Beloved Outcast

by Pat Tracy

  Of course, she wouldn’t believe him, not in a million years. And there was the rub. He refused to beg her to believe he wasn’t on the same level as Jesse James. There were some things a man’s pride wouldn’t let him do.

  Logan watched Victoria’s feet step into a pair of white drawers. The feminine underpinnings were pulled over slender legs. Next a ruffled petticoat descended, followed by the falling hem of dark gray skirts. His gaze returned to the fire. Orange-and-crimson flames wound their way around the larger logs.

  It had been when she said that no respectable woman would have him that he spun his lies about being a thief, lies she’d eaten up as greedily as a bear cub tasting its first dollop of honey. It was obvious she delighted in thinking the worst of him. He hadn’t intended, however, to let his deception go so far as inviting her to become his partner in crime, or his lover.

  That rash offer had been provoked by her prissy regard of him as the world’s most reprehensible felon. He shook his head. Before now, he hadn’t believed he had a rash bone in his body. He didn’t understand what made him make such ridiculous statements. He only understood that Victoria had a knack for pushing him past the limits of reasonable behavior.

  Victoria came around the wagon. Logan noticed that every button was in place and they ran from the bottom of her chin to her waist. Her sleeves were long and her cuffs securely fastened. Her hair was a damp thicket of confusion, but the hairbrush she held would soon take care of that splendid red chaos.

  He tried to comprehend what it was about her that hit him on such a basic level. She wasn’t a stunning beauty. He’d seen a couple in his lifetime. Robeena had been one. But Victoria had something more valuable than flash. There was a lively intelligence in those slanting green eyes of hers, as well as a sassy kind of courage that knocked him on his butt.

  Considering the abundance of overly sentimental volumes he’d noted in her traveling library, she would certainly take grave offense at his unromantic outlook.

  “You’re staring,” she told him in that cultured tone of hers that was no doubt supposed to put him in his place.

  “You’re worth staring at.”

  He was hunkered by the fire, absently watching it spit and hiss as it warmed him. It didn’t take a leap of imagination to compare the flames with how Victoria affected him.

  “I suppose I should admit I was wrong, Logan.”

  Her statement caught him by surprise. Had she been thinking about how impossibly outlandish his account of his misdeeds had been? Was she finally ready to concede that he wasn’t the most dastardly outlaw between Boise City and St. Louis?

  She picked up the thick book she’d dropped when the mountain cat appeared from nowhere. Her slender fingers gently brushed the dust from the leather cover. “It’s obvious you were able to build a fire from wet wood.”

  “I told you I could,” he said flatly.

  “And I should have believed you,” she returned softly.

  He wished the conversation was about something more significant. He supposed he’d take what scant praise she offered when he could. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” she admitted, returning the thick volume she’d been fussing with to the wagon. The gray skirts of her simply styled dress swayed provocatively with each graceful step.

  He jerked his gaze away from the appealing view and stood. “I’ll see about getting us some fish.”

  “And I’ll cook us up some buckwheat biscuits,” she called back to him.

  Buckwheat biscuits. His thoughts shot back to their first meeting. It seemed incredible that that event had occurred only three days ago. They still had almost two weeks ahead of them on the trail. That was a long time to keep his thoughts and his hands off the bewitching woman. When she bent into the back of the wagon, her backside was displayed fetchingly as she foraged through her belongings. No man should have to live through this kind of mental and physical torture. Come hell or high water, though, he would resist her the rest of the trip.

  The irony of Logan’s goal didn’t escape him. He should be completely unattracted to Victoria. She was the kind of woman he no longer wanted, the antithesis of the good-time gals he’d enjoyed with reckless pleasure before Maddy had become his responsibility.

  He watched Victoria return to the fire, juggling a thick frying pan, an almost empty sack of flour, a tin of lard and her cooking fork. Her hair still danced freely around her gamine face. She must have decided to tame it later, as she’d left her hairbrush in the wagon, along with the book.

  He leaped to his feet. “Here, let me help you with those.”

  Hearing his own gentlemanly offer, Logan winced. Lord, he was acting like a lovesick dolt in the throes of his first adolescent crush. “If you’re not careful, you’ll drop something.”

  She shot him a disgruntled look, but allowed him to take the frying pan and the container of grease. He’d rather have run his hands through her silky auburn hair. Determinedly he kept his hands and his compliments to himself.

  Compliments like Victoria, you have the most beautiful red hair of any woman I’ve ever known. Victoria, your legs are so sweetly shaped, I’d like very much to run my hands over them. Victoria, do you realize how lovely your breasts are?

  “Thank you.”

  It took a moment for him to realize why she was thanking him.

  “I’ll see about spearing us some fish,” he managed to say hoarsely.

  Toying with danger, he absorbed everything about her that made his heart hammer. Her splendid red hair, her bright green eyes, her luscious mouth, her soft breasts, concealed by her god-awful gray gown, her trim waist, the gentle flare of her hips, the shapely limbs concealed by her full skirts. Her light sprinkling of golden freckles, her unpredictable and wholly fascinating mind…

  Her very sharp tongue.

  He sighed, and felt foolish for doing so. It occurred to him that Victoria Amory had well and truly ruined him. He no longer felt coldly in charge of his destiny. Instead, he sensed he was in imminent danger of succumbing to unrestrained outbursts of warm and mushy sentimentality.

  What a revolting development. He should have been disgusted. He wasn’t. He felt strangely optimistic. Which had to be an aberration caused by their time on the trail. For he was a cool-headed cynic who looked at the world through eyes of stark objectivity. Which was how he damned well liked it!

  Until now, pointed out the part of his mind that insisted on telling him the truth at the most inconvenient moments. He sighed again. Until now, he acknowledged grimly. But the battle wasn’t over, he assured himself.

  “Won’t you need my cooking fork, Logan?”

  He looked at her in confusion—he, who’d never known a moment of confusion, except for the time he’d caught his nearly nude fiancée in his brother’s bedchamber.

  “To harpoon the fish.” she prompted, her green eyes watching him as if he’d suddenly sprouted blue spots.

  “I’ll sharpen a stick.”

  With that, Logan strode from the fire he’d impressed Victoria with by starting from wet branches and twigs. The man had hidden talents, she thought. It was unfortunate that he couldn’t use those God-given abilities to live an honorable life.

  She watched him disappear into the woods. The fog had lifted, and Logan became an undetectable part of the densely treed landscape. Lord help her, she liked it better when he was near, rather than far. Which just proved how addled she was becoming. For, after hearing from his own lips—those narrow, astonishingly kissable lips—what a miserable rogue he was, she should want as much distance between them as possible.

  By the time Logan returned to camp, Victoria was turning the golden biscuits when he stepped into the clearing.

  “That smells like heaven,” he said appreciatively as he held out three cleaned trout for her inspection at the end of the sharpened stick.

  She accepted the offering. “I’ll fry the fish when the biscuits are done. They’re about finished now.”

  She resented b
eing self-conscious around him and wished there was some way to make the strange awkwardness she felt disappear. Yet a sense of self-protectiveness made her realize it was better that she not become too comfortable around Logan. It was safer to maintain a formal atmosphere between them. He was, after all, a very temporary part of her life.

  Logan nodded. “I’ll use the time to check the oxen. I meant what I said earlier about us resting today. Both we and the animals need a break from the fast pace we’ve set. Now that we’re in Night Wolf’s territory, we can ease up.”

  Victoria stared at Logan’s neutral expression. It was as if the passion that had almost burned out of control between them had never happened. Almost as if he’d never invited her to embrace his wayward way of life. It was all for the best, she decided, that he obviously had no intention of pressing her to become his cohort in crime. And it demonstrated a shocking lacking moral fortitude on her part to regret for even an instant that he hadn’t been serious about his indecent offer.

  While Logan checked the oxen, she placed the biscuits on a plate to cool. The trout were almost fried to a succulent crispiness when an ominous buzzing caught her attention.

  She glanced from the pan of sizzling fish and encountered the biggest, furriest bee she’d ever seen. It was the size of a hummingbird and boasted yellow stripes as wide as her pinkie.

  “It’s only a bee, Victoria. Ignore it.”

  At the sound of Logan’s voice, her gaze momentarily left the hovenng insect, which was flying back and forth over the skillet. She hadn’t realized he’d returned to the clearing until he spoke. She found she didn’t like his habit of sneaking up on her. It made for a disquieting lack of predictability.

  “That’s easy for you to say, but bees and I don’t get along.”

  “You’ve been stung before?”

  “Once, when I was a little girl.” She returned her gaze to the hovering bee. “It was Easter Sunday. Annalee and I were in the flower garden, picking blooms to match our new dresses.”

  “Annalee is.”

  “My younger sister. We weren’t supposed to be in the garden. I don’t remember which of us instigated the act of misbehavior. It was probably Annalee. I was always very well behaved.”

  “Of course,” Logan said dryly.

  She took exception to the note of skepticism she detected in his voice. It seemed remarkably arrogant of him to harbor any doubts about her conduct, when his own was so appallingly unsuitable.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Victoria’s attention was still focused on the restless drone of the menacing bee as it now stalked the plate of biscuits.

  “I got stung, but not before I tried to outrun it. My escape attempt landed me in a sharp-thorned rosebush that our gardener had watered only that morning. You have to remember I was very young, Logan,” she explained, lest he think her a total nitwit. “My father overheard my wails and came out to investigate the ruckus.”

  “It was a good thing he was close by.”

  “Not really,” Victoria said, vividly remembering the painful childhood memory. “I’d ruined my dress—it was torn and muddy, you see. Father was furious. The carriage was ready, and it was time for us to attend church. My mishap was going to cause everyone to be late. And, of course, being late for Easter services simply couldn’t be tolerated.”

  “What happened?”

  “The family went without me. It was the only thing they could do.”

  “What about your sting?”

  “The pain was hardly noticeable the next morning.”

  “And that’s why you’re afraid of bees?”

  “I’m not actually afraid of them. I just respect them,” she muttered. “There was another incident with one where I definitely came out the loser. Look, I say we let the bee have the biscuits. You and I can eat the fish for breakfast.”

  “I’m not sharing my food with any damned bee, Victoria.”

  “It won’t actually eat them,” she pointed out, gingerly reaching for the cooking fork, lest she draw the creature’s notice. She removed a trout from the frying pan and put it on another plate. She kept careful track of their unwelcome guest.

  Logan strode forward. “All we have to do it shoo it away.”

  “Don’t!” she squealed, jumping back from the impending confrontation between the intrusive insect and Logan. “Some bees simply won’t be shooed.”

  Her protest failed to deflect Logan from his course. She watched him swat at the circling intruder with his bare hand. She didn’t think she’d ever witnessed such a display of raw courage—or foolhardiness. The fuzzy creature’s stinger was the size of a paring knife, or so it seemed.

  “Be careful, Logan,” she warned, stepping back.

  The bee returned three times to the plate of biscuits before finally departing. During the contest of opposing wills, Victoria forced herself to remove the other two trout from the skillet. For, even though her heart was in her throat, she refused to let Logan’s catch burn while he fought so bravely to protect them from the obviously savage bee.

  Of course, she was reminded of Horace Threadgill and the debacle in her bedchamber that had precipitated her accepting Martin Pritchert’s offer of employment and coming west. She couldn’t help contrasting Horace’s cowardly reaction with Logan’s stalwart defense.

  But then, to be fair, the bee didn’t fly up Logan’s pant leg. Still, she imagined that if it did, and she tried to assist him, he wouldn’t stand feebly by, screaming for help, while she did all the work. And it would be obvious to anyone who happened to walk in on such an episode that she had not divested Logan of his britches against his will.

  Clearly, the man was capable of getting out of his trousers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Victoria walked alongside the wagon as it wound around another curve in the trail. For almost two weeks, she and Logan had made their way through the seemingly limitless forest that had become their world. They advanced five to seven miles each day, depending upon whether they were going uphill or downhill.

  Living with Logan had become a way of life, she thought as she stepped around a white-blossomed thistle blocking her path. Every sunrise she awoke upon their pallet under the wagon, locked within his protective embrace. Outwardly, they ignored the intimacy, never speaking of it. There were many things of which they never spoke. It was safer that way, Victoria acknowledged to herself, and she was sure Logan had reached the same conclusion.

  They were. careful with each other, discussing only the immediate circumstances of their forced togetherness. Conversation was limited to where they would camp, what they would eat and how much ground they expected to cover that day.

  Where words could not, Victoria had learned, silence wove its own dangerous spell of intimacy. Her thoughts went their own merry way where Logan was concerned. They dwelled upon his remarkable capacity to provide for them in the wilderness, upon his hard, masculine body, and upon the occasional burning hunger she saw reflected in his brooding gaze.

  Since the episode with the bee, they had not participated in one spontaneous burst of dialogue. The guarded, polite exchanges spun out between them until Victoria wished their seemingly endless journey was completed. Then she would realize that their arrival in Trinity Falls would end forever her contact with the man guiding the oxen over the next rise, and quiet despair would fill her heart.

  No more Logan Youngblood. No more snuggling against his strong, virile body during the cool Idaho nights. No more watching his beard grow each day. No more waiting for the moment when he might take her into his arms again and cover her mouth with his. No more possibility of experiencing that fierce, close heat he stoked within her.

  According to Logan’s clipped remarks when they broke camp that morning, they’d already spent their last night on the trail, which meant she had spent her last night in his embrace. He’d informed her that sometime late this afternoon they would leave the mountains and descend into the valley. By nightfall, they would re
ach their destination. She struggled to suppress any useless pangs of regret, but it wasn’t easy to dispel the feeling that she’d missed an opportunity to truly know Logan, an opportunity that would not come her way again.

  There was so much about him that she didn’t understand. Why did he lead a life on the wrong side of the law? What had his childhood been like? The thought of him not having loving parents made her heart twist. Her own father might be overly stern. But deep in her soul she believed he loved her and always acted in what he regarded as her best interests. Likewise, her mother might be preoccupied with her circle of friends and a hectic social schedule, but Victoria was certain the sometimes distracted woman loved her. Was there no one who had cherished and watched over Logan as a boy?

  The wagon halted. The sun was high overhead. Breakfast that morning had consisted of a few wild berries and a rabbit Logan had snared. Victoria’s stomach rolled. She knew it was foolish, but it had been difficult for her to choke down more than a couple of bites of the roasted meat.

  During their wilderness odyssey, Logan had provided other game—squirrel, raccoon, and even a young elk. Since she was used to eating chicken, beef and pork, he’d pointed out, her squeamishness about eating the meat from the animals he successfully hunted was illogical. In theory, Victoria agreed with him. But in practice, she found it difficult to wolf down a creature that had been scampering through the woods minutes before it appeared in her cooking skillet.

  She watched Logan jump from the wagon. He now moved with an easy male gait that seemed natural to him and indicated that his ribs no longer pained him. Nor did his face boast any signs of the beating he’d suffered at the fort. It was still impossible, though, to clearly discern the specific angles of his sharply defined features, because a thick black beard covered his jaw.

  What with his prominent dark eyebrows and his blade of a nose, he definitely looked the part of a villain. A pirate, she thought. If he’d lived in an earlier century, he probably would have become a buccaneer, sailing the seven seas in search of adventure and treasures of gold. All he required was a loop earring and an eyepatch to complete the image.