THE OUTLAW BRIDE

by Maggie Shayne

  He smiled at her. "Sure you will. You're smart."

  She dipped her head. "I do not feel so smart in this strange world of yours, Elliot. I feel the greatest of fools."

  He was quick to shake his head. "Don't. You're not, Esmeralda."

  She didn't smile, but he saw a flicker of gratitude in her eyes.

  "Okay, well, here goes. You saw the airplane earlier. The craft that flew through the sky, over our heads? You remember?"

  She nodded, her eyes widening with the memory.

  "It's a mode of travel people use every day. Airplanes carry people all over the world in just hours."

  "Dios! This is true? You … you have ridden in one of these … airplanes, Elliot?"

  He nodded. "Yes, many times. But there is more. See, airplanes only fly from place to place on Earth. Man has invented spaceships … flown all the way to the moon. Even walked on it."

  Her eyes narrowed on his face. Then, with a knowing smirk, she shook her head hard. "No, Elliot, don't tease me. You say you do not think me stupid. Don't test my intelligence by spinning such tales and trying to make me believe."

  "It's true, Esmeralda."

  She stared at him for a very long moment. Then, slowly, she sank down onto the uppermost step of the porch, tipping her head back and staring in wonder at the moon. "It cannot be… Elliot?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What did they find there?"

  He smiled. "Not much. The moon is pretty barren. No life. Just rocks and craters and dust."

  "Oooh, but to see it…"

  "I'll find you some pictures. But we're getting off the subject. I told you all this so I could explain how the television works."

  "Sí, sí. But what can spaceships and men on the moon have to do with the little box that holds tiny people inside of it?"

  He smiled widely, utterly enchanted by her. "We take pictures of people with a machine called a camera." She nodded. "Nowadays, some cameras take moving pictures. The pictures are sent out with special signals, to satellites we've put in outer space. The satellites are like … like big objects that constantly orbit the earth." He made a circular motion with his finger to demonstrate. "The signals hit the satellites, and then those same signals are sent back down to … to these things, all over the world." He got up, stepped off the porch and pointed at the dish mounted on the roof. "That's a satellite dish. It is hooked to the television. It catches the signals sent from the satellite in space and sends them to the television."

  She eyed the thing, but shook her head. "It is all so … so confusing."

  "I know. You probably didn't need to know all of that. All you really need to understand is that the images on the television aren't real. They're stories acted out by actors, just like I told you. Sometimes they get pretty violent, even frightening. But it's all make-believe."

  "You are sure it's not real?" she asked, wide eyes staring into his in a way that seemed almost … trusting.

  "No. It's not real. It's just a new way of telling stories."

  She blinked, seeming to understand that concept, at least.

  "Come on, I'll show you how to change the channels and run the VCR."

  She looked at his outstretched hand, then shook her head. "No … I … I don't want to learn any more just now."

  He tilted his head to one side. "Okay. All right, that's fine." She didn't move. Just stayed where she was, standing barefoot on the cool grass, with the breeze chilling her body and having the expected results—which were clearly visible through the thin nightgown she wore. "Uh … so what do you want to do?"

  Lowering her head—to hide her eyes, he thought—she said, "I want my pendant back. I want … I want to go home."

  Hell, was she crying? He touched her bare shoulder, slid his palm over it. "It's going to be all right, Esmeralda. If you want to go back there, I promise I'll find a way to get you there. But … but you have to know what will be waiting."

  "How can I know? Nothing is real, nothing is as it seems, and I… Elliot … if I could travel forward in time, why can I not go backward as well? Why can I not go back to … to a time before my father was murdered? I could protect him, and he might…" Her voice seemed to choke itself off, and she turned her head again.

  "Why do you do that?" he asked her.

  "Do what?"

  "Hide your tears? As if you're ashamed of them. You shouldn't be, you know. I cried when my parents died. I still do, sometimes. Hell, Esmeralda, you have to cry, or go crazy. I know you're hurting. So there's no need to try to hide it from me."

  She looked up at him, very slowly. He saw the wetness gleaming in her eyes, the tracks of tears on her cheeks. "To show a man your weakness is to give him a weapon to use against you," she told him.

  "Now, come on. You don't really think I'm the kind of man who'd do that, do you?"

  Sniffing softly, she shook her head. "No. I don't. And that frightens me, Elliot. For I could easily be wrong about you."

  "Only if you think I'd do anything to hurt you," he said. The next thing he knew, he was pulling her closer, and her head was resting on his chest, and her shoulders were trembling, and he was holding her.

  Damn, she felt good in his arms. Soft and small, and in a second she seemed to relax against him, and that felt even better.

  He wanted to kiss her.

  The realization hit him right between the eyes with the force of a wrecking ball, and it almost sent him reeling. What a stupid, harebrained notion! He must be an idiot to even think of such a thing … especially given her history with men, and her tendency to blow molehills into mountains and mountains into entire planets!

  Yet he kept thinking about it. About what her lips would taste like, how they would move against his, how they would feel.

  To hell with the consequences, he decided with a totally uncharacteristic lack of logic. He was going to do it.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  She must remain unmoved by him!

  Esmeralda heard the words echoing in her mind even as her body began to soften, melted, it seemed, by Elliot Brand's warm embrace. His chest felt good, solid and strong beneath her head. His arms were tight and warm around her. His voice was kind and sincere … if a bit uncertain.

  Yet she could not afford to soften toward him. He was her enemy, she must remember that. Just as Eldon had been. And as for his sweet embrace and soft words—those were likely as false as were her own. And even if they were genuine, that would change the moment he realized that her intent was to reclaim her home. There was no doubt in her mind of that. While she must act the part of grateful guest, she could not let that pretense become real. She must not!

  Stiffening slightly, she pulled away from him. "I … think it is enough for tonight, Elliot." She knew that he realized she was no longer talking about the lessons.

  He nodded, looking confused and maybe as alarmed by that warm awareness between them as she was. "Okay. Look, I know I said we'd creep out and search for your pendant, but the family knows it's missing now, so there's no need."

  "You told them?" She knitted her brow.

  "Well, they don't know it's yours. You see Taylor … Wes's wife, she found it. Wanted to take it to a university near here, so they could try to figure out how old it was, who made it and so on. It's … it's what she does."

  Narrowing her eyes, Esmeralda said, "I see. But it is mine, Elliot. In my family for generations, just as this…" She bit her lip to stop herself from finishing, the sentence. Just as this ranch is mine, she'd been about to say, and she thought Elliot knew it. She saw that brief flash of understanding—and perhaps alarm—in his eyes. "It is mine."

  "I know."

  He said no more. So she did. "When we find the pendant—"

  "If we find it," Elliot interrupted.

  "Sí. If we find it, I will claim it as my own."

  He nodded slowly. "It means a lot to you, this pendant?"

  She made her eyes widen in surprise. "It has sent me forward in
time, Elliot Brand. It has mystical powers, and it is rightfully mine. But even if it were but an ordinary amulet, it would mean a great deal to me. As would anything my father gave to me before he was murdered."

  He nodded, his eyes soft and sympathetic, his hand running gently over her hair, as if he would soothe her somehow. "Okay. Okay, if we find the amulet, it's yours. I'll just have to tell Wes we didn't have any luck. Though I'll tell you, Esmeralda, it pains me to lie to my brother."

  She blinked, because his words surprised her more than once. First, that he would concede ownership of her pendant to her so easily, and then that he—or any Brand—would find deceit offensive. "We could," she said softly, "tell him the truth."

  Elliot looked at her, really hard. "I don't know. I want to. My instincts are telling me to do just that, just spill it all. Keeping secrets from my family isn't something I'm accustomed to, and I sure as hell don't like it. But something else is telling me to keep my mouth shut. How could I expect them to believe any of this, after all? I'm not even sure I believe it myself. Part of me still thinks this is all some dream I'm having—that I'm lying in a hospital bed somewhere with a head injury from that crash, and the rest of this is all just in my mind."

  Tilting her head slowly, she tried to follow his words. "You think I am just a part of some dream you are having, Elliot Brand?"

  He shrugged. "I did hit my head. Maybe you are."

  "I am no dream," she said, slightly offended that he might think so, though she didn't know why she should be. "And if you think I am, you are a fool."

  "Hell, it's no more far-fetched than anything else that's happened today."

  "No?" She put her hands on her hips, lifted her chin. "I've known a lot of men, Elliot Brand. I know the way they think, and I know the way they dream. And I know that if this were all a part of some dream of yours, you would not be spending all of your time teaching me about space planes and air ships and sat-o-lite plates. Would you, Elliot?"

  He only blinked down at her, looking shocked and embarrassed. But she knew she'd hit her target well, for his cheeks darkened so that the blush was visible even by the light of the waxing crescent moon. He wanted her. She had seen it in his eyes, felt it in his every touch, from the moment she'd met him.

  Smiling a little sheepishly, averting his eyes, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I suppose you have a point there."

  She was surprised he admitted it. Sighing, she turned and, lifting the hem of the white nightgown, started up the porch steps. "Thank you for the lessons," she said, her back to him. "Good night, Elliot Brand."

  "Good night," he said, very softly. But he didn't follow her inside.

  Damn her for putting the suggestion into his head.

  Elliot rolled over and punched the pillow. He tried to tell himself he might have been doomed to dream about her all night even if she hadn't brought it up, but her assumption certainly hadn't helped any.

  Every time he closed his eyes, every time he even started to drift off, she was there … in his room, standing beside the bed, staring down at him with those dark, exotic eyes full of mystery. She would unbutton that innocent-looking white nightgown, one button at a time, starting at the neck and moving downward. Every time she got a little farther before he would wake up in bed, coated in sweat, shivering, shaking and gasping for breath—and wishing to God he could stay asleep long enough to see what happened next.

  She slept later than was her custom in the morning, likely due to the mental and physical exhaustion of yesterday's happenings … and, of course, her late night being tutored by Elliot.

  He, she was surprised to learn, had risen early and left the house before she even came down the stairs. It angered her just a bit to think he had slept so well that he had been able to rise by dawn, while she had tossed and turned all night, battling odd dreams that made no sense—dreams in which he swept her into his arms and kissed her. Ridiculous! She used to dream about Eldon that way. And look what he had done to her!

  Even more ridiculous was the small niggling of guilt that had begun to pester her. The ranch was rightfully hers. She had nothing to feel guilty about. She hadn't even done anything to reclaim it—yet.

  At any rate, by the time she woke and dressed, she seemed to be the only person left in the house besides the sheriff's wife, who was humming and stacking dishes into one of the many machines Elliot had introduced her to last night. The dish-washing-machine.

  Secretly, Esmeralda thought people had become incredibly lazy, if they no longer felt they could so much as wash a dish without help, but she wouldn't say so.

  "Esmeralda," Chelsea Brand said with a smile when she saw her in the doorway. "You must be starved. I kept a plate hot for you. Come, sit down. You want coffee?" She was pouring it before Esmeralda could even finish nodding, and as she took her seat, Chelsea set first the steaming mug and then a heaping plate down in front of her. "How did you sleep, hon?"

  "Er … fine. Thank you."

  Chelsea pulled out a chair beside Esmeralda's and sat down with her own cup of coffee. "You … um … look better this morning."

  "Sí, I feel a good deal better."

  "So … have you decided what you are going to do?"

  Esmeralda glanced up at the woman, frowning. "Do?"

  "About this guy … the one who hit you. You don't have to go back to him, you know. I mean…" She bit her lip. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business. But you can stay with us for as long as you need to."

  Esmeralda understood at last. "Ahh. No, I … I will not see him again. However … ah … there is a matter you might perhaps help me with."

  "Anything. You name it."

  Esmeralda nodded. "Elliot … he tells me you help a lot of women deal with certain troubles."

  "Yes, I do. No woman needs to let a man brutalize her, Esmeralda. Not in this day and age. It's unacceptable, and yet some women continue to stay with abusive men. You, though…" She shook her head slowly. "You don't seem the type to take it."

  Esmeralda smiled. "You are right about that. I am not."

  "Good for you." Chelsea smiled back.

  Esmeralda had her figured out by then. The woman was a crusader, defending the rights of other women, protecting them, helping them, on a mission, it seemed. Her cause was a good one, Esmeralda thought. Yet, she also thought something else.

  "Not so good for me, I am afraid."

  "No? Do you want to talk about it?"

  Esmeralda nodded. "But I must have your promise this discussion will go no further. I—"

  "Say no more. I promise, this is just between us."

  The guilt prickled a bit more insistently. Esmeralda shook it away. "Gracias. This is my problem, Chelsea. I had a home, property, but it is now in the possession of … of this man."

  Chelsea frowned. "Whose name is on the deed?"

  "His. Although … only because he tricked my father. Now my father is dead, and the land that should have been mine, my home, is owned by a swindler."

  Chelsea sighed heavily, shaking her head. "I see. Well, you could always take him to court and fight for it that way. But it would be expensive and could take years. It would be so much easier if you were married to the man."

  Esmeralda's head came up. "Why?"

  Chelsea just blinked at her. "Well, because of community property laws. If you were married, you'd be entitled to half of what he owns when you divorced him. Some judges might give you more, considering what you've been through."

  A huge fluttering sensation filled Esmeralda's chest, and she felt her eyes widen.

  "Esmeralda?" Chelsea said. "Oh, God, you aren't … are you? Married, I mean?"

  Esmeralda blinked down her excitement. "No. No, I am not married."

  Chelsea sighed so hard she nearly sagged in relief. "Thank goodness!"

  When Esmeralda tilted her head, searching Chelsea's face, Chelsea blushed a little and looked away. "I mean … well, I just thought…" She shrugged. "I'm relieved for Elliot's sake."

 
"Why?"

  Smiling slightly, Chelsea said, "Oh, come on. I've seen the way he looks at you, Esmeralda. How protective he is of you. How … how scattered and distracted he's been since he brought you home. Not himself at all."

  "Isn't he?"

  "No. He isn't. He's always so calm, so darned unflappable. You came along and shook things up for him … and to be honest, I think you're exactly what he needed. You've knocked him for a loop, you know."

  Esmeralda shook her head, bewildered by Chelsea's words. "No. I … I didn't know that at all. I never meant to…"

  "Oh, Esmeralda, I know you didn't." Lowering her eyes, Chelsea paused, then said, "I just hope…"

  "Please, go on. You hope…?"

  Meeting her gaze, Chelsea said, "I hope you won't hurt him."

  Lowering her head, Esmeralda sighed. She didn't want to hurt Elliot Brand. But she couldn't promise this woman she wouldn't do just that, because it was obvious to her now what she had to do. If she wanted her home back—or a portion of it, which seemed to be the best she could hope for—she would have to marry its owner. She would have to marry Elliot Brand. And in her time, there was one tried-and-true method for making a man marry you. Well, two, counting true love, which would take too long and be too complicated. She just hoped the oldest trick in the book of womankind still worked.

  Elliot was surprised as all hell to glance up from the stable floor he'd been cleaning and see Esmeralda standing in the open doorway. She was looking around, sniffing the air, nodding. He bet the one place she wouldn't see as totally alien to her would be right here. Saddle leather and molasses-flavored grain and horseflesh were the same stable smells she would have known in her own time.

  "I am not bothering you, I hope?" she said.

  Elliot felt his brows rise. Since when did she ask before bothering him? "Uh, no. No, I was just finishing up."

  She stepped farther inside. "I thought I could help you." Shrugging delicately, she said, "I could not convince Chelsea to let me do a thing in the house, even though I told her I am a very good housekeeper."