Outlaw (23 page)

Half-turned, Mason looked at her over his
shoulder, his back straight and determined. He was too far away and
dusk was gathering too quickly for her to make out his
expression.

"Neither will you, Curly Top, if you keep on
believing in it."

"Mason—"

"Let's go," he said quietly, and Amelia had
no choice but to follow him into the darkness. Filled with
frustration, she climbed into the wagon for the journey that would
take her that much closer to Tucson—and, when it was finished, away
from Mason forever.

Chapter Fifteen

Amelia spotted Picacho Peak when they were
still miles from the stage station that was their destination for
the night. Amidst the low rolling saguaro-studded hills, the
mountain rose, isolated and strangely luring in the moonlight.

Not quite as large as the mountains she'd
spent her first night with Mason in, Picacho Peak looked almost
like a rocky funnel set upside down in the desert, almost like a
volcano, except it wasn't open at the top. There, the peak split
momentarily into two, as though a gigantic finger had pressed into
the center.

"It's enchanting," Amelia said to Mason,
bumping along beside him on the hard plank driver's bench. "Is
there really a stage station there?"

"Yep," he replied. "Hard to miss a landmark
like that."

They were the first words he'd said to her
since they'd left their campsite beside the creek bed. Shrouded by
darkness, they drove along the rode in silence. Even accustomed as
she was becoming to Mason's ways—he'd never been talkative, Amelia
had to admit—she couldn't help feeling wounded now by his silence.
It seemed personal, as though he didn't want to speak with her in
particular.

It made her doubt the wisdom of staying to
help him, however much he needed her. In whatever way. You couldn't
force a person to accept help—or caring, for that matter. Maybe
she'd been deluding herself all this time, just because she needed
Mason to help her get to Tucson safely.

By the time she spied the faint lantern
lights of the Picacho Peak station in the distance, Amelia still
hadn't reached a decision. Trying to put her troubles aside for the
moment, she watched the low, long adobe station building as they
neared it.

It appeared not half as well-traveled as
Maricopa Wells. Only two rigs were parked in front, plain buckboard
wagons both, and less than a dozen horses roamed placidly in the
corral alongside the station. A lighted kerosene lantern hanging on
a hook by the front door cast a glowing circle of welcome toward
passing travelers, though. And good smells of spicy meat and baking
cornbread rose from the chimney along with wood smoke, sharpening
her appetite.

Suddenly, Amelia found herself quite anxious
to get inside.

A moment later, she realized Mason was
guiding the oxen and wagon in a wide arc around the stage station.
He was passing it by!

She grabbed his arm. Some part of her
registered the heat of his skin, the well-used strength of his
muscles—and the rest of her just wanted to get inside for
dinner.

"Where are you going?" she cried. "The
station's right over there. Aren't we stopping?"

"Outlaws don't drive up to the front door,
pretty as you please, Curly Top," Mason said, not looking at
her.

Now that they'd left the road, such as it
was, he kept his attention focused on controlling the animals.

"We're going around back. With luck, anybody
who hears us will reckon we're station hands and won't come round
to check."

He guided the animals carefully through the
darkened desert undergrowth, raising crickets and scaring
long-eared jackrabbits from their hiding places. Amelia gazed
longingly toward the station, listening to the sounds of voices
talking and pots banging as work went on inside.

"I hope they'll talk to us," she muttered
forlornly, thinking of all the conversations she'd been deprived of
since being left behind by the stagecoach. In all her life Amelia
hadn't gone so long without visiting with people. It just wasn't
natural to do without a nice chat.

"They won't turn us away," Mason assured
her, stopping the wagon. He scanned the stage station and yard,
then the moonlit desert behind them. Apparently satisfied, he set
the brake and turned to Amelia.

"Follow me," he said, rising.

Amelia stood, then jumped down from the
wagon beside him. He caught her, steadied her atop the marshy
soil—it must have rained here, recently, too—and then released her
as fast as he would have a burning tumbleweed.

"And keep your mouth shut," he added, giving
her a stern look. "I'll do the talking."

"Are you sure you know how?" Amelia
muttered, straightening her skirts.

"What?"

"I said, sure, I'll start right now." She
smiled sweetly at him. Thankfully, Amelia was certain the cool
darkness hid her blushing cheeks.

Mason stared suspiciously at her for a
moment, then started toward the stage station. She tromped along
behind him, feeling devilishly pleased over her little bit of
rebelliousness. At times, being with an outlaw like Mason made her
want to abandon every ounce of proper behavior she'd ever
learned.

A few yards from the wood plank door set
into the rear of the low-slung stage station building, he stopped.
"Stay here. I'll be right back."

From the corner of her eye, Amelia spotted a
muscular, dark-haired man rounding the corner of the station.

"Wait!" she hissed to Mason.

Too late. He'd already stepped into view.
The man would spot him, probably raise an alarm. They'd both be
hung for outlaws now, she thought with a panicky shiver. What could
she do?

Her stomach twisted as the man spotted
Mason. The stranger's eyes widened and his hand went to his gun
belt. Then, to Amelia's amazement—he started laughing.

She stared as he stretched his hand forward
in greeting to Mason. Both men shook hands, clapping each other on
the back. A torrent of rapid speech followed—Spanish, she thought,
but couldn't be sure. The man's voice sounded like that of the
station hand at Maricopa Wells.

Mason's voice sounded like it always did.
Brief. He motioned toward the station building, said a few words in
Spanish, and then the stranger disappeared inside.

Amelia was about to step into the yard to
join Mason when the leather thong holding the back door closed
wiggled, then the door swung open. She stepped back into the
shadows, holding her breath. Would this be a friend, too? There had
to be some reason he'd ordered her to stay behind in the
shadows.

The reason he'd ordered her to stay behind
emerged. She had long, beautiful black hair, a white, happy smile,
and graceful, mostly bare arms that wrapped around Mason's neck and
hugged him tight. A woman. Amelia squinted harder, trying to see
her better.

She was beautiful. Dressed in a simple white
gown with colorful embroidery, her hair unbound, the woman looked
like an exotic goddess. A hot flare of emotion like she'd never
experienced flooded through Amelia, making her hands clench into
fists.

Jealousy, she realized, and ashamed as she
was to recognize that's what it must be, she felt powerless to stop
it. Watching the woman hang with obvious affection all over
Mason—watching the scoundrel's delighted grin as she did so—made
her blood boil.

No wonder he'd wanted to keep Amelia in the
shadows. All the better to greet the woman he
truly
cared
about.

They were still hugging and talking in
rapid-fire Spanish when Amelia smoothed down her tattered borrowed
dress, gritted her teeth, and stepped forward into the yard.

"I don't believe we've been introduced," she
said, stepping toward Mason and the woman with a false-feeling
smile plastered onto her lips. For once she felt grateful for the
years of deportment she'd been subjected to at Briarwood Young
Ladies' Seminary. At least she wouldn't embarrass herself socially,
however rude Mason acted.

She extended her hand to the woman. "I am
Miss Amelia O'Malley, a visitor from the States," she said, doing
her best to ignore the glare she was sure Mason had aimed in her
direction for daring to disobey his instructions. "I'm so pleased
to make your acquaintance."

After a quick, private glance toward Mason,
the woman stopped hanging on him long enough to accept Amelia's
hand. Mason only stood there, crossing his arms over his chest and
watching them both with an aggravatingly bemused expression on his
face.

The woman was truly breathtaking, Amelia
realized with a sinking feeling. Up close, her caramel-colored skin
and dark eyes acted beautifully to set off her hair. Hair that, she
was somewhat dismayed to notice, flowed straight and smooth down
her back—something Amelia would never in a million years achieve
with her fine, unruly curls. Several uncharitable thoughts crossed
her mind, most involving the scissors stowed away in the wagon.

The woman said something to Mason—a
question, from the sound of it—in Spanish. He answered in kind, and
they both laughed. Amelia narrowed her eyes and withdrew her hand,
trying to achieve a poised, carefree pose.

"
Doña
Juana," Mason said to the
woman, sweeping his arm toward Amelia with a gallantry she'd never
witnessed from him, "meet Miss Hoity Toity O'Malley."

"Mason!" Amelia stared at him, aghast.

"Please, call me Juana," said the woman with
a warm smile. Her melodious voice made her words sound like
poetry.

"I think you may have misunderstood what you
saw of my greeting, Miss O'Malley," she went on gently. "I am an
old friend of Mason's, but that is all." Juana cast him a chiding
glance. "However this rascal
gringo
might wish it to seem to
you."

Mason looked at the dirt, grinning like a
schoolboy caught pinning his desk-mate's braids to her chair.
Unrepentant, but resigned to being discovered sooner or later.

Amelia felt like kicking him. "Of course it
makes no difference to me how Mr. Kincaid greets his friends," she
lied.

Mason raised his eyebrows. "Mr.
Kincaid?"

He was enjoying this, the rat!

"I'm happy to know he still has some
friends," Amelia added, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I am also," Juana said. She smiled and
moved closer to take Amelia's arm. "These days, with all this
trouble, he needs them."

They walked arm-in-arm toward the open
doorway. There, Juana stopped, eyeing Amelia carefully. Her voice
held an edge when she spoke again.

"You are a friend, aren't you, Miss
O'Malley?"

Her hand tightened in the crook of Amelia's
elbow, and with some surprise she realized she couldn't move
forward without a struggle.

Mason saw it, too. "Put your claws away,
tigresa
," he said. "I trust her."

He strode past them into the station.
Releasing her, Juana followed him, but Amelia could only stand
there for a moment, plumb-certain she'd misheard the words Mason
had uttered so matter-of-factly.

I trust her
.

"Manuel told me what happened at Maricopa
Wells," Juana said, her voice carrying from within the station's
back room. "A rider came through this morning looking for you. And
your lady outlaw."

She looked for Amelia—the lady outlaw she
spoke of, unfortunately—and spotted her still standing in the
doorway.

"Please come in, Miss O'Malley. You must be
tired after your journey, and hungry. And—" she slanted a
mischievous glance at Mason, her eyes sparkling "—if I know Mason,
hungry for some conversation, too."

"I'm a man, not a gossipy old woman," he
muttered, pinching his fingers into a pot on the stove behind
Juana.

He withdrew something—a bite of meat, Amelia
surmised from the looks of it—and popped it into his mouth. Licking
his lips, he went back for more, for all appearances not caring at
all whether she joined them inside or not.

"Talking to him is as enlightening as
talking to the base of Picacho Peak," Juana said, drawing Amelia
forward. "Just like my James."

Amelia stepped inside. The room she found
herself in was narrow but long, with tan adobe walls, a white
muslin-covered ceiling, and a hard-packed dirt floor that soothed
her feet with its evenness after so many days in the desert. A
scarred rectangular table squatted near the stove, with a wash
basin and cupboards beyond.

In the absence of windows, lanterns
brightened the room from hooks set into the walls at evenly spaced
intervals. At the other end of the room, a battered-looking upright
piano, several straight-backed chairs, a rocking chair, and a
vividly colored rag rug defined the space as a sitting area.

"This is cozy," Amelia said, smiling. "Thank
you."

The warmth inside made her skin tingle, and
her stomach rumbled at the savory smells of roast meat and bread.
On the huge cast-iron stove beside Mason, coffee perked, adding its
rich aroma to the air, too.

"Manuel told me James is at Fort Lowell,"
Mason said.

"He left yesterday," Juana said, nodding her
head. She showed Amelia to a bow-backed chair at the table, then
went to the stove. "But he should be returning late tonight."

Spying Mason still at the stovetop pot, she
picked up a wooden spoon lying nearby and whacked his hand with it.
"Wash before grubbing around in my pots," she scolded.

Amelia laughed. He paused, another bite of
beef halfway to his mouth, and gave Juana a wolfish grin. Then he
ate the meat.

"Your
chalupas
are good as ever,
Doña
," he said. "But I think you've turned ornerier. Time
was, you'd never turn a starving man from your table."

"Starving man?" Amelia asked, arching her
eyebrow. Leveling him a what-about-my-cornbread-and-beans look, she
crossed her legs and clasped her hands at her knee. She waited for
his answer, her top leg kicking back and forth.