Outlaw’s Bride

by Johnston, Joan

  Patch couldn’t help smiling back. She had the strangest urge to laugh with relief. He hadn’t said a word, yet she was ready to like him.

  He wasn’t done charming her. While she stood there grinning like an idiot, his mouth tilted up on one side, skewing his smile and giving him a rakish look. His eyes warmed as they focused on her. Even worse, she warmed as his eyes surveyed her from top to toe. She was left in no doubt that he liked what he was seeing.

  It dawned on her that she was meeting these two cowmen still wearing the apron she had put on to clean house, with her hair tumbling down and her face smudged with dirt.

  “Garn!” she muttered.

  “What’s that you said, ma’am?” Frank asked.

  “Nothing,” Patch replied. “What can I do to help you gentlemen?”

  “We came to make sure Ethan’s all right,” Frank answered.

  Patch’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Don’t you work for Jefferson Trahern?”

  Frank ran the reins through his fingers nervously. “Yes, ma’am. I do.”

  Her mouth twisted in disdain. “And you call yourself Ethan’s friend?”

  “I’ll personally vouch for him,” the stranger said.

  “And who are you?” Patch demanded.

  The cowboy stepped down off his horse, tipped his hat, and said, “Boyd Stuckey, at your service, ma’am. I’m a friend of Ethan’s, too. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

  Patch was flattered and flustered by his formal speech. It belonged in a drawing room back East. Then she remembered that she had spent more than a couple of years learning how to respond when addressed in such a manner. “I’m Patricia Kendrick. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  Patch realized too late that she had extended her hand as though she were wearing elbow-length gloves and a satin ballgown. To her surprise, Boyd Stuckey knew exactly how to treat a lady. He marched up two of the three front porch steps, took her hand in his, and raised it to his lips.

  When his mouth touched the back of her hand, she got goose bumps all the way up her arm. She snatched her hand back, bewildered by feelings she had previously been certain no man except Ethan could have incited.

  “It’s a pure delight meeting you, Miss Kendrick,” Boyd said. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

  The sound of his voice, husky and low, sent an astonishing chill down her spine. Patch was confused and upset by what was happening to her. How could a perfect stranger make her feel like this, when she was already in love with another man!

  She hurried into speech to cover her feelings. “Ethan worked with my father in Montana years ago. Since we’re such old friends, he asked me to come and help out around the house until Mrs. Hawk is feeling better.” She arched a brow, eyed both men, and said, “What’s your real reason for being here? I have it on good authority that Ethan doesn’t have any friends in town.”

  Frank answered before Boyd could. “Me and Boyd and Ethan grew up together here in Oakville. We’ve been best friends since we were in short pants. Just ask Ethan. He’ll tell you. The three of us have always been tighter than ticks on a dog.”

  Frank looked so honest and sounded so earnest that Patch was inclined to believe him. “In that case—”

  The squeal of hinges as the front door opened interrupted her. Patch turned and saw that Ethan was joining them.

  “I was just about to invite your friends to stay for supper,” she said.

  “We wouldn’t want to put you out, ma’am,” Frank said.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Patch replied. “Please, won’t you both join us?”

  “I have some things to talk over with Ethan that’ll sit better on a full stomach,” Boyd said.

  “Then it’s settled,” Patch said. “You’ll stay.”

  “Patch, it’s not necessary—”

  Patch patted Ethan’s arm on her way past him. “Invite your friends into the parlor, Ethan. I’ll get Leah to help me set some more places at the table.” She was gone before Ethan could protest further.

  Ethan watched with narrowed eyes as Boyd and Frank ogled Patch’s swaying rear end all the way into the house.

  “Come on inside before your eyeballs drop out,” he said, glaring at his friends. The two men followed sheepishly.

  “Looks a little different in here from the last time I saw it,” Boyd said as he settled himself on the horsehair sofa.

  “Patch has taken things in hand.”

  “Patch?” Boyd asked.

  “That’s her nickname.”

  “I like Patricia better,” Boyd said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Frank edged into a rawhide chair across from the sofa and accepted the glass of whiskey Ethan poured from the bottle his father had always kept along with some glasses on a table near his desk.

  “None for me, Ethan,” Boyd said.

  “What shall we drink to?” Frank asked.

  “Freedom,” Ethan said grimly.

  “To freedom,” Frank echoed.

  Boyd laid one ankle on the opposite knee and drummed his boot with his fingertips, eyeing Ethan speculatively. “I wish I had a few old friends who look like Miss Kendrick.”

  “I last saw her seven—almost eight—years ago when I worked with her father in Montana.” Ethan was irritated by Boyd’s interest in Patch, but unwilling to tell his friend to back off. After all, Boyd Stuckey was exactly the sort of man a lady like Patricia Kendrick deserved.

  “Patch couldn’t have been much more than a kid eight years ago,” Frank said.

  “She was a kid,” Ethan retorted. “Hell, when she was three, I changed her wet drawers! Her father, Seth, was the man who hid me out after Dorne shot me, until my leg healed.”

  The other two men sobered at this reminder of the awful events of the past that had changed all of their lives.

  “Pretty nice of her to come all this way to help you out,” Boyd said. “Is she staying here at the house with you, or does she have a room in town?”

  “I’m staying right here,” Patch answered.

  All three men stood at the sight of her. Patch had put on the rose red dress she had worn at the hotel. The velvet hugged every womanly curve, emphasizing her femaleness. Her hair was twisted into a neat bun at her nape, and she had powdered away the freckles on her nose. Her back was ramrod straight, but she moved with feline grace. She was as elegant a lady as any of them had ever seen.

  Ethan was awed by the transformation from frazzled housekeeper to flawless female, but he wasn’t by any means alone in his admiration.

  “Well, well,” Boyd murmured. “This is a rare treat indeed.”

  “Shall we go in to supper, gentlemen?”

  Boyd was quick to offer Patch his arm, and although she would rather have walked the few steps to the trestle table in the kitchen with Ethan, she was unable to avoid Boyd without being rude.

  “Certainly,” she said with slight nod.

  Ethan was left to trail behind his friends, pondering the way Patch Kendrick had turned his household inside out and his friends upside down.

  The kitchen looked homey in the glow from several lanterns Patch had placed around the room. Patch was sitting on the right side of the table. Boyd had seated himself across from her—so he could look at her throughout supper without seeming to stare, Ethan thought wryly. Frank had taken the seat beside Patch. Leah was sitting at the foot of the table. Although sitting perhaps wasn’t the right word. Leah had her feet doubled under her on the chair, her dirty elbows on the table, and her chin resting in her hands.

  Before he sat down, Ethan surveyed the table in amazement. Hot, buttered biscuits. Baked ham. Boiled beans and bacon. A pot of steaming hot coffee. His mouth hadn’t watered like this in a month of Sundays. But it wasn’t just the food, it was the fact that silverware had been precisely placed on either side of the plates, which held cloth napkins. He hadn’t even known his mother owned cloth napkins! Somewhere, Patch had found five cups that matched. In t
he center of it all stood a fruit jar jam-packed with fresh-picked black-eyed Susans.

  As Ethan took his seat at the head of the table, he eyed Patch surreptitiously. The troublemaking hoyden he had known in Montana wouldn’t even have used silverware, let alone been capable of arranging it on the table. He watched her place the napkin precisely in her lap. His stomach knotted when she smiled at Boyd across the table.

  Then she turned to him, the smile still on her face, and said, “Do you still like biscuits as much as you used to?”

  “Yeah, I do.” It took Ethan a moment to realize she was holding the basketful of biscuits out to him. He took one, felt how soft it was, and reached for two more. He took a quick bite and through a mouthful of biscuit said, “These are great! Not at all like the ones you used to make.” He stopped chewing and looked up guiltily.

  Patch laughed. “You mean these don’t taste like shoe leather,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Molly taught me how to make them.” She turned to Leah. “And I had a lot of help from your sister.”

  Ethan’s look was nothing short of incredulous. He quickly recovered himself and said, “Then my compliments to you, too, Leah.”

  Leah flushed to the roots of her hair. “You’re welcome, Ethan,” she muttered.

  Ethan passed the basket on to Boyd, who helped himself to several and passed it across to Frank, who passed it down to Leah. By the time the basket got back to Patch, there was one biscuit left. She took it and was grateful, knowing the typical cowboy’s appetite, that they had left her any at all.

  If Patch had hoped for civil conversation at the table, she was doomed to disappointment. These were working cattlemen, and their appetites showed it. Once their plates were full, they concentrated totally on eating. It was only after they had demolished the ham and scraped the bowl of beans and poured themselves a third cup of coffee that they sat back ready to talk.

  “That was a close call you had this morning,” Boyd said to Ethan.

  “Yeah, it was.” Ethan settled his gaze on Leah. “It’s bedtime, kid.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Then you can go check on Ma.”

  “Aw, Ethan—”

  “Get going, brat.”

  “I always miss the good stuff,” Leah grumbled.

  “Tell Ma I’ll be in to say good night soon.”

  Patch was amazed when Ethan’s sister obeyed him. She had felt the tension between them all evening. But Patch had also seen the girl’s occasional furtive glances at her brother throughout supper. She remembered the painful flush when Ethan had complimented Leah on the biscuits. Patch suspected the girl idolized her brother and wanted his approval, while Ethan, though indulgent, kept her at a distant arm’s length.

  That wasn’t so hard to understand. After all, the brother and sister barely knew each other. They had been robbed of a lifetime together by the catastrophe that had occurred seventeen years ago. Fortunately, once Ethan’s name was cleared, they would have the rest of their lives to get well acquainted.

  When Leah was gone, Ethan turned to Patch and said, “Maybe you’d like to clear the table.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t,” Patch retorted. “You’re not going to get rid of me as easily as you got rid of Leah. I’m staying right here. I think I’d like to hear what your friends have to say.”

  Ethan frowned. “Don’t blame me if you hear something you don’t like. Go ahead, Boyd.”

  Boyd took a sip of coffee and set down his cup. “How’s your ma doing?”

  “About the same,” Ethan replied. “I’ve had Doc Carter in to see her, but he says there’s nothing wrong with her that he can fix. He said just make sure she gets plenty of rest and get her to eat whatever she will.”

  “Too bad. With your ma so sick, your kid sister would be in a bad way if anything ever happened to you.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Ethan snapped.

  “One of these days Trahern is going to get lucky. Wouldn’t it be better to sell this place and head for greener pastures?”

  “These pastures are plenty green for me,” Ethan retorted.

  “Boyd is right,” Frank said. “It’s too dangerous for you to stay here, Ethan. Trahern isn’t going to give up. He wants you dead.”

  Ethan smiled grimly. “I’m still alive.”

  “But for how long? You’ve only been back home a month, and he’s already sicced a pack of killer dogs on you,” Boyd said.

  Patch cleared her throat. “What would happen if Trahern found out who really raped his daughter? Do you think he would give up his quest for vengeance against Ethan?”

  Boyd and Frank stared at Patch as though she had grown another eye in the center of her forehead. Then they stared at Ethan.

  Ethan felt his ears getting red. “Patch has this crazy idea about hunting down the rapist.”

  “After seventeen years?” Frank asked incredulously. “We looked for clues at the time, and there weren’t any!”

  “If there weren’t any clues, why does everyone believe Ethan is guilty?” Patch asked.

  Patch couldn’t get any of the three men to meet her gaze. At last Ethan said, “Because Merielle’s father found me a half mile from his house holding his daughter in my arms, her face all bloody and her clothes half ripped off.”

  Patch felt queasy. That was certainly damning evidence. But not enough by itself to condemn a man to a lifetime on the run. Her brow furrowed as she thought aloud. “How did you come to find her? I mean, what were you doing there?”

  Ethan shoved his chair back from the table and stood in agitation. “Are you so sure I didn’t do it?” he challenged.

  Patch shoved her own chair back and stood facing him nose to nose. “Absolutely, positively sure.”

  The tension in the room was palpable. Suddenly, Ethan collapsed back into his chair and dropped his head into his hands. He made a frustrated, growling sound in his throat. “Aw, hell,” he muttered in disgust. “Believe what you want. It won’t change what everyone else thinks.”

  Patch sat back down. Before Ethan had spoken, she had convinced herself that he hadn’t been anywhere near Merielle Trahern when she was raped. Obviously, she had been deluding herself. Proving his innocence might be a bit more difficult than she had thought. “We have to find out the truth,” she croaked past the sudden lump in her throat.

  “It’s too late,” Boyd said flatly. “You’re both kidding yourselves if you think you’ll find the culprit after all these years.”

  “We certainly won’t if we don’t try!” Patch retorted. Her fear that Ethan might somehow be involved after all caused her voice to come out sounding shrill. The look of shock on Boyd’s face at her outburst made her realize that her ladylike facade had slipped. But she was fighting for her life. Being a lady came a distant second.

  “What about Merielle?” Patch asked. “Is there any chance she’ll ever regain her memory?”

  Boyd shook his head. “After seventeen years? I’d say it’s damned unlikely.”

  Patch turned to Frank, who hadn’t said a word. “Frank? What do you think?”

  Patch wished she hadn’t asked when she saw the wounded look in Frank’s gray eyes.

  “For a long time I kept hoping …”He knotted his hands and swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I try to take as much pleasure as I can from her company just the way she is.” He paused and added in a harsh voice, “Because I don’t think she’s ever going to be any different.”

  Everyone at the table was silent, and Patch realized they were all willing to give up before they had even started. “There’s no reason why we can’t ask some questions,” she said.

  “To what purpose?” Boyd asked.

  “To find some answers!” Patch said in exasperation.

  Boyd shrugged. “You’d be wasting your time.”

  “I agree,” Frank said in a quiet voice. “It’s ancient history.”

  “Not to Jefferson Trahern,” Patch insisted.

 
; Silence fell again.

  At last Ethan raised his head. “Patch is right about one thing. We’ll never know if we don’t try. I’m sick and tired of having to watch my back. Now Trahern has decided to wage war another way. He’s making it impossible for me to borrow money from the bank. Without credit I can’t buy feed. I’ll be out of business in six months. I don’t have any choice. I need to make peace with Trahern. The only way to do that is to find out who really raped Merielle.”

  Boyd sighed. “I think you’re wasting your time—”

  “Boyd—” Ethan interrupted.

  “—but I’ll do what I can to help,” Boyd finished.

  The two men exchanged glances, then grinned. Boyd slapped Ethan on the back. “Hell, what have we got to lose?”

  “When do we start?” Frank asked.

  “How about now?” Patch said.

  Ethan gave her a sideways look. “What did you have in mind?”

  “How about filling me in on everything you can remember that happened the day Merielle was raped?”

  The three men looked at each other warily. Because of Ethan’s flight and the years he had spent running, they had never spoken about that day.

  “All right,” Ethan said. “Who wants to go first?”

  Frank’s Adam’s apple bobbed again. “I will.”

  Patch settled back in her chair to listen.

  “It was Merielle’s birthday,” Frank began, “so we made arrangements to meet in our secret place.”

  “You met in secret?” Patch asked.

  Frank’s face contorted in lines so savage he could no longer be called handsome. “Jefferson Trahern didn’t approve of his daughter seeing a no-account dirt farmer’s son.”

  “So you and Merielle met behind his back,” Patch concluded.

  “We were in love,” Frank said. “We planned to be married someday. Somehow.”

  “Where was this secret place?” Patch asked.

  “I can tell you that,” Ethan said. “The three of us used to meet there. It’s a cave along the Neuces River about a mile from Trahern’s ranch house. The entrance is hidden by brush and cactus.”

  “So all of you knew where it was?”

  Ethan nodded. “But we stayed away when Frank asked us to.”