Outlaw (20 page)

His tone said he was anything but.

His gaze dropped to her wilted
blue-and-white-checked bodice, then lower, in an assessment as
blatant as any she'd ever received. Amelia tried to stand
straighter, wishing she could appear more ladylike before him. A
borrowed, too-large, unfashionable gingham dress would hardly
inspire tender feelings in a man, she figured.

"Didn't anyone ever warn you about letting a
man kiss you?" he finally asked, frowning.

Warn me?" He wasn't going to kiss her again,
she realized. Her hopes sank like pebbles tossed in the water.

He squinted at her, rubbing his palm over
his jaw where his whiskers used to be. "You can't mean—"

"Mean what?"

"Your mother, a sister...no one talked to
you about letting a man kiss you? Warned you what might
happen?"

Mutely, Amelia shook her head. "My mother
died shortly after I was born, and I haven't any sisters." She
thought about it some more. "I suppose my brothers and father were
too well-mannered to bring up such an...err, personal subject."

"Well-mannered." Mason stared at her, his
expression disbelieving.

Amelia shrugged. Her family loved her, but
she had no illusions about her prospects, and neither did they. She
wasn't "marriageable," and never had been. She was too short, too
plain, and too lacking in wealth—given her father's propensity for
investing every dime into the business instead of his daughter's
dowry—to expect many suitors. Her father had explained it all to
her many times. She was fortunate her family needed her, he'd said,
and Amelia had agreed.

Surely she was the last lady to require a
lecture on letting men kiss her, and obviously her father and
brothers had known that.

"They're gentlemen," she said loyally.

"That's no excuse."

Amelia narrowed her eyes. "Are you casting
aspersions upon my family?"

"Your family? Hell, no." Mason caught her
chin in his callused fingertips and lifted her face to his. "I've
got the utmost respect for gentlemen."

"Even though you're not one?" she teased,
hoping to lighten his mood. He was so close, even close enough to
fulfill her wish and kiss her. She imagined his lips descending to
meet hers as they had yesterday, and shivered a little.

He frowned, absently tracing his thumb over
Amelia's chin. "I don't feel like one. Not now." His gaze swept
over her face, then lower. Abruptly, he dropped his hand and
stepped backward.

"The next time a man tries to kiss you like
I did," he told her, his expression fierce, "you'd better—"

"Better what?"

What was Mason lecturing her for, anyway? He
was the one who'd started all the kissing in the first place. He
was the one who'd gotten her interested in it.

She'd only been trying to hug him yesterday
after their escape. Was it her fault the situation had developed
into something more? Her fault for responding to him?

No, it wasn't, Amelia decided, doing her
best to stare him down. In this, at least, perhaps she could have
the upper hand.

Looking frustrated, Mason broke eye contact
first. It felt like a victory—a small one, but hers all the
same.

"Scream."

"What?"

"Scream your head off. I know you've got it
in you."

Grumbling beneath his breath, he climbed
into the wagon again and started rummaging through the supplies
with jerky, impatient movements.

"And then what?" she inquired.

"That ought to be enough," he answered
sourly, pulling a worn brown men's hat from a peg set into the
curved frame that supported the canvas. He turned it over,
examining it, then plunked it on his head and came out again.

He stopped in front of Amelia, giving her a
hard look. "No more talk about kissing," her warned. "It's not
going to happen."

"But I don't see what's wrong with it," she
persisted, trying not to feel hurt by his rejection. "I know you
care a little about me."

She touched Mason's sleeve when he would've
turned away. "You rescued me, you called me Amy...you touched me
with such gentleness that I—"

"That you decided to give yourself over to
an outlaw?" His lips twisted with something akin to disgust as he
shrugged free of her grasp. "Don't be a fool, Curly Top. When we
get to Tucson, just walk away. Get on that stage and forget about
me. It's the only way."

He left her and headed toward the front of
the wagon.

"But it was only a kiss!" Amelia called
after him. "I—"

Mason stopped, half-turned. He held himself
rigidly, as though forcing himself to remain where he stood. "It
wouldn't end there," he said quietly. "If I touch you again, I
won't be able to stop."

She gaped at him, stricken by the intensity
of his expression, the haunted vulnerability in his eyes. He meant
every word, Amelia realized. And it was more than a kiss they were
speaking of. More than intimacy between a man and woman.

It was love.

Chapter Thirteen

"I have an idea," Amy announced the next
day, a short while before sunset.

They'd traveled all through the previous
night, stopping to sleep and rest the oxen shortly before dawn. By
Mason's estimation, he and Amelia were thirty-odd miles nearer to
Tucson.

And still far too many miles from retrieving
Ben.

But the risk of being followed limited their
traveling to nighttime, when darkness kept their movements hidden.
There was only so much he could demand of the oxen, too. Mason
didn't dare push them harder—but the waiting grated on him, all the
same.

"It's a really good idea," Amy said, a
little louder.

Mason groaned. The last thing he needed was
Curly Top with an idea in her head. Judging by the enthusiasm with
which she said it—she was fair bouncing in her lady's lace-up
shoes—it was going to be a humdinger. But he didn't have the heart
to say so.

"What's your idea?" he asked instead,
passing her as he carried the freshly washed tin plates back to the
wagon. He was so stuffed with the beans and cornbread she'd made
for dinner that all Mason felt tempted to do was lay down inside
and sleep. There was a lot to be said for a good, woman-cooked
meal.

"Well," Amy said, handing him the clean
spider with both hands, "I've been thinking about how we're going
to make it into Tucson without being discovered."

"I'll take care of it."

"But Mason—" She dogged him all the way to
the wagon, hard on his heels. "We'll have to sneak in. Or else
disguise ourselves somehow."

"Disguise?"

She smiled, shrugging with affected girlish
modesty. "That's my idea."

"No. No, no, no." Mason waved his hand. "I
don't even want to know what you mean by that."

"I mean, look at you! Anyone could recognize
you, and in a heartbeat, too. You're a very distinctive-looking
man."

Facing him, she boosted herself onto the
rear wagon tongue and sat there, her legs kicking to and fro
beneath her skirts. He glimpsed a hole in her black cotton
stockings, just behind her ankle, and looked the other way. Aside
from one of her hare-brained schemes, the
other
last thing
he needed was more thoughts about Amy's legs...or the rest of
her.

Sleeping next to Curly Top the past two
nights had been straight torture. Not that Mason had done much
sleeping. Knowing she was there, wrapped naked in a quilt only a
few feet away, had kept him in a near-constant state of arousal. It
had been damned frustrating. He couldn't see any reason to let
himself in for more of the same now by sneaking glances at her
legs.

He looked at her face instead. It shone with
enthusiasm for her disguise plan. Recalling what she'd said, he
asked, "You think I'm distinctive-looking?"

She laughed. "Don't look so wary. I mean it
as a compliment."

He shrugged, telling himself he didn't care
what she thought of his looks anyway. He wasn't some damned
peacock, strutting around for a female. Scowling, Mason dug a
cheroot from his coat pocket and propped the thin cigar between his
lips while he went back to the campfire for a twig to light it
with. As he'd expected, Amelia jumped down from her perch and
followed him.

"Distinctive sounds like some namby-pamby
Mama's boy, dressed in a purple waistcoat and britches," he
muttered around the cheroot. Lifting a burning branch, he lit the
cigar. Tobacco-scented smoke spiraled upward, joining the mesquite
smoke from the campfire.

"I mean distinctive as in memorable," Twirly
Curls explained. She propped her chin in her hand and stepped
backward a pace, studying him. "Take those all-black clothes, for
instance—"

"These are poet bandit clothes," Mason
interrupted. "They were good enough to convince
you
that's
who I was."

"Exactly. Now you'll either be mistaken for
the poet bandit—an outlaw. Or yourself—an outlaw. We've got to come
up with something that'll blend in a bit more." Chin still in hand,
she circled him slowly. "What were you before you became an
outlaw?"

He hated to admit it, but she had a point.
If the sheriff's wanted posters had reached Tucson already, he'd be
hard-pressed to walk down the street without risking capture by
some bounty-hunting knuck. If that happened, he'd likely never
reach Ben in time. What were the chances he could escape from three
jails in a row?

"I'll bet you were a...soldier," Amy mused,
looking him up and down. "You've got that soldier's bearing, like
you could take the weight of the whole world on your shoulders and
still stand up straight."

She smiled, as though taken with the image
of him as Atlas, balancing a globe on his shoulders.

Mason laughed. "You've got an eye for those
things, Curly Top. I was stationed at Fort Lowell until a few years
ago."

"And then?"

He squinted at her, deliberating, then
admitted, "I had a farm a little ways from here." Scanning the
landscape around them, he added, "Up north, just off the Gila
River."

"It's near here?" Amy asked, her gaze
following his pointing finger. "Why didn't you say so? We could
just go there, instead of sleeping in a wagon bed."

Mason looked toward the Gila, toward the
farm where he hadn't even been able to lay in spring seed before
he'd been set on the run—looked toward his past—and remained
silent. For all he knew, the Territorial government had taken over
his land until the coroner's jury made their decision about Ellen's
death.

He hadn't had time to wait for their
verdict. Not if he wanted to see his son again.

He shook his head. "No. I'm going to Tucson.
I have people to meet."

"Who?"

He said nothing. Amy crossed her arms primly
over her chest and frowned. "Mason Kincaid, you've got to be the
most stubborn man I've ever met," she said. "Why won't you trust
me? Maybe I can help you somehow."

"I shouldn't have told you as much as I
did," he said, turning away from the expectation he saw in her
face. He'd been a fool to trust her, even with that much of his
past. "I've got to get things ready. We're heading out again after
sunset."

She stared at him for a long moment,
measuring him. Then, as though she'd reached some sort of decision,
Curly Top blew out a great gusty sigh.

"All right. But if you won't confide in me,
will you at least consider my disguise idea?"

Mason tossed down his cheroot stub, grinding
it into the soil with his boot heel. He squinted at her from
beneath his hat brim. "Nope."

"Mason! It's a good idea," she
protested.

Digging the toe of her shoe into the ground,
Amy gazed out toward the distant mountains. The sun had nearly
reached their peaks.

"I want to help," she went on, not looking
at him. "It's—it's partly my fault you got caught and locked up at
Maricopa Wells. I didn't want to admit it before, but if not for me
I think you would've gotten away from the stagecoach. Even away
from that man who was shooting at you."

"Amy—"

She turned to him and laid both hands flat
against his shirtfront. Her face tilted upward toward his. "Please
let me help, Mason. I...I know I've been a bother to you, held you
back from whatever you've got to get in Tucson. I swear I'll do
better." Her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt, and her chin
took on a determined angle. "I
know
I can do it."

Gently, he untwisted her hands from his
shirt. Something told him he was going to regret agreeing with her,
but Mason did it anyway. Anything to get Curly Top to quit touching
him. Just being near her got him heated up enough, without her
touching him, too.

"All right. What's your damned idea?"

She brightened. Before he knew what she
intended, Amy swept his borrowed hat from his head. "A haircut!"
she announced, dangling his hat from her fingertips behind her back
as she surveyed his head. "I'm very talented with a pair of
scissors."

Mason fought the urge to run his fingers
through his shoulder-length brown hair. He wasn't about to primp
for her. Hell, no.

"It'll change your appearance completely,"
she went on, standing on tiptoes to brush his hair back from his
face with her fingertips.

"What's wrong with the way I look?" he
demanded.

"Nothing," Amy assured him with a hasty
glance. Her fingertips glided over his temples, then wavered as she
lost her balance. Rising on tiptoes again, she added, "It'll just
be different, is all. A good beginning to your disguise."

Her breasts brushed against his chest as she
swayed, trying to reach the back of his head. Mason automatically
reached to steady her, then froze just as his hands reached her
hips.

Being this close was a bad idea.

A very bad idea.