Outlaw

by Lisa Plumley

  Trying to sound nonchalant, if unworldly, she went on: “Perhaps you could instruct me in the nature of—”

  “And anyway, the rain washed away our wagon tracks and the hill hides us from the road, so—” Mason’s voice faltered, his hand tightening abruptly on the canvas edge. His gaze locked with hers. “What did you say?”

  Amelia’s boldness deserted her. Her throat tightened, making it hard to speak. “Well, you’re a worldly man. At—at least if our kiss was anything to go by,” she said, “and I’m curious to know about…that is, perhaps you could instruct me in—”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  His eyes narrowed. Roughly he tied off the drawstring, then jumped down from the wagon. He landed right next to her—tall, broad-shouldered—and inexplicably angry.

  If she’d wanted him to pay attention to her, surely she’d accomplished that goal with room to spare.

  “I should think you’d be flattered,” Amelia said. “I’ve never asked a man to kiss me before. You’re the first.”

  “I’m honored.”

  His tone said he was anything but.

  His gaze dropped to her wilted blue-and-white-checked bodice, then lower, in an assessment as blatant as any she’d ever received. Amelia tried to stand straighter, wishing she could appear more ladylike before him. A borrowed, too-large, unfashionable gingham dress would hardly inspire tender feelings in a man, she figured.

  “Didn’t anyone ever warn you about letting a man kiss you?” he finally asked, frowning.

  Warn me?” He wasn’t going to kiss her again, she realized. Her hopes sank like pebbles tossed in the water.

  He squinted at her, rubbing his palm over his jaw where his whiskers used to be. “You can’t mean—”

  “Mean what?”

  “Your mother, a sister…no one talked to you about letting a man kiss you? Warned you what might happen?”

  Mutely, Amelia shook her head. “My mother died shortly after I was born, and I haven’t any sisters.” She thought about it some more. “I suppose my brothers and father were too well-mannered to bring up such an…err, personal subject.”

  “Well-mannered.” Mason stared at her, his expression disbelieving.

  Amelia shrugged. Her family loved her, but she had no illusions about her prospects, and neither did they. She wasn’t “marriageable,” and never had been. She was too short, too plain, and too lacking in wealth—given her father’s propensity for investing every dime into the business instead of his daughter’s dowry—to expect many suitors. Her father had explained it all to her many times. She was fortunate her family needed her, he’d said, and Amelia had agreed.

  Surely she was the last lady to require a lecture on letting men kiss her, and obviously her father and brothers had known that.

  “They’re gentlemen,” she said loyally.

  “That’s no excuse.”

  Amelia narrowed her eyes. “Are you casting aspersions upon my family?”

  “Your family? Hell, no.” Mason caught her chin in his callused fingertips and lifted her face to his. “I’ve got the utmost respect for gentlemen.”

  “Even though you’re not one?” she teased, hoping to lighten his mood. He was so close, even close enough to fulfill her wish and kiss her. She imagined his lips descending to meet hers as they had yesterday, and shivered a little.

  He frowned, absently tracing his thumb over Amelia’s chin. “I don’t feel like one. Not now.” His gaze swept over her face, then lower. Abruptly, he dropped his hand and stepped backward.

  “The next time a man tries to kiss you like I did,” he told her, his expression fierce, “you’d better—”

  “Better what?”

  What was Mason lecturing her for, anyway? He was the one who’d started all the kissing in the first place. He was the one who’d gotten her interested in it.

  She’d only been trying to hug him yesterday after their escape. Was it her fault the situation had developed into something more? Her fault for responding to him?

  No, it wasn’t, Amelia decided, doing her best to stare him down. In this, at least, perhaps she could have the upper hand.

  Looking frustrated, Mason broke eye contact first. It felt like a victory—a small one, but hers all the same.

  “Scream.”

  “What?”

  “Scream your head off. I know you’ve got it in you.”

  Grumbling beneath his breath, he climbed into the wagon again and started rummaging through the supplies with jerky, impatient movements.

  “And then what?” she inquired.

  “That ought to be enough,” he answered sourly, pulling a worn brown men’s hat from a peg set into the curved frame that supported the canvas. He turned it over, examining it, then plunked it on his head and came out again.

  He stopped in front of Amelia, giving her a hard look. “No more talk about kissing,” her warned. “It’s not going to happen.”

  “But I don’t see what’s wrong with it,” she persisted, trying not to feel hurt by his rejection. “I know you care a little about me.”

  She touched Mason’s sleeve when he would’ve turned away. “You rescued me, you called me Amy…you touched me with such gentleness that I—”

  “That you decided to give yourself over to an outlaw?” His lips twisted with something akin to disgust as he shrugged free of her grasp. “Don’t be a fool, Curly Top. When we get to Tucson, just walk away. Get on that stage and forget about me. It’s the only way.”

  He left her and headed toward the front of the wagon.

  “But it was only a kiss!” Amelia called after him. “I—”

  Mason stopped, half-turned. He held himself rigidly, as though forcing himself to remain where he stood. “It wouldn’t end there,” he said quietly. “If I touch you again, I won’t be able to stop.”

  She gaped at him, stricken by the intensity of his expression, the haunted vulnerability in his eyes. He meant every word, Amelia realized. And it was more than a kiss they were speaking of. More than intimacy between a man and woman.

  It was love.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I have an idea,” Amy announced the next day, a short while before sunset.

  They’d traveled all through the previous night, stopping to sleep and rest the oxen shortly before dawn. By Mason’s estimation, he and Amelia were thirty-odd miles nearer to Tucson.

  And still far too many miles from retrieving Ben.

  But the risk of being followed limited their traveling to nighttime, when darkness kept their movements hidden. There was only so much he could demand of the oxen, too. Mason didn’t dare push them harder—but the waiting grated on him, all the same.

  “It’s a really good idea,” Amy said, a little louder.

  Mason groaned. The last thing he needed was Curly Top with an idea in her head. Judging by the enthusiasm with which she said it—she was fair bouncing in her lady’s lace-up shoes—it was going to be a humdinger. But he didn’t have the heart to say so.

  “What’s your idea?” he asked instead, passing her as he carried the freshly washed tin plates back to the wagon. He was so stuffed with the beans and cornbread she’d made for dinner that all Mason felt tempted to do was lay down inside and sleep. There was a lot to be said for a good, woman-cooked meal.

  “Well,” Amy said, handing him the clean spider with both hands, “I’ve been thinking about how we’re going to make it into Tucson without being discovered.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “But Mason—” She dogged him all the way to the wagon, hard on his heels. “We’ll have to sneak in. Or else disguise ourselves somehow.”

  “Disguise?”

  She smiled, shrugging with affected girlish modesty. “That’s my idea.”

  “No. No, no, no.” Mason waved his hand. “I don’t even want to know what you mean by that.”

  “I mean, look at you! Anyone could recognize you, and in a heartbeat, too. You’re a very distinctive-look
ing man.”

  Facing him, she boosted herself onto the rear wagon tongue and sat there, her legs kicking to and fro beneath her skirts. He glimpsed a hole in her black cotton stockings, just behind her ankle, and looked the other way. Aside from one of her harebrained schemes, the other last thing he needed was more thoughts about Amy’s legs…or the rest of her.

  Sleeping next to Curly Top the past two nights had been straight torture. Not that Mason had done much sleeping. Knowing she was there, wrapped naked in a quilt only a few feet away, had kept him in a near-constant state of arousal. It had been damned frustrating. He couldn’t see any reason to let himself in for more of the same now by sneaking glances at her legs.

  He looked at her face instead. It shone with enthusiasm for her disguise plan. Recalling what she’d said, he asked, “You think I’m distinctive-looking?”

  She laughed. “Don’t look so wary. I mean it as a compliment.”

  He shrugged, telling himself he didn’t care what she thought of his looks anyway. He wasn’t some damned peacock, strutting around for a female. Scowling, Mason dug a cheroot from his coat pocket and propped the thin cigar between his lips while he went back to the campfire for a twig to light it with. As he’d expected, Amelia jumped down from her perch and followed him.

  “Distinctive sounds like some namby-pamby Mama’s boy, dressed in a purple waistcoat and britches,” he muttered around the cheroot. Lifting a burning branch, he lit the cigar. Tobacco-scented smoke spiraled upward, joining the mesquite smoke from the campfire.

  “I mean distinctive as in memorable,” Twirly Curls explained. She propped her chin in her hand and stepped backward a pace, studying him. “Take those all-black clothes, for instance—”

  “These are poet bandit clothes,” Mason interrupted. “They were good enough to convince you that’s who I was.”

  “Exactly. Now you’ll either be mistaken for the poet bandit—an outlaw. Or yourself—an outlaw. We’ve got to come up with something that’ll blend in a bit more.” Chin still in hand, she circled him slowly. “What were you before you became an outlaw?”

  He hated to admit it, but she had a point. If the sheriff’s wanted posters had reached Tucson already, he’d be hard-pressed to walk down the street without risking capture by some bounty-hunting knuck. If that happened, he’d likely never reach Ben in time. What were the chances he could escape from three jails in a row?

  “I’ll bet you were a…soldier,” Amy mused, looking him up and down. “You’ve got that soldier’s bearing, like you could take the weight of the whole world on your shoulders and still stand up straight.”

  She smiled, as though taken with the image of him as Atlas, balancing a globe on his shoulders.

  Mason laughed. “You’ve got an eye for those things, Curly Top. I was stationed at Fort Lowell until a few years ago.”

  “And then?”

  He squinted at her, deliberating, then admitted, “I had a farm a little ways from here.” Scanning the landscape around them, he added, “Up north, just off the Gila River.”

  “It’s near here?” Amy asked, her gaze following his pointing finger. “Why didn’t you say so? We could just go there, instead of sleeping in a wagon bed.”

  Mason looked toward the Gila, toward the farm where he hadn’t even been able to lay in spring seed before he’d been set on the run—looked toward his past—and remained silent. For all he knew, the Territorial government had taken over his land until the coroner’s jury made their decision about Ellen’s death.

  He hadn’t had time to wait for their verdict. Not if he wanted to see his son again.

  He shook his head. “No. I’m going to Tucson. I have people to meet.”

  “Who?”

  He said nothing. Amy crossed her arms primly over her chest and frowned. “Mason Kincaid, you’ve got to be the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,” she said. “Why won’t you trust me? Maybe I can help you somehow.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you as much as I did,” he said, turning away from the expectation he saw in her face. He’d been a fool to trust her, even with that much of his past. “I’ve got to get things ready. We’re heading out again after sunset.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, measuring him. Then, as though she’d reached some sort of decision, Curly Top blew out a great gusty sigh.

  “All right. But if you won’t confide in me, will you at least consider my disguise idea?”

  Mason tossed down his cheroot stub, grinding it into the soil with his boot heel. He squinted at her from beneath his hat brim. “Nope.”

  “Mason! It’s a good idea,” she protested.

  Digging the toe of her shoe into the ground, Amy gazed out toward the distant mountains. The sun had nearly reached their peaks.

  “I want to help,” she went on, not looking at him. “It’s—it’s partly my fault you got caught and locked up at Maricopa Wells. I didn’t want to admit it before, but if not for me I think you would’ve gotten away from the stagecoach. Even away from that man who was shooting at you.”

  “Amy—”

  She turned to him and laid both hands flat against his shirtfront. Her face tilted upward toward his. “Please let me help, Mason. I…I know I’ve been a bother to you, held you back from whatever you’ve got to get in Tucson. I swear I’ll do better.” Her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt, and her chin took on a determined angle. “I know I can do it.”

  Gently, he untwisted her hands from his shirt. Something told him he was going to regret agreeing with her, but Mason did it anyway. Anything to get Curly Top to quit touching him. Just being near her got him heated up enough, without her touching him, too.

  “All right. What’s your damned idea?”

  She brightened. Before he knew what she intended, Amy swept his borrowed hat from his head. “A haircut!” she announced, dangling his hat from her fingertips behind her back as she surveyed his head. “I’m very talented with a pair of scissors.”

  Mason fought the urge to run his fingers through his shoulder-length brown hair. He wasn’t about to primp for her. Hell, no.

  “It’ll change your appearance completely,” she went on, standing on tiptoes to brush his hair back from his face with her fingertips.

  “What’s wrong with the way I look?” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” Amy assured him with a hasty glance. Her fingertips glided over his temples, then wavered as she lost her balance. Rising on tiptoes again, she added, “It’ll just be different, is all. A good beginning to your disguise.”

  Her breasts brushed against his chest as she swayed, trying to reach the back of his head. Mason automatically reached to steady her, then froze just as his hands reached her hips.

  Being this close was a bad idea.

  A very bad idea.

  He stepped backward and snatched his hat from her hand. “Let’s get it over with then.”

  Twenty minutes later, Mason sat on a rock beside their covered wagon. Amy, shears and comb taken from the wagon in hand, circled him. Finally she stopped, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  “At this rate you won’t get done ‘til midnight,” he grumbled, looking up at her, feeling exposed and foolish under her eagle-eyed scrutiny.

  “Hush,” she said, smiling. “I’m making a decision. You’re just afraid I’ll cut crooked and make you look all funny.”

  He snorted. “Nothing could make me look funny.”

  “Want to bet?”

  She moved closer, coming to stand between his legs where she could reach his head better, and raised the comb.

  Mason’s hand clamped onto her wrist. “Just make sure it’s longer than my whiskers were yesterday,” he ordered.

  Amy nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said, giving him a mock salute with the comb. “Anything else?”

  Don’t stand so close, he thought. But that was idiotic—she had to be close to him to cut his hair. He’d just have to ignore the inviting sway of her breasts practically in his face, the woman
ly curve of her hip near his hand, the warm softness of her skin, only inches away.

  This haircut was going to kill him.

  “No, nothing else,” Mason said, gritting his teeth. He clenched his hands over his knees, his arms arrow-straight. “Go ahead and do it.”

  “This won’t hurt a bit,” Amy said as she leaned closer. Her fingers delved into his hair, dug into his scalp, massaged. He felt the comb slide along the top of his head as she made a part, then the comb’s hard tortoiseshell teeth swept his hair away from his face.

  Her fingertips moved across his head with gentle, deliberate precision, deftly arranging his hair to suit her. Mason wanted to close his eyes, to surrender to her care, to let himself enjoy the feel of her hands on him. Instead, he grit his teeth harder. What kind of man was he, to be moved by a touch as simple as this?

  Sighing, Amy paused and lowered her palms to his shoulders. The movement made her breasts sway gently, right at eye-level. The poorly fit bodice of her latest borrowed dress gaped open slightly, revealing the smooth hollow between her breasts, hinting at the round, sensitive softness beneath her dress.

  Closing his eyes briefly, Mason tried to think of something, anything, except how much he wanted to fill his hands with her softness. Anything except how much he wanted to undo each of those tiny pearl buttons, to see her bared before him. His blood raced, pulsing with heat.

  He swallowed hard and turned his head away, feeling his self-control retreat further with every moment that passed. How long did a damn haircut take, anyway? How much longer was he supposed to endure this?

  Dimly, he became aware that Amy had stopped combing. She frowned down at him, the long scissors blades resting casually on her shoulder.

  “I really can do this, Mason. Please relax. You’re stiff as a board.”

  He grunted and clamped his hands tighter onto his knees. Part of him was stiff as a board, and it sure as hell wasn’t his hair.

  Pursing her lips, Amy moved from between his legs to stand behind him. Her skirts trailed over his knee, leaving behind the scent of soap and flowers and woman. She started combing again, her hands sliding and tugging slowly through the hair at the back of his head. Wisps of cut hair drifted down, gathering at his feet. Mason shifted atop his rock, trying for a more comfortable position.