Outlaw Moon

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Her teeth pressed into her lush lower lip, and then she glanced at him reluctantly. “How do you spell ‘circumstances,’ Mr. Watson?”

  He smiled at her and dictated a letter or two at a time as she wrote. “Have you ever met Rafferty’s mother?” he asked the next time her pen paused.

  “No.”

  Curiosity made him itch to read her message. What a letter this must be, from an unmarried, pregnant young woman to the mother of her outlaw lover! Perhaps when she was asleep, he’d steam her wax seal off and glean some pertinent information about—

  “Can I trust Gastineau to deliver this without opening it?” she suddenly demanded.

  “I doubt he reads English too well, if he reads at all.”

  “And what about you?” Her dark eyes seemed to penetrate his thoughts, and he had the odd sensation she’d read his mind a moment ago.

  “There are things in here that only Mrs. Rafferty— not you, and certainly not Jack—should know about,” she continued in a low voice. The fire popped loudly and the cabin stilled with expectation, until she decided to trust him with more. “I ... I’m carrying Jack’s child, you see. And if he knew that, he’d have turned himself over to you days ago.”

  “Yes, I believe he cares that much for you, Amber.”

  “Then you’ll also understand why I’m holding you responsible for our safe arrival in Kansas City,” she stated. Her eyes riveted his, and then she reached around to unclasp the gold, heart-shaped locket that hung just above her breasts. “I’m giving you this because of how much I love Jack, Mr. Watson. If you betray me, I—I . . . well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but you’re the only chance Jack has to—”

  “I can’t accept such a payment.” Booth gaped at her, touched by her offer—by her willingness to sacrifice so much for Rafferty’s sake.

  “Please take it,” she implored, and her doelike eyes seemed to fill her face. “It’s the only real gold I have . . . the only thing of value my mama ever owned. I’m not asking you to set Jack free or to overlook what he’s done. I just want him to get a fair shake when you turn him over to the law.”

  Watson was at a loss for words as he glanced from the gold bangles around her neck to the locket that swayed above the table, casting little shimmers of light around them when it caught the reflection from the fire. He sensed that the law was the least of his worries, once Felicity Nunn met them at the train station. He couldn’t divulge anything about his client to Amber, of course—but he couldn’t refuse her, either.

  “All right. I’m as good as my word—I’ll see that your letter’s posted, and that Rafferty receives all the legal considerations he’s got coming,” Booth replied, catching the locket and letting its delicate chain pool in his palm. “But I can’t guarantee you he’ll go free. The fact remains that he killed a woman, and folks don’t take too kindly to such a thing.”

  Nodding somberly, Amber returned to her writing. Had she just sold both their souls, in exchange for the fleeting chance that Jack might be saved?

  It might be weeks before she knew. But in the meantime, she was trusting her intuition about the man who filled the cabin with his broad shoulders and powerful presence. Booth Watson had proven himself a relentless hunter, a man undaunted by distance and danger ... a captor who could acknowledge the unshakable love burning in her heart, and who would protect it as best he could.

  Chapter 29

  Rafferty felt himself awakening layer by layer, rising to a consciousness he’d wondered, down deep, if he’d ever attain again. He was first aware of voices, a familiar one that made his heart flutter faintly, and a deep one he couldn’t place. Hunger, a sensation he hadn’t known for ages, brought his insides back to life with a loud growl. God, but he felt limp and useless . . . aimless, as he lay beneath blankets in a warm room that smelled of medicines and meat that sizzled over a fire. His skin felt two sizes too small, and he desperately wanted to scratch himself all over. Yet the urge to remain unnoticed for a while longer won out.

  The voices continued, low and friendly enough but with long pauses. It occurred to him that he’d been this way for—how many days now? And who had seen to his ... bodily functions? Such helplessness was so foreign to him that the mere thought of all he might’ve said or done while he was in this disengaged state made his eyes fly open. When he gasped, it took a moment to realize the sound was his own.

  “Jack?”

  He heard a rustling and light footsteps, then saw her leaning over him. Her eyes shone with hope and then with unshed tears.

  “Jack, can you hear me? How’re you feeling?”

  “Amber . . . .” Her voice had throbbed with emotion. And as he saw the way her slender hand came to rest below the waistband of her rust-colored skirts, he was filled with a sudden, overwhelming comprehension that needed no words. He questioned her with his eyes, slowly raising his hand to cover hers.

  She nodded, almost giddy with her unspoken announcement.

  Rafferty’s throat constricted with a love that seared him to the soul. He squeezed her hand, his breath coming in rapid gasps as he closed his eyes against tears. She was carrying his child! She was as overjoyed as he, and they were safe in some cozy—

  And then the other voice brought reality back to him. “Good to see you’re still among the living, Jack. You’re not ready to travel by a long shot, but at least you’re out of the woods.”

  Travel? Rafferty frowned, and the too-tight skin on his face told him he shouldn’t have. At the sight of the burly, mustached man with the blue eyes, however, it all came rushing back to him: the long chase through blinding snow . . . Eddie Gastineau barging in on them . . . the deep, icy plunge that nearly sucked the life from him.

  And Watson had finally caught him. It was all over but the hanging.

  His despair was as swift and all-consuming as his joy had been only moments ago. Was this how a woman felt when her emotions raced from one end of the scale to the other? The bitter staleness in his mouth choked him but he managed to speak. “So,” he rasped, his voice edged with rancor. “You win.”

  The detective smiled. “Things could be worse, Rafferty. You could still be under the ice on that lake. Or it could’ve been Gastineau watching over your woman this week, instead of me.”

  Why don’t I feel any better for hearing that? Jack thought as he struggled up onto his elbows. He despised this rubbery sensation in his muscles as much as the self-assured expression Watson wore, but lashing out took more energy than he had right now.

  He let out a long sigh. “Thirsty,” he muttered. “And hollow as I feel, I’d swear you were starving me to save the trouble of hauling my ass south again.”

  “Not so,” Watson replied with a short laugh. “And since I ate just a bit ago, I’ll go tend the horses while Amber sees to you. A criminal of your caliber deserves that much, anyway.”

  When Booth returned from the lean-to, he stomped the snow off his boots and quickly shut the door against a frigid wind. Rafferty was standing beside the bed, gripping the headboard for support while Amber washed his cracked, peeling skin as gently as she could with a rag. Once again the sight of such a love made him look away out of respect. Once again he envied Jack, and could only speculate about Felicity Nunn’s reaction when they met up with her.

  When the outlaw leaned over slightly, Watson’s thoughts surged ahead. “Where’d you get that interesting tattoo?” he asked in a voice that was deceptively indifferent.

  Rafferty hesitated. “A friend drew it. On a rare night when I was too far gone to refuse the offer.”

  Hadn’t Felicity insisted Jack was a teetotaler? That someone had planted that bottle of whiskey on Bitsy’s night stand to make her killer look like a lush? He hung his coat on a peg and proceeded with relentless caution. “One of your, uh, lady friends? In Dodge, perhaps?”

  Rafferty bristled—which was a useless reaction, considering all the time this detective had probably spent gathering the facts from the whores and everyone else in that to
wn who knew him. “Gracie preferred to call herself an artist. Even initialed her work. Why?”

  Booth shrugged, realizing now where he’d seen a marking identical to it ... wondering if Gracie drew that heart-shaped tattoo, as well. “Just curious. Part of the job.”

  “I suppose you’re going to ask me a bunch of questions? Try to catch me in some lies?” Jack demanded.

  “The facts speak for themselves. Bitsy Sisser’s dead, and nobody denies that you stabbed her,” he asserted. As he crossed to the fire to warm himself, he wondered if this unpredictable pair had concocted any alibis or escape plans during his brief absence. “The posters say you’re wanted in three states, so I’ve come after you. It’s a matter of pride that I always bring my man back alive, Rafferty.”

  “Why now?” his captive snapped, showing signs that he’d stood about as long as his wobbly legs would let him. “It was months before I saw any posters out, and nearly a year before you started tracking—”

  “Can’t answer that. Part of the job,” he repeated with a sly smile. “You can tell me your side of the story if you want, but it’s the law you’ll be answering to once we get back to Dodge. Gastineau’s out rounding up a sleigh. I’m guessing your nurse and some solid food’ll have you fit to travel in four or five days. Don’t rush on my account, though,” he added, chuckling wryly. “I’m not going anywhere in these snow drifts before we’re damn good and ready.”

  The sleigh cut cleanly across the unsullied whiteness, leaving behind it a trail that resembled a jumble of musical notes between two distinct staff lines. Gastineau was an expert driver, urging the two dappled draft horses along at a steady pace that enabled them to travel several miles at a time without stopping. Booth rode alongside, alternating between Butch and Smoke when each horse became lathered from the exertion of carrying him through the deep white peaks and drifts.

  It was a picture postcard of a day, bounded by a crystal-blue sky and snow-laced evergreens for as far as the eye could see. The scenery reminded him of home, and he was suddenly wishing this convoluted case were behind him so he could point his black toward the Rockies and the serenity he always felt there.

  But the events that loomed ahead couldn’t be sidestepped. He almost hoped Felicity and Minnit wouldn’t be at the train station—that his two captives could be ushered away by a competent attorney and Jack’s mother, before all hell broke loose.

  That was wishful thinking, of course: Jack had to own up to his murder, and Mrs. Nunn had paid a princely sum to fetch him back so she could play the part of his redeemer—or so she claimed. As he rode along in thoughtful silence, sorting out her story and stacking it against Amber’s, the two sides were decidedly unbalanced. Investigator that he was, he was eager to see how this hand played out when all the cards were laid on the table in Kansas City. Something told him there’d be a hellacious cat fight when Felicity met Amber. And he sensed that when the whole truth finally surfaced, it would come as a shock to most of them.

  And in Bemidji, at Ilsa Jorgensen’s boardinghouse, the small parcel he received from the plump proprietress turned out to be a piece in this puzzle even he hadn’t anticipated.

  “We’ll need three rooms for two nights,” he told her as he signed the guest register. “My two, uh, associates need rest and good food before we can travel on. I’m sure you’ll recognize them—but I assure you that Mr. Gastineau and I’ll be keeping them in their room, so they won’t cause you any trouble.”

  Since the lumberjacks had all left for the forests, he knew the woman wouldn’t be too fussy about who provided her some income. But when she saw Jack and Amber her eyes searched his face. “They left their room in a shambles! Ran out without—”

  “And I paid you, remember?” he said quietly. They watched Eddie follow the pair upstairs, balancing carpetbags and supply packs on his broad back.

  Then the landlady was studying him with her disapproval. “Jah, you made good,” she replied, “but this time I’ll be having no fraternizing with wild women in my house, you hear? Plenty of other places for that.”

  Beneath her matronly scrutiny, Booth felt the color rising up under his collar. This woman had apparently heard every moan and creak during his crazed encounter with Felicity, which only reinforced his own regret about it. Yet when she reached into the drawer of the registration desk and handed him a parcel wrapped in brown paper, her eyes sparkled.

  “Jah, I had a feeling somebody’d be wanting this. I found it in her room when I was cleaning, day after she left,” she said with a soft lilt. “She’s trouble, that one. Watch yourself, Mr. Watson.”

  Something told him not to unwrap the package until he was alone in his room. His first concern, of course, was settling Jack and Amber, seeing that a hot meal and coffee arrived upstairs to rejuvenate them after these past days of huddling beneath blankets with Maudie on the sleigh, and camping beside inadequate fires each night.

  A little while later, their voices were low on the other side of the wall from him. The two talked seldom, as though saving their strength for the encounter to come . . . as though they needed no verbal communication to express their love and their shared anxieties. He’d paid Gastineau well to watch their door for the night, and when he heard the muffled clink of silverware against china plates, he stretched out on his bed to study what Ilsa had given him. How she’d sensed someone would return for it was just another mystifying event in a chain of—

  Watson stared at the photograph, which was surrounded by a rim of jagged glass. No doubt in his mind that the man was Rafferty, clean-shaven and pleased to be preserving a carefree moment with a lady friend. His handsome smile and debonair attire were reasons enough for any woman to pose proudly beside him.

  But this woman weighed a ton! The sepia-toned print disguised her actual hair color, yet it appeared unnaturally dark for her fair complexion. Nothing could camouflage the bloated upper arms encased by her skimpy sleeves, though, or the bulges that threatened to pop the buttons and bows adorning her mammoth chest. Everything about her looked cheap, and she was resting a pudgy, possessive hand on Jack’s shoulder—

  “Bitsy Sisser,” he whispered. And when he recalled Amber’s drugged narrative of a week ago, he had to chuckle and add, “a man can’t miss her. That’s for damn sure. But what did Rafferty ever see in....”

  His muttered monologue trailed off as he locked eyes with the woman in the picture. He had to wonder why, of all the whores in Dodge, a successful attorney like Jack Rafferty had proposed to this ox. And he wondered why Felicity would carry such a demeaning reminder of her sister’s escapades with the man she claimed had been her husband.

  But after another halting heartbeat or two, the answer came from out of nowhere, like an unexpected slap from a woman scorned.

  “Naw . . . can’t be,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

  Yet his hunch was correct. He felt it!

  With a sigh that whistled between his teeth, Watson propped the photograph on his night table. He had a lot of figuring to do between here and Kansas City, but one thing was for damn sure: when the fur stopped flying and he closed this case, he was never taking another woman at her word!

  Three days later they were boarding a train for the last leg of the journey south. When they’d led the horses and Maudie into a hay-filled stock car, Amber settled herself beside Jack on a comfortable padded seat—but then, after these past days of the wind constantly whipping their faces, and sleepless nights spent shivering in each other’s arms, anything else would feel like heaven.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’ll make it.”

  Rafferty’s slouch bespoke his exhaustion and a resignation that nearly made her cry. Most of his frostbitten skin was now replenished by a fresh layer; his handsome face had regained its natural, rugged glow, and he was growing his mustache again. But he was a shell of the adventurous devil who’d promised her the moon once they reached Canada.

  She had to admire his stoic insistence that
he pay his debt to society, though. Not once had he hinted at an escape from Watson’s watchful escort, or listened when she pointed out times they could’ve easily slipped away. His devil-may-care manner had always amused her, yet this serious, responsible side of Jack Rafferty proved that he’d make a devoted husband and father . . . now that she feared she might never have him.

  Through their window in the first-class car, they could see the detective handing Eddie Gastineau a thick envelope. The redheaded giant nodded, gesticulating in his French exuberance and slapping Watson’s shoulder. She would almost miss the trapper. Lecher that he was, his playful leers and heavily-accented jokes had provided welcome relief when Jack sank into his sullen spells . . . and when Booth studied them as though trying to pick their brains for some missing clue without asking for it aloud.

  As though sensing her line of thought, the detective found her face in the window and gave her one of his mystifying smiles. Even from this distance, his eyes sparkled like blue stars beneath his dark Stetson, in a face that was undeniably handsome even when he kept all expression from it. Intuition told her he was as anxious as she about their stopover in Kansas City—which they hadn’t told Jack about—but for a different reason.

  Had her letter reached Jack’s mother? Would Mrs. Rafferty meet them at the station? Or was the story about the real reason for Jack’s travels, written in her childish hand, so unbelievable that even a mother wouldn’t fall for it? Her palm fluttered to her thickening waist, and Amber vowed that no matter what her child did, she would love this son or daughter forever, unconditionally.

  “Hey, lady.”

  Jack’s whisper held the sultry suggestiveness she remembered from brighter times as he covered her hand with his larger, stronger one. She glanced at the face so close to her own, dark with an alluring masculine shadow and that wicked mustache again, and she longed to have him all to herself. Maybe for the last time before ....

  “I wish things were different,” he stated, his coffee-colored eyes gazing into hers. “I had all the best intentions about marrying you before I got you—”