by Austin, Lori
“Looks like.”
“So not only do we have to worry about the law; we have to worry about any man who stumbles across us?”
“And the bounty hunters. Don’t forget those.”
Noah had forgotten them, but the arrival of the three men had reminded him. They hadn’t been bounty hunters, but the next batch might be. Up until now he hadn’t had to worry about men paid to find him because no one knew what he looked like. Those days were done.
“Bounty hunters?” Ruth tugged the bedroll up to her chin and glanced toward the shadows that danced at the edge of the firelight. “Why would there be bounty hunters?”
“You think that your father, once he finds out what happened, will just let me take you away?”
She shook her head, and her fire-red hair tumbled across her snow-white cheek. “He won’t care. It’s not like he loves me.”
“But he loves his legacy, and you’re a part of that. Besides, how embarrassing would it be to let an uneducated bad man get the better of Robert Kelly? You know how important his image as the town father is to him.”
From the glance she turned his way, Noah could see she got his point. “Maybe we should get out of here while we still can.”
Noah was cold and bone-deep tired. Just like old times. Despite everything that had happened in the past few weeks, nothing had really changed at all.
He sighed. “Maybe we should.”
While Ruth folded the bedrolls, Noah rubbed snow between his hands over and over again.
But no matter what he did, the stain of blood would not wash away. He knew now that it never would.
They continued to travel south. Their easy camaraderie gone, Ruth barely spoke at all. She was twitchy and scared, jumping at every stray movement on the prairie by day, gasping whenever a shadow shivered by night.
Noah hated to see her like this. But he’d best get used to it. This was what their life would be like. There would always be someone searching for them—or at least that possibility.
Ruth no longer looked at him as if he were some kind of hero. Instead, when she looked at him at all, it was as if she were surprised to discover that a different man had taken the place of the one whom she loved.
That man had been within him all along. He’d only been pretending that he’d changed. Or maybe hoping was a better word.
Each night, they’d shared a bedroll but not each other. Noah was afraid if he touched her she would turn away in disgust. So after dinner he would sit by the fire, sipping cold coffee until the steadiness of her breathing revealed her asleep. Then he would creep in next to her like the coward he was and gather her close so that he could sleep.
One part of him said how foolish he was being. If she was disgusted, she would not continue to ride with him. She would not lie down and sleep in his arms.
But another part whispered, insidiously, purposefully, with a voice that tempted him to believe, that she had loved him so long, she did not know how to stop. Right now she might want to forget the three men, but sooner or later it would be Noah she wished to forget. As the days passed into weeks and weeks into months, and so on, each thing that he did to keep them alive, whether violence or a teeny, tiny lie, would chip away at her love until she hated him.
He wouldn’t blame her. Hell, he hated him. But he wouldn’t be able to bear it, either. Best that he faced the truth now. The dream was dead. In truth, it had never had the chance to be properly born.
Day by day they rode south at a slower and slower pace. Ruth didn’t notice, and for that Noah was glad.
Because he knew what he had to do.
Noah only hoped Leon Harker was the man, and the sheriff, Noah believed him to be.
As the sun slid toward western oblivion, the broken skeleton of a building rose on the horizon. Cautiously, Noah and Ruth approached. They could have spared their caution. All that remained of the farm were three sides and half the ceiling of a barn.
Ruth pulled up next to Noah. “What happened?”
The wind whistled through the holes in the roof, a lonely, sad sound that reflected Noah’s mood perfectly. “Twister.”
“Wouldn’t everything be gone?”
Noah glanced at her. “You’ve never seen one, have you?”
“I live in Kansas.” She sniffed. “Of course I’ve seen a twister.”
“From a distance.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because if you’d been as close to one as I have, you’d know that they can hit here.” He pointed to where the house might have once been. “Then there.” He pointed in the other direction. “And be gone the next instant.” He tossed his hands up to the sky. “Taking a house and a chicken coop but leaving the barn just like that, or perhaps not even touched at all.”
She considered his words for a moment, then whispered, “What do you think happened to the people?”
Noah shrugged. “They might have gone the way of the house.” At Ruth’s wince, he backtracked. “Or they might have taken what was left and gone on to better lives.”
Ruth raised her eyebrow. She didn’t believe that fairy tale any more than he did. A few more weeks with him and every last fairy tale would be dead even if they weren’t.
“Let’s stay here tonight,” Noah blurted.
“Here?”
He urged his horse forward and peered into the barn. “There’s still a floor, so it’ll be drier than the ground. We can make a fire. The missing wall will take care of the smoke.”
Ruth’s first smile in days appeared. “We’ll be warm and dry,” she breathed in the same voice she might have said, We’ll be in heaven forever.
Or at least for one last night, Noah thought.
He dismounted and made camp.
They shared a silent meal—another rabbit he’d managed to bag earlier that day. Despite a lifetime in one city or another and very little experience in the kitchen, if what he’d observed of Tildy’s possessiveness was true, Ruth had taken to cooking in the open and eating game of any kind as if she’d been doing it all her life. Not a word of complaint had she uttered. But then she’d scarcely uttered any words at all in the past few days.
So Noah was surprised when she spoke from the darkness beyond the reach of the firelight. “Come to bed, Noah.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Neither am I.”
The swish of fabric announced Ruth’s approach even before the flickering flames illuminated her body, clothed only in a chemise the shade of the moon.
Noah’s mouth went dry. He gulped lukewarm coffee and found he could not swallow. So he spat the foul brew into the fire, where the moisture hissed and smoked.
He watched the steam rise with the desperation of a dying man watching his last chance at salvation burn away. He continued to stare at the fire even when her skirt brushed his boots.
Ruth put her palm beneath his chin and lifted. She frowned at the expression on his face. “What’s the matter?” she murmured, tracing his brow with gentle, cool fingers. “You look like you’ve just lost your best friend.”
She didn’t know how close she’d come to the truth. This could well be their last night together. Did he want to spend it by the fire, alone, with a nasty cup of coffee? Or in her welcoming arms, within the safe haven of her exquisite body?
It wasn’t as if she were untouched. He’d already taken care of that. So why did he hesitate?
A gentleman, a true hero, would refill his cup and stoke up the fire. Send her away to sleep alone in that sinful chemise that shouted sex despite its pristine appearance.
But he’d never been a gentleman or a hero, and it was time Ruth realized that once and forever.
Noah stood. He lifted her into his arms, carried her from the firelight and into the shadows of the night.
She buried her face against his neck. Her lips moved along his skin. “Oh, Noah, Noah, it’s been too long.”
“Don’t talk.” He placed her on the bedroll and straightened.
There was just enough light to see all of her spread out, wanton and welcoming upon the ground. He yanked off his boots, then brought his hand to his belt, loosening first that, then his pants.
He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to think. He only wanted to feel. Perhaps for the last time in his life.
“Not a word,” he growled.
“Not a sound?”
Ruth shoved her hair from her face. The movement made her chemise stretch low across the slope of her breasts, exposing half-circles the shade of roses. The neckline caught along her nipples, and she arched, the material pulling lower and lower until the tight buds popped free.
Noah groaned and shucked his pants in a hurry. His shirt followed. He joined her on the bedroll, lowering his mouth to the rosy tips that begged to be tasted. She made a choked sound of pleasure deep in her throat.
“I suspect sounds can’t be helped,” he murmured, then closed his lips over another taut nipple and suckled.
Then there were no more words. In truth, no need for them. All that had to be said could be expressed by their bodies alone.
Her chemise joined his shirt. The milky-white hue of her skin turned a hundred shades of flame in the firelight. The peaks and valleys, mysterious and at the same time familiar—he learned and relearned every one of them.
He worshiped her with his lips, his tongue, his hands—the taut skin of her belly, the fine bones of her hips, the long, strong muscles of her inner thighs.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him on, encouraging him to continue his exploration, his making of memories.
He needed to taste her where no one else ever had. His mouth touched her core and speared her heat. She gave a soft cry. Instead of fighting him, she opened, and an instant later, unused to the intimacy, unable to make the sensation last, she climaxed.
As she tried to squirm away from the riot of sensation, he stilled her instinctive retreat with his hands, held her hips still, and made her come again.
By the time he raised himself above her and joined himself to her, she was no longer capable of words. She could only make sounds—the same ones, new ones—again and again and again.
He’d never felt anything as profound as being clasped within her body, watching her face as he slid forward and back, over and over, knowing that he was the man who had made her a woman. No one could ever take that from him. The only way two people could be any closer than this was if they climaxed together—one body, one mind, one heart, for one moment.
He waited—it wasn’t easy—until the first spasms began deep within her. Then he rode hard for the place they must reach as one.
This time she grabbed his hips and urged him toward the rhythm that was theirs. She enfolded him, milked him of all that he had.
When she cried out, he answered. When she pulsed, so did he. When she said, “I love you,” he did, too.
But only after he was certain she was asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Leon had been riding hard for days. From the moment he’d understood that Walker and Ruth had disappeared, he’d been unable to sleep, so why bother?
Once Dooley was dead and the money recovered, they’d gone searching for Ruth and Noah and found nothing but snow. Leon had looked like a fool to the other lawmen. The other sheriff had merely smirked and taken his men and his money back to Danville.
Leon would have looked an even bigger fool if he’d gone back to Kelly Creek without Ruth or Walker, so he hadn’t gone back. He’d kept pushing forward.
First west. But that hadn’t felt right. Too many people knew about Billy Jo Kansas, or soon would, in the West.
So he’d turned east. They ought to be able to lose themselves amid all the people out there. But the East was expensive, and Leon had given the money back to the Danville sheriff.
North? Leon had shivered as the remnants of the snowstorm that had separated them in the first place swirled around his head. No man in his right mind would take a woman like Ruth north.
Which left … south. If Leon had been in Noah’s place, he’d have gone south, where the sun was warm and stayed warm all year-round and a man needed very little to get by if he had a woman like Ruth.
So Leon headed south as fast as he could. They were several days ahead of him, but he’d catch up. He’d catch up if he had to ride night and day for days and nights. He wasn’t going to give in. He was too damned mad for that.
Late one day he saw a horde of crows circling a gully. In the gully lay what remained of three men after winter-starved coyotes had found them and the remnants of a fire, a camp, and two horses. The trail out of that gully led south.
Though Leon’s eyes ached and his back screamed from the punishment, he kept riding.
He couldn’t believe he’d actually started to like Walker, to understand how the man had become what he was, to sympathize a bit with the life that had been forced on a lonely boy. He’d trusted Walker to do what was best for Ruth, and the second Leon’s back was turned, he’d nabbed her and dragged her off for a life she did not deserve.
Leon should have known better than to trust an outlaw. But for a little while Walker had seemed more than that. While they’d traveled and camped and bantered, then stood together against the Danville sheriff and his foolish posse, Walker had almost seemed like a friend.
Since he’d become sheriff, Leon had lived a lonely life. Once a man became a lawman, he learned all sorts of nasty little secrets about his town and the people in it that precluded friendship. So Leon was respected and honored, but he wasn’t anyone’s friend. Except for Ruth, and that wasn’t quite the same.
That he’d been duped by a man he shouldn’t have trusted in the first place—that he’d liked an outlaw—only made Leon angrier and fueled his determination to catch up to Noah and take Ruth back.
Up ahead he thought he saw a flicker of firelight, there and gone, so he wasn’t certain he’d seen anything at all.
Leon squinted against the night. Was that a building on the rise?
There! The flame fluttered again. Had the building caught on fire? But how?
Cautiously, he approached, dismounted far enough away so his horse would not be heard, and crept toward what appeared to be a three-sided barn.
There was a fire; someone had made camp inside.
He inched closer and peered inside. A safe but obviously disheveled and unclothed Ruth lay curled near the fire.
“About time you got here.”
Leon spun about, coming face-to-face with Noah Walker. Despite the rifle in the outlaw’s hands, Leon punched him square on the jaw.
Since Walker was a big man and had no doubt been punched by meaner fists than Leon’s, he shook his head and rubbed his chin, but he didn’t fall down or even take a step back.
“Guess I deserved that,” he muttered.
When Leon clenched his fists and came forward again, Noah swung the rifle up and placed it against Leon’s chest.
“No time now, Sheriff.”
“You bastard. I trusted you. She trusted you. And you’ve—you’ve …” He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. That would make his worst fears true.
“I am and I did.” A shadow of sadness flickered over Noah’s face and was gone in an instant, leaving the cocky, self-assured lawbreaker in its wake. “Don’t tell me you expected anything less.”
Leon narrowed his eyes. “What was all this about? Sex? You stole her for sex?”
“What else?” He stepped back, removing the barrel from direct contact with Leon’s chest, but his aim was still the same. “Now I’m done, and I’ve got a deal for you.”
“I don’t do deals with men like you.”
“You do if you want her back and you want me gone.”
“I want you dead.”
“Do you?” Noah smirked. “Do you really?”
“Hell yes!”
“Think about it. Do you want to be the man who killed me?”
“Right now, you bet.”
“In her eyes, Leon? Do you want to be the man who killed me in her eyes?”
That brought him up short. Walker took advantage of his hesitation to keep talking.
“If you truly wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have come alone.”
“I came alone because you’re my responsibility. And so is Ruth.”
“That’s what I’m counting on. Are you willing to listen?”
“Get talking before the sun comes up.”
“A simple deal. I leave now; you take her back. Marry her. Keep her safe; make her happy.”
Leon frowned. “What if there’s consequences?”
The skin around Noah’s eyes tightened and released, almost as if he’d flinched. But the sudden calculation in his eyes, the coolness of his voice, made Leon reconsider that notion.
“What if there are? You say you love her. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then what does it matter?”
All the while Leon thought about it, he could feel Noah watching him as if the question were some sort of test. That made him nervous, especially since the man giving the test held his own rifle on him. What if he answered incorrectly?
His eyes met Noah’s. He could only tell the truth. “Nothing matters but her.”
Noah searched his gaze a moment longer, then nodded, accepting what Leon had said. “We have a deal, then?”
“Don’t ever come back to Kansas. If you do, I will kill you.”
“Deal.” Noah strode past and mounted the horse Leon had rode in on. “Your horse is behind the barn. Can’t say I stole him if I give him back.” He gathered the reins and held up the rifle. “I’ll have to keep this, though.”
Leon waved off the loss of a company rifle. “What should I tell her?”
Noah dug into his pocket and pulled something free. “Give her that.”
He tossed what was in his hand to Leon, who had no choice but to catch it or let the item hit him in the chin. Leon opened his hand to find Ruth’s garnet necklace in his palm.
In answer to Leon’s questioning glance, the other man said, “She’ll understand.”
Leon tucked the necklace into his own pocket. “Maybe. But what should I say?”
“The truth. I traded her for my freedom.”