An Outlaw in Wonderland

by Lori Austin

  And time moved fast when she wanted it to move slow.

  The days connecting their isolation, their place out of time on the prairie—away from Freedom, from Moze, from Lassiter and Cora and everyone who would keep them apart—to the night of the full moon when Joe would return sped along as if the entire world rolled downhill. She’d been away from the Lassiter Gang longer than she’d promised. Had anyone come looking for her in Freedom during their absence? If they had, what would they do to find her gone?

  After the first day, Ethan managed water. On the second he took the broth she made from the rabbits Joe left behind.

  God bless Joe.

  On the third he managed, with help, to walk to the creek so he could wash. He fell in. Annabeth dragged him out. They made love on the muddy riverbank in the sun, then washed each other as the steadily rounding moon rose in the sky.

  Every day Ethan became stronger; every night Annabeth fought tears. She was living the life they would have had, could have had, the life she’d wanted.

  Minus the tepee.

  When he was better, he wouldn’t need her anymore. When they returned to Freedom, she would leave. He would marry Cora and have the life he wanted. It was the least she could do.

  For now, she enjoyed their idyll. She cooked; Ethan kept the fire burning. He even fished a bit. He wasn’t very good at it.

  “You have other strengths,” she said when he returned carrying only the pole she had fashioned from a soft sapling branch.

  “I am very good at taking laudanum,” he muttered.

  “Not anymore.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, and she set down the potato she’d been cutting into a pot with the last of the rabbit. She’d found all sorts of things stored inside the tepee. The place didn’t seem temporary to her. She supposed the Kaw couldn’t carry a hunting lodge around when they weren’t allowed to hunt. Which meant they had to leave the structure behind, along with all they kept inside.

  “You miss it,” she said.

  He flicked a glance at her, then crouched on the other side of the fire. “Not yet.”

  “You think you will?”

  “I know I will.”

  Disappointment fluttered. She’d wanted to heal him. But she didn’t think she had.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “As if I’ve broken your heart.”

  Annabeth tightened her lips to keep the truth from coming out. He had broken her heart. But it was only fair since she’d broken his.

  She picked up the potato again. “We aren’t going back until you’re better.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be better, Beth.”

  “You’re getting better already. You don’t shake or sweat. Your eyes . . .” She paused.

  His pupils were no longer large when they should be small and vice versa, but his eyes weren’t the eyes of the man she’d fallen in love with. They were the eyes of the man he had become. Dark even though their shade was light. Sad even when he smiled. Old even though he wasn’t. Did she appear the same?

  “What happened, happened,” he said. “I’ll always remember and mourn. I’ll try not to use laudanum to forget, but I can’t promise that I won’t. All I can promise is that I’ll try.”

  Once he had his child in his arms, she thought trying would be a whole lot easier.

  “Joe will be back tonight.”

  “Tonight?” he repeated.

  “You said he meets you here every full moon. Which is tonight, remember?” His frown said he did not. Time was strange out here. “He’ll bring the horse.”

  “Didn’t you trade the horse for the whiskey?”

  “More of a rental. Until the full moon.”

  Understanding dawned across his face. “You had Joe take the horse away so I wouldn’t bolt.”

  “You weren’t yourself.”

  “I’m not sure who that is anymore.”

  “You’re the same man you always were.”

  “Spy, murderer, liar, and thief.”

  Is that what he thought? Why shouldn’t he? It was what she had.

  “We’ve both done things we regret. In a lifetime, everyone does.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course.” Right now she was having a hard time remembering something she didn’t.

  Unless it was him.

  “I guess neither one of us can throw stones,” he said.

  If he knew what she’d done, he might.

  “Do you regret this?” he asked.

  “I could never regret helping you heal.”

  “Is that what you were doing?”

  She’d thought so. Now she wondered. Had she been trying to heal him? Or herself?

  Annabeth tore her gaze from Ethan’s, set it on the western horizon, which was starting to blaze pink and orange and red. Tomorrow they could return to Freedom unless—

  “You said you weren’t healed. We could stay until you are.”

  “Forever?” he asked.

  The joy that burst within her at the thought caused a flush to rise. She ducked her head. They couldn’t stay forever, no matter how much she might want to. He had a new life waiting in Freedom; her old life awaited her elsewhere. She still hadn’t found her brother; she still hadn’t made sure Lassiter Morant paid for his crimes. Perhaps, if it hadn’t been for Cora and the baby, she might have—

  No. Even if she stopped searching for Luke, and she wasn’t certain she could, she’d never allow Lass to roam free. The brief time she’d spent away from him, living among decent people, had only emphasized how indecent he was. She knew what Lass was capable of. While her job with Pinkerton had begun as nothing more than a job—something to fill the time, pay for food, enable her to look for Luke, keep her sane—it had become so much more. She’d done a lot of good, and in doing so had not only helped others but also herself. At her lowest point, the job had saved her, and she couldn’t turn her back on it now. She had to return and finish what she had started. She couldn’t live with herself otherwise.

  “Not forever,” she said. “Just until you’re more . . .”

  “What?” he snapped when she didn’t finish.

  She glanced up, then quickly back down. She’d been going to say “more yourself.” But in light of their conversation, she understood how foolish the words would be. Neither one of them were the people they’d been. They never would be again.

  “I have to return,” Ethan said, though he didn’t sound happy about it. “Folks depend on me. What if someone’s sick? What if someone died?”

  “You were sick. You almost died.”

  Annabeth didn’t want to go back. She didn’t want to go forward either. But she couldn’t stay here; nor should she go back there.

  “Maybe Joe will have an extra horse for me.”

  Ethan’s forehead creased. “We rode here on one. Why do we need another?”

  “It’ll only complicate things if I return to Freedom.” His forehead creased. “I can’t stay, Ethan, so why go?”

  “You’re my wife.”

  Not for long, she thought, then had to breathe through the pain. She would never love anyone the way that she loved him. She didn’t want to.

  “You’re going to be a father.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

  Had the fever and the paroxysms caused him to forget again? She’d seen no indication of it before now.

  “You remember Cora Lewis?”

  “Of course.” A flush crept up his face, proving he remembered everything.

  “Which means I have to leave.” He didn’t really think she could stay and watch another woman bear his child? The very idea made her ill.

  Ethan straightened, then stepped around the fire and sat at her side. “Cora’s a bigger liar than I am.”

  She dropped the last chunk of potato into the pot. Water rose up and over the rim, causing the flames to hiss and jump. “I don’t—”

  He took her hands
, rubbed his thumbs over hers until she met his gaze. “She isn’t carrying my child.”

  “How can you say that?” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “It’s the truth.” He tightened his fingers until she stopped squirming. “I wasn’t going to say anything until I spoke with her. She’s a patient as well as . . .” His lips tightened . “I thought I owed her the chance to explain. But now . . .” He shook his head. “You deserve to know what I found when I examined her.”

  “When did you examine her?” She’d told the woman not to go near him—several times. Not that Cora had listened.

  “I . . .” Ethan paused, frowning. “You’d gone to help the Tarkentons.”

  “I left instructions that no one was to talk to you. Especially her.”

  “You can’t expect the Cantrells to be very good guards.”

  “Or anyone else, apparently.” She’d been living with outlaws for the past several months. If someone was a bad guard, everyone got dead.

  “She wanted me to examine her,” he said.

  “I bet she did,” Annabeth muttered.

  The idea of Ethan’s hands on the woman, even as a doctor, made Annabeth want to commit murder. Though he’d obviously had more than his hands on her in the past.

  “What did you find?”

  “Nothing.” He released her to scrape his fingers through his hair. A cowlick stood up on the side, making Annabeth’s own fingers itch to smooth it down. Would their child have had the same cowlick? They would never know.

  He dropped his hands into his lap, where he began to wring them as he pursed his mouth, and memory shimmered as elusive as the moon.

  His lips on her stomach. His murmurs to their child. His breath, so warm, brushing her skin. His fingers pressing—right, left, high, low. Both back then and—

  “You wondered when I truly remembered?” he asked. “When I touched you and realized the child was gone, that you were . . .” He swallowed.

  “Empty,” she said. And, apparently, so was Cora Lewis. That now-familiar urge toward murder returned.

  “From the first, a woman changes.” Ethan continued to stare at his hands. “She hadn’t.”

  “What did she say when you told her there was no child.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I didn’t remember her. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

  “All right,” she allowed. “But you’ll have to.”

  His fingers clenched—frustration and fury—and when he lifted his eyes, she pitied Cora Lewis.

  “I know.”

  “I still can’t go back.”

  “What?” Confusion replaced the fury. “Why?”

  “No one leaves the Morant Gang. At least not alive.”

  “Let Moze deal with them.”

  “If he could have, he would have. I need to finish what I started with them; then I need to find my brother and . . .” She attempted to clear her throat of the sudden tickle, but swallowing only made her cough. “Then I can come back.”

  • • •

  The inevitability of night had often led Ethan to partake from the blue bottle. Because in the night, what dreams may come. His had always been of her.

  Now she was here, and in the night he held her, he touched her and loved her. He didn’t crave oblivion; he craved only her.

  He gorged himself on the taste of her lips, the scent of her skin, the rich, smooth drift of her hair across his chest. She rose above him, took him within, and as the treacherous moon shone through the smoke hole of the tepee, he lifted a hand, cupped her face, rubbed a thumb across her cheek. “Look at me.”

  Her eyes opened, shining like onyx at midnight. She leaned back, her body rocking against his, like a slow, leisurely ride at dusk.

  He was not such a fool as to believe that his revelations about Cora and the child that wasn’t might suddenly pave the way for reconciliation—even without Annabeth’s sudden urge to cough right in the middle of her promise to return.

  No one would know from his wife’s face or voice that she was lying. Unless they’d known her as long as Ethan had, heard her lie before and deduced, after many months and a lot more lies, that they seemed to make her cough.

  Years apart, hours spent with only memories, combined with her return, a few more lies—and coughs—then voilà, Ethan saw the truth. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t before. It might have saved them all a lot of heartache.

  He clasped her hips, held her still, gritted his teeth so he would not move, even when she tried to. “See me,” he managed.

  Those eyes, which had gone dewy with the promise of release, sharpened. “Ethan,” she said. “All I’ve ever seen is you.”

  His fingers loosened, from capture to caress, and she began to move again, her breasts catching the silver sheen and glowing like that moon across the water. When he touched them, kissed them, they cooled his heated palms, soothed his fiery lips. She was a balm to every ache that he owned.

  His teeth worried her nipples to stone, and when she rocked her hips one final time, tightening, milking, making him come, as she did, he suckled, drawing from her, even as she drew from him.

  Satisfied, replete, her breathing softened, smoothing out, coasting toward sleep and drawing him there, too. All was peaceful and right. What would happen when she left?

  He would go back to the nightmare he’d lived before her return, and he couldn’t let that happen.

  Annabeth lay pressed to Ethan’s side, cheek to his chest, leg insinuated between his. He didn’t want to move, but he had to. The instant he did, she stirred and then mumbled his name.

  “Shh.” He brushed her hair from her brow as her leg thudded limply to the ground. “I have to relieve myself.”

  “’kay.”

  He stepped outside, then into his clothes. He didn’t have long to wait before Joe and several of his friends appeared on the other side of the river. Ethan indicated only Joe should cross. As the man was very good at understanding pantomime, he complied, though he did bring along Ethan’s horse and one other.

  Joe leaped to the ground, slapped Ethan on the shoulder. The Kaw unleashed a stream of his own language, very little of which Ethan understood. From the softening of his usually stoic features, Ethan assumed the man was pleased with how much better he appeared than when the Kaw had left.

  Joe attempted to hand Ethan the reins of two horses. Ethan refused, taking only his own. Joe tried again. Again Ethan refused. If he and his wife possessed only one horse, she would have to return to Freedom with him. He’d worry about getting her to stay once they got there. He was fairly certain that if she went back to Lassiter Morant, he would never see her again.

  Joe let out an exasperated huff; then he pointed at the full moon, the ground, Ethan, and himself.

  “I’ll be here,” Ethan said.

  Joe leaped on his mount and, trailing the spare, crossed the creek. He and his friends rode west without looking back.

  The next morning, Annabeth frowned suspiciously at Ethan’s horse. “What do you mean Joe was here and gone?”

  “When I stepped out to relieve myself, there he was.”

  “Just him?”

  “And my horse.”

  Annabeth’s gaze narrowed. “Your eye is twitching.”

  He touched a finger to the pulsing muscle. “So?”

  She merely snorted and put out the fire.

  • • •

  As they didn’t have much to pack beyond each other, Ethan and Annabeth were on the trail within fifteen minutes. Getting back to Freedom took a lot longer.

  Annabeth hadn’t realized they’d strayed so far, although she should have. If they’d been closer, someone would have found them. She didn’t believe that the folks of Freedom would allow their doctor to disappear without ever searching for him. She was certain Cora wouldn’t.

  As the sun fell toward the horizon behind them and Freedom appeared before them, Annabeth reined in.

&n
bsp; “What’s wrong?”

  She fought a shiver as Ethan’s breath stirred her hair. The sight of town reminded her why they’d ridden out in the first place. As she still had no idea who had fired at them or why, riding into Freedom in the daylight made them an easy target.

  “Maybe we should wait until dark,” she said. “Less attention, less trouble, fewer questions—”

  “Too late,” Ethan murmured.

  Annabeth had been twisting the horse’s mane around her fingers. Now she glanced up. A posse headed their way, Marshal Eversleigh in the lead.

  “Why would they ride out to meet us?” he wondered.

  “I doubt it’s because they can’t wait to extend a welcome home.”

  They could do that in town.

  “Marshal,” Annabeth greeted as the posse reined in. She nodded to the townsfolk; she didn’t know most of their names. That Jeb wasn’t among them concerned her.

  “Ma’am.” Eversleigh pulled on the brim of his hat. “Doc. We didn’t think you’d come back.”

  “Where would we go?” Ethan asked, obviously confused.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  The marshal’s gaze flicked to Annabeth’s, and she frowned. Something wasn’t right.

  “Cora Lewis is dead,” he continued.

  Ethan straightened so fast, his chest slammed into Annabeth’s back. She set a hand on his thigh and squeezed. Eversleigh lowered his eyes to Ethan’s leg then back to her face.

  “How?” she asked.

  Before he even spoke, she knew. If Cora had died from natural causes, there’d be no need for a posse. She’d have been buried, and they would have learned about her death in gossip—as it should be.

  The same would be true if she’d been killed by a known culprit, even herself. She’d be buried—either outside the churchyard if she’d died by her own hand, or within—before her murderer swung from the gallows. Which left only one reason Annabeth and Ethan would be met out here by a federal marshal and a group of armed men.

  “I did it,” she said at the same time Ethan blurted, “It was me.”