Outlaw (38 page)

Amy.

She crouched on one knee before the boy, her
skirts spread on the dirt all around her. Her hair was upswept into
the same fussy, fancy curled style it had been when he'd first
rescued her from beside the road. In the light shining over her and
the boy from the lantern a few feet away, she looked like an angel.
A spanking-new, stylish one without a care in the world beyond hair
ribbons and dresses.

She looked, Mason realized, exactly as
though she'd never met him. Never spent days on the run. Never come
close to drowning herself in an
arroyo
, never busted them
both out of jail, never thrown herself into his outlaw's arms.

Never loved him.

His heart ached at the sight of her. He
yearned to go to her, to touch her and assure himself she was
really there. To soak up the love she'd given so freely, the love
Mason knew now he'd needed all along. To explain why he'd left her
behind.

Yet something held him back. He gritted his
teeth, fighting the urge to race into the cottonwoods and take her
in his arms, knowing it wasn't right.

Knowing it would only make her unhappy in
the end. Unhappy like Ellen. Unhappy in Mexico with him and
Ben.

Digging his heels into the soft soil beneath
him, Mason watched a moment longer. Amy had made it to Tucson,
then. If her fancy dress and gee-gaws were anything to go by, she'd
retrieved her book bags and her money, and was getting along just
fine.

Without him.

He couldn't go to her. Wouldn't. But the
pain inside him only sharpened, honed by the sight of Amy and the
knowledge that his love for her had only gathered strength while
they'd been apart. He'd been a fool to believe anything else. And
however torturous it was to have Amy so near and yet so far out of
reach, Mason knew he'd stay and watch her as long as he could.

He couldn't turn away. She would never know,
would never be hurt. And he...he would be hurting forever, with
only the memories of her to warm him.

Amy's hands touched the boy's shoulders.
Gently, she smoothed back a lock of hair from his forehead. Even
considering the several inches of space remaining between them, the
gesture put Mason in mind of a hug.

The boy sniffled, then nodded, his profile
nearly turned toward Mason. His relaxed posture, the easy set of
his sharp, small-boy's shoulders, all conveyed his comfort in Amy's
presence. But what child, here in Tucson, could Curly Top know
intimately enough to hold that way?

Only one.

Ben
.

Mason's feet were moving even before he'd
fully decided to act. His boots crunched over tangled branches and
fallen dried mesquite pods. He ran full-out toward his son.

He could almost believe he'd imagined him.
Believe that he'd conjured him up somehow, just from wanting to
find him for so long. Yet there he was, all elbows and knees and
messy hair and solemn little face, just as Mason remembered him.
Ben
.

Amy spotted him before his son did. She
looked up over Ben's shoulder, and her face went white with shock.
Whispering something to the boy, she nodded and then stepped
back.

Mason had no time for anything more. For in
the next instant, Ben turned at Amy's direction, and saw him.

His face lit up like it did on Christmas
morning—maybe bigger. "Pa! Pa!" he yelled, running with his skinny
arms outstretched.

Mason glimpsed his son's huge grin as it
broadened his freckled cheeks, saw that his clothes were wrecked
and unfamiliar. And then sixty pounds of wriggling boy slammed into
his middle, and Ben's arms came around his waist, and he couldn't
see anything at all for the tears that blurred his vision. He
squeezed his son, and nothing in the world had ever felt so good as
holding him again.

Burying his face in Ben's dark mussed hair,
Mason tightened his hold on him, breathing deeply of castile soap
and dirt and hay, and all the mixed-up scents that always
surrounded his into-everything boy. He kissed the top of his head,
almost afraid to let him go and risk losing him again.

"Pa!" Ben cried, the sound half-buried in
Mason's shirtfront. "Pa!"

Right then, Mason decided that was the
sweetest sound he'd ever heard. Grinning like a fool, heedless of
the tears on his cheeks, he hugged Ben tighter and pressed his lips
to his hair. His heart swelled with love, with gratitude...with
relief at having found him at last.

Before long, Ben started squirming to be
free. He sucked in the huge breath that always foretold a barrage
of his questions and stories and comments, and Mason let him go so
he could listen.

"What took you so long?" Ben asked, sounding
breathless. His gaze, quick and eager and filled with sudden
happiness, met his father's. "I knew you'd come after me. I told
everybody so. Everybody."

Mason put both hands on the sides of Ben's
head, tilting the boy's face upward to the meager lantern light.
More tears tightened his throat and made his words feel choked when
they came.

"You did, eh?" he asked, hoping Ben wouldn't
hear the quaver in his voice.

He
had
believed his father would come
for him. The realization shook Mason to his soul, lightened his
spirits, made him doubly determined to create a good life for them
in Mexico.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh," Ben said, nodding
vigorously. "I even told Uncle Nathan, and Unc—" He went on, the
words pouring over themselves, and Mason listened as Ben explained
how he'd told his uncles his Pa would be coming for him, and they'd
better watch out when he did.

He'd been hurt, Mason realized. His lip was
swollen, smudged with dried blood at the corner. His face was
covered with filth on one side, although it looked as though
someone had, recently, at least attempted to clean some of it away.
His clothes looked like he'd wallowed around in that same mud, and
he kept one leg bent at the knee as though afraid to put his whole
weight on it. Darkness slanted over Mason. Whoever had hurt him
would pay.

"And then she said she was your friend," Ben
was saying, his voice cracking with his urgency to get everything
out, and Mason realized his son was speaking of Amy. Shoving back
his anger over Ben's injuries, he looked for Curly Top and found
her standing a few feet away.

"And so," Ben went on, "I reckoned it was
all right to talk to her. You're not mad, are you, Pa?"

"No, son," Mason said slowly. "I'm not
mad."

"Good." Satisfied with that, Ben nudged
closer against Mason's middle. His head pressed into his belly, and
his skinny arms came around to hold tight to his father.

"I'm tired of visiting," the boy said, his
voice muffled. "All my uncles are
old
. I want to go home.
Can we go home tonight? Where's old Candy?"

Rearing back, Ben looked past the cottonwood
grove toward the street, as though fully expecting to find the old
nag he spoke of—his favorite mount—saddled and ready for them.

"Our horse is at home," Mason said, stroking
Ben's hair from his forehead until he leaned against him again.

Lord, but he hated this. Hated the
mean-spirited accusations that had sent him on the run and made
taking his son back home impossible.

"I borrowed another one from James and
Juana," he said. "Do you remember them?"

Ben nodded, his hair rubbing soft on Mason's
shirt.

"I borrowed a fine horse from them—"

"Not as fine as Candy."

"Not that fine," Mason agreed, "but a good
one, and it's saddled up around back at my friend George's place.
Just waiting for us."

Waiting for them to ride clear out of town,
away from everything familiar Ben had ever known. His throat
aching, Mason breathed deeply and hugged his son's shoulders.

"Can we go get it, Pa?" Ben asked, stepping
back with his hand still clasping Mason's shirt. His eyes shone in
the moonlight. "I don't want to wait for Uncle Nathan and the rest
of them. They can just go back to the States without me. It's all
right. I don't think they'll mind a bit. And I—"

He paused for breath, and Mason spoke
instead. Always Ben talked so quickly, the words practically
blurred together.

"We're not waiting for your uncles," he
said.

"Good. All they ever wanted to talk about
was Mama, and how sad it was she ended up
here
, like this
was some horrible kind of place, and I—"

"We're going to visit somebody else," Mason
interrupted gently. "Some family of Juana and Manuel's. They say we
can stay with them for a while, just until—"

"In Mexico?" Ben's eyes brightened. "We're
going all the way to Mexico, Pa?"

Mason nodded. Later he'd tell him more, tell
him Mexico was no grand adventure, but their new life. Maybe by
then, Ben would welcome the news. For now, he couldn't bear the
thought of disappointing him with the truth.

"All the way to Mexico," Mason said. "But
first—" He glanced toward Amelia "—I have to thank Miss O'Malley
for helping you."

Ben's face reddened. Looking shamefaced, he
stared toward the ground, digging up puffs of dirt with his toe. "I
forgot," he mumbled.

Mason leaned down, waited until Ben glanced
up at him—and then winked. "I'll take care of it," he
whispered.

Amy remained where he'd first seen her, only
a few feet away. She kept her back to them, probably trying to
allow them whatever privacy she could. Her shoulders slumped and
her head stayed down, exposing the fragile-looking nape of her neck
beneath all that fussy hair. Something about the way she held
herself told Mason she was weeping, and the pain in his gut
redoubled.

He'd hurt her already, with leaving her, he
realized. And he'd have hurt her still more if he'd stayed. There
was no way around it, no way through it. As far as Mason could
tell, their being together could only cause Amy more pain.

"You should've seen her, Pa," Ben said,
looking toward Amy too. "She scared the daylights out of those
bullies that were picking on me. Sent 'em clean out of here,
yelling like they'd been whupped." He grinned, plainly delighted.
"She was meaner than a
schoolmarm
. And all 'cause of
me."

Mason thought of the screaming children
running past him down the alley, and stared at Amy. "
Miss
O'Malley
did that?"

"Only I held my own," Ben interrupted
quickly. "It wasn't like I needed to be rescued by a
girl
,
or anything," he assured his father, his stance reflecting perfect
six-year-old swagger.

Ruffling his hair, Mason smiled down at him.
"I know, son. You're mean as a wildcat with a stepped-on tail."

The boy puffed out his chest. "Did you hear
that, Miss O'Malley?" he called. "I'm mean as a wildcat!"

"I've never met a braver boy," Amy said,
turning to face them.

Tears shimmered in her eyes, but her voice
sounded nearly carefree—except to Mason. He heard the sorrow hidden
behind her encouragement for Ben, and knew that he was mostly to
blame for it.

Regret knifed through him. Love and need
made him walk toward her, with Ben trailing at his heels. The boy
kept his fingers clenched on Mason's shirt sleeve as though afraid
to release him, and his heart twisted further. How could he have
found what he wanted, only to still need so much more?

He stopped beside Amy and gently nudged her
chin upward with his knuckles. "I never figured you for a
meaner-than-a-schoolmarm, bully chaser," Mason said, looking down
at her.

Her lips quivered on a smile, but at the
same time, a tear slid a curved path down her cheek. Amy blinked as
his hand slid higher to sweep it away, blinked harder as he
caressed her cheek. Her smooth, soft skin felt like heaven beneath
his fingertips.

"I—I didn't know it was Ben,
until—until—"

Her voice cracked, then stopped. She
swallowed hard, ducking her head. Tears fell harder, dampening
Mason's wrist.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, wrenching from his
grasp. "I thought I could—"

"Curly Top—" Pain seared through him,
ripping away whatever else he'd thought to say. God, he needed her
like nothing he'd ever known, needed her love and her smile to
light his mornings and her body beside him at night. Needed
her
. At that moment he'd have taken her to Mexico or
anyplace else, just as long as they could be together, but the
impossibility of it all stilled his tongue.

"Pa, you're making her cry."

Ben's voice sounded affronted. Releasing
Mason's shirt sleeve with a massive frown, he went to stand beside
Amy. He patted her upper arm, clearly mimicking her earlier care of
him, Mason felt sure. He glared at his father.

"Amy..." Mason swept his thumb across her
cheekbone, encouraging her to look up at him. She did, her eyes
wondrous and blue and filled with a love he knew echoed his
own.

"Amy, I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt
you."

He felt like he'd never breathe again, never
know the forgiveness he sought. Never deserve it. Still he searched
for the words to explain. "Oh, God, I'm sorry, and I—"

Her fingers covered his mouth, tender
against his lips. "Don't, Mason. You can't help—can't help—"

A sob stole the rest of her words, and Amy
looked past him as though trying to summon the will to go on. He
felt her body quiver beside him, and everything within Mason told
him to hold her, to ease her...to love her. He moved to pull her
into his arms—and she stepped back.

"Let's just say goodbye," she whispered.
"You need to get Ben safe to Mexico like you said, and I—I—"

Her face crumpled, and her hands fisted at
her sides. Amy rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, her
fingers trembling, then blinked up at him.

"You need to get away," she said, her
composure returning. Her posture stiffened, even though her chin
still wobbled with holding in a sob. "And I won't be the one to
stop you."