Kid Calhoun (16 page)

“I can’t see you in it,” Jake admitted at last. He knew nothing of Anabeth’s upper proportions, though he’d liked what he had seen of her bottom half in jeans. He rather regretted the necessity of putting her into something that would hide everything.

But he had made up his mind that the most practical thing to do was buy Anabeth a split riding skirt, shirtwaist, and boots. Dressing her in anything more feminine would make it necessary for them to travel
in a buggy. On the trail, they needed the speed and versatility of riding horseback.

Miss Tuttle left the customer she had been helping and crossed to join Jake and Anabeth. “How can I help you? Oh, I see you admire the silk,” she said to Anabeth. “I made it for a tall, elegant woman very like yourself, but she died of cholera, poor lady, before she could claim it. Would you like to try it on?”

“Yes,” Anabeth said.

“No,” Jake said.

Miss Tuttle had dealt with this situation before. “Why don’t you just have a seat here, sir. This won’t take any time at all.”

Before Jake knew what had happened he was sitting in a comfortable chair with a copy of the Santa Fe paper at his elbow. Anabeth had disappeared through some curtains with Miss Tuttle and the blue silk dress.

Once they were in the back room, Miss Tuttle took over, and Anabeth felt as though she had been picked up by a whirlwind. The dressmaker had Anabeth stripped down to her drawers in no time.

“My goodness, dear,” she said. “You’re not wearing a corset!”

“I … uh … Do I need one?”

“Absolutely, my dear. If you wish for the gown to fit properly. Wait just a moment. I’ll be right back.”

Anabeth stared at herself in the tall oval mirror, searching for the young woman who was trapped inside trying to get out.

But she couldn’t find her.

“Here we are,” Miss Tuttle said as she whisked back through the curtain a few moments later.

Miss Tuttle had Anabeth raise her arms and slipped the corset on and tightened the laces with practiced expertise. Anabeth found herself struggling to draw breath.

“Does it have to be so tight?”

“Do you want to look your best?” Miss Tuttle asked with an arched brow.

Anabeth figured she needed all the help she could get. She grabbed hold of a nearby ladderback chair and said, “Do your worst.”

Miss Tuttle pulled the strings a notch tighter. She added a petticoat before slipping the dress over Anabeth’s head. The bodice buttoned up the front, but Miss Tuttle insisted that Anabeth stand still and allow her to do all the work.

When Miss Tuttle was done, she stepped aside and allowed Anabeth to see how she looked.

Anabeth couldn’t breathe. But it wasn’t the corset causing her shortness of breath. It was the sight of the woman—the
real
woman—in the mirror.

Anabeth suddenly noticed the tiniest ruffle of white lace at each wrist, matched by another frill of lace at her throat. She ran her fingertips over the frog trim at her waist, which was formed in the shape of flowers along either side of the row of cloth-covered buttons. She lifted the toe of her shoe to get a better look at the scalloped overlay to the pleated hem. So much detail!

“One more thing,” Miss Tuttle said.

“Oh, this is already perfect,” Anabeth said. “What else could you possibly add?”

“How about a ribbon in your hair?” Miss Tuttle said. She was already at work releasing the first of Anabeth’s two braids. She brushed Anabeth’s hair into silky black waves, letting tendrils curl at her temples and beside her ears. Then she captured it at the nape with a large Wedgwood blue bow that exactly matched the dress.

Miss Tuttle stood back and looked at Anabeth. “
Now
it’s perfect. Shall we show your young man how you look?”

Suddenly Anabeth was frightened. Would Jake
Kearney see the woman in the mirror? Or would he see only Kid Calhoun? “I don’t think—”

But Miss Tuttle had a firm hand at the small of Anabeth’s back. Before she could retreat, she had been pushed through the curtains and was standing before Jake.

Jake had read the front page of the newspaper and most of the advertisements by the time Anabeth reappeared. He lurched to his feet when she stepped through the curtains.

She was absolutely stunning.

“What do you think?” Anabeth asked when Jake said nothing.

“Hell and the devil,” he muttered. “You’re goddamn beautiful!”

The dress fit Anabeth like it had been made for her. Only, on a living, breathing woman the silk emphasized the softness of her bosom, her hand-span waist. The dress flowed when she walked, giving her a grace he had known she possessed, but which he had never seen displayed to such advantage.

But it wasn’t the dress that drew his eye at last. It was the look on Anabeth’s face. Her shy smile was enchanting. Her cheeks were flushed so she appeared almost feverish. And her eyes … her sapphire blue eyes had the look of someone who has seen heaven.

“Jake?”

She was asking him for the dress. As if he had the kind of money that sort of frivolity cost. As if she had anywhere she could wear such a fancy frock. “Anabeth, I …”

Miss Tuttle saw her sale going out the window and stepped into the breach.

“The dress fits as though it were made for her, don’t you think? Why, I don’t even have to take a tuck. Why don’t you come over here and see for yourself.”

Reluctantly, Jake crossed the room. Anabeth’s lids lowered to cover her eyes, leaving a fringe of dark lashes on petal-smooth cheeks. Jake could feel the warmth of her, see the rise and fall of her bosom, smell the honeysuckle in her luxurious black hair, which fell in a thick tail all the way to her waist.

He wanted to kiss away the tiny bead of moisture at her temple and press his mouth to the pulse at her throat. He wanted to thrust both hands into her hair and let it slide endlessly through his fingers. He wanted to put his hands on her breasts and feel their softness, their fullness. He wanted to unbutton every one of those eighteen buttons from her neck to the point where they ended at her belly and expose the creamy flesh hidden beneath the silky fabric. His fingers reached out to touch the silk and stayed to caress Anabeth’s shoulder.

Jake frowned at the direction his thoughts had taken. He had to remember who Anabeth Calhoun was.

Miss Tuttle mistook his expression and said, “I could let you have it at a very good price. There aren’t too many tall women who are as slim as this young lady, you see.”

She went on to name a price that made Jake choke.

“I’ll pay you back,” Anabeth said. “I’ve got some gold—”

“I’ll bet you have,” Jake said in a hard voice. Anabeth’s timely interruption had reminded Jake that the woman standing in front of him was nothing more than an outlaw. She had seen Sam killed, most likely knew were Sam’s gold was buried. The only reason they had come into the dress shop was to buy something appropriate for Anabeth to wear on the trail.

“Take off the dress,” he said. He turned to Miss Tuttle and said, “She needs a riding skirt and a couple
of shirtwaists and maybe a jacket, if you have one.”

Miss Tuttle bowed to the ferocious look on his face. “As you say, sir. Come, my dear, I’ll help you undress.”

Anabeth’s chin was trembling. Her eyes were liquid. “I can do it myself,” she said. Shoulders back, chin high, she turned and marched back through the curtains.

Jake clamped his back teeth to keep from saying he would buy the gown. It was totally inappropriate. Ridiculous. “Miss Tuttle,” he said in a quiet voice.

The dressmaker turned back to him. “Sir?”

“When she takes off the gown, wrap it up for me. Don’t tell her … I want it to be a surprise,” he said.

Miss Tuttle beamed. “Of course, sir. I’ll wrap it up in brown paper while she’s trying on the other clothes.”

Jake put a hand to his forehead and wondered what had gotten into him. He was going crazy. And Anabeth Calhoun was driving him there.

Anabeth didn’t bother to model the riding clothes. When she reappeared a second time wearing a plain white cotton shirtwaist and a split brown corduroy riding skirt, there was nothing of the softness he had seen in her face before. There was only resignation. And regret.

He opened his mouth to tell her he had bought her the dress, but she cut him off.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t need the stupid dress. It was made for a lady. Which I’m obviously not. We have what we came for. Let’s get out of here.”

She never said another word as Jake paid for the clothing and collected the packages.

“I’ve got one more stop to make in town,” Jake said.

Anabeth said nothing, just followed him to the post office where he asked if there were any general delivery letters for Jake Kearney.

“There’s one, sir,” the postmaster said.

Jake took the letter and ripped it open on the spot.

Jake folded the letter back up. “Hell and the devil.”

“Bad news?” Anabeth asked.

“We’re going to have to make a detour on our way to that valley of yours,” Jake said.

“Where are we going?”

“Window Rock.”

When Anabeth arched a brow in question, Jake clarified, “Sam Chandler’s ranch.”

“Is that really necessary?”

Jake nodded. “I think it is.” Jake waited for an argument, but it never came.

Anabeth didn’t think she could face Claire Chandler, especially since the woman’s husband had died in her arms. As they saddled their horses at the livery and headed south toward Window Rock, she relived Sam’s death—always with a different ending where, somehow, by some miracle, the rancher survived.

They had been on the trail for a full hour when Jake interrupted her thoughts.

“How did you become an outlaw?” he asked.

“I was sixteen the first time I rode with Booth,” Anabeth said bitterly. “I thought it would be fun. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

“Why didn’t you quit when you found out the truth?”

“I couldn’t talk Booth into quitting with me, and it was too hard staying home worrying about him. I started saving a little from each job so we could go to Colorado and start over.”

“You should have had enough for that years ago.”

Anabeth’s lips twisted in disgust. “Booth’s tastes were very expensive. I’d offer what I’ve saved to Mrs. Chandler except it’s not much more than a cowboy would earn in a couple of months.”

“What are your plans now that your uncle is dead?”

“I haven’t made any plans—beyond seeking revenge for Booth’s death.”

“Have you ever killed a man?”

Anabeth shook her head no.

“What makes you think you can?”

“What makes you think I can’t?” Anabeth retorted. “I’m fast on the draw, and I always hit what I aim at.”

“I’m not saying you can’t. Just that maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, it makes you no better than they are. For another, you might be the one who ends up dead.” Which, Jake realized, was a possibility he found surprisingly unpleasant to contemplate.

“Are you saying I should forgive the men who betrayed my uncle and shot him down in cold blood? I can’t.”

“I suppose not,” Jake murmured.

“You’ve probably killed lots of men,” Anabeth accused.

Jake stared Anabeth straight in the eye. “When I wasn’t given any other choice, when it was necessary, yes.”

Anabeth shivered at the coldness in Jake’s eyes, the granite set of his features. The lawman could be just as merciless, she realized, as any outlaw. She wondered what had made him so hard. “How do you know when it’s necessary?” she asked at last.

“I made the mistake once of believing an outlaw, a young man, who told me he would go straight if I would just give him another chance. He had tears in his eyes when he begged me to let him go. Bobby Latham wasn’t much older than you. I put my gun away because I didn’t want to think of a kid his age spending the best years of his life in jail.”

“What happened?”

“A month later he murdered an entire family. Eviscerated the father. Raped and stabbed the mother and daughter. Slit the little boy’s throat. And threw the baby against the wall.”

Anabeth swallowed the gorge that had risen in her throat. “Oh, my God.”

When Jake turned to her this time, his eyes were fierce with anger and stark with pain. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

Anabeth felt a shiver of foreboding. Jake Kearney was telling her that if she gave him a reason, he would kill her like any other outlaw. It was plain now, if it hadn’t been before, that the only reason she wasn’t already in jail waiting to hang was because he wanted her help finding Sam Chandler’s gold.

Anabeth hadn’t realized until this moment just how serious her situation was. She was an outlaw in the custody of a lawman. Jake wasn’t going to let her go. If she didn’t want to find herself at the end of a hangman’s rope, she would have to find a way to escape.

They were halfway to Window Rock when they bedded
down for the night. Jake chose a spot at the top of a ridge, where he had a view of the surrounding country, but where he was protected by a cover of pine trees. There was no water, but they had enough if they were careful to get them to the next waterhole. If the outlaws came looking for the Kid, Jake wanted to see them before they saw him.

When Jake laid out their bedding, he put Anabeth’s next to his own.

Anabeth snatched up her ground sheet and blanket and stalked to the other side of the fire. “I’ll feel safer over here.”

Jake opened his mouth to argue and snapped it shut again. It was going to be difficult enough getting any sleep when she was even that close. “I’m a light sleeper,” he warned. “Don’t get any ideas about trying to escape.”

Anabeth turned her back on Jake and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder. Tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep. She sat up and pulled the makings for a cigarette from her vest. She lit up and took a deep drag, then blew it out.