by Lisa Plumley
He sensed warmth just in front of him, and opened his eyes. Amelia stood there, only inches away. Her hand, so much smaller and paler than his own, reached toward his shoulder as though to comfort him. But when she saw Mason watching, she whipped her hand back to her side.
“Why didn’t you give me my key?”
He blinked. “What?”
“My key. The key to my satchel. I know you have it.”
At its mention, he felt the small weight of it settled cold on the chain against his chest. “I couldn’t.”
Come closer, he thought. Trust me.
At the realization of his thoughts, Mason leaned backward, stricken. Why should he want Amelia to trust him, when he’d failed so many others in the past?
He didn’t.
“Why not?”
The key. Grinning without humor, he raised his bound arms. “I meant, I couldn’t give it to you—not like this.”
Her gaze fell to his wrists. With a poorly stifled cry, she caught his raw, reddened wrists and cradled them gently in her palms. The heat and scent of her skin flowed over him, soothing him, warming him in ways Mason was sure she’d never intended.
She couldn’t know how her touch affected him, couldn’t know how long it had been since he’d known a woman’s care. And he shouldn’t want it. He knew better, had every reason to distrust it, and yet…the warmth of her skin against his felt too good to refuse.
“Oh, Mason!” Amelia whispered. “I didn’t know.” She slipped her thumb beneath the binding, lifting it away from his skin for a closer look.
For a moment he was content to simply let himself watch her, taking in the smooth, straight line of her nose, the delicate arch of her eyebrows, the graceful curve of her temple and cheek. For once, she was too absorbed in what she was doing to scrutinize Mason’s every move. He could watch her freely, and did.
Her hair looked soft as chick’s down, curving in ringlets to her shoulders. Without her fancy, fussy pink dress, Mason realized, Amelia looked younger than before. Fresher. Prettier.
He longed to trace the freckles that dusted the top of her nose and cheeks, to cup her face in his hands and smooth away the worry that made her look so solemn. He could scarce believe it. A woman like her, worried over someone like him?
It was more than he deserved.
If he’d been a man for sighs and regrets, Mason would have said Amelia O’Malley was his penance; that after losing Ellen, there was nothing more for him to hope for. But thoughts like that were for poets—or poet bandits—and he was neither one.
Oh, Twirly Curls believed he was, and Mason meant to let her go right on believing it. For now, it was safer than revealing who he really was.
By the time the lie wasn’t needed—by the time he regained what the Sharpe brothers had stolen from him—Amy would be gone from his life.
“They can’t do this to you,” she said, still staring at the chains that bound him. A tear gathered at the corner of her eye and traveled down her cheek. A moment later Mason felt it fall onto his bare wrist, warm and wet and almost faint enough to believe he’d only imagined it. Just like he’d imagined a woman could care for him again, after all he’d done.
He wrenched his hands away, wincing as the motion made the bindings rub against his abraded flesh. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But I—”
“I found your key,” he said, overriding her protests, “on the mountain that night, and kept it for safekeeping. I meant to give it to you before.”
“Mason, you’re hurt! I—”
“I can’t give it to you now,” Mason went on doggedly. That wasn’t gratitude he felt at her concern for him, it wasn’t. The last damn thing he needed was another woman depending on him. Yet he’d called her to him. He didn’t know what the hell he wanted anymore, not since Amelia had sung her way into his life and turned it upside-down.
“But you can take it.” He lifted his chin, giving her free access to his neck and chest so she could lift away the gold chain and key. “It’s yours.”
Amelia stared, first at his wrists and then at his neck. Her fingers flexed, then her gaze flew to his. “I’m putting a stop to this.”
Turning away, she stepped to the cell bars and rapped sharply on them. “Guard!”
She yanked her hand away. “Ouch!” Sucking her bruised knuckles, Amelia looked around for something else to strike the bars with. There was nothing.
“Curly—”
“Guard!” she tried again, louder this time, ignoring Mason’s protest. Her spine straightened, regal as a queen’s, as she waited for the lone man who’d been assigned their watch to appear.
Finally he did, entering the room on legs that seemed too long for his body, carrying a rifle over his shoulder. His hair fell in filthy reddish waves to his shoulders, half covering his gaunt, hairless face. Mason doubted the boy had ever wielded a razor in his life, much less a firearm.
It was his final humiliation. They’d set a gawky boy to watch over him. Mason wished he could sink straight into the warm brown adobe brick. Either that, or pound the daylights out of the damned insolent upstart. Right this minute, the boy stood grinning at Amelia like a half-wit, lacking only for his tongue to hang out a little farther to complete his resemblance to a mongrel dog after a bone.
“Ma’am?” The boy’s Adam’s-apple bobbled as he swallowed hard. His gaze seemed glued to Amelia’s bosom. He talked straight to it. “What can I do for you, Miss…uh, Miss Bandit, ma’am?”
Mason ground his teeth, fighting the urge to cuff their guard.
“I’ll thank you, boy, to address me as Miss O’Malley.”
Amelia’s voice could’ve frozen them both to the spot. Mason sat up straighter, eyeing her with renewed respect. Curly Top might not know a mesa from a mountain, but maybe—just maybe—he’d underestimated her other useful qualities.
“S-sorry, Miss O’Malley, ma’am. Ma’am.” The boy thrust his head forward, then down, in an awkward attempt at a bow. “I—”
“That will do.” Amelia’s fingers shook—whether from nervousness or anger or some other emotion, Mason didn’t know. As though to hide that fact, she pressed her palms together, fingertips splayed in a thoughtful pose. The boy quit bobbing, and she rewarded him with a faint smile.
“You must never address your superiors so familiarly,” she admonished. His superiors? A statement like that took more grit than Mason had given Twirly Curls credit for.
“It’s impolite,” she was saying now. “Furthermore—”
“I know,” the boy interrupted, staring at the ground as he spoke. “The schoolmarm always used to tell us that at school. But—”
“Address me directly, and look at me as you speak,” Amelia instructed sharply, moving nearer to the cell bars. Obediently, the boy raised his head.
“Sorry, Miss O’Malley.”
Mason’s mouth dropped open. If Curly Top kept on the way she was, she’d have the boy locking himself into their cell next.
It wasn’t a bad idea.
“This man requires medical attention,” said Amelia, stepping back a few paces to indicate Mason. She straightened her stance and looked down her nose at the boy. “Release his bindings at once, and then bring a physician.”
The boy shook his head. “We don’t have no physi—physi—no doctor here at the station, ma’am. I mean, Miss O’Malley, ma’am,” he added quickly. “And I can’t release him. He’s an outlaw, ma’am! The stationmaster would like to have my hide if I unlocked that cell.”
He backed away, gripping his rifle tighter. The stock slid across his palm with a squeak, and the weapon’s barrel wavered in the air above his shoulder. He was nervous. Scared of a woman’s scolding.
Mason frowned. This wasn’t just any boy they’d set to guard him—this was a boy too young to shave, too inexperienced to handle his gun properly, and too afraid to stand up to a female prisoner. Mason would wager he had no more than seventeen years in him, if that.
Perfect.
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“Then bring me some clean water and cloths,” Amelia snapped. “I’ll not stand by while this man is mistreated. Do you comprehend me,…?”
“Uh, Jody,” the boy supplied, glancing quickly toward the door. Afraid he’d be discovered talking with the prisoners? Watching out for the stationmaster?
“Perhaps I should speak with the stationmaster instead,” Amelia said, patience worn thin evident in her voice.
The boy turned toward her, a guilty flush coloring his pockmarked cheeks. “Uh, everybody’s in the zaguan, eatin’ dinner. ‘Cluding the stationmaster. I—”
“Snap to it, boy!” she commanded, sounding for all the world like a mean old schoolmarm about to rap his knuckles with her ruler. “Every second you delay, this man is suffering.”
“But—”
She sighed. “Then bring me the stationmaster. Interrupt his meal, I don’t care. Whatever you decide, be quick about it.”
The boy wavered, visibly torn. A moment later, he threw up his hands and stomped off, muttering something beneath his breath. As soon as he’d left the room, Amelia turned to Mason. Her eyes looked bright, and her hands still trembled, but her face was well and truly lit with a proud, lopsided smile.
“Don’t worry,” she told him quietly. “He’ll be back with everything I asked for, you’ll see. I’ll take care of you, Mason.”
Mason leaned back. She’d take care of him? He felt like shuddering at the notion. First a child to guard him, then a woman to take care of him? He had to get out of that cell before he was reduced to being spoon-fed like a damned infant.
“What if he brings the stationmaster instead?” he asked her.
“He won’t.”
She whirled away before he could see her expression, leaving Mason more irritable than before. He was escaping from that cell no matter what he had to do to accomplish it.
Within minutes the boy returned, clutching a bundle of white cloths against his chest and a worn key ring in his fist. He stopped at their cell door, beating the keys against his thigh. “You sure ‘bout this, ma’am? Uh, Miss O’Malley? That’s a dangerous outlaw in there with you.”
Mason bared his teeth. The boy retreated a pace, jangling the keys faster.
“Of course,” Amelia snapped, assuming her schoolmarm’s demeanor like a clean-starched coat. “This man hasn’t harmed me, now has he? He needs medical care, and I intend to see that he receives it.” She paused. “Or are you the sort of person who’d leave another to suffer needlessly?”
Her tone suggested such a man belonged in the pits of hell—or at least in the Arizona Territory in the summertime without a canteen of water. Mason suppressed a grin. The boy didn’t.
“No, ma’am.” The keys shook as he brought them close and unlocked the cell door. It creaked forward into the room, leaving their guard waiting nervously in the opening.
Mason tried to look less threatening. Maybe a smile? He gritted his teeth.
The boy’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t move an inch.
“What’s the—” Amelia glanced from the boy to Mason. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Come in here, boy, and make it quick.”
“He—he’s—I think he’s growling at me, Miss O’Malley,” the boy protested with a sideways glance at Mason. “I don’t think—”
“He’s in pain,” Amelia explained, laying her hand on the boy’s forearm to draw him forward. “That’s why we must help him.”
At her touch, the boy’s mouth went slack. Gazing at her adoringly, he obediently followed her into the cell. When he got within a foot of Mason’s cot, though, his wits returned.
“I dunno about this,” he protested, squinting suspiciously down at the cot where Mason waited, tense beneath his shackles.
“He won’t hurt you,” she assured him. “I can’t treat him if you don’t unlock the bindings.”
The boy’s head raised sharply. “I ain’t scared of him, ma’am. It’s you I’m worried about, Miss O’Malley.”
Mason rolled his eyes.
Amelia patted the boy’s sleeve. “I’m sure you’ll watch over me admirably, Jody.”
The boy pushed his chest forward. “Yes, ma’am!”
Mason held up his wrists. A moment later the boy had unlocked the bindings, then stepped back toward the cell door. Cool air rushed over Mason’s wounds, making them sting. He knew an instant of gratitude—followed swiftly by regret at what he was about to do.
Rising from the cot, he grabbed Amelia. He glimpsed her face, pale and surprised, before he turned her around and hauled her back against his chest.
“Mason! What are you—”
“Shut up.” Using his left arm to hold her tight in front of him, Mason raised his other arm and wrapped his fingers around her throat.
“You—” he nodded roughly toward the guard “—get out of my way.”
The boy looked rooted to the spot.
“Are you insane?” Amelia struggled against him, jabbing her elbow painfully into his belly. “I was trying to help you! I—”
Mason tightened his fingers against her throat, just hard enough to make her quit talking. “I said, move!” he growled at the boy.
“Uh, uh—” The boy glanced around wildly, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. His fingers flexed only inches from the rifle slung over his shoulder. As though just then remembering he carried it, the boy’s head snapped downward toward the weapon.
“I could break her neck right now,” Mason said softly.
A smothered cry came from Amelia. He was glad she couldn’t speak. Mason didn’t want to know what this desperate act would cost him.
Abandoning all thoughts of his rifle, the guard sidled aside, his gaze fastened on Amelia. Mason passed though the doorway, keeping Curly Top in front of him like a shield. He’d guessed correctly. A boy like that wouldn’t endanger a woman—and he wouldn’t have the first notion how to save her.
“Get inside,” he told the guard, nodding toward their open cell door.
“Uh—uh—” The boy swallowed hard, frowning indecisively toward Amelia and then Mason.
“And give me your rifle, too.”
Resigned, the boy swung his weapon, stock-first, toward Mason. He shuffled inside the small cell. “Station master’s gonna have my hide for this,” he muttered. “He was wanting that re-ward.”
His mournful, worried gaze shifted to Amelia again. “I—I’m sorry about this, ma’am.”
A garbled reply came from Amelia. Mason slammed the cell door shut and locked it, then glared through the bars at the boy.
“Never trust a woman,” he told him.
Keeping one eye on their guard, Mason paused beside the squat wooden table outside their cell. He scooped up his own rifle and left the guard’s weapon out of reach, pocketed his pistol, and shoved his ammunition belt toward Amelia. She slumped beneath its weight, then straightened, clutching it tight against her middle.
“Mason, please—”
His fingers tightened until nothing remained of her protest but a faint, strangled plea.
“No.”
He reached the doorway and glanced outside, squinting at the bright light after two day’s captivity. The yard looked all-but deserted. With luck, the stables would be the same.
Still holding Amelia, Mason squinted over his shoulder at the guard. “You know what I’m wanted for?” he asked.
Trembling, the boy swallowed hard. He nodded. “We—we got the wire from Gila Bend this morning,” he said.
Damn. The sheriff had wasted no time—the Sharpe Brothers’ lie had taken root and spread faster than Mason had expected. Doubtless word of his latest escape would fly quickly, too. He had to hurry.
“Not stage robbery,” Mason said, backing up with Amelia held tight.
“No.” The boy retreated into the cell corner. “M—murder,” he stammered. “Murdering a woman.”
Amelia cried out, her body fairly vibrating with fear against his chest and legs. Now she knew what he was accused of
. That knowledge would cost him her trust and more—but nothing could be more important than reclaiming his son.
Mason squeezed his arm closer around her waist, struggling to ignore the part of him that urged him to release her. He stroked Amelia’s neck, feeling her pulse beat wild beneath his fingertips.
“If anyone follows me,” he told the guard. “I’ll kill her.”
Another cry from Amelia. Mason couldn’t listen. Tightening his fingers again to keep her from crying out for help, he stepped into the sunshine and turned his face south, toward Tucson.
I’m coming, Ben, he thought. Hang on.
Chapter Eight
Amelia had a confused impression of cloud-strewn blue sky, muddy adobe walls, and hot air swirling around them before Mason shoved her up against the outer wall of the building they’d just left. The back of her head thudded into the wall, then her whole body pitched forward. Mason’s ammunition belt dropped from her hands.
He caught it seconds before it would’ve hit the ground. Still holding it, he pressed his hand into her belly and loomed over her. Amelia’s breath left her. Dimly, she registered the bite of the prickly textured adobe through her clothes and the uneven dirt beneath her feet before Mason’s body squashed her harder into the wall. It felt as though he wanted to push her straight through the wall back into the cell on the other side.
“Be still,” he commanded, his gaze sweeping down to hold hers. Desperation darkened his eyes and straightened his mouth into an unforgiving line.
Before she could do so much as nod, the sound of footsteps reached her, coming from just beyond the shadowed coolness of the building they leaned against. Only a faint scuffling against the soil, they sounded loud in the stage station’s noontime stillness. Closer, slowing…then faster. Finally the sound faded. Amelia sagged—whether with relief or despair, she couldn’t tell.
How could she have misjudged Mason so sorely? How had she believed he wouldn’t hurt her? His hard, callused palm against her throat proved that belief wrong beyond a doubt. Worse, she’d brought it all upon herself by tricking the guard into releasing him. Stupid, stupid…