something Dog would never do. If Noah got out of this, he was going to Kelly Creek and taking back his pet horse.
In seconds he was covered in snow. When he breathed in, the moisture in his nose crackled and froze; his lungs burned. Even if he could have seen past the swirling white, he wouldn’t have been able to, for his eyelashes had frozen together, along with his lips.
He broke the seal on his mouth to shout, “Ruth!” This time, a faint cry to his right was the answer.
Praying that if he got close enough, one horse would sense the othe
r, Noah nudged his to the right.
Plodding, stumbling, they inched against the wind. After what seemed like hours but was probably more like five minutes, Noah sensed movement in front of them. He scrubbed the snow off his face and the ice from his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything, not even the head of his horse.
“Ruth?”
No answer. Noah hesitated, uncertain if he should continue forward for no other reason than a hunch. Everything was moving out here. Perhaps he’d merely sensed the wind. If he went in the wrong direction now, he might lose her. But he couldn’t just stand here and wait.
Then his mount snorted, and its powerful shoulders bunched as the animal plowed forward. The horse sensed something, too.
Was that a dark shape? Snow swirled, heavy and thick, obscuring whatever Noah had seen. His mount kept going. At least someone could make a decision.
Out of the storm appeared a large, hulking figure. Ruth’s horse, head bowed against the wind, and on his back—no Ruth.
Noah’s horse bumped into the other one, and they rubbed noses like old friends. Noah jumped down and struggled through the waist-deep drifts. Panic lit his heart; terror fueled his legs.
Where is she?
Noah chose the nearest pile and began to dig. She wasn’t buried very deep. Her skin was as white as the snow. Her lips as blue as his eyes. She was still breathing, but she wouldn’t be for long if he didn’t do something.
He dragged Ruth into his arms and somehow got her on a horse. Then he led them all in what he prayed was the direction of the cabin at the edge of the border.
***
Ruth was cold, deep down where it hurt. Blood frozen, skin tender, bones aching; wish-you-could-die-rather-than-feel-this-way cold. The pounding in her head and the thump a bump against her belly didn’t help, either. Ruth moaned.
“Hush, Princess.”
Was that Noah’s voice? She wasn’t sure, and she was so tired. Ruth slipped toward the darkness that promised warmth. The only thing that held her back was that voice again.
“We’re almost there.”
She heard panic beneath the words, as if he didn’t really believe them himself. That panic made her wade away from the edge of darkness and back into the painful, cold white light. She didn’t want to leave him alone when he was afraid.