Outlaw’s Bride Read online

  “Are you the sheriff?” she demanded.

  Sheriff Careless Lachlan was bent over Johnny Two Toes, who was deader than a doornail. He looked up over his shoulder. Startled by the imposing dignity of the woman behind him, he snapped up like a bent willow branch and yanked his hat off his head.

  “I’m Sheriff Lachlan.” He smiled, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

  “Why didn’t you stop this gunfight before it started?”

  “Why, uh …” He scratched his balding pate and said, “Someone mighta got hurt.”

  She stared down at the dead man at her feet, then toward the other three men who lay sprawled in various postures on the street, her pointed gaze finally landing on the broken window of the Silver Buckle Saloon. “It seems to me someone did get hurt, Sheriff.”

  His face turned beet red. “Only this riffraff, ma’am.” He frowned and muttered, “I told Mr. Trahern this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “You knew these men were hired killers, and yet you did nothing to stop them?”

  The sheriff pulled at the neck of his shirt and loosened a string tie that was already half undone. “Now I wouldn’t exactly say that, ma’am. I did warn the boy they was after him,” he said. “Told Ethan he oughta get outta town and go back to that ranch of his’n. But Hawk, he insisted on stayin’ in town, facin’ ’em down.” Careless shrugged in a characteristic way that showed how little he cared, which was, in fact, what had gotten him his name. “You see how it turned out.”

  “What if Mr. Hawk had been hurt?” Patch asked.

  “Nobody can kill that son of Satan,” the sheriff muttered. “Not that they ain’t been tryin’ more years than I can count. Ever since …”

  “Ever since what?” Patch asked.

  “That’s history now. The boy’s paid for what he done.”

  “What do you mean?” Patch asked. “How has he paid? And for what?”

  “Why, for killing Jefferson Trahern’s boy, Dorne. Claimed it was self-defense, Ethan did. Only thing that kept him from gettin’ hung was Boyd spoke up for him.”

  “Boyd?”

  “Boyd Stuckey. Old friend of Ethan’s from when they was kids. Boyd’s near rich as Trahern these days. Anyway, that Hawk boy finally got out of prison ’bout a month ago. Been there nigh on to seven years. I say he’s paid his debt. Oughtta be able to walk the streets like a free man. Only …” He frowned up at the sun and put his hat back on—lady or no—to keep off the noonday heat.

  “Only what?” Patch asked, impatient to hear the rest.

  “Only Trahern don’t figure it that way.”

  “So Trahern hired these men to kill Ethan—because Ethan killed his son? Even though Ethan has paid his debt to society by spending seven years in prison?”

  “Jefferson Trahern don’t forgive nor forget.”

  “How do I get to Ethan’s ranch from town?” Patch asked.

  “Head southwest ’bout five miles, you’ll find it right along the Neuces River. But you don’t want to go there, ma’am.”

  Patch arched her most intimidating brow. “Why not?”

  “Ain’t safe.”

  “Why not?”

  The sheriff grimaced. “Lady like you has no business bein’ ’round a fella like him. Convicted murderer and all.”

  Patch squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know that Ethan Hawk is—” Patch cut herself off. She couldn’t call Ethan her fiancé, not without stretching the truth. Nothing had been settled that day eight years ago when Ethan had said good-bye.

  Patch had waited as long as she could for Ethan to return to Fort Benton. Both her father and stepmother had advised her to keep on waiting. “He’ll come back when the time is right,” her pa had said. But Patch hadn’t been satisfied with that.

  When her parents began planning a trip to Boston for her to visit her stepbrother, Whit, she realized it was the chance she had been waiting for. She had smiled a guilty good-bye, knowing she was heading for Texas, not Boston.

  She had come to this small south Texas town because Ethan had once told her he was born and raised in Oakville, Texas. It was where she had planned to start her search. Darned if she hadn’t found him!

  Only her journey wasn’t quite over yet.

  “Can you tell me where I might purchase some gentlemen’s clothing?”

  Sheriff Lachlan pulled the scruffy hairs on his chin. “Suppose you could check at the Oakville Mercantile, ma’am. Only, why you wantin’ men’s duds?”

  “I could hardly ride five miles cross-country dressed like this.” Patch turned her back on the sheriff, stepped up onto the shaded boardwalk, and marched straight into the Oakville Hotel.

  Knowing Ethan was an ex-convict didn’t change Patch’s intentions toward him one whit. She had known he was on the run from the law when she first fell in love with him. Ethan had once told Patch’s stepmother, Molly, that he’d had a good reason for killing the man he had killed. Patch wasn’t about to pass judgment until she heard Ethan’s reasons herself. Assuming Ethan didn’t throw her out before she had a chance to ask for them.

  Patch felt the color skating up her throat as she remembered what had happened in the Oakville Hotel. She wasn’t very experienced in such matters, but it seemed to her Ethan found her at least a little bit attractive. She was ready now to approach him as a woman rather than a child. Surely he would give her the chance to convince him they belonged together.

  As Patch entered the hotel lobby, the clerk Ethan had called Gilley said, “You’ll have to wait for that bath until I get this glass swept up.”

  “That’s all right,” Patch said. “I have some errands to do first.” The first thing she did was to retrieve her purse from the registration desk. She gave it a little pat and was relieved to discover that Max was still inside. She had rescued the mouse from a hungry cat at the stage depot in Three Rivers. As soon as she found a catless barn, she planned to release him.

  “I’d like to write a letter. Do you have stationery and a pen I can use?” Patch asked.

  “You can sit over there at that table,” Gilley said. “You should find everything you need.”

  Patch made her way to the table and chair in the corner Gilley had indicated. She found pen, paper, and ink and sat down to let her parents know she had arrived safely in Oakville—especially since they thought she was on her way to Boston—and that she had found Ethan Hawk.

  She laid her purse carefully on the polished cherry surface, then placed a piece of paper in front of her and took pen in hand. She smiled as she thought how much she owed to her stepmother, Molly Gallagher Kendrick.

  When Patch was twelve, Molly had come to Montana from Boston to be Seth Kendrick’s mail-order bride—and brought along her ten-year-old son, Whit, and six-year-old daughter, Nessie. If Molly hadn’t come into her life, Patch knew she would still be wearing scruffy shirts and torn jeans and fighting everyone in town to prove her father wasn’t a coward. Instead, she was a lady close to realizing a childhood dream.

  Dear Ma and Pa,

  You don’t need to worry about me. Everything is fine. I know you both wanted me to wait for Ethan to return to Montana on his own. I hope you’ll understand that I couldn’t wait any longer.

  So, when I got off the steamship in St. Louis, instead of taking the train to Boston to see Whit, I exchanged my ticket and headed south to the town where Ethan told me he grew up. I arrived safely in Oakville, Texas, today—and found Ethan!

  Oh, by the way, there was a very good reason why he didn’t keep his promise to me. He was in prison!

  Ethan has a ranch not far from here, and I’ll be going there early tomorrow morning. You can write to me care of the Oakville Post Office.

  All my love,

  Patch

  P.S. Please give my love to Nessie and my favorite little brother, Jeremy. Will you write Whit for me and explain everything. Tell him I’ll see the whaling ship bequeathed to him by Captain Sturgis some othe
r time, and I’m sorry I’m going to miss all those Boston society parties he’s attending now that he’s a rich nabob.

  P.P.S. I’ll write again soon! Don’t worry about me!

  P.P.P.S. I think Ethan was a little surprised to see me, but I know everything will work out just fine.

  Love and brown sugar kisses,

  Patch

  Patch folded the letter and addressed it to her father and stepmother. She put everything away and retrieved her purse as she stood and turned to the clerk. “Can you direct me to the post office?”

  “It’s at the end of Main Street,” Gilley said. “In the rear of the Oakville Mercantile.”

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I’ll have that bath ready,” Gilley promised.

  Patch stepped out into the sunlight once more and headed toward the mercantile. She walked as though she had an egg in each hand and a stack of books on her head—the way they had taught her at the fancy school she had attended in Boston. What she didn’t realize was that her natural physical grace made her body sway in a way that had every cowhand up and down the boardwalk gawking at her.

  Patch had learned a lot of rules in Boston, most of which began with A Lady Never … Patch figured she had broken about ten of them in the past twenty minutes. She found it difficult to always act like a lady, but she was determined that for Ethan’s sake she would epitomize that feminine ideal. No matter how hard it was, she would follow the rules—except when it was absolutely necessary to break them.

  Patch politely nodded her head to the local ladies and kept her eyes straight ahead when she passed the cowboys on her way to the mercantile. She didn’t care to be accosted by any of them. It was a little harder to ignore the trickle of sweat that snaked down her back. But she was a lady now, and that meant enduring certain discomforts.

  Oakville’s main street wasn’t very long and consisted of two saloons, two hotels, the livery, a jail, a bank, several eateries, and the mercantile. Patch welcomed the cool difference in temperature when she stepped inside the oak-shaded one-story wood-frame building that Gilley had told her housed the Oakville Post Office. She introduced herself to Mr. Felber, the postmaster and owner of the store, and was assured that her letter would be on its way to Montana on the next stage.

  “I’d also like to buy a few things,” she said.

  “Help yourself, Miss Kendrick,” Mr. Felber said. “Help yourself.”

  Since Patch had supposedly been heading for Boston, she didn’t have the sort of clothes packed in her trunks that she needed for a jaunt on horseback. Fortunately, her parents had given her enough funds for the trip to Boston so that she could afford to buy what she needed.

  As Patch discovered, Mr. Felber never came out from behind the counter. When he’d said, “Help yourself,” it was because he couldn’t be bothered. While she searched out a pair of Levi’s, a chambray shirt, socks, and boots, she watched Mr. Felber sit on his stool and play solitaire. He stopped only long enough to take payment from a lady who bought pins and another who bought peaches.

  Patch’s attention was drawn to the door when the bell rang to announce another customer, mainly because Mr. Felber got up off his stool and walked all the way to the end of the counter. Apparently, whoever was entering the mercantile was a person of some importance.

  The tiny young woman who stepped inside had hair as black as coal, dark brown eyes, and the face of an angel. She was dressed every bit as modishly as Patch herself. Patch had never in her life seen such a beautiful woman. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Patch was chagrined when the woman not only noticed her stare but smiled and walked right up to her.

  “Hello,” the beauty said. “My name is Merielle. What’s yours?”

  “Patch—Patricia Kendrick.”

  “I haven’t seen you before,” Merielle said.

  “I just got into town today.”

  “Would you like to come to my house to play?”

  “To play?” Patch was confused by the invitation, which made no sense. To play what?

  “Merielle!”

  The tiny woman jumped at the shout from the door. She turned and her smile widened as she hurried up to the sun-browned cowboy standing in the doorway, his hat in his hand, his black hair awry. “Frank! I’ve found a new friend. Come and meet her.”

  Merielle took the cowboy’s hand and drew him into the store. Patch stared again, because the cowboy was as tall and handsome as the woman was tiny and beautiful. He also had black hair, but his eyes were gray. There were lines beside his eyes and around his mouth, but Patch didn’t think he had gotten them smiling.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” the cowboy said, nodding his head in a jerky motion. He turned his attention to the young woman. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Merielle. I wish you wouldn’t run off like that.”

  Patch frowned as she listened to the way the cowboy was speaking to the woman—as though she were a child. Merielle was tiny, but she had a woman’s body. As Patch watched the man and the woman together, it became increasingly apparent, however, that Merielle had a child’s mind.

  “Can Miss Kendrick come home and play with me?”

  Patch saw the cowboy’s jaw harden, saw his lids drop to cover the melancholy in his eyes.

  “Maybe we could get together another time,” Patch said to Merielle, hoping to smooth things over.

  The cowboy slanted Patch a grateful look before he focused his eyes on Merielle. His features were troubled. “I don’t think your pa wants you bringing home company today.”

  “But we could have fun. I just know it!” Merielle said.

  Patch set her purchases on the counter, then reached out and took both of Merielle’s hands in her own. “I promise I’ll come visit soon,” she said. “You go with Frank now.”

  “You promise?” Merielle asked worriedly.

  Patch wondered why Merielle didn’t also have a child’s trust. She smiled at the other woman. “I promise.”

  Merielle’s whole face brightened. “All right. I’ll see you soon.” She turned and linked her arm through Frank’s. He nodded to Patch, then slipped his hat on. Patch noticed that he leaned down to listen earnestly to Merielle as he led her from the store.

  When Patch turned around to pick up her purchases again, she found Mr. Felber shaking his head and tsking.

  “Such a shame,” he said. “Poor Trahern.”

  That name struck a strident chord with Patch. “Trahern?”

  “That was Merielle Trahern. Jefferson Trahern’s daughter. I don’t know how Frank can stand to see her like that.”

  “What is Frank’s relationship to her?”

  “He’s Trahern’s foreman. He and Merielle used to be sweethearts a long time ago. Whole town knew those two kids were in love. Wasn’t ever going to come to anything, though.”

  “Why not?”

  Mr. Felber played a red nine on a black ten. “Frank Meade was dirt poor. Trahern would never have let his daughter marry a sod farmer’s son.”

  Patch told herself she wasn’t going to ask, but the words were out before she could stop them. “Has she always been like that? Childlike, I mean?”

  “Nope. And that’s the shame of it.”

  Patch felt the gooseflesh on her arms but forced herself to ask anyway. “What happened? What made her like that?”

  “Poor girl lost her mind when Ethan Hawk raped her.”

  “Hold it right there!”

  A towheaded hoyden in hitched-up trousers stood on the porch of a rundown ranch house, holding a rifle aimed at Patch’s heart. The girl reminded Patch vividly of herself at twelve or thirteen—except she had never carried a gun. The shadow of fear in the girl’s hazel eyes was countered by the pugnacious thrust of the youngster’s chin.

  Patch shifted in the saddle but didn’t attempt to dismount. “I’m looking for Ethan Hawk’s place,” she said with a smile meant to ease the child’s anxiety.

  “You found it.”
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  “Do you know Ethan?” Patch asked.

  “Guess I do. I’m his sister.”

  Patch was stunned. She had never thought of Ethan as having a family. He had always seemed so … alone. Obviously, she didn’t know as much about Ethan Hawk as she had thought. She met the girl’s brazen stare and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Don’t think I’m gonna tell you.”

  Patch bit back a retort and asked with ladylike calm, “Is he here?”

  “Who wants to know?” the girl demanded.

  “My name is Patri—Patch Kendrick. I’m a friend of your brother’s.”

  The girl harrumphed in disbelief. “Ethan don’t have no friends in this town.”

  “I came here all the way from Montana especially to see him.”

  The ragamuffin’s eyes narrowed. “What if I say I don’t believe you?”

  Patch issued an unladylike snort. “How many females have come here hunting for Ethan?”

  The girl shrugged. “You got me there. He usually tracks down Jewell at the saloon if he needs a woman.” She kept the gun aimed at Patch.

  Patch forced down a stab of jealousy at the mention of another woman’s name. It had never occurred to her that Ethan might be involved with somebody else. Her common sense rescued her from further distress. No Soiled Dove could hope to compete with an honest-to-goodness lady when it came to claiming a man’s love. Could she?

  “Do you mind if I get down off this horse?” Patch asked. “It’s been a while since I did a lot of riding. I have to admit I’m discovering muscles I’d forgotten about. I can explain everything, if you’ll let me.”

  A weak voice from inside the house called out, “Leah, let her come on in.”