Once an Outlaw

by Raine Cantrell

  Trouble was, he couldn’t ride down, whooping and hollering as he’d done in the past. Announcing his homecoming would give the lie to his turning his back on his heritage to ride the outlaw trail. Unless his suspicions proved right.

  The night was surprisingly cool. Logan jogged his memory and realized he’d been gone almost eight months. Fall had arrived without his noticing.

  His one regret was that Jessie wasn’t here with him. A foolish thought at best, since he couldn’t keep up his charade and have her with him. And, he reminded himself, he’d just broken a promise made the moment he’d walked out of her cabin—he wasn’t going to think about her.

  The promise had served him well during the lonely hours of riding in a land where survival was the only law.

  The leaves of the cottonwood stirred above him as they were wont to do in the slightest breeze. Below, the only movement came from the restless milling of a few horses in the far corral. Breeding stock was housed in the long barn.

  Set out in the open country with a stream winding past, the big Spanish-style house was surrounded by trees that helped to keep the thick adobe walls and tiled roof cool. There was a dam across the stream, and a fair-sized pond had backed up behind it. He and his brothers had had their first swimming lessons under Santo’s guidance there before they attempted the swiftly moving current of the river. Memories of those carefree, competitive days assaulted him. This, too, had to be put aside.

  He studied the sprawl of the buildings, probing the shadows each cast. At the back of the main house an adobe wall encircled his mother’s pride and joy, her garden. He’d climbed the thick wooden gates many a night, sneaking back into the house without her knowing, without Conner knowing, either. And it still seemed the best way for him to get into the house tonight.

  There was a stillness about the place, a peaceful one that reached out to him. The windlass that pulled the water from the center courtyard well was silent, the low tower where a man stationed with a pair of field glasses could see the surrounding area for miles was empty.

  Logan slid from the saddle, tying the reins to a low limb. The horse Jessie had bought for him had been a good mount, deserving of a well-earned rest and plenty of grain. Stripping off his gear, he set the saddle aside, then wiped the horse down with the reverse side of the blanket, knowing this was the best he could do for now.

  He set off, keeping to the deepest shadows, being careful to avoid going anywhere near Santo and Sofia’s small house. The old man—who became indignant when Logan or Ty referred to him as such—was a light sleeper. It pained him that the truth about his leaving had to be kept from them. But with the fiancé of their daughter, Rosanna, high on the list of suspects, he had agreed with Conner and his mother that they couldn’t be told.

  The one thing the Rocking K didn’t have was dogs, due to his mother’s fear of them. It served him well as he flattened himself against the adobe wall near the gates. The bedrooms were all at the back of the house and that made a climb necessary.

  Rubbing his shoulder, Logan was thankful he’d been blessed with the good fortune to heal quickly. But he wasn’t sure he could make the leap for the top of the high-set gates. Reminding himself that he should have taken that rope that Jessie had bought him didn’t sit well with him.

  Delaying the attempt wasn’t going to make it happen. He jumped and promptly fell back. Jeez! Why did something he’d done a hundred times as a kid seem so easy then, but now, as a man grown, was going to prove difficult?

  If he had another way of getting into the house…No, there wasn’t any. He walked away and took a running start, this time clinging to the top of the gate. He heard the grate of his teeth when fire streaked down his body from his shoulder. The cry of pain stayed buried as he scrambled to keep his grip. He had to deny the pain and boost himself on top of the thick wood. He balanced in a crouch on the six-inch-wide gate and jumped down to the soft earth of the garden.

  He landed on his feet, feeling the jar through his bones, and had to wait until he caged the pain.

  Late-blooming roses scented the air. He made his way along one of the flagstone paths bordered with lemon trees, unable to stop images of playing here as a child with his brothers from coming to mind.

  As he headed for the window to his room, the darkened house whispered to him of love and laughter within its walls.

  One of the first things he intended to do was get into a pair of his own boots. He swore his toes were numb from being pinched in Harry’s old ones.

  Logan gave thanks that there hadn’t been any recent rain. The window frame would have been swollen and given him a devil’s time to get it open. As it was, the window slid silently open. He tossed his leg over the sill, ducked his head and swung inside.

  “Come in, come all the way into the room and talk fast, mister. Tell me why I shouldn’t blow a hole through you.” Dixie Rawlins, soon to become Mrs. Tyrel Kincaid, placed the cold metal barrel of her gun against the intruder’s neck. “I don’t hear you talking, mister.”

  “Who the hell are you!” Logan was furious.

  “I asked first. Since I hold the gun, that means I get answered first, too.”

  “Jeez, lady, get that gun off my neck. I’m not going to hurt you. For Almighty’s sake, I—” Logan paused. He didn’t know who she was. He couldn’t tell her who he was, that he lived here, that this was his room, or had been until he had taken off. His only choice was to convince her to get Conner in here fast before she accidentally shot him.

  “Why don’t you go—”

  Dixie rapped against the inside wall.

  “What’re you doing? That room’s empty. Or it was. Look, lady, just get Conner in here.”

  The rough voice held command. That grabbed Dixie’s attention. His telling her about the empty room, Ty’s once-empty room, wiped the last vestige of sleep away. She repeated the three short raps against the wall. It was a signal that she and Ty had worked out to slip into each other’s room when both became overwhelmed by the constant chaperoning Ty’s mother insisted was proper until their wedding.

  “Will you stop that!” Logan hissed. “You’ll wake the whole damn house.”

  “Sounds like a fine idea to me,” she returned. “I don’t know what you hoped to steal, but mister, you picked the wrong place. You haven’t seen possessive until you’ve met the Kincaids. And I’ll warn you, I’m an excellent shot. But this close, it would take the turning of the hand of God to miss you.”

  “Dixie?”

  “Ty, come in and light the lamp. I’ve caught us a polecat sneaking into my room.”

  “Ty?”

  “Oh, hell!” Ty, hearing his brother’s voice, rushed forward and slammed his bare foot into the edge of the bed board. Groans and swears filled the air.

  “Damn and double damn! Lady, put the gun away.”

  “The hell you say. Ty? Ty, what’s wrong? You sound as if you’re in pain.”

  “I am. Dixie, that’s my brother. That’s Logan.”

  “Logan?”

  “Yeah. I’m Logan. Put up the gun, honey.”

  “Don’t call me that. But now I know where Ty picked it up from.” Ty struck the match and lit the lamp, and she had her first look at the missing Kincaid brother. She was grateful that Ty grabbed him in a bear hug that left Logan facing her. She set the gun down on the dresser and grabbed her shawl from the back of the rocking chair. She wrapped it around her, watching the two men.

  The similarities were there for anyone to see. The same rugged good looks, although Dixie thought Ty the handsomer by far. Both had the same dark blue eyes, similar shapes to their noses and brows. Logan was a mite taller than Ty. Where Ty’s hair had a slight curl and was black, Logan’s was dark brown. Logan was heavier in build, and his lips were thinner than her love’s. Ty’s brother appeared not only older but harder, as if time had not been kind to him.

  Dixie admonished herself. If the whispers were true that she and Ty heard—despite the effort of Conner and their mo
ther, Macaria, to stop the talk among the hands—Logan hadn’t just left the Rocking K, he’d become an outlaw. More than once in the past two months Ty had left her to track down some rumor that Logan had been seen. She ached for her love when he’d return, filled with more confusion at the path his missing brother had chosen. And now Logan had come home.

  Ty stepped back from his brother. Both had their hands resting on the other’s shoulders. When he saw Logan wince, he dropped his hands. “You’ve been hurt.”

  “Just a flesh wound. Nothing to worry about. You know how fast I heal.”

  The far-off look in Logan’s eyes warned Ty that his brother was thinking some serious thoughts. He swallowed question after question, unwilling to push Logan until he was ready to talk.

  “Don’t look so worried, Ty. I had a real pretty lady nurse me.”

  The same wolfish grin on Logan’s lips creased Ty’s mouth and brought a loud throat-clearing from Dixie.

  “Ty is no longer in the market for pretty ladies. And while you two are undeniably brothers, and closer than two peas in a pod, I can’t help wondering if there’s something significant in the fact that you were both wounded in the same shoulder.”

  “If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, Dixie,” Ty said, breaking into a short laugh, and sobering quickly, “then my brother should be heading for the altar.”

  “Never mind. What happened to you, boy?”

  “Can’t call me that anymore.” Ty looked into his brother’s eyes and all he saw was Logan, ready to take on the world if need be to right any wrong done to his little brother. There was a wealth of love and no shame in the bear hug he gave Logan, whispering that he was thankful he was here, alive and, for the most part, well.

  Breaking away, Logan glanced from his brother’s smiling face to Dixie’s studied expression directed at him. “That really true? You’re gonna give up your roaming ways to settle down?”

  “Yep. Gonna be a married man next week.”

  “You? Married?” Logan wasn’t sure he could handle more. First the shock of finding a woman in his room—a woman who appeared capable of using the gun she had held on him. Then finding out that Ty was home after years of drifting all over the territory, and swearing he’d never be back as long as Conner ran the Rocking K. And now this, his little brother, who wasn’t quite the lean, cocky kid who had walked away five years ago. The few times Ty had returned, Logan had seen the subtle changes, but they hit him hard now.

  His brother had seen his share of trouble and had survived. Sometimes a man couldn’t ask for more.

  “Who knows you’re back?” Ty asked.

  “No one. I came over the fence.”

  “Wait till Conner sees you. I didn’t believe what they were saying, Logan. I know how arrogant our brother can be, and Lord knows, he ran me off with his set ways, but I know you. You’d never take to riding with outlaws. But I’ll admit, if it wasn’t for Dixie, I wouldn’t have come home. Com’ere honey, let me introduce you to my brother properly.”

  Ty made the introductions. He heaped praise on his brother until Logan warned him to stop. Ty laughed, then said, “Almost all of my bad habits can be blamed on Logan’s example.” When he told him who Dixie was, all he added was, “the lady I love.”

  Shaking his head, Logan said, “I still can’t believe it. You swore you’d never wear any woman’s brand, Ty.” Looking at Dixie, he finished, “Not that I blame him. You’re a beautiful woman. And a smart one if you got your rope around him.”

  “That’s not exactly what happened,” Dixie began.

  “Dixie,” Ty interrupted, “was hunting her father’s killer when I rescued her from a mob of angry miners getting ready to lynch her.”

  “You didn’t so much rescue me, Ty,” Dixie corrected, “as stick yourself right in the middle of my problems for devious reasons of your own.”

  Ty’s grin was sheer sin. “Yeah. Real devious reasons. I had a hankerin’ so bad for her that I took a knife in my shoulder, stole horses an’ nearly ended up getting Greg Rutland and his family killed.” He put his arm around Dixie and pulled her closer to his side. “But I almost lost my lady, which is why I came home. She took a bullet meant for me.”

  “But that only happened because you were so sure we were safe in the gully. If that storm—Oh,” Dixie said, shuddering with the memory of them both battling the storm and men intent on killing them, “don’t talk about it now. We’re safe, and I only hope that the man behind my father’s death will someday pay for what he did.”

  “So you see, Logan, it was a good thing I happened along. Otherwise, my lady here would have ended up a set of bleached bones in the mountains.” Planting a kiss on Dixie’s cheek, he smiled. “Right, honey?”

  “I’ll honey you. I wasn’t exactly some helpless female—”

  “That ain’t what you told me last week. Called me your hero, didn’t you?”

  “Ty!”

  “Only teasing.” And to Logan, “She means more than anything to me. I did find the man who killed her father and almost took her life, too. But I haven’t discovered who ordered his death. We went back to Aztec to find out who filed on her father’s land after she lost it. Some company with a dead trail owns the place.”

  “Aztec? That’s west of here.” Logan frowned. He’d heard something from Monte…Whatever it was escaped him.

  “Yeah,” Ty answered. “The other side of Gila Bend. I hope you’ll welcome Dixie into the family, Logan. Just remember she’s mine.”

  Logan’s expression became serious as he studied the woman who obviously had captured his brother’s love. With her dark brown hair pulled back to fall in a single braid to her waist, there was nothing to obscure her features. What he saw was a lovely young woman both strong enough to be a match for Ty and soft enough to hold him. He sensed she’d had her share of troubles, but he liked the way her gaze remained direct and level with his. He smiled when he assured himself there were no secrets in her eyes.

  “Dixie, you take care of my brother, and you’ll have me as a friend for life. And now, if the little brother won’t mind, I’d sure like to kiss the coming bride.”

  She felt shy with Logan as she hadn’t felt with Conner. She stepped away from Ty, laughing at his low teasing to remember that she was promised to him. For a moment she hesitated, then slipped her arms around Logan and kissed his dark, stubbled cheek. “Welcome home.” Then she murmured softly into his ear so that Ty couldn’t hear, “He’s missed you. He’s worried, too.”

  Logan caught her chin with his fingertips as she pulled back. “Not so fast, pretty one.” He saw the surprise in her eyes and thought he knew what she was expecting him to do. But Logan didn’t kiss her lips; he touched his mouth to her forehead. “Make him happy and keep him home. He loves this place, an’ if he gives half that love to you, Dixie, you’re a lucky woman.” He hugged her tight, meeting his brother’s gaze over her shoulder. Logan beamed approval before he let her go.

  Ty welcomed her to his side. Looking at the two of them, seeing for himself the love in their eyes, Logan was overwhelmed by a wave of loneliness.

  He tried to block out the image of Jessie that came to mind. He might as well have tried to stop breathing. He hadn’t known he could miss anyone this much, so that the ache was raw and painful.

  Ty grew alarmed to see Logan close his eyes, his lips taut, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. “What’s wrong?” he demanded of his brother, letting Dixie go and stepping nearer Logan. “Com’on, sit down.” He reinforced his words with a gentle nudge that landed Logan on the bed.

  Shaking his head, Logan opened his eyes and looked around. “Hell of a place for a reunion, Ty.”

  “Hell is about where I figured I’d meet up with you again. Dixie, get some whiskey. But don’t wake anyone yet, honey. I want to talk to my brother alone.”

  “No. Dixie, get Conner. I never expected you to be here, Ty. But now that you are, there are things you need to know. I’m not up to tellin’ t
he story twice.”

  Dixie looked at Ty.

  “Do it, honey. Seems like there’s a few secrets been kept.”

  “Don’t get all het up about it, Ty. No one knew where you were. You haven’t exactly been a regular visitor here in the past few years.” Logan didn’t say anything about the curt nod Ty gave Dixie. He waited until she slipped quietly out of the door and closed it.

  “Hell of a woman you picked for yourself, boy. I had a feeling if she didn’t like my answers I’d’ve had a mighty close and personal acquaintance with her gun.”

  “Believe it, Logan. Dixie knows which end of a gun is for business.”

  Once more Logan was assailed by the memory of Jessie the night she’d run out to scare off the egg thief. He had to stop this, but his focus blurred and he saw her in his mind’s eye, soft and warm, tawny hair tangled and those wide golden brown eyes…No!

  His fingers clenched with the need to touch her, and he was tormented by the guilt of leaving her without saying goodbye. Logan glanced at the floor, scrubbing his fingertips over his forehead.

  When he finally looked up, he saw compassion in his younger brother’s gaze.

  “I have a feeling I looked a lot like you some nights, Logan. Mostly when I was troubled about Dixie. You fall prey to some woman, too?”

  “Is that what this is?”

  “Got an ache that won’t quit?”

  “I don’t believe this. My little brother is gonna tell me about feelings for a woman.”

  “Believe it, big brother,” Ty said, then laughed. “Guess when it comes to falling in love, I beat you and Conner all to pieces. For the first time, I’m the one to be first—”

  “First in what?” Conner demanded from the doorway.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dixie followed Conner into her bedroom carrying a tray of glasses and a heavy cut-glass decanter of whiskey.

  “Before anyone else says a word, I want to make a toast to my brother and his bride.” Logan, finding one of Conner’s questioning blue-gray stares directed at him, shrugged and added, “How was I to know she had my room? Cat’s out of the bag now, so make the best of it.”