Her Outlaw Heart

by Samantha Harte

  To see Hanna and Jodee dip a curtsey and obediently leave the tent set Corbet’s teeth on edge. Jodee didn’t even cast him a glance.

  “Jodee doesn’t look well,” Corbet said, letting Avinelle know where his interest lay.

  She shook her head. “I’ve tried my best, Corbet, but she’s hopeless. She’ll never make a suitable domestic. Too coarse. And she’s rude. Not just back-talk, but threats. I’m not certain we’re safe. She needs to be on her way.”

  Corbet studied Avinelle’s upturned face. He couldn’t figure out how she could look so beautiful and sound so heartless. “You’re right.”

  Avinelle beamed. When she looked like that it was easy for a man to forget everything. One last time Corbet asked himself if he felt anything for her. Any normal man would find her irresistible, and she wanted him so. He felt nothing but impatience and irritation. He pulled his elbow free. He was done with this foolishness.

  She had to see how he felt, he thought. She caught hold of him again and pressed herself against his chest with her arms entwined around his neck like a noose. She went up on tiptoe. She was going to kiss him.

  “No, Avinelle,” he said, catching hold of her arms and pulling them from around his neck. He held her away and stared fiercely into her eyes. He watched for hurt or disappointment or the pain of unrequited love in her eyes, but he saw only frustration. He saw fury. He saw fear.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. “You know that. You could have any man in town, any man in the territory. I’m sorry,” he said, trying to be gentle, “but I don’t love you.”

  With her bosom rising and falling, she struggled, as if trying to embrace him again and kiss him.

  He held her fast. “No.”

  Her jaw hardened. Her eyes turned to glass. It was disconcerting to see the change. One cry and it might look to some as if he were trying to assault her. He might find himself arrested, or worse, married to her. He’d been foolish to allow himself a single moment alone with her.

  “If need be, Avinelle,” he said, “I’ll turn in my badge today and leave town.” He reached for the badge on his vest, then hesitated. A lot could happen in a town overrun with strangers.

  “Don’t be foolish, Corbet,” Avinelle said with a sneer.

  “I’ll turn in my resignation to the mayor tomorrow.”

  Before Avinelle could think of something more to say, Corbet made for the tent’s doorway. He’d see Jodee safely on her way to Arkansas, and then he, too, would leave. Emerging from the tent into eye-stinging sunlight, Corbet headed blindly for Hobie and his family. Distractedly, he talked with them a while, but Hobie was distant. Corbet wished there was something he could say to mend the rift between them.

  Noticing Patsy’s arrival, Corbet laid his hand on Hobie’s shoulder and gave his young friend a farewell nod. To see Virgil climbing with care from a buggy borrowed from Patsy’s parents filled Corbet with satisfaction.

  “Virge!” he called, hailing his friend. “Look at you, all healed up and out and about again.” It was an exaggeration. Thin and pale, Virgil was a shadow of his former self, but he had a genuine smile for Corbet. Gone was the wild impatience that had once characterized his crooked grin.

  “Thought I’d help you out today.” Virgil gave Patsy a wink.

  They watched the May Pole being erected with its trailing ribbons. The girls in their white dresses soon danced around it, singing. Corbet hardly heard them. He longed to sit and talk with Virgil, but it took all his friend’s strength to sit in the sunshine and cradle his son.

  Corbet drifted away, wandering the crowded picnic area like a ghost. With the sound of gun shots in the distance, he forgot his melancholy and set out at a trot. By the time he arrived, Brucker already had a brawl between cowhands in hand. No one was hurt. By suppertime Corbet’s jail was full.

  While making rounds after dark, Corbet wondered how Avinelle was treating Jodee now that he’d rejected her advances. He needed to give Jodee her money. She might be on the stagecoach by morning.

  Tomorrow, he thought, pausing, struggling with what he knew would happen with what he wished could happen. Too much was happening too fast. He stormed along the boardwalk. Folks gave him plenty of room to pass.

  Hungry, dusty from the day’s exertions, and feeling disheartened, Corbet decided he needed to wash up and change his shirt before going to the dance. He might be duty-bound to let Jodee go, but tonight he would allow himself what his heart longed for, a dance and one last very sincere kiss.

  • • •

  An hour later, Corbet stood in the back of the crowded Winfield livery barn talking with Mayor Winfield and the town councilmen. The place had been swept clean and the floor covered with fresh hay. Lanterns hung from the rafters, spreading golden light over the dancing townspeople.

  Quickly he was cornered by the town’s councilmen.

  “It can’t be true that you’re thinking of leaving us,” the mayor said.

  “Brucker’s an experienced man, more than I ever was,” Corbet said, disconcerted by the anxious expressions on the men crowded around him.

  “You’re the best marshal this town’s ever had. We hardly know this man. Where would you go? What would you do?”

  Patsy Robstart’s father cut in. “If it’s a matter of money…”

  Flattered, Corbet chuckled. “You’ll get used to him. He’s rough, trying to prove himself. I was a stranger when I started out.”

  He wondered if they had all accepted him on Widow Ashton’s word.

  Worried that he hadn’t seen Jodee yet, he noticed an excited hush spread across the barn. Excusing himself, he turned to see whose arrival was causing such a stir.

  Beaming her famous smile, Avinelle appeared between the livery barn’s double doors. She wore something that reminded Corbet of a wedding cake. It set off her narrow waist and décolletage. She belonged some place grander than Burdeen, for sure, but he didn’t change his mind about her. He’d had enough of her pouts and manipulations.

  Wondering what was keeping Jodee, he made another circuit of the barn. All eyes were on Avinelle as she sashayed into the throng, greeting everyone like a visiting princess. She positively glittered with charm, but whispers followed her. Avinelle wasn’t liked, Corbet knew. He felt sorry for her. Behind her by several steps came her mother, who caught the eye of several older ranchers and businessmen. Corbet watched Quimby approach but go unnoticed. The man bore his snub gracefully and drifted away.

  Before Avinelle could turn and capture Corbet with her hawk-like gaze, he slipped out the side door into the darkness. There were a lot of people milling around in the street, many mere shadows, quickening his senses. He smelled whiskey and cigar smoke. He heard low talk and laughter. A mental picture of saturnine Burl Tangus plundering the stage office or robbing a store…or worse yet, carrying Jodee away into the mountains, made his stomach knot. He had no business mooning over who was dancing with whom when this night was ripe for trouble.

  What if he sent Jodee away on the stagecoach in the morning and Tangus held it up and took her?

  Fifteen

  A short time before the dance began, Avinelle had been rushing around, readying herself. Jodee watched her storm back and forth between her room and her mother’s, fretting over her hair, snapping and snarling like a wolverine, and hissing comments Jodee was glad she couldn’t hear.

  When Avinelle and her mother were finally ready, they came down the stairs wearing their glorious gowns, their faces like warriors approaching a battlefield.

  Widow Ashton spied Jodee waiting near the door. Momentarily she looked flustered. “I suppose you must accompany us,” she said, “but you cannot go inside until Avinelle has led the Grand March with Marshal Harlow. Remember, you are a servant, Jodee, not a young lady of this town. You have no male protector, no father, and no brother. Stay in the background. Speak only when spoken to. Under no circumstances should you make a spectacle of yourself. I advise you not to dance. If you associate with strangers you wi
ll be thought a loose woman. You must guard your reputation every moment or be ruined before the night ends.”

  Jodee hadn’t known what to say to that. Avinelle had no male protector and she was going to the dance. She scolded herself for forgetting the woman enjoyed crushing her hopes.

  Widow Ashton went out to the waiting surrey. Avinelle swept past, leaving Jodee standing in the entry, wondering if she could stomach a ride into town with them when she hated them both so. She considered staying behind just to bedevil them. Let the woman worry she was looting every room.

  Wanting to cuss and break things, Jodee caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Her hair looked wonderful, hanging down her back in a pale cascade. Her blouse and skirt still pleased her. What would everyone think if she showed up at the dance in britches and boots, wearing her pa’s gun and that slouchy hat she lost back at the cabin? Widow Ashton and Avinelle didn’t realize who they were insulting, Jodee thought, burning to best them somehow. Avinelle didn’t know how to twirl a pistol and shoot a jackrabbit at a hundred paces like a shootist.

  Jodee smirked at herself. Fighting disappointment and fury, she pointed her finger at the mirror and said, “Bang,” softly to her reflection. Startled to see a change in her expression, Jodee hid her hand behind her back. For an instant she had looked like Burl. Fear flashed through her. How much longer could she hold out? Wasn’t she exactly what everyone believed her to be? An outlaw? For true?

  Plodding out the door, Jodee felt suddenly as if she didn’t dare go to the dance. When she climbed into the rear seat of the surrey she understood that she would never be on the same social level as Avinelle and her mother. She was only weeks out of jail, after all, still living down her father’s bad reputation. She was not a lady, and never would be. Some days she didn’t really care to be a lady, but she was still a human being. Didn’t she deserve a chance?

  Heart-sore, Jodee feared she’d been expecting too much too soon. She understood now how her pa had felt all those years, frustrated and impatient. He dreamed of better things but was never able to make a go of his ranches or dirt farms. He gave in to Burl’s wild schemes for fast money and an easy life. Even if no one else did, she forgave him his weaknesses.

  She felt impatient, too. She wanted the past to vanish and be forgotten, but she must work, perhaps years, to earn cash money for things half as nice as what Widow Ashton and Avinelle tossed aside as nothing. Whatever made her think she could build her new life in a month?

  She mustn’t make the mistakes her impatient father had made. Or her defiant mother. As Bailey drove, Jodee hardly noticed the brightly lit, noisy livery barn at the end of the street where the townspeople had gathered. The atmosphere was festive, but she didn’t move when Bailey helped Avinelle to the ground. Looking spectacular in her gown, Avinelle sashayed through the barn’s double doors like she owned the town.

  Bailey came to help Jodee down, but she remained in her seat, hands clenched in her lap.

  “Miss Jodee?” Bailey looked concerned.

  Jodee shook her head. “I don’t feel much like dancing after all,” she said, her voice small. “I think I’ll just sit here. I should’ve stayed at the house, but I didn’t want anyone thinking I was there, fixin’ to rob the place while everyone was here, having a good time.”

  • • •

  The street outside the livery barn was choked with wagons and teams, horses tied up in long lines, folks milling about like cattle. Corbet wound his way between them, watching shadows. His gut told him Tangus was in the crowd, picking pockets or listening to talk, planning something, ready to strike. The sound of laughter and dancing faded as Corbet prowled. If he didn’t find Jodee soon he’d have to return to his rounds. There were too many drunken cowhands and suspicious looking strangers in town for the marshal to be lollygagging at a dance.

  Then he saw Avinelle’s surrey and Bailey standing nearby as if on watch himself. He saw Jodee seated on the surrey’s rear seat, head down, facing away from the light.

  Bailey straightened. “Good evening, Marshal.”

  Corbet tipped his hat. Bailey escaped into the darkness. Reaching up, Corbet touched Jodee’s elbow. Startled from her thoughts, she shrank from him as she had done when he first brought her to town.

  “I thought you’d be dancing with Avinelle by now,” she said with a catch in her voice. “All she talked about today was being next to you in the Grand March.”

  He shook his head. Jodee looked so hurt, so sweet, so dear with her hair down like that. His heart went out to her. “Let me help you down. I have something to tell you.”

  She let him hand her down but she quickly edged away. “You should go inside, Corbet. She’s waiting for you. Go ahead. It’s all right. I don’t belong in there. I know that now.”

  “Of course you belong in there. What’s wrong, Jodee? Where’s your fire tonight?”

  Like a child, she shrugged.

  “How’s your shoulder feeling?”

  She shook her head like it didn’t matter.

  Corbet gnashed his teeth. He’d put her in jail, damaging her reputation beyond repair. She’d done all right, facing Avinelle’s dinner guests, but now she was afraid to face the judgment of an entire town at the dance. He leaned in quickly to give Jodee a kiss. Her lips felt damp. She dashed her palm across her cheeks.

  The farewell kiss would have to come later, he decided, when she felt better. He brushed his lips against hers a second time and felt a jolt flash through his body. He might not want his feelings for her to grow, but something was inside him, strong and persistent.

  To hell with everything. He was about to kiss her like he meant business when he heard a rider galloping hell for leather in from the darkness.

  In a hail of gravel and dust Reverend Boteller’s oldest boy reined alongside him. “Have you seen Doc? It’s Ma’s time.”

  “On the bandstand,” Corbet said, pointing, “playing the fiddle.”

  The horse reared and pawed the air. The boy tumbled to the ground, found his feet, and raced inside.

  Corbet rubbed the back of his neck. “You’d think after eight siblings, he’d be used to his mother having babies.”

  Jodee said nothing. Seconds later the boy emerged from the barn with the doctor.

  “Bailey,” Corbet called. “Can you give Doc a ride? It’d take too long to get his buggy.”

  After Bailey appeared, and with the doctor aboard the surrey and on his way, the Boteller boy galloped after him. In moments all was quiet again. Corbet swallowed hard and looked around at the people crowding the livery barn’s open doors. He shouldn’t be here, he thought. He should be somewhere else, but where? From where would the trouble come?

  He turned back to Jodee. “It’s time for us to go inside.” With an encouraging smile, he offered his elbow. He hadn’t intended to enter the dance with Jodee on his arm, but it seemed all at once the only thing he could do, the only thing he wanted to do. It might have to be a quick dance, but by God, he was going to show this town he wasn’t some damned puppet, nose-ringed bull, or well-trained and obedient parlor dog.

  • • •

  After feeling so certain she had lost her chance to dance with Corbet, Jodee could scarcely believe she was slipping her chilled fingers into the warm crook of his elbow. Her worries vanished. There was no telling what she might be doing come morning, she thought, but for tonight a dream was coming true. She walked into the dance on the arm of her beau. Corbet was her beau because, in spite of all her protests, he had just touched his lips to hers.

  As Corbet led her inside, folks loitering near the doors straightened and moved aside. Heads turned. Whispers followed. Jodee couldn’t get her breath to go out. The musicians played something that sounded like a Tennessee reel. Couples swirled in laughing, whooping circles. Jodee had never seen anything like it. The excitement was around her like smoke, making her dizzy and giddy. She didn’t have time to explain that she had no idea how to dance like that.

  The reel
came to an uncertain conclusion. A cheer went up. Jodee felt like folks were cheering for her and Corbet. She almost couldn’t bear it, she felt so happy. Not only were they going to dance together, they were the talk of the town. Her throat began to swell with joyous tears that she battled with all her strength to control.

  For the first time in her life something seemed to be going right. An hour ago she might have run away and cheated herself of this. She didn’t have time to think of how dearly her mother had wished for a moment like this for herself, to be seen in public with her love, T. T. McQue, and dance with him in front of her family and the town. This was Jodee’s moment to relish in her mother’s place.

  Marshal J. Corbet Harlow led her to the center of the barn floor where dancing feet had crushed scattered hay to a fine powder. Golden lantern light lit their faces as they smiled at each other with rapt attention. A gentle tune began on a mouth harp. Jodee’s ears roared so loudly she could scarcely hear it. Her cheeks felt hot. She didn’t know what to do.

  Corbet put one hand on the small of her back and lifted her right hand in his. She felt a slight ache in her shoulder that reminded her of the doctor’s words—that she would dance someday. Holding her breath, she looked up into Corbet’s handsome face and thought she was going to die of happiness. Tarnation, it felt good to be decent.

  They began moving together, their feet somehow finding the rhythm of the tune and their hearts drumming as one. Corbet looked tender as he guided her in slow circles. Jodee didn’t notice that no one else was dancing. They were turning and turning around the gritty floor, oblivious to the watching faces and stunned expressions.

  When the song ended and another began, they went on dancing. Eventually other couples joined them until once again the center of the barn was crowded with dancing couples. Ranchers and their wives, cowboys and young ranch cooks, lads in long pants and the May Day maidens in white, all waltzing as if the simple music were perfect.