All this time she had tried so hard to convince herself that her troubles were behind her and that, if she could only convince her parents to reconcile, if they would end this separation and remarry, then she could set aside the stigma of divorce. She’d nearly convinced herself that it was their actions, not hers, that kept her from a decent match. But in her heart she knew the truth. No decent man would have her because she was ruined.
The trouble was not her parents’ divorce, but the flaw that she could not hide. What if every man who looked at her could already tell what had happened to her?
Laurie felt cold that cut bone deep as she admitted to herself that the problem all along had been herself. She wouldn’t let a man near her and that was a fact.
She closed her eyes and prayed. Please, God, forgive me my trespasses. Don’t let me fall for an outlaw and live a wicked life. Please let me wake up and find this is all just a nightmare.
Hot tears splashed down her cheeks.
Nothing had changed and somehow this outlaw had seen right through her and into her wanton heart. The past four years had been nothing but a lie.
Laurie opened her eyes and noticed the ghostly pale landscape, made visible by the slip of a moon, nearly in its quarter, rising silver above the canyon rim. She could no longer see the stars. Laurie stiffened at the significance. If she could see about them, the outlaws could, as well.
“Can you sit a horse solo?” he asked.
“Ladies don’t ride astride.” She scrubbed her hands over her face, wiping away the tears with the grit.
The truth was her father had taught her when she was a girl. She had loved the freedom of galloping over the countryside. But that was before she understood how unseemly such behavior was. Ladies did not ride; they sat in carriages. But riding meant escape from Hammer and it meant distance from Boon. She needed that more than she needed to protect her crumpled dignity. Besides, he’d already discovered what kind of a woman she really was.
“Is that a no?”
She shook her head, sending her lopsided bun further into decline.
Boon reined in. He dismounted then clasped her waist and pulled her down, his big hands sliding under her shirt and against the barrier of her corset. He set her on her feet but did not let go.
“You know better than to try and run?”
She kept her head lowered, unable to bear meeting his eyes after what they had done together. But she could not control the trembling and he noted it.
“Laurie?” His voice held a new caution.
He clasped her chin in his hand and lifted. She kept her eyes downcast, as another tear rolled down her face.
His voice filled with incredulity. “You crying?”
“No.”
“Because of what we done?”
“No, I said!” Laurie pressed her lips together and glared, daring him to call her a liar, even with the evidence right there on her cheek.
He released her, stepping back and resting his hands on his hips just above his guns. She wondered what he had expected her to do, thank him?
Suddenly the shame boiled up, like scalding milk topping the pot and pouring over the sides. She seethed with fury, not for his touching her but for his so easily discovering that he could touch her.
“How did you know?” she demanded, her words as hot as her tears.
He tucked his chin and looked uneasy. “What?”
“How could you tell just by looking?” Her words were a shouted whisper, hoarse and feral.
He shifted and stepped back as if preparing to run from the madwoman.
“Tell what?”
“Somehow you saw through me, Boon. I want to know just what I said or did that told you I’m not the lady I appear to be. Was it the kiss?”
He nodded, his brow tented and ears pinned back now, like a dog trying to comprehend.
“Nobody ever kissed me like that,” he admitted. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done what I done, but I didn’t know …” His words fell off.
“Didn’t know what? That I wouldn’t stop you?” Laurie gripped her hair at each side of her head, trying to keep from screaming. No wonder she couldn’t find a husband. It wasn’t her mother’s divorce, it was her. It was obvious to any man that she wasn’t a lady.
“I was going to say that I didn’t know no other way to comfort you. I ain’t been around ladies much, or at all, really.”
“Well, let me edify you, then. That is not the way you comfort a lady!” she shouted, further proving she was incapable of civil behavior. Laurie whirled away, took three steps and then covered her face with her dirty gloves and sobbed.
He didn’t approach her or try to comfort her. Finally when her sobs had turned into a racking, shuddering breath, he spoke, his voice low.
“Laurie, I’m sorry for what I done. I never meant to grieve you. But we gotta ride or Hammer will catch us.”
She turned to face him, her eyes burning and her chin trembling.
“If you can’t sit a saddle, we can ride double, but we gotta switch horses.”
She glared at him for forcing her to admit yet another shortcoming.
“I can ride astride.”
He pushed back the brim of his hat to stare at her, his face silvery in the moonlight. She wondered what he could see of her.
“I can!” she insisted. “And I can shoot and rope and tell the direction just by moonlight. North.” She pointed her gloved hand.
His brows rose as he considered her a moment. “All right then.”
He offered his hands as a mounting block. She stalked over to him.
“Give me your kerchief.” She held out her hand, demanding it.
He narrowed his eyes and then did as she asked, untying the wide strip of pale fabric.
She tied it about her neck and then tucked it into her camisole as if it were a lace collar. Having removed the sight of her décolletage from his sight, she buttoned up the shirt as best she could and tugged it straight.
“Ready?” he asked, offering his clasped hands again.
She refused his offered help, lifted a foot to the stirrup and swung into the saddle, then stared down her nose at him.
Boon reset his hat and stared a moment longer, then stalked away.
Laurie lifted the reins and remembered all her father had taught her. Why was it easier to remember than to forget?
Boon returned a moment later with a lead line that he fastened between her horse’s bridle and the rear rigging dee of his saddle. Clearly he did not believe she could ride or did not trust her to ride in the same direction as he did.
Did he think she’d run?
Once mounted, he twisted in the saddle to look back at her. “Don’t fall off. If you feel sleepy give a holler. We’ll be riding faster as the light comes up. With luck we’ll find another way out of these canyons.”
He didn’t have an escape route planned? Laurie felt the anxiety prickling in her belly like a stalk of nettles. She glanced back at the way they had come and could see their horses’ tracks in the sand. The shroud of darkness was dissolving like mist, retreating against the rising moon, and the outlaws were back there, coming for them.
Her father had hanged George Hammer’s little brother. That meant Hammer wouldn’t stop until he caught them.
Did