The Outlaw Bride (6 page)

A quick check of the sofa revealed Connor had not budged. Either he was a heavy sleeper, or too exhausted by events of yesterday to allow small sounds to disturb his slumber. She had barely slept a wink last night, tossing and turning, thinking about the promise she’d made to Grant Langston. She’d found the Con he spoke of, of that she was certain. How many Connor Langstons could there be, after all? But she’d held off passing on Grant’s apology.

She could hardly blurt out her story now, or tell Connor the truth without putting her own freedom in jeopardy.

Connor was the law. She was an outlaw’s wife. The two were hardly compatible. And the last thing she needed was for him to toss her out, or worse, lock her up, before she had a chance to make good on her promise.

The best plan she could come up with was to get him to open up to her about Grant and see if she couldn’t ferret out the information she needed to track down Grant’s girl.

Connor proved reticent to talk about his family, maybe because they had just met, or maybe that was simply the way he was. What she did know was he had come to town a month after Grant’s death. Was that significant or just coincidence?

She needed answers to these questions. Preferably, before the real Hannah Stockdale arrived in town and her ruse was discovered.

As things stood now, she had no idea where or even who this girl was. All she knew was she had to be in Fatal Bluff. Before Rogan and his gang attacked the stagecoach, Grant had spoken of returning home to Fatal Bluff. And if this was his home, then his girl had to be here somewhere. It was just a matter of finding out where without giving herself up in the process. Promises were hard to keep from the wrong side of a jail cell.

Katherine stopped stirring the eggs, the wooden spoon going still in her hand. Was it possible Jenny could be—?

But no. She shook her head.

The little girl was the picture of Connor. Which begged the other question—who cared for Jenny while he was off bounty hunting? Had his wife only died recently, forcing him to settle down and take a more stable job? One would think the itinerant nature of bounty hunting was not conducive to raising a family.

She let out a breath and continued whisking the eggs. She would just have to dig a little deeper until she discovered the truth.

A dash of salt finished the eggs. She gave one last swirl with the wooden spoon then picked up the bowl to empty it into the hot skillet waiting on the stove.

A terrifying screech rent the air.

Katherine screamed and whirled in the direction of the sound. The bowl slipped out of her flour-dusted hands and hit the floor with a resounding crash. Crockery and noise scattered about the room.

The window provided a clear view of a proud rooster strutting across the top of the chicken coop. He puffed out his feathered chest and crowed again.

“What’s wrong?”

Katherine spun back around. “No, wait—!” She threw her hand up but it was too late. Connor’s foot hit the slippery egg mixture. He skidded, his arms flinging wildly for balance until his body collided with hers.

Strong bands of muscle wrapped around her, pressing her cheek against the warm, solid flesh of his chest. The force knocked the wind out of her and set her off balance. She tried to hold her footing, but it was no use. The eggs had slicked the floor until it had the consistency of ice. She braced for the impact.

It never came. Connor rolled them, using his body to buffer her fall. She wasn’t sure which was harder, his chest or the floor, but she appreciated the chivalrous attempt just the same. Connor grunted as they hit and then rolled again, pinning her beneath him.

He pushed himself up on his elbow, hovering over her by mere inches. The heat from his body seared through her clothes. She didn’t know where to look. He was naked from the waist up, giving her a close-up view of a well-muscled chest, strong arms and a set of shoulders that blocked out everything beyond them. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want that image imprinted on her mind so that forever after, no matter what he had on, that would be how she envisioned him. But the only alternative was to look up into those damnable blue eyes, and that could be equally dangerous.

“Are you hurt?”

She forced a smile. “Does my pride count?”

She had failed yet again at a job she was sure she could do well. Their breakfast, the one she planned to surprise Connor and Jenny with, lay smeared all over the floor.

A quiet chuckle rumbled from his chest. “I reckon that type of injury heals much slower than others.”

Connor’s smile transformed him, startling her. His eyes sparkled like a thousand tiny jewels kissed by sunlight and in that brief moment, the weight of the world slid off his shoulders. Katherine took in a breath to calm her rattled nerves. It did little good. He smelled of sleep, that warm, comforting scent that wrapped itself around a body nestled in the warmth beneath the covers. The image of crawling under the quilt with him shot unbidden and unwanted into her mind.

Outside, the malevolent bird let out one last contemptuous squawk as if it had read her mind.

“The rooster startled me,” she said, trying to put her thoughts to rights.

Connor lifted his gaze to the small window over the counter, his hip lifting off hers just a little, enough to make her realize the full predicament she found herself in—pinned to the kitchen floor with the half-naked sheriff hovering over her. She tried not to look at the sun-bronzed skin stretched over ridged muscle. A thin line of hair meandered downward from the light smattering on his chest and disappeared beneath the open waistband.

“He does that every morning.”

She jerked her gaze away from him, from his body. “Good to know.”

Connor looked down at her. Heat slowly pooled in her belly. Even with his hair mussed from sleep, flattened in some areas, sticking up and out in others, he was a good looking man. He seemed more relaxed than yesterday. Lighter somehow. Maybe home had that effect on a body. A real home. Not the sad, beaten-down shacks Rogan had stuck her in while he hid from the law, but a place with furniture, pictures and keepsakes accumulated over the span of years. And memories soaked into the walls and the floorboards so they reverberated through you with each step you took. What she wouldn’t give for a home like that.

She waited for him to say something, anything to interrupt the silence growing between them. But he just stayed there, his body pressing intimately into hers while he stared at her, as if he could see into her soul. The effect rattled her.

“I—I should clean this up,” she stammered, looking away, searching for anything that would lessen the pull he had on her. She’d known him less than two days. This was ridiculous. She’d known Rogan eight years and never once in that time had he ever looked at her and made her body tremble like it did now.

Slowly, Connor rolled away from her, disengaging their tangled legs and pushing himself to his feet. He reached down and helped her up.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break the bowl. I wanted to fix breakfast before you had to leave. And then the rooster—”

“It’s just a bowl.”

“Still…I’ll fix this mess.” She wasn’t altogether sure which one she meant—the remnants of their breakfast scattered about the floor, or the disastrous disarray his closeness wreaked on her good sense.

Connor peered down at her bare feet, then at the broken glass surrounding them. “Not without shoes on, you won’t. Last thing I need is you getting cut up.”

Before Katherine could protest, he’d scooped her up in his arms.

“Oh!” She looked down, then back at him.

Mistake. His mouth was only inches from hers. One wrong move on either of their parts and their lips would touch.

“I can walk,” she whispered.

“Not without hurting yourself.” His breath brushed against her skin, setting it on fire.

“What about you?”

His head gave an almost imperceptible shake, his gaze searing hers. “I have no intention of getting cut up.”

For some reason, Katherine had the sense he was not talking about the glass on the floor, but then he looked away and whatever emotions she thought she’d seen were quickly locked up.

He strode through the kitchen and into the main room, not stopping until he reached the doorway to her bedroom. His foot kicked the door open, barely breaking his stride. Then he unceremoniously dumped her in a heap atop the soft feather mattress.

He didn’t stay. “Change your clothes,” he said. The surliness had returned. “I’ll clean up the mess.”

“I—I can do it,” she called after his retreating back. He didn’t answer, closing the bedroom door and leaving her behind to stare at the four walls and wonder what the hell had just happened.

Katherine’s first week passed in a blur of activity. Plenty of work needed to be done from dusting to scrubbing to the laundry. The latter alone took two straight days. Only now did she see an end in sight as she wrung the water from one of Jenny’s dresses, her arms numb from the strain. Connor had offered to take it into town to be done, but Katherine insisted she could do it. She needed to redeem herself. To prove her worth. Already she could see Connor eyeing her as if he’d made a huge mistake that needed rectifying.

She couldn’t afford to lose this job. She didn’t even want to think what would happen if she couldn’t repay the Hewitts their blasted money. No doubt they would lynch her in the middle of town. Probably even sell tickets to the affair to recoup their losses.

Her nerves had eased somewhat with seven days passing and no sign or word from Hannah Stockdale. But the possibility of her showing in the future always lurked in the back of Katherine’s mind like a ticking clock, reminding her she walked on a very narrow edge, and that one wrong move could send her toppling over into an abyss.

This little family was her one link to finding Grant Langston’s girl, whoever and wherever she might be. She had tried each evening to get Connor to talk to her about his family, but it was like conversing with a stone wall.

Last night proved no different. She had met with the same lack of success as every evening before that.

“And Jenny is your only family?” she’d asked Connor.

He’d nodded and then shoved a mouthful of baked beans into his mouth, likely hoping she would stop asking questions and leave him alone to eat in peace.

The man was harder to crack than a bank vault. “No mother, father, or siblings living elsewhere?”

His eyes had drifted over to the silent little girl and a niggling voice in Katherine’s head told her to pay attention. There was something in Connor’s expression, something lingering just beneath the surface she couldn’t quite read. But she silenced the voice with a forceful shove to the background. Jenny was Connor’s daughter. Not Grant’s. If she was Grant’s then that would mean—

No. She wouldn’t allow her mind to go there; to contemplate the notion her husband had left a little girl orphaned. She couldn’t. Her life wasn’t worth the price paid.

Besides, Jenny and Connor hadn’t even been in Fatal Bluff at the time of Grant’s death. They’d arrived afterward. But every attempt she made to discover something about his life that extended beyond these four walls was met with a change of subject or an answer so vague it meant nothing and led nowhere.

“You got any more of them biscuits?”

Katherine forced a smile. She got up from the table and placed several biscuits on a plate before returning to her seat and setting it in front of Connor like an offering, hoping to soften him toward her.

“Where are your people from originally?”

“Here and there.”

His lack of detail was astounding. His ability to answer each one of her questions without answering it at all exasperated her.

“And have any of your people from
here and there
ended up here? As in Fatal Bluff?” she’d added, in case he thought by
here,
she meant some nebulous location with no fixed address.

“You sure do ask a lot of questions for a housekeeper.” He eyed her with barely concealed irritation. She recognized the look. It meant the conversation was about to be shut down.

Katherine had tried to soothe his ruffled feathers. She needed to find out what he knew about Grant Langston. She couldn’t risk lingering here for longer than necessary waiting for him to give up the information. She needed to pay off the Hewitts, keep her promise to Grant and then get out of town before Rogan or the real Hannah Stockdale arrived.

“Isn’t it natural to want to know something about the people you’re living with?”

He’d shrugged. “Can’t say I gave it much thought.”

Katherine pulled her lips into a tight line. The man was infuriating. He made no effort to disguise the fact he didn’t want her here, and even less of an effort to make her stay agreeable in any way, as if by being as ornery as possible it would drive her away.

She had wanted to remind him it was
he
who had hired
her
, luring her away from accepting a job at The Last Chance Saloon, but she refrained. With her luck, he’d change his mind, suggest she pack her bags, and see if Garrett Bentley was still hiring.

Any hope she had harbored of probing further was abruptly cut off as Connor stood, pushing his chair back.

“Got chores to do,” he’d said, grabbing up the last biscuit and heading for the door, plucking his hat off the peg as he went.

Katherine shook off her irritation from the previous night and flapped the dress out, hanging it on the line. Maybe she should just stop asking. Maybe if she held her tongue, Connor would let the information slip out in normal conversation. If they ever had a normal conversation. Connor was the master at single word responses that were grunted as he retreated from the room.

Maybe she should march into town and start asking around. The townspeople seemed far less reticent about nosing into his business. Surely, they had plenty of information to impart. If she could find a reason to go into town, that is. So far, Connor had picked up any supplies they needed, leaving her and Jenny to stay at the homestead.

However, going into town had its own perils. The vaguer her memory was in the minds of the townspeople, the better for her should Rogan show up asking about her. She didn’t want anyone having a clear enough recollection to point him in her direction. Although, that hope was likely just a pipe dream now given her less than auspicious arrival in town.

A tired sigh escaped her lips. She stretched, her hands pressing against the small of her back. Her body ached and a thick film of sweat coated her skin from the day’s exertion. She wanted a bath in the worst kind of way. She’d managed to wash herself as best she could in her room each morning, but it wasn’t enough. Not after the week she’d had.

“Jenny?”

The little girl peeled back one of the sheets hanging from the line and peeked around it.

“When you take a bath where do you go?”

Jenny stood up and went into the house. Taking that as her cue to follow, Katherine weaved around the laundry flapping in the light breeze. Inside, Jenny opened the door to a small storeroom off the kitchen.

“In here, huh?” She’d been in the room enough times for supplies. It hardly seemed big enough to fit the tub in, but she had little choice. She wasn’t about to strip down to her altogether in the middle of the kitchen.

With the last bit of strength in her muscles, she dragged the hip bath inside, until it was nestled between shelves of canned goods, one of Connor’s coats, brooms and mops. She filled up the tub with hot water, carefully unfolded the lavender-scented soap Amelia had given her, and slipped into the bath. With vigorous strokes, she washed the day’s grime from her body until the delicate scent of lavender drifted up from her skin and she felt clean once again.

From the crack left in the doorway, Katherine spied Jenny sitting near the door playing quietly with her wooden animals, moving them about the floor. She wondered if there was some type of dialogue or conversation running through the girl’s head when she played. Every now and then, Katherine thought she saw her lips move, but no sound came out.

Katherine wondered why Jenny didn’t speak. She certainly didn’t appear slow or confused, or incapable in any way.

She supposed she could ask Connor, but given his penchant for leaving the room whenever the conversation turned personal, she didn’t think she’d get very far. Besides, the more time she spent around the handsome sheriff, the more it stirred up a bees’ nest of emotion inside of her. If it kept up, she was liable to get stung.

There was something about that man that set her blood on fire. Something deep and elemental, like a lightning strike. She couldn’t put her finger on it. He was handsome, but she’d seen handsome before. It had never made her feel this way, tingly and prickly, like an itch she couldn’t reach.

Whatever it was, she knew better than to keep scratching at it. She’d come here for one purpose and one purpose only. Once she’d saved up enough money to pay off the Hewitts, she would deliver the letter to Connor and be on the first train out of town. If she stayed any longer than that, the risks were too high. To both her heart, and her safety. Maybe she could have Connor relay the message to Grant’s girl.

Provided he even knew who she was. At this point, she’d failed at even discovering the link between the two men. It wasn’t as if she could just up and ask, given that she would then have to explain how she knew.

She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. The whole thing was one big conundrum.

Drawing her knees up, Katherine rested her head against them and let the hot water soothe her aching muscles. It had been a long time since she’d worked this hard. Katherine decided she liked it. Time hadn’t crawled by. She hadn’t spent her days staring at the sun, counting the hours until it descended in the sky, watching her life plod past her. Each day she’d done something useful, accomplished something. It was a good feeling.

Katherine didn’t recall drifting off, but she must have. The snap of the screen door caused her body to jerk. Water sloshed over the side and splashed against the floor with a wet splat. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Her gaze flew to the crack in the door and her heart stuttered to a dead stop.

Connor, his arms weighed down with a box of supplies, stood frozen in place, staring at her, eyes wide.

“Oh!” She hugged her arms across her breasts.

He spun on his heel. “Sorry!”

The mortification in his voice made her cheeks flame even hotter. She couldn’t move. Her legs would not work. His heated gaze had all but locked them in place. “I thought you weren’t going to be home until later.” She looked around for the towel. It hung on the hook next to Connor’s old coat, right where she had left it. She would need to stand up to reach it. Her clothes lay draped over the chair at the kitchen table. The small storage room was too small to dry off in. Katherine swallowed. She would have to leave the storeroom wrapped only in the cotton towel.

“I—I—you said you needed supplies. For supper.” With jerky movements he set the box on the counter. He didn’t turn around.

What now? She could hardly stay in here all day and Connor had yet to do the polite thing and leave the room. Steeling herself, Katherine eased quietly out of the lukewarm water and reached for the towel, keeping one eye on Connor, who stood rigid, his back to her.

“I, uh, got the molasses and sugar that you asked for, but the mercantile was all out of cinnamon.”

“Oh…” What had she wanted the cinnamon for? She wrapped herself in the towel. Apple crumble. Of course. She made a wonderful apple crumble. A recipe passed down to her from her mother. She’d planned to dazzle Connor with it, to show him he was right to have hired her. Instead she’d made a spectacle of herself. She wondered if her predicament could get much worse.

She had her answer when he turned around to face her, keeping his eyes averted.

Sweet Mother of all that was good and holy!

The blood in Connor’s head rushed out, leaving him dizzy and disoriented. It wasn’t enough that he’d seen the naked length of her leg where it stuck out of the tub, or the delicate curve of her waist where it emerged from the soapy water when she sat up in shock. She’d thrown her arms across her body, but not before he got a healthy view of one glorious breast.

Now she stood before him, wrapped in a thin sheet that clung to her in spots where the water had seeped through. Her hair had been piled haphazardly atop her head and frizzed from the steam. And her face. Good Lord, that face—flushed from the heat of the bath and delicately framed by damp curls. Her mouth parted slightly in surprise when he turned and Lord if it didn’t beg to be kissed.

God help him, he wanted to cross the room and take them up on their offer. He could still feel the imprint of her body from that first morning. All week he’d tried to erase it, tried to think of something else—anything else. But not one single thing grabbed his attention away from the soft cushion of her body.

He could smell the sweet scent of lavender, stronger now than before. She must bathe with it, he thought, then wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want to think about Kate rubbing sweet scented soap all over her delectable skin—

Dang it all to hell!

He turned back to the counter and gripped its edges, digging his fingers into the wood surface.

“You best go get dressed,” he croaked out. Desire had reached up swiftly and grabbed him by the throat, robbed him of breath and thought and sense until need and unmitigated lust were the only things left swirling in his brain. Not to mention other areas.

He couldn’t keep her, he realized, listening to her bare feet pad hurriedly over the hardwood floor through the main room to the bedroom. He didn’t need this kind of complication. A man could only take so much torment before he did something to end it. And the only thing that would end this was to have Kate Stockdale beneath him, her legs wrapped around his hips with him buried deep within her.

Enticing an idea as that was, it wouldn’t end there. Kate wasn’t some cheap doxy you just bedded, paid for and went on your merry way. She had come to Fatal Bluff looking for a husband. Hell, he’d be surprised if she didn’t demand he make an honest woman of her after what had just transpired between them. What would he do then?

The slam of the bedroom door cut that thought off before it had a chance to take root. He would not marry her. He had no intentions of marrying anyone. He’d tried that once and it had ended in disaster.

Connor straightened and rubbed his hands over his face.

She definitely had to go.

***

Supper came and went. If Connor was impressed with the meal she had prepared, he didn’t say. Katherine supposed she could take the fact that he wolfed it down in record time as a good sign, but she suspected that had more to do with his wanting to get away from her than any culinary skills she possessed.