An Outlaw in Wonderland

by Lori Austin

  “We don’t know. The marshal—”

  “Where’s the sheriff?”

  “According to you, he fell out the window.” His gaze went to the hole in the wall; his frown deepened. “Do you remember any of this?” He shook his head, wincing when he jarred the wound. “What do you remember?”

  “One of the hands at Moriarty’s farm broke his leg. Could have used you there. But no riding until the baby’s born.”

  Annabeth had to clench her fingers to keep from brushing her too-empty belly.

  “The house was dark. You were talking to someone. Then—” Ethan tore at his hair and moaned.

  She was reaching for his medicine when he dropped his hands. “Better?” she asked.

  “A little.” He blinked away tears the pain had brought to his eyes. “What were you saying?”

  “There are things you don’t remember, Ethan. About me, the baby, the past few years.”

  “The past few years?” he repeated. “How could I forget the war?”

  “The war’s been over a long time.”

  “That’s impossible. We just came to Freedom.”

  “We didn’t.”

  His gaze lit on her saddlebags near the door. “They’re still packed. We did just come here.”

  He ignored the gaping wardrobe that held only his clothes, a room that was obviously masculine, not a hint of her anywhere. “I just came back.”

  “Where were you?”

  Should she tell him? What would be the point?

  “I had to go away.”

  “You aren’t supposed to ride. The baby.”

  “The baby d—”

  Ethan cried out and grasped his temples, writhing against the tumbled sheets. Annabeth reached for him, trying to see why he was suddenly in so much agony. She waited for blood to pour through his fingers, but it didn’t. Wounds did not open and gush spontaneously.

  Ethan’s fingers went white as he pressed them to his head. Annabeth gave up trying to pry them loose and snatched the blue bottle. She put the edge to his lips. Amazingly, he stopped thrashing and drank like the baby he couldn’t stop asking about. When she pulled it away, he reached for it. At least he no longer cradled his head.

  “Better?” she repeated.

  His eyes opened; the haunted expression was back. “You’re scaring me.”

  No more than he was scaring her. “Sleep.” Maybe it would help. Or maybe when he awoke again, he’d have lost another five years.

  Which would eliminate memories of the war, prison, Mikey’s injury—and her. But maybe, considering everything, that would be for the best.

  Ethan’s eyes slid closed; his breathing evened out. Annabeth waited until her heart stopped thundering and she could think again. Then she picked up one of his books and paged through until she found the section that reflected Ethan’s recent behavior.

  Any wound to the brain is a trauma, those inflicted accidentally or through violence even more so. The mind is not prepared. It rebels just like the body. Where the injury may emit a foul-smelling seepage in protest, the mind may block out memories. This is called amnesia.

  In some cases, the patient may, contrary to any evidence of reality, see only what he wishes to. Do not insist the afflicted believe what he does not or remind him of things he has forgotten. The patient must be kept calm. Only in this way will the brain heal, allowing the memories to return on their own.

  Annabeth shut the book and hurried downstairs, opening drawers until she found the scissors. Then she gathered her hair into a tail and sliced it off at the jaw.

  She contemplated the handful of bright red locks. She wouldn’t miss them, wasn’t quite sure why she’d allowed the length to reach to her waist. In her line of work, long red tresses were a hindrance. Cutting them was overdue. In Freedom, shorter hair would be one less thing to lie about. When she left, she’d have one less thing to hide.

  She couldn’t do anything to disguise a flat belly that should be round beyond continuing to wear loose clothes. If the pages she’d just read were accurate, Ethan would see what he wanted to anyway.

  Guilt weighed her down, and she climbed the stairs with feet that felt dredged in mud. So many mistakes, so many bad choices. She couldn’t make another and leave Ethan like this. She’d have to stay until he remembered everything.

  Except . . .

  Mikey never had.

  • • •

  Ethan woke as the sun slanted across the foot of his bed. Afternoon. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept this late.

  He moved his head, and pain flickered. The hand he lifted shook badly. He was thirsty, and his skin itched.

  On the bedside table sat a blue bottle. He thought he should drink from it; then again, he thought he should not. But why would it be there if he wasn’t meant to partake?

  He managed to wrap his fingers around the glass, managed not to spill it as he drew the opening to his lips. The taste was familiar, one he remembered and adored. He drank deeply—until the shakes, the itching, the pain faded. Then he was able to sit up, set his feet on the floor, cross to the washstand, and peer into the mirror.

  The stitches sparkled against his pale skin. Interesting. He hadn’t seen silver suture wire since just after Bull Run.

  No. That wasn’t true. He’d stocked it here. In Free- dom.

  He examined the wound. No sign of infection. Certainly the area was red, but that was to be expected.

  A shuffle from behind had him shifting his gaze to meet that of his wife’s in the mirror. As always, the sight of her much-shorter hair caused guilt to flicker; this time the guilt was so sharp, his belly roiled.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

  Pain shafted through Ethan’s head. She had. He just couldn’t remember what.

  “Ethan?”

  He grasped the washstand so tightly, his fingers ached. He made himself release the edge, though he continued to lean upon it. His legs weren’t as steady as he’d like. “Your stitches are as good as the day I met you.”

  Her smile seemed sad, although it might just have been the mirror. There was something about the reflections in it that bothered him. Her stomach didn’t appear as large as it should, but as she was wearing his clothes, who could tell?

  He’d been hurt; he’d had bad dreams. Everything, right now, seemed fuzzy.

  “As I recall,” she said, “that seam was as crooked as this one.”

  “I’ve always preferred those who can make stitches in bleeding flesh to those who make them in cloth.”

  “Not lately,” she muttered.

  “What?” He turned too fast, nearly fell down.

  She hurried to his side. “Why did you get up?”

  “I . . .” Despite her tugging in one direction, Ethan turned in the other and gazed into the mirror again. “I couldn’t remember what happened. I wanted to see.”

  Her face swam into view at his shoulder. Not only did she appear sad but worried. “Do you remember now?”

  “Not really. But . . .” His gaze met hers in the glass. “Why do I look so old?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Old?” Annabeth repeated. “You’re—”

  She bit her lip to keep the word thirty from tumbling out. In his mind, he was still twenty-five.

  “A few years older than me,” she said instead.

  The five years he was “missing” had been hard on both of them. Until Ethan had mentioned it, she hadn’t noticed that he’d aged. She’d been too damn glad to see him.

  Right now, she could see all of him. As he couldn’t rest properly wearing trousers and a shirt, she’d removed everything after the marshal left.

  However, she’d done so with her gaze averted. It hadn’t seemed right to stare at his body when he was unconscious. But it had been so much work getting him out of the clothing, she hadn’t bothered to put anything on him but a sheet. As Ethan didn’t seem disturbed by his nakedness, she shouldn’t be.

  Except she was. And not because of
any inappropriate lust, but by the visible proof of how the years had changed him. He’d always been slim and tall. He would become busy with his work and forget to eat unless she reminded him. He’d started to fill out during the time they’d spent together.

  Now she could see each of his ribs and the bony spike of his hip beneath his skin. His knees and feet appeared especially knobby. She was happy the mirror was large enough to reveal only his face.

  The years had taken their toll in the creases around his eyes. Not laugh lines, not hardly. But squinting into the sun, being whipped by the wind, lack of sleep, worrying had all left their mark.

  Annabeth moved out of the reflection before Ethan noticed her new lines. They weren’t laugh lines either.

  “When was the last time you preened in a mirror, Doctor?” Annabeth tugged again, and this time he followed, allowing her to tuck him into the bed.

  His frown deepened the latest furrows about his mouth. “When I shaved?” He lifted his palm to his chin, rubbing at several days of stubble. “Not long enough to add all those years.”

  “You were injured. Ill.” She smoothed her palm over the sheets. The same rasping sound came from the contact of her skin with the material that had come from his palm to his chin. Running, hiding, spying, lying wreaked havoc on the hands. “That puts lines all over the place.”

  “How long have I been unwell?”

  As a day or two would not explain the five years on his face, she hesitated. She was going to have to break that mirror. After what she’d seen of herself in it, she couldn’t wait.

  “You haven’t eaten since yesterday,” she said. “Sadie brought stew.”

  Her words distracted him from his question. “I’m not hungry.”

  “A little?” she coaxed. “With me?”

  “All right.” His gaze narrowed on her. “You seem thin, Beth.”

  Being on the run from the last person she’d betrayed, or on the road to the next, had left little time for food, not that being who and what she was left her with any appetite.

  “Maybe it’s just those clothes,” he continued. “Why are you wearing them?”

  “I’m having some larger dresses made.” The lie tripped off her tongue without thought. She cleared the tickle from her throat. “I don’t fit in mine anymore.”

  He nodded, accepting her tale despite the fact that if she had been with child, she would have thought to purchase new dresses long before she needed them.

  “I’ll fetch the stew,” she said.

  He could also use something for the pain that haunted his eyes and tightened his mouth. Her gaze flicked to the bedside table, but it was empty except for the lamp. “Wasn’t there . . . ?” She paused. He wouldn’t remember a bottle even if there’d been one. “Close your eyes for a spell. I’ll be back.”

  Annabeth descended to the first floor, reheated the stew, offering some to the guard at the door—a man she did not know. After five years, there were probably a lot of them.

  He accepted in a hurry, but then paused in his eating. “Mrs. Lewis has been by already,” he said around a mouthful of meat. “She seemed awful upset not to be able to see the doc. The marshal said to keep everyone out, but . . . Should I let her in?”

  “No!” Annabeth said the word so loudly, the man bobbled his plate. “Sorry.” She took a breath, searched for a lie. She couldn’t tell a stranger that she didn’t want her husband’s pregnant mistress upsetting him. “He’s not well enough to receive anyone yet.”

  The guard glanced up the street, his uncertainty plainly visible. “She’s gonna be back.”

  “I’ll pay her a visit directly.”

  Now his uncertainty focused on Annabeth. News of her last visit must have been shared all over town.

  “Just keep her out,” Annabeth said. “And everyone else, too.”

  She stopped at the medicine cabinet, pocketed another blue bottle, then headed upstairs, balancing two plates of food. Ethan sat up in bed, rubbing the side of his head.

  “Here.” She set the meals on the nightstand and reached into her pocket. “Damn.”

  He lowered his arm, the red imprint of his fingertips stark on his too-pale skin. “What’s the matter?”

  Considering the sunlight through the window, his pupils seemed exceedingly large. Annabeth leaned close, comparing the two. Head injuries could cause one pupil to become larger than the other. However, his were the same size. Huge. She didn’t like it.

  Annabeth straightened. “I forgot a spoon.”

  “Never stopped me before,” he muttered, and held out his hand. She placed the bottle into it.

  He took several sips, wiped his nose across his arm, and took several more, then held it out to her. “I always forget a spoon. Folks in agony don’t mind drinking from the rim.”

  She set the glass container on the table and handed him a plate. “You’re in agony?”

  “Not agony. Not anymore. But I do ache everywhere.”

  She put her hand on his cheek but, considering the already climbing heat of the late-summer day, he wasn’t any warmer than he should be. “If you start to shiver . . .” she began.

  “I won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  Doctors were the worst patients. They knew too much, which either made them obsess over every little symptom, or ignore the symptoms altogether.

  Ethan continued to hold the plate but made no move to eat, instead rubbing his thumb along his belly. The white sheet pooled in his lap, and despite his being thinner than she liked, the sight of his chest covered in a light dusting of black hair, his flat stomach with a trail of the same leading down to—

  She jerked her gaze to his face, hers flaming. He stared, grimacing, out the window at the sun, which appeared to have been doused by a rain cloud.

  “Does your stomach hurt?”

  “A little.”

  “Hunger.” Her own cramped, and she picked up her plate. “Eat.”

  For the next several minutes, they did just that. She finished every bite; he managed only a third before he shoved the fork into what was left and shook his head. “I better stop.”

  “Maybe later.” She took the plate. His pupils had shrunk. That should make her feel better, but for some reason, it didn’t. Now they seemed exceedingly small, which bothered her as much as when they’d been large.

  “Lie down,” she ordered.

  He did, barely managing to place his head on the pillow before his eyelids closed. She remained until his breathing evened out. His dark beard and nearly black hair only emphasized the paleness of his skin. He was still one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen.

  “Ethan?” When he didn’t respond, she leaned over and pressed a kiss to the unmarred side of his brow. His hair brushed her lip; he still smelled the same. Like summer herbs and fresh laundry on the line.

  Straightening, she let her tongue slide over her mouth. He tasted the same, too. Promises in the dark. Secrets without lies. A life she’d wanted so damn badly, she’d have done anything to keep it. But she’d never had the chance.

  She carried the dirty plates and forks downstairs, taking a few moments to wash and put them away. Then she straightened some things that didn’t need straightening. The house was pristine, cleaner than when she’d lived in it. Annabeth had always been distracted by patients, by Ethan. The least of her concerns had been the house. But, apparently, that was not the case for whoever had been keeping it. She had a pretty good idea who that was.

  The back door had been locked from the inside, marshal’s orders, so Annabeth marched to the front. “No one in, no one out,” she told the guard, another man she did not know.

  As he tugged on the brim of his hat and murmured, “Yes’m,” Annabeth assumed her command echoed Eversleigh’s.

  Annabeth hurried to Lewis’s Sewing and Sundry, nodding when folks greeted her but not stopping to chat, even though many of them did, their gazes widening when she continued past. She
had no time for chatter. She had business with her husband’s—

  Annabeth stopped outside the door. Her husband’s what? As all of the labels that ran through her mind were uncharitable, she settled on the only one that mattered: Cora Lewis was the mother of Ethan’s child.

  Annabeth tightened her lips to keep the sob from breaking free. If she let it out, she would not stop, and then where would she be? Standing outside the Sewing and Sundry, weeping until she melted into a puddle of tears and pain.

  Which was why she’d left Freedom in the first place. If she’d stayed, she would have melted, and she didn’t think she would ever have been able to put herself back together again.

  She wasn’t completely healed, but she wasn’t completely broken anymore, either. Not like Ethan.

  Annabeth set her hand on the door. She was here to discuss Ethan’s injury with Mrs. Lewis. She had to make the woman understand that Ethan needed to be handled with care until he remembered everything he’d forgotten.

  If he remembered.

  For just an instant, Annabeth wondered what that would be like. An Ethan who didn’t remember all that she’d done, all that he had. Who thought their marriage was intact, that their child was.

  However, while that Ethan and that Annabeth might be nice to think about, they wouldn’t last. Would he eventually demand to know why her belly wasn’t growing? Or would someone let slip the reason Cora’s was?

  Annabeth stepped inside. She just managed to duck before something hit her in the head. The dish shattered against the wall and rained crockery shards into what was left of her hair. Crouching, she shuffled to the right. Luckily, she was still wearing breeches; attempting the maneuver in a dress would have caused her to fall on her face. Nevertheless, Cora Lewis nearly crowned her with a second crockery plate.

  “Stop that!”

  Cora threw another. She had incredibly bad aim. Which could have something to do with the tightness of the sleeves on her sky-blue day dress, or perhaps the restriction of the bustle. Annabeth was able to dodge the next missile, too, and when Cora paused to retrieve a fresh stack of plates, she hurried forward and snatched them away. “Have you lost your mind?”