An Outlaw in Wonderland (26 page)

Why hadn’t Annabeth connected the dots? Because the idea of the petite and helpless
Mrs. Lewis wielding a rifle was laughable. Until it was proved the truth.

“What did Cora’s rifle have to do with her death?”

“Nothing, if neither one of you killed her.”

Annabeth followed his logic. The rifle was only important if they’d known Cora was
using it. Either one of them might have killed the woman to keep her from killing
them or in retaliation for having tried.

“I thought we’d established that we didn’t.”

Eversleigh shrugged. Apparently, he liked to keep an open mind.

“Are you going to arrest me?” Annabeth asked. “Ethan? Both of us?”

“Not today.”

Annabeth stared at him for several seconds. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

“Neither can I,” Eversleigh said.

“If she was stabbed, where’s the blood?” Ethan murmured.

He was right. The floor was as pristine now as it had been the last time Annabeth
had been in the room.

“She wasn’t killed here.”

“Where?” Ethan asked; at the same time Annabeth muttered, “Hell.”

The marshal beckoned, and they followed him out of Lewis’s Sewing and Sundry, down
the boardwalk, into their house, then up the stairs. Once in Ethan’s bedroom, Eversleigh
lit a lamp against the encroaching night. The golden glow shone off the dark splotch
in the center of the bedroom floor.

“Where is she?” Ethan whispered, horror haunting his face.

How anyone could believe that a man who was overcome by the blood of a woman who’d
lied, cheated, and attempted murder could kill was beyond Annabeth’s understanding.

“We buried her,” the marshal said.

It was summer. They’d had to.

“Your house, your bedroom.” Eversleigh indicated the stain. “The two of you are nowhere
to be found. You can imagine what I thought.”

“Lover’s quarrel,” Ethan suggested.

“Or I caught the two of you together,” Annabeth countered.

The marshal’s sigh sounded as exhausted as Annabeth felt. “Either you killed her or
you didn’t. Pick one.”

“Didn’t,” Annabeth snapped. “Who found her?”

“Mrs. Cantrell.”

“I hope she wasn’t too upset.”

“You’d have to do a damn sight more than toss a dead woman in her path to upset Sadie
Cantrell.”

As Sadie had taught school on the frontier for a long, long time, Annabeth had to
agree.

“Why was Cora here?” Annabeth wondered. “Looking for me? Or maybe for Ethan?” She
paused. “Probably for Ethan.” When the two men glanced at her, she shrugged. “She
didn’t have her rifle.”

Eversleigh snorted, then started for the door. He paused, reaching for his back pocket
a little too fast. Annabeth’s palm slapped her empty holster. The marshal lifted a
brow as he offered the knife he’d withdrawn hilt first. “Ever seen this?”

The blade was long and wide—a bowie. Common enough. What wasn’t were the intricate
vines and flowers carved into the golden-brown wood.

“Never seen it before in my life,” Annabeth said.

And then she coughed.

D
oc?”

Ethan turned his narrowed gaze from his wife to the lawman. The marshal still held
the knife in his palm. Flowers and vines trailed along the hilt.

“Nice work.” Ethan traced a fingertip over the one flower he recognized among all
the others. “Roses?” How had the creator managed to shade them red?

He drew back at the realization that the red “shade” had been produced by spatters
of blood.

“They are roses,” Eversleigh agreed. “Got no idea what all the others are. Could be
they’re made up.”

Annabeth coughed again. Ethan resisted the urge to pound her between the shoulders
until she stopped.

Coughing? Or lying? He wasn’t sure.

“So?” The marshal waggled the knife.

“Never seen anything like it,” Ethan said. He turned his gaze to his wife, who peered
through the empty window.

But she had.

“You two look tuckered out.” Eversleigh shoved the weapon into his pocket and once
more headed for the door. “I don’t have to tell you not to disappear again, now, do
I?”

“No,” Annabeth said. “You certainly don’t have to tell us.”

Had the marshal noticed that she hadn’t agreed not to disappear, only that the man
didn’t have to tell them that? Doubtful. Answering questions without really answering
was one of her gifts.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” The marshal’s boot heels clattered down the stairs. The door
thudded lightly as he left. Annabeth continued to stand at the window.

“Whose knife is that?” Ethan asked.

“Never seen it before.” Her throat clicked when she swallowed.

“You can cough,” he said. “I know you’re lying.”

She spun, eyes wide before she narrowed them. “I’m not.” She cleared her throat.

“You cough when you lie.”

“If I had a tell like that, I’d be dead by now.”

“I doubt anyone’s been around you as much as I have. Or been lied to as extensively.
Folks would have to know that you lied to connect the two. And if they knew that,
you’d be dead anyway.”

“Your eye twitches,” she muttered. “But I doubt anyone’s noticed but me.”

If anyone had, he wouldn’t have lived through the war.

“Is the knife yours?” he asked.

“No.”

She didn’t cough or swallow or even clear her throat. Wasn’t hers, but still . . .

Her chin went up. “I’m not lying.”

“Oh, you’re lying.” Ethan stepped past her and gripped the edge of the bed. “But I
know better than to think you’ll tell me the whole truth until you’re ready.” He yanked
and the mattress thumped onto the floor.

“What are you doing?”

He set the thing upright and dragged it toward the door. “Maybe you can sleep in a
room with that . . .” He indicated the stain with a lift of his chin. “But I can’t.”

“I’m not sleeping in the baby’s room.”

Ethan’s hands slipped, and the mattress listed to the right. Annabeth snatched the
other end. “I hadn’t planned on it either,” he said.

Their eyes met, and they shared a moment of silence for the child they had lost.

“It wasn’t your fault, Ethan.”

“If not mine, then whose?”

“I’ve learned over the past few years that things happen with no fault and for no
reason at all. Fate? God? Bad luck? Pick one. I don’t think it would have mattered
what we did. I think . . .” She paused, then blurted, “He wasn’t meant to live. Sometimes
they aren’t. No matter what you do, there’s no saving them. Him,” she clarified. “Michael.
Our son.”

Her eyes shone in the soft dusky light, and she reached for him. Ethan took her hand,
and his chest, which had contained a tight, hard ball of pain for years, suddenly
loosened. He could breathe deeply for the first time since his son died.

They should have talked back then, shared their fears, their feelings. But they were
both too young, too angry, too damn stupid to try.

“Downstairs?” she suggested.

“Downstairs,” he agreed.

They managed, through a series of shoves, grunts, and curses, to pull, push, and carry
the mattress down the steps. They nearly lost their grip in the front hall. Ethan
was sweating so profusely in the close, heated air, even his fingers were slippery.
They shoved it into the exam room, where it fell to the floor with a thump.

“If anyone bursts in here during the night, needing the doctor, we’ll have to move
it again,” Annabeth said.

“Better than the alternative.” Sleeping in the room where Cora had died.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Are you?”

“A question isn’t an answer, Ethan.”

“No?”

She snorted. She knew all his tricks; they’d been her tricks, too.

“Someone I . . .” Her lips twisted. “‘Knew’ wasn’t murdered in my bedroom.”

“You knew her,” Ethan pointed out. “And that was—
is
—your bedroom.” He thought of the divorce. Did she still want it?

“You know what I mean,” she said, as she wandered back into the foyer and he followed.
“I feel like I should say I’m sorry, but—”

“You’re not.”

“I didn’t want her dead.” She rubbed her throat.

“I’d understand if you did. There were times I . . .” He paused.

“You wanted her dead, too.”

“That seems harsh, especially now. I didn’t really want her dead, just—”

“Gone,” she finished. “Like magic.”

“I’ve wished a lot of people would be gone like that.”

She lifted her gaze to the new-fallen darkness beyond the windows. “Me too.”

“Stay,” Ethan whispered, then wished he could snatch the word back. She’d already
told him she had to go. “I’ll help you find Luke. Let Moze deal with Lassiter. Don’t
go, Annabeth. Please.”

“All right,” she said, and he blinked. “Yes. Of course I’ll stay.”

He stepped toward her, and she stumbled back. “I’m going to wash.”

She hurried into the next room and drew the curtain behind her.

•   •   •

Annabeth plunged her hand into the bucket of tepid water that stood near the back
door and lifted some to her mouth, swallowed, then lifted more. Eventually the telltale
tickle went away.

She’d sat at Lassiter Morant’s side while he carved the flowers from
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
—tiger lily, larkspur, violet, daisy, and rose—into the knife’s handle. His workmanship
was incredible. Lass could make an honest living if he tried. The knife was his prized
possession. The only reason he would have left the weapon behind was as the threat
she knew it to be.

Return to me before I return to you.

She hadn’t needed the reminder. She’d known all along he would never let her go. And
she couldn’t let the outlaw roam free. She had to make certain Lassiter Morant either
hung for this crime or spent a lifetime in prison for any of his others. To do that,
she had to leave, and she had to make certain the man she loved, and always would,
didn’t follow. She had a pretty good idea how to do that. She’d been doing it for
the past five years.

Lie with her mouth and then with her body.

She unbuttoned her shirt, stepped to the curtain, and drew it back. Her husband stared
out at the night. “Ethan?”

He turned, and she offered her hand. He put his into it with all the trust of a child,
and she almost felt bad. She would have felt bad if she weren’t doing this for his
own good.

If he knew what she planned, he would want to join her, to help her. Ethan might once
have been a spy. He might once have done things that gave him nightmares. But that
had been long ago and far away. He was no longer that man, and she didn’t want him
to be. Wouldn’t let him be.

The water in the basin was tepid but clean. The room was shadowed, dark, but she ignored
the lamp. What she planned on doing was not something she wanted illuminated in the
window.

“Take off your clothes,” she murmured. “Or would you rather I did?”

His swallow was audible, her smile hidden by the night. With a shift of her shoulders,
the loosened shirt slid free, landing on the floor with a whisper. His followed.

Annabeth dampened a cloth, washed his face, his neck. She would have continued with
his chest, but he stared at her so intently, she couldn’t think.

“Turn,” she murmured. For an instant, she thought he would refuse. Then he spun, and
the slight ruffle the movement made through the air caused her nipples to pucker.
She couldn’t help herself; she leaned forward and rubbed them across his skin.

His breath caught; goose bumps rose. She traced them with her tongue. Then he was
spinning toward her instead of away, so close, her breasts slid across his chest and
together, they gasped.

The cloth hit the floor with a
plop
as her hands lifted, palms skimming his belly, his ribs, then clutching his shoulders
as he lowered his head and took her mouth.

Desperation laced the kiss. She might never again know a moment in this man’s arms.
Returning to Lassiter Morant would mean the end of them. It certainly might mean the
end of her.

And that would be all right. As long as Ethan remained safe.

She tangled her fingers in the curling length of his hair, ran her thumb along the
curve of his neck, then placed her mouth there. She tasted sweat and dust, life and
death—the promise of the past, the ashes of their future.

She fumbled at his belt, her fingers trembling too much to unbuckle it. He set his
hands atop hers, and she closed her eyes. Would he deny her now? She didn’t think
she could bear it.

He moved away, and she reached out, clasping nothing. Her eyes snapped open. He stood
at the door. She bit her lip. She would not beg him to stay. She hadn’t begged since
Michael died. Begging didn’t help. Then she heard a click—the lock—and she had to
blink through foolish tears when he strode past her, trailing a finger down her arm
as he went to the front door and did the same.

He pressed his chest to her back, wrapped his arms around her, and drew her against
him. Tracing the curve of her shoulder with his mouth, he set his fingers on her belt.
His didn’t tremble. Her trousers fell, catching on the tops of her boots. She lifted
a foot to kick them off, and his hand slid from her hip to her thigh.

“Wait.” His mouth replaced his hand. He nibbled, then ran his tongue over the swell
of her buttock. Her legs wobbled. “Sit.”

One-word orders seemed all she was capable of understanding, perhaps all he was capable
of uttering.

The exam table was the closest flat area, so she hitched herself onto it, again trying
to kick free her boots. But he was there, on his knees, the moon casting his hair
with threads of silver, showing her what he would look like when he was old.

Achingly beautiful.

Or perhaps that ache in her chest was merely the knowledge that she would probably
never see him like that, and oh, how she wanted to.

Her boots hit the ground; his jeans slid away with a rustle, her socks on a whisper.
He set his palms atop her knees, and she stilled as he opened his hands, her legs,
and leaned forward, his tongue running from knee to thigh.

She held her breath as he kissed her center; then she couldn’t remain upright anymore.
Her shoulders met the table—ice cold when everything else seemed on fire.

He murmured soothing nonsense across her belly, scraped her hip with his teeth, then
set his tongue where he’d already kissed. Her entire body tightened.

“Shh,” he whispered. “Everything will be all right.”

A sob threatened. She bit it back, but he knew, he heard, and he gathered her close,
lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist.

He carried her to the mattress. They fell as one. Her seeking mouth found his. His
straining body settled into hers as he rose above her, his face so stark in the brilliant
moonlight, she had to close her eyes, force herself to keep breathing.

He traced the silvery marks on her breasts—the ones that had not gone away when their
son did—with the tip of his finger, then the tip of his tongue. Once the action would
have made her writhe in agony; now she writhed with anything but.

Each time she touched him with passion, he touched her with tenderness. The contrast
took her higher, brought him closer. By the time she rose above him, they were slick
with sweat, panting, gasping. She trembled on the edge of oblivion, refusing any longer
to be tamed. She met him stroke for stroke. All she smelled, all she tasted and saw,
all she knew was him as together they fell.

And fell. And fell. And fell.

His cheek pressed to her breast. His face was wet. So was hers. When he rolled onto
his back, she kept her eyes closed. If he stared into them now, he would know. Not
that she’d leave; she was too good for that. But that she loved him. Always had, always
would, couldn’t stop.

And he couldn’t know. If she died, Ethan needed to go on. Otherwise, what had been
the point of anything?

So she remained close until he slept; she even tried to kiss him awake, shook him,
too, whispered, “Ethan?” and curled her fingers around him.

If he’d woken, she would have loved him again. There was no man alive who wouldn’t
sleep the sleep of the dead for hours after that. But he never moved; he barely breathed.

She put on the clothes she’d taken off. They were filthy; she deserved nothing less.
Boots in hand, she closed the door softly behind her before she shoved her feet inside.
As she started toward the livery, a distant whinny drew her attention.

Horse and rider stood in stark silhouette against the shimmering, white moon. She
knew them well.

They waited for her.

•   •   •

Ethan woke feeling better than he had in . . .

Had he ever felt this good?

He lay there, eyes closed, as he tried to remember why. It didn’t take long.

He and Annabeth had shared all their secrets. She’d seen him at his worst, nursed
him through the nightmare, and still she had agreed to stay in Freedom with him.