Outlaw (3 page)

"The poet bandit doesn't care about that!"
she protested. "He only takes the contents of the strong box, not
personal belongings. He—"

No one was listening to her. The banker's
wife pulled a folded wad of money from her bodice and flung it
toward the window, then, shaking, went to work removing her
jewelry.

The banker gaped at the satchel on his lap.
He leaned backward, eyeing it as though the bag was a rattlesnake
ready to strike.

"I'm not dying to protect your books," he
shouted, raising her satchel in both hands. Amelia rushed forward,
too late, as he hurled it outside the window with all his
strength.

"Nooo!" She hung out the window set into the
stagecoach door, her fingers biting hard into the edge, and watched
in horror as her satchel thudded to the ground. Dust billowed
around it, stirred by the impact. She clapped her hand over her
mouth, hardly able to breathe. Everything was in that bag—her
money, her order book, and most of the J.G. O'Malley & Sons
books to be delivered. Without it, Amelia's chance to prove herself
in her father's eyes was gone too.

"Yeah—I ain't dying for nobody," cried the
miner from someplace behind her. An instant later, her second
satchel followed the first, sailing past only a few inches from
Amelia's head. Hearing it land on the ground outside the stagecoach
was like hearing the door close on her future. Jacob would likely
lose his job because of her, too—and now he had a wife, Amelia's
best and closest friend, to support.

"Nooo!" Amelia screamed again, twisting the
handle of the stagecoach door. The door swung open and she swung
with it, her toes dangling above the ground. It was too high to
jump; she'd probably break an ankle. Frantically, Amelia stretched
backward.

The toes of her new high-laced balmoral
shoes scraped the thin iron coach steps, then settled atop them.
She scrambled down, mindless of modesty as her gown and petticoats
billowed upward in the warm breeze. Her gaze fastened on her
satchels. She could retrieve them both and be back inside the
stagecoach within seconds, she knew it.

The stagecoach drove away almost before
Amelia's feet touched the ground. Her heart, already racing,
thundered in her chest.
They were leaving her
! Whirling
around, she opened her mouth to yell for the driver to stop and
choked on a huge mouthful of dust instead.

Sputtering and coughing, she ran after the
stagecoach. It outdistanced her easily; the driver laid his whip on
the horses like the devil was after him. Before long, the lash of
the whip faded into the hillside, along with the racket of the
coach wheels and the horses' hooves. She stopped, panting, in the
middle of the rutted, narrow road. Her sturdy boned corset dug
painfully into her ribs with every breath.

She was alone. Amelia hugged herself,
looking around at the quickly darkening countryside. There was no
sign of the poet bandit; evidently he'd vanished as quickly and
noiselessly as he'd appeared. In fact, Amelia realized, there was
no sign of civilization at all. Nothing. A wave of frustration
washed over her. What had the driver been thinking, to just drive
off and leave her like that, leaving her in such danger?

Obviously, he hadn't known she'd stepped out
of the stagecoach. When the driver realized his mistake, surely
he'd turn right around and come back to get her.

Wouldn't he?

Yes
, Amelia told herself.
Everything will be all right
. She made herself start walking
back toward her J.G. O'Malley & Sons satchels. Every step
sounded loud; every scrape of her shoes across the sandy soil wound
her nerves tighter. What if the poet bandit was still out there?
Humming quietly between her clenched teeth, she glanced over her
shoulder, then kept walking.

It occurred to her that they might not be
back to get her for a long time. A very long time. Amelia quit
humming. Standing beside her satchels, she watched the last of the
daylight fade as the sun sank beyond the jagged, tumbledown
mountains in the distance. What was she going to do?

Meet the stagecoach part way, she decided.
She had to try. First she scooped up the money and jewelry the
other passengers had thrown on to the dusty road so she could
return it to them later, then opened one of her satchel and dropped
everything inside, feeling a little pang of righteousness despite
herself. She'd been right—the poet bandit
hadn't
wanted
anyone's money.

Unfortunately, that was small comfort now.
Lifting a satchel in each hand, Amelia breathed deeply and set off.
Even if she didn't catch up with the stagecoach right away, she was
bound to run into a town or a stage stop a few miles down the
road.

Anything was better than simply standing
there, waiting for fate to take its course with her.

If she were back home, or even at Briarwood
Young Ladies' Seminary, nothing like this would've ever happened to
her, Amelia thought, staring out at the unfamiliar landscape as she
trudged along. Nothing ever happened in Big Pike Lake,
Michigan—especially to her. Her father and brothers simply wouldn't
stand for it.

In Big Pike Lake, trees lined the
streets—big maples and oaks, not the scrubby bushes that passed for
trees in the west. And the streets were paved roads, not bumpy dirt
trails that would almost certainly ruin her shoes before she caught
up with the stagecoach. Amelia tightened her grip on the worn ivory
handles of her satchels. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn't help
anyone. Still, she couldn't help but wish—

A sound in the underbrush caught her
attention. A wild animal? Or maybe an Indian? She'd read all about
the dangers of the West in the dime novels sold by J.G. O'Malley
& Sons—was she about to come face to face with one of them
herself?

Amelia steadied her pace, darting a quick
glance toward the sound. She couldn't see anything there. Slowing,
she turned her head toward it to take a closer look, and promptly
walked into a hole in the road.

Her foot remained in the hole, but the rest
of her just kept going. With a shriek, Amelia tried to break her
fall with her hands; her satchels flew from her grasp and skidded
away. She landed on her hands and knees in the dirt, her palms
stinging.

Hoisting herself onto her backside, she
raised her hands and gingerly brushed away a few sharp pebbles. It
was too dark to tell how badly she'd scraped her palms in her fall,
so Amelia turned her attention to her hurt ankle instead. Tears
burned in her eyes, blurring her view, making her ankle look huge
and wobbly. She didn't see how things could possibly get any
worse.

"
Come with me
."

The words came from just behind her; Amelia
jerked her head upwards, her heart hammering. She could barely see
the man standing there, because his clothes were so dark. She had a
brief impression of masculine height, strength, and danger—and then
she had no more time to look. He grabbed her arm with strong
leather-gloved fingers and hauled her to her feet, nearly in one
swift motion.

Chapter Two

Amelia's body collided with his. She
shrieked, her pulse racing madly. It felt as though she couldn't
possibly get enough air to keep breathing. A second later, her
ankle refused to support her weight. It buckled beneath her,
sending pain up through her calf. Amelia clutched at the man for
support—he was the poet bandit, he had to be, she was ninety-nine
percent certain of that—and tried not to cry.

"My—my ankle's hurt," she whispered, forcing
the words past her dry throat. Still clutching the sleeve of his
dark duster coat, Amelia dared to look up at him. She saw only a
shadowed face beneath his flat-brimmed black hat, and a brief flash
of whisker-stubbled jaw before she ducked her head again.

Her belly flip-flopped with excitement. She
was being rescued by the poet bandit! It was just like a dime novel
she'd read once—
The Amazing True Adventures of Miss Beadle in
the Villainous West
. She could hardly wait to tell Melissa and
Jacob all about it.

"I—I don't think I can walk far," she
admitted, feeling breathless.

Perhaps he'd carry her down the road to the
next stage stop! The poet bandit was a gentleman, she knew that
from reading the periodicals. Embellishing the scene, Amelia
imagined herself being carried courageously into town in the poet
bandit's arms, saw the astonished townspeople surrounding her.
She'd be a heroine!

"Hell," the outlaw muttered.

The deep, rumbling sound of his voice sent a
thrilling shiver through her. He smelled like sagebrush and tobacco
and dark smoky leather, like a real man of the wild west. This was
undoubtedly the most exciting event of her life. He slipped his arm
around her waist to hold her upright, then started walking.

When she got to Tucson, the townspeople
would want to know all about her ordeal, of course. 'How brave
you've been!' they'd say. Why, she'd be the toast of the town for
weeks, quite likely. Maybe they'd even write about her in the
newspaper. Everyone would want to buy a J.G. O'Malley & Sons
book!

This could only help her mission. She'd
return home triumphant, and...

...And the poet bandit was not carrying her
down the road in the direction the stagecoach had gone, Amelia
realized. He was carrying her off the road into the desert
beyond.

She was being abducted, not rescued.
Screaming for all she was worth and squirming against him, Amelia
thought wildly that if she had one of her satchels, she could
wallop him with it to make him let her go. And then what? a part of
her prodded—she could barely walk. Besides, both her satchels were
still on the ground beside the hole she'd tripped over. She yelled
louder.

His free hand clamped over the lower half of
her face. "Quiet," he commanded.

"Let me go," she tried to say, but all that
emerged was "Mmmph." With his big gloved hand smothering her it was
impossible to speak. Panicked, she couldn't breathe, either, until
she remembered to close her mouth and breathe in through her nose.
In, out, in, out; Amelia let herself be led across the uneven
ground toward whatever destination he had in mind for her.

Behind an outcropping of rock some distance
from the road he finally lowered her onto a cold hunk of boulder.
Her ankle forgotten, Amelia looked up at him.

He was definitely the poet bandit. Most
certainly so. He was dressed all in black—at least she thought he
was, it was too dark to be certain—and even his hat was dark. He
must have removed the black bandanna he wore to hide his face, but
with the exception of that one detail he looked exactly like the
artists' drawings she'd seen.

"Stay here," he said, then vanished into the
darkness again.

Now that she'd glimpsed his true nature, the
last thing Amelia meant to do was wait for him to come back. In the
dark, without the security of the stagecoach and her fellow
passengers nearby, the poet bandit was considerably less romantic
than the periodicals had led her to believe. He was downright
scary.

The poet bandit might be a gentleman, but he
was still an outlaw. Whatever gentlemanly impulses she's attributed
to him had been proved wrong the instant he'd taken her from the
road. Amelia wasn't sure what he meant to do with her, but she
didn't intend to stay where he'd left her and find out.

Even leaving her J.G. O'Malley & Sons
satchels behind was surely better than whatever fate the outlaw had
planned for her. Even her father would agree her life was worth
more than the books and money she was leaving behind. She
hoped.

Amelia pushed herself away from the boulder
she was sitting on and stood up slowly. She listened; the only
sounds were the chirping of insects and the raspy, fear-filled
sound of her own breathing. What a fool she'd been to imagine an
outlaw might rescue her!

Gathering her courage and putting as little
weight on her hurt ankle as possible, Amelia headed for the nearest
pile of boulders. All she had to do was get far enough away to
hide.

Her progress was slow. Her ankle hurt too
much to walk on it, so she hopped a few steps on her good leg,
listened to make sure no one was coming, then hopped a little
further. Her breath came faster, sounding unnaturally loud in the
stillness. It was harder than she'd have imagined to hop
quietly.

Eventually Amelia made it behind the
boulders she'd chosen. Her plan was to hide behind them until the
poet bandit left, then go back to the road and wait for the
stagecoach driver to return for her. Putting her palms against the
cold stone face of the rock, Amelia crouched down and listened.

Her J.G. O'Malley & Sons satchels landed
with twin thuds on the ground beside her.

"Comfortable?" asked a masculine voice.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. She
didn't need to turn around to know who it was; the poet bandit's
deep bass voice was familiar to her already. Besides, who else
could it be? He'd found her easily. She hadn't even heard him
approach. Amelia caught hold of a chunk of boulder for balance and
straightened awkwardly. Her knees felt too wobbly to support
her.

"How did you know I was here?"

His teeth were a flash of white in the
moonlight. "You couldn't have gotten far."

Amelia's pulse leaped. Her whole body
trembled. Hoping the outlaw couldn't tell, she tilted her head
upward and looked him in the eye.

Her body shook harder, and dizziness swamped
her, making her feel faint. Oh, please Lord—she couldn't swoon now.
Amelia ducked her head again.

"I'd like to go back to the road, p—please.
The coach will be returning for me at any minute."

"No, it won't." His tone was final. And
chilling.