Her Outlaw (40 page)

E
MMA LOOKED UP FROM HER
vigil at her husband’s bedside as her parents entered the room. Jenny’s brows knotted with concern while Trace’s worried gaze scanned Dair’s prone body. “How’s he doing?”

“Dr. Cushing says I shouldn’t worry, that it’s not unusual for a brain surgery patient to take so long to wake up. The fever has been gone for twenty-four hours now. That’s a good sign.”

“His color is good,” Jenny offered. “Much improved over yesterday, I think.”

“Yes.” Emma clasped Dair’s hand, stroked her thumb over his knuckles. “I think so, too.”

Trace cleared his throat. “I’ll sit here with him if you want to go with your mama for a bit.”

“You need to rest, Emma,” Jenny added.

“I will. Just not yet. I want to be here when he wakes up. It’ll happen anytime now. I’m sure of it.” He was going to wake up. He had to. He simply couldn’t die, not after all they’d been through. Not when her dreams were just waiting to come true. Not when he had so much to live for—even more than he knew.

Yet, in the deepest, darkest hours of the soul, she faced the reality that she could lose him. It was almost more than she could bear. But Emma knew that if the worst happened, bear it she would. She’d treasure their time together and live her life forward rather than bury it in the past. She had to do it that way. She’d given him her word.

Two days later, Trace and Jenny managed to coax Emma from Dair’s bedside only after Dr. Cushing ordered his patient isolated.

The fever was back.

H
OT
. S
O HOT
. M
UST BE IN
the desert.

Can’t move. Tied down? Captured?

No. Wait. Honeymoon. Private train car. Arabian Nights.

Flush of pleasure. Emma. Smell her perfume. She must be nearby. She won’t leave. So determined.

I’ll be determined, too. Need to wake up. Need to see her. Need to live. To have a future. A future with Emma. Wake up. Wake up. Head hurts. Pain too much. Tired. So tired.

Too weak. Not strong enough. Love is vigilant and true but not strong enough. Mama? Mama, is that you?

D
OZING IN HER CHAIR AT
Dair’s bedside, Emma jerked awake. It was late afternoon and the warm sunshine beaming through the window had lulled her to sleep. Why was sitting in a hospital doing nothing more physical than trying her hand at knitting so exhausting? Standing, she stretched as she studied her husband. He’d grown so gaunt since the surgery, and two recent days of high fever had left him looking older than his age.

“Oh, Dair,” she said on a worried sigh. What she wouldn’t give to see him move, to watch him open his eyes, to hear his precious voice say her name. “Come back to me, MacRae. I need you. Do you hear me? I have news to tell you that is burning a hole in my tongue. You’ve slept long enough.”

She brushed a lock of dark hair off his brow and was encouraged by the coolness of his skin. “I never took you for a lazy man, but I’m about to reconsider. Wake up, MacRae. It’s time. I need you to open those gorgeous gray eyes.”

W
AKE UP
, M
AC
R
AE
. I
T
’
S TIME
.

Dair fought his way through the fog of unconsciousness toward the sound of Emma’s voice. She droned on and on, scolding him. Cajoling him.
I didn’t know I married such a nag.

His eyelids felt like fifty-pound weights, but he slowly managed to pry them open. At first, the light hurt his eyes. Blinded him. He blinked once. Twice. Then he saw Emma sitting beside his bed. She stared at their hands, linked together. “…all I can do not to tell Mama,” his wife was saying. “I think she suspects, but…”

She looked so beautiful. Where was he? Why was he in bed and she not? Why was a tear rolling down her cheek?

It came back to him in a flash. The surgery. Good Lord. He was alive. And thinking! Thinking clearly. Amazing. So why was she crying? Emma never cried.

He croaked out a question. “Texas, what’s wrong?”

Emma gasped and their gazes met. “Dair? Dair! You’re awake! You came back to me.”

She stood and reached for him, clasping his shoulders, laying her head on his chest. She started laughing and crying all at once. “Oh, Dair. You’re awake!”

“Sure I’m not dead and gone to heaven?” He lifted a hand and stroked her golden hair. “I’ve an angel lying against me.”

“You can move, too!” She pulled back and looked at him with gleaming blue eyes. “Oh, your legs. Try your legs.” He wiggled his toes and she laughed again. “Dr. Cushing didn’t anticipate that you would suffer any loss of physical or intellectual ability, but it’s wonderful to see. Oh, Dair. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

Was he? “The tumor?”

“All good news, thank God. Dr. Cushing called it a meningioma and said it was easily removed. It’s a benign tumor that probably grew at the site of an old injury. He said you’ll continue to suffer headaches until you heal from the surgery, but that those should go away. He’ll give you all the details, I’m sure. We need to let him know you’re awake. But Dair…oh, Dair…you did it.” She paused and her lower lips trembled. “You beat the odds.”

“We beat the odds.” He levered himself up to a seated position, barely able to take it all in. He was a little dizzy, a little shaky, a little achy, but…he smiled. “I’m alive. I can think and talk and move and breathe and you are here with me. Life couldn’t be any better.”

Dair drank in the sight of her as Emma smiled a radiant smile. “Actually, it could,” she told him, her brilliant blue eyes shining with joy. “It can. It is! Dair, I have to tell you…my hopes…my dreams…you’ve made them all come true. You’ve given me a gift I’ve waited for all my life.” She paused significantly before finishing. “Dair, we’re going to have a baby.”

“A baby?” he asked, hope and excitement and a measure of panic adding a slight tremor to his voice. “We’re having a baby?”

She sat beside him on the bed. “Yes. Isn’t it wonderful? I’d all but given up on that dream, but now…”

“Our dreams are coming true,” he said tenderly.

Emma nodded, gasped back a little sob. “I thought if it’s a girl, we should name her Roslin.”

Overwhelmed, his heart overflowing, Dair took Emma in his arms and kissed her, pouring all his love and relief and joy and exhilaration into the moment. A baby. Their baby! Life, love and Emma. It simply didn’t get any better than this.

From the doorway came the unwelcome sound of his father-in-law’s voice. “For God’s sake. Can’t you wait until you get home to do that?”

Home. Dair broke the kiss, stared at Emma. “We’ll need one. A home. We don’t have one.”

“Don’t worry, Robin Hood. I know of the perfect place.”

It took him a moment to make the connection. “Sherwood House? You wouldn’t mind…?”

She grinned. “What better place to make a home with my very own outlaw?”

Fort Worth

E
MMA AND
D
AIR
, K
AT AND
Jake, and Mari and Luke entered the lobby of the FortWorth National Bank together. The men drew the stares of the women in the building, while the women attracted everyone’s notice. The sisters wore simple gowns of their mother’s design that showcased the necklaces hanging around each of their necks. Each of the McBride Menaces glowed with excitement, anticipation and joy.

Flanked by her sisters and with the husbands a few steps behind, Emma approached a teller window, showed the key, and said, “The MacRae box, please?”

The teller opened a leather-bound book and flipped through the pages. Frowning, he said, “Hmm…yes…well…fancy that. Finally. Hmm…if you’ll have a seat, my superior will be with you shortly.”

“Well, that’s curious,” Mari observed as the man scurried to an office at the far side of the building.

“You didn’t expect it all to be normal, did you?” Kat asked.

“No. I guess not.”

Moments later, the teller led them to the office of the bank president himself. “Good morning. Good morning. This is quite exciting. My employee said you have a key?”

“We do.”

“Very good. Very good. This account has a special instruction. Along with the key, you are to present proof.”

“Proof?” Mari asked. “What kind of proof? Proof of what?”

“I know. Mr. Potter showed me.” Emma slipped her necklace from around her neck as she quoted the text from memory. “‘The fairy queen gave three stones—blue, green and red—to be presented with the claim that conditions had been met for the ending of the curse.’”

“We have to give up our necklaces?” Kat asked. She frowned at the banker. “Do we get them back?”

“The instructions simply say that they’re to be presented.”

A man entered the room carrying a small metal box. The president gestured for the man to set the box on his desk, then once he’d departed, the president said, “Ladies?”

The gold chain clinked against the wooden desk as Emma set her necklace beside the box. Mari placed the sapphire next to the ruby, then both sisters looked to Kat. She scowled, then removed her necklace. Once it joined the other two, the bank president invited Emma to try the lock with the key in her hand.

Kat leaned toward Mari and whispered from the side of her mouth. “Do you think the entire treasure is in that little box? Maybe it’s not as big as we think.”

Emma twisted the key and a lock snicked. She flipped back the lid. “Another key?”

“Excellent.” The bank president beamed. “Now, if you’d like to collect your necklaces and follow me, please?” He led them down a hallway to a door at the very back of the building. “This deposit predates the bank building. In fact, the bank’s building specifications were altered to accommodate a special vault. The deposit came to the bank from…New Orleans…I believe, when Fort Worth National first opened.”

He opened the wooden door to reveal a metal door behind it. “The second key fits this lock. I will leave you to your privacy now.” He took two steps away, then paused, dropping his professionalism. “I’ll admit to a long curiosity about what’s in the vault. If you’re of a mind to tell me, I’d love to listen.”

The sisters shared a look, then Emma said, “Perhaps later.”

She waited until they were alone in the hallway, then said, “Well, this is it.”

“I’m nervous,” Mari confessed.

“Me, too,” Kat agreed. “What do you think we’ll find inside?”

“You know, it doesn’t really matter,” Emma said. She glanced toward Dair and added, “I already have everything I need.”

“Or want,” Mari added, her gaze on Luke.

“Or dreamed of.” Kat smiled at Jake.

“Well you damned sure better hope there’s enough money in there for the outlaw to buy a pardon from the governor.” Trace McBride’s long-legged strides ate up the hallway. Jenny almost had to run to keep up. “I don’t hold with the idea of taking my grandbaby to the state penitentiary to visit her daddy. And you’d also better hope the Scottish authorities reply to Luke’s telegram explaining that they can stop looking for the Black Widow since the real villain is dead. I don’t like having that worry hanging over my head, either.”

Jake leaned toward Dair and muttered, “I thought we’d managed to leave the old goat at home.”

Trace ignored his sons-in-law, his gaze softening as he looked first at Emma. “How you feelin’, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine, Papa.”

“Katie Kat? You done with your morning sickness, now?”

“My all-day sickness, you mean?” Kat grimaced. “Yes, Papa. I’m feeling quite well, thank you.”

“Mari-berry? Are the twins letting you get a decent night’s sleep yet?”

“Yes. They’re finally sleeping through the night, thank goodness. I’m glad you and Mama made it, after all.”

“It’s my fault we’re late.” Jenny sighed heavily. “Your grandmother wouldn’t let me off the telephone. You won’t believe what she’s gone and done now.”

“Shall I go get some chairs so everyone can be comfortable while we share this chitchat in the hall?” Jake asked, his tone dry as July.

“Maybe something to drink?” Luke added.

Dair folded his arms. “A snack, perhaps?”

The McBride Menaces shared a smirk. “Our men have no patience whatsoever,” Kat observed. “They probably all rip into their Christmas gifts without any attempt to savor the moment.”

“Open the door!” the three husbands cried.

Emma grinned as she fitted the key into the lock. “Mari, Kat—let’s do it together.”

With three hands giving the key a twist, the lock released and they opened the door. Emma grabbed Dair’s hand as she spied the inside of the vault. “My heavens, it looks an awful lot like MadameValentina’s old fortune-teller space.”

Plush pillows lay scattered about the floor. The scent of jasmine perfumed the air. A round table draped in midnight blue stood at the center of the room. On top of the table forming three points of a triangle sat three silver chests about the size of a small bread box. In the center of the chests sat a leather-bound portfolio.

“Oh my oh my oh my,” Kat murmured.

The vault was large enough for all eight of them to step inside and surround the table. On his way in, Dair grabbed one of the cushions off the floor and propped it in the doorway. When Jake arched a curious brow, he explained. “Any good thief knows to protect his avenue of escape. I’d just as soon not get locked in a bank vault.”

Just like they’d done a decade before, Emma, Mari and Kat took a seat on one of the three stools surrounding the table. Their husbands took positions behind them. “This is damned strange,” Luke murmured.

“Who’s going to open the first chest?” Kat asked.

“Emma picked the first necklace,” Mari said. “I think she should go first.”

Emma shook her head. “No. Let’s do it backward. Mari, you were last. Go first today.”

“Which one?”

“You choose,” Kat said.

Mari reached for the chest closest to her and flipped open the lid. Sapphires. Dozens and dozens of them. Hundreds, even. “Holy Hannah.”