Outlaw (25 page)

"The rest will take care of itself," Juana
assured her, stirring soap into the washtub water. "If you want to
reach a man, kissing is the best way to make him start
listening."

Encouraged, Amelia nodded. Anything was
worth a try at this point, she figured. She didn't have much time
to lose—he'd told her they'd reach Tucson tomorrow evening. After
that, he'd try to send her away. He'd all-but promised it.

She'd have to act tonight.

Mason waited as long as he could before
coming inside. By the time he did the stage station was dark, lit
only by the lamp Juana had told him she'd leave in the room he was
to sleep in. He saw its glow through the partly opened doorway and
staggered toward it.

By now, Amy would be asleep in whatever room
Juana had bedded her down in. Only one more night, Mason thought as
he neared the door, reaching to drag his suspenders from one
shoulder, then the other. Only one more night and he could leave
Amy in Tucson, his conscience clear, and get on with what needed to
be done. Get on with finding his son.

Bleary-eyed, he shouldered the bedroom door
open and went inside, nudging it closed again behind him with his
foot. His suspenders flopped around his thighs as he crossed the
room, pulling off his shirt.

"Mason?"

He froze. Stared toward the bed, his shirt
still bunched in his hands.

Amy.

He threw his shirt onto a chair, too weary
to hurl it with any force. "I told Juana I'd sleep outside before
sharing a room with you," he said bluntly.

Holding the thick patchwork quilt against
her chest, Amy blinked at him sleepily. Her bare shoulders gleamed
pale above the quilt, betraying how little she had on beneath it.
The low lamplight shone on her hair, turning it golden, and Mason's
fingers itched to smooth it from her face.

"I know. You're supposed to be sleeping on a
pallet out there," she said, nodding toward the station's back
room. "Juana told me."

Juana
. He'd been duped, Mason
realized. A noose tightening around his neck couldn't have made it
plainer.
I'll leave a lamp burning for you
, she'd told him.
Come in whenever you're ready
.

He snatched his shirt from the chair.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here."

Lack of sleep made his head spin as Mason
turned toward the door. Damned matchmaking Juana. His fingers
touched the latch.

"Mason, who's Ben? Who's Ellen?"

He stopped, leaned his forehead against the
cool smoothness of the fitted-plank door.

"Was she your wife?"

Mason traced a whorl embedded in the wood
door, trying not to hear the plaintive note in her voice. It called
to mind their places in the kitchen earlier...he with his hand
unthinkingly, protectively, on Amy. She, accepting his care without
question.

And then Juana's soft-spoken Spanish
question had made him remember.

Have you found another Eastern
woman
?

No, he'd said. No. Thinking that Amelia and
Ellen were not the same. Eastern ladies both, but different inside.
Was it true? Or did he only want it to be true?

Hell.

"I asked Juana," Amy said behind him, "but
she wouldn't tell me."

"Good."

Mason wrenched open the door, felt the rush
of cool air as it swept inward. An instant later, the bedsprings
creaked. Before he could step outside, Amy was there.

She touched his arm. "Please don't go."

Teeth gritted, Mason held his ground.

"This is our last night together," she said
quietly. "Won't you let me help you?"

Outside, two cats snarled and hissed.
Fighting? Or mating? Mason couldn't tell which. His hand wavered on
the planed edge of the door.

"You can't help me."

"Then let me comfort you." Her hair, silky
and loose, brushed across his shoulder. Her scent enveloped him,
lured him.

"No."

He couldn't, couldn't...but between the
bone-weariness that numbed his thoughts, the quiet of the night and
the temptation of the woman behind him, he couldn't remember why.
She trailed her hand down his arm, following the curves of muscle,
sinew, and bone all the way to the inside of his wrist. He felt his
blood pulse against her fingertips. The room closed in, squeezing
them together.

Her breath fluttered against his shoulder.
"Close the door, Mason. Now that you're here, stay with me."

"I'm leaving." But his feet stayed as though
nailed to the floor.

"I love you," she whispered, her voice
breaking.

And he remembered why he had to leave. His
fingers groped for the doorjamb, caught it. Mason levered himself
outward like a man leaping across a chasm ten feet wide, breathing
hard. Blinded by the sudden darkness, he lurched toward the back
door.

He heard feet padding hard across the floor
before he made it halfway there. Amy's small, soft body slammed
into him from behind, her arms going wide around him. Her hands
groped his chest, his belly, his arms, as she tried to get her
bearings in the dark.

Breathing his name again and again, she
clamped her hands on his shoulders and writhed around to the front.
Lace and thin fabric scraped Mason's skin. Somewhere, she'd
abandoned the quilt.

"I won't let you go," she gasped, scrabbling
upward like a kitten trying to climb his chest. Her kisses landed
on the side of his chest, his shoulder...his mouth.

Her breasts pushed against his chest,
rubbing hard with her movements. Heat seared between his bare skin
and whatever flimsy thing she had on. He ached to rip it away, to
cup her breasts in his hands. To taste her. His shaft tightened,
hardened, strained beneath his clothes. Her soft, smooth thighs
gripped his hip as Amy tried to keep from falling sideways.

The days of denial, of wanting her, melded
into a single hard edge of need. Mason groaned, near witless with
wanting to take her. His hands found the warm roundness of her
buttocks and squeezed them.

Cupping her in both hands, he held Amy high
against him. The tender, womanly feel of her drove the last of his
resistance from his mind like leaves scattered before an autumn
wind. All he knew was the need to keep her close, to satisfy the
hunger he'd denied for so long.

A low purr of feminine need rippled from her
throat. The erotic sound of it sent an uncontrollable shudder
coursing through Mason. She needed, she wanted, too.
Wanted
him
.

Eagerly she kissed him faster, harder,
anywhere she could reach. Amy's hands found the nape of his neck
and she pulled him to her, kissing all along his jaw. Her thighs
tightened, seeking purchase.

"Careful, Curly Top," he murmured, his hands
still cupping her, holding her high enough to protect himself from
her squeezing knees. "Easy, now."

"I won't leave you," she whispered fiercely,
clutching his shoulders. "You can't make me go again. Not
tonight."

In a stray shaft of moonlight he glimpsed
her face, small and determined beneath her tangle of blond hair.
She jutted her chin forward. Her gaze, luminous with passion,
challenged his.

Mason couldn't have left her if the station
burned down all around them. In his chest, some tightness, some
ache he'd only been half-aware of, eased.

"Yes, I can," he rumbled. "I can make you do
whatever I want."

"No." Her arms tightened stubbornly around
his neck. So did her legs, around his hips. His body pulsed in
response.

"Watch me," Mason said.

He wrapped his arms all the way around her,
swept Amy up fully against him, and strode back toward the bedroom.
Inside, he kicked the door closed, then looked down at her. The
barest smile lifted his lips.

"Kiss me," he told her, "and I'll show you
how."

Her eyes registered the challenge in his
words. Her woman's smile answered it. Cradling his neck in her
hand, Amy pursed her lips and made ready to kiss him.

"But if you do," he warned, stopping her
with her lips only inches from his, "there's no going back. I won't
be able to stop."

Mason breathed deeply, holding her gaze with
his. He needed to know she understood, needed Amy to know what
would happen before she chose. But everything within him urged him
to take her, and let the consequences be damned.

"I'll make you mine, Curly Top," he said
hoarsely. "Is that what you want?"

"Yes," she whispered against his mouth, and
the next thing he knew was the heat of her kiss. "
Yes
."

Chapter Seventeen

Mason laid Amy atop the rumpled bedclothes
as tenderly as the fire in his blood allowed, eager as a man about
to bed his virgin bride for the first time. She unwound her arms
from his neck, then, shyly, scooted sideways in the narrow bed to
make room for him, too. The wobbly smile she gave him was like a
glimpse into her heart, beautiful and innocent at once. Its warmth
humbled him. For her, he'd make this night special.

Stepping away from her, Mason reached to
turn up the lamp.

"I want to see you," he murmured, turning
the wick key in fingers suddenly gone thick and fumbling. His mouth
felt dry. His heart pounded, crowding his throat as he turned back
toward the bed and the woman he'd waited so long for.

Golden light flared and trembled. So did
Amy. Bolstered by the pillows heaped at the carved wood bedstead,
she lay waiting...waiting for him.

Waiting for the man she thought he was, the
man she thought she knew.

Mason frowned, suddenly unable to move
closer. This was wrong. False. Making love to Amy now would be a
lie. As sure as the soil beneath his feet, to make her his now
would be a betrayal.

She held her arms out to him, and the
lamplight cast her body into revealing shadows beneath her delicate
white gown. The sight made his gut clench and his shaft throb with
urgency. Amy wanted him. Wanted to care for him. Now, now there was
nothing he wanted more.

"Mason?" she whispered. "Is something
wrong?"

He shook his head, eager to cast his doubts
aside. She was a grown woman. He'd warned her enough. Warned her to
get away from him when she could, warned her there was only so much
tempting a man could take.

He was, after all, only a man—a man who
needed like any other. A man who wanted to taste a woman's loving,
feel a woman's soft, welcoming body next to him in the night. It
was more than he deserved, Mason knew. But that didn't make him
yearn for her any less.

He set his knee on the edge of the bed, felt
the mattress dip beneath his weight. Amy's hands settled on his
bare upper arms, reaching to guide him to her. She kept her eyes
open, taking in his appearance with undisguised curiosity.
Undisguised interest.

Mason felt no hesitancy in her touch, saw no
grim forbearance in the curve of her lips. He hadn't known a giving
woman in so long it seemed as though he'd only dreamed it in his
past. Yet here was Amy, willing, wanting, to love him.

He bent his head and kissed her, trying to
smother the doubts that bedeviled him. She tasted sweet, warm. Her
arms twined around his neck, holding him to her as she pressed her
generous, womanly body upward to meet him. Mason groaned, flexing
his fingers on her waist, bunching her gown higher, fighting for
control against the overwhelming pleasure of touching her. Of being
touched by her...with love.

Love he didn't have the future to satisfy.
Love that could never be, between two people as different as he and
Curly Top were. Mason bent his head, pressing his forehead to her
shoulder, trying to catch his breath. Amy's breath panted past his
ear, and her body quivered beneath him.

He raised his head, calling himself a
million kinds of fool for what he was about to do.

Something in his movements must have
betrayed his thoughts, because she stilled, then sagged slightly
into the quilts. Her eyes looked enormous, searching his face with
a questioning, vivid blue intensity.

"Mason? What's wrong?"

Straightening, he set her back gently
amongst the pillows. His hands shook as he settled himself in the
middle of the bed, already feeling the loss of her that would come
next.

Mason clamped his hands together savagely to
stop their damned tell-tale trembling. "Curly Top, there's
something you've got to know."

"Know? Now?" Amy leaned forward, her hand
outstretched to touch his knee. "I know all I need to. I know that
I lo—"

"About me," he interrupted, staring toward
the lamp without seeing it. Anything, anything but look at her and
see the horror on her face when he revealed the kind of man he
really was. "You have to know everything."

And once she did, it would be all she would
see. No more warnings would be needed to keep her away.

"I already know," she protested. "You
already told me about the sheriff, and your escape, and what they
said about your wife." Amy's hand settled on his knee, stroking.
"It was Ellen, wasn't it? Oh, Mason—I know you'll set it right.
You—"

"
No
." He growled the word, forcing it
past his constricted throat. "It's true."

"But—"

He wrenched his leg out of reach. Better to
refuse her touch now than to be denied it later.

"My wife is dead because of me," Mason said.
His gaze bored the truth of his words into Amy, kept her denials at
bay. "Sure as if I'd poured the poison down her throat myself."

Amy flinched, and his voice broke. He sucked
in a gulp of air, forcing himself to go on before he lost the will
to do what needed to be done. To tell the truth. To destroy her
belief in him.

"It wasn't always like that between us," he
said quietly, staring toward the lamp again. "We...I met her back
in the States, in Pennsylvania. When I was in the army. Ellen
was...she was different from the other women I knew. More refined,
but more...flirtatious, too."