The Outlaw and the Runaway

by Tatiana March

  Roy settled his bill. When he gathered up his purchases, the clerk spoke quietly. “Don’t forget what I said, stranger. Every man has at least one use for a woman. If that is what you have in mind, do right by her. Make her into a wife.”

  Roy pretended not to hear. Outside, he paused to peer into the canvas bags, to see what doo-dahs the storekeeper had provided. Hairbrush. A cake of French milled soap. Small mirror. Hair ribbon in pink silk. Tooth powder. Toothbrush. A length of white muslin, something a woman might use to protect her face from dust while riding the desert trails.

  With a sudden pang of nostalgia, Roy realized he’d not come across such feminine items since he was ten years old and his mother died. Closing his mind to the past, he loaded the goods on the dapple-gray mare, mounted Dagur and rode out of town at a slow walk, leading the mare by the bridle. He’d wait until dark. The girl must have a reason why she wanted to hide, and he would respect her desire to remain unseen.

  * * *

  Celia eased the back door ajar and slipped out into the cool darkness of the September night. The scents of lavender and yellow sweet clover and blue passionflower surrounded her. In the bleakness of her life, her precious garden remained the only source of comfort. Soon the apples would be ripe enough to eat and the potatoes and carrots ready to harvest, and she could supplement her unappetizing diet of tinned goods and oatmeal porridge.

  “Good evening, Miss Courtwood.”

  Nothing had alerted her to the man’s presence—no snap of a twig beneath the sole of a boot, no clatter of hooves on the street outside, no nervous whinny of a horse tied to the porch railing. Why had he searched her out? And why had he come back now? Earlier, when he’d knocked on her door and toured the garden, Celia had longed to hurry downstairs and stop him from leaving, but the battle of conflicting emotions within her had kept her frozen by the bedroom window, where she had watched him from behind the lace curtains.

  “Why did you come?” she asked, staring into the shadows beneath the apple tree.

  “The name’s Roy Hagan, Miss Courtwood. Sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice quivered, revealing her agitation. She battled the urge to hurl herself against his chest, to scream out her loneliness and confusion and rage. If she did, he might pull her into his arms and she could lay her head upon his shoulder and let the tears locked inside her flood out in a purifying stream that might ease her misery.

  But she did none of it. Years of tiptoeing around her mother’s sickbed and a lifetime of trying not to add to her father’s woes had taught Celia to contain her emotions, to act with a serene dignity. Right now, the silent clenching and unclenching of her fists at her sides was the only sign of the turmoil that went on inside her head.

  Beneath the huge, gnarled apple tree, the shadows shifted, separated and became a man. Standing in the moonlight, dressed in black trousers and a dark shirt, the brim of his hat tugged low, the man looked part of the night. He had uncovered his left eye, leaving the padded cotton patch dangling around his neck by its rawhide strap.

  “Can we talk inside?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he closed the distance between them, took her by the elbow and ushered her back into the house.

  It was barely a touch, his fingers resting lightly against her arm, but even through the fabric of her dress, Celia could feel the warmth of his skin, could feel the strength in him. It sent an odd shiver through her, that physical contact. It was the first human closeness she had experienced since the sheriff hauled her father away, and it made her feel as if a glass wall around her was shattering, exposing her to life again.

  At the rear door, the man fell back, allowing Celia to enter first. The kitchen was small, with a row of white-painted cabinets beneath the window and a square table with a pair of chairs along the opposite wall. She’d opened the shutters to let in the moonlight, but she had not yet lit the stove. To cook her supper, she preferred to wait until past midnight, when the thin column of smoke through the chimney had a better chance to remain unnoticed.

  Celia waited for Roy Hagan to step across the threshold and close the door behind him. Then she faced him, making no effort to hide her scar by turning to one side. Her fingers fisted into her calico dress—she’d abandoned her rustling skirts and layers of petticoats—and for the third time she asked, “Why are you here?”

  “I came to see if you are all right, Miss Celia.”

  Just like that, he had taken the liberty of calling her by her given name. Even though no one called her Miss Courtwood, apart from Mr. Northfield and Mr. Selden, both sticklers for formality, the sound of her name on the stranger’s lips and his intrusion into the safety of her kitchen put another crack into Celia’s rigid self-control.

  “I wish you hadn’t come,” she blurted out.

  “No, you don’t, Miss Celia,” he replied. “You’re glad I’m here.”

  There was no arrogance in the man’s tone, only understanding and compassion. Knowing that he had spoken the truth caused the gates of restraint to fling wide-open inside Celia.

  “How can I be glad that you’re here?” The words poured out of her, but despite her agitation, her voice didn’t rise from its even pitch. “You may have protected my father, saved him from a bullet, but had you not robbed the bank in the first place he would not have been put in danger. You were the danger and the rescue, the peril and the protection. I owe you no gratitude for saving him from a danger you brought upon him yourself.”

  She paused to draw a breath, then went on with a burst of anguish. “What eats me up inside is that I knew what you were planning to do. Secretly, I gloated over my cleverness, having figured out that you’d come to rob the bank, and I did nothing to stop you. Nothing.” She stared at him, a plea in her eyes. “Do you understand how that makes me feel? I could have stopped it, but I didn’t, because I wanted to pay back the town for ostracizing me.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up so, Miss Celia.”

  “Beat myself up?” A bitter groan wrung from her. “You haven’t heard the half of it. The bank manager, Mr. Northfield, got it into his head that my father had been in cahoots with the robbers, and he shared his suspicions with the sheriff. My father refused to defend himself, and now he is serving five years in Yuma prison. He’ll die in prison, alone and neglected, for nothing but the noble misconception that by accepting the blame he’ll set me free, relieve me of the burden of supporting him while he grows too weak to work.”

  Tears burned in Celia’s eyes but she refused to let them fall, just as she had refused to let them fall during the long years of her mother’s illness, or when every birthday trapped her deeper into spinsterhood, with no prospect of love, no prospect of a family and home, nothing but loneliness and the struggle to earn her living looming in the future.

  “And you know what, Mr. Hagan?” Celia let the words form on her tongue, admitting to the guilt that pressed like a vise against her chest. “Deep down inside me there is this awful feeling of relief.” She lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance. “So don’t tell me that I must not beat myself up. I contributed to placing my father in danger, and when he takes on the blame for a crime he didn’t commit, I feel relief because it spares me the trouble of nursing another dying parent and leaves me with only my own mouth to feed.”

  * * *

  Always on guard, Roy observed his surroundings while he listened to the girl unburden her mind. Again, the long-forgotten smells tugged at his memory—crisp, clean laundry, flowers in a vase on the table, the lingering scents of home cooking.

  Celia’s last words pulled him back to the present. Earlier, he’d wondered if she had been in on the crime, but it had never crossed his mind that she might believe her father to be innocent. Rapidly, he reviewed all the possibilities. No. It could not be. Everything pointed to the man’s guilt, including what the girl had just explained. Roy opened his m
outh to speak, closed it again. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her the truth.

  “Why are you hiding?” he asked.

  Barely had his voice faded away when a thud echoed from the front of the house. In a flash, the heavy Smith & Wesson revolver appeared in Roy’s hand. On soundless feet, he inched past the girl and opened the connecting door to the parlor.

  “Don’t.” She reached out and tugged at his arm. “It’s just youngsters. They throw clumps of manure at the house. It does no harm.” When Roy glanced back at her, he could see a shadow of a smile hovering around her mouth. “Manure is good fertilizer for my garden. Saves me from sneaking out to the hitching rails on Main Street to collect some.”

  He returned his gun to the holster, eased back into the kitchen and closed the door to the parlor. Before he had a chance to collect his thoughts, the girl burst into speech again.

  “Does that answer your question about why I’m hiding in my house?” Bitterness sharpened her tone. “Before, the town was suspicious of me. Now they believe I’m evil. According to their thinking, I drove my father into betraying them. Nobody lost anything in the robbery, the gold was fully insured, but they hate me all the same, as if they were facing financial ruin.”

  “No,” Roy said. “That does not answer my question.”

  Her lips pursed as she considered his comment. Then her chin lifted in the proud tilt he was beginning to recognize. “You think I’m a coward? That I should have the courage to ignore them and sashay down the street as if nothing was wrong?” She flapped a hand to indicate his guns. “It’s easy for someone like you to shake off the weight of public disgrace. I haven’t quite gotten used to being an outcast. It still hurts.”

  It never stops hurting, Roy wanted to tell her. You just learn to accept it.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Your food will eventually run out.”

  “I have a gun. A Winchester rifle. I can hunt game.”

  “In the darkness? On foot? You’ll have to go a long way out of town to find game.”

  “I...” She hung her head, darted a glance at him from beneath her brows. “My father said he has some money put aside and he’ll arrange to have it sent to me. I’ve been waiting for it to arrive. Without the money, I can’t leave.”

  There it was. The final proof. Her father must have been talking about his cut from the take. And if Roy knew anything about Lom Curtis, a prior agreement bore no weight with the outlaw leader. If a man could not make a demand in person, he had little chance of collecting his cut. The only way Celia could get her father’s share was to ride up to the outlaw camp and ask for it.

  “I doubt your father can send instructions from Yuma prison.” Roy glanced out through the window. A cloud had drifted across the moon, deepening the darkness. They needed to get going while they could rely on some moonlight. “I’ve come to take you with me,” he told the girl. “Pack what you can carry on a horse. You’ve got fifteen minutes. I want to be out of here before the clouds thicken.”

  “You expect me to go with you?”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “At least I’ve got a roof over my head. A place of safety.”

  “What will you do when your food runs out?”

  She didn’t reply right away. Roy let his gaze rest on her. In the shadows he could not see her scar. Her hair, loosely gathered at the nape of her neck, was pulling into ringlets. Her lips were moist and full, her gray eyes luminous, full of feminine allure. As he studied her, he could hear her quick intake of breath and knew she, too, had felt the attraction flare up between them, hot and swift, like a spark from a bonfire.

  When Celia finally spoke, her tone was strained. “You may have been right to think I was glad to see you, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to throw away the last of my dignity. If there is only a shred of my good reputation left, I’ll cling to it with all the more ferocity.”

  “I didn’t mean—” Roy broke off abruptly. Just what did he mean? He’d not thought beyond rescuing her from her self-made prison. But how exactly was he going to help her? Now that he knew she’d not been involved in the crime, he couldn’t expect her to make the sacrifice of becoming an outlaw’s woman. He did not regret that her honesty put her out of his reach. Dreaming of something pure might be better than a tarnished reality.

  He spoke slowly, formulating the plan as he put it into words. “I have money coming to me from the bank job. Five percent of the take. I don’t know how much it is—”

  “They took forty thousand, six hundred and thirty-five dollars in gold and cash. Five percent is close to two thousand dollars.”

  He nodded. “I’ll take you with me, and we’ll go and collect the money. You can have it. The amount ought to be enough to buy you a new start somewhere.”

  “I’ll not accept your ill-gotten gains.”

  Roy shrugged. Once the girl learned the truth about her father, she’d have to take that stiff pride down a peg or two, and now was as good a time to start as any. His tone was blunt. “You have little choice but to come with me. If you stay here, you’ll end up a whore.”

  “A whore?” Her eyes narrowed. “Certainly not.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, like a soldier launching into battle. “I shall become a financier. A speculator on the stock exchange. Perhaps not in New York, but at the new one opened up in Chicago earlier this year. I’ve got it all planned out. I have a good brain, and the ticker tape does not care about your gender. A woman’s money works just the same as a man’s.”

  Startled, Roy studied Celia’s expression. He could see determination in the haughty tilt of her chin, faith in her abilities in how she met his scrutiny without a flinch.

  “An investor needs capital,” he pointed out. “What if your father’s money never arrives?”

  “Then I shall...” Her words petered into silence and her rigid posture slumped. Uncommonly intelligent, she could map out the gloomy prospects of her future without him spelling them out for her, but he did it anyway.

  “An empty belly is a cruel master. You’ll stick it out for a bit, until your stomach swells from nothing but water. You’ll grow weak and dizzy, but the will to live is strong in humans. You’ll be too proud to beg, so you’ll leave the safety of this house and go knocking on doors, hunting for work. No one will hire you, but some man will be bold enough to sidle up to you and whisper a suggestion in your ear. You’ll put your chin up and tell him to go to hell. Might even muster up the strength to slap him. But then a second man asks, and a third. By the time your body screams with pain from lack of nourishment, you’ll find yourself saying yes to those men, and it will be you who has ended up in hell.”

  She contemplated him. “And if I come with you?”

  “I promise not to hurt you, and I’ll give you the money. If you feel bad about taking it, we can make it a business transaction. I’ll finance your stock speculation against a share in the profits.” He gave her a crooked smile. “It can be my retirement fund. Every outlaw needs one.”

  “I...” She took another deep breath. “You promise? You promise to give me the money and ask for nothing in return? Even if I lose it all through poor judgment? The markets can be unpredictable.”

  “I promise.” Roy reached past the girl to where a water bucket stood on the counter. He filled the steel dipper, lifted it to his lips and drank, watching her over the rim while the silence weighed heavy in the air. When the dipper was empty he hung it back in the bucket, pulled out one of the chairs by the table and sat down in it. “It’s up to you,” he said. “I’ll leave in ten minutes. You can come with me and collect the money, or you can stay here and accept your fate, as you wish.”

  Chapter Five

  Celia studied her reflection in the glow of the kerosene lamp burning on her dresser. She had changed into the elegant riding outfit she’d ordered before leaving Baltimore, a s
plit skirt in blue velvet and a fitted jacket to match, with yellow piping along the edges and gleaming brass buttons at the front. She’d dreamed that one day she would be wearing the outfit as she rode out beside a man, ready to start a new life.

  Be careful what you wish for, her mother used to say, and now Celia understood the meaning of the warning. She’d be riding out with a man. And she was headed for a new life. But instead of a husband and home, she was putting her trust in the promise of an outlaw and counting on her own ability to make her way in the world.

  Refusing to dwell on shattered dreams, Celia took out a pair of dangling earrings and fastened them into her earlobes. Her parents had consented to the flamboyant jewelry because the flicker of amethysts on gold wire drew attention away from her scar. With her hair tumbling down in a flurry of curls, she looked as wild as a gypsy. She added a flat-crowned black hat and black gloves. Finished, she picked up the small carpetbag she’d packed with a few personal possessions, blew out the lamp and headed downstairs.

  As she stepped into the moonlit kitchen, Celia noticed how Roy Hagan’s mismatched eyes widened at the sight of her. Like a gentleman, he rose from his chair. Celia held her breath. At least one aspect of reality lived up to her dreams, surpassed them even. She was riding out with a man more handsome than she could ever have imagined.

  For a moment, their gazes locked. An odd tension knotted in Celia’s belly, a tingling sensation that seemed to radiate outward from her center. Like before, she yearned to have Roy Hagan bundle her into his arms and hold her tight. Even if he couldn’t offer her the security she longed for, he could give her an illusion of comfort, a moment of forgetfulness, a distraction from the grim realities that awaited her.

  With a sigh, Celia forced her gaze to veer away from those mesmerizing eyes. Feeling awkward, she balanced on the balls of her feet and tried to gather her composure. She didn’t know what to make of the pull of attraction between them, how to resist it, or if she even truly wanted to. Going away with a man would ruin her reputation anyway, and she was tired of being condemned for sins she hadn’t committed. Perhaps she ought to enjoy the sinning rather than just pay the penance.