An Outlaw in Wonderland (20 page)

The moon sparked off his sea-green eyes. He was lucky he hadn’t been born a Phelan.
Those eyes would clash with the bright red hair.

“What if someone recognizes you?”

“Everyone’s recognized me.”

“I meant as an outlaw.”

“I’m not wanted,” she said.

“Not for lack of trying,” he muttered. “I’ve had to stifle reports of a red-haired
woman robbing a stage in Missouri, a bank in Iowa, and a train in Colorado.”

“Only one of those was me.”

“Which one?”

“Does it matter? Lass isn’t going to trust me unless I prove myself trustworthy.”

“By stealing?”

“Among other things.”

She could feel Moze’s gaze on her, waiting for her to say what “other” entailed. She
wasn’t going to. He was a smart guy; he’d figure it out. If he thought a man like
Lassiter Morant allowed a woman into his gang just because she’d asked, he was dumber
than dirt. Moze knew she’d slept with Lass; he just didn’t want to hear it out loud
any more than she wanted to say it.

Moze had many talents, and when she’d left here and taken the job for Pinkerton, he’d
taught most of them to her. Or rather, he’d refined what she’d already learned as
the only girl among so many boys about riding and weapons, stealth and skullduggery.
He’d even taught her how to pick locks, a skill that had been useful more often than
she cared to count.

“You need to leave,” Moze said. “Before Lass comes looking.”

As she’d had the same thought, Annabeth didn’t contradict him. She’d told Lassiter
she’d be gone a week, half of which was already gone.

“Any idea yet where his hideout is?”

“Besides down a rabbit hole?” she muttered. “I wish you’d just shoot him.”

“Bring him where I can see him and I will.”

She’d tried, but Lassiter was the most careful outlaw Annabeth had ever had the misfortune
to meet. Not only was he paranoid about the location of his hideout, but he went nowhere
without a posse; he avoided areas that might be a trap with the instinct of a hunted
wolf. His men were loyal, or they were dead.

A fate that awaited her if he ever found out who she really was.

•   •   •

Ethan woke from a dream of whispers in the night to more of the same. His wife was
gone. The murmur of her voice from downstairs explained why.

Ethan found his clothes and followed that murmur as he had once before. And as he
had once before, Ethan hovered outside the examining room and listened to things he
did not want to hear.

“I wish you’d just shoot him.”

“Bring him where I can see him and I will.”

Rubbing his forehead, Ethan frowned. Were they talking about him?

“He still doesn’t trust me.”

“You know how to fix that.”

Annabeth sighed. “Yeah.”

“That isn’t a problem, is it?” Annabeth didn’t answer. “Considering where I found
you tonight, I can’t see how it would be.”

“He’s my husband, Moze.”

“You haven’t been his wife in five years. Why now?”

Five years
?

Images tumbled through Ethan’s mind.
Annabeth crying. Blood on her hands. On his. A baby’s squalls beneath the sun. Another
too still beneath the moon.

“You left him, Annabeth. You never gave any hint you planned to return.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why did I find you in his bed?”

The silence that followed the question was so complete, and Ethan was listening so
hard for his wife’s response that he started when the latch clicked. He hadn’t heard
the door close. He didn’t hear anything but crickets until Annabeth said, “You can
come out now.”

The past and the present snapped together with a louder click than the latch had made.
Ethan stepped into the exam room. Annabeth stood alone, staring at her bare toes.

“You’re still a spy,” he said.

Her head came up, her eyes wide. “You remember?” Ethan nodded, and she cast a frown
at the door and then back at him. “Just now?”

“I’ve been having flashes since . . .” He swallowed; his mouth was so damn dry. His
gaze went to the cabinet, and he had to use all of his will not to open it.

“Since the Tarkenton baby,” she finished. “I could tell something wasn’t right.”

“Isn’t it right that I remember? It’s 1870. Our child is dead. I killed him and you
left me.”

“Killed him,” she echoed, her voice faint. “Oh, Ethan, is that what you thought?”

“It’s the truth.”

“You didn’t kill our son. He just . . .” She swallowed, too.

“I was angry. I put my hands on you. I wanted to do more.” He felt again the fury
that had come over him when he’d discovered everything was a lie.

“I don’t blame you,” she said.

“You don’t have to.”

“That whole day, I didn’t feel well. I had cramps.” She rubbed at her stomach, then
shifted her back.

A memory of her doing the same on that long ago and horrible night teased at the back
of his mind.

“Blood spots, too.”

His fingers tightened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were gone, and then . . .” She sighed. “So was he.”

Silence settled over them like the night. “I still shouldn’t have . . .” His voice
trailed off.

“We both shouldn’t.”

“Why did you leave?”

She rubbed at her forehead as if her head ached as much as his did. “There were too
many lies, Ethan. How were we ever going to get past them?”

“You got past them well enough an hour ago,” he muttered.

“An hour ago, you didn’t recall them.” She dropped her hand and shot him a glare.
“Or at least I thought you didn’t.”

“You did.”

Her lips tightened; her fingers curled into fists. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth, if you’re capable of it.”

“I needed you.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but not that.

“Just because I remembered everything that happened to us doesn’t mean I allowed myself
to think about it. Today, at the Tarkentons’, I saw you with that baby, and all I
could do was—” Her voice broke.

“Me too,” he murmured.

She stiffened. “You touched me even though you remembered?”

“Not everything. Not then.”

“When?”

He had a flash of his mouth on her belly, the ripples beneath the flesh that had brought
about another memory, and he’d touched and pressed and poked in the guise of . . .
what?

Love? Perhaps. But what he’d discovered while kissing his wife’s stomach was that
there was nothing within but her. The same thing he’d discovered earlier.

With Cora.

Which was something he wasn’t going to share with Annabeth. Not until he talked to
Cora Lewis. Perhaps the woman truly thought she was expecting. As her physician and
her lover, he owed her the courtesy of speaking with her about it first.

“I heard you down here,” he murmured. “With him. Just like the last time.” Then she’d
called the man “Moze,” but beyond that, Ethan knew nothing more. “Who is he? You never
said.”

“You never asked.”

They both went silent as they remembered why that was. Blood and tears, anger, fury,
accusations.

And that too-still body.

“Who is he?” Ethan repeated.

“Moses Farquhar.”

“Never heard of him. And why is that?”

“He’s the one who asked me to spy at Chimborazo.”

“How did he know you and that you’d be any good at espionage?”

Her lips curved. “We were raised together after his mother died. He was Luke’s best
friend.”

Ethan didn’t like that smile. He thought Moze might have been her best friend, too.
Or perhaps even more.

“Why didn’t he do his own dirty work?”

“They needed ears at Chimborazo, and Moze is little more than worthless around blood.
Besides, I was already there.”

Ethan frowned. “Why were you there?”

“I had nowhere else to go. My parents were dead, as were all of my brothers but one.
I’d nursed my mother and father along with several neighbors. I was good at it.”

“Who suggested Chimborazo?”

“Moze. But he wanted me safe, not alone at the farm.”

“He wanted you
there
. He planned to recruit you from the beginning.” She didn’t appear convinced, but
she didn’t argue. “It was a dangerous game he asked you to play.” No matter when he’d
decided to ask her to play it. “I understand why you agreed to help him at Chimborazo,
but why did you agree to help him again?”

She let out a short, sharp laugh. “What was I supposed to do? Sell myself in the streets?”

“You’re a nurse and a good one.”

“Unfortunately, without a nice, bloody war, there isn’t a lot of work for nurses.”

“Instead you’re spying for . . .” He paused as another part of that long-ago overheard
conversation resurfaced. “Pinkerton.”

“Yes.”

“Farquhar came here tonight to get you to return to . . .” Ethan paused. “What?”

“Have you ever heard of the Morant Gang?” Ethan shook his head. “They started robbing
banks and trains and stages back when everyone else was occupied killing one another
out East. They ride in fast, take what they want, shoot any resistance, and disappear.”

“Disappear? In Kansas?”

“The leader, Lassiter Morant, has a hideout no one’s been able to find. Several Pinkerton
detectives have tried to become part of the gang. The next time we saw them, they
were dead.”

“So Moze sent you.” Annabeth shrugged. “It’s dangerous.”

“No more so than anything else I’ve done in the last five years.”

“What else have you done?”

Her gaze met his. “You don’t want to know.”

She was probably right, and since he didn’t relish her asking what he’d been doing—his
gaze flicked to the cabinet, then away—he moved on. “Have you ridden and robbed along
with them?”

“I wouldn’t have lasted very long if I hadn’t.”

“There’s a federal marshal in town.” His gaze touched on her bright red hair. “Why
hasn’t he recognized you?”

“Moze has made sure that every wanted poster of me looks like someone else, if he
didn’t get any mention of me omitted altogether.”

“Sooner or later, Lassiter’s going to get suspicious about all your good luck,” he
said.

“Let’s hope it’s later,” Annabeth muttered. “I need him to trust me.”

“He doesn’t?”

“You don’t,” she muttered.

“If you’re supposed to be riding with this gang, then why are you here?”

She was silent so long, Ethan thought she might not answer. Then she blurted, “Fedya
found me.”

“How?” She didn’t answer; they both knew how. “Why?”

“He said you were in trouble, that you might die
.
”

Damn Fedya. He’d always seen too much.

“So you thought you’d ride in under cover of darkness and make everything all right?”

“If you’d tell me what’s wrong, maybe I could.”

“Fedya was mistaken,” Ethan said stiffly, blinking as his eyelid fluttered. “There’s
nothing wrong.”

“Yet I wasn’t in town a day before someone took a shot at you.”

“As no one ever took a shot at me until you returned, I’m starting to think, more
and more, the shot was meant for you.”

Her lips tightened. “I have to get back.”

“Back?” he echoed before he could stop himself.

She threw up her hands. “What did you think I’d do, Ethan? Stay?”

He’d thought that what they’d just shared had meant something. But why should now
be any different from then?

E
than didn’t answer, then again, what would he say that hadn’t been said before? Annabeth
should never have come anywhere near him. She should never have hinted that she still
cared.

She never should have done a lot of things, including sleep with him. Both now and
back then.

“Did you ever find your brother?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“You’re still looking?”

“I won’t stop.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ethan stood in the shadows. The moon had shifted, and she could no longer see his
face. “Wasn’t your fault.”

“I seem to remember you saying that it was.”

“I said a lot of things.” So had he.

“He was missing,” Ethan continued. “You never heard anything else?”

She’d heard plenty; she just hadn’t wanted to share it with him.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why Fedya was kept alive and not executed?”

Understanding dawned. “You exchanged Fedya for your brother.” He blew an impatient
burst of air through his nose. “All this time, I believed Fedya shot Mikey on purpose
and you knew he hadn’t?”

“I told you he hadn’t, but you wouldn’t believe me. Think, Ethan. Why would anyone
want to hurt Mikey? What would Fedya’s shooting him gain?”

“We’ll never know because Mikey isn’t Mikey anymore.”

She wasn’t going to have that argument again. “With a prize like Fedya, I could have
ransomed Jefferson Davis. The Union was happy to turn over my brother.”

“Then where is he?”

Annabeth had spent a good portion of the past five years trying to find out.

“Have you heard of Galvanized Yankees?” she asked.

“Confederates who changed sides.” From his tone, Annabeth understood Ethan’s low opinion
of the prac- tice.

“Most were prisoners, like you, in terrible places with too many others, starving,
sick, dying. When given a chance to get out, they took it. Wouldn’t you?”

“I refused,” he said quietly.

“You what?”

“I was offered the chance to leave Castle Thunder, to pledge allegiance to the Confederacy
and become a field surgeon. I said no.”

“Why?” What difference did it make if he operated on Rebels or Yankees as long as
he was saving someone? He’d said as much to her a half dozen times before.

“You saw how bad it was in Castle Thunder. How could I leave people to suffer and
die if I could help? I couldn’t leave Mikey either; I couldn’t leave—” He broke off,
swallowed, looked away.

Had he been going to say he couldn’t leave her? Most likely. At that time, he’d still
believed she was who she said she was—a Southern farm girl who’d volunteered her nursing
skills for the good of the cause.

“If Fedya was exchanged for your brother, why are you still searching for him?”

“Fedya was taken to an agreed-upon location and exchanged for a man said to be Luke
Phelan. It wasn’t until they brought him to me that I was able to tell them he wasn’t
Luke at all.”

“How underhanded of them,” Ethan murmured, and startled a burst of laughter from Annabeth.

She’d never been certain if what happened then was the misunderstanding the Yankees
said it was or the lie she still believed it to be. Illinois was a long way from Virginia,
and there’d been a war going on. Communications went awry all the time.

“Two opposing groups, whose job it was to lie, worked out an exchange and one of them . . .”
She spread her hands. “Lied. Shocking.”

“What happened to your brother?”

For a while, she’d believed Luke had died in prison and been buried in an unmarked
grave, or worse.

“They said he swore allegiance to the Union before leaving prison and then he came
West to fight Indians. But Moze found no record of him at Fort Dodge or Fort Zarah,
where most of the Galvanized Yankees landed.” Not that the records kept of rebel prisoners
were very accurate.

“Fort Dodge, Kansas?” Ethan asked.

“Is there another one? Why don’t you just ask what you want to ask? Did I marry you
to get closer to where I thought my brother had gone?” Ethan didn’t answer, didn’t
need to. “I didn’t find out about him being galvanized until recently. But even if
I’d known back then, I could have traveled to Kansas on my own if I’d wanted to. I
certainly didn’t need you.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, and she felt bad. Would they ever stop hurting each other?

“I loved you, Ethan. That’s why I married you.”

“Not because you were pregnant and alone and scared?”

“Well, that too,” she agreed.

Now he laughed, and Annabeth found herself smiling in return, until he spoke again.
“You could have gotten out of Castle Thunder anytime you wanted. Why didn’t you?”

The anger she’d banked suddenly roared to life, and she crossed the few steps that
separated them. She had to tilt her head only a bit to glare into his eyes. “I told
you once before, Ethan. I stayed there for you.”

Regret flickered in his eyes. For an instant, she thought he might lean close, kiss
her brow or maybe her mouth.

Speaking of Castle Thunder brought back memories of their first time. Their coupling
had been fast, desperate. They hadn’t known how long they would have before someone—a
guard, a prisoner—returned. But there’d been so much pain and so much death. The two
of them had wanted nothing more than to find some joy, to reaffirm life.

Moving together, coming apart, their eyes meeting, their bodies straining. The way
her breath had caught, not from the pain of her first time, but from the beauty, the
utter rightness, the completeness she’d felt only in his arms.

“Ethan,” she murmured, and her breasts bumped his chest.

He hissed as if she had scalded him. Then he stepped back, face averted; he would
not look at her as he turned away. She was left alone, fists clenched, anger and agony
pulsing so strong, she felt feverish. She had to get out of this room, this house,
this town, his life.

Annabeth spun and ran up the stairs.

•   •   •

Ethan took another bottle from the cabinet—hell, he took two—then he slipped out the
back door. By the time the sun lightened the horizon, he’d downed a good portion of
the first. His chest still hurt, but it always did when he came here.

Ethan traced the name carved on the tombstone. “Michael,” he whispered. “Michael Walsh.”

Not his brother, but his son.

Annabeth didn’t know about the grave. She’d disappeared before it had been dug.

Everyone dealt with tragedy in his or her own way. Ethan lifted the laudanum bottle
in a toast to the grave. “Yer mother runs away and spies on people, me darlin’.” He
took a sip. “Apparently, it helps.” Or maybe not. Annabeth didn’t seem any more over
their tragedy than Ethan was.

His horse, tied to the oak tree that lent shade to the solitary grave, huffed and
shuffled. The grave site wasn’t that far from town. Certainly, it was a bit of a walk,
but he hadn’t needed to bring the horse. However, Ethan knew from past experience
that ascending the hill sober was a damn sight easier than descending it when he wasn’t.

From his vantage point on the small hill—were there large hills anywhere in Kansas?—Ethan
watched Cora step onto her porch and shake out a rug. Just the sight of her made Ethan
want to—

A growl rumbled in his chest, and his hand tightened around the bottle so hard, he
nearly broke it. He loosened his hold, but he couldn’t stop glaring at the woman.
She was as much of a liar as his wife.

Ethan lay on the grass and stared at the bright summer sky. Why had he suddenly remembered
everything he’d forgotten? It was a mystery. One he’d like to solve. Because if he
could remember, then . . .

Couldn’t Mikey?

Hope fluttered—or at least he thought it might be hope. He couldn’t quite recall what
hope felt like.

The last thing Ethan remembered clearly was standing in the spare bedroom as his wife
took an ax to their child’s crib. He’d been amazed, frightened, a little aroused.
Which was pretty much the effect his wife always had on him. She was an amazing, frightening,
arousing woman.

From that point on, his thoughts were hazy—dreams and reality blended together, the
past and the present jumbled. People would appear familiar, but he couldn’t decipher
why. Or they would seem to know him, but he would not remember them at all. His waking
hours had taken on a dreamlike quality, while his dreams . . .

His dreams had seemed more like the truth.

Was that why the sound of Moses Farquhar’s voice had caused the wall in his mind to
tumble down? He’d dreamed of the first time he’d heard it, then woken and heard it
again? Same place, same person, similar words.

“No,” he murmured, and his horse pawed the grass once and then stilled. “I started
to remember at the Tarkentons’.”

Because of the baby.

Difficult delivery. A sea of blood. Panic. Cries. Screams.

“Similar situation.” Ethan shuddered. “Different results.”

Alive not dead. So why had he seen that child and remembered his own?

He traced the gravestone again. “Head trauma can cause memory loss.” He hadn’t needed
to read a dozen books to know that. He’d had to only look at Mikey.

Ethan lifted the bottle to his lips—a single swallow and it was empty. Hell, he’d
been in such a hurry to leave, he’d grabbed one of the bottles he’d taken to the Tarkentons’.
He lifted the second, saw that it was only half full, too, shrugged, drank. He wasn’t
going to be here long. He’d be back in his surgery before he needed more.

All the texts advised keeping the patient calm because upsetting him or her could
make the situation worse. But had any of those patients gotten better? Ethan thought
not or the books would have mentioned it.

Considering what had happened to him—head injury, memory loss, repetition of similar
trauma to trauma he’d endured before, followed by the return of his memories—Ethan
had a new hypothesis.

If trauma could cause memory loss, perhaps trauma could bring those memories back.

“What if it does?” He sat up. His horse lifted its head, snuffled, then returned to
munching on grass. “Does that mean I should set a can on my brother’s head and have
Fedya shoot it off?”

Was Ethan willing to risk his brother’s life on a theory? What if, instead of making
him better, the experiment made Mikey worse? Or what if, just like last time, Fedya
missed? His brother would not survive two bullets to the head.

So Mikey thought his name was Mikhail Romanov. So he believed Fedya was his brother,
Alexi, and that the two of them had many adventures. So what?

Ethan had a sneaking suspicion that Fedya/Alexi was involved in some shady undertakings
and that he’d drawn Mikey into them, too. Why else would Fedya have shown up with
a woman who’d been shot?

Then there was the matter of the dead sheriff. About both situations, as well as what
they’d been doing since the war, Fedya had remained tight-lipped.

Mikey had followed Fedya’s orders like a hired henchman. He wouldn’t even look at
Ethan, let alone talk to him. The three of them had behaved as if they were on the
run from something or someone and as if they had plenty to hide.

But was Ethan any better? He’d been a spy, and he’d used his brother to take information
he’d stolen from the sick and the dying to what most people in the area would label
the enemy. Mikey had been thrown into prison. Ethan had blamed Annabeth for what had
happened, but she was right. She’d only set the trap.

Ethan was the one who’d jumped into it.

•   •   •

The door opened and then closed downstairs. As no voices followed, Annabeth concluded
that Ethan had left rather than that someone had arrived. She leaned over, hand outstretched
to snatch her saddlebags; then she straightened and kicked them instead. Dust puffed
upward.

“Idiot,” she muttered.

Now that she’d revealed to everyone in town that she wasn’t dead, Ethan would have
a helluva time saying she was. Before she left forever, she had to visit the lawyer—what
had been his name?—and request a divorce. Then Ethan could have the life he’d always
wanted. With Cora not Annabeth, but what choice did she have? Even if Cora hadn’t
carried Ethan’s child, Annabeth doubted he would want Annabeth back once he knew the
truth of the past five years. If she stayed, she would have to tell him everything,
and she wasn’t sure she could bear to watch Ethan’s face reflect disappointment and
disgust.

Unfortunately, the sun wasn’t yet up, and she doubted the lawyer would be available
until it was.

She listened to the house creak as the horizon lightened to gray and then pink. She
must have dozed, because the next time she looked, the sky blazed gold and people
bustled about on the streets. She slung her saddlebags over her shoulder and left.

Two doors beyond Lewis’s Sewing and Sundry, a sign proclaimed:
LOYER
.

“Someone really needs to paint new signs.”

Annabeth hoped to slip past Cora’s place without being seen. Hell, she hoped to slip
out of town without having to talk to anyone besides the “loyer.” Of course, what
she hoped rarely happened. She was three steps from success when a door opened behind
her.

“Missus—” An exasperated huff followed. Annabeth reached for the doorknob, hoping
she might still escape. “Don’t you dare!”

Annabeth turned. Cora Lewis had two bright spots of color high on her cheeks, which
caused her blue eyes to shine bluer. The effect made her appear both ethereal and
insane.

“You stole that dress!” she shouted.

Annabeth glanced down at Ethan’s trousers and shirt, then at the crazy woman.

“You know what I mean.”

She did, and she hadn’t stolen it. Of course, she also hadn’t paid for it; nor could
she return it in its current condition.

The stares of the townsfolk bored into Annabeth’s back; her own cheeks heated. “Could
we step into your shop?”