Outlaw (33 page)

"Another way?" Amelia unfolded her clenched
fist, feeling a dull sense of relief as the object she'd held so
tightly stopped pressing against her skin.

"He needs you," Juana said. "I do not know
why he would choose this, after all that has happened."

"Choose? Choose what? Oh, Juana, I..."

Her voice cracked, blunted by confusion and
pain, and Amelia looked down instead of speaking. Her satchel key
winked up at her, resting within the reddened impression it had
created in her palm. She'd forgotten Mason still had it.

A tear ran down the bridge of her nose and
splashed onto it, wetting her already-dampened skin. Why this, why
now? The last thing she wanted was her satchels. The last thing she
cared about was working on her book orders again, when Mason...when
Mason was gone.

A fresh sob wrenched through her. Bent with
the pain, Amelia closed her fist around her satchel key. She
wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to ease the ache.

"
Pequeña
. Little one." Juana hugged
her, stroking her back gently. "I know this is hard," she murmured.
"I know, I know. But at least he is safe. At least he—"

"What?" Amelia's head snapped up. She
sniffed, trying to clear her stuffy head, all her attention
centered on Juana's face. Dear heaven, had she heard her aright?
"What did you say?"

"Mason is safe, he got away."

Juana looked at her quizzically, then
understanding showed in her dark eyes. Smiling, she put both hands
to Amelia's face and used her thumbs to wipe the tears from her
cheeks.

"You did not hear me before," she said
quietly. "Did not hear Manuel when he first arrived."

"I thought—I thought—" Oh, but she wanted to
scream aloud as the realization struck her that Mason was safe.
Safe. "I thought he was captured, ki—"

"No. No, he is safe."

"Then why—" Amelia opened her fist, looked
down at her satchel key. "Why did he give Manuel this? Where has he
gone?"

Juana's hands settled on her shoulders. "To
Tucson. He's gone to get Ben. He's not..."

She paused, as though reconsidering her
words. "I thought you wept because Mason did not return for you,"
she said gently.

Amelia stared at her. Her thoughts were
jumbled, too confused to be sorted out. Mason wasn't coming for
her? He was safe, but not coming back for her?

"He...he promised," she whispered. "That's
why I agreed to stay, to wait for him."

I love you
.

That's why I'm leaving
.

Pain twisted, reborn within her. He'd told
her then, straight out, what he meant to do—and why. He didn't want
her love. Didn't want her.
I'll wait for you
, she'd
said.

And Mason had said goodbye.

Like a fool she'd chosen not to listen,
chosen to ignore the words her heart didn't want to hear. Now her
same foolish heart ached more with every moment that passed. Once
again she'd loved someone who didn't want her...cared for someone
who didn't care back.

Why had she expected more? She'd been
nothing more than an obligation to Mason—an obligation he'd
gratefully gotten rid of as soon as they'd reached Picacho
Peak.

You can't help me
, he'd told her time
and again, pushing her away each time. You can't, you can't....

Just like her father. No matter how worthy
she tried to be, it never seemed to be enough. Maybe would never be
enough.

Juana touched her arm, and the compassion in
her gaze brought new tears to Amelia's eyes. "Mason promised?" she
asked softly, her eyebrows raised. "Then maybe Manuel
misunderstood. Maybe he's—"

"No.
I
misunderstood."

"
Pequeña
—"

Amelia shrugged off her gentle hug, stepped
back and tried to wave away Juana's concern, as well. "Mason told
me. I didn't believe him then. Now—" She drew a deep, shuddering
breath. "—now I guess I have to."

Sniffling, she swiped her eyes with the back
of her hand. Someday the hurt would go away. Until then, she'd have
to manage as best she could.

"Will there be a stage for Tucson tonight?"
she asked, staring numbly through the still-open doorway. Hard as
it was to imagine herself leaving without Mason, it seemed she'd
have to. She'd have to get her books, get on with her book order
deliveries—get on with her life back home when she'd finished.

"Not for you," Juana said firmly. "Not after
this."

Taking Amelia by the elbow, she steered her
between tables and chairs toward the stage station's back room. "No
matter how big a fool Mason chooses to be, that does not mean you
must leave us, too."

Halfway to the back room, Amelia dug in her
heels. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I have another life to
lead, Juana. I can't stay here with you. What would James say? And
Manuel?"

Manuel hated her now—she'd seen it in his
eyes. After all she'd accused him of, she could hardly blame him.
Grief had made her thoughts run amuck, made her seize upon the
first opportunity to lay blame on someone, however undeserving.

"Bah! Who do you think runs this place? The
men are always gone, off to Tucson or Fort Lowell or riding
half-wild across the Territory with one excuse or another."

Amelia laughed, surprising herself.

"I can use your help," Juana went on. "And
your company. A lady friend is hard to come by here."

"Oh, Juana." Cocking her head, Amelia smiled
at her. "Thank you, but I—"

Juana held up her hand. "Manuel is angry
now, yes. But not at you alone," she said, giving Amelia a
determined look. "He did not want Mason to go into Tucson alone. He
thought it too dangerous, and now he's loosed his venom on
you."

She stared toward the doorway leading to the
stage station's back room, shaking her head slightly. "It was
cruelly done, Amelia. I am sorry."

"I'm sorry, too." Amelia glanced at her,
twisted her hands within the folds of the calico dress she'd
borrowed from Juana. "Do you think he would accept an apology? I
don't want to leave without making amends. What I said to Manuel
was horrible."

"Still this talk of leaving?"

"I have to go," Amelia told her, wishing in
that moment it wasn't true. Something told her she and Juana might
have been good friends, given different circumstances.

A rumbling sounded outside, reaching her
through the still-opened front door of the stage station. Distant
at first, then louder, Amelia recognized it as the creaks and hoof
beats of a stagecoach and team drawing up the winding Picacho Peak
road.

"The passengers we expected for supper,"
Juana said, going to the door to look outside. She closed it
against the clouds of gritty dust stirred up by the stagecoach's
arrival, then turned to face Amelia again.

"Mason warned me about this part of you,"
she said, folding her arms and smiling at Amelia. "When he asked me
to wire Tucson and find out if your books were at the station
there. He knew you'd want them."

Of course he did—he knew he wasn't returning
for her, Amelia thought. But she could hardly say such a thing
aloud.

"He did?" she asked instead.

"Yes." Juana swept past her, heading for the
back room to collect the stew and serving utensils and leaving
Amelia to follow.

"In fact," she said, pausing in the act of
stirring the thick, meaty stew, "he said he figured you'd sell
every last book in those bags, once you got them back."

"Really?" Amelia asked, brightening a bit.
At least Mason had thought her competent in one area. That was
certainly more acknowledgement than she'd ever received from her
father or brothers back home.

Juana nodded. "He said he'd never met a more
determined person in his life, man or woman." She stuck her hand on
her hip, her wooden spoon jutting out sideways. "And of them all,
he said, you were the dog-stubbornest."

Amelia frowned. "He said that?"

"
Sí
." Steam rising from the stew
wreathed Juana's face—her smiling face—as she lifted the heavy cast
iron pot from the stove top. She nodded toward the pinto beans
simmering in another pot, motioning for Amelia to carry it into the
front room. "That is what he said."

Hefting the bean pot in both hands, Amelia
followed her through the doorway. There she stopped, surprised at
the quantity—and variety—of stagecoach passengers shuffling inside
the station.

Juana glanced over her shoulder. "That is
when I knew you and Mason belonged together," she said,
re-examining Amelia with narrowed eyes. She smiled wider. "Only a
dog-stubborn woman could keep up with a man like that. When you get
to Tucson—"

"Juana, I—"

"When you get to Tucson," she interrupted,
raising her voice to be heard over the din of people filing inside,
scraping chairs away from the tables, and paying for their meals,
"you find Mason. Find him and make him listen to you,
pequeña
. You and Mason belong together."

Chapter Twenty-Two

George Hand's saloon in Tucson was dark and
cramped, but since it was tucked into the corner of Meyer and
Mesilla streets a good two miles from the courthouse and jail, it
suited Mason just fine.

Although the whiskey was rotgut and the
mescal
was even meaner, the saloon still found its share of
patrons. Men who found the teakwood bar and faro tables of Brown's
Congress Hall Saloon too rich for their blood usually wound up at
Hand's, where the cards fell straight and the soiled doves of
Maiden Lane were only stumbling distance away.

If luck were with Mason, so were the Sharpe
brothers.

Anticipation, predatory and too-long denied,
made Mason's fingers tighten on the drink in front of him. A day of
searching for them had whetted his appetite, not blunted it. He
meant to find the Sharpes, get Ben, and get the hell out of Tucson
and on the road to Mexico with his boy and his life his own again.
No matter what it took. Grimacing, he drained his drink, then
slapped the glass onto the plain bar counter, motioning for
another.

The bar owner nodded, holding up a hand for
Mason to wait while he finished with the saloon's only other
customer, a soiled dove named Cruz. Stroking his wiry,
collar-length beard, George Hand leaned over the bar toward her,
pouring whiskey into her glass. He was nothing if not solicitous
toward Cruz—and all the business she brought into his house.

Mason watched them, his fingers idly
stroking the other glass on the bar counter. His second drink,
ordered along with the first and still untouched. He pushed it
away, then drew it nearer, drawn from their conversation to the
amber depths of the liquor his glass held.

Whiskey. How long since he'd drank it? He
tried to remember, thought of the time in the wagon with Curly Top
outside Maricopa Wells, and snatched his fingers from the glass.
They came away slick and cold with condensation, cold as Mason felt
inside with leaving her.

"Any luck today?" asked Hand, whisking away
Mason's empty glass. He dunked it into the
olla
in the
corner, swished it around in the pottery jar's contents, and pulled
it out again. Wiping it dry, he set it onto the bar counter beside
the whiskey glass.

"No." Mason absently lined up both glasses,
then took a swig from one. It cooled his throat, slid into his
empty belly and reminded him he'd never stopped to eat. "I went
clear from Levin's over to the old
plaza
where Camp Lowell
used to be. Not a damned sign of them."

He slammed down his glass, clanking it
against its partner on the bar top. Cruz glanced at him from two
stools over, all low-cut dress and too-sweet flowery perfume, and
winked.

"Feeling tense, sugar? I can help you out
with that, if you want. Make you feel real fine."

Mason bared his teeth at her.

"Not now, Cruz," Hand said, shaking his
head.

She shrugged and finished her drink, then
wiped her mouth neatly. "Mason and I, we've got an understanding,"
she said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. "I just thought
we might expand it a little."

Hand raised his eyebrows at Mason.

"She's keeping an eye out for the Sharpes
for me," Mason muttered. "I spent part of the day over on Maiden
Lane. If I've got those bastards pegged right, one or all of them
will be visiting the cribs before they head east. If they do, I'll
know about it."

"Good idea." Hand reached below the bar
counter, raised a whiskey bottle, and started to refill Mason's
second drink. He paused, frowning down at the paired glasses in
front of him.

"What in blazes is the matter with you,
Kincaid?" he asked, thumping the bottle onto the bar. "You ordered
that whiskey—you gonna drink it or look at it for another
hour?"

Mason stared at the glasses, one filled with
whiskey and the other beside it filled with water, and raised the
water. He drained it in one gulp, then saluted the
olla
with
the empty glass.

"Look at it," he growled. "While you fill
this one again."

"Dammit, I make my money off'n whiskey,"
Hand grumbled, yanking the glass from the bar and stomping toward
the water jar. "At this rate I'll be havin' the water vendor in
here twice a damned month, and goin' busted after that."

"Good thing you've got boarders."

"Just you, and you ain't payin' me none,"
Hand said, slopping a fresh water glass in front of Mason. "At
least help me out an' take a tumble with old Cruz here.
Her
I make money off of."

Cruz smiled. "Lots of money," she said,
smoothing her hand over her ruffled red dress. "What do you say,
sugar? I ain't seen you since Camp Lowell days. Almost forgot what
it's like to entertain a—"

"No."

Mason stroked his whiskey glass, looking
down into it instead of at Cruz. Maybe one drink wouldn't hurt. One
horn of whiskey to wipe out all the damned things he couldn't
forget, couldn't put behind him even with miles of separation. He
dipped his finger into the whiskey, tracing moisture round and
round the glass rim.