Outlaw (24 page)

"Ornerier?" asked Juana, hands on her
hips.

Mason glanced from one woman to the next,
then grimaced.

"You want sweet talking, ask Manuel," he
finally said, eyeing a stack of flat, pale pancakes on the table
near Amelia's elbow.

"You just make these?" he asked, heading for
the plate—and away from the long reach of Juana's wooden spoon.

She sighed, but without rancor. Amelia
recognized the sound. It was the same one she used on her brothers
back home, filled with affection, tolerance—and a good measure of
resignation.

"The
tortillas
are fresh and so are
you, Mason Kincaid," Juana said, turning her back to him while she
stirred the contents of the pot. "You can leave my brother out of
this."

On his way to the
tortillas
—Amelia
could see now how Mason's had learned to speak Spanish, with so
much of it being used in the Territory—he paused beside her chair.
His hand dropped to the nape of her neck, his fingers absently
kneading the taut muscles there as he listened to Juana talk about
happenings at the stage station.

Amelia felt like sighing. Between Mason's
soothing touch, the warmth of the room, and the relief of being in
friendly surroundings at last, she thought she might finally be
able to relax.

Juana, her hands wrapped protectively in her
apron, carried the steaming pot of meat from the stove. Her gaze
flicked to Mason's hand on Amelia's neck, then away. Pursing her
lips thoughtfully, she set the pot in the middle of the table. With
a studied casualness Amelia could detect, even embodied in Spanish
words as it was, Juana asked Mason a question.

His hand stilled. Slid away. "No."

Juana shrugged. "It looks like it," she
said.

Scowling, Mason pulled out a chair across
the table from Amelia and sat in it. She felt his withdrawal from
her as plainly as if he'd slapped her first, then turned away. As
it was, it didn't help that they faced each other across the table.
That only meant she had a better, if unwelcome, view of his
granite-jawed face.

Squaring her shoulders, Juana smiled at
Amelia. "Please help yourself," she told her, nodding toward the
meat and
tortillas
on the table. "I have other work to
attend to—" her gaze slanted toward Mason, dark with a meaning
Amelia couldn't decipher, then back again "—but I'll return once
you've eaten."

"Thank you," Amelia said, "for everything.
Thank you very much."

Juana nodded gravely. "
Bienvenido
.
You're welcome," she replied, and then she was gone.

Chapter Sixteen

While they were finishing dinner, James
Fergus arrived. Juana's wiry, redheaded husband burst into the room
with two mongrel hounds yapping at his heels and Manuel at his
side, calling out a greeting to Mason in a thick Scottish
brogue.

"Mason Kincaid, ye old rascal," he
exclaimed, slapping Mason on the shoulder. "How do ye fare, with a
price on your head and all?"

His keen, blue-eyed gaze fell on Amelia.
"Fair well, with a lassie like this by your side," he went on
before Mason could reply. His smile charmed a blush to Amelia's
cheeks as he bent to grasp her hand. "She's a beauty, just like
your Ellen was."

Ellen?
Mason's wife
, Amelia realized.
The woman whose death had sent him on the run. Her hand remained in
James', but her gaze went straight to Mason.

He stared at the tabletop, appearing lost in
thought. If not for the tapping of his fingertip against his coffee
cup, she might have believed he wasn't even listening to their
conversation. With Mason, even such a small gesture as that
rubbing, rhythmic fingertip was telling. Was he remembering the
woman he'd loved? Who he loved still?

"God rest her soul," James added, his
sympathetic gaze flicking briefly toward his friend before settling
again on Amelia. Had he guessed already how she felt about
Mason?

She longed to ask him what he knew about
Mason's life before, about his wife and her passing. But how could
she, with Mason only a few feet away, and obviously unwilling to
talk about it?

James squeezed her hand. His fingers were
chill with having just come in from outside, and he carried a
breath of that cold night air with him on his plain workman's
clothes. But his touch was caring, and his manner made Amelia feel
as at home as Juana's invitation to dinner had.

For her hosts' sake, Amelia put her thoughts
of Mason's past aside until later.

"Thank you," she said, bowing her head
slightly. "Mason, if all your friends are like Juana and Mr.
Fergus, I'll remember my time as a lady outlaw fondly."

"Och, call me James, lassie," he commanded,
releasing her hand. "And what's this I hear about remembering? Are
ye leaving us so soon, then?"

He winked at Mason, and the mood in the room
lightened with his gesture. "Losing your way with the ladies, are
ye? I never thought I'd see the day."

"He still has a way with your woman," Manuel
put in from his place near the stove. He handed a cup of steaming
coffee to James, then poured one for himself. "If he'd held my
sister any tighter, he'd have broken her ribs."

He ambled toward the table, then paused
beside Mason's chair. Both hounds sat at Mason's knee, their
massive tawny bodies alert as they watched eagerly for a bite of
fallen meat.

"What happened to your hair,
amigo
?"
Manuel asked, squinting at Mason's hatless head. "Did that crazy
barbero
in Tucson cut your hair while he was drunk
again?"

He clucked his tongue, shaking his head with
pity.

Calmly, Mason finished chewing his last bite
of
tortilla
, then he picked up his coffee cup. "Amelia cut
it," he said.

"Oh, lassie." James gave her a mournful
look.

Amelia felt like sinking straight into her
chair. Mason's hair
did
look awful, she realized upon closer
inspection. She hadn't noticed before, since he'd kept his hat on
until they'd begun eating. After that she'd been too engrossed in
Juana's wonderful, spicy food to notice.

"He didn't let me finish," she explained. At
the memory of the reason why the haircut had ended so abruptly, the
memory of the intimacies they'd shared atop that desert rock, she
felt a renewed flush climb her cheeks. "He just stuck his hat on
and drove us straight here instead."

Manuel nodded. "I can see why," he told
Mason. "Maybe Juana can fix it for you before you go."

He frowned doubtfully toward the jagged
spikes of hair sticking up on the left side of Mason's head. "Or
maybe just shave you bald and start over."

"Then the pretty ladies would leave you
alone, to be sure," put in James.

They all laughed, Mason included. Here, he
was like a different man—more lighthearted, more at ease. More like
the man he must have been, before he'd been set on the run as an
outlaw. Amelia wished she could have known him then, known the man
everyone at Picacho Peak seemed to remember. The man they treated
him as, still.

If she'd had any doubts about his innocence,
seeing his friends' faith in him would have laid them to rest.
There'd been no guardedness in Manuel's laughing greeting earlier,
no hesitancy in Juana's embrace. They all believed in him. Perhaps
Amelia could trust in Mason, too, no matter how he pushed her away
at times.

Mason's gaze touched her, and she saw that
he was still smiling. "It's not Amy's fault," he said in her
defense. "I was in a hurry to get here for some of Juana's good
cooking."

"And you should have been," said Juana,
entering the room with an armload of soiled stoneware plates. She
stacked them on a cupboard beside the washtub, then wiped her hands
on her apron, turning to scrutinize Mason.

"You need to get some meat on those sorry
skinny bones," she said, twisting her mouth. "Couldn't heft a
frying pan to feed yourself, eh? No wonder you left home."

Skinny
? Mason? Amelia looked at him,
wondering how Juana could think a man so strong needed fattening
up. For an instant, she saw what Juana saw—a man with a face a
shade too gaunt for his big build, eyes too shadowed—and then the
impression faded. He was just Mason again. Her Mason.

His eyes darkened. "You know why I left," he
said quietly.

His gaze captured each person's at the table
in turn, save Amelia's. Each one looked downward.

"I am sorry," Juana whispered, adding
something more in softly spoken Spanish. She patted his shoulder,
then went to stand behind her husband.

"The rider who came brought us wanted
posters, too, lad," James said, capturing Juana's hand and clasping
it loosely near his shoulder. "I burned the blasted lot of
them."

Mason's lips tightened. He stared into his
coffee cup, his finger again stroking the plain stoneware mug. Was
he worried about the wanted posters? Surely he'd known they'd be
issued.

"Have you had news of Ben?" Juana asked.
"We—"

Mason's head snapped up. "
Luego
."

His terse command silenced Juana before she
could say more. Clearly he didn't want to talk about Ben, whoever
that was. Across from him, Amelia cursed the all-but useless Latin
she'd learned at the ladies' seminary. An education in Spanish
suddenly seemed much more useful.

"Ben?" she asked, raising her eyebrows
hopefully toward Mason.

Utter, conspicuous, silence descended upon
the table.

Mason's fingers clenched tighter on his
coffee cup. Unsmiling, he shoved his chair backward and stood. With
mounting dismay, Amelia watched him set his coffee cup atop the
stack of unwashed plates. He remained there, gripping the
cupboard's edge, his back to them.

Juana delicately cleared her throat. "James,
didn't you have something to discuss with Mason?" she asked.

Her husband's head jerked like a man caught
napping and startled awake. He nodded.

"Amelia, you would perhaps help me clean up?
We haven't many travelers in the front room, but the ones we have
are messy," Juana said, nodding toward the stack of plates she'd
carried in. "It has been a long time since I have had a lady's
company."

How had the mood in the room changed so
quickly? Amelia, confused and troubled, tore her gaze from Mason's
back long enough to mumble that she'd help wash up. Scooping up her
plate and Mason's, she stacked them and stood.

Something was wrong. Something to do with
Ben, she guessed. Hesitating beside the table, Amelia saw a shudder
pass through Mason. His knuckles showed white on the dark wooden
cupboard's edge.

"Mason?" She started toward him, her free
hand outstretched, drawn by the need to comfort him. His rigid
shoulders, his bowed head, made her heart twist. He looked so
vulnerable.

So alone.

Juana stopped her before Amelia reached him.
Wrapping her arms around Amelia's shoulders, she guided her to the
washtub.

"Sometimes there is nothing we can do," she
murmured, her dark eyes compassionate and knowing. "Sometimes we
must let them struggle alone."

Tears and frustration crowded Amelia's
throat. Her gaze flew to Mason as though called to him.

"I can't!" she whispered. Behind Juana,
Mason straightened and followed the other men out the back door.
"I—"

"You must," said Juana, reaching for the
serviceable black pump handle set near the washtub. "He will turn
to you when he's able. Not before."

Amelia swiped the back of her hand across
her burning eyelids. "What if he's never ready?" she asked, her
voice cracking shamefully on the words. "What then?"

"Then he will remain alone,
pequeña
."

Juana worked the pump handle slowly, filling
the washtub with water. It splashed inside the silvery zinc tub,
spotting them both with droplets. When it was filled, she turned to
Amelia again, her manner businesslike.

"Will you help me carry this to the
stove?"

Dumbly, Amelia nodded and took up the narrow
handle nearest her. Holding her breath, she managed to get the tub
to the stove and heft it on top.

"Mason is your friend," Amelia said once the
job was accomplished. "Don't you care that he's hurting?"

"
Sí
," Juana snapped, cracking a match
across the stovetop with far more force than necessary. "Of course
I care. He is my friend. But more than that, he is a man. He will
not accept my help."

Her forehead creased with worry, she leaned
in front of Amelia and lifted the glass chimney of the lantern that
hung there. She handed it to Amelia, turned up the wick, and lit
the lamp. Satisfied, she took back the chimney and replaced it.

"I have to do something," Amelia said.
"Mason says I can't help him, but I owe him so much. And
I...I...."

Juana smiled gently and squeezed Amelia's
arm. "You love him."

"Does it show?" she asked miserably. The
thought that everyone at the table tonight had likely known her
feelings—and witnessed Mason's indifference—filled her with
mortification. Juana had known her mere hours before guessing.

"A woman knows," said Juana. Pursing her
lips, she gazed up at the brass studs that fastened the white
muslin at the ceiling. Then, she smiled. "I am always closest to my
James at night, when we're alone. At night he can hear my heart. He
listens."

Her expression turned wistful. "Perhaps you
can help Mason then."

"He's grouchy at night," Amelia protested.
"I don't think he gets any sleep."

"Ahhh," murmured Juana, one slender
fingertip poised at her lips. "I know just the remedy for that,"
she said. She leaned closer. "Tonight when he cannot sleep, you
must kiss him, well and often."

"That's all?" Amelia asked, feeling
skeptical. After her experiences this afternoon during Mason's
haircut, she had her doubts he'd be receptive to such a tactic. It
might even make him madder.