Outlaw’s Bride

by Johnston, Joan

  She stared up at him, her eyes pleading even though she wasn’t saying a word.

  “Patch …”

  Ethan hadn’t intended to kiss her. That had been the last thing on his mind when he dragged her into this alley. In fact, he had been ready to wring her neck. But he lowered his face and she lifted hers and, sure enough, their lips met.

  It was just a touch of flesh to flesh, but it made his blood hum and his spirit soar. He rubbed his lips against hers, and her mouth came open. Lord, Lord! How could he resist that sort of temptation? His tongue slid along the crease of her mouth, and he felt her quiver.

  He wasn’t aware of what his hands were doing until she froze. He had her breast cupped in his hand! He started to let go, but she hesitantly arched toward him. She made a low, animal sound in her throat that caused his groin to draw up tight.

  Ethan brushed his thumb delicately across her nipple and heard her gasp as it tightened into a bud. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and groaned when she sucked on it.

  It was the sound of two women talking that brought him to his senses. He jerked away from Patch, put a hand across her mouth to keep her from making any noise, and pulled her deeper into the alley.

  “It’s shameless, that’s what it is, a lady like her staying in the same house with the likes of him,” one woman said.

  “His mother is there, and his sister,” the other answered.

  “A sick woman and a little girl,” the first woman retorted. “What’s to keep him from forcing himself on her the way he did that poor Trahern girl?” The woman tsked and continued speaking, but by then they were well past the alley, and their voices were no longer clear.

  “See what you’re in for if you hang around me,” Ethan whispered in the darkness. “Misery and unhappiness, that’s what’s in store! You’ll be a source of gossip on the tongue of every old harpy in town. Get out of here, Patch. Now, while you can.”

  Patch dropped her forehead against Ethan’s shoulder and rubbed her cheek against his chest. She liked the feel of him and wanted to be closer. Her fingers curled themselves into his shirt reflexively, like a kitten’s claws. “No, Ethan. Whatever happens, I want to stay here with you.”

  Patch felt him shudder.

  “Then heaven help you, little one. Because I can’t help myself.”

  He tipped her chin up and kissed her, only this time he wasn’t gentle. The fervent kiss frightened her, but she reminded herself this was Ethan, that she loved him, and he would never do anything to hurt her. Sure enough, the pressure on her mouth eased, then gentled, then persuaded.

  Patch found herself responding. Her arms slid up around Ethan’s neck, and her tongue slipped out tentatively to meet his. Ethan’s arms tightened around her, and he pressed his lower body against her. She could feel the hard length of his shaft.

  She slowly arched her body into his and heard him groan.

  His hands grasped her hips and held her still. “Don’t, Patch. Or I’ll end up having you right here, standing against an alley wall in the middle of town.”

  Patch lowered her hands to his shoulders and leaned against him. All she heard for the next several moments was the sound of her own ragged breathing and the heavy beat of Ethan’s heart.

  “Let’s get married now, Ethan. Let’s not wait.” Patch lifted her face to his. She could easily see his features now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark. “I don’t care what the old biddies say. I don’t care what the town thinks of you. I only know I love you. And you want me, Ethan. You can’t deny it.”

  Ethan used his hold on her hips to lever her a good foot away from him. Maybe with distance he could keep his senses. “You’re only making this harder for both of us, Patch. I won’t deny I want you. But I don’t love you. And I absolutely will not marry you with the whole town thinking I’m the kind of man who could beat up a woman and take her innocence and leave her bleeding on the ground.”

  Patch turned her head away. “All right, Ethan,” she said. “I won’t mention marriage again.”

  He caught her chin in his hand and forced her to face him. “You know I’m right, Patch.”

  She avoided agreeing with him. Because she didn’t. “As long as you’re in town, wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to see the sheriff?”

  Ethan gave in gracefully. “I suppose so.”

  “Good,” Patch said. “Let’s go.”

  “Whoa!” Ethan said. “I can’t just go marching into his office.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” Ethan realized that the threat of being bushwhacked was probably pretty slim in the sheriff’s office. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go. You let me do all the talking.”

  “Of course, Ethan,” Patch replied. “You’re the boss.”

  Ethan laughed at the totally un-Patchlike meekness of her reply. He hugged her quickly and just as quickly let her go. The temptation was too great to do more. “Come on, you shameless minx. Let’s go see what Careless has to say.”

  Ever since Ethan had suggested that Frank talk to Merielle about the rape, he hadn’t been able to think about anything else. Every day for a week Frank had been trying to get up the courage to broach the subject. The truth was, he was terrified. What if she got hysterical? What if she stopped talking altogether? What if she went completely out of her mind?

  What if she remembered what had happened?

  Greater than his fear was his desire to have Merielle as she had been seventeen years ago. Laughing. Smiling at him. Loving him. He wanted to kiss her and hold her in his arms and have her touch him with wonder as he touched her.

  They had been naive and innocent then. He was only fifteen, she barely thirteen, and each of them in love for the first time. Generally they understood what was supposed to happen between lovers. But they had both been as shy as they were eager to discover the secrets of each other’s body.

  He had touched her breasts only once. Her cheeks had burned red with embarrassment the whole time he was unbuttoning her dress, and she had clenched fistfuls of his shirt to keep herself from shoving his hands away. He had pushed the dress down off her shoulders until it caught on her elbows and felt her shiver as her flesh was exposed to the sunlight in the loft of her father’s barn. Her eyes, oh, God, her eyes had blazed with ecstasy and joy when his callused fingertips brushed against her flesh for the first time.

  Her breasts had been small, only half-developed, the nipples tight, tiny pink buds. His chest had been banded with awe. His whole body had trembled with need. That other part of him, the part he hadn’t yet used as a man with a woman, had surged to life, hardening in readiness for an act he could only imagine.

  Frank had wanted to put his mouth on her flesh. He had dreamed of it. Before he could garner the courage to act on his desire, she had asked, “Could I touch you, Frank?”

  “What?”

  It had never occurred to him that she had the same sorts of fantasies he did. After all, she was a lady, or would be in a very few years. But there was no mistaking the longing in her eyes. He had reluctantly let go of the precious part of her he was holding and slid his arm around to her back.

  “Do you want to unbutton my shirt? Or do you want me to do it?” he asked.

  She looked delightfully confused for a moment before she said, “I want to do it.”

  Her fingers were stiff at first, from having been clenched so tightly on his shirt. She kept her chin down so he could see only the top of her head. He marveled at how she always got the part so straight, evenly dividing the lustrous sheen of black hair. He reveled in the thickness of her braids, their softness. All the while he was trying to think of something else, she was slowly but surely unbuttoning his shirt.

  He sucked in his gut reflexively when she tugged on his shirttails to release them from his pants. He laughed nervously when he felt his body shiver. “I sure ain’t cold,” he said. And he hadn’t been.

  Shivering in sunlight. In the years to come he would often ponder the phenome
non. That day, his thoughts had been on Merielle. He had held his breath waiting to feel her fingertips on his skin.

  A small patch of black curls had formed very recently on his chest, and that was what drew her attention. She reached tentatively and grasped several of the curly hairs.

  He winced when she pulled too hard, but he wouldn’t for the world have asked her to stop what she was doing. She slid her hand across his flesh, raising goose bumps along the way. Until she found a male nipple. It fascinated her. She traced it with her finger. She tweaked it and laughed when he jerked. She brushed it with her thumb.

  Not even in his dreams had Frank imagined such feelings. His body drew up tight. His pulse pounded in his head until he couldn’t think. His whole being came alive with wants and needs as old as the ages and as primal as nature.

  Then she leaned forward and tasted his nipple with her tongue.

  A groan, almost of pain, wrenched its way out of his throat.

  She looked up at him, her eyes concerned, questioning. “Did I hurt you, Frank?”

  “Oh, no, Merielle,” he hurried to assure her. “It was just that … I felt like … I …” His tangled emotions left him tongue-tied. He didn’t have words to tell her what he felt.

  She demanded them anyway. “Felt like what, Frank?”

  “I’d have to show you,” he grated out.

  He waited to see if she would let him do to her what she had done to him. Her brow furrowed slightly while she thought—it always did—and when it cleared he had his answer.

  “All right, Frank.”

  He felt awkward, like the schoolboy he was. What if she didn’t like it? What if she never let him touch her again? His sense of humor rescued him. If he didn’t hurry up, she might change her mind, and he would never get to touch her the first time!

  Frank was just lowering his head, and it was a ways down, since he was so much taller than she was, when they heard someone coming into her father’s barn. They were in the loft, and there was no reason for anyone to come up there, but they waited with bated breath to be discovered. Whoever it was left the barn again almost immediately, but the spell was broken.

  The instant it was safe to move again, Merielle pulled away from him and hurriedly yanked her dress back up over her shoulders. She fumbled with her buttons, and he brushed her hands away to do it himself.

  “We should have met at the cave,” he murmured. “Then we wouldn’t have been interrupted.”

  She blushed, but a mischievous smile teased her lips. “Tomorrow,” she promised.

  “Tomorrow’s your birthday. What about the party your father’s having for you? Will you be able to get away?” He hadn’t been invited and had been afraid he wouldn’t see her alone. He had braided a ring out of black horsetail hair especially for her.

  “I’ll meet you after school,” she said. “I have to come home first, but once Father sees I’m back, he won’t pay any attention to where I go.”

  He buttoned the last button at her throat. “Don’t be late. I have a present for you.”

  “I won’t.” She stood on tiptoe and pulled his head down to kiss him quickly on the lips, then raced for the ladder and headed down. She flashed him a quick grin of complicity before she disappeared from sight.

  His thoughts shied away from what had actually happened the next day. It was too painful to remember. However, his confrontation with Jefferson Trahern the day following Merielle’s birthday—the day after she was brutally raped—remained vivid in his mind.

  He had gone to the Tumbling Tbecause he couldn’t stay away. He had slid off the mule his father used to pull his plow and tied it up along with the assortment of wagons and buggies drawn up at the front of the imposing house. He swallowed hard as he looked, really looked, at Merielle’s home.

  Merielle lived like a princess in a palace. What had ever made him think they would someday get married? He could never provide her with a grand home like the one she had grown up in. Pillars held up the second story of the house and black shutters framed sparkling windows. There must have been twenty rooms inside.

  Merielle had never cared that her father had money and his father never would. Frank knew the town had him pegged as a man who would never get the dirt out from under his fingernails. And the chances of him getting into that great big house to see her the day after she had been brutally raped were slim to none. Nevertheless, he had to try. He had been in agony wondering how she was, whether she was still hurting, whether she would be willing to see him again.

  When he knocked on the solid front door, it was answered by Mrs. Felber, whose husband owned the mercantile. She was a big-boned woman, with equally large features. She was wearing black. With her hair scraped back off her face, her nose became the focus of her face. Her mouth opened to reveal large, horsey teeth. Frank knew her son, Chester. He had started school with the other kids, but hadn’t progressed far, since he was slow-witted. From the time he was ten, Chester had stood head and shoulders over everybody else. He had never fit in. He had only gotten bigger as he got older. Fortunately, he was a gentle giant.

  “Why, Frank, you shouldn’t be here,” Mrs. Felber admonished.

  He stood there, hat in hand, one booted foot digging at a knothole in the porch and muttered, “I came to see Merielle.”

  Mrs. Felber shook her head emphatically. “That’s impossible.”

  “Can you tell me how she is?”

  Mrs. Felber took pity on him. “I’m sorry, Frank. The poor girl … she … she isn’t well.”

  Frank had figured that out for himself. He wanted more specific information. “Is she awake? Can she talk? Does she know who did it?”

  “Oh, dear. I don’t think—”

  “Can I come in? I need to see her. I—”

  “Who’s at the door, Mrs. Felber?”

  Frank recognized Jefferson Trahern’s booming voice. His first thought was to turn tail and run as far as he could as fast as he could. But he would only have to come right back. He had to know how she was!

  Mrs. Felber stepped aside and Jefferson Trahern stood in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

  In the past month or so Frank had discovered that his Adam’s apple had a life of its own when he swallowed. He swallowed now and felt it slide jerkily up and down. “I came to see Merielle.”

  Trahern stepped out onto the porch and closed the front door behind him. Before Frank realized what the big man was going to do, he had grabbed a handful of Frank’s shirt and drawn him up on his toes. “Did you have anything to do with what happened to my girl?”

  “I love Merielle, sir.”

  Trahern shook him like a rat. “Bah! You’re not fit to shine her shoes.”

  “I will be someday, sir.”

  Trahern’s eyes narrowed. “You talking back to me, boy?”

  Trahern’s fist knotted tighter on his shirt. Frank was starting to choke. “May I see her, sir?”

  He met Trahern’s penetrating stare, trying to look innocent, even though he knew a lot more than Trahern thought he did about the rape.

  “I’ve heard the gossip about you and my daughter, boy. If I thought for one second that you’d laid a hand on her, I’d hang you myself!”

  Frank might have been poor, but he had never begged. He was begging now. “Please, won’t you tell me how she is, sir?”

  “That’s none of your damn business!” Trahern used his hold on Frank to force him backward toward the edge of the porch. When he let go of Frank’s shirt, Frank staggered backward down the steps into the dust at the bottom. A horse nearby snorted nervously and shifted sideways.

  “Get on your mule and get out of here! I don’t ever want to see your face around here again.” Trahern turned his back and reached for the doorknob.

  Frank scrambled to his feet and headed back up the stairs. He wasn’t leaving without finding out what he had come to learn. He grabbed Trahern’s arm and pulled him around. “Is she all right? Has she spoken? What did she say?”

&
nbsp; Trahern’s mask of civility was more fragile than Frank had suspected. Pressed for answers, he exploded. “Hell, no, she’s not all right! My baby’s been brutalized by some fiend and she … she’s lost her mind!”

  Frank stood stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she doesn’t remember a thing! She smiles and smiles like nothing happened, like everything’s fine. With one eye so swollen she can’t even see, and her mouth so tender it hurts when she talks. She wants to know what I got her for her birthday, and whether I think everyone will show up for her party. It’s like yesterday never happened!”

  Merielle’s father was staring right at Frank, but he wasn’t seeing him. Frank knew that when Trahern came to his senses he would be sorry he had spoken. Frank backed away, then ran. He mounted the mule and kicked him hard into a trot. He knew now what he had come to find out.

  A month or so after the rape, Merielle started showing up in town, always with her father. She seemed perfectly fine. She smiled and laughed and conversed normally. Frank found a way to cross her path one day and said hello, but it was clear she had no recollection of him or of what they had been to each other. It was all gone. Wiped clean.

  Frank had been devastated. He hadn’t stopped loving Merielle, hadn’t stopped wanting to touch her. But when he looked into her eyes, no hint of the budding woman he had loved could be found. That horror was compounded when it became apparent that Merielle was trapped in time, caught as the young girl she had been when she was violated.

  It was nearly a year later, when Frank turned sixteen, that he made up his mind to work for Jefferson Trahern. He worried what Ethan would think of him—working for a man who hated his friend and wanted him dead.

  But Frank felt sure Ethan would understand why he had to do whatever was necessary to be close to Merielle. The way things stood, he rarely got to see her. At least if he worked on her father’s ranch, he would get a glimpse of her now and then. Only, Frank wasn’t at all sure that Trahern would hire him.

  When he presented himself once again at the front door to Merielle’s home, his heart was pounding in his chest. He couldn’t have been more surprised when Merielle herself answered his knock.