Beautiful Bandit (Lone Star Legends)

by Lough, Loree

  Clearing his throat with the intent of clearing his head, too, he sat up straighter in the saddle. What on earth has gotten into you?

  “I’m an only child, myself,” she said. “My father died when I was only nine, and Mama didn’t waste any time getting herself a new man.”

  Josh didn’t know what to make of the sarcastic tone that punctuated her admission, but she didn’t give him much time to speculate.

  “Ma died, too, before…before she and my stepfather could have more children.”

  He noted her extra emphasis on the word “step,” meaning she hadn’t approved of her substitute father. Josh waited, but Dinah didn’t elaborate on her story.

  The period of quiet tempted him to pull out his pocket watch. Instead, he counted the silent seconds by the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. He couldn’t imagine his sisters allowing this much time to pass without filling the void with chatter, and he had to admire a gal who didn’t need to hear the sound of her own voice every waking moment.

  Then, it hit him like a pebble to the forehead. That bit about her father dying and her mother remarrying had been the only personal information Dinah had shared about her past. What if her ability to stay quiet for more than a minute at a time wasn’t an agreeable character trait, at all? What if, instead, she was harboring a secret, one she couldn’t risk revealing by a slip of her tongue in a moment of mindless chatter?

  When Dinah had told him she couldn’t remember how she’d ended up alone, out there in the middle of nowhere, looking as if she’d just fought off a pack of coyotes, he’d believed her “I don’t remember” story. And why wouldn’t he have, when he’d witnessed dozens of falls or blows to the noggins of ranch hands that had resulted in their missing minutes, hours, and even days once they had come to? Also, what about the time when, at the age of ten, he’d tumbled from the hayloft and lost consciousness? It had been only because of his cousins’ unrelenting taunts that he’d stopped claiming to be nine. To this day, he couldn’t explain what had happened to that entire year of his life.

  Pity had made him believe her story at first, but Josh found himself believing it less and less. Few things riled him more than idle chitchat, but he realized he’d better figure out a way to get her to open up, or he might miss an opportunity to learn crucial information about her.

  “The fella who did that to your face,” he ventured, “was he your husband?”

  She stared straight ahead, toward the unending ripple of flatlands, then cast a worried glance over her shoulder, squeezing the saddle horn so tight Josh heard a quiet squeak.

  “I made a lot of poor decisions in my life, but that one?” She met his eyes. “That one was downright stupid.”

  She paused, and Josh’s suspicion grew, because, doggone it, she seemed intent on making him pull the story out of her, word by word. “Well,” he drawled, “not every man is cut out to be a husband.”

  Her gaze skimmed the horizon again. He was about to ask what she was looking for when she said, “He wasn’t my husband.”

  Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about some deranged madman popping up on the other side of the next rise, looking to drag his woman home, where she belonged. “That’s a relief.” If he’d taken time to think a minute before speaking, he sure as shootin’ wouldn’t have said that. Because, now, she’d figure he had designs on her, and—

  “Why?” Dinah tilted her head and met his gaze, her brow furrowed in befuddlement.

  For as long as Josh could remember, his pa had been fond of saying, “Facts are facts.” The man—whomever and whatever he was to Dinah—had given her a terrible pounding. The swelling would go down, and the bruises would fade, but the jagged cut on her jaw would probably leave a scar. And that wasn’t counting the scars that had been left in her head and on her heart.

  The mere thought of someone bigger and stronger laying hands on her made the hair stand up on his neck, made him want to inflict twice the damage on the hide of that two-legged swine. “Well,” he said through clenched teeth, “if he manhandled you this way while he was only your beau, think what he’d have done if he were your husband. Some men believe saying ‘I do’ makes a woman their property, like furniture or livestock.”

  She emitted a tiny groan. “He wasn’t my beau, either. At least, not then.”

  Well, that got his mind to whirling! “So, then….” Josh thumbed his Stetson to the back of his head. “What sort of work did you do back in San Antone?”

  She sat so stiff and straight, it looked like somebody had strapped her to a board. “I know what you’re thinking,” she snapped, “but you’re wrong!”

  “What am I thinking?” His question prompted her to lift her chin another notch. He watched as she pressed a palm to her chest and then blinked and huffed and wiggled her shoulders, the way his sisters did when they were feeling flustered.

  “I’ll have you know that my grandmother taught me to play the piano. She taught me to sing, too. And it came in right handy after my mama died, because—”

  “You were—you were a dance hall girl?” Josh didn’t know what surprised him more, his reaction to that last bit of information or the quiet laughter his question provoked. He took a lot of pride in the notion that he’d conducted a long and careful study of his mother and sisters and probably knew more about women than most other men. But something told him if he lived to be a hundred, he wouldn’t figure this woman out!

  “No, I wasn’t a dance hall girl. My clothing and my pay weren’t nearly that glamorous.” She punctuated the admission with a wistful sigh. “I plunked the keys of a beat-up piano and sang for my supper. That’s all.”

  Josh sighed, too, but his was a sigh of relief. While he’d never been one to frequent saloons, he knew as well as any cowboy that dancing ladies usually did a whole lot more than just dance. And he didn’t want to think of Dinah doing that, no matter what circumstance might have driven her to such work.

  “My cousins and I do our fair share of crooning out on the trail. Keeps the cows calm. The horses, too.” Dare he put her to this test? “Ever heard of a hymn called ‘I Need Thee Every Hour’?”

  “Heard of it! Why, as a little girl, I used to sing it in church all the time—solo, I’ll have you know!” Dinah took a swig from her canteen, then cleared her throat and launched into the first verse of the hymn.

  Josh had heard the tired, old saying, “She sings like an angel,” but until that moment, he hadn’t believed it could be true. Now, as the pure, clear notes lilted from her lips, he smiled.

  Then, with no warning whatever, Dinah stopped, and the peace that had settled over him whipped away, just as quickly as that gust of wind that had stolen her hat. “Why’d you stop?” Josh was flabbergasted at the tremor in his voice.

  “Because,” she answered, “I thought you were going to sing with me!”

  She laughed—an entirely different kind of music to his ears—and Josh wanted to bring their horses to a halt and dismount so he could haul her out of that saddle and wrap her in his arms.

  Instead, Josh removed his Stetson and ran a hand through his hair. While he debated whether to say, “Maybe another time,” or “Throat’s too parched,” a deafening thunderclap sounded overhead.

  “Gracious! That likely sliced two years off the end of my life!” Dinah exclaimed.

  Chuckling, Josh said, “Well, I hear tell those last two are the roughest years on a body anyway.”

  A second, louder explosion roared down from the clouds, interrupting his attempt at humor. He pointed. “That shack I was telling you about is just over the next rise.” Oh, how he wanted to erase that look of fright from her face! “How fast can you ride?”

  Until then, her eyes had been as wide and round as pie plates, but they narrowed when she replied, “Depends.” Before he had a chance to ask what she meant, Dinah giggled. “How fast do you suppose this horse can run?”

  Josh was about to find out if Dinah Theodore really was too good to be true, or more w
ork than she was worth. He dug his heels into Callie’s sides and lurched forward as the skies opened up. Between Callie’s hoofbeats hammering the earth and the big-as-nickels raindrops pounding the brim of his Stetson, he couldn’t hear Dinah’s horse. Josh shot a glance over his shoulder, and there she was, about a furlong behind him, pressed flat against her mare’s neck, soaking wet and smiling into the wind.

  Oh, she was some woman, to be sure. He faced forward again and, despite the rain pelting his cheeks and the lightning flashing around them, smiled, too. An unexpected notion entered his head—a crazy, foolish idea that puzzled him no end.

  He didn’t want to take Dinah to Mexico. He wanted to take her home.

  7

  After releasing the bit from Callie’s mouth and securing her to the hitching post, Josh threw back the oilcloth that was protecting a chest-high stack of firewood. “Thank God,” he said, “for the man who took the time to chop this wood and was kind enough to leave it for us.”

  Kate nodded in agreement, and, by the time she had removed the bit from her own horse’s mouth and tethered the animal beside Josh’s dapple gray, he’d piled half a dozen small logs in the crook of his arm. “I feel horribly guilty,” she admitted.

  “Guilty?” he said, frowning as he reached for another spindly log. “Why?”

  His stern expression unsettled her. If only she’d learned how to read more in a man’s countenance than whether he was the type to tip her for a song well sung. For a reason she couldn’t define, the prospect of holing up with Josh in this tiny cabin frightened her more than riding on the open prairie, where Frank could easily put a bullet right between her eyes without being witnessed. She hid her fear behind the practiced smile reserved for Etta Mae’s customers. “Because we’ll be inside, warm and dry, and these poor horses will be out here in this storm.”

  His left eyebrow quirked as a corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Aw, now, you oughtn’t fret over it. They’re just horses, and they’re used to being outside in foul weather. Besides, we’ve got ’em tethered on the side of the shack where they’ll be blocked from the worst of the wind.”

  “If they’re so accustomed to being outside in foul weather, why do they flinch with every thunderbolt?”

  His smile vanished like smoke, and he grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. His mouth formed a small O, as if he’d planned to say something, then stretched into a thin line. “You’d best get on inside.”

  One foot on the porch, the other in the muddy puddle below the bottom step, she harrumphed. “And you’d best do the same.” Pointing, she indicated the stream of water pouring from the brim of his hat onto the logs in his arms. “The poor nomad who was the last to stay here wouldn’t be very happy to know you wasted all his efforts to leave us with dry wood. I’m sure he could’ve taken the tarp to keep himself warm and dry, instead.”

  It was Josh’s turn to harrumph. “Unwritten rule,” he said, walking past her, “to look out for the man who comes behind you.” The door opened with a loud squeal, and he disappeared inside.

  Callie huffed, and Kate’s horse echoed the sound. If only there was a way to get you both inside, out of the storm, Kate silently lamented.

  Josh’s voice cut through the dark interior of the shack. “You gonna stand there all afternoon, letting the wind and rain in here?”

  Kate took a small step forward. “I just can’t do it,” she said, darting back to the horses.

  “Do what?” she heard him yell. Then, “Where in the world are you going?”

  “The least we can do is get their saddles off,” she shouted into the wind. “How would you like it, standing in this awful storm with all this weight on your back?”

  “Wouldn’t like it one bit, which is why I aimed to do just that once I got a fire started.”

  How he moved from the woodstove to her side in an eyeblink and never made a sound, Kate didn’t know. But there he was, his big hands gently plucking hers from Callie’s cinch. “You know how to build a fire?”

  Was it her cold, wet clothes or his nearness that sent a chill up her spine? Nodding like a simpleton, Kate blinked. My, but he was a good-looking fellow, with those piercing blue eyes and long, black lashes.

  “Takin’ care of horses is men’s work,” he said.

  “But the job will go twice as fast if we work togeth—”

  He wrapped his gloved fingers around her wrists. “Go on inside, out of this mess,” he insisted, “and get a fire going. We’re going to need it to dry our clothes and cook up something for supper.”

  Half a step closer would bring her near enough to embrace him—and, oh, how she wanted to! She was shivering from her hat to her stockings as raindrops ran down her face and beaded on her lashes, and it would have made perfect sense to do as he’d suggested. But not even nature’s wrath seemed too high a price to pay for the warm comfort of an embrace.

  “Go on, now,” he said, using his chin as a pointer. “The sooner you start a fire, the sooner we can warm up.”

  Get moving! said her brain. But her feet refused to obey. Her earlier fears gone now, Kate wondered how much safer she’d feel, wrapped in those powerful yet gentle arms.

  “Are your ears filled with water?”

  “Are my—what?”

  “Either you didn’t hear me just now, or you’re doing the most convincing impression of a stubborn mule I’ve ever seen.” Smiling, Josh set both hands on her shoulders, and her heart fluttered at his proximity. Ever so gently, he turned her until she faced the shack and gave her a gentle shove. “Inside, before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you in there.”

  Finally, her traitorous feet obeyed, and she plodded forward. She’d just put one soggy boot on the bottom porch step when she heard him say, “You’ll find matches in my saddlebags.” How could she have mistrusted a man who had no problem with her rifling through his gear? Nodding, Kate hurried into the dank, little hovel and walked face-first into a sticky cobweb.

  “And close the confounded door,” he said as she spat and sputtered and plucked at the web. What sort of silly twit did he think she was? She grumbled inwardly at how calmly he’d announced that he’d take care of the “man’s work” while she busied herself inside, doing “woman’s work.” And yet she couldn’t help smiling, despite the stink of wet mud coming up through the cracks in the floor and the steady plop, plop, plop of rain seeping through the thatched roof. The sudden urge to tidy up the place and make it cozy seemed more important than the fact that her soggy skirt and petticoats were leaving a trail of dime-sized drips all over the floor.

  “You do know how to make a fire, right?” came Josh’s voice from outside.

  “Hmpf,” she said as she rummaged through his saddlebags to find the matches.

  Minutes later, thanks to some old twine and twigs she’d found in the cupboard drawer, she had a good base fire going. By the time Josh dug through that teetering heap for more dry logs, the bottom of the stove would be aglow with hot coals.

  Leaving the stove door ajar to increase the flow of air over the kindling, Kate slung a blanket over the rope that stretched from one side of the room to the other, then grabbed the broom and began whacking down cobwebs. “Pity it isn’t part of the ‘unwritten rule,’” she muttered to herself, “to clean up for the next man—”

  At the sound of Josh’s boots thudding across the porch, Kate fell silent. She put the broom back where she’d found it and flung open the door. “Good thing you wrapped our spare clothes in that oilcloth of yours,” she said as he dropped another load of firewood near the stove. “I’ve got a good base going and made us a privacy screen, so you can change into some dry things.” She sounded bossy, even to herself. “If you’ve a mind to, that is,” she added in a softer tone.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, “but ladies first.”

  She could tell by his no-nonsense expression that he meant it, so she grabbed one of the two outfits he’d bought her in Uvalde and ducked behind the b
lanket. She was down to her petticoats when he said, “Let’s pray that the good Lord will see fit to dry our wet clothes by morning.”

  “Morning?” But even as the word slid past her lips, Kate knew what a foolish question it had been. It would be dark soon, and they certainly couldn’t travel in this weather. Of course, they’d have to spend the night here. Alone. Way out in the middle of nowhere.

  “I’ve seen storms like this before,” he went on. “If it lets up by daybreak, I’ll be surprised.”

  During the weeks Kate had been forced to travel with Frank and his gang, she’d had plenty of time to think about the character traits and tendencies of men. Just because her stepfather and Frank Michaels had been brutally abusive was no reason to judge all men as beasts and bullies. Josh Neville didn’t seem any more likely to force himself on her than 99 percent of the men she’d entertained in the saloon. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep her distance from him, just in case. And if anyone found out that she’d spent a night alone with a man, it wasn’t likely to damage her already tarnished reputation. She’d been making the best of bad situations for as long as she could remember. She’d gotten herself into this mess, and she’d get herself out, somehow.

  “I noticed some tin cans in the cupboard,” she said, mustering a courage she didn’t feel. “They’re not labeled, but if I can find something to open them with, I might just be able to rustle us up a decent supper.”

  Squatting in front of the stove, he said over his shoulder, “I’ll show you how to use a hunting knife to do the job.”

  ---

  He eased three slender logs onto the glowing coals and closed the stove’s door with a clang. Then, getting to his feet, he said, “It’ll take a while before this beast gets hot enough to cook anything on it. Might be better if we just finish off those muffins I bought in Uvalde.”

  “Coward.”

  “Coward?”

  “Afraid I’ll start a bigger fire on the stove than you made in it?”