THE BADDEST BRIDE IN TEXAS

by Maggie Shayne

  She spun on her heel and ran out the barn's open rear door. The grassy meadow beyond cushioned every footfall as she ran away. Her feet pounded across the barnyard and into the pasture beyond. She raced toward the trees at its edge, pouring all her anger and frustration and fear into every step. She would head for the border. She would send for her father when it was safe. She would…

  Heavy steps came from behind, and then a pair of arms snaked around her and drew her to a clumsy halt. Adam turned her in his arms until she faced him. She was breathless, hot with exertion. So was he. His face flushed with dark color. His eyes sparkled with something. Adrenaline, probably. They stood among some trees near the edge of Wes's pasture, a hundred yards from the barn, farther from the house. The sun beat down, and the breeze ruffled her hair and cooled her heated skin. Adam's arms stayed put, linked at the small of her back. Then they tightened.

  She pressed both hands to his chest. Not hard. Just a little, and he went still.

  "Where did you think you were going?"

  She lifted both shoulders, lowered her head. "To the same place all the wanted murderers go in the movies. Mexico."

  He shook his head. "You gonna live on the run for the rest of your life?"

  "I guess so," she said. "If I have to. But you are not."

  "I wasn't planning to."

  "Then…" She sent a questioning glance back toward the barn. For a second she thought she'd heard something. A motor or… But the sound faded so fast she must have imagined it.

  "What I was planning," Adam said, "was to hide out somewhere … somewhere close. So we can find out who is setting you up, get the proof we need and clear your name, Kirsten."

  "The person who is setting me up is beyond our reach, Adam. He's dead."

  "That's impossible."

  "Nothing's impossible for that man."

  Adam's face went still. "He hurt you," he said, very softly, as if he didn't want to hear his own words. "Didn't he?"

  "He was incapable of making me feel anything, Adam. Including pain."

  "But physically—" Fear in his eyes. Fear that she would confirm his darkest suspicions.

  "If he had, I would have shot him."

  "If he were still alive, I would," Adam said.

  She lifted her face, searching his. "Don't do this, Adam. Don't care about me. I ruin everything I touch, and I don't want to ruin you."

  He averted his eyes quickly. "I can't stop thinking how things might have been…"

  "I wasted years doing that. Believe me, it doesn't help anything."

  "But if there could still be a chance…" He looked at her again, dead on target with his piercing sapphire eyes. "Could there … still be a chance for us?"

  It was Kirsten's turn to look away. Because tears of regret brimmed in her eyes, tears she didn't want him to see. "No. I'm sorry, but … but no."

  She heard his slow sigh. His arms were still anchored around her waist, her hands still resting flat on his chest. She felt his heart pounding against her palm.

  "Because I took off. Because I believed the worst all too readily and left when you needed me most," he said. "I ruined any chance we had when I walked away from you, didn't I?"

  "No, Adam. I ruined it, not you."

  "I didn't love you enough. Hell, I was scared to death you'd do just what you did. Expecting it so damned much that I wasn't even surprised when you didn't show for the wedding. I don't even know why."

  Kirsten did. He'd never given all his heart to her, and she knew exactly why. He was afraid to risk it, afraid to love someone utterly and completely and have her vanish from his life one sunny afternoon the way his parents had done. He'd been afraid of love ever since that accident. And that was Kirsten's fault, as well.

  "You didn't ruin anything, Adam," she told him again.

  He lifted both hands, releasing her waist, only to frame her face. "If I didn't … then there's a chance. You still feel something for me, Kirsty, I know you do."

  She had to put a stop to this. It would only hurt him more when he finally knew the whole truth. "No," she said, slamming her eyes closed against the invasion of his. "I don't."

  "Don't you?" He was quiet, his breath on her face. "Open your eyes, Kirsty."

  She did, and stared up into his. Then watched as he moved closer, and his hands slid around to the back of her head, cupping it, tilting it. His lips brushed lightly over hers, his eyes keeping her gaze captive. And then finally they fell closed, and he kissed her. His warm, moist mouth covered hers. His lips moved against hers. His body pressed against hers. The shaking began in her knees and moved up until it encompassed her entire body. She'd shut desire down a long time ago. Now it was alive and screaming again for the only man she'd ever made love with. The only man she'd ever wanted. Her first. God, she wished he could be her last, as well. He could erase everything that had happened in between.

  Her arms twined around his neck, and she parted her lips. He tasted good. So good and sweet and familiar. She didn't want to stop. Feeding him from her lips, drinking from his, absorbing his body heat along with his breath. She didn't ever want to stop.

  A soft nicker made its way to her senses. She ignored it, lost in feeling. She'd dreamed of being in these arms again. So tight around her, strong but tender. The way they'd always been. She kept kissing him, her fingers creeping up into his hair.

  Adam lifted his head, dragged in a ragged breath. Kirsten opened her eyes and saw the color in his face and the fire in his eyes. He wanted her.

  The nicker came again. This time she looked toward it, maybe because she needed to look away from Adam's eyes and the heat and intensity she saw in them.

  One of the horses stood just behind Adam. It tapped a forefoot on the ground and blew its impatience. "What … how did she…?"

  Frowning, Adam turned. The second horse stood only a few yards behind the first. Adam looked beyond them and shook his head. "Wes," he said.

  "What?"

  "Look. The barn door's closed. I didn't do that." Then he glanced at the matched pair of spotted horses again. "And those saddlebags are bulging now."

  They moved forward, Adam speaking softly to the horses, stroking them, before moving around to open a bag and paw through it. "Blankets, matches. A change of clothes for each of us."

  Kirsten was busy looking through one of the bags on the other horse. "Food, coffee, tin cups…"

  "There's a note," Adam said.

  Kirsten turned to watch him pull the rolled bit of paper from the thong that held it in place.

  Then he read aloud. "'Midnight. Thompson Gorge. I'll be alone. Elliot.'" Adam's brows met, then rose high. "Elliot?"

  "I don't … what was Elliot doing here?" Kirsten glanced back toward the barn in search of Adam's youngest brother, but saw no one.

  "Must have come by to check on the mares for Wes." Adam shook his head. "He's been doing that once in a while the past couple of weeks. Several are due to foal, and if Wes and Taylor both have to be out for the day, Elliot pops in to make sure the mares are okay." He shook his head. "Damn kid," he muttered.

  Kirsten sent him a look. "Your brother's almost twenty-five, Adam. He's hardly a kid."

  "He'll always be a kid."

  She shrugged. "Well, for a kid, he sure is trying to look out for his older brother, isn't he?" she asked with a nod toward the supplies.

  "Yeah, and now he's going to go sticking his nose into a mess of trouble."

  Kirsten gripped the pommel and pulled herself into the saddle. "Just like his older brother."

  He glanced at her, shook his head, then mounted his own horse. "If he thinks I'm going to show up for this midnight rendezvous, he's nuts."

  "What if he knows something, Adam? What if he's coming to warn us about something?"

  Adam nudged the horse forward, and Kirsten's fell into step close beside it. Adam sighed, deep in thought, but didn't answer.

  They rode across the meadows, and when they reached a gate in the fence, Adam climbed down
and opened it, waited while she rode through, then closed it again before mounting up. She had no idea where they were heading. Away. Just away, she thought. And the relief that thought brought with it was like a fresh breeze on a hot day.

  "You shouldn't be coming with me," she said after a while.

  "I thought we already settled that." They paused near a stream, and the horses bent to drink.

  "That kiss back there didn't settle anything. That was just…"

  "Just what?" He eyed her sharply.

  She gave her head a staccato shake. "Just nerves. Fear. I don't know, just the situation."

  He tilted his head very slightly. "You think that's all it was, do you?"

  Kirsten nodded. "It didn't mean anything."

  "It meant we still want each other, Kirsty. It meant that hasn't changed."

  The horses stopped drinking, and they started forward again, picking their way through the thinning grass, stepping carefully over the occasional patch of rocky ground.

  "Nothing can happen between us, Adam. Too much has changed. We can never go back."

  "You're right," he said. "We can only go forward."

  He kicked his horse into a run. Kirsten sat very still for a moment. Adam could be as stubborn as a rusted bolt when he got his mind made up about something. But she had to stop this thing in its tracks. She had to make it clear to him, once and for all. She couldn't let him fall for her again, only to smash his heart to dust when she told him the truth.

  So why not just tell him now? Wouldn't that make everything easier? He'd hate you, probably turn and walk away, and you wouldn't have to worry about hurting him later. So why not just tell him the truth and let the poor man go?

  She knew why. Even though she hated like hell to admit it, she knew damned well why. Tonight they would be alone together, in hiding, in whatever place he planned to take them. Tonight they would be alone, and maybe he would try to make love to her.

  And maybe she wanted him to.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  Adam was going to get to the truth. Because it was killing him not to know. Dammit, he'd spent all this time hating her, blaming her, and now he was busy hating and blaming himself. If he'd done what it was looking more and more as if he had—walked out on the woman he'd claimed to love just when she'd needed him most—damn, how was he supposed to live with that? If he'd stayed, if he'd held on to his temper and confronted her then and there, could he have prevented everything that had happened to her since? The two years of hell that bastard Cowan had apparently put her through? The marriage that never should have been?

  My God, had she really been forced into it? And if so, then how?

  Adam was going to get the answers. He'd damned well been patient long enough. And maybe he'd wronged her, and maybe he'd been a little too ready to believe the worst, but Kirsten owed him. Kirsten Armstrong Cowan was going to tell him the truth. She had to.

  Not knowing was eating him alive.

  He took her to the only place he could think of where she would be safe. Away from town, away from civilization, from comfort and manners and pretense … away from makeup and hair spray and clothes that had become her fortress. He took her into the barren, rocky hell the locals called "the Badlands." A place where there was nothing but jagged rock and hard-packed, desert-dry earth, and raw, brutal honesty.

  He was careful, guiding his horse over grit and stone. There might be one person he could think of who would be capable of tracking them, as little sign as they'd left in their wake. But his baby sister, Jessi, was on vacation with her family.

  They picked their way deeper into the wilderness, until Adam chose a spot. A high, level bluff with enough boulders for cover and a good view of anyone coming up on them from any direction. Not all that far from Thompson Gorge, either, just in case he decided to meet Elliot there tonight.

  He still hadn't made up his mind about that.

  "We'll camp here," he said, drawing his mount to a halt, getting off, beginning to undo the straps holding the saddlebags in place. "There's a patch of grass over here for the horses, and a small water hole just down beyond those rocks."

  He slid the weighty bags off, set them on a flat-topped boulder and began undoing the cinch. Then he glanced up, because Kirsten was still sitting astride her horse. She frowned at him, the sun slanting on her face and a breeze lifting her hair.

  "I still think it would be best to ride for the border."

  Adam swallowed his instinctive urge to tell her that she was wrong. She wouldn't react well to being told she was wrong. She never had.

  "Look, it's your life. Your decision." He let go of the straps. "If you want me to help you make it to Mexico, I will."

  "You will." She repeated it flatly.

  "You know I will." He met her eyes, held them for a brief moment, then looked away. "But I'd ask you to give my way a chance first. If it looks like it's not gonna work, we're outta here."

  She sat still, just looking down at him. Then Mystic tossed her mane and danced impatiently, but Kirsten moved with the animal without even thinking about it. Never swayed. She'd always been great with horses.

  "So you have some kind of a plan, then," she said, eyes narrow. "I should have known. You always have a plan."

  "Yeah, well, you caught me on an off day this time, Kirsten. I don't have a clue. Just a vague notion that we could probably hide out by day and do some snooping around by night. See if we can turn up some evidence as to who really did this and why they're setting you up to take the fall."

  "We won't find anything."

  "Not if we don't try, we won't."

  Kirsten sighed. Adam watched the rise and fall of her chest. The play of light on her hair and its flash in her eyes. Something knotted in his gut. His hands clenched at his sides, maybe because it was the only way to keep them there. Okay, so he wasn't over her after all. He'd pretty much shot the theory that he ever had been all to hell. And he knew he was headed for serious trouble here, which was why he had to know the whole story. Why she'd left him. Why she'd married a bastard like Cowan. The whole truth. He needed to know just where he stood with her. Before it was too late. Because he was in danger of getting his heart smashed to bits by Kirsten all over again, and he damned well wasn't planning to let that happen.

  "We snoop tonight?" she asked him.

  "No. Tonight we lie low. They'll be looking. Tomorrow night we'll slip back into town. They'll all think we're long gone by then."

  "And if we don't find anything?"

  "Then we try again the next night," he said, watching her face.

  "No, we don't. We head to Mexico. Or one of us does, anyway. The other one goes home and says whatever he has to to keep his butt out of jail."

  Adam sighed. "It's going to be tough to make any progress in just one night, Kirsty."

  "It's that or nothing, Adam. I've got no reason to hang around waiting for someone to slap a life sentence on me. Or worse."

  "I'm not going to let that happen. And you've got every reason to hang around."

  "You can't stop it from happening. And you're wrong. I'd be long gone by now if not for…" She didn't finish. She didn't have to.

  If not for you, that was what she'd been about to say. No reason to hang around, huh? Well, maybe those words would have been more convincing if she hadn't still been here. Even now, getting down off her horse and removing its saddle and blanket.

  Adam nodded, satisfied she must have some reason to hang around or she would be riding hard due south right now. He let the horses locate the grass on their own, then gathered up some dry wood for a fire. He was pretty sure he was the reason. He probably shouldn't be thinking that way. But he liked thinking that way, dammit. And after the way she'd responded to his kiss back there…

  He went still, remembering, tasting those lips and wanting to do it all over again.

  "You think that's a good idea?" she asked.

  "It's probably a terrible idea," h
e said. Then he saw her frowning at him and at the fire he was about to light. She was hunkered nearby, unpacking the saddlebags, taking inventory, but she'd paused to stare at him. "Oh, you mean the fire?"

  She nodded.

  "It's not dark yet. No one will spot the flames if we keep it small. And wood this seasoned isn't gonna make much smoke. We'll need to douse it before dark, though."

  "Makes sense. You're not bad at this stuff, for a city boy."

  "I've never, ever been a city boy, hon."

  "Not even when you were there?"

  "Nope." He hunkered beside the fire he'd laid, stuck a match to some tinder and watched it flare up. "To tell you the truth, I hated it."

  "Then why did you stay?" She sat on a rolled-up blanket to watch the fire take hold.

  Adam looked at her. "I told the family it was a great career opportunity. That I loved the big money, the fast life."

  One side of her mouth pulled into a small, brief smile. "They believe you?"

  "Nah. They said it was 'cause I couldn't stand to be in the same town with you and Cowan." Adam caught her eyes with his and held them fast. "I never admitted it, but they were right."

  She rose fast, paced away uneasily, didn't look at him. He stayed where he was, poking the burgeoning fire with a stick, watching her, waiting for a reply.

  "I'm going to take the horses down to that watering hole for a drink," she said, and she hurried away.

  Avoiding the subject. Well, hell, Adam thought, she couldn't keep it up all night. Sooner or later she would talk to him. He wasn't going to take no for an answer.