Kendrick: Outlaw's Bride Part 4

Ethan swore as his body tightened in response to the mere thought of her. He had no business thinking about any lady in those terms. Least of all Patch!

Even if he were not a convicted murderer, it was becoming increasingly clear that Jefferson Trahern was never going to let him be free to marry and settle down. Ethan always had to watch his back for an ambush.

As he approached the ranch house, the sun was nearly down. He was dog-tired, but there was work yet to be done. The horses and hogs and chickens had to be fed. He didn't keep a milk cow because he was never sure he would be around to milk it. He hoped Leah had made some supper, but it wasn't always a sure thing. Maybe tonight he could make some headway on the mess in the house.

Dusk had reduced the landscape to shadows by the time Ethan had brushed down his horse and fed the animals. He trudged to the house, wondering why Leah had lit so many lamps. When he shoved open the front door, he stopped dead.

The parlor was immaculate. The cat and her litter of kittens had been consigned to a basket in the corner. The top was down on his rolltop desk. The hole in the arm of the horsehair sofa had been covered with a neatly pressed doily. His spurs still hung from the hat rack, but his old saddle blanket was nowhere to be seen. There wasn't a speck of dust to be found. And he could smell food. Delicious food.

Biscuits and ... ham?

Ethan's first thought was that his mother must have made a miraculous recovery. She was the only one he knew who could have wrought such an astonis.h.i.+ng change in the state of things in a single day. He looked for her first in the kitchen, but when he didn't find her there, he figured she must have lain down for a rest after all that effort.

Ethan headed for her bedroom, his stride confident despite his limp. He felt really, truly happy for the first time in the month since he had come home.

He shoved open the door and was treated to the appalling-but utterly appealing-sight of a woman's f.a.n.n.y wriggling out from under his mother's bed. You could have knocked him over with a feather when he saw who it was.

"What on G.o.d's green earth are you doing down there, Patch?"

Patch reached up to tuck in the hank of hair that had fallen across her brow. She brushed her nose where the piece of lint she had picked up under the bed tickled her. "h.e.l.lo, Ethan."

Patch's heart was beating lickety-split in her chest. Of all the times for Ethan to arrive! She knew she ought to get up, dust herself off, do something! But she sat there like a b.u.mp on a log, just staring at him.

His hair was darker than she remembered. That was to be expected after all the years he had spent confined in a cell. Lines bracketed his mouth, and deep crow's feet fanned out from piercing green eyes that had seen too much sorrow and disillusion and disappointment. His angular face showed the harshness of a life spent running from the law. But to her, every line, every wrinkle was dear.

His features were blunt, his nose straight, his chin strong, his cheekbones high and wide. Right at this moment his eyes were wide with worry and surprise and ... confusion. She had the sneakiest suspicion that he wasn't glad to see her.

"Hi, Ethan!" Leah jumped up, the snarling calico cat hanging by the scruff of its neck from her hand. "This lady says she knows you!"

"What are you doing here, Patch?" Ethan said in a harsh, very unwelcoming voice.

Patch's heart was in her throat, so she cleared it before she spoke. "Looking for you." She tucked the mouse back in her ap.r.o.n pocket and struggled to her feet.

Ethan reached down a hand to help her, and Patch was aware of a stirring warmth where he touched her arm.

"I'm here now. What do you want?" he demanded.

Patch was aware of the two interested parties listening with bated breath. "Is there somewhere we can be alone?"

"Ethan doesn't keep secrets from us," Leah piped up.

Patch shot a pleading glance in Ethan's direction. He grabbed her by the hand and headed out the bedroom door. When Leah started after them, he turned and said, "Let us be, Leah."

"Aw, Ethan-"

Nell called Leah back to her side. "I need some help getting my quilts straightened up, girl."

Leah groaned, but she turned back toward her mother.

Ethan yanked Patch through the immaculate parlor, through the kitchen, with its enticing smells and table set for supper, and out the back door. He kicked the door twice before it would close in the frame.

Ethan stopped beneath a tin roof that looked like it might collapse at any moment and swung Patch around in front of him. "Give me the mouse."

Patch reached down and pulled Max from her ap.r.o.n pocket. Ethan picked up the mouse by its tail, dropped it in the wooden box that held his mother's gardening tools, and slapped the lid closed.

He turned to Patch, crossed his arms, and snapped, "I want to know what the h.e.l.l is going on! What are you doing in Oakville, Texas? Does your father know why you're here? How did you find this place?"

"Looking for you. Not yet. And Mr. Felber gave me directions," Patch snapped back.

"What are you doing here, Patch?"

"I think that should be perfectly obvious."

"Not to me, so spit it out."

"I'm here to marry you."

Ethan glared at her from beneath lowered brows. He didn't look at all like a happy groom.

Patch's heart dropped to her feet. "You don't have to look so surprised. You promised to marry me, and here I am."

"I don't remember doing any such thing!"

"When you left Fort Benton-"

"When I left Montana seven years ago-"

"It's been nearly eight, but who's counting?" Patch replied flippantly.

Ethan ground his teeth and repeated, "When I left Montana, you were just a kid! I sure as h.e.l.l didn't propose marriage to a twelve-year-old with tangles in her hair and holes in her britches and a mouth that could use soaping every time she opened it!"

Patch was mortified by Ethan's description of her. The words of protest and explanation were spoken before she could stop them. "I loved you!"

A red flush crawled up Ethan's neck all the way to the tips of his ears. "h.e.l.l, Patch. You were just a kid." He shook his head in disbelief. "What you felt must have been hero wors.h.i.+p or something."

"Hero wors.h.i.+p?" This time it was Patch's face that reddened, but with fury, not embarra.s.sment. Her forefinger seemed to have a life of its own as it poked away at Ethan's chest, punctuating her verbal rampage. "Why you vainglorious, c.o.c.k-strutting, mule-eared jacka.s.s! Of all the hogwash I ever heard spouted, that was the worst!

"You made me a promise, Ethan Hawk. And durn it all, you're going to keep it!"

Ethan grabbed Patch's wrist and twisted the offending finger behind her. When her other hand came up, he grabbed that too, and suddenly he had both her arms snagged behind her. Only she wouldn't stay still, so he backed her up against the unpainted wall of the house and held her there with his body. Which hardened like a rock when it met her softness.

Ethan felt his heart pounding. He had thrown a la.s.so expecting a kitten and caught a wildcat instead. His whole body was alive with expectation. He could feel generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s crushed against his chest, and his loins were cradled by soft, feminine flesh. He had the craziest urge to rub himself against her.

Then he remembered who she was. And who he was. And why what he wanted was ludicrous, not to mention impossible, stupid, and just plain idiotic.

"What does your father have to say about your being here?" Ethan demanded in a voice harsh with the pa.s.sion he was struggling to control.

"I'm sure he'd approve."

"And I'm sure he wouldn't! Does Seth even know you're here?"

"He will when he gets my letter."

Ethan groaned. "He'll kill me."

"Not if you're my husband."

"I'm not going to marry you, Patch," Ethan said through his teeth.

"Why not? I love-"

"Stop saying that!" Ethan found himself unable to look away from the blue eyes staring back at him. Her nose was tipped up in defiance and her chin jutted with stubborn determination.

"You're just a kid!" he said in desperation.

"I'll be twenty next month."

Ethan sneered. "And already a sophisticated woman of the world, I see."

Patch's eyes slipped down to the soiled ap.r.o.n. She blew out a puff of air to remove the strand of hair that had caught on her lips. If only she'd had the time to repair the damage caused by that fracas between Max and the calico cat before Ethan had shown up. Then he would be treating her like the lady she had struggled so hard to become. For him. Because of him.

"I'm a grown woman, Ethan. A lady, to be precise. And I deserve to be treated like one."

Ethan purposely chose to misunderstand her. "You want to be treated like a woman? Well, this is how I treat the only kind of woman I have anything to do with these days."

Ethan ground his hips against hers the way he had been wanting to do. The surprised, satisfied sound she made in her throat drew his flesh up tight.

He hardened his jaw. Seduction wasn't his intent. He transferred both her wrists to one hand and grasped her chin, angling her face up to his. Her eyes went wide with surprise and-heaven help him-antic.i.p.ation.

Ethan lowered his mouth toward hers, determined on teaching her a lesson about girls playing with men that she wouldn't soon forget. His mouth closed over hers and his tongue thrust its way past her sealed lips.

Only they weren't sealed.

Her whole body swayed toward him.

Ethan jerked himself free. "Oh, no you don't! I'm not going to get caught in that trap."

Still dazed by the effects of Ethan's closeness, Patch stared at him in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I know what you're trying to do. It won't work."

"What is that?"

"You're trying to seduce me. Then I'll be honor-bound to marry you. Or else have your father hound my tail for the rest of my life. Where's your sense, girl? You'd have to be crazy to want to marry a man like me."

"Why?"

"I'm an ex-convict," he said flatly.

"I knew you were wanted by the law when I fell in love with you," she countered.

"You weren't old enough to know what that meant." Ethan yanked off his Stetson and forked his fingers through sun-streaked chestnut hair that badly needed a trim. His eyes were bleak when they sought Patch's again. "I spent time in prison for murdering Dorne Trahern."

"But-"

"Don't interrupt. Let me finish. If it were only that, I could maybe think about asking some woman someday to be my wife. But it's far worse than that, Patch." Ethan took a deep breath and let it out. He tried to look at her, but found he couldn't face her expectant-devoted-expression and say what had to be said.

"I've paid for Dorne's death with seven hard years in prison, so most people around here don't hold that against me anymore. But the whole town of Oakville still believes I raped a girl so brutally that she lost her mind.

"There's no hope of me marrying you-ever." He turned and brushed the lock of hair away from her eyes with a touch as gentle as one he might use for a newborn filly. "I care enough about you-and your ma and pa-not to make you an object of pity and scorn by marrying you."

"Are you done?"

Ethan nodded grimly.

"In the first place, I might have been a child when I first fell in love with you, but I'm grown up now." She took a deep breath and, searching his troubled eyes, admitted, "I still love you, Ethan. I always will.

"In the second place, I don't believe you raped Merielle Trahern."

Ethan grimaced. "You're the only one who doesn't."

Patch put a hand across his lips to shut him up and found them still damp from kissing her. And soft. She knew just how soft, because those lips had been pressed to hers. Ethan's first kiss had been everything she had ever imagined, and some things she hadn't.

She hadn't expected her knees to go weak. She hadn't expected him to put his tongue in her mouth. She hadn't expected to taste him. Despite all her talk of being a woman, she had been amazed at the new sensations that had bombarded her, making her feel like a bowl of jelly left too long in the sun. But she had liked it all. And she wanted more.

"I know you're worried about what Pa will say. But Pa only wants me to be happy, Ethan. And marrying you will make me happy."

Patch saw the denial in Ethan's features and hurried to finish before he cut her off. "You need a wife, Ethan. Or at least this ranch needs a woman's touch. Your mother obviously isn't well, and your sister ..." Patch smiled ruefully. "Your sister reminds me of myself at the same age." Patch grinned. "She's no housekeeper."

"Patch-"

Patch put her whole hand across his mouth. "You can't say I'm not attractive to you, Ethan." Patch felt the flush skating across her cheekbones at such plain speaking. "I ... uh ... could feel the evidence that would make any denial a lie."

Ethan would never know how frightening that had been for her, to feel the shape of him pressed hard against her and to know what it meant he wanted from her. Her father raised horses, so she had seen more than one stallion cover a mare. Their coupling was always a wild and savage thing. When the time came, she couldn't imagine how she was going to survive the embarra.s.sment of it all. But with Ethan, she darn sure was willing to give it a try.

Having nothing more to say, Patch dropped her hand from Ethan's face. She threaded her fingers together before her and waited for his response. It wasn't long coming.

"You're forgetting the most important reason why I can't-won't-make you my wife."

"I haven't forgotten," Patch said. "I simply don't believe a word of the accusation against you. You'd never rape a woman, Ethan." She swallowed and said, "You wouldn't have to."

Ethan felt a painful tightening in his chest. He wasn't sure whether it was grat.i.tude for her blind faith in him or the awful knowledge that he had forfeited any chance of ever having a decent woman for his wife when he had fled so many years ago. Now he saw the folly of running instead of staying to seek out the truth.

He had been only fifteen when someone raped Merielle Trahern. He had found her after the fact, but when her brother, Dorne, discovered them together, he hadn't waited for explanations. By the time Jefferson Trahern arrived on the scene to find Ethan wounded in the leg by Dorne's bullet, and Dorne accidentally shot dead, Ethan had known n.o.body was going to listen to his side of the story before they hung him.

So he had run, and kept on running for ten years, until one of Trahern's private detectives finally caught him. The trial had been a farce, but at least he hadn't been convicted of raping Merielle, for which he had his friend, Boyd, to thank.

Now, seventeen years later, he still wasn't free of his nightmare. He had been out of prison only one month-four short weeks-and judging from the hired guns he had faced today, Jefferson Trahern was planning to pick up his quest for vengeance where he had left off when Ethan went to prison. It was quickly becoming apparent that, although the townspeople might be willing to tolerate his presence in Oakville, Jefferson Trahern was not.