Outlaw’s Bride

by Johnston, Joan

  Boyd struggled to his feet. “You going to let me catch my wind first?”

  “This isn’t a fair fight,” Ethan reminded him.

  “All right, Ethan. Whatever you—” Boyd lunged before he finished his sentence, his shoulder driving into Ethan’s solar plexus and knocking the air out of him as both men landed hard back in the dust.

  Patch watched the combatants with bated breath, terrified for Ethan until she witnessed several of the lethal maneuvers he used on Boyd. The viciousness of the fight amazed and appalled her. The two men were engaged in a knock-down, drag-out brawl, with no holds barred.

  Blood flowed from a cut over Ethan’s left eye, blinding him on that side. His cheekbone and chin suffered bruising blows. His knuckles were rubbed raw from punching Boyd, who was in even worse shape. Boyd’s lips were puffy, his right eye was swollen almost closed, and his nose was broken and dripping blood. He was half bent over to protect the ribs Ethan persistently and effectively attacked.

  The two men circled, each trying to keep his prey in sight with his one good eye. Every once in a while one or the other got in a blow, but just as often they swung and missed.

  Ethan kept punching at Boyd’s stomach and ribs, trying to wear him down. His head was ringing from the jabs Boyd had managed to deliver. Ethan leapt back to avoid Boyd’s boot aimed at his crotch and grinned raggedly. “Missed,” he taunted.

  Boyd replied with an uppercut to the jaw that left Ethan reeling. He responded with another blow to the belly that doubled Boyd over. To his surprise, Boyd fell to his knees. Ethan staggered back a step. “Get up, Boyd.”

  “Can’t fight anymore, Ethan,” Boyd gasped. “Need a rest.”

  “Get up, Boyd.”

  All three of them heard the sound of galloping horses at the same time.

  Patch joined Ethan as they sought out the figures in the distance, wondering whether help was on the way, or whether they were in for more trouble.

  Boyd didn’t hesitate. He saw his chance and took it, crawling stealthily toward where his gun lay in the dust, careful not to draw either Ethan’s or Patch’s attention.

  Keeping Patch close beside him, Ethan headed for the spot where he had left his gunbelt on the ground. He had just reached it when Boyd called his name.

  “Ethan.”

  Ethan’s reflexes were so finely honed that he reacted to the glint of sunlight off steel without thinking. He shoved Patch out of the line of fire and snatched his Colt from his holster in one smooth, swinging arc of his arm. He fired as soon as he had a target.

  Boyd grunted when the bullet struck him. He fired back, but his aim was thrown off, and his bullet sailed harmlessly wide.

  “Drop the gun,” Ethan said.

  Boyd shook his head. “You’re going to have to kill me, Ethan. I’d rather not hang, if it’s all the same to you. As my best friend, just do me this one last favor.”

  Boyd aimed his gun at Ethan, and Ethan fired.

  The force of the shot toppled Boyd backward. His legs crumpled under him and he came to rest with his arms flung wide and one leg bent under him.

  “Damn you, Boyd!” Ethan swore. “You son of a bitch. I didn’t want to kill you!”

  Patch arrived at Ethan’s side just as Frank and Merielle brought their horses to a sliding stop in front of them.

  “Are you all right?” Frank called to Ethan as he came off his horse.

  “We’re fine,” Ethan said. Then, in a flat voice, “Boyd is dead.”

  Frank helped Merielle down, then slipped his arm possessively around her waist and walked the short distance to Patch and Ethan. “Don’t waste your pity on him,” Frank said. “He deserved to die.”

  “I’m glad he’s dead,” Merielle said in a hushed voice. She glanced at Boyd’s blood-soaked body and hid her face against Frank’s chest. Her whole body trembled.

  Frank rocked her in his arms. “It’s all over, Merielle. You’re safe now, with me.”

  Merielle looked up at Frank. There was nothing childlike about the glow of love in her eyes.

  Frank swallowed so his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Once upon a time, when we were kids, I proposed to you. Do you still want to marry me?”

  “Oh yes, Frank!” Merielle said. “I love you. I always have.”

  Frank met Ethan’s eyes over Merielle’s head and said, “Then we’ll be married. And no one and nothing will stop us.”

  “My father can’t stop us now,” Merielle said sadly. “He’s dead.”

  “No, he’s not,” Ethan corrected.

  Merielle whirled to face Ethan. “Father’s not dead? But I saw Boyd shoot him. At least, I thought I did. I …” Merielle put a hand to her head. It was clear she was afraid her memory had tricked her again.

  “Your father was shot, all right,” Ethan explained. “But Boyd’s bullet missed his vital organs. I got the bleeding stopped, and I doubt it’ll be long before he’s back on his feet.”

  “Oh, thank goodness! Not thank goodness my father was shot,” Merielle amended quickly, realizing how she had sounded. “But it’s a relief to know I wasn’t wrong about what I recollected,” she explained. “Things are kind of mixed up in my head right now. I’m not sure what I remember from the past and what I remember from the present.”

  “Give it a little time,” Patch said encouragingly. “Things will straighten out.”

  “With Frank’s help, I know I’ll be all right,” Merielle said.

  The way she looked up at Frank, with such love and trust in her eyes, made Patch believe Merielle Trahern would be just fine. What made Patch even more envious was the look in Frank’s eyes. What she wouldn’t give to see such open admiration, such adoration, aimed at her by Ethan!

  “I’ll send the sheriff back to pick up Boyd’s body if you want to take Patch home,” Frank volunteered.

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” Ethan said.

  “You’d better wipe the worst of that blood off your face,” Patch warned. “Or you’ll frighten your mother and Leah.”

  While Ethan dabbed gingerly at the cut over his eye with his bandanna, Patch retrieved their horses. Ethan took advantage of the opportunity to speak privately for a moment with Frank. Then he walked over to where Boyd lay. He knelt down and straightened out Boyd’s leg, then crossed Boyd’s arms over his bloody chest. Finally, he closed Boyd’s golden eyes for the last time. The odyssey that had begun with Merielle’s rape seventeen years ago was over at last.

  A month ago, before Patch Kendrick had shown up in Oakville, Ethan had been resigned to his fate. He had been playing the rotten cards he’d been dealt and had even considered throwing in the hand. Patch had forced him to ask for new cards, and he had come up a winner. Now that he didn’t have the past hanging over his head, he was free to make choices that had never been his to make. The most important of those involved Patch.

  “Ready to go?” Patch asked.

  She had already mounted her horse. Ethan took the reins Patch handed him and vaulted into the saddle without touching the stirrups. “Let’s go home.”

  Patch had a thousand questions she wanted to ask Ethan, but she held her tongue, waiting for him to speak. There was just one question she wanted him to ask her.

  “Will you marry me, Patch?”

  She waited, but no proposal was forthcoming.

  Ethan remained silent. His troubled gaze had turned inward, and his expression was brooding. He didn’t look like a man who was contemplating a proposal of marriage. At least, not one he was happy about making.

  Patch’s heart was in her throat. She had latched on to the rape accusation against Ethan as the main reason he hadn’t wanted to marry her. But she hadn’t forgotten the other reason he hadn’t jumped at the chance to make her his wife.

  “I don’t love you, Patch.”

  Not once in the month since she had been in Texas had Ethan said he loved her. Not even when he made love to her. She had just loved him so much, and for so long, that she couldn’t conceive of hi
m not loving her back. If she had to face that possibility, she would. But it would be devastating to walk away from the man who was the other half of her being.

  What if he doesn’t ask me to marry him? What if he doesn’t love me?

  Patch opened her mouth to ask Ethan what he was thinking and snapped it shut again. She could wait. If it was bad news, she didn’t want to hear it. If it was good news, the wait would be worthwhile.

  Leah was sitting on the porch steps with the Winchester across her knees, guarding the house much as she had been the first day Patch had met her.

  Leah stood as they tied up the horses at the rail. Ethan never took his eyes off his sister as he walked—long step, halting step—over to her. Standing on the ground level, his eyes were even with Leah’s, who stood on the top step. He took his sister’s chin in his hand to look at her. Patch joined Ethan, but she had to look up slightly at Leah.

  “Are you all right?” Ethan asked.

  Leah nodded shyly. “Sure. It was you I was worried about.”

  “I’m just fine.” Ethan affectionately tousled Leah’s blond hair, as he had done with Patch when she was the same age, as he had done to his sister only once before.

  This time Leah reacted more naturally, as Patch had, by shoving his hand away. She ducked back out of his reach. “Hey! Cut it out, Ethan.”

  Ethan grinned. “Big brothers gotta tease little sisters.”

  Leah grinned back. “Then you won’t mind me telling you that your face looks like you chased a turpentined cat through a bob-wire fence.”

  Ethan reached for Leah’s braid to yank it.

  “Let go, you toad!” She turned and raced for the door, shouting, “Ma, Ethan’s bein’ mean to me!”

  “Ma! Don’t listen to her! She was callin’ me names!”

  Patch laughed and grabbed Ethan to keep him from running after Leah. For the first time, the brother and sister were acting like ordinary siblings—fighting like cats and dogs, and driving their mother crazy with it.

  Ethan slipped an arm around Patch’s waist. “Let’s go on inside.” The smile faded from his face. “I might as well get this sad, sordid story told.”

  Ethan and Patch trailed Leah to Nell’s room, where Ethan was shocked to find Patch’s grandfather propped up reading a book in Nell’s bed, while she sat in the rocker beside him knitting.

  “This looks cozy,” Ethan said.

  Nell heard the acid undertone in Ethan’s voice and rose. “I’m so glad to see you’re home safe!” She embraced her son, who remained stiff. Nell stepped back and saw Ethan was bristling at the sight of Corwin in his father’s bed. For Ethan, his father’s death had happened only two months ago. For Nell it had been two years. She refused to defend what she had done, but she offered her son an explanation.

  “I couldn’t very well send Corwin off to town in the condition he was in. He might have a concussion, and he needs to be looked after.”

  Corwin was equally sensitive to Ethan’s stiff posture. “I’m sorry to impose,” he said. “But Nell insisted.” He paused and, when Ethan didn’t bend, said, “Now that you’re here, maybe you can talk some sense into her. I ought to be getting on home.”

  Patch stepped into the breach. “Of course you’re not going anywhere, Grandpa Corwin.” She crossed to the head of the bed and unnecessarily fluffed the pillows behind him. “Tell him he’s welcome to stay, Ethan. Your mother could certainly use the company. And if anything happened to Grandpa Corwin, I’d feel responsible.”

  She raised innocent blue eyes to Ethan, whose lips curled in a rueful smile. His gaze slid from Patch to Corwin to his mother. The tension visibly eased in his shoulders. It was hard to let go of the memories of his parents in this room. But his mother deserved whatever happiness she could find.

  Ethan nodded to the old man. “You should stay, Corwin. Rest easy and get well.”

  “Thank you, Ethan,” Patch said.

  Ethan saw the worry in his mother’s eyes and gave her a quick hug. “Don’t wear yourself out playing nurse,” he cautioned. “You just got out of the sickbed yourself.”

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  “When are you going to tell us what happened with Boyd?” Leah interjected impatiently.

  “As soon as everybody gets settled down somewhere,” Ethan said.

  Nell sat back down in the rocker, Patch curled herself up near her grandfather’s side, Leah sat cross-legged on the bed, and Ethan sat down at the foot of the bed and leaned his back against the footpost. He recounted everything he knew about Boyd Stuckey’s nefarious activities, from the time he had raped Merielle to the moment when he had forced Ethan to shoot him down.

  There was a stark, shocked silence in the room when Ethan was done.

  “That poor, poor boy,” Nell said.

  “He made a lot of bad choices,” Corwin agreed.

  “Don’t waste your sympathy on Boyd Stuckey,” Ethan countered in a harsh voice. “He was a bastard, and he deserved to die.”

  “I liked him,” Patch said.

  Ethan scowled.

  “I liked him when I met him,” she amended. “He was so charming—”

  “Maybe I should have stepped aside sooner,” Ethan said.

  “That’s not fair!” Patch said. “I couldn’t help liking him. He was charming.”

  “And I suppose I’m not?” Ethan snarled.

  “Not when you’re growling at me like a grizzly!”

  “If you don’t like the company around here, you can always leave,” Ethan said in a dangerous voice.

  “Maybe I will! Maybe I’ll just pack my bags and head for Montana!”

  “Children, children,” Nell said. “Why don’t you take your argument outside, so Corwin can get some rest?”

  “That’s a damned fine idea.” Ethan grabbed Patch’s wrist and dragged her through the bedroom door.

  When Leah started to follow, Nell said, “I need some help with Corwin, Leah.”

  “Aw, Ma. I miss all the good stuff.”

  Nell straightened Leah’s braids over her shoulders. “You’ll have lots of chances to watch them fight. Right now we need to give them a little privacy so they can make up.”

  “Is Ethan gonna marry Patch?”

  Nell smiled. “If Ethan isn’t already sure what his feelings are for Patch, I think he’s about to find them out.”

  Patch was dreading the coming confrontation. It looked like Ethan was looking for any excuse to send her back to Montana. She was going to shrivel up and die. But not before she gave Ethan a piece of her mind. He had to see that they belonged together! He had to see that they were two halves of a whole!

  To Patch’s surprise, Ethan didn’t seek out another room of the house for privacy. He dragged her right out the front door, hoisted her into his saddle, and slipped onto the horse behind her. His arm tightened around her waist as he spurred his gelding into a steady lope.

  “Where are we going?” Patch asked.

  “You’ll find out when we get there.”

  Patch soon realized where Ethan was taking her. “The cave! But what if Frank—”

  “I told Frank to stay away this afternoon,” Ethan said.

  Patch tightened her grasp on Ethan’s arm where it circled her. “You spoke to Frank about bringing me here? When was that?”

  “Earlier today. Before we headed for home.”

  Patch felt her heart beat faster in anticipation. She was afraid to hope too hard because she didn’t want to be disappointed. When they got to the cave, Ethan slid down off the rump of his horse, then came around and put his hands on Patch’s waist to help her down.

  “I didn’t have a girlfriend before I had to run away,” Ethan said. “If I had, I would have brought her here. Boyd stole that experience from me. I want a chance to get it back.”

  Ethan led the way into the cave and insisted Patch wait until he had the lantern lit before she shinnied inside. She had never felt as uncomfortable with Ethan as she did now, when they wer
e alone with so much left unsaid between them.

  She sat down on the chairlike rock and pressed her hands flat between her knees.

  “Patch?”

  When Ethan called her name, she realized he had gone down on one knee beside her. He slowly pried her hands from between her knees and took them in his.

  His eyes were focused on her hands, and she felt her whole body tingle as his callused fingertips abraded her soft palms. She stared at their joined hands, fascinated by the way he could elicit so much feeling with such a simple touch.

  “Patch?”

  When Ethan spoke, he tightened his grip. Patch looked up to find that he was staring intently at her. She searched his eyes for some sign of what he was feeling. The knowledge of Ethan’s love started as a spark somewhere deep inside her and spread its warmth outward, resulting in a smile of utter delight.

  “Yes, Ethan?”

  Ethan cleared his throat. “I don’t know quite how to say this. It’s hard to imagine myself married to the same three-year-old brat who left wet patches on my shirt when I was fifteen.”

  Patch laughed nervously.

  “Or the twelve-year-old girl with budding breasts and a hankering to fight, who wanted so badly to be a lady for me, but couldn’t say two words without a garn or a durn slipping out.”

  Patch grimaced.

  “But I’d be a damn fool if I didn’t jump at the chance to marry the elegant lady …” Ethan put Patch’s palm to his cheek.

  “… the sexy woman …” He rubbed her hand across his bruised jaw and down to his lips, where he kissed it with his lips parted. He let his tongue slide along the most sensitive part of her hand until he felt her shiver.

  “… the feisty hellion …” He pulled Patch onto her feet and into his arms, holding her buttocks pressed tight against his arousal.

  “… who moved in at the Double Diamond and turned my life rightside up again.”

  “Ethan, I …”