Her Outlaw Heart

by Samantha Harte

  “I ain’t turning into no fancy woman, Marshal. I know good from bad.” To cover her embarrassment, Jodee gave a laugh. “Just look at me.” She meant she was not pretty enough to become a fancy woman.

  Abruptly the marshal stood. “With your shirt torn like that, Jodee, maybe you’d like one of mine to wear.”

  She clutched at the torn fabric and shook her head. She longed to be covered, clean and decent, but felt ashamed to accept something belonging to him. “I couldn’t.”

  The marshal went out of the cell, leaving the door open wide, and returned moments later with a folded blue shirt with no collar. He brought the water pitcher and basin from his sleeping room. By the furrows in his brow, he looked like he thought she might be dying.

  When he left her alone at last, she pressed the clean shirt to her face and breathed in. It smelled of washing soap and reminded her unexpectedly of her mother. A flood of anguish rushed over her. Ma, gone so young. Now Pa. She was an orphan. In jail. She might end up in prison for something she hadn’t done.

  All she had ever wanted was a decent life, she thought. She wanted to hear her name held in regard. She wanted a cabin to keep tidy and a family to love and love her back. She wanted neighbors, church socials, book learning, friends, and a clean bed to sleep in. She wanted a bath, a cook stove, and white dimity curtains.

  With the last of her strength, Jodee pulled the marshal’s shirtsleeve up her aching right arm and over her blazing shoulder. Then she lay down to sleep, wrapped in the marshal’s clean scent.

  • • •

  The remainder of the morning Corbet worked at his desk, finishing his report of the stagecoach holdup while Jodee slept. At noon she woke to eat and wash her face. With her hair slicked back she looked no more than fifteen years old. Corbet was stunned by the simple beauty of her delicate features. He hadn’t suspected she’d turn out to be so sweet-looking. It complicated matters.

  He’d better get her out of his jailhouse, but quick. She hadn’t been at the holdup—he was certain of it—but Tangus had killed Willie Burstead. Corbet belonged on the trail, tracking Tangus, not here, hovering over a bedraggled orphan. But he made no move to unlock Jodee’s cell to let her go. He couldn’t turn her out onto the street. She needed him. It was that simple.

  Jodee was still asleep when Hobie came by after school. “Aw, Marshal, somebody spit in the corner. If you ask me, Hicks ain’t fit to wear a lawman’s badge. He drinks on the job, too. I want to be your deputy. I’ll quit school. I got no use for college next year.”

  “By the time you’re old enough to be a deputy, I’ll be long gone,” Corbet said, surprising himself when he said it. He’d thought himself ready to settle down. The prospect of starting over somewhere new filled him with dread. “College will make you a better man than me.”

  “You can’t leave Burdeen, Marshal. There ain’t a man in town fit to take your place. Mr. Robstart won’t never be marshal now. Folks say he’s crippled permanent. Besides, he wasn't never as tough or cold as you.”

  Corbet didn’t like being thought of as cold. He remembered the look on Patsy Robstart’s face when she opened the door to his knock earlier that day. Instead of being her stalwart friend, he’d become her enemy. Without a word she’d closed the door in his face. He understood, of course. It was on his account that Virgil’s life was in jeopardy. But her blame hurt him worse than he liked to admit.

  Folks were wrong about him. He wasn’t cold. He just kept his feelings private. A man might suffer guilt and remorse, loneliness and longing, but a marshal couldn’t afford such. This mess was his to bear alone. The McQue gang holding up that stage, and him following with a posse of overzealous townsmen…that had all been his fault. Now Virgil was riddled with fever. His fault, too. Patsy Robstart hated his gizzard. His fault. Jodee lay in her cell looking like a motherless calf. His fault.

  Putting aside his report, Corbet thanked Hobie and urged him to run along. “First thing tomorrow, check the depot for telegraph messages. I’m waiting for information about Miss McQue.”

  A wily grin spread across Hobie’s young face. His teeth were a scramble. “If you thought a telegraph message was coming, I’d be at the stage depot waiting right now. There ain’t nothin’ comin’ on her, is there? Because she’s innocent. You’re goin’ to let her go.”

  Corbet let his gaze settle on Jodee, sleeping on that narrow cot. His heart did a strange jig. Hobie was right. He had to let her go.

  To go where?

  “Keep your eyes open, Hobie. Early this morning I saw a man in a bowler hat. A button salesman, carrying a case. If you see him, get back to me. I’d like to talk to him.”

  “You think it’s Tangus?” Hobie gasped, his eyes wide. “Right here in Burdeen? Will there be a shoot-out? I remember that first one, Marshal. Everybody in town remembers. I was only twelve, but you—”

  Corbet put up his hand to silence the lad. He didn’t deserve praise for those first battles that settled the town.

  “Will Tangus try to take Miss McQue?” Hobie gasped. “You can’t let him! She don’t want no part of him.”

  “Don’t tell anybody about this, Hobie. I don’t want a panic.”

  “Don’t you worry. If Tangus is in Burdeen, I’ll find him.”

  “That is not what I meant,” Corbet exclaimed, alarmed at the lad’s rash idea. “He’s a dangerous outlaw.”

  “But think what the Ashton-Babcock reward would mean for Ma.”

  That damnable reward, Corbet thought, scowling at Hobie. He’d just found out about the two hundred cash dollars offered for Tangus by the Ashton-Babcock Stage Line. He took hold of the lad’s shoulders. “You make the slightest effort to find Tangus by yourself, I’ll fire you for good and all. Don’t make me sorry I took you on.”

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean it.” Hobie looked every bit his fifteen years as he fought disappointment.

  Corbet sent the lad out the door into the late afternoon sunlight. The snow had melted, but the temperature was dropping. The muddy ruts in the street were freezing. He liked that boy. If anything happened to him he would never forgive himself.

  When Artie brought the dinner tray a half hour later, Corbet noticed Jodee scarcely roused long enough to take more than a few bites. Eating his own dinner, Corbet fumed. Hicks hadn’t returned. Corbet couldn’t go on rounds. Every word Patsy Robstart spoke earlier haunted him. Jodee McQue’s presence in his jail complicated everything.

  As dusk fell, Corbet could do nothing but sit and watch his prisoner sleep. How could he let her go, a lone girl dressed in ragged men’s clothes? He grew full of urgency looking at her and knew, suddenly, that he was attracted to her in a way he must never reveal or indulge.

  It was late when Corbet felt ready to turn in for the night. He’d searched his files, written a dozen letters and struggled to think of a solution to Jodee’s predicament. He barred the door and latched the window shutters. He checked the locked gun rack. He sat a while on the edge of his low-slung bed, studying his hands, remembering slipping socks on Jodee’s thin, cold feet the night before. It had been hours since Jodee had been awake. A whole day and still the doctor hadn’t come. Virgil must be bad off. Patsy, too. If either died, he’d quit marshaling. Simple as that. Walk straight out of town. To hell with everything.

  Pulling off his boots, he resisted what he wanted to do—check on Jodee. What if she’d died and he didn’t know? His stomach rolled over. Taking a half empty bottle of whiskey from his bedside stand, he padded into the main room in his stocking feet.

  “Jodee?” He got a clean kerchief from the drawer and the cell key.

  He shouldn’t go into her cell, he warned himself. That was the very thing folks suspected of him. What kind of man did they think he was? Didn’t they know—he could picture himself gathering her into his arms—didn't they know how helpless she was? He shook himself. Didn’t they know how important it was to protect the weak and friendless? He wouldn’t let himself think of her lithe young body beneat
h his hands. He’d never take advantage. That wasn’t the way of a real man.

  Unlocking the cell door, Corbet stepped inside. What if someone came along and saw—the jailhouse door was barred. An army couldn’t get in.

  “Jodee,” he whispered.

  His body responded to the nearness of her, to the faint, musky fragrance of her, to the sight of her slim body lying so still in the darkness under the hotel blanket. He hadn’t felt such urges in a long time.

  She didn’t stir.

  Sick with dread, Corbet moved aside the tray on the floor with her partially eaten meal on it. Then he crouched beside the cot and gingerly touched her shoulder. He was braced for the shocking feel of cold and death. The astonishing heat of her body on the palm of his hand stunned him. She blazed with fever.

  Corbet laid the back of his hand against her cheek, then on her scorching forehead. It felt like the worst fever he’d ever known. His hands began to shake. She lolled onto her back, nearly rolling off the cot into his arms.

  Scooping her up, he carried her quickly into his sleeping room. Appalled by the waxy hollow look of her face, he laid her on his bed. Wetting his kerchief in the wash basin, he wiped her face, feeling immense relief when she twisted away. He wiped her slim throat—she was so fragile-looking—and then pushed aside the collar of his blue shirt that she was wearing over her own torn and bloody shirt. The dressing had come loose from her wound. It looked bad. Soaking a fresh kerchief in whiskey, he laid the dripping cloth over the puckered hole in her skin.

  Jodee writhed and moaned.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyelids fluttered and then, slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at him. Beautiful dark blue.

  Corbet’s heart began thundering. He couldn’t think. Could she see him?

  “Marshal,” she whispered so softly he almost didn’t hear her. It was the most arousing sound he’d ever heard. She looked at him with eyes glassy with bewilderment. Before he could think, she lifted her left hand and encircled his neck. She pulled him close. “Marshal.”

  He couldn’t believe she’d been able to keep herself innocent for so long in the company of outlaws. Maybe she’d tell him where Burl was hiding. He leaned close enough to feel her breath hot on his face. Her hand burned his neck, sending tingles of arousal through his body like heat lightning. Without warning she arched up to place her sweet, hot mouth on his.

  It was the most tender kiss he’d ever known. It was the kiss of a girl, the kind of sweet kiss he’d dreamed of as a boy. It was a kiss of longing and loneliness. Corbet felt Jodee’s tenderness flow into him straight to his heart.

  “Marshal,” she whispered against his mouth, her breath hot.

  His response was frightening in intensity. This mustn’t happen. He watched tears gather in her eyes. What if everything she’d said was true? What if she really was completely and totally innocent?

  Jodee’s lips told Corbet all he needed to know. This was her first kiss.

  And she had bestowed it upon him.

  Four

  Corbet held the whiskey-soaked kerchief to unconscious Jodee’s enflamed wound. With her hair smoothed back, he could see the delicate expanse of her forehead, the sweet arch of her brows and the slim straightness of her nose.

  And that mouth. What tenderness lurked in that gentle curve, plus a hint of hurt and pain and sorrow, he thought. Had he seen her smile yet? He couldn’t remember.

  Open your eyes again, he said to her silently.

  To be certain she was still breathing, he watched for the imperceptible rise and fall of her chest. He wished someone would, indeed, come along so he could safely leave her to go for the doctor. He couldn’t do this alone.

  When his legs began to cramp from crouching, he stood. He bathed Jodee’s face again with water, but this time she didn’t stir at all. Adjusting the whiskey-soaked kerchief over the wound, he sank to the floor. Leaning back against the pine bedframe, he wondered what would happen when Avinelle came home from Cheyenne City. What was taking her so long? Avinelle and her domineering mother wanted him to run the stagecoach line. It’d be so easy to trade his marshal’s badge for the brocade vest and gold pocket watch of a businessman. It didn’t seem to matter to them that he didn’t know how to run a business. More to the point, he didn’t want to.

  But for two years, since her husband’s death, Avinelle Babcock had done everything possible to attract Corbet’s romantic attention. Why he resisted, Corbet didn’t know. It was more than the fact that he didn’t love the woman. He never expected to love any woman. Love was for other men, men with a place, men with a means to make a living.

  He had nothing to offer a woman, and yet all he needed to do was turn in Avinelle's direction and he’d be planted as deeply in the town of Burdeen as those Rikes had been planted out at the cemetery. Burdeen could be his home. Avinelle could be his family. The stagecoach line could be his living. He could smoke the best cigars, surround himself with little ones, although it was difficult to imagine Avinelle mothering babies and small children. He wanted a home. He wanted little ones. He just didn’t want them wearing velvet with lace collars.

  Why didn’t he want it?

  Corbet looked at the young woman lying unconscious on his bed. Jodee McQue, his little desperado, he thought. He pushed a tendril of pale hair from her cheek. Another inch and that bullet would’ve shattered her collar bone. Lower down, the bullet would’ve pierced her lung. If she survived this night, she’d be all right, he told himself.

  What then? Put her on a stagecoach and let her disappear from his life?

  Corbet closed his hand into a fist and rubbed his knuckles over the furrows on his forehead. He longed to gather Jodee into his arms. To a woman like Avinelle he’d be a puppet. To a girl like Jodee he’d be a god. He didn’t want either. He wanted a woman in his life, but he wanted a life that was his, a place that was his, and a family that was his.

  That farm, back where he grew to manhood, might have been his, but the offer to stay had come too late. He’d realized he couldn’t waste his life in that desolate place with only cows for comfort. He’d had to leave.

  Sitting on the floor beside Jodee as she began to shiver with chills, Corbet realized that sometime in the past year his youthful loneliness had melted away. It was time for something more, something settled. Burdeen was beginning to feel like home.

  Getting to his feet, Corbet fetched his extra blanket and covered Jodee to her chin. There had been no church socials for this poor girl, he thought. She’d had no beaus unless one counted that lout Tangus. She claimed there was no attachment. Corbet remained skeptical. If no one had searched for her in six years, her family had to be dead. What kind of people let an outlaw carry off a twelve-year-old child and didn’t search for her? He looked at Jodee's shabby shirt and britches. Avinelle wore a new dress every week and reminded him as often as possible that she had once enjoyed the cultured life in New York. What did Jodee McQue have but him?

  Damned if he didn’t want to lean over and kiss Jodee’s cheek. He remembered kissing little Jenny Harlow long ago. He’d been perched on the milking stool which made him about same height as his little friend when she stole into the barn to flirt with him. She’d giggled and blushed. Jenny had been his only childhood friend. By taking her father’s surname, Corbet had made himself like her brother.

  He didn’t feel like Jodee McQue’s brother.

  “Come on, Jodeen,” Corbet murmured. He hunkered down to study the curve of her cheek. He could be tender when no one was looking. “Don’t give up.” He laid his hand on the side of her face and wondered why some people had to have it so hard. Jenny Harlow shouldn’t have died at the age of ten, and Jodee McQue didn’t deserve to die, either, and certainly not in jail.

  His decision came so simply he was taken aback. Straightening, he clutched at his hair and felt an easing in his gut. In the morning he’d set Jodee free. Once he had Tangus behind bars in Jodee’s place to stand trial for the murder of Willis Bu
rstead, he’d turn in his badge. Then he’d buy that land. He wanted to protect people, but as marshal all he’d managed to do was help his friend Virgil into his deathbed. Such a thing wasn’t going to happen again. He’d run cows. grade streets, or build houses, but he wasn't going to be responsible for killing any more people.

  • • •

  Jodee woke to the sound of male voices raised in argument. She felt like a child again, waking in the night to hear her grandmother shouting at her father in the downstairs parlor that long ago night when she was carried off and her life changed forever.

  Frightened, Jodee struggled to sit up but could scarcely turn her head. It was alarming to discover herself so completely incapacitated. A tall man appeared in her line of vision. She tried to figure out where she was. The man looked so tired, his smile was limp.

  “Miss McQue, I’m Dr. Trafford.” He stepped into the room. “The marshal says your fever broke about five o’clock this morning. Will you allow me to have a look at your wound? I apologize for taking so long to get here. While the marshal sat up with you last night, I delivered Mrs. Robstart’s baby. Almost lost him, too, but he’s a strong little fellow. Not much bigger than a new puppy.”

  He moved his hands from Jodee’s eyelids to her throat and finally to her shoulder where he frowned at her wound. He touched her so gently she could only stare at him in dreamlike fascination. At last she realized where she was. She was still in the jailhouse, but now she was in the marshal’s own sleeping room, on his bed, not in her cell. The scent of the marshal was all around her.

  “Am I dying?” she whispered.

  “Healing from a bullet wound, even one as shallow as yours, is no easy task, my dear. I suspect this was a ricochet shot. Slow and glancing. It’s to be expected you should suffer fever. I’m pleased to see you’re on the mend, no thanks to me.” With tenderness he cleaned and dressed her wound. Even so, it burned enough to bring tears to her eyes. “You’ll feel better soon. You’ll never wear a low-cut dancing dress, but you’ll dance again, I promise.”