Outlaw (17 page)

"Amy!" he yelled, cupping his hands around
his mouth to make his voice carry further. "Amy, hang on!"

Her face turned unerringly toward him. She
gaped as though he were a vision standing there, too much to hope
for. Rainwater ran into her mouth and down her neck, making her
gag. Coughing, she tried to shout his name.

The water flowed chest-high around her as
she struggled uselessly to free herself from the muddy
arroyo
bottom. Between the weight of her sodden layers of
skirts, the vicious speed of the current, and the boot-sucking
muck, she was well and truly caught. Her fate would be the same as
the coyote's if he didn't reach her in time. The thought made his
blood run cold.

"I'm coming!" Mason yelled again, plunging
into the water as fast as he could move.

The temperature had plummeted; he shivered
at the feel of the icy water against his calves and knew how
bone-cold Amelia must be submerged in it. Kicking water aside with
violent strides, finally Mason reached her.

"Mason!" She lurched toward him, both arms
flung wide. Her fingers clenched, searching for something, anything
to grab onto. Her teeth clattered uncontrollably from the
chill.

He caught her beneath her arms and lifted
her upward, yelling with the effort of dragging her free from the
mud and murky water. Her wet, shivering body slammed into his.
Sobbing, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Beneath his spread fingers Amy's shoulder
blades poked sharp and shuddery through her dress. She was more
delicately made than he'd known. She gasped for air, her shoulders
heaving, holding onto Mason as though he was the only solid thing
in a world turned liquid and treacherous. The rain pelted them
both, wrapping them in a cold cloak of mist. The storm showed no
sign of letting up.

The tightness in Mason's chest eased as he
held her. He'd gotten to her in time; she was going to be all
right. He looked down at her mud-splattered, pale face squashed
fearfully against his chest, and hard on the heels of that small
relief came white-hot anger. What in the hell had she been
thinking, to get out of the wagon and put herself in danger? She
could've been killed. It was pure dead luck he'd looked back for
Curly Top when he had, and spotted her in the
arroyo
.

"Let's get you back to the wagon," he said
gruffly, swinging his arm behind her knees to lift her against his
chest. He felt ornery, conflicted as a new preacher in a
whorehouse—and a sight more relieved Amy was safe than he wanted to
be.

His irritation must have shown, because she
cried out when he hauled her upward, splashing water in a wide arc
all around them, then turned toward the
arroyo
bank.

"I'm sorry!" she said. "I—"

"
Don't
."

Scowling, Mason reached higher ground. Their
clothes streamed water onto the marshy soil, but the sound was lost
amidst the water filling the puddles underfoot and trickling from
the rocks and low-country bushes nearby. Still he carried her,
straight toward the now-motionless wagon. At its head, the nearest
ox watched their approach, lowing mournfully.

In his arms, Amy coughed. Stubbornly, she
went on explaining herself. "I only wanted to help you," she yelled
hoarsely over the sounds of the storm. She panted between the
words, doubtless worn out from her struggles. "I found an apple in
the—"

"Shut up," Mason gritted. There wasn't an
explanation he wanted to hear for nearly losing her. He ducked his
head, trying to shield her from the downpour.

Her hands tightened at the back of his
neck—with frustration, he guessed, and didn't give a damn. Curly
Top could damn well stew in frustration for all he cared.

His arms burned with fatigue by the time
Mason stopped beside the rear of the wagon. His time on the run—and
everything that had gone before—had weakened him. If he hadn't been
sure of it before, he was now. When had everything started
changing?

"I found an apple in the wagon," Amy went
on, tilting her chin at a dog-determined angle, "and decided to
help you lure the oxen up the hillside with it." She panted, weary
from her struggles. "I didn't know the water would be like
that—"

"Stay out of the
arroyos
, full or
not."

Mason raised her higher and shoved her
toward the opening in the canvas. Wisely—for a change—she grabbed
the slippery, water-darkened edges and levered herself inside. Her
skirts slapped on the edge, sending a shower of droplets onto his
head.

Swearing, Mason climbed in after her. The
sudden cessation of rain pouring on his head, the added comfort of
a dry place to sit, and the fact that the wind had quit howling in
his ears did little to improve his disposition.

"Take off your clothes," he barked. He
grabbed a folded red and white patchwork quilt from an opened crate
and threw it toward her with barely a glance. "Then put this
on."

"But—"

"Do it."

She pressed her lips tight together and
started unbuttoning the front of her dress. The sound of her teeth
clattering grew louder. Mason turned away and rummaged through the
crate he'd taken the quilt from, looking for food or dry clothes
for either of them. There wasn't much room to ignore the woman
undressing behind him in a four-foot wide wagon, but he did his
best to give her some privacy.

Amy's small sound of frustration rose above
the pattering of the rain. Frowning, mad enough to smash
something—everything—Mason glared at her.

"My—my hands are too shaky," she whispered,
futilely trying to slip one of her tiny pearl dress buttons through
the buttonhole in her bodice.

Her hands shook like mesquite leaves in the
wind. She'd managed to get the first few buttons undone, but in the
time it had taken her Twirly Curls should've been able to shuck
every stitch she had on.

"Hell," Mason muttered, grabbing for her. He
caught hold of the front of her dress, twisted the loosened fabric
in his fist, and roughly dragged her to him. Dammit, having her
with him was nothing but trouble. He should've already been to
Tucson to get Ben from the Sharpes.

Would have been if not for Amelia.

Her face crumpled slowly, her lower lip
wobbling. She clasped her hands together behind her like a little
girl, trying to blink back the tears pooling in her eyes.

"Don't go getting weepy on me," he warned
her, rapidly unbuttoning her dress. It proved difficult work with
his big workman's hands. It had been a long time since he'd
undressed a woman, even under circumstances as un-romantic as
this.

Amy swallowed hard and nodded. "I
just...thank you for saving me, Mason. I knew you'd c—come for
me."

She sniffed, looking at him with wide-eyed
puppy dog gratitude that grated on Mason like nothing else could
have. He ripped the two halves of her dress apart, scattering
buttons willy nilly.

"
Don't depend on me
!" he roared,
wrenching her dress down her arms to take it off. Fury made his
hands shake. Hadn't he already told her what he was? Hadn't she
heard what he'd been accused of? "Don't wait for me to save you and
don't thank me for it either, goddamit!"

Stepping back a pace, he bunched her dress
into a ball and hurled it into the wagon's corner. It slapped into
a tin water bucket, knocked it from its hook, and slid down the
canvas. Mason rounded on Amy, ready to tell her exactly how
addle-headed her behavior had been. Ready to tell her how it had
put both of them in danger.

Ready to tell her how he'd risked forfeiting
his son to drag her from a flooded
arroyo
.

The horrified look on her face stopped him
where he stood. Only half-dressed, Amy fell to her knees at his
feet, her fingers tentatively stretched toward his knee.

"What happened to you?" she whispered. She
cupped her hands in the air around the cactus spines poking through
his pants as though afraid to touch them. "What is this?"

Her forehead creased with worry. She reached
for a spine, about to pinch it between her fingers.

"Don't."

She looked up at him questioningly, still
shivering with cold—although Mason doubted she was aware of it. He
picked up the quilt she'd abandoned and draped it over her
shoulders.

"They're prickly pear spines—"

"Pear?" Her confusion showed in the way she
stared at the cluster of needle-like spines embedded near his knee
and thigh.

"Cactus," he explained. "They're worked in
pretty deep. You can't just pluck one out like taking a needle from
a pincushion."

"Dear God, Mason!" Her fingers fluttered
around the spines. "Are they poisonous?" Rising, Curly Top touched
his arm and tried to ease him back onto a nearby barrel. "You'd
better sit down."

He threw off her hand, all-but snarling at
her. What gave her the right to fuss over him like a...like a wife?
He could take care of himself. He sure as hell didn't need a woman
to do it.

"I'll be fine."

Amy stared at him, her teeth still
clattering faintly. Although she clenched the blanket in front of
her breasts with one hand, it had slipped part way from her
shoulders, revealing bare skin and lacy chemise straps. Mason
stared at them, thrown backward by the image to a time when
feminine fripperies like fancy underclothes and hair combs and
sweet-smelling woman had been his to savor. Ellen. Like Amy, she'd
trusted him.

And come to regret it.

He frowned. "Take off the rest of those wet
clothes," he told her, unbuttoning his own shirt.

"I—"

"I won't look at you, if that's what you're
worried about."

Mason stretched apart the sides of his
shirt, sliding it from his shoulders. Her eyes grew wide. Then,
apparently realizing she'd been staring at his bare chest—and
embarrassed at being found out—Curly Top lifted her chin.

"I
think
," she said pointedly, "that
if we hang these things up, they might dry by morning."

Her hands bumped and moved beneath the
blanket as she removed her underclothes. Mason looked toward the
front of the wagon, trying not to imagine what she looked like
without them.

"That's all I was going to say."

Her gaze darted toward the cactus spines
protruding from his leg, then moved to his face. "If you want to
suffer, that's up to you," Amy added. "I guess I forgot how
stupidly stubborn men can be when they're hurt."

Moving with exaggerated dignity, she draped
her lacy white underthings to dry from a long iron hook set in one
of the wagon top's curved braces. Pointedly ignoring him, she
leaned over a barrel and searched through it. Quietly at first, and
then more loudly, she began singing a hymn.

Hell. He could ignore her, too—and would,
Mason vowed. His eyes narrowed. He could even ignore her damned
impertinent backside waving in the air at him, however fetching it
looked curving beneath the quilt. Savagely, he started unbuttoning
his pants.

His body had begun warming within the
shelter of the wagon and the spines buried in his thigh started
burning anew. Irritatingly proving Miss Twirly Curls partly right,
Mason felt like he'd be damned and hung to dry before admitting it.
Stubborn men
. How many men did she know, anyway?

His fingers paused mid-button. "What the
hell do you know about how men behave when they're hurt?" he
asked.

Her backside wiggled over the barrel as she
reached for something. Mason was in half a mind to believe she was
doing it just to provoke him. Her singing stopped.

"I do have a father and three brothers," she
told him, her voice muffled. She sounded aggravatingly reasonable.
Part of him realized that Amelia O'Malley was easier to deal with
when she wasn't feeling plumb-certain about something.

Perversely, the rest of him wondered where
her concern for him had vanished to.

She emerged with an apple in her fist. She
took a bite of it, started chewing, and nearly choked when she saw
his hands working at his pants buttons.

The most instinctive part of him relished
her reaction. Despite the rising blush on her cheeks—or hell, maybe
even because of it—Mason kept right on unbuttoning. He started
sliding his pants down, and both her apple-packed cheeks bulged
with shock.

"We'll have to share the quilt, too," he
pointed out. "We can't start a fire in the wagon bed, and
everything outside's drenched. All we've got is body heat."

Chapter Eleven

Amy swallowed hastily. She whipped sideways,
still clutching her partly eaten apple. The sweet, tangy scent of
it made Mason's mouth water.

"Oh, no, we don't!" she cried, digging
around in the supplies filling every square inch of the wagon
bed.

Whoever they'd stolen it from hadn't been
very organized—but he'd been well-prepared.

Amy pulled another quilt from someplace
within the pile and threw it toward him. "I found this while I was
looking for the apples for the oxen."

Her aim wasn't very good, but Mason figured
her imitation of his earlier hot-headed blanket toss was dead on.
Another half-foot to the left and the heavy quilt would've walloped
him in the head. She stared at him, looking aggrieved at her poor
aim, then crunched into her apple again.

His belly rumbled. "Are there more of
those?"

Amy looked at the apple as though it had
magically appeared in her hand. "These?" she asked innocently.

Scowling back at her, Mason wrapped the
blanket around his shoulders. Blessed warmth started gathering
beneath it, except for below his waist. Until he wrenched loose the
cactus spines, he couldn't take off his wet pants, either.

"Yes, those."

"There's a whole barrel full." She gave an
offhand wave toward the front of the wagon. "Plus cornmeal,
clothes, water, whiskey, and a whole lot of bullets. Help
yourself."